A Sea Change (6 page)

‘Here.’ He grabbed the washing-up bowl from the sink and thrust it at her just in time. She took it from him and vomited, her cheeks burning. She wiped her mouth, sweat breaking out on her forehead. It didn’t get any worse than this. Meeting a hot guy, then him catching you stealing, then puking up in front of him.

What a class act, Jenna thought. She couldn’t look at the bloke. She wanted to crawl away into a corner and die.

‘Sorry . . .’ she managed at last.

‘You’ve had too much sun,’ he told her, and took away the bowl. ‘Go into the bathroom and clean yourself up. There’s mouthwash.’

She did as she was told. In the tiny bathroom she gripped the edge of the sink and looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was plastered to her forehead and her cheeks were burning. Her head felt as if it was held in a vice. She felt too terrible to worry about what was going to happen to her. She washed her face with cold water, rinsed out her mouth and found the mouthwash. Then she ventured out again, not sure what was going to happen next.

While she was in the bathroom, Craig looked at the money and tried to decide what to do. He should turn her in, but what good would that do? She’d go up before the magistrate. Even if they were lenient she would have a record that would make sure no one gave her a job.

When she came back out she looked terrible. She was shivering, even though it was hot. He thought it was probably a mixture of sunstroke and shock. He went over to put the kettle on. What a cliché, thinking a nice cup of tea could solve anything, but it seemed the best thing to do.

She sat down on the settee without being asked, then leaned back and shut her eyes. Her hair was damp where she had washed her face.

‘I’m Craig, by the way,’ he told her. ‘Do you want to tell me your name?’

‘Jenna . . .’ she replied, faintly. He thought she was telling the truth.

‘OK, Jenna,’ he replied, opening the cup-board to find the tea bags. ‘What do you think we should do about this situation?’

She shrugged. ‘You’re the policeman.’

He lobbed a couple of tea bags into two mugs.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘It’s a pretty rubbish thing to
do, don’t you think? Nicking people’s money when they’ve come for a day out on the beach?’

She stared into the middle of the room, sullen.

‘Where do you suggest I go, then? Up to the hospital, where people are having a shit time anyway? So my nicking their money won’t make any difference to how they feel?’

He had to hide a smile at her logic. He poured water onto the tea bags, got the milk out of the fridge and added a splash to each mug. He walked over and handed her one. She took it from him without a word of thanks, just held it between her knees, her shoulders hunched again. Her hair had come loose from its ponytail, falling onto her shoulders, and he thought again how pretty she was.

‘How about not doing it at all?’ he asked.

She slammed her mug down on the coffee table in front of her.

‘Those people aren’t going to miss that money,’ she told him. ‘They’re just here to have a good time. They haven’t got a care in the world, any of them. I was watching. They’ve got everything they could possibly want.’

Craig looked at her. ‘Does that make it right, then?’

‘No, of course it doesn’t,’ she shot back. ‘I
know it’s wrong. I don’t need you to judge me. You with your job, and your beach hut, and your surfboard, hanging out by the sea. You don’t know what it’s like, to have no hope, no money. Nothing. I’ve got nothing!’ she shouted at him. ‘I’ve got the clothes I’m standing up in, but that’s it. I lost my job and my boss never gave me my wages. I owe my landlord four hundred quid, and if I don’t get it, he’s going to kick me out. Tell me what I was supposed to do, Mr Policeman?’

She spat the last few words out with real venom. Craig was silent for a moment.

‘Actually,’ he told her, ‘I do know what it’s like to have absolutely nothing.’

She gave a snort of disbelief. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘I was brought up on an estate on the outskirts of the city. My brother was a drug dealer, but my mum thought the sun shone out of him because he brought her things. Things he’d nicked. She never took any notice of me. So I decided I’d start nicking things too.’

The girl looked up in surprise at this confession. Craig gave a wry smile. He didn’t think he’d ever admitted this to anyone before. It wasn’t something he was proud of.

‘Lucky for me, there was a teacher at my school who could see I had potential. He gave
me a really hard time. He went on and on at me until I realised he was right: that I would have more of a chance if I passed my exams. When I got my exam results, eight GCSEs, my mum didn’t take any notice. She was too busy watching the big-screen telly that my brother had got her.’

