Frozen (11 page)

“
My
—fuckin'—
money
!” His voice was soft. His teeth were clenched. “
Mine
. Understand?” He grabbed the back of Adam's shirt and hauled him partly upright. Then he buried his fist in his solar plexus. Adam collapsed, his mouth a rigid O, his eyes bulging. His father heaved another half-hearted kick at his back. “Nick my fuckin' dosh—would ya? Ya little fuckin' shit!” Adam still hadn't managed to pull in a breath. His whole body convulsed. His dad ripped his belt out of its loops, wrapped the buckle end round his hand, and slashed the other across Adam's back, bending savagely into each stroke—no pause, relentlessly, each blow crisp and moist, snap, snap, snap, snap.

“Stop it!” I yelled.

Trust me, I didn't mean to. The words ripped out of me before I could prevent it. I stood there, clenched and trembling, ready to run. He stopped beating Adam, and scowled at me blankly. “Who the fuck are you? Fuck off!”

I stayed—quaking, but I stayed. He hefted the belt and straightened to face me. At the same time, Adam gulped his first breath, a huge inwards groan, and the man turned his attention back to his son. He had forgotten the belt; instead, he grabbed a handful of Adam's hair and pulled him to his feet. He bent until his stubbly cheek was next to Adam's face.

“My money, boy.
Mine
. That was very, very bad.
My—fuckin'—dosh
.” He straightened, glared at me, and then yanked Adam by the hair and dragged him towards the house. Adam staggered forwards. After a few steps, his father snarled in frustration at Adam's slow pace, let go of his hair, and jerked his knee hard into Adam's stomach. Adam collapsed again, and lay twitching spastically in the grass, the muscles in his jaw and neck roped and rigid as he strained for air.

His eyes caught mine, and stayed locked there despite his body's convulsions. His face was smeared with tears and snot and puke. And there was something in his look—something that had nothing to with fear or pain, something that had to do with the fact that I was
there
: terrified, but there. I shot him a panicked look that, I hope, showed him that I had done what I could, and that I hoped... but, of course, there was not much hope for Adam just then. So all I hoped was that it would be over soon. And in between the twitches and gasps and spasms, with his eyes still fixed on mine, I saw him try to nod—and almost succeed.

Then his father's hand was in his hair again, hauling him upright. I watched him drag my friend away, Adam still moaning and retching. What else could I do?

I went into the house. Gabriel was in the living room, slumped in a shabby armchair, looking vaguely at the window. His face was slack, his eyes blank.

The police never came. They only come if someone calls them.

*

I found Verity at the treehouse.

I clambered up a drooping branch, and along the tree's broad limb. I walked around boards, and sat next to her without a word.

She was hugging her knees, resting her chin on them, rocking back and forth. Eleven pictures ran in a row along the powder-green boards, all from different angles, all of the same moment. Verity in mid-leap, screaming.

“These are the only ones that're any good,” she said.

The leaves whispered in the twilight, the sky reddened. Overhead the clouds were a luminous grey. I waited.

“I didn't want it to happen,” she said.

I nudged a photo, neatening the line.

She picked it up, frowned at it, put it back. “It was just for fun. It was supposed to be fun. I didn't mean it. I didn't.”

We sat.

“Going to Dad's this weekend,” I mumbled. “Still got to pack. Going to be late. You?” I was dreading her answer. She shrugged and picked at a splinter on one of the boards.

“See Adam. Maybe swim. Do photos. It's his turn.”

A sigh rippled the hornbeam's outer branches.

“I'd rather be here,” I said. “With you. ‘Specially 'cause...”

She glanced at me sideways, and kept picking. Then she unclasped her knees and sat cross-legged. Her bare knee touched mine, resting on it. I sat motionless, terrified to move.

“Yeah,” she whispered softly. She peeled a sliver of wood away from the board, and threw it over the edge. It spun slowly as it fell.

She leaned over to adjust a photo, putting her hand on my thigh to support herself. Her hips rose slightly, and her T-shirt pulled away from the back of her neck. I saw fine hairs, the jagged bumps of her spine. A gap opened between her shirt and her skirt at the back, a finger's width—not enough to see, but enough to imagine. My hands were rooted to the rough wood behind me. She pushed herself upright using my leg. Her hand stayed a beat, and then she let it slide gently off. Our hips were touching, just, and our thighs were pressed together. Her leg was cool and smooth. Something without a scent came from her skin, something I still cannot name. I breathed it in and held it.

“’Specially what?” She traced a circle on my knee.

“What?” I spoke clumsily, but her finger still drifted over my knee.

'You said you wanted to be here specially 'cos of something.'

'Adam,' I blurted.

