Sea Change (3 page)

Had he seen
another flash of movement, something or someone ducking into a
doorway or around a corner? John carried on, hoping he was heading
down to the harbour, as from there he would be able to work out
where he was. As he walked, he looked behind him every few steps.
There was never anything there.

At last he
turned a corner and he could see the glitter of the sea ahead. John
walked down onto the harbour. He was on the southern half of the
bay; he could see the road that led to his sister's shop on the
other side, across the calm water. A few small boats were tied up
in the harbour, bobbing up and down next to the wall, all looking
like they had seen better days. They had small cabins, tangles of
orange or blue plastic netting on their decks, faded, splintering
paint.

He followed the
curve of the harbour round, looking down at the boats, and as his
gaze reached the north side of the bay the village suddenly came to
life. A small party of elderly tourists ambled onto the
harbourside. One of them was pointing at various things: more of
the mysterious baskets, old iron rings bolted to the harbour wall,
the breakwater. Maybe he had lived here once, John thought, been a
fisherman, taken a small boat out of the calm of the harbour and
into the choppy danger of the seas beyond the breakwater.

A man came out
of the pub and stood for a moment, jingling his keys in his hand,
before disappearing up one of the streets into the village. As John
walked towards his sister's shop, a small tabby cat uncoiled itself
from the top of a low wall and stretched towards John, its tail
raised high, making an almost silent cry. John reached forward to
stroke it but something behind him startled it and it vanished in a
second.

John spun
around, but there was nothing behind him other than the dull stone
of the harbour wall and the endlessly shifting pattern of the
waves. It felt though, not like an empty space, but a space that
was
just
empty, like a room when someone has just left it.
John felt a hot churn of panic inside, wondered: am I going mad? He
took a couple of deep breaths, and clenched his fists tight, turned
to walk away towards his sister's shop, and then there was movement
and colour, rushing towards him, seen out of the corner of his eye,
and he turned in a panic and air brushed past him and there was a
squeal of brakes and a shout and the bike came to a stop a couple
of metres beyond him, the rider turning an emergency stop into a
perfect skid.

"Hey, you
stupid, or what?"

"What?" John
said, still dazed by the sudden rush of normality.

The bike-rider
was another boy, about the same age as John. He wore a pair of
grimy jeans, a fleece top, and a beanie pulled down low over his
eyes. He pulled white headphones from his ears, let them dangle
around his neck. "Deaf as well as stupid, then. It's middle of
t'road. If I was a car you'd be splattered all over. You're lucky
I'm such a good rider, or you'd be picking bits of bike out of you
for the next week."

"Sorry, I
wasn't thinking," John said.

"I can see
that. Got a death wish, then?"

"Sorry?"

"Never met
anyone who apologises as much as you. Middle. Of. Road. You're
still in it."

"Sorry," John
said again, and then cringed. He walked off the road and on to the
pavement. The boy cruised round in a lazy circle on his bike, only
one hand on the handle bars.

"You stopping
here then? Tourist, like?"

"No," John
said. "Well, sort of."

"No, yes, sort
of. Suppose at least you didn't say sorry this time."

"Sor—" They
both laughed. "I
am
visiting, but I'm not a tourist. I've
come to stay with my sister. She lives down in the village, Coble
Street."

"Coble Street?
Who's your sister then?"

"Laura. Laura
Howard. She—"

"Runs that daft
shop selling stinky soap and bits of candles to daft tourists. Aye,
I know her. She's all right, she is."

"Yeah, she's
cool."

"Up here for
long, are you?"

"Few weeks,
yeah."

"Right.
Simon."

"Sorry?"

"Again?" The
boy wound around in a lazy circle on his bike. "Simon. Me."

"Oh, right.
John. Me."

They both
laughed. John saw movement ahead, looked up to see the dead-eyed
boy from the bus stop the day before, walking towards them, hands
in the pockets of his tracksuit, shoulders out as wide as they
could go, every step a claim of territory. Simon muttered
something, then said, "See you round", and veered away, up the
street, standing up in the saddle, pumping hard on the pedals to
get up the hill.

