Broadchurch: Old Friends (Story 3): A Series Two Original Short Story (2 page)

When Jocelyn sees the newsagent, her heart lurches in her chest; she has made a terrible mistake. When she heard
newsagent
, she instinctively thought of the tobacconists opposite the Old Bailey; the grown-up necessities of newspapers, cigarettes and travelcards, the anonymous stream of commuters and transients. This place is a toyshop. It is September but the remnants of summer stock are outside the shop; buckets and spades and shrimping nets for those brave enough to walk the beach in the autumn. What will it be like in the summer? For a few minutes, she watches in horror. No child seems able to pass the shop without tugging on a parent’s sleeve and begging for sugar. Jocelyn is not used to feeling shame but she burns with it now. She has sent Jack Marshall to grieve for his son, and come to terms with the end of his marriage, in a place that is steeped in family and childhood. What was she
thinking
? This is worse than insensitive, this is professionally dangerous. If she lets herself become insulated by her privileged London life, if she loses her empathy, she’s finished. She peers through the window into the gloomy interior.

‘Is that you?’

Jack Marshall emerges from a back entrance. Jocelyn swallows a gasp. He looks twenty years older than when last she saw him. Rowena and Simon had kept him looking young; it is as though their loss has drained him of something vital.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t think. I didn’t think it would be so …’ she gestures to the toys, the comics and the sweets. He knows what she means.

‘No, no,’ he says. ‘It’s a good business, and I need to make a living. And the shop, it’s a good way for me to find a new community. Between this place and the church, I’ve been made very welcome here. I’m grateful.’

‘If you’re sure it’s not too painful here …’

‘In a way it helps. I wouldn’t expect you to understand—’ He checks himself a second too late. It’s the first intimation Jocelyn’s had that Jack Marshall regards her the same way as everyone else, and she’s hurt. Not that she shows it. This isn’t about her.

‘How are you finding the town?’ she says carefully. ‘Any like-minded souls?’ It wasn’t meant to come across as sarcastically as it did.

The old Jack resurfaces with a snort. ‘It’s not exactly a hotbed of intellectual debate,’ he replies. ‘But maybe that’s as well. I’m not reading any more. I can’t. As for music …’ He shakes his head slowly. The silence of the songs he can’t listen to hangs between them, and Jocelyn finds herself lost for words.

A small explosion across the harbour makes both of them jump; someone has let off a flare in the little yard outside the old Methodist church hall. Boys on the cusp of primary and secondary school age, wearing what look like scout uniforms, screech in delight.

‘Oliver Stevens!’ shouts an old man, his back curved under a blue shirt. ‘If I find out that was you, you’re banned, do you understand me?’ The little mob turn to stare at a skinny kid with dark hair.

‘Sea brigade,’ says Jack quietly. ‘It’s quite a thriving little group. He’s looking for someone to take it over. I was quite the salty sea dog in my youth.’ Jack gives a watery smile, which quickly fades. ‘I was going to teach Simon to sail,’ he says.

Again, Jocelyn feels the stab of her unintentional cruelty of sending a grieving man to this place.

‘Jack!’ A child’s voice carries across the street. They turn together to see a little girl of about four – Jocelyn’s not great with ages – on the opposite pavement. She’s wearing a pink raincoat and wellies, and her wispy white-blonde hair dances in the breeze. ‘Hiya Jack!’ For a moment she seems about to cross the road on her own. There’s a car coming their way, and Jocelyn instinctively gets ready to spring forward.

‘Jesus, Chloe!’ A young man, barely out of his teens, races from behind the corner of the harbour wall to scoop the child up in his arms. ‘Don’t run off like that, you’ll give me a heart attack.’

‘Sorry, Dad,’ says Chloe, delighted with the attention. ‘Can I have a treat?’ Her eyes travel past Jack to the shop behind him.

‘Good to see you, Mark,’ says Jack. ‘How’s Beth?’

At this, a smile splits the young man’s face. ‘Ask her yourself,’ he says, as a young woman comes round the same corner. Her dark red hair is scraped back in a scrunchie and fatigue has ringed her eyes with violet, but she has the same wide smile as her – Jocelyn checks Mark’s left hand – husband.