Craig still remembered his anger now – the feeling of hopelessness, wondering what on earth was the point – and he’d thrown the letter with his results in the bin. His teacher had come to find him, told him how proud he was, showed him everything that piece of paper would allow him to do.

‘Three weeks later, my brother got shot in a drive-by shooting and I decided to join the police. My mum never spoke to me again, because my brother had taught her to blame the cops for everything.’ Craig paused for breath. The memory was still painful. ‘So don’t give me your sob story. I could have followed in my brother’s footsteps. I had every opportunity, I can tell you. But I didn’t.’

Jenna didn’t say anything. She stared at the floor. Eventually she looked up.

‘I’m sorry about your brother,’ she said. ‘But it’s not that easy, you know. Just because you found a way out doesn’t mean that we all can.’

Craig frowned. ‘So that’s it, is it? You feel justified?’

Jenna jumped to her feet. ‘No. I never felt justified. I felt desperate.’ Her amber eyes were flashing as she crossed the room to stand in front of him. ‘How am I supposed to pay my rent? It’s no good telling me to go to the council. He wants cash. Now.’ She was trembling with fury. ‘Of course, there’s one way I could pay him. I know that. But I kind of thought nicking a few quid from people who wouldn’t notice was a better way to go than sleeping with some sleazebag . . .’

‘Hey, hey, hey.’ Alarmed by her reaction, he went to put his arm round her shoulder. She shook it off.

‘Just get off me.’ She pulled away from him and threw her bag across the room so that its contents spilled on the floor. ‘I’ll leave it up to you to do what you think is best with the money.’

The next moment, she was gone. The door of the beach hut swung shut behind her. Craig stood in the middle of the room with no idea what to do. Going after her would do no good. He didn’t have a solution to her problem. If he did, he would be running the country by now. There were thousands like her, stuck in a trap.
He saw them every day, saw the results of their desperation and what they did as a result. He’d made the classic mistake, of thinking that just because he had pulled himself up by his bootstraps, anyone could change their life for the better.

He went to the fridge and pulled out a beer. He took off the top with the opener someone had screwed to the wall and took a sip. It tasted bitter. He put the bottle down. Getting drunk was no solution when you felt bad. He saw the results of substance abuse every day. People who took drink and drugs to forget, not to have fun.

He walked over to the settee and sat down. So much for a quiet, relaxing week. Instead, what had happened today had brought everything into sharp focus, highlighting all of the things he felt unhappy about. He had, he knew, joined the police for all the right reasons, but now he wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing any more. When he looked at people like Jenna and sympathised with their plight, how could he carry on? Maybe it was time for him to make a difference in some other way. Turning a blind eye today was one thing, but he couldn’t do that when he went back to work.

The incident had only confirmed for him
what he already felt in his gut, that the day was coming closer and closer when he would have to walk away.

Chapter Eight

Jenna ran all the way back up the beach to the road. Running on the sand was hard work, and she was soon out of breath. She slowed down to a walk as she went through the village towards the bus stop. She passed the Ship Aground again, and saw the band bringing in the gear for that evening’s singing competition. She stopped for a moment, wondering whether she had the nerve to enter.

‘Don’t be stupid, Jenna,’ she told herself. ‘You’re not good enough.’

She remembered her birthday, a few years ago now. Everyone had piled round to her house, all her brothers and sisters and their mates and her mates. The house was heaving, the booze was flowing and the music was pumping. There was a real party atmosphere, even though she hadn’t sent out any official invites. For once, the mood in the house was light. Even her mum was happy – she’d done herself up to the nines, and was dancing and laughing and flirting with all Jenna’s brothers’ mates.

Someone had brought round a karaoke machine. Nicked, no doubt, but everyone started to take it in turns to have a go. Jenna felt too shy at first, but her friends encouraged her. They’d heard her sing and they thought she was great. They weren’t going to stop, so Jenna picked up the microphone.