She stopped. Thoughtfully she took away her hand and rested it back on her own bare leg. We were still touching, but now she looked out towards the shimmering wall of leaves, which hid us from the world outside.

“Not the—not his dad,” I babbled. “Just—
him
. He likes you.”

“So?” Her voice was remote.

“Just
because
.”

I was defeated.

We sat again in silence. I found a splinter of my own and picked at it fitfully. She watched the leaves shiver in the light. Then, still looking outwards, she leaned against me, and her head settled against my shoulder. I nuzzled her, and she turned her face to meet me.

We kissed.

When our muscles spasmed with the effort of staying upright, we lay back, our mouths pressed together. I was lost in her. The creamy sharp taste of her teeth, the scent of her cheek, the strange bumps and curves of her body against mine. I inched my hand towards her breasts, and she wriggled to bring them closer with a little grunt of approval, sliding her tongue over mine. I groped the closest one clumsily, unsure what I was doing. Encouraged, I slid my hand down over her belly, towards where my leg was wedged between hers. She rose towards me at first, then she grunted—meaning no, this time. I pretended not to notice. She shook her head, grunted again; but her mouth still pushed hotly against mine, and I felt the soft skin at her waist, and my fingertips were just slipping under the band of her skirt —

“Harry!”

She shoved me away roughly, and slapped my cheek. Hard.

I rolled off her and hunched sulkily, facing away. I could hear her straightening herself; clothes being tugged, legs and skirt dusted off.

“Harry?”

I didn't turn, but we both knew it was only a matter of time. When I looked, she was standing at the edge of the treehouse, where the long branch led out and down. I could see her breathing, light and rapid. I could see her waist where her shirt hung loose, air against her skin, her long bare legs. She was holding her shoes. She bit her lower lip, and her eyes creased. Her cheeks were warm, her eyes alive. “See you soon, Harry,” she said quietly.

And she ran away along the branch.

I waited as long as I dared before leaving. Already, I could see the moon. When I got home, I would be late and Mum would scream at me, and I would have to pack, and Dad would bark at me for making him wait. It didn't matter. We kissed. I could still taste her, a coolness on the roof of my mouth.

I hugged myself, and let myself shiver with the thrill of it.
We kissed
. And on Monday I would see her again.

And as she ran off through the woods, I heard her happy laughter.

ADAM WAITED BY the hospital lifts, and I went in alone.

Somehow I'd been expecting her to have changed. She hadn't. I had forgotten what she really looked like. I had been chewing away at the
idea
of her fall; I remembered the starch and the whiteness, I remembered her immobility, and the machines, patiently pumping a thin substitute for life. I had developed an image of clinical perfection, of Verity in unblemished repose. The reality, of course, was... messy. The bruises had spread a little; flowers of purple and brown blossomed on her skin. I found the thought horrifying, a sci-fi nightmare; she was being slowly consumed by some cold alien thing—too much pulp fiction when I was young, perhaps, but it was unnerving nonetheless. She was terribly swollen, more so than before. Her skin was puffed and shiny, warm under the hot lights. She was ugly and broken, and the tube into her throat must hurt, and those bruises...

Brownish liquid seeped through her bandages and stained the sheets.

I had been thinking of things to say. I wanted words to whisper in her ear, to bring hope, perhaps to bring her back. My first glimpse of her ripped away that fantasy. There was the stench of disinfectant, there were encrusted bandages, the jerks of the machine that gave her breath. Damaged goods.

I bent and kissed her forehead, barely touching her for fear of pressing on her swollen skin. I imagined the heat of her injuries radiating on to my face. I whispered to her: “It's all right, Verity. It's all okay. Shh.”

Yeah, Harry. Right.

I left her bag and the zoetrope with the nurses, and went to find Adam, my lips and face still hot. He led me wordlessly to the car, and we set off.

*

259 => Eastbourne
, Verity's Filofax said.
R turn—BIRLING GAP, B Gap Hotel, thatched bar, 3.30
. We were coming the other way, from Eastbourne rather than towards it, but Birling Gap was easy enough to find on the map. The hospital was on the outskirts of Eastbourne, so we headed through the town to the coast, and then turned right along the seafront.

Eastbourne was like a seedier version of the promenades of the French Riviera. I had visited Cannes and Nice on a cycling holiday as a student. They, too, had a pink pavement lined with palm trees; they, too, had a parade of grand hotels with sea views; they even offered the same glimpses down the side-roads of eateries, and stalls stacked high with inflatable beach toys, T-shirts, and postcards. But here it was fish and chips, the postcards were gaudy and saucy, and the palm trees were tired and stunted. There was a pier on stilts with a wood and glass pavilion perched on top. There were ice cream vans and queues of children hopping barefoot on the hot pavement. Beyond the balustrade, the sea was chalk-green and restless.

