Lucy Wood - The Sing of the Shore

Nothing moved except Ivor. No clocks ticked. There were three yellow chairs round one of the windows and he sat in each one, then got up and watched the dents he’d made spring slowly back to smoothness. He opened and closed the curtains. He turned on the lamp. His trainers left faint treads of sand. There were some clothes in the small bedroom – not many, just a few shirts and a jumper – and he unfolded each one, studied them carefully, then folded them back up, matching the creases exactly.

In the bathroom, he opened the cabinet above the sink and took out the bottles and jars. He opened the lids one by one and dipped his fingers into the creams, then scooped up talcum powder, leaving behind shallow indents and the half-moon shapes of his nails. He tipped up a bottle and white tablets fell onto his palm. When he tipped them back in, one tablet stuck to his skin. It was small and perfectly round. He thought about swallowing it, then shook his head and lifted his hand to drop it back in. But now that the thought had appeared, there was nothing else he could do. It was like locking and unlocking the door three times, or touching the wing mirrors of every red car.

His breath fogged up the mirror and he wiped it away with his sleeve, but it stayed on there for a long time after he’d left.

Every day his father would go fishing. His lines and nets were always by the door. He would leave early, depending on the tide, and there would be the sound of him in the kitchen, packing his kit, the thump of the car boot. He would hum that song he liked where the tune went so low it was as if his chest was vibrating.

When he came in to say goodbye he would put his hand on the top of Ivor’s head and it would be warm and smell like bait. Ivor would pretend to be asleep. When he went downstairs, his breakfast would be on the table: milkshake, cereal that had soaked up everything, a plate of crackers to dip in. His father always said he’d only be gone a few hours, but he was never only gone for a few hours.

Ivor came down off the cliffs and glanced back once more in the direction of the house. There were bits of chipped paint on his hands from the window, and bits of talcum powder under his nails. He rubbed them off and crossed the beach towards the road. His father was down at the edge of the water. His silhouette was like a hawthorn bending. His line was arched over the sea and there were a couple of cans by his feet.

‘Did you get the shopping?’ his father said. Cold radiated off him, and he pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up against it.

Ivor stood as close as he could without knocking anything. The sky over the sea had turned dark yellow, like a very old piece of paper.

The line tensed and began to buckle, and his father gave his can to Ivor and put his hand on the reel.

‘I forgot,’ Ivor told him. He took his father’s other hand and blew on each stiff knuckle.

His father played out the line. The bones in his fingers made popping noises under Ivor’s mouth. ‘Remember when your breath smelled like those onion crisps for a week?’ his father said. ‘I almost took you to the doctor.’

‘Remember when you ate that whole sweetcorn and your beard smelled like butter?’

The line tensed some more, and it was important to watch it, and bring it in slowly. Now his father needed both hands.

The line went tighter and tighter, then slackened. His father took the can back and sipped it. ‘I’ll catch us something,’ he said. He still held the record for catching the biggest fish in town.

The dark yellow turned to dark blue. A ship flashed on the horizon. Somewhere the oystercatchers whistled and scolded like boiling kettles.

‘How about this then,’ his father said.

Sometimes Ivor didn’t think his father really even minded if he caught a fish or not, because then he could just stand out there all day, all night even, and sip his beer and listen to the sea, until the mist came in and rose up around his feet, and everyone else had gone home a long time ago, and their lights would be on along the streets, and their curtains would start to close, and cooking smells would come out, and it would just be him and Ivor left on the beach, waiting and watching the line.

Crystal ate chips like a seagull – she held one up in her mouth, then dropped it straight down her throat. She sat cross-legged by the swings, the beach sloping down in front of them. Ivor dug in the sandy grass with his fingers.

‘We should be sitting on a rug,’ he said.

‘A what?’

‘A rug. We should probably be sitting on one.’

The tide was just going out and the stones were still wet – they looked like they were splashed with blue paint. A dog ran up, soaked and quivering, holding a crushed barbecue as if it was a stick to throw. Behind them, Gull Gilbert swung standing up, the bent chains clanking.

‘Why?’ Crystal said.

Ivor dug his fingers in deeper. ‘I don’t know.’

Crystal held her chips against her chest until the dog went away. ‘You’d have to know you were going to sit on it, then carry it down especially.’

‘I suppose.’

‘How would you know?’

‘What?’

‘If you were definitely going to sit on it,’ Crystal said. Her weird lacy skirt was rucked and there was sand high up on her legs.

The swing behind them thumped as Gull Gilbert rode it like a bull at a rodeo.

‘I don’t know,’ Ivor said. His chest started to tighten. ‘Maybe you’re just supposed to know.’

Crystal ate another chip. Sometimes she would pass one to Ivor, sometimes she wouldn’t. This round he missed out.

‘They’ve probably got them at that house,’ he said.

‘What house?’

‘The one on the cliff.’ His fingers hit against a stone and he started digging around it, working it loose. ‘We could go there.’

‘I’m not walking any more.’

‘Tomorrow,’ Ivor said. The stone was almost loose; he could nearly get his finger under it. ‘All of us.’ He thought about the lamps, the three yellow armchairs. He’d gone there again that morning and stood by the kitchen table in the strange, cool quiet, and thought something that wouldn’t go away. ‘We could stay there.’

Gull Gilbert jumped off the swing and staggered up behind them, his cheeks mottled almost purple. His tracksuit snapped like a flag in the wind. ‘That dog’s got itself a dead fish,’ he said. He dipped his hand in the bag of chips, then skipped away from Crystal’s fist. She was known for conjuring the blackest bruises. ‘Stay where?’ he said.

Ivor’s heart raced under his coat. ‘At that house.’ A hot feeling pushed at the backs of his eyes. If anyone asked why, he didn’t know what he would do.

Crystal finished eating, put her arms behind her head and lifted her hips until she was doing the bridge. ‘Like, living?’ she said. Her hair swung against the ground.

Gull Gilbert scanned the tideline, watching the dog’s owner chasing it over the seaweed. ‘Do you reckon that dog’ll eat that fish?’ he said. His eyes looked glassy and far away. Who knew what thoughts were teeming.

Ivor prised the stone out and clenched it in his muddy hand.

The dog started to eat the fish.

Gull Gilbert leaned forward, spat on his palm, said he was in, and shook on it, which was as binding as a triple-signed contract, amen.

When Ivor got home the light was on but his father’s shoes weren’t on the mat. That meant he was still wearing them, which meant he’d gone straight onto the kitchen sofa. Ivor went in quietly. His father was asleep under the scratchy blanket. Ivor had saved up for that blanket from the gift shop. It didn’t seem right that people could sell a blanket that was scratchy, to tourists, or to anyone.