The path from the sand dunes to the beach winds down among huge blocks of concrete. Tank traps – ‘dragon’s teeth’ – left over from the last war. Some of them are buried in the sand, with only three or four inches showing above ground. When he first came here, he was only a year or two older than Jasper, and jumping along the line of dragon’s teeth had been a triumph. Not that they were very far apart, but the sand was fine and silky and every surface you landed on was slippy.
Further along the beach, where winter storms have eroded the shore, there are the massive blocks that stand out uncompromisingly square and bleak. Narrow slits of machine-gun emplacements look out over the shelving sands towards the sea. When Gareth was little he used to like playing in them, though you nearly always hurt yourself, clambering over the rocks that choked the entrance, and even when you got inside there were only chip cartons, beer cans, a smell of piss. Condoms too, though he didn’t know what they were then. He picked one up once and ran back with it to Gran, trying to blow it up because he thought it was a balloon. Gran nearly had a fit.
He stands on the beach now, barefoot, with the waves creaming over his feet, feeling how much older he is, inclined to be contemptuous of his younger self. Behind him are the slit eyes of the bunkers and he feels sand slip beneath his toes, the land squirming away into the sea, as the tide pulls back. When the tide’s right out, even further than it is now, it uncovers rock pools, and you can find things in them, little grey-green crabs hiding under the seaweed. He liked making them do things, switching them from pool to pool, or marooning them far up the beach and watching them try to crawl back. You squat down and look into the pool and it’s a bit like Jurassic Park – you’re like a dinosaur looking through a car window at the helpless squealing wriggling pink kids inside.
He wants to be with the others, it’s not much fun on your own. He wades back through the sea, knee-deep, it’s easier than struggling through the sand. It might look as if he’s paddling, but he isn’t, he’s just walking with his feet in the water.
They’ve moved closer to the sea. Mum and Miranda are building a sand castle with a large moat round it, though they’re wasting their time, anybody can see the tide’s going out. Jasper’s fascinated. He wants to help, but when he tries, patting the top of a turret, it collapses and Miranda has to start again.
‘Just let him pat the bottom of the bucket,’ Mum says.
Miranda does as she’s told. Jasper squeals with delight.
‘I’ll get some ice-cream,’ Nick says. ‘Cornets everybody?’
He strides away up the beach. Gareth knows he’ll take a few minutes sitting on the sea wall, having a quiet smoke before he comes back. Might even sneak off for a pint, it’s been known.
Gareth finds an empty coke can, half buries it in the sand, about thirty feet from where they’re sitting, and starts lobbing stones at it.
‘Mind Jasper,’ Mum says.
He’s nowhere near bloody Jasper. Suddenly angry, he kicks sand in the direction of Miranda, who stops what she’s doing and looks up through the tangle of her hair. Something about her expression startles him. He understands suddenly that if Miranda did what she wanted she’d knock the sand castle over and jump up and down on the ruin. She’d scream and shout and kick sand into all their faces. She doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t do anything, but then she never does, only he sees her wanting to, and he backs away. She’s no right to feel like that. He’s the one who wants to smash things.
‘If you can’t play properly,’ Mum says, ‘just go away.’
Play. That just about sums it up. All at once the eyes are back, clustering on his head and neck. Look at Gareth playing sand-pies with his baby brother.
He turns away from Mum’s accusing look, Jasper’s stupid blue-eyed stare, Miranda’s sudden unexpected ferocity, and starts walking along the sand towards the cliffs.
‘What about your ice-cream?’ Mum calls after him.
‘Don’t want it.’
He keeps his head down, doesn’t look back.
The cliffs have warning notices with pictures of falling rock. He doesn’t care. He looks up, squinting into the sun, which is still fierce, and sees how, at the top of the cliffs, grass stems score the sky and seagulls soar far above with sunlight on their wings.
Cutting into the cliffs there’s a deep ravine, lined with wet ferns and mosses; a brown stream meanders between mossy stones out over the beach and down towards the sea.
Gareth starts to climb, clinging to the ferns, stepping from ledge to ledge, his feet wet on slippery stones. As he climbs higher the moss and fern give way to clumps of bleached grass, dry and pale as straw. He catches hold of a clump and stifles a cry of surprise as the grass cuts him. There’s a smear of blood on his palm which he squeezes to make more, then sucks away.
