Sleight of Hand (21 page)

“Are you missing Ricky?”

“Ricky,”
I think. No one calls Ricardo
Ricky
for the simple reason that he hates it.

“Ricardo,” I say. “Yes, that'll be it. I'm missing Ricardo.”

“Aw,” Jenny says. “Do you think he's missing you the same way?”

I frown at her.

“Of course he is,” she says, grimacing. “Sorry.”

We drive in silence for a moment and then Jenny says, “If you want to go back. You can you know.”

I'm not sure if she means to Camberley or to Colombia. Either way, it's clearly a lie. “Just … find some music or something, will you?” I say. It's as much as I can do to resist telling her to shut up.

I try really hard to mellow out, but for some reason it's exceptionally hard today.

As Jimmy Sommerville and Jenny duet to Smalltown boy, and as Sussex glides by beneath an increasingly luminous sky, I think about what Jenny is going through. I think too, about how fragile her little daughter is. I remember that her mother died not so long ago as well, and try to remind myself how brave she's being.

But today, none of it helps, because like a three-year-old, all I really want to do is stamp and scream until someone gives me what
I
want – until someone gives me my life back.

*

Thankfully no mood of mine could ever resist that first glimpse of sea.

As we come over the downs, Sarah shrieks, “See the sea!”

“Well done, you were the first to spot it,” Jenny says, “so you win an ice cream.”

“Wow!” I comment, not even noticing that every ounce of my bad mood is at this second being sucked from my body by that incredible vista of grey sea and blue sky, by the whitecap waves and the fluffy clouds skimming east to west, by the smell of iodine and salt, by the sensation of my eyes
focussing, for the first time in months, on the horizon – on infinity.

“God it's good to get away,” Jenny says, touching my arm again.

And I turn and smile at her. “It is,” I say. “It really bloody is.”

Because it's getting late, and I'm worried that they will close, we stop to pick up fish and chips the second we reach Pevensey Bay. And then, the car filled with the seeping odour of fish and fat and vinegar, we drive on to the beach-front car park, deserted on this windy Friday in November.

“Bracing,” Jenny says as she climbs from the car.

“That's what they call it,” I laugh.

Jenny releases Sarah from the rear and wraps her in a thick parka.

“Shall we leave the bags for now?” I ask.

“Yeah. Just bring lunch.”

The sun is shining and only a few clouds remain now, but the wind is strong and gusty enough to make the cables on the small beached boats slap against the masts.

“It's all stones,” Sarah says.

“Yes, pebbles. They're called pebbles.”

“You said we could make castles.”

“But pebbles are great for throwing into the sea,” I tell her.

She nods as if seriously considering the pros and cons of pebbles versus sand.

We battle fifty yards along the beachfront and then Jenny points at a small seventies originally-white-but-now-weatherbeaten cube of a building and says, “That's the one I think.”

I look at the tiny house. The beach truly does end at the building's south-facing bay windows. “No!” I laugh. “Really?”

“It looks nice,” Jenny says.

“I'm not usually a fan of americanisms,” I say. “But it's fucking awesome.”

Jenny pulls a face and nods at Sarah.

“Sorry Sarah,” I say. “But it had to be said.”

“You don't say that word,” Jenny says.

“Awesome!” Sarah says, giggling.

“Let's sit behind that wall and have lunch before it goes cold,” Jenny says. “We can move the stuff in and park the car somewhere else afterwards, OK? I'm ravishing.”

I laugh, my bad mood now entirely forgotten. “Sure. I'm ravishing too. Mmm, fish an ships, Sarah! Fish an ships!”

There doesn't seem to be any way to get out of the wind which doesn't also involve getting out of the sun, so we only manage to eat half of our meal before I give in. “It's f'ing freezing,” I say. “I'd rather get into the house and reheat the rest later.”

“Sure,” Jenny says, standing. “Me too. Can you stop with the f'ing though?”

“Sure, sorry. I thought the censored version was acceptable.”

“It isn't.”

“Fair enough,” I say, wondering why Jenny is suddenly getting all Mary Whitehouse about my language. She has never mentioned it before.

