The Boat (16 page)

The old man tried to take her spotty case off her but she held on tightly and he kind of dragged her through the lobby to the desk. Up above them in a high domed ceiling hung a giant chandelier and over on the left was a large lounge with three ladies sitting in a row at the bar, drinking from triangular glasses, all of them in fur coats though it wasn’t even cold. Her father said hello to them as they checked in at the desk – he always said hello to everyone – and she liked the way the ladies all looked at her as though she was the luckiest girl in the world, which she probably was.

The bedroom had two enormous double beds in it on to which her dad flung the cases. He unpacked his own while she bounced on the bed near the window. Then he opened her suitcase and they both noticed that she’d forgotten to pack any clothes. She’d insisted on doing her own packing. She’d remembered the main things: her roller-skates and her Whimsy set and some boxes for collecting things but no nightie or toothbrush or clothes. She could see that he was annoyed with her but was trying not to be.

Her dad went through to the bathroom to have a shave while she carried on bouncing. He’d taken his shirt off. He was quite fussy about his clothes; he’d folded it up and hung it over the loo seat. He had a white foam beard like Father Christmas and was talking out of one side of his face.

‘Where first? What do you fancy? A walk on the beach?’

‘Ice cream,’ she said, attempting a somersault.

‘Good shout. Ice cream on the beach.’

‘Yippee!’ She tried again, succeeding this time. ‘Can I have two?’

‘As many as you want.’

‘Six?’

‘You can have all the ice cream you desire, Clemency Bailey.’ Spin, spin, spin she went.

They walked along the shingle eating ice creams as the waves lapped the shore. He didn’t tell her off when she mistimed a wave and got her Start-rites soaked. He said it didn’t matter – he could dry them with the hair dryer when they got back. They started collecting special pebbles and the ones she didn’t want in her box they threw back into the sea. It was much quieter without her mother. There wasn’t all the talking and the laughing, just more wetness and ice creams and staring at the sea. Her mother wouldn’t have gone in for any of that.

Clemmie was working her way through a Raspberry Mivvi, still chewing the bubblegum from the Screwball when she looked up at her father. He was looking up at the sky, frowning, a faraway look in his eye, his mouth like an upside-down smiley face. It made her feel all mistaken; she had presumed that they were having the best day of their lives but now she realized that it was only her. She could tell that he’d rather be somewhere else, with someone else, with her mother. She hated her mum then, for being such fun, for being so laughy, for having the love of Jim Bailey, for taking away some of the attention that rightfully belonged to her. She tried to think of something interesting to say.

‘Did you know that sneezes come out of your nose at three hundred miles per hour?’

‘No,’ he said, his eyes off the horizon now; he was looking down at her. ‘I didn’t.’

‘Yes, it’s true. Sarah’s brother Johnny told me that.’

‘Did he now?’

‘Yes. Sarah’s brothers have magic bums – they can set off jets of fire.’

‘They sound charming,’ he said, taking out his cigar tin. She knew he’d give her the box when he’d finished them and she wondered how many he had left.

‘Yes. I wish I had a big brother. They’ve got a shed in the back garden that smells of cigarettes. It’s got a pool table and a dartboard in it. Johnny got
one hundred and eighty
.’ She said
one hundred and eighty
in the same voice that Rob and Sarah had used, all sing-songy and hilarious. She remembered feeling a little left out then, when they’d all done that. They had proper family jokes that she wasn’t party to. ‘Daddy, can we get a pool table and a dartboard? Johnny said you can get them at Barkers.’

He was looking at her askance. ‘I think someone might have a little crush on this Johnny…’ He was nudging her arm, teasing her.

‘No, I don’t,’ she said, not liking it. That wasn’t what she had meant at all. He was spoiling things. Johnny was just a nice brother. That was all. She wished she hadn’t said anything. She wished she hadn’t tried to cheer him up.

They were walking along the front now, past the dark, tall houses covered in seagull poo. ‘Hey, look!’ he said. The lights of a funfair were in the distance twinkling temptingly against the sweep of sunset mauve behind. Clemmie forgot about his jibes immediately. She grabbed his hand and tried to pull him along, her damp feet beginning to warm up, the excitement rising in her chest as the wafts of toffee apple and candyfloss filtered through the air, with the snatches of music, the faint siren-like screams, beckoning them in.

