Kate Tempest - The Bricks that Built the Houses

‘Yeah. Come on, let’s go? Leon’s just down there in the car.’ She points.

Becky imagines sunlight on the freezing sea. Fresh wind. ‘Pete’s got a job on today. He’s working at some event doing catering in west London.’

Harry nods. Raises her eyebrows. ‘That’s good,’ she says. ‘But you could still come, couldn’t you? Without him. If you fancied it?’ The words say more than Harry means them to.

‘Yeah.’ Becky nods heartily, speaks slowly through a blooming smile. ‘Why not.’ They walk together past the shouting market, past the drunks and schoolkids, past the mural on the wall, ducking out the way of old ladies with their shopping carts, and they find Leon watching the people in their suits and hats and smart shoes talking outside Kingdom Hall.

He shines his golden smile at Becky, surprised to see Harry returning with a stranger. ‘Hello!’ he says. ‘Seaside?’ And they climb in the car and they head for the beach. Becky in the front, Harry in the back. Becky fidgets with excitement, dances in her seat.

‘Seaside!’ She opens her window to feel the cold city wind. Smiling into it as it blows her hair back. She watches the road fall away beneath the car as they turn onto the motorway. House FM plays loud; the bassline is warm and the sunlight is golden. ‘This is nice,’ she says to Leon.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘The open road, eh?’ He drums his hands on the wheel. ‘Can’t beat it.’

The sun swells on its way down. They sit on the stones with their fish and chips, drinking bottles of beer. People walk dogs and hold hands. Harry stares at the waves, grey and green and breaking gently on the groynes. The cold English sea, rolling beneath its reflection. The sky is the sea is the sea is the sky for ever.

Leon finds a triangular stone and uses the point to dig down through the pebbles into the sand, hacking at the space beside his feet. They listen to the puck and glint of stone on stone. The wind whipping the tops of the fishing boats parked up the beach. The giddy cackle of the gulls. Harry lets her head lean on Becky’s shoulder as she eats her chips and Becky turns her face and feels her hair against her cheeks. Harry’s hair smells clean and warm and sweet. Becky breathes in deeply, eyes quenched by the endless sea.

She moves her hand along the stones, feeling the hardy blades of grass that sprout up through the sand. She picks up pebbles and holds them and lets them fall, enjoying their smoothness.

Waves greet the beach like giddy puppies. Becky’s hand comes to rest on Harry’s knee. It fills her with a silent heat. Harry lifts her knee and they push briefly towards each other. Harry looks sideways at Becky. Squints in the setting sun. Becky’s hair all messy in the breeze, her baggy shirt billows, her little feet in all-black Air Max 95s. Leon is making a pile of good skimmers. Engrossed. He gathers up the best ones and jogs towards the surf. Harry’s hand finds Becky’s, Becky turns hers round and they push each other’s fingertips. Stroke each other’s wrists. Burning up. All sound drowns in the bass of the touch. Harry sits back suddenly, quick as a swerving car. Puts her hands behind her and leans into them. Pushing them into the stones where they’ll be safe. Becky’s hand lies open, still resting on Harry’s knee.

Harry looks out at the water pounding the shore. She watches Leon, skimmer’s stance, his body tensed and tall, and feels a gnawing dread about the night they have ahead of them.

‘How’s Pete doing?’ she asks. Keeping her voice light.

Becky breathes deeply, shakes her head. Doesn’t know what to say. A day passes in the silence.

‘We’re fighting all the time.’

Harry looks over, making a pantomime of her concern. ‘How come?’

Becky finishes her chips, scrunches the paper up, enjoying the smell of sea air and chip grease and vinegar. She takes her time to answer, speaking without emphasis or sentimentality.

‘I’m pretty sure he only wants us to be together because he’s scared of what will happen to his life if I leave.’

The mood grows heavy as a fallen scaffold. Determined not to be trapped beneath it, Harry climbs to her feet, adjusting her clothes, pulling her jumper down, pulling her trousers up. She bends to pick up her chips and her beer. ‘You know how to skim stones?’ she asks.

‘Yeah,’ Becky nods, squinting up at her.

‘Can you teach me, please? Leon hates teaching me things.’

Becky gets to her feet in a graceful surge of travel, all movement a dance, even scrambling up from the shingle. ‘Help me find some good ones then,’ she says. ‘Just gotta be flat really, that’s all.’ They head towards the water, eyes low, looking for stones.

They drop Becky off in Streatham, she’s going to see a friend who’s been working in a recording studio there. Leon stares out the windscreen, watching the crowded street, waiting for the crossing to clear. Harry leans her head back into the seat, lets her eyes glaze on all the people moving. Arm in arm and on their own and holding kids and shopping.

A woman on crutches in a white RUN DMC jumper. An old man with a small face in battered leather trousers and a red cowboy hat. A girl in a massive duffel coat trying to get her lighter going. Harry watches all the people. Two young women in veils dance and push each other behind the counter of the empty coffee shop. A thousand different sudden colours sing through the window of the fabric store. A man holding a small bird in his fist brings it up to his lips and whispers to it as he passes the car.

‘Well?’ Leon says, pushing the accelerator gently and easing off.

‘Well what?’ Harry asks him, more defensively than she realises. Leon waits quietly. ‘What?’ Harry asks again.

‘She was nice,’ Leon says pointedly, not taking his eyes off the street.

Harry glances at him, looks back at the road. ‘What you trying to say?’ she asks him.

‘Nothing,’ Leon says simply. ‘She was nice.’

‘She’s going out with Pete,’ Harry tells him.

‘I know,’ Leon says.

They say no more until they reach New Cross.

‘Was a good day though, weren’t it?’ Harry leans her head back, watching the dark wet gloom of the night outside.

‘Yeah, lovely day.’

‘You feeling ready? To do this?’

‘Think so. You?’ Leon grips the wheel tighter. His hands begin to throb.

‘Yeah. Sure it’ll be fine.’ Harry blows breath onto the window and draws patterns in it with her fingertips. ‘I think she’s lovely, Leon,’ she says slowly.

‘I know you do, mate.’

‘What am I gonna do about it?’

‘Nothing,’ Leon says, reversing into a space outside their flat and turning the motor off. They sit there in the quiet car. ‘Right.’ Leon checks his watch. ‘Let’s chill for a couple hours and then head out.’

It’s midnight in the metropolis. Harry’s driving. Leon’s in the back seat, as if he’s in a cab. They listen to the radio. Everything’s dreary and insubstantial. Generic rock, generic indie, generic indie rock, generic dance, generic rap pop. They wince afresh with each turn of the dial. Magic FM’s dishing out the power ballads. There’s a posh woman on Talk FM laughing at her own jokes. Harry switches it off, opens the window, listens to the engine. They pull up a street or two from their destination. They can see the bar they’re heading for out of the back window.

‘This it then, is it?’ Leon whispers into the car. He barely moves his head but Harry knows he’s just scoped out every entrance, exit, window. It’s a two-storey corner bar, run down, but with memories of better times clinging to its doorways, like a threadbare mink round the neck of an elderly showgirl. A sign above the door says Paradise . The P is a palm tree.