The locks on the house are so stiff that we think for a moment that we are maybe trying to break in to the wrong house and look nervously around in case an owner, or police, or security guards are about to pounce on us.

But then Jenny re-reads the instructions and, both agreed that this
is
the right house, and that this
is
the right key, I stick a piece of wood through the keyring and manage to lever the lock open. “Must get some oil on this bugger,” I say.

Jenny steps in first, and immediately turns to me and pulls a face. “Ooh! Musty!” she declares.

‘Pooh!” Sarah says, copying her mother's fanning gesture.

Inside, the house is unrenovated seventies time-warp. Not swirly wallpaper seventies, but sleek, white, minimalist seventies. The people who built it and furnished it had money and taste – once upon a time.

“Susan apologised about the furnishings. Apparently it all came with the house thirty years ago.”

“I like it,” I say, taking in a white lampshade suspended on a chrome arc and a vast orange sofa. I cross the room and run my hand through the dust covering a sleek, walnut Bang & Olufsen music centre. “God, talk about time-travel – this has a built in eight-track,” I comment.

“What's eight-track?” Jenny asks.

“Oh, just a stupid seventies format that didn't catch on. Before cassettes. This is probably a collectible now,” I say. I flick through a couple of records stacked in the cabinet below the music centre and see Nancy Sinatra's
Greatest Hits
, Simon & Garfunkle's B
ridge Over Troubled Water
, and
Odessey and Oracle
by the Zombies. This last album has an amazing psychedelic cover which I hold up to show Jenny. “Look, even the records match …” I say.

“Oh yeah,” Jenny says, feigning interest.

“I like it.”

“Me too,” she says. “I'm not liking that smell though.”

“No,” I agree. “It smells like something died in here.”

This new thought prompts a nervous exploration of the remaining rooms.

There are only two rooms per floor, so it doesn't take long. Behind the reasonably sized lounge with its stunning beach view, is a blind windowless kitchen complete with yellow formica kitchen units. Upstairs has the same layout with a large bedroom, again with an entire wall of glass, and a smaller one above the kitchen with a tiny side window. It's from this last room that the stench is clearly emanating.

“Don't go in Sarah,” I say. “Mould isn't good for you.”

“Leaky roof?” Jenny asks, nodding at the huge furry patch of mould covering one wall.

“Leaky roof,” I agree. “It's a flat roof too which explains it.”

“Why does that explain it?”

“Well … Flat roofs
always
leak. They were a great sixties idea. Not.” I close the door and we return to the bright front bedroom.

“We
can
stay here, can't we?” Jenny asks.

“It's not very healthy,” I say. “And it really does stink.”

“Yeah,” Jenny agrees with a sigh.

The smell truly
is
overpowering, and the sensation of clammy damp in the air is most unpleasant. She crosses to the bay window and runs a hand across it. The outside is frosted with salt, backlit by the sunlight.

“I can see what she meant about the salt on the windows,” I say.

“Uh?”

“Oh, you weren't there … Susan said you spend the whole time cleaning the windows here. That looks like frosted glass”

“Yeah. I bet the view's fab if they're clean though,” Jenny says, unclipping the window, and sliding it open.

The room is instantly filled with the buffeting sea breeze and the noise of the waves crashing on the pebble beach.

“Wow,” I say.

“Yeah. Look at that. I suppose that's why there's no television here.”

“You're right. I hadn't noticed, but you're right.”

“Don't!” Jenny says, pulling Sarah back from the rusting railings by her hood.

I test them and declare them, “Rusty, but safe,” and she releases her again.

“Oh
please
let's stay here,” Jenny whines.

“How?” I ask. “It stinks.”

She sighs. “I know,” she says. “But couldn't we just seal that room up or something?”

“I could sleep downstairs,” I say. “The sofa looks fine.”

“Oh yes. Please?”

“Like it's up to me,” I laugh.

“Yes!” Jenny says victoriously.

“Tell you what, I'll go get the bags in, and you two look and see if you can find bleach. We need to wash that mould away. And open all the windows. And see if you can get the heating on.”

“There's a shop up the road. For bleach. If we need it.”