The town ended where the road met rising ground. We looped upwards through a series of switchbacks, in the shade of the dense woodland that covered the hillside; then, suddenly, we broke out onto the high rolling grassland of the Sussex Downs.

Everywhere was bright and bleak. The low hills and shallow valleys were rounded smooth and grassy, unrelieved by trees or hedges. The grass rippled ceaselessly, and when I glimpsed a solitary man walking a dog, I could see that a savage wind was ripping at him. Inside the car's safe shell, I felt nothing.

Half a mile later, there was a pub by the road—“Beachy Head” was written over the door in large gold lettering, with a pebble-dash exterior, and a huge car park was packed to overflowing. As we ghosted past, my eyes caught a phone kiosk by the roadside, with a green sign next to it —

THE SAMARITANS

Always there, day or night

—and a number to ring.

I wondered if Adam was right, that I should have waited before coming here. Verity had been here. Had she seen that sign?
Verity, you should have called them
.
Or me
.

Further on there was a lay-by, and a path rising to a lighthouse on a hilltop. Metal letters on a gate near the road declared it as the Belle Toute Lighthouse. It had vanished from sight round a curve before I made the connection: the police had told me that her car had been found there; this was where she had fallen.

Another mile, and the land sank again towards the sea. At the road's lowest point, a row of grey cottages hunched against the wind along one side of a large gravel car park. Three cars were parked in it; it could have held three hundred. Opposite the cottages, a low building sprawled along the car park's edge. Beyond, there was an assortment of wooden shacks and barns. A discreet sign announced this as the Birling Gap Hotel. We parked between the cottages and the hotel, at the edge of a low cliff: beyond was the sea, a wide expanse, foamed and heaving, flanked by rising headlands in both directions.

Tucked away round a corner from the hotel's main entrance was a doorway signed “the Thatched Bar, and Oak Room Family Restaurant.” I truly did not want to go in there, so I stared out to sea instead.

Although he wisely said nothing, I was aware of Adam studying me. I ignored him. But I knew what he wanted to say—and I couldn't stand there forever, in any case—so eventually I answered his implied question.

“Yes, Ads, I'm still sure,” I muttered. “Come on, then.” He gestured for me to go first. I pulled open the door.

The Thatched Bar was so called because the bar had a straw awning above it. The room was low-ceilinged, with dark beams and rough-rendered walls. It had been decorated throughout with an assortment of nineteenth-century farm implements—ploughs, harrows, and, obscurely, some disturbing-looking tongs. There was a hearth with a wood-burning stove—mercifully not lit—and near the door the inevitable fruit machine flickered incessantly in the corner of my eye. Only two of the fifteen or so tables were occupied: at one, a family of four, looking sunburnt and disillusioned, and in a far corner a couple sitting opposite each other, uncomfortably examining their drinks, glancing up and then back down, as though summoning the courage to talk to each other—divorce, I thought, or the first day of an affair. I assumed the pub was aimed at the holiday trade, but it was two o'clock, in high season, and there were just six people in there, eight if you included Adam and me, and two were underage.

“Sorry, love, no food.” The girl behind the bar peered at us through the gloom. She pointed unhelpfully to a sign—
Food Served Until Two-Thirty
—and then to a clock behind the bar. It was nearly three. She seemed pleased by her announcement.

I didn't want food. I wanted answers, but Adam had other plans. “So, how do we persuade you?” He grinned at her.

“What did you have in mind, darling?” She dimpled back at him, and swept her hair behind her ear. She was young, probably not yet twenty, and plump. Her green gingham pinafore was stained.

“Ah...” Adam frowned seriously. “Well, I'm married, so I'm afraid our options are a bit limited. I could offer you the price of a sandwich?”

She giggled and twirled her hair again.

“Any old thing'll do,” he urged, sounding earnest and cheerful at the same time. “We're starving. Been on the go for hours.”

“Oh, go on, then.” She twinkled at him. “Cheese sandwich, do you? Chef's gone.”

Adam grinned. Her cheeks dimpled again, and she headed for the kitchen, hips swaying.

I don't know how Adam does it. I know I can't, though; if I had tried to persuade her, she would have dug her heels in. Then I'd have got ratty with her, she would have insisted that rules were rules... Adam had no such trouble.

“And some drinks, please, love,” he called after her. “One bitter, one lager.” She came back, pulled the pints, and then bustled off. Adam chuckled.

We sat with our pints, comfortably silent. I thought about the promised cheese sandwich, and realised that I was very hungry indeed. It must have been lunchtime the day before that I'd last eaten, waiting outside the Carlisles' house. The trouble was, every time I thought of Verity a cold nausea swept through me, and my appetite vanished. I tried to picture Verity walking in, but couldn't. This dingy pub seemed such an inappropriate place for her. It had been only hours before the fall. What had she been thinking? Feeling?

