That Summer He Died (4 page)

And that was one of the things he was going to do down here: get fit. Swimming, running, everything he’d stopped doing, he was going at least to try all that again. Because wasn’t that what he’d come here for? A change? A fresh start?

The front of the station remained busy for about twenty minutes. James watched as, one by one, the other people who’d travelled down to the coast from London set off into Grancombe town on foot, or climbed, laughing and chattering, into the backs of minibuses with campsite names stencilled on their sides.

The string of taxis at the rank steadily reduced until only a solitary vehicle remained. A driver hunched over his newspaper – basking in the glow of the car light like someone topping up their tan on a sun bed – was sipping from a polystyrene cup, occasionally glancing in his wing mirror at James with a vulture’s knowing eyes.

James was now the only passenger left and was leaning against the wall at the front of the station, checking his phone to look busy whilst in reality still just waiting for Uncle Alan to arrive. He’d already tried Alan’s home phone: no answer. He didn’t even know if his uncle had a mobile.

The taxi driver’s glances were only worsening his paranoia over whether he’d made the right decision about coming here. Because how many other people had been on that train? A hundred? More? And all of them with somewhere to go. Someone to go there with.

He checked the time on his phone. Alan was now half an hour late. Five more minutes, then he’d prove the cab driver right and wander over and surrender Alan’s address.

He looked across the car park and beyond, into Grancombe. From here, he could see straight down the busy high street, all the way to where its hard black surface was replaced by the shifting, wind-blown sands, lit up by the street lights and bar lights of North Beach, the bigger of the town’s two beaches.

Sporadically, groups of people swayed across the road, exchanging one pub for another. The sounds of their intoxicated voices reached James’s ears, leaving him feeling more isolated than ever.

Other streets ran off on either side of the high street. Lit signs hung above every third door, advertising hotels or bed-and-breakfasts. From where James stood looking, it seemed as if the streets of the town might multiply away from the high street forever, encircling the whole coast of Britain.

But James had been here before. His current view was the result of an optical illusion. If he were to walk to the front of the station car park and turn left then right he’d see how the town petered out into the surrounding hills after a ten-minute walk in either direction.

He turned back to face the high street. Four people, two guys and two girls, detached themselves from a larger, rowdy group and headed towards the car park and James.

He checked his phone again and inwardly cursed. Alan wasn’t going to show. He slung his backpack over his shoulders and set off towards the cab.

The driver, noticing his progress, put his paper aside, started the engine and wound down the window. James reached him, rested his hands on the roof above the driver’s window, and leant down to talk to him. Then he heard footsteps and looked up.

The small group he’d seen crossing the street were now standing on the other side of the cab. Up close, he could see that they were about the same age as he was.

One of the guys, about six foot two, a couple of inches taller than James, with cropped blond hair, was wearing a ripped T-shirt with a faded surf logo on it. He stared into James’s eyes and slowly shook his head.

‘Sorry, mate,’ he said, his voice deep, accent local. ‘This one’s ours.’

James checked out the tall guy’s three companions. The other male was shorter, sinewy, like some actor out of a special forces movie. His hair was shoulder-length and black. In spite of the dark, he was wearing oval, mirrored shades and an expensive-looking shirt with its sleeves rolled up over his elbows. The tail end of a black tattoo showed at the bottom of his left bicep.

On either side of him stood two girls, both with fiercely bleached hair: surf chicks. They were drunk, or high, their retinas dilated. They reminded James of some models he’d once seen in an Andy Warhol film called
Chelsea Girls
.

One of them slipped her arm round the waist of the guy with the shades, whispered something into his ear and giggled. He didn’t smile back. James slipped his backpack off his shoulders, walked to the rear of the cab and opened the boot.

The stocky guy’s face creased up. ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’

James threw his backpack into the boot and slammed it shut. ‘I was here first,’ he said, returning to the side of the cab and opening the passenger door.