“Yeah. And sponges. And rubber gloves.”

“And air freshener.”

“And window cleaner.”

And so to the sounds of the Mamas and the Papas, we spend our first day at the seaside scrubbing mould from walls, smothering carpets in cleaning products and drenching every porous surface with air freshener.

By the time the sun vanishes and it becomes too cold to keep the windows open, it seems as if we have beaten the smell into submission, but then again we may just be getting used to it, a theory bourn out by the expression on Tom's face when he arrives at the front door.

“What an amazing place,” he says. “Phew, a bit pongy though, eh?”

In the end, we eat at the Beach Tavern – a family pub at the end of the road. Sarah finds this late-night treat terribly exciting, and the novelty and the alcohol somehow make my own time with Tom less intense than usual. In fact there are even a few moments when we forget that we hate each other and have a few minutes of normal conversation – a most unsettling experience.

Jenny and Tom order beef-burgers, and Sarah and I share another portion of fish and chips, Sarah by choice, and myself because it's the only non-meat option on the menu.

After lashings of bitter I scoop sleepy Sarah from a corner seat and we walk back to the car park. The wind has dropped, but it's now cold enough to see our breath rising like puffs from a steam train.

Jenny kisses Tom goodbye and asks him, “Are you sure you're OK to drive?”

For a terrible minute I think that she is going to invite him to stay, which would certainly create some who-shares-with-who issues. But Tom declares himself fit, and promising – or threatening – to see
us again tomorrow, climbs into his Beetle and drives away.

As we crunch across the gravel, Jenny links her arm through mine. “It was nice seeing you two being civil,” she says.

“Yeah, well …” I say. “Don't expect too much of it. It's not easy you know.”

“No,” she says. “I do appreciate it, you know.”

“What's that then?”

“All this. Everything,” she says. “I do realise that you'd rather be elsewhere.”

“Hey it's cool,” I say, pausing to look out at the broken reflection of the moonlight on the sea. “Isn't this place lovely?” I say.

“Yeah,” Jenny says. She points to a lit pier in the distance. “Is that Brighton?” she asks.

“No, Eastbourne,” I say. “Brighton's further around. I tell you what though … It'll be amazing here on Monday.”

“Monday? Why Monday?”

“The fifth of November. You'd be able to see the fireworks all around the coast.”

“Oh
yeah!
Maybe we should stay an extra night.”

“Maybe. This one has a party though, doesn't she?”

“She won't even remember if you don't tell her.”

We both look out at the view, and for a moment take in the sound of the waves falling on the pebbles and dragging back out to sea.

“It sounds like it's breathing,” I say.

“Mmm?”

“The sea going in and out. It sounds like it's breathing in and out.”

“Yeah. Well, maybe it is,” Jenny says quietly before turning to head across the pebble garden to the house.

When she opens the door she pulls the face again. “Phew!” she says.

“Still bad?” I ask.

“Worse I think.”

I step inside and screw up my nose. “Oof! Mould plus floral air-freshener equals …”

“Equals yuck,” Jenny says. “Still, maybe it'll get better tomorrow if we open all the windows again.”

“Yeah. Maybe,” I agree.

I don't close the curtains that night.

I prop myself up on the big orange sofa, and lie and stare out at the moonlit beach and the vaguely fluorescent waves as they come and go.

I listen to the sea breathing in and out and think how amazing it is to suddenly notice that the physical world is so stunningly beautiful, and I wonder what purpose that has, what evolutionary function humans finding their environment beautiful can possibly serve. Maybe it's supposed to make us respect it better.

Wishing that Ricardo was here to share it with me brings tears to my eyes – tears which, I now remember reading, contain exactly the same percentage of salt as the sea. Scientists say that this is just a coincidence, but then scientists say all sorts of things …

On Saturday morning, I awaken to the screaming of seagulls. This is a real snapshot from the past because it's the sound I used to hear every morning as a child in Eastbourne. I close my eyes and smile as I listen, and then a strange cry makes me frown and open my eyes. The off-key seagull is in fact Sarah, who has entered the room and is copying the cries of the gulls as best she can.