That Summer He Died (8 page)

There, some two hundred feet below, were people being drawn across the beach like iron filings dragged towards a magnet, converging at the front of a long, single-storey building on a high plateau of rock at the cliff side of the beach. James squinted against the sunlight, tried to read the bright red lettering on the sign above the door.

‘Surfers’ Turf,’ Alan said, as if reading James’s mind, setting off down the steps to the beach. ‘Let’s hope Suzie’s got some coffee on. I’m not searching for shit until I’ve got some caffeine in my belly to cut through this hangover.’

James drew level with him and they continued their descent side by side. James kept his hand on the metal rail cemented into the rock as he walked. Alan was more surefooted and moving quickly. Certainly quicker than James would have thought him capable of, given the state he’d been in last night..

James had caught him chugging down pills in the kitchen just before they’d left. He’d stuffed the plastic tub in his pocket when he’d noticed James staring. He had spotted a vodka bottle next to the kettle too, meaning his uncle was probably pretty wired right now. Not just hungover, but more than a little bit drunk.

Wired people could defy the laws of biology. That’s what James’s father had said. Some of the guys he had commanded during the Falklands had been into amphetamines. Give them a big enough buzz and they’d snatch someone else’s life away without thinking twice about it, his father had said. Morality went out of the window when you were off your head like that.

James glanced at his uncle. Sweat slid down his brow like melting ice. Stepping down. Stepping down. Resolute. Surfers’ Turf. Focused on his caffeine, focused on his needs. Right now, Alan would probably have punched anyone who got in his way.

‘Who’s Suzie?’ James said, eyes scanning the steps before him, fingers still trailing against the rail, confident of his stride now, but aware that one slip would more than likely result in a fall of thirty steps or more, as well as a compound fracture and a screech to rival that of the wheeling gulls above.

Alan was panting when he spoke, but his pace didn’t slacken.

‘You’ve got a lot of questions.’

‘The only route to knowledge, isn’t it?’

Alan jumped down two steps. ‘You’ve been reading too many books, boy. Life’s not that simple. Some questions it’s best not to know the answers to.’

James lengthened his stride, caught up with him again. He smiled.

‘How can you say that? You’re a writer. How can you say I’ve read too many books?’

But Alan saw nothing remotely funny about this himself. ‘Some things you don’t want to know. Some things it’s best you never find out.’

‘But—’

‘But nothing.’

Alan came to a halt. They were now maybe fifteen steps from where the cliff face slid into the sand and disappeared into its unfathomable depths, like roots into the soil.

Alan faced his nephew. ‘You still want to write, don’t you? Just like you were banging on about the day after Monique’s funeral. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because you want to learn how it’s done.’

James felt the skin of his face begin to tingle, as if he’d been out in the sun too long. It was true, he’d cornered his uncle after the funeral, at his house, when most of the mourners had already left. James had been drunk. But Alan had been beyond that. James couldn’t believe this conversation had primed itself on his uncle’s tongue then, and been left until now to be launched.

‘You remember that?’ he said.

‘Drunks remember everything. That’s why everyone hates them. They’re the people who sit there till dawn with you, and then remind you the next day what an arsehole you’ve been, and tell you all the crazy stuff you said.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Alan sneered, ‘You can forget the apologies. You’re not a baby any more. Anything you do, anything you say – you’ve got to live with it. Get used to the fact; it’s there until you die.’

‘And writing. I suppose I should forget that, too?’

‘If you can forget that,’ Alan said, turning front and walking on, ‘then you shouldn’t ever have thought about doing it in the first place.’

It was the first positive statement he had made. It gave James hope.

‘So, you don’t think I’m stupid then, to want to––’

‘Not now.’

Alan hawked and spat, like that was the end of it. He stumbled down the last few steps and sank his feet into the sand. And then, before James could answer him, they were amongst the bodies gravitating towards Surfers’ Turf. Alan exchanged a few grunted greetings with the people nearby, but didn’t bother introducing James to any of those who looked him curiously up and down. Some people, he noticed, steered clear of Alan and did not look him in the eye. Probably because of what a grumpy mad bastard he is, James thought. Or maybe it was because Alan was so famous. Maybe they didn’t want to be seen to stare or care.