She sang ‘Beautiful’ by Christina Aguilera. Everyone else had chosen upbeat singalong songs, from bands like the Spice Girls and Take That, so for a moment she felt awkward when she realised everyone had stopped talking and laughing, and was actually watching her. She wasn’t note perfect, not by any means. Every time she made a mistake she cringed inside and wanted to run off, but she carried on. When the last note died away, there was silence. Then suddenly everyone broke into wild applause.

Jenna couldn’t believe she’d actually done it, sung on her own in front of a roomful of people. It felt amazing. She felt . . . beautiful, just like in the song.

Then her mother had stepped in front of her, grabbed the microphone, put on another song – something rowdy and upbeat. In the blink of an eye she had the whole room singing along with her, cheering and clapping. Jenna was forgotten. Overshadowed. She’d felt invisible
again. How could she have thought she was any good? Everyone was drunk. They were just playing along with her. The applause had been empty. They’d have clapped for anyone . . .

The memory burned inside her, and she turned away from the pub and headed to the bus stop. Five minutes later she was on the bus to Tawcombe, leaving Everdene and the horrors of the day behind her.

As soon as she got back to her house, she went into her room, shut the door and leaned against it. She felt numb, unsure whether to laugh or cry or just throw herself onto the bed and go to sleep. She wanted to block out everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. She wanted to block out the future, too. Just one more day and The Prof would be knocking on the door, an oily smile on his face, knowing full well she didn’t have the rent.

She looked around at the shabby furniture and the few things she had that made the room her own. She wouldn’t be sorry to leave. Her time here had not been happy. The other tenants in the house had been in no hurry to make friends. She had never felt comfortable bringing anyone back here. Her friends would
have been shocked, even though they might not live in palaces themselves.

As she looked around, Jenna understood that she had no choice but to go back home. She would go now, tonight. She would save The Prof the pleasure of evicting her. She couldn’t stand the thought of his face as he made her pack up her stuff. And this way, she wouldn’t have to owe him the money. He might try to track her down and chase her for it, but at the end of the day how could you get money out of someone who didn’t have any?

For the next half-hour, Jenna went through her wardrobe and her drawers, sorting out everything she wanted to take with her. Then she piled it all into two black bin bags. That was it, everything she had in the world. She put them by the door. She’d call a cab. Her mum would have to pay the fare when she got there.

She picked up the bags and stood in the doorway for a moment. So much for making her own way in the world. She’d reached rock bottom today. Her mum was so right. Of course she wasn’t any better than any of them. She belonged right back there with the rest of her family. How could she possibly have imagined there was a better life out there?

She thought about Craig. Why couldn’t she
have ended up with someone like him? Someone decent and honest who’d made his way in the world, even though he’d had no better a start than she had.

The door slammed shut behind her. She stepped out into the street, blinking at the early-evening sun that shone in her eyes, and trailed up the road to find a taxi.

No one batted an eyelid when she walked through the door. Her mum was lying on the settee watching telly. She grumbled a bit when Jenna asked for a fiver to pay the cab driver, but she gave it to her.

‘You’re back, then?’ she asked. ‘You can’t have your room. Your brother’s using it as an office.’

‘An office?’ Jenna frowned.

‘Yeah. He’s set himself up in business. Delivering pet food. He keeps it all in the garage. He’s doing all right for himself.’

Her mum sat up. Jenna looked at her more closely.

‘What?’ her mum asked.

‘Nothing. You look . . . different, that’s all.’ She did. She looked slimmer, younger, not so puffy. And she wasn’t drunk. Usually by this
time on a Saturday she’d have started the second bottle of vodka.

‘I’ve got a new bloke, haven’t I?’

Jenna put down her bags and glanced around the room. Everything looked tidy. There were no dog hairs. There were no empty glasses, no ashtrays. In fact, her mum wasn’t smoking.

‘Have you given up the fags as well?’ she asked.

‘Most of the time,’ her mum admitted. ‘I have the odd sneaky one every now and again. I wouldn’t want to be perfect, would I?’ She grinned at Jenna, then looked away.

Jenna felt a lump in her throat. She turned away before her mum could see her tears and think she was soft. Instead, she lugged her bin bags upstairs and put them in her old room. All her stuff had gone, but she could sleep on the floor for the time being. Compared to her old flat, it would be luxury.