Further along a gull watches him with shameless naked amber eyes. He flaps his hand at it, and reluctantly, heavily, it takes off, sweeping down towards the beach, so that he sees its back and its stretched-out wings, darker than the underside, and he’s almost dizzy with the thought that he’s above the gulls. They’re flying below him.
The sound of the waves turning over on the shore comes more faintly here. The seagulls mew and yelp. He feels like one of them, crouched on the narrow ledge, with his legs dangling over the edge. It’s safe enough, as long as you keep still. But he’s surprised himself, climbing as far up as this. It’s not the sort of thing he usually does, and it opens a sort of door in his mind. If he can do this he can do anything.
He watches Nick carrying the ice-creams back to the family, stepping cautiously, the cornets clasped in his hands, looking down at them. He looks so small, so insect-like, toiling over the vast expanse of white, that Gareth feels superior. He doesn’t know I’m here, he thinks. He doesn’t know I’m watching him. And he feels a wriggle of excitement in his stomach. He leans forward and drops a pebble over the edge, watching it bounce once, twice, on jutting-out bits of rock before it hits the beach. They’re all eating ice-creams. He doesn’t care. When they’re finished he sees Mum and Nick lie down side by side, Nick’s arm thrown across her. Miranda wanders off towards the town. Jasper’s playing with his sand castle, blundering about, knocking it down.
Cautiously Gareth looks up at the top of the cliff, wondering if he could climb all the way up. But craning up at the blue-white sky makes him dizzy. He clutches the rocks on either side of him, but they crumble in his hands, and he feels more frightened than if he hadn’t tried to hang on to anything. He presses himself back against the cliff face, feeling sick and dizzy, knowing he’s gone pale. It’s nothing. After a while he’s able to look down again. It’s funny, looking up makes him go dizzy and looking down doesn’t.
He closes his eyes, feeling the cliff wall against the back of his head, and immediately a voice says in his ears ‘Skid marks!’ It’s like he’s turned into a Mama doll; except when he closes his eyes the voice doesn’t say ‘Mama’. That’ll be his nickname all the time now. As long as he goes to that school, and everybody who hears it for the first time’ll say, Why’s he called that? And she’ll tell them, the big fat ugly stupid slag’ll just fucking tell them. He wishes she was dead. He wishes he could kill her, but it wouldn’t be any use just killing her, he’d have to kill them all. He can’t even remember how many there were. He just hears the voices. Skid marks! Skid marks! Skid marks!
Miranda’s disappeared behind the dragon’s teeth now, Mum and Nick lie stretched out on the sand. Nick’s taken his shirt off and folded his arms on his chest like a crusader knight except that his feet aren’t crossed. Mum’s resting her hands on her stomach like she always does. Her face is broad and blind, obviously asleep. With Nick you can’t tell, but Gareth thinks he must be asleep too, he lies so still.
Jasper goes and stands over them, nudging Mum’s arm. When she doesn’t move he stands for a bit longer and Gareth can tell by the way his face screws up that he’s nearly crying.
Jasper squats down in the sand a
little way from Mummy and Daddy, poking about with a lolly stick. The sand’s hard and damp here. Further up, where Mummy and Daddy are, it’s pale and silky. When you go from this bit to that bit you get the other sort of sand stuck to your feet. There’s another lolly stick further on, and when he gets that one there’s another, and he sees a castle with lots of lolly sticks on top.
Jasper’s wandered away from Mum and Nick now, he’s coming towards the cliff. He looks very small and pink, trotting along, like a piglet. It’s funny he doesn’t know Gareth’s there. Every now and then he stops and picks something up. At first Gareth can’t see what it is, but then realizes Jasper’s collecting lolly sticks. As he gets closer Gareth hears him chuntering to himself, the way he usually does when he’s playing. Doesn’t make sense.
The sun’s mercilessly hot against the cliff face. There’s no escape, no shadow. Jasper’s shadow’s like a black rag fluttering round his feet. He’s coming towards the cleft in the rocks where the stream is. Gareth nearly calls out, but then decides he won’t. It’s more fun watching what Jasper does, without being seen.