‘The fuck you were, you tourist twat! I was born here. You just stepped off the train.’

Both girls laughed and the stocky guy started off round the car. James released the car door and turned to face him. He wasn’t backing down on this one. And not just because he knew he was in the right, but because a part of him wanted this, craved the adrenaline already racing through his veins.

He’d ended up in more fights than he could remember this year. Outside clubs. In bars at closing time. But every time he’d been hit, he’d felt alive. He’d felt freed from his thoughts. Oblivion. That’s what it felt like – forgetting who he was, like he was no longer even real.

He checked on the taller, sinewy guy. He hadn’t moved, but a thin, anticipatory smile had spread across his lips. James turned back and watched as the stocky guy opened the boot and removed the backpack, held it up easily with one arm as if it were packed with feathers. He stepped back, his calf muscles bulging bare beneath his long shorts.

‘You kids pack it in,’ the cab driver implored half-heartedly out of the window, but he made no attempt to get out.

‘Keep out of it,’ the stocky guy said, before looking back at James who hadn’t taken his eyes off him.

‘Put it down,’ he said, nodding towards his backpack. ‘Now.’

The stocky guy just shook his head again and moved back a couple of paces. ‘Come and get it,’ he challenged with a sneer.

‘Get in,’ the other guy said.

James turned to see he already had the door open on the other side of the cab. He pushed the two girls inside.

James spun back to face the stocky guy and lunged for his backpack. Only it was already moving fast towards him and hit him full in the face before he could duck.

He lost his footing, fell. His backpack burst open as he furiously threw it aside and struggled to his feet, scattering his clothes and possessions all around.

He looked for the stocky guy but the cab was already moving, its nearside passenger door swinging closed, with the stocky guy already inside. A drumming of fists on glass. A flash of teeth as the stocky guy howled with laughter.

Furious, James chased the red glow of the tail lights. But it was no good. The cab pulled out into the main road and swung right. He glimpsed the guy in the shades in profile. He turned to James and slowly saluted him with his middle finger. Then the cab roared off into the night.

James blinked, suddenly at a loss. With no one here to vent his anger on, he felt stupid, and every inch the fool they clearly thought he was.

He turned away from the road, stooped to the ground and began to collect his things up and stuff them back into his backpack.

‘You done?’ a voice said.

What now? James thought, his blood running hot. Had those dickheads come back to hassle him again?

He reached for a pair of jeans, encrusted with dirt, and forced them down between the open zip of the backpack, then slowly stood, fists clenched, this time determined to put up a hell of a lot more of a fight.

‘Hurry up. I haven’t got all night.’

Ten feet away was the shape of a blacked-out Land Rover. In the front was the silhouette of a man, face featureless in the shadows. James straightened up. What was this, persecute a tourist week? He’d had enough. He’d been stitched up for a taxi and now some random passer-by was having a pop?

‘What’s your problem?’ he said, marching over to the car.

‘My problem?’ the driver echoed, his voice shifting into familiarity along with his features as James drew near. ‘My problem is that I’ve got a nephew who gets his arse kicked by a couple of local brats within an hour of getting into town.’

James stopped. He peered through the darkness. Then came the sound of a wheel spinning across a flint, and there was light. The driver raised the flame to his face, torched the cigarette which protruded from his lips. He turned his bearded face towards James as the flame disappeared, leaving his features cowled in darkness once more.

‘Alan?’ James asked. ‘Uncle Alan? Is that you?’

‘How many other bloody uncles have you got?’

The ignition fired and the noise of the Land Rover’s diesel engine dismissed any thought of a reply from James’s mind. He stood motionless for a second, lost for an appropriate reaction. Then he turned, collected his backpack, tugged its zip tight and walked back to the Land Rover. He climbed into the passenger seat and slung the backpack behind him. He watched a bony wrist slide out towards the gear lever and shift it into position.

‘Better put your belt on,’ Alan warned, hunching forward and peering through the windscreen, as if there were a storm raging outside that only he could see.