‘It’s a boy!’ she says. ‘Three days old!’ She’s clearly blind to the pain that scores Jack’s face in the millisecond before he smiles.

‘Here, let’s bring him over, say hello properly,’ says Mark. They thrust the pram under Jack’s nose. Jocelyn feels a bollocking coming on – how dare they be so insensitive? – but she catches herself just in time. Of course no one here knows about Jack’s history. To explain Simon would be to explain Rowena, with all the prejudice that summons. The loneliness of locking out his past is the price Jack must pay for this new start.

The baby is awake, but his eyes are unfocused. He has still got that flaky, scrunched-up look of the newborn, although his dark hair is thick, standing up like the bristles on a broom. Gently, Mark lifts him out of the pram. His little legs kick reflexively at the air.

‘High hopes for this one,’ says Mark. ‘He’s gonna be a striker for Bournemouth FC.’

The mum, Beth, notices Jocelyn for the first time. ‘This is my first time out since,’ she says, looking expectantly at Jocelyn, like she’s waiting for the usual questions; did she have a good birth, what did he weigh?

Jocelyn replies with a smile. She’ll only step in to this conversation if she needs to cover for Jack. She studies him closely; he seems to be coping.

‘What are you going to call him?’ he asks.

‘Jack,’ says the little girl, to laughter from her parents.

‘No, we’re not calling him Jack,’ says Mark. ‘He’s Daniel. Danny.’

Jack disappears into the shop for a few seconds. When he comes back, there’s a chocolate bar in his palm. He raises his eyes at Beth, who nods her permission. Losing Simon clearly hasn’t robbed Jack of the unspoken language parents use to communicate with each other.

He crouches down to Chloe’s level.

‘This is for being such a good big sister,’ he says, pressing the chocolate into her hand. ‘It’s your job to look after him, you know. Keep him safe.’

‘I will,’ says Chloe solemnly, her eyes fixed on the shiny wrapper. Mark helps her unwrap it, his large fingers fumbling with the twisted paper. Jack watches closely; his eyes grow bright.

‘We’ve just come from Ellie and Joe’s,’ says Beth, and then to Jocelyn, although she hasn’t asked for details, ‘That’s my friend from ante-natal classes. I gave her the baby to hold – they reckon holding a newborn can bring on labour. She’s ten days overdue.’

‘She looks like an
egg
,’ says Chloe, through a mouthful of chocolate.

‘We’ve got our fingers crossed for a little boy for them,’ says Mark, cleaning Chloe’s fingers with a baby wipe. ‘A little mate for Danny.’

There’s a moment’s pause. The chip shop over the road has started frying for the evening; the smell of hot fat chases away the subtler, salty harbourside smells.

‘Well, we thought we’d show him the beach,’ says Beth. ‘Seeing as he’ll be spending so much time here. You’ve got to get them used to it as soon as possible, haven’t you?’

‘I’m glad he arrived safe,’ says Jack. The new parents are deaf to the crack in his voice.

The pushchair turns on a penny and off they go, Chloe riding on the back wheels.

Jocelyn is afraid to look at Jack. It is undignified enough for such a proud man to cry. He doesn’t need her to witness. She stares at her feet until she hears the shop door close. It is past seven o’clock; surely he must shut up shop around now. Gently, she turns the sign on the door to
CLOSED
.

Jack’s past is a ball and chain that he must drag behind him for ever. But this little family, their future stretches out before them, bright and endless as the shimmering blue horizon. Their path to the beach is interrupted by streams of well-wishers. They can’t go more than a few paces without people stopping to congratulate them. They seem to know everyone. After a long while, they park the pram and Beth scoops up the baby, walking carefully across the beach towards the shore, the Jurassic cliffs at their backs. Jocelyn studies the landscape of her birthplace and feels a world away from home. She breathes deeply, down to her diaphragm. It’s as though she’s trying to bank as much clean air as she can before returning to the city.

Jocelyn finds herself strangely mesmerised by the Latimers, staring without blinks. There’s a twitch in the corner of her right eye; her vision is not what it used to be. Very quickly, sooner than she would have expected, they are just dots on the sand.

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