Alison Moore - Death and the Seaside

‘You really shouldn’t smoke,’ said Fiona.

‘I know,’ said Bonnie, sucking down the tarry smoke. ‘I know.’

Out on the street, Bonnie said to Fiona, ‘I don’t know where you live.’

‘I live with my boyfriend,’ said Fiona, gesturing so vaguely that even the direction was not clear.

‘I don’t live far away,’ said Bonnie, ‘if you want to come round some time, any time.’

‘OK,’ said Fiona, ‘thanks,’ but she did not ask Bonnie for her address or her phone number. ‘Well, maybe see you on Monday,’ she said.

‘But I’ll see you on Saturday, won’t I?’ said Bonnie. ‘For my birthday get-together?’

‘Is that this weekend?’ said Fiona. ‘I forgot. Where is it again? What time?’

Bonnie told her. ‘You don’t have to bring a present,’ she added, but Fiona was already putting in her earphones, raising a hand as she turned and walked away.

Bonnie put in her own earphones and turned on her iPod. She selected her French language course and walked home, listening to the declining of verbs — je peux, tu peux, il peut — in a language with which she could not get to grips.

Bonnie was running late. She and Sylvia were supposed to have left for the restaurant already, for Bonnie’s birthday celebration, but while Sylvia was ready and waiting in the lounge, Bonnie was only just out of the shower, not yet dressed, her hair still damp and tangled.

In her bedroom, Bonnie rummaged through her wardrobe. Nothing seemed quite right. She took a recent charity-shop acquisition off its hanger and held it up against herself in front of the mirror, wondering why on earth she had bought it. She put it back in her wardrobe. There was a nasty spot on her chin but she was resisting the urge to squeeze it because that would only make things worse, make the blemish more visible; she would use some concealer instead, and she would use the eyeshadow that her mother said was needed to draw attention away from her jaw, and her nose.

Finally, she made it into the lounge, holding a piece of tissue to her chin where she had given in and squeezed the pustule, and Sylvia looked at her and said, ‘You really don’t need make-up. Or not so much.’

By the time they left the flat, they ought already to have been at the restaurant, and even then Bonnie had to go back inside to look for her door key, and in the end Sylvia said, ‘Never mind, I’ve got one, let’s just go.’

As they hurried through the passageway, Sylvia, looking at the neckline of Bonnie’s strappy dress, said, ‘You’re going to be cold,’ but there was no time to turn back.

‘Where exactly is this restaurant?’ asked Sylvia.

‘I think I know,’ said Bonnie. It was a Chinese restaurant, to which she had been once before, some years ago, perhaps for her eighteenth birthday, or her twenty-first: a landmark birthday, which at the time had felt like passing through a portal, as if everything would be different on the other side. New Year’s Eves were like that: at the end of the countdown, she always felt as if she ought to hold her breath, ready to jump, braced for the cold or a hard landing.

The restaurant had gone. Bonnie walked past where it ought to have been, twice, but it seemed to have metamorphosed into a chip shop. They were terribly late now. She walked to the end of the road, where cars were whipping past on the dual carriageway. She turned back. ‘It’s just not here!’ she protested, as if this were some kind of trick.

She found the restaurant eventually, in the middle of an adjacent street. The bright facade, red for luck, was the same as the original, as if it had just been lifted off, moved to a unit in the next street along, and stuck back on again, like a structure in a Potemkin village.

Inside the restaurant, the layout and decor looked much the same as it always had, in the other location, as if in fact the building had just been wheeled wholesale down the street.

They were led by a white-jacketed waiter to a booth at the back of the restaurant, where they found their party eating, nearing the end of a course. Bonnie’s father looked up and said, ‘You’re late.’ He put his last piece of chicken in his mouth and pushed away his empty plate.

‘Sorry,’ said Bonnie. ‘I couldn’t find the restaurant. It’s moved.’

‘Oh,’ said her mother, ‘yes, it has,’ as if that was not very important, as if buildings moved about all the time and you just had to keep up.

‘This is my friend Sylvia,’ said Bonnie, presenting her landlady with a flourish, as if she were the grand reveal at the end of a magic show. Bonnie’s mother was busy passing some sauce across the table, but turned and offered her hand to Sylvia when Bonnie said, ‘This is my mum… and my dad… and this is Fiona, my friend from work.’ Fiona said hello but she looked annoyed, as if she wished she were elsewhere. ‘Sorry we’re late,’ said Bonnie.

Bonnie sat down next to Fiona, and Sylvia sat next to Bonnie, boxing her into the booth.

‘We’ve had our starters,’ said Bonnie’s father. ‘And we ordered our mains as well.’

‘I’m sure it’s not too late to add yours on though,’ said Bonnie’s mother, ‘but they might come out a bit later.’

‘All right,’ said Bonnie, and she glanced through the menu and then looked around, trying to catch a waiter’s eye.

‘Mrs Falls,’ said Sylvia, smoothing out a crease in the tablecloth, ‘Bonnie tells me that you ski.’

‘That’s right,’ said Bonnie’s mother. ‘I like to compete.’

‘I ski as well,’ said Bonnie’s father.

‘And when you go skiing,’ said Sylvia to Bonnie’s mother, ‘you don’t have a problem with the heights? You’ve never… had an accident?’

‘We did have a twisted ankle,’ said Bonnie’s mother.

‘Oh yes?’

‘But that wasn’t on the slopes. It was on a slippery poolside that you twisted your ankle, wasn’t it?’ she said to Bonnie’s father.

‘I’d just done my mile of swimming,’ he said.

‘All right,’ said Sylvia. ‘And when you compete,’ she said to Bonnie’s mother, ‘you have some success?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Bonnie’s father. ‘We had to buy a whole new cabinet for all Pearl’s trophies. It’s in pride of place in the spare room. That’s your old room, Bonnie.’

Bonnie had not yet managed to attract the attention of a waiter, and in the end, her mother turned her head as a waiter came by and she stopped him. ‘My daughter is ready to order now,’ she said, and as Bonnie and Sylvia ordered their food, the rest of the meals came out and the three of them tucked in.

Bonnie’s father, eyeing Fiona’s progress, said, ‘You eat a lot for a little girl.’

‘I’m not a little girl,’ said Fiona.

‘You are,’ he said. He turned to Bonnie’s mother and said, ‘Isn’t she? Whereas our Bonnie’s always been a big girl.’

‘She’s hardly a girl,’ said Fiona. ‘She’s thirty years old.’

‘That’s right,’ he said, turning to Bonnie. ‘Tick tock.’

He picked up the bottle of table wine and filled Bonnie’s mother’s glass, and then Sylvia’s, and then Fiona’s. Bonnie poured herself a glass of water.

‘Aren’t you having wine?’ asked Sylvia.

‘I don’t drink,’ said Bonnie.

‘Not even on your birthday?’ said Sylvia.

‘I prefer not to,’ said Bonnie.

‘My mother doesn’t drink,’ said Fiona. ‘She’s one of these high-powered people who doesn’t like to lose control.’ They all looked at Bonnie, whose hair, though dry, was still tangled, and whose dress looked like cats had been sitting on it, even though she did not have a cat.

‘Not even one little glass?’ asked Sylvia. ‘Just a sip?’