John walked on
towards Laura's shop, wondered if he would see Simon about again.
He seemed all right. Probably just curious though, John thought,
and not interested in some southerner tourist kid beyond that idle
curiosity. The pavement was narrow, and John stepped into the road
before he could get shouldered into it by the other boy, who walked
past him without a sideways look. I know your sort, John thought to
himself. Parker. I know your sort. I won't give you the
satisfaction. But even so, he hated himself for that one small
step, for not standing his ground.

He helped Laura
out for the rest of the afternoon, tidying up the displays of
candles that smelt of sandalwood and almonds and cinnamon, making
tea in the battered brown teapot on the single ring of an electric
cooker that looked like a child's toy, and fetching stock out of
the clutter and mess of the tiny back room. Late in the afternoon,
John wandered over to the door and looked out. The street was empty
apart from a black dog that sat on the pavement on the other side
of the road, head between its paws, watching the street. A few
minutes later he looked out again, and the dog was gone too, and
there was nothing there apart from the street, and the gathering
shadows of dusk.

Chapter
Four

When they got
home John sprawled in front of the TV watching nothing in
particular, while Laura cooked spaghetti carbonara and garlic
bread. While they ate, she talked about life in the village, and
the friends that she had made. John noticed that she mentioned
Alan, who ran the bookshop, more than anyone else. From the sound
of her voice Alan had been very important to her, a rock to which
she'd been able to cling while she put her life back together
again. She had needed someone like that, John thought. Someone not
like Steve. He washed the dishes while Laura settled down at the
kitchen table with her exercise book from the shop, a calculator,
and box files stuffed to overflowing with letters, and receipts,
and statements. He left her in peace, and fidgeted in front of the
TV again, not really interested in anything that was on. So when
Laura said, "John, will you do me a big favour?" he just said,
"Yeah," without even asking what.

She handed him
a brown envelope, addressed to her bank.

"Would you be a
darling, and run and drop this in the post box for me? There's one
up in the village that you'll have passed on your way down from the
bus stop, or there's one down by the harbour near the Ship Inn,
that's probably closer. I won't have time in the morning before
opening up the shop, but I really want it to go first post
tomorrow, I'm late enough with this as it is and the bank are
getting a bit stroppy with me."

"I'll just get
my trainers on," John said.

He wished that
he hadn't been so eager to agree to the favour, but even if he had
realised what she was going to ask he could hardly have said no.
And so you shouldn't, he thought to himself. Don't be so pathetic.
So you got spooked today, seeing things that aren't even there, and
now what, you're afraid to go out in the dark? What are you, a
baby? Carry on like this and you will end up a weird kid. Like
Alex, he thought, and he felt cold inside.

The light was
fading now, and the narrow alleys that led off from the road seemed
threatening, the dark bulk of the houses leaning in towards each
other as if they wanted to trap him, the occasional warm glowing
light in a window no comfort, as the impression of safety within
only increased the chill outside. John stuck to the main street,
even though it took longer, and followed it all the way down to the
harbour. He walked along the front, the inky black sea restless
beyond the wall, hardly visible but there in sound, the smack,
smack, smack of tiny waves breaking on the wall, the sound of spray
as the larger waves hit the breakwater. He found the post-box near
the cheerful glow and bustle of the Ship Inn, dropped Laura's
letter in, and headed straight for home.

Once, he heard
footsteps behind him, but again when he turned around there was
nobody there, just a peculiar emptiness that felt as if someone had
stepped off the street only an instant ago, ducking into a doorway
or side alley just before John turned around.

Don't you dare
run, John thought. Don't run, because you're scaring yourself over
nothing, you don't know this place and it's pretty spooky looking,
but that's all, that's all, if you run then when you get home
safely you'll feel stupid and pathetic for having been frightened
by shadows like a five year old. And so John didn't run, but he did
walk very fast, so fast that it was almost hard to tell the
difference. Then he stopped, stood still in the street, and
clenched his fists.