“Cheer up, love, it might never happen.” The girl dumped our sandwiches on to the table. “Here you go.”

I bolted down a mouthful. Grated cheese and raw onion on pre-sliced white bread; I was so hungry it tasted almost good. I shook my head vigorously. “Already has happened.”

“Ooh, love, I am sorry,” she said, as though she knew exactly what I meant and fully understood. She widened her eyes into a cliché of attentive sympathy. Then, without pause: “Hey, you're not going to jump, are you?”

Adam sniggered, and then looked solemn. I stared at her. She looked surprised.

“No,” I said carefully. “Thanks, but no. I'm not jumping.”

“Good, 'cause I hate that. They all come here, you know—well, some of them. It's only five minutes' drive, did you know that?” I frowned. She gave an impatient grimace. “Beachy Head,” she explained. “The drop. People jump off it. Top themselves.” She scooped up my empty glass with a neat, satisfied movement. She looked expectantly at Adam. He knocked down the rest of his beer and asked for two more. “Had one in the other day, as it goes,” she said cheerfully, and flounced off. I glanced at Adam, who raised an eyebrow speculatively. We grabbed our sandwiches and shuffled after her.

“Um, excuse me?” I called. “Did you say you had one in? It wasn't on Wednesday, by any chance?”

She set down our empty glasses, and leaned on the bar conspiratorially. “A woman,” she said. “Not your usual type. Mostly it's men of a certain age, know what I mean?” She laughed merrily—at Adam, I noticed. She wasn't really talking to me at all.

“This woman,” I pressed. “Was she in her thirties? Big brown eyes, about this tall, dark hair?”

“Could be.” The girl shrugged. “Did you know her, then?”

“She's a friend. Was. Is. We're... we were close.”

But not close enough for her to call.

She winced. “Well, it has already happened, then, hasn't it? Sorry I asked.” She turned to go—embarrassed, perhaps.

“No. Wait,” I called hastily. “She was here, wasn't she? I mean, you saw her?”

She picked up a glass and started to polish it, looking at me appraisingly. Adam came to the rescue. “Same again, please, love,” he reminded her. He gave her his best smile. “And how about something for you?” He grinned warmly, and waved a twenty-pound note.

She looked at it like a bird eyeing a scrap of bread. “Ooh, ta, love, I'll have a Bacardi.”

Courtship ritual completed, she talked as she prepared the drinks. “She came in about three. Dressed all scruffy with a big black bag. Had a vodka on the rocks, a double. I thought,
Aye-aye, we've got one here
—'cause that's a big drink for a Wednesday afternoon and she was on her own. They do that, you know.”

She enjoyed this, I realised. It made her interesting, in her own eyes at least. I hated her for it. She made the poor people who came here sound more like commodities than individuals with shattered lives and an intolerable burden of pain.

The people on the other side of the pub left. The father called out a cheery “Thank you,” which the barmaid ignored. The other family members looked grim.

“Anyway,” the girl continued. “She just sits there listening to one of them Walkman thingies. Winding and rewinding. She's staring straight ahead and playing this tape. So I goes over and strikes up a bit of chat. Got to get them talking, see?” She tucked her chin against her neck, as though the story was a little too rich even for her. “And she's really sniffy. Says to mind my own business. Straight out. Says she's fine.” She sounded indignant. “She wasn't, though, was she?”

“A tape-player?” Adam said, puzzled.

“Mine,” I said. Verity had given it to me for my thirtieth. She had asked to borrow it a couple of months ago. Apparently she wanted to make some recordings of “real life” for her next show; she needed a tape-recorder small enough to go unnoticed. I hadn't had the heart to ask her to return it. Too late now.

Adam frowned. “What was she playing?”

“Well,
I
don't know, do I?” She gaped at Adam as though he was an idiot. “She'd got those earplugs, hadn't she?”

“Of course. But was it music? Classical, pop?”

Adam knew more about human nature than I did—I'd have taken her denial at face value—but she answered him. “I told you, I don't know, do I?” She rolled her eyes impatiently. “Not music, though. Speaking. Someone talking.”

I was baffled. Verity had said she wanted to record the sounds of the city—traffic and sirens and pigeons and tube trains; I couldn't imagine why she'd need the sound of someone talking for her show, particularly given the theme. “Damaged Goods.” Verity, here, waiting out her last hours, alone in this abandoned place, listening to... what?

“So, when did she come in?” Adam's question jolted me back to the girl.

“Must've been after three, 'cause I'd just closed the bar. Had to open up again.” She shrugged unhelpfully.

“Did she stay long?”

“Only three bloody hours, and just the one drink all that time. Cheap, if you ask me.”