They reached the wide concrete steps leading up to the rock plateau where the beach bar was. The bodies grew thicker here, the chatter louder. Alan shouldered his way unceremoniously through the crowd, ignoring the mild complaints in response.

James stuck close, trailing in the older man’s wake, suddenly self-conscious in the face of this intimate gathering where everyone so apparently knew everyone else. Eventually they reached the open doors of the bar and moved inside.

The scrum of people jammed into the place reminded James of happy hour in the London pub that, until recently, had been his local. Squashed flesh. Jabbing elbows. A sauna of other people’s breath. Cigarette and even bloody pipe smoke drifted across the room, like dry ice in a night club.

But the similarity between the two locations ended there. This place was way too idiosyncratic to be confused with anything James had encountered before. Surfboards hung from the rafters in the ceiling, their waxed surfaces painted with erratic, psychedelic patterns. Photographs of tanned kids against two-tone backdrops of sand and sea, with their boards dutifully standing to attention by their side, were scattered across the bright pink sections of wall not obscured by the current crowd. To the right, tables and chairs stood stacked on a raised section of floor, next to a couple of giant speakers. Two of the walls had been graffiti-ed, not smartly by someone like Banksy but by a whole host of different people, more drunken scrawl than art.

James turned away, followed Alan across the room to the bar and squeezed in next to him. A fog of steam hung in the doorway to the kitchen beyond. The contrasting aromas of brewing coffee and frying bacon drifted temptingly through. Behind the counter, a burly man in an apron was rapidly logging down a serial breakfast order on a pad. He finished and, looking up, caught Alan’s eye.

‘Good to see you, Al,’ he said.

‘You too, Jimmy.’

Al. . . so someone was on familiar terms with Alan, at least.

‘Shame about the circumstances.’

Alan nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Still, I bet it’ll turn out to be a load of fuss over nothing. . .’

‘Let’s hope so, eh?’ Alan said.

James turned his attention from them to the laminated menu on the counter. The scent of food in the air had acted like a catalyst on his previously inert stomach, sent it into a series of spasms and groans. He scanned the available options, searching for a remedy: full English, continental, burgers, fries, bacon rolls; pretty much what he’d expected.

‘Everything’s off except the rolls,’ a woman’s voice said. ‘Sorry, but there’s been kind of a rush.’

As James turned and his eyes locked with hers, the movie of his life was put on pause. Sight became predominant, as if the nerve endings comprising his other senses had been singed, left immune to stimulation. The sounds of the people around him – his uncle’s grunted conversation and the livelier chatter behind – cut to a vacuum. The smell of food evaporated. His fingers clung numbly to the menu.

Only her image remained, frozen there like a screen-still.

Then, as quickly as it had occurred, the moment was over. He watched her blink, long eyelashes momentarily stealing her mahogany-coloured eyes away from him, taking his image with them, swallowing him whole. She brushed a hand across her glistening brow and smiled at him, obviously amused by his staring.

She was stunning.

‘You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,’ she said.

He shook his head, felt the skin across his cheeks prickle and burn. ‘Sorry,’ he said, glancing down at the menu. He looked up again, avoiding the time-trap of her eyes, and took in her slender figure, the short black hair tucked behind her ears, the two silver studs in her right ear and the silver star in her left. ‘I’m tired. Haven’t quite managed to get my brain into gear.’

The smile broke out on her face again, more open this time, emphasising her high cheekbones. ‘You’re tired? You should try serving this lot.’

His stare fixed on her glossed lips, the crenellations of bright teeth between. Jesus. Just looking at her made him feel like a miniature acrobat was using his stomach lining as a trampoline. ‘Tough start to the day?’ he managed to say. ‘I take it things aren’t usually this busy?’

‘If only. I’d be able to retire by the end of the summer.’

‘You’re too young.’

She laughed. ‘You’re never too young to quit work.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

She took a good look at him. ‘You’re not from round here, are you?’

‘No.’

‘Well, if it was a quiet breakfast you were after, you picked a bad day. Are you down here on holiday?’

‘Sort of,’ James said, nodding towards Alan. ‘I’m with him.’ She looked at Alan, then back. ‘Al L’Anson?’

‘He’s my uncle. I’m staying with him for a while.’ He offered his hand across the counter. ‘I’m James.’