James did as instructed. And just as well. Alan rammed his foot down on the accelerator and squealed the car round in a semi-circle, before grinding its gears and roaring out on to the main road.

James gripped the sides of his seat, like an apprehensive kid on a fairground ride, and held tight. He watched the streets of the town flash by and fade, as the Land Rover crested the hill at the back and plunged into the twisting country lanes beyond, headlights tunnelling a path through the dark.

James didn’t want to think about what was going on. Not about the car’s tyres carving out the dirt at the bottom of the hedges. Not about the brambles that shrieked across the paintwork and scratched like cats’ claws across the windows. Not about the speedometer’s needle flickering further round the dial. And not about the blind bends they were reeling into, time and time again.

He didn’t want to think about any of these things. And nor did he want to address the question which kept popping into his head. He didn’t want to address it because he knew he didn’t have an answer as to why he was sitting in this car, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, being driven by a relative who, if the stink of alcohol on his breath was anything to go by, had completely lost his mind.

Blank it out. Make it disappear.

James concentrated on his hands, felt them digging further into the seat, grasping for support and security, as if he were locked in a dentist’s chair, waiting for the drill to kick into its high-pitched whine and electrocute his nerves.

As another blind bend flashed into view, James closed his eyes against the fear of death.

But it was still death that his mind locked on all the same.

*

It had been a quieter and altogether more civilised Alan who’d met James when he’d stepped off the train at Grancombe in January, only six months before, on the day on Monique’s funeral.

He’d been waiting on the platform, a bulky waterproof buttoned up tightly against the fierce coastal gale which whistled past the stationary train. His face had been grey as ash, but clean-shaven. His hair had been short and neat.

‘Good journey, I hope.’ He’d said it like he’d been reading from a script. He hadn’t looked James in the eyes.

James hadn’t minded. He’d recognised the physical signs of grief that had characterised his own reflection for so long after his parents’ death: the spider’s web of red blood vessels woven across the whites of the eyes; the swollen sacs of grey below; and the deep furrows in the skin above that looked as though they’d been carved with a knife.

He had tried instead to think of something to say, a phrase that would adequately convey the sympathy he felt for this man. But all he could think of was his own reaction to the hollow words his friends had attempted to salve his misery with after the accident which had stolen his parents from him for good.

Words meant nothing at times like these. Only the look. Only the look of shared pain in another person’s eyes. It let you know you weren’t alone.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. There is nothing else to say.’

Alan nodded. He swallowed hard. ‘I know.’ He looked up into the sky. Rain ran down his cheeks and dripped from his chin, like tears. ‘Come on,’ he said, turning away. ‘Let’s get to the car. If we stay here any longer, we’ll drow—’

It was too late. The word hadn’t even left his mouth, but it was still too late.

Drown.

Alan ground to a halt, James’s bag slowly slipping from his grip. His eyes closed and he stood immobilised, like an automaton in which the mechanism had ground to a halt.

Alan’s wife, Monique, had drowned. It had happened the week before. On New Year’s Day

She’d been caught by the undertow off South Beach and had been dragged beneath the cold, dark waves, out of Alan’s present and into his past. Into another world.

From the phone conversation which had brought James here from the friend’s house he’d been staying at for the Christmas holidays, and the news articles he’d subsequently looked at on the net, he already knew the details.

Leaving Alan in their bed, Monique had dressed in her swimming costume, had wrapped up warm in a tracksuit and had taken her towel and walked – as she’d walked each New Year’s Day for the fifteen years she’d lived here with Alan – across the fields, through the woods and down the cliffside path which led to South Beach. Here she’d placed her towel and clothes on the beach and had walked across the sand to the sea.

Her body had been found two hours later, bobbing against the rocks at the foot of the cliff. She’d been spotted by a tourist out walking, clambering over the rock pools that the tide had left exposed, trying to work off the alcoholic excesses of the night before with a dose of fresh sea air.