The Thing on the Shore (7 page)

Thank you so much for all of your love, and for all of my friends. I loved you so very much. I hope you like all of your presents. They are all for you. All of my love forever—Mum xxx

The boy spent hours unwrapping all of these virtual presents and with each and every one an animation showed his character holding the new gift up toward the screen, smiling delightedly. He loved them all.

Isobel had been so touched by this that she borrowed the girl's console so that she could understand the story fully. She thus found a game that enabled her to live in a world almost identical to that which she had fantasized about as a child. And that was it: she was hooked.

“How did you know about that woman and her son?” she'd asked the girl at the time.

“I was at the funeral,” the girl had replied. “Not the real one, obviously. But they had one online.”

She'd waved her little pink console in the air.

So now Isobel was curled up on the sofa, playing
Animal Crossing
, wishing furiously that she could make a living by selling seashells in real life. She found herself holding her stomach and smiled at the thought of the child inside her, and all of the worlds that the child would have to discover. She was excited at the thought of them exploring together.

Somewhere in the background, Bracket turned on the radio. He didn't seem to understand the appeal of
Animal
Crossing
at all. Never mind, though. Everybody had their own hobbies. Isobel slowly became completely oblivious to the growing storm.

Arthur wore an old waterproof coat that wasn't really waterproof any longer; it had rips under the arms from being a bit too small, and the rain burrowed its way in through those holes. The raindrops came down like ball bearings. Like bullets. Arthur stood there on the harbor, near The Wave (currently deactivated), and imagined the height from which the water was falling. He imagined the force of the wind behind it. If Yasmin had glanced down from her living room window, she would have been able to see him. He kept his head down and his hair hung around his face like black pondweed. If she were still alive, his father's mother would have said the rain was coming down like stair-rods. And she would have been right. These weren't raindrops—they were solid bars connecting the earth to the tops of the cumulonimbus clouds, piercing his body and pinning him to the spot in the process. Arthur could feel them running right through him. His
hands were pushed deep into the pockets of his thin black trousers. His ears were so cold that they felt skinless, but he didn't mind. The thin layer of water dancing across the pale stones and small metal fish adorning the harbor promenade looked like boiling oil.

Bony spotted Arthur standing there from a short distance away, but he couldn't attract his attention through the noise of the downpour and the voice of the wind. He wore his hi-vis jacket and some blue waterproof trousers that he occasionally used for fishing. He jogged toward Arthur and slapped him on the back.

“You ready?” shouted Bony.

“Yeah!” shouted Arthur. “Been here for bloody ages!”

“Why didn't you give Yasmin a buzz? Could've waited up there!”

“No answer!”

“Come on, then!” shouted Bony.

They turned and ran past the end of the Sugar Tongue, then past the end of the Lime Tongue, occasionally skidding and waving their arms about in an effort not to fall over. They ran past the Zest Harborside restaurant, and at the end of the promenade turned right on to the long stone harbor wall. They ran along it, past the green hull of an upturned rowing boat. They ran on past the Sea Cadets' building. The sky was something between black and green, and seemed alive and pulsating. Arthur and Bony ran until they reached the warning sign.

WARNING
The surface beyond this point is uneven.

They stopped running here and started to walk instead. The sign marked the point at which the harbor wall really struck out into the sea, because it was here that the land fell away to the left-hand side as well as to the right. The sign indicated the point at which it became the West Pier.

It was a two-tiered structure: one a wide, uneven surface with huge rusty lumps of metal sticking out of it, to which tall ships had once been moored, and the other a high, narrow wall, running alongside the left-hand edge, which had protected sailors from the sea while they were working in bad weather. You could walk along either, but Bony and Arthur now chose the lower path. The smell of salt water filled their heads like a corrosive vapor. The sea down to their right was in a constant state of violent motion as the rain hit it with enough force to smack the water straight back up into the air again, turning it white and soft. When the pair looked up and ahead of them to where the West Pier began curving round to the north, they saw the crests of waves breaking against the barrier wall and showering foam down on to the path that the two of them intended to follow. The pier was so big, so strong and wide and deep and old-looking, that they were both—unknown to each other—reminded of the architecture in that video game,
Shadow of the Colossus.
They hurried onwards.

As they came to the very end, they slowed down. The structure widened out here, like the clenched fist at the end of an arm, and rising from the center of the bulge was Whitehaven lighthouse. The lighthouse entrance was at the level of the lower tier, but some steps led up around it to enable access to the upper tier. Here, at the end, was an additional low wall protecting the edge of the higher level also. The lighthouse was white with a red door and a red balcony around the top of it, and it looked bright and vibrant against the angry sky. Water pooled in the dips and hollows of the stone surface on which Bony and Arthur stood. The broken remnants of mammoth waves surged around beneath the structure, indicative of the peaks and troughs of the ocean still hidden by the higher levels of the West Pier.

“Ready?” shouted Arthur.

Bony nodded in response, despite Arthur's words being snatched away by the wind as soon as they'd left his mouth. They lowered their heads and slowly approached the base of the steps. There was a rusted yet sturdy metal railing which they held on to as they ascended, and they kept their heads bowed beneath the weight of the weather. To their left, the lighthouse seemed like some kind of magical monument, glowing white and streaming with liquid. They eventually reached the upper level on all fours, with waves constantly collapsing over the low wall that separated them from the sea. They crawled toward the wall, the lighthouse behind them now, their hands and knees submerged in the restless water hissing across the
stonework. When they got to the wall, they turned and sat with their backs resting against it. This was the same spot where, on friendlier days, fishermen would stand with their rods and eat their sandwiches and gut fish and leave the entrails lying around to stink in the sun.

Bony and Arthur glanced at each other, then turned so that both were on their knees facing the wall. Slowly they gripped the top of the wall with their hands and raised their heads above it to look out to sea.