Then there they were: the big wheel, the swing boat, the coconut shy, the bumper cars, the kids, the huge men with tattoos, the litter, the toffee apples – all the fun of the fair. A fat woman in high boots and mountains of hair eyed her father as they passed her stall, a small booth with painted-on curtains and ‘Fortune Teller’ written in fancy lettering on the top. She spoke without removing the cigarette from her lips, like a film star.
‘
Hey, handsome, wanna get your fortune told?’ She sounded like a man. Clemmie squeezed her dad’s hand to stop him walking on by. ‘Oh please, Daddy!’ she begged. ‘I want my fortune
.
’ She liked fortunes and things: she’d once had a red plastic fish on her hand that curled into a ball, which meant that she was
passionate
. So they followed the woman into her little hut and squeezed around a small table. A little brown dog raised its head from a basket underneath and blinked sleepily up at her but growled when she bent to touch it. The fat woman wanted money first and wasn’t really bothered that the ash from her cigarette was falling all over her lacy tablecloth. Then she put on some reading glasses, which didn’t seem very gypsyish, and asked for Clemmie’s hand, breathing all over her, smelling just like the vicar at Christmas when he’d been drinking Christ’s blood. Obediently Clemmie unfurled her palm and the woman twisted it this way and that, screwing up her eyes, which might well have been because the smoke was getting everywhere – she’d not taken the fag out of her mouth once. ‘Yes indeed,’ she said in her man-voice. ‘I see a young and handsome prince… many children…’ Clemmie stared at her, brimming with belief.

Her dad laughed. ‘Steady on,’ he said. ‘She’s only eight.’

The woman gave him a rather short look from over her spectacles. ‘Tomorrow is Friday the thirteenth,’ she said, opening her bloodshot eyes wide at Clemmie. ‘Beware Friday the thirteenth!’ She waved her hands in a mysterious circle, then stood up and sighed as if her prophecies had exhausted her.

‘Is that it?’ her father asked rudely.

They wandered around the fair and stood about watching and waiting as happy, loud people hopped on and off things with purpose. They stood on the edge of the Bumper Car ride watching the cars slow to a halt. Clemmie clutched her dad’s hand as he pulled her through a mob of people rushing across the smooth plasticky floor and sat her down in a red one. Then off they went swerving and bumping, shouting and twirling. She leant back to watch the pokey thing making sparks along the ceiling.

‘Where next? Where next?’ she cried as he lifted her out of the car. He was as happy as she was now. He’d forgotten all about her mother. They played a shooting game and he won her a monkey toy. They wandered through the noisy throng with her new best toy. There was so much to see. The bright bulbs and multicoloured lights flashing on and off made the night sky behind shine a bold royal blue. She looked down at her Start-rites clicking amongst the litter and the spilt popcorn, shuffling along with a hundred other feet. Hers were chilly again, but she didn’t complain. They stopped by the Waltzer and watched mesmerized as people in giant tea-cups and saucers flew across the floor, towards and away, in and out, spinning this way and that, missing each other by a hair’s breadth, faster and faster in a whirl of ecstasy.

‘This one! This one!’ Clemmie cried, looking up at her dad.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. This one!’

‘It might make you a bit sick after three ice creams.’

‘No it won’t. It really won’t. Please, Daddy.’

So they waited for the cups and saucers to stop and for the wobbly-legged people to get off. Then, still clutching her father’s hand tightly, she climbed into the blue one that looked like the china at her nanna’s house. Her dad stuffed Monkey into his pocket and they waited as the other cups began to fill up, the fair man hopping casually from saucer to saucer, holding out his tattooed hand for the money before slamming down the metal bars. ‘Hold on tightly,’ said a voice on a loudspeaker before some music blared out and then very slowly the tea-cups began to move. Whoosh. Whoosh. They swung out, nearly crashing into a couple of boys in the next cup. She screamed with joy, looking up at her father.
See, I told you it would be fun!

Then slowly it began to speed up and Clemmie slid across to the edge and rather wished she wasn’t wearing her slippery red tights. But it was still fun, everyone thought so, everyone was screaming. Her father was smiling, the wind making his curly hair stand up on end. He had his arm around her and she slid back into him as the tea-cup whooshed unpredictably about the floor.