Jasper’s trying to throw the lolly sticks into the stream – he wants them to be boats – only his idea of throwing’s to put both arms behind his head and bring them forwards together. He doesn’t know when to let go, so either the lolly stick lands on the ground at his feet because he’s held on to it too long, or it drops behind him because he’s let go too soon. He does it again now and topples over. He’s not hurt, but he cries anyway and then when Mum doesn’t come running he stops and tries again. This time he gets the stick into the stream and squats on his shadow, watching it bob along. Then he gets tiny little pebbles and throws them at the stick. Now he’s got his boat he wants to sink it. Gareth leans forward to see what he’s doing and in the process sends a small stone skittering down the cliff face, starting a little avalanche of other stones as it falls. Jasper looks round – too late, and in the wrong direction – but bombing the lolly boat’s too fascinating and he quickly goes back to that.
Gareth keeps very quiet and still while Jasper’s looking round, searching. The sun’s hurting his eyes, he feels sick. Part of him wants to join Jasper by the stream, to show him how to sail the boats, they could have a whole fleet and sink the lot, but something, some desire to spite even himself, makes him stay where he is. He’s sweating all over. Sweat stings his eyelids, he closes them for a moment and immediately the voices start. Skid marks! Skid marks!
Further along the beach, Fran mutters in her sleep, Nick turns towards her, but doesn’t wake.
*
Gareth claws up a handful of small stones and starts throwing them into the water, Plop, plop, plop. The plops attract Jasper’s attention, he keeps turning, but never in the right direction. He doesn’t have the sense to work out where the stone’s coming from. It’s like playing with an ant, it’s so easy to make him do stupid things. The stones start to get bigger, make bigger plops. Jasper’s nearly spinning round, looking first one way, then another, but never up at the cliff. Gareth throws faster, reaching for stones and clumps of hard earth at random, but he’s not doing anything wrong because he’s not aiming at Jasper, he’s throwing to miss.
Suddenly the back of his neck feels as if he’s being watched. Pressure. He looks up and sees Miranda on the cliff above him. The grass and her skirt and hair are all waving in the wind. She must have seen him, but she says nothing, just stands there, black against the brilliant sky. He can’t see her face. He waits for her to speak, she must have seen him throwing stones, but she doesn’t say anything. He turns, his tongue huge and dry in his mouth, and throws again.
Jasper looks up, sees the bright air turn solid and black and hard and come hurtling towards him. A flash of sunlight reveals a dark figure on the cliff and then his head bursts open, explodes in pain and wetness, and he falls backwards, water rushing in at his mouth and nose, blood in his eyes and on his tongue.
He comes up again, hair plastered to his skull, T-shirt draped in green slime. He doesn’t look like Jasper now, he’s crying and his head’s bleeding and Gareth’s terrified of him, terrified of what he’s done, so terrified it’s easier to go on than to go back. He feels Miranda behind him, not speaking, watching, and throws again. He didn’t mean this. The stone catches Jasper on the side of his head, knocks him over and yet still he gets up. He’s got to make him stay down, stop crying, stop making that awful noise. He picks up a bigger stone, draws back his arm to throw again, but Jasper’s screaming has woken Fran.
She’s standing up, shouting ‘Jasper?’ at the top of her voice. Nick’s on his feet too, dazed with sleep, running blindly in the direction of the screams. Gareth puts the stone down, sees Jasper lying among the rocks, bleeding, then turns carefully and starts climbing down, hand over hand, holding on to clumps of grass. Once he stops and looks up, but there’s nobody on the path.
Nick runs faster than Mum, so gets to Jasper first. Gareth stands by the stream, smelling the cool dank smells, and watching Mum stumble across the pebbly sand and catch the wet bloody body into her arms.
They don’t look like real people, Gareth thinks, they look like actors on the telly. Their mouths open and shut but either no sound’s coming out or he can’t hear it. Water and blood from Jasper’s head make a big pink patch on Mum’s dress just above the bulge. When the sound comes back it comes in a burst, hurting his ears.
Nobody asks him what happened, but he tells them anyway. ‘He slipped, he slipped and hit his head on the rocks. I told him they were slippy.’
But they’re not listening, they’re too busy trying to decide what’s best to do. Jasper’s crying. There’s a lot of blood, it’s in his eyes, he looks awful. Nick probes the cut and says, ‘It’ll need stitches.’
