Jonathan Lee - High Dive

‘Yeah, well. I’ve got this date tonight, and another shift before then.’

‘Someone’s taking you for a big dinner?’

‘Yep,’ Freya said, though the date was just another invention. ‘While the African kids starve.’

‘You’re mocking me,’ Susie said. ‘I never said you shouldn’t eat.’

‘But it’s what you don’t say, isn’t it?’

‘That’s the same with anyone! You could accuse anyone of that!’

‘Sooz, did it ever occur to you that it’s not a very nice thing to do to my dad, to try and disrupt them all when they’re staying at the hotel? I mean, why not focus on the Conference Centre?’

‘If you’re a real friend you’ll do it. You’ll think of the bigger picture.’

‘But this whole thing, it’s important to him. It’s his chance to get promoted, feel good about himself.’

‘And what isn’t? What isn’t important, Freya? The government? The Prime Minister? The way this country is going? The unemployment and the money wasted on sham wars and the massive divide between rich and poor and all the fancy people in London and then people without any food up north and striking miners and the total lack of interest in trying to soothe the racial tensions in our community, or solve unemployment?’ She was getting shouty. Her hands were flapping and her freckles were blurring. ‘If those are cool enough reasons.’

‘OK, whatever. If you want my dad to lose his job, go ahead.’

‘The protests are going to be massive,’ Susie said. The words came with the engineered airiness that told you they were a threat. But then, in a more natural voice: ‘So you should probably let him know, or something. You know, security. It’ll be peaceful. They’re only talking about some chanting and a prank to get publicity.’

With each word Susie’s energy seemed to wane. Freya said nothing. Surfer John was coming out of the water. He was carrying his surfboard under one arm. He didn’t seem to feel the weight of it at all. His hair was dripping. His wetsuit was shining. He flicked the hair out of his eyes.

‘Hey,’ he said, smiling. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Not bad,’ Susie said.

‘Yeah,’ Freya said.

The sunlight made John’s cheekbones look nicer than usual. His hair seemed blonder, his eyelashes darker. He was breathing slowly. ‘Cool,’ he said. ‘See you guys later, then.’ He retrieved his bag and shoes.

‘Look,’ Susie said, ‘we’ll mainly be outside the Conference Centre, anyway. You know, on the day Thatcher speaks. The singer from the Angelic Upstarts might be coming. And they’re letting us use songs from the Two Million Voices album? And the guitarist from that Belfast band, Stiff Little Fingers, he might be there too.’

‘Nice,’ Freya said.

‘Our group. The Collective of the Discontented. It’s basically an alliance between a lot of smaller liberal and socialist groups who are depressed by what they’re seeing. I mean, it affects all of us. Bad things will happen, my dad says, if we don’t shift this country away from the right.’

Freya shifted slightly to the left. The palm of her right hand hurt from the stones.

‘And you need to take the public with you,’ Susie continued. ‘It has to be a change from within. Which is why we’re collaborating with these musicians, and this new Paul Weller thing called Red Wedge. The idea is that rock people, bands, who want to get Labour into power, are collaborating with grass-roots organisations to do that. A cultural — they call it a cultural revolution. Though the problem with Weller, my dad says, is that he seems too much like a working-class boy made good, like pursuing individual success and achievement, which is, you know, what’s portrayed as a Thatcherite success story …’

‘Yeah,’ Freya said.

‘You could join us?’

‘Hmm.’

‘You could come along now, to this planning meeting for the protest.’

‘Yeah, maybe.’

‘Thatcher wants to privatise everything, Frey-Hey. She wants to privatise people . Brigid says she’s so obsessed with this, like, this dependency culture — ’

‘Who’s Brigid?’

‘— that she can’t see what she’s doing. Nobody’s saying she’s evil. OK, some people. But the results of what she’s doing are most definitely bad. She thinks everyone is responsible only for themselves, and that’s that, the only kind of rule there is. No community. No society! Everyone separate! That’s a sucky way to live. Don’t you see?’

‘Maybe we are separate,’ Freya said. She wasn’t arguing. She was trying to think it through. ‘Maybe it’s fine sometimes to back down on a point, or not care, or be separate from others?’ She hated this feeling, the sensation of trying and failing to get her arms around something big. The way political opinions seemed always to be expressed with a total sureness of tone. The way that sureness was at odds with every true thought she’d ever had.

‘You’re so wrong,’ Susie said. ‘You’re just wrong.’

‘About what?’ Freya said, but no answer came. She watched her friend standing up, her long legs unfolding awkwardly, the motion bringing to mind the setting up of an ironing board, Sandra the Cleaner, Sundays, steam rising from her father’s shirts. She listened to the sound of Susie’s plimsolls crunching loud and then soft across the rocks.

She looked out at the water and thought of Surfer John. Imagined him still there, paddling. She thought about whether Susie might sometimes have a point.

For a while, it had seemed something would happen with John. He liked to tease her about the fact her surname was Finch and also about the fact that, on account of her having worked in the hotel during various summers, she was senior to him and other part-time student staff.

‘Freya Finch, you’re at the top of the pecking order,’ he’d say.

And then: ‘To be in your position must be quite a birden?’

And also: ‘You are aviary talented receptionist.’

And often: ‘Honestly, I’m not trying to ruffle your feathers.’

He knew his lines were lame and that knowledge, together with his toned arms and the idea he might be kind, was what had first drawn her towards him.

Their timing was off, though. The rhythm, the sequencing, that elusive whatever. Nights where they’d bump into each other in the pub and stand drinking and laughing, him touching her shoulder during an anecdote and never anything more, letting the crucial moment slide away into a semi-awkward goodbye, which was among the better ways a thing could end.

She and Karen were in the lobby talking about a low-on-laughs sitcom called Bottle Boys when two people came down the staircase, carrying bags. It took a moment for Freya to see that this was Roy Walsh and another, shorter man. Freya said hi to both of them. Roy said hi back. Karen smiled. The shorter man, older, touched his moustache and glanced away.

‘How’s your stay been?’ Freya said.

‘Oh,’ Roy said. ‘Been great.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. It’s a beautiful place you have there. Really beautiful.’

You could see in his eyes that he wasn’t lying. An appreciation of the picturesque. Those eyes were more complex than the eyes of boys her age. A greater amount of noticing. She looked again at the other man — maybe he was a mute? — and thought about what Roy had said when he checked in: ‘Work with a bit of pleasure, I hope.’

Brighton … Pleasure … A single guy checking in alone and appearing now on the staircase with another man, blushing … The way she’d thought there was a spark of attraction that first time at the front desk, but had seen it die away so quickly.