She raised a tanned arm from her side and pushed her hand towards him before hesitating, lifting her palm to her face and examining it. ‘Cooking oil,’ she commented, wiping it across her apron then shaking his. Her grip was strong and he had to readjust his own to prevent his fingers from collapsing inside hers like a child’s. ‘Firm grip,’ she said, releasing him. ‘You a windsurfer?’

‘No. You?’

‘Always. That and surfing.’

‘Fun?’

‘The best. You should give it a go while you’re here.’

‘When you two are done chatting,’ Alan said, leaning across James, ‘how about fixing us up a couple of coffees and bacon rolls?’

‘Sure, Al,’ she said. ‘Takeaway?’ She glanced at the luminous hands of her diver’s watch. ‘I think they’re planning on setting off in about five minutes.’

Alan nodded his head and she wrote down the order. She looked at James and said, ‘I work Wednesdays at the Surf School on North Beach. Maybe I’ll see you there.’

Then she turned and walked away. James watched her bronzed calf muscles disappearing into the steam of the kitchen. His heart was pounding. Was she flirting? Was that an invitation to meet up? It was only then that he realised she hadn’t told him her name.

He turned to Uncle Alan. ‘Who was––’

Alan was already staring at him with what looked like a twinkle of amusement in his eyes, though it vanished almost as soon as James saw it.

‘Suzie. This is her place.’

‘She owns it?’

‘Yep.’ Alan picked up a newspaper, leant up against the nearest wall, and started leafing through.

James stayed at the counter, waiting for Suzie to reappear. He didn’t give a shit what Uncle Alan thought. He wanted to see her again. James looked round, trying to wrap his head around someone not much older than him running their own business like this. It made him feel about two years old.

Suzie stayed out of sight. A couple of minutes later, Jimmy emerged with their coffees and rolls and James took his and followed his uncle outside.

A semblance of order had entered the anarchic scene in the form of three uniformed policemen. The eldest – early-forties, with premature splashes of grey in his black hair, tall and paunchy like a boxer gone to seed – was standing at the top of the steps with a clipboard in his hand. Must be Murphy. Animal. That’s what Uncle Alan had said.

‘Right, people,’ he barked, his voice abrasive as a bandsaw, his accent as local as the sea, ‘let’s get this show on the road. I’d like you all at the bottom of the steps. Let’s get to it.’

Down on the sand, James chewed on his roll, washed it down with coffee, and listened to Murphy explaining what was going on. They were to be divided up into groups and allocated different areas to search, the idea being to cover all the surrounding shoreline and countryside.

‘What happens if we find something?’ someone called out.

‘Any of you find anything,’ Murphy answered, ‘whether it’s an item of clothing or something else, I don’t want you to touch it. Let’s all be very clear about this. Just leave it be and send one of your party back here.’ He nodded at the other two policemen. ‘One of us will be here, so just tell us and we’ll take over from there. Everyone got that?’ A murmur of agreement ran through the crowd like falling dominoes. ‘Good. Now let’s get down to business.’ He pointed to the far left of the assembled throng, the opposite side from where James stood. ‘Right. You. . . Lok Waterstone, Chris Matthews, Simon Crook and Cyrus Mower. . . I want you to head across to North Beach and check out the caves. The tide’s going out, so it should give you a good few hours. You next, Hetherington. Take Biff, Helen, Ross and Emma. . .’

As Murphy continued to task the different people before him, James finished his coffee and looked around for somewhere to ditch the polystyrene cup. There was a roll bin towards the left side of Surfers’ Turf. He checked out Murphy’s progress. Three-quarters of the crowd still remained to be instructed, standing by rocking on the balls of their feet, like overgrown schoolkids waiting to be picked for a team. He checked out Alan : cigarette cemented to his dry lips, staring over the roof of Surfers’ Turf at some imaginary vanishing point in the heart of the black cliff beyond.

‘Back in a minute,’ James muttered, removing his uncle’s cup from his fist.

As he approached the bin, he crumpled the two cups up into a spongy ball at the centre of his fist, drew back his arm and let fly. Aerodynamic, it wasn’t. It got maybe halfway to the goal represented by the bin before it disintegrated like an ill-designed prototype missile, and drifted lazily towards the ground. Half-hearted applause came from somewhere to his right and he turned to the source. Suzie was standing there, smoking a cigarette.