Faster and faster they went: strangers’ faces looming up and bearing away from her; her knuckles white as she gripped the bar. And still it got faster. Rather too fast now. Her feet couldn’t reach the saucer. Her father had to remove his arm and hold on with two hands and she could no longer look round at him, she was doing all she could just to hold on. The tights and her lack of weight meant that she was sliding about all over the place.

Then suddenly it wasn’t fun at all any more. She couldn’t stop the slipping. She tried to ground her feet but she was too small and now she’d slipped forward she couldn’t get back. She could feel herself sliding beneath the bar.

‘Make it stop!’ she cried. ‘Make it stop, Daddy!’ But he couldn’t hear her. She was going to slide right out, she knew it. ‘Make it stop!’ She was screaming. The fear consuming her now, she was rigid with terror; she felt sick with it, she was going to die – she was going to go flying out and get squashed beneath the machinery, split into two pieces.

Still faster it went and as it hurled into a new direction Clemmie felt herself go, there was nothing she could do about it and, still clinging on, she slipped right underneath the bar, her body straight as an arrow flying through the air. But she didn’t let go. She was looking up at the roof of the red tent and holding on for dear life, her legs flying about, her brown Start-rite shoes banging hard against things. She could hear her father swearing and shouting. She felt him grab her arm and pull her in but the force of the change of direction twisted her round; she was half in half out. He couldn’t pull her in.

‘Stop the fucking machine!’ He was screaming. She had never heard him say that word before and she was glad that at last he understood why she had been screaming. She wasn’t just being a scaredy-cat. He was holding on with one hand and holding her in the other. She lifted her head and she could see his face, the panic in his eyes.

‘I’ve got you. Clemmie! I’ve got you! I won’t let you go,’ he yelled. ‘I won’t ever let you go.’

And she had really believed him.

Johnny could hear Frank’s low, soft voice from the tender; it rumbled across the water as he rowed. He wished he’d not left the boat, not gone berry-picking and certainly not felt Annie’s breast up there on the hillside. He was returning to the boat carrying a new cargo of guilt. Only a couple of hours ago he had been convinced that it was Clem who would betray him and now the tables were turned: he had beaten her to it. His stomach was knotted in a confusion of lust and loathing. He hated himself for being at the mercy of his cock. It was definitely time to get off the boat, to find the nearest village, to leave them; he must make sure of that. The truth was that he didn’t trust himself around Annie.

There she was right in front of him now as he rowed them back to
the
Little Utopia
; she was letting her toes drag in the water, eyes closed, tipping her face up towards the sunlight, her elbows underneath her arched back and those tits of hers jutting tantalizingly forward, a lazy smile on her lips. She seemed unconcerned by what had happened up there, was acting as if everything was perfectly normal, paying Johnny the same attention as before, no more no less. It was as if no line had been crossed.

‘Hey, Smudge,’ he said, diverting his own attention. ‘How’s Granny doing?’

She was behind him at the bows, whispering sweet nothings into Granny’s unlocatable ears having dropped her on a rock during a bouncing experiment.

‘One of her legs is a bit dangly,’ she said. Now that Granny’s life expectancy in the wild had been seriously curtailed, Smudge had been allowed to bring her back to
the
Little Utopia
as a pet.

Johnny rowed, watching the oars passing through the clear green water. He could hear Clem laughing and the splashy flick of a fishing line hitting the surface. He rested the oars in their rowlocks for a moment to listen to the quietness and looked up at the coastline to his left, miles and miles of uninhabited scrub, and it made him feel intensely claustrophobic. He looked back at Annie; she was watching him now and he quickly looked away. He must get Clem off the boat; they must leave, get back to their lives, back to the two of them. He glanced up along the coast to the north, land they had already passed, inlet after inlet of nothingness. There was no choice about it: they had to stay a little longer. There was absolutely nowhere to get off and go to.

‘Hey, guys! We’ve got lunch!’ Frank said, standing up, bare-chested, as they approached. He was holding up the bucket. Johnny couldn’t meet his eye, so he settled on his chest, which was much less hairy than he’d have supposed. Johnny passed up the bilberries and the new crew member, then helped Smudge on board and got himself up over the guard rail, all without looking at Frank’s face.