I will not be
frightened, he said to himself. I will not, I will not. And to
prove it he walked off the main road, and took the short cut that
he had avoided on the way down. After a minute or so he realised
that he still had his fists clenched tight together, and he
deliberately relaxed them, took a deep breath. See, he thought.
Nothing to be scared of. You're in control, John. You're not
running away any more.

He had climbed
the short hill up from the harbourside, and was twisting and
turning through the last few narrow alleys before he got to his
sister's cottage. As he came around one corner he tripped on a
loose cobble, and nearly went flying. He put a hand out on the wall
to steady himself, got his balance again, and then a voice said,
"John," and he was terribly, terribly afraid. The voice was dry, as
if the owner had not spoken for a very long time, and quiet, nearly
a whisper, a rustle like dried out parchment being slowly ripped in
two.

"John,” the
voice said again, and this time John saw where it came from.
Sitting on the low wall of a cottage garden was an old man. At
least, John thought that he was old because of the sound of his
voice, and because of the way his shape was shrunken and slightly
twisted. He could not see him properly because the garden wall was
overshadowed by the cottage and was even darker than the rest of
the alley. And because everything seemed much darker than it had,
just a minute before.

"Don't be
afraid, John," the man said, and the way he moved his arms as he
spoke made John think about the way that spiders walk.

"How do you
know my name?" John asked, and he hated the way his voice
wavered.

The old man
ignored the question. "I am here to help you, John. To give you
something. And to take some other things away."

"What? What
things?"

There was a
sigh from the shadows, and it was like the sound of the sea pulling
back over the shingle. Fingers of mist reached out and touched
John’s cheek.

"You are
troubled, boy. The things that have happened to you are still with
you."

How do you know
all this? How do you know me? What do you want? But John could not
make the words come out. He stood frozen in the alley, wanting to
run, not able to move. The mist curled around him. It smelt of
rotting seaweed and dead leaves.

"You must help
me," the old man said. "You have to get something for me that I
cannot get for myself. Do this, and you will prove you are not the
coward you fear you are. You don't want to be this—" John felt
rather than saw the old man gesture towards him with long
fingers—"nervous boy, jumping at his own shadow. It is your choice.
You could become so much more. Or...you could become so much less.
Like your friend Alex."

It was the name
that did it. How could this man know about Alex? The name unfroze
John, gave life to his legs again. There was a coldness in the old
man's voice that belied his promises, that made them seem false and
hollow. But how did he know Alex’s name? The old man spoke
again.

"You do not
want that John, because Alex is not happy now. Not happy at all.”
There was a rustling sound, which John thought was a laugh. “If you
are in doubt as to whether you should help me or not, I could bring
him to you, and you could ask him for yourself."

That was
enough. John ran, skidding away around the corner, lungs burning
for the breath that would not come. Something had changed in John's
world, and nothing would ever be quite the same again.

He ran, legs
burning, lungs burning, arms flailing, left then right then left
again, not looking where he was going, just running, running. A
couple of times he nearly fell, skidding on a wet step, tangling
through a stack of lobster pots, but he kept his balance and kept
on running.

Eventually, he
could not run any more, and he stopped, in the middle of a dark
alley that smelt of wet stone. He looked behind him, but there was
no-one there. He had not heard the old man chasing him, he was sure
that no-one as bent and thin as that could have kept up with him,
but still he looked behind. As he got his breath back, John
realised that he didn't have a clue where he was, and again he felt
the hot hand of panic gripping deep inside him.

He took a deep
breath, and then another, trying to force the fear down into a
place where he could control it. It's only a village, he thought.
It's not that big. But he remembered how he'd got lost in the
twists and turns of the alleys that afternoon, and now it was dark
and around any corner might be that angular figure, sitting in the
shadows, speaking in its quiet dry voice. John turned and retched
into a corner, sickened by fear and by the run, but nothing came
up. He wiped a hand over his mouth and straightened up, but then
stopped, in the middle of the motion, half-bent at the waist,
frozen.