Jim Kelly - Death

They watched Fran taking a Chinese lantern on a string out on the sand. She lit the candle within and it rose, just beyond her reach, and in the windless air drifted at walking pace to the north. She followed it, trying to coax it round, so that she could bring it back to show them. Shaw noted that she walked as he did, as if she might at any step float free of the earth, her elbows slightly out from her narrow body. It was one of many physical similarities: the fair hair, the wide cheekbones, the almost colourless pale blue eyes. One of the mild complications of having an only child was that discussions about which side of the family she took after were loaded. It wasn’t as if the fact that she looked like Shaw — the light brown-sugar skin aside — would one day be outweighed by another sibling’s likeness to Lena. Thankfully Fran’s psychological make-up was entirely in her mother’s mould: forthright, outgoing, matter-of-fact — with just the same added ingredient: an ability to step back and watch the world go by.

He sipped his wine, his hand on the back of Lena’s neck. This was the moment he had to fight the urge to talk about work, because Lena had left the city, left Brixton and an urban life, to get away from the kind of lives people had to lead there. She didn’t believe in trying to create a paradise, Shaw understood that, but she didn’t want any glimpses of hell either. In the winter they’d be lucky to sell a pot of tea, let alone a beach yacht, so there was nothing easy about it. On a wet Tuesday in February, under a grey sky, it could be soul destroying, watching the sea through rain-streaked glass. It was going to be a struggle, but she was prepared for that. She didn’t think life owed her anything. But the lives that Shaw saw in his work were not everyday lives; they were a cross-section of the damaged, the cruel, the victimized. It was his job to deal with that, said Lena, not bring it all home.

When they’d met she’d been a lawyer for the Campaign for Racial Equality, picking through the London housing benefit system, trying to help families get a home. She’d always thought that if she immersed herself in that world, a world of poverty, crime and abuse, she’d be untainted by it — be able to just walk away at the end of a day’s work. By the time she met Shaw — on his first placement from the Met College at Hendon — she’d realized she was wrong. The sceptical, logical, forensic mind she’d trained so well was being coloured with cynicism. She always recalled something a judge had said in chambers. ‘To the jaundiced eye, Miss Braithwaite, everything is yellow.’ And that’s how her world looked: tainted. So they’d planned this: to live away from the city, outside Shaw’s urban manor, and for Fran to have a childhood. Their daughter could do with her life what she wanted. but first they’d give her this: a wide sky and a beach.

Shaw looked out to sea, nothing in front of him and the world behind him. Lena pulled on a pair of Boden shorts. Shaw recognized the patterned material because Surf! sold the range. ‘Good day?’ he asked.

She thought about that. Lena’s attitude to the business was fiercely practical. This wasn’t a hobby, it was what she did, and it made her independent.‘?1,400 in the shop. I had Jon and Carole in the cafe and they took?550. Most of that was ice cream and coffee. A good day — up there in the top ten for turnover. Profits? Decent.’ Lena sat on the stoop steps, stretched her legs out and curled her toes into the sand: cold now the sun was gone. ‘You?’ she asked, a ritual invitation to talk about his day. Just the basics. If she wanted more, she’d ask again. There was no point Shaw hiding his life from his family.

Shaw told her about the death of Marianne Osbourne. The dynamic tension in their relationship sprang from his decision as to when to stop telling her about it. Shaw believed in the police, he thought they made people’s lives better. And he knew that Lena thought the same way. So most nights he told her what he’d done at work. Then they moved on. He outlined the case in two hundred words then stood, preparing to set out and join Fran at the edge of the motionless sea.

‘So this woman, Marianne, was on the beach at East Hills? Alone?’ said Lena. The moon was up now and she tilted her face to it as if it was the sun, so that the light gave her face an architectural quality.

‘Yeah.’ Shaw thought about that, sitting beside her. ‘Well, she said she hadn’t planned to be alone. Her friend just hadn’t turned up at the quay. And she may have met someone out there. But she said she was alone. I got George to read through her statement — the one she made at St James’ the day they took them off the island. She was sixteen, out of school, doing a course at the college, selling cosmetics door-to-door.’

‘Takes guts,’ said Lena, ‘at sixteen. Think back, how you’d feel, having to walk up strangers’ paths and just knock. That is a cold call.’

Shaw stopped, realizing that he hadn’t thought about Marianne Osbourne as a businesswoman: capable, competent, just like Lena, perhaps. His wife was right: it did take guts, a maturity as well, to work alone. Had a dream sustained her, as it did Lena?

His wife was shaking her head. ‘I’d have gone to the main beach — given the island a miss.’ She examined her toes, easily reaching to touch them. ‘Mind you, maybe there was someone she fancied on the boat? That would be perfect — she’d be alone, but she had a reason she was alone, ’coz her friend had let her down. Good opening line. .’

‘In the statement she said she got there early,’ said Shaw. ‘Got herself a ticket because she didn’t want to miss out. It was a perfect day. She didn’t want to waste it if the friend didn’t turn up, and there was a crowd there already. And she liked East Hills more than the other beaches. She had a picnic, the lot. Anyway, she went. Says she sunbathed at the south end of the beach till lunch — had a swim just before — then read her book.’ Shaw slipped a notebook out of his pocket. ‘George says they took an inventory when they evacuated the island of what everyone had. This is Marianne’s. .’ He handed her the notebook with the list. Towel. Bag. Bottle of made-up orange squash. Sandwich box — Tupperware, empty. One apple. Shell of a boiled egg in greaseproof paper. A yogurt carton — empty. One spoon. Radio. Paperback. Sun-tan oil. Lipstick. Vanity mirror. Eyeliner, Tissues, Daily Express. TV Times. Purse: eight pounds fifty-six pence in cash. Membership card for West Anglia College Students’ Union. What’s On leaflet for The Empire, King’s Lynn. ATM debit card — NatWest. Membership Card: Docking Lido.

Clothes: shorts, pants, T-shirt — Wham! sandals.

‘What’s missing?’ asked Shaw, not knowing if anything was missing.

Out on the sands Fran had corralled the Chinese lantern and was walking it back towards the house. The thought crossed Shaw’s mind that she was growing up an only child, and what would that do to her? They didn’t want another child; they felt comfortable, close-knit and intimate. But was it fair? Lena had siblings — two brothers, a sister. Being part of that family, embedded in it, was important. Why deny Fran that life?

‘You said she went swimming?’ she asked. ‘So where’s her costume?’

Shaw checked back: no costume. She’d come well prepared for the day — so she had one. A mistake on the list? Was it rolled in the towel and they didn’t unfurl it? Maybe.

‘Did they talk to the friend — the one that was supposed to turn up?’ Lena turned towards him, suddenly sure of herself. ‘Because that’s what’s odd, isn’t it? She’s brought her own food, like, one yogurt. Her own sandwiches. One boiled egg. But she said she always went with the friend — the girlfriend. You wouldn’t do that — you’d share. Like, this time I do the sweet stuff, you do the sarnies. That kind of thing. Food’s part of the fun, not fuel.’ Pleased with herself, she turned back to look at the sea.