Gareth doesn’t understand this. He can’t understand why Jasper’s crying. From the moment the first stone hit his head Gareth’s known he was dead. He was dead already after the first stone, it’s just that he wouldn’t lie down. He’d thrown the other stones out of despair because he wouldn’t stay down. He’d wanted it to be over quickly.
‘We need something to press on it,’ Nick says. ‘Gareth, can we have your T-shirt?’
He pulls it off and watches them press it against Jasper’s head. Red spreads all over the white, it takes no time at all. Gareth hugs himself, shaking in the heat, his arms goose-pimply, his nipples little wizened currants.
Miranda appears from somewhere – not down the cliff – and they all walk back to the car. Nick wants to run, Gareth can see him wanting to, but he goes slowly and steadily, and on the T-shirt wrapped around Jasper’s head the red goes on golloping up the white. In the car-park people cluster round, asking questions, giving advice, but nobody can do anything.
They get into the car, Mum sits in the back with Jasper, Miranda in the front and at last Nick can go fast. They turn out of the car-park and on to the road in a spray of gravel, and nobody nags Gareth about fastening his seat belt as they generally do.
He looks at Miranda, but she won’t look back.
FOURTEEN
Outside the casualty department there’s a notice that says: AMBULANCES ONLY PAST THIS POINT. Mum gets out with Jasper, who’s stopped crying but looks very white. He’s been sick, there’s a yellow patch on Mum’s dress now as well as blood. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ Nick says.
They find somewhere to park. It’s not difficult, there’s a space just round the corner. Nick pulls on the hand-brake. The car smells of sick. Three nurses walk past in stripy dresses and black lace-up shoes.
‘Do you want to come in?’ Nick says. ‘Yes,’ says Miranda. And Gareth says he does too, because it might look peculiar if he didn’t, and anyway he doesn’t want to be alone.
Jasper’s in a small room with a number on the door. Number four. Miranda and Gareth sit on plastic chairs in the waiting room and pretend to look at magazines. They’re facing each other. Once Gareth looks up and sees Miranda staring at him. A long hard cool stare.
She’d seen everything. She knows Jasper didn’t fall, she’s just waiting for the right moment to tell.
Gareth sits stiffly on the plastic chair, no longer pretending to look at the magazines. He puts his hands under the backs of his legs and his skin feels strange against his skin. He waits for them to come out and tell him that Jasper’s dead.
When he can’t bear waiting any more he gets up and walks along the corridor to Room Four. The door’s open. Jasper’s sitting up on a trolley in the bright light with dried blood all over his face, a thick stream of new blood moving sluggishly over it. Mum pushes the tacky hair off his forehead, Jasper’s whimpering, Mum’s nearly whimpering as well. Nick sits on a chair, his hands clasped between his knees, looking as if he wants to kill somebody. Nobody’s saying anything.
Gareth goes back to the waiting room and sits down again. Miranda looks up from her magazine, licks her finger slowly, and turns a page. After a while Nick comes out, kneels down in front of Gareth and says it’s very important for Gareth to try to remember whether Jasper lost consciousness. ‘Did he look as if he was asleep?’
‘No, he didn’t,’ Gareth says, and his voice sounds weird, it’s so long since he used it. ‘He started crying as soon as he fell down.’ He feels Miranda’s eyes on the side of his face.
Nick goes away. Five minutes later he comes out again with Jasper on a trolley. A porter’s pushing the trolley and Mum’s walking on one side and Nick on the other, and there’s a nurse in a navy-blue dress walking ahead of them with a file in her hand. Gareth won’t look at Miranda. He goes across to the window and looks out at the car-park instead.
Dr Jenner pins the X-ray to the screen. He’s explaining things, but Fran can’t take any of it in. It’s a shock to see Jasper’s skull on the screen. Somehow you slip into thinking that skulls are figments of the imagination. Long-lost murder victims in crime series on the telly, gruesome toys for Hallowe’en. This isn’t happening. There’s a dressing over the wound now, and it’s stopped bleeding. Fran bends down, puts her mouth against his silky hair, feels the heat of his scalp, smells Johnson’s baby shampoo, blood, disinfectant, the suntan oil on her arm.