They saw a landscape, not a seascape. They saw mountains and valleys, as if they were looking at an aerial photograph of the central Lake District. Except everything was moving. The mountains were rolling along and then subsiding and then leaping up again, and in between them were cavernous hollows that deepened and deepened, like there was no limit to the depth they might achieve. The peaks would roll in and smash against the fortress-like structure of the West Pier, spraying the exhilarated pair's faces with their shattered remnants. And already there would be replacement peaks spawning a long way out, growing impossibly huge, racing with fantastic speed toward the shore, toward the town, toward the land, toward Arthur and Bony with their little wet faces like two smiling, stupid peaches just waiting to be swallowed up. The heights and depths of the water were astounding and terrifying, and this turbulence stretched for as far as their eyes could see, before being obscured by veils of sheeting rain. Somewhere above the clouds, thunder roared as some forgotten god stamped its feet. And the
sky would flash as lightning lit up the clouds from the inside. Arthur and Bony looked at each other, nodded, and raised themselves a little higher. They wormed themselves forward so that they were looking directly down into the water, each bent over at the waist to ninety degrees.

Arthur studied the green hell beneath him. He blew a kiss downward. He felt as if his mother were closer to him when the weather was like this. He had this idea that she would be nearer the surface, though he knew this was ridiculous. He knew that wasn't how it worked. The ocean broke bodies down into nothing and spread them out across the Earth. He knew that. But he still couldn't help looking for her.

He let himself slip backward, back toward the relative shelter of the wall, and raised his head so that he could see further. If this was
Shadow of the Colossus
, then he was the Wanderer. He was exploring an abandoned world, discovering architecture built for giants, and every now and again one of those giants would rise up from the surrounding environment and look down at him with glowing eyes. He wanted it to happen now. He wanted some huge creature to emerge.

Bony slipped back alongside him and gave a jerk of his head backward toward the town. Arthur nodded.

Yasmin was drinking white wine and Dean was drinking some kind of blue alcopop. They were sitting in a corner of the Vagabond, which was a pub occupying a part of the same building—the old converted warehouse—as Yasmin's flat. They were near the door but in an alcove. The floor was old black stone but the wooden tables and benches were new. Pictures of Jack Kerouac and Mohammed Ali and Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan covered the walls. The place seemed quite full, but only because it was relatively small. Small and warm and dry. Dry, that is, until Arthur and Bony blew in.

“That was a good one,” said Bony.

“It was,” said Arthur.

“Neither of you are sitting next to me,” said Yasmin. She shook her head. “No way.”

“Have … have you been in the sea?” asked Dean, mystified.

“Not quite,” said Bony.

“They go out to the lighthouse during storms,” explained Yasmin. “Mental.”

“Why do you do that?” said Dean. “I … I thought it was dangerous?”

“I suppose it is, really,” said Arthur.

“It's like you're plugging in,” said Bony. “It's like you're engaging with everything. You should come with us next time, Dean. Honest to fucking God. It's like the world is talking to you alone.”

“Are you OK for drinks?” said Arthur, standing up again. He left a puddle behind on the stool. There was some early Jimi Hendrix playing in the background, and the smell of grilled Cumberland sausage wafted through from the kitchen.

Later, despite the warmth, Bony was still wearing his pair of soggy gloves. They were now covered in yellow crumbs.

“Bony,” said Yasmin, “please take your gloves off to eat your crisps. It's making me feel sick.”

“Don't look, then,” mumbled Bony through a mouthful. “I just don't like the feel of crisps on my fingers.”

Yasmin rolled her eyes and Arthur laughed.

“What … what do you reckon about this new stuff at work, then?” said Dean. “Reckon it'll change much?”

“Not much,” replied Arthur. “Except maybe they'll be even more bastardly. More desperate.”

“Bracket was … was saying that there might be some opportunities coming up.” Dean's head bobbed up and down like that of an excited chicken. “Said they might
have a proper restructure, like. I was thinking I … I could maybe apply for something. Not often you get such a good chance to … to develop.”

“You should,” said Arthur. “You'd make a good team coach.”

“Th … thank you,” said Dean. “Are you going to apply for something, Yasmin? If it comes up?”

“Maybe,” said Yasmin. “If it gets me off the fucking phones, then yeah, too right.” She drank deeply from her wine glass. “The only way I get through the day is by forgetting I'm even there. The way people talk to me I feel like a prostitute. It's like, how far do people go? Do they think it's OK to be so rude because they're not physically beating the seven greenest shades of shit out of you?”

“They would kick your head in if they could do it via the telephone,” said Arthur. “As long as they can't see you and don't know you, then you're fair game.”

“You'd think people would be intelligent enough these days to realize that you don't have to be actually physical to be violent or damaging,” said Yasmin.

“They know,” said Arthur. “They know all right.”

“W … will you go for any new jobs, Arthur?” asked Dean.

“Maybe,” said Arthur, after a moment. “I don't know. I don't really know what I want. I want to work at Sellafield is what I want, but nothing ever comes up there. Nothing that I can do, anyway.”

“You see all those Sellafieldies going past on the train in the morning,” said Bony. “They're all weird.”

“As if
you
can talk,” said Yasmin. Her eyes lingered on him.

“I'm not weird,” said Bony, though not making eye contact. He looked as if he was about to say something else, when he noticed somebody entering the pub and got distracted. The person in question was a young man, quite short and fat, with a blond thatch and big teeth and a sweaty red face. He wore a white shirt and heavily dyed blue jeans. He grinned at Bony and Bony nodded at him before standing up.

“'Scuse me,” he said to the three seated around the table. “I just need to see Ollie for a moment.” He squeezed himself out of the alcove and disappeared into the crush.