Chapter 10 #2
I see footprints in the sand leading to the one other person who is down here, sitting cross-legged near the shoreline.
Black hair flows down her back, and I realise she is the same girl I saw at the bus stop – the one who so charmingly gave me the finger.
She’s up early for a teenager, or maybe she just never went to bed.
I don’t want to disturb her, as I am definitely in the category of Grown-Up Who Doesn’t Understand My Pain.
Instead, I walk off to one side and explore the little rock pools at the base of the cliffs.
I spent many happy hours making friends with crabs and other little sea monsters when I was a kid.
I walk as silently as I can on the slightly frost-crunchy sand.
I alter my course to give her space, noticing that she has headphones on – of course.
I could make as much noise as I liked and she probably wouldn’t hear me.
As I look on, she removes her big padded puffer jacket and lays it at her side.
She stands to her feet from the cross-legged position, in that limber way that the young take for granted, and remains there for a few moments with her hands on her hips.
I’m shivering just looking at her, her dark hair blowing around her head like a shadow storm, a flimsy T-shirt on beneath her coat.
She starts walking towards the waves, her stride determined, eating up the distance.
The water laps at her feet, and is soon up to her ankles.
She pauses, seems to take a deep breath, and plunges on even further.
What the hell is she doing? As I stare, dumb-founded, the waves roll up to her knees, and an especially strong breaker soaks her from head to toe.
Her black hair is plastered against her skull, the headphones dripping.
Surely, now she will turn back. She will have got it out of her system, exorcised whatever demon needs chasing away.
The shock of that icy-cold drenching will have snapped her out of her reverie.
No. She just keeps walking. I have a moment of absolute horror, followed by a few seconds of indecision.
Then I yell, as loud as I can, screaming at her to stop.
There is no response, of course, no outward sign that she has heard me.
Between the wind, the waves and the headphones, she seems to have no clue that she isn’t completely alone down here on this secluded beach.
I run towards her, watching her stride further and further out to sea.
She isn’t swimming, or jumping, or making any movements that imply this is exercise or fun.
I have the dreadful feeling deep in the pit of my stomach that this is something more.
I have been that teenage girl sitting on the beach, staring out at the water and wondering if it might be a better option than dealing with the pains and sorrows of my life.
I speed up just as her head goes under, her black hair spreading out on the surface of the water, a rippling circle of dark strands.
I throw my phone down onto her jacket, and go in.
I feel the shock of the freezing waves as I gallop forward, forcing myself on with pure adrenaline.
Should I have taken my boots off? People in films always seem to stop and take their boots off.
There didn’t feel like there was time for that, so I press on, my feet sinking into the seabed.
In a few strides I am there by her side, splashing through the water, grabbing hold of her shoulders and pulling her head up.
She spits a mouthful of sea at me and slaps my hands away.
She looks shocked and angry, suddenly kicking and treading water instead of simply letting herself sink.
We’re both soaking, both staring at each other, both obviously wondering what the hell is going on.
‘Leave me alone!’ she yells over the sound of the ocean. ‘I’m swimming!’
I pull her headphones off, randomly thinking she’s going to need some new ones. ‘Not here you’re not. It’s too dangerous to swim when the weather’s like this. Come on now, let’s go back. If you don’t, I’m staying with you.’
‘Just feck off, will you? This is none of your business!’
Feck off. Even in these strained circumstances that tells me she might be part of the Byrne clan, which comes as no surprise. There are probably thousands of them by now.
‘I will not feck off, no – if you’re swimming, I’m swimming! You’re stuck with me!’
She glares at me, her blue eyes furious, her nostrils flaring. The nose ring is matched by a lip ring, and one of those that go through the eyebrow as well.
‘I mean it,’ I shout, kicking my legs to keep myself afloat. She is a little taller than me and isn’t struggling so much. It would be ironic if she simply swam back to shore and I was the one swept to sea. ‘And I’m not that good a swimmer – I’m your responsibility now!’
Her glare intensifies, but whatever she sees in my eyes seems to convince her that I mean it.
She screams, full throttle, the anguished and frustrated sound rising over the hiss and roar of the waves.
She slaps her hands down hard on the water.
Without a word she turns and makes her way back to the bay.
She does it effortlessly, letting the waves sweep her along, not showing an ounce of fear.
I follow behind, a lot less gracefully, a combination of swimming, hopping and falling over.
I can barely feel my legs anymore, and the boots now feel like I’ve got lead weights attached to my feet.
I am beyond grateful when I am firmly back on wet land, shaking and trembling from both the cold and the shock.
The girl looks the same, and some of her fight has clearly drained from her. Her skin is so pale it’s almost translucent, and her lips are blue. She could have been out here for hours, and she was in the water for longer than I was. I need to get her indoors and dried off.
‘Where do you live?’ I ask, doing half-hearted star jumps in an attempt to keep my blood flowing.
I grab my phone and her jacket, and do my best to shove her arms into it.
We’re both trembling, and I’m starting to wonder if I should just be calling for help at this stage.
She shakes her head and mumbles something, rubbing her hands together.
Now she’s out of the water it’s like she’s a different person – younger, more vulnerable. Less angry, and more sad.
‘Come on,’ I say firmly, pushing her towards the steps. ‘I live at the inn. We can both get dry and have a hot drink. Then I can get you home.’
She lets me guide her, her sodden cargo pants sticking to her legs as she clambers up the stone stairs cut into the side of the cliff. ‘You live with Peter?’ she mutters.
‘Yes, I’m his daughter, Ellie.’
She glances back at me, a look of surprise on her face. ‘Eyes front!’ I snap. ‘It’s no joke falling down these steps, take it from someone who has!’
We make it up to the top safely, but she stalls as we walk across the grass to the pub entrance.
She turns to look at me properly, her huge eyes filling with tears.
She bites her lip ring, and screws her lids shut, obviously embarrassed.
Which goes without saying at her age, really – you’re always embarrassed about something.
‘It’s okay,’ I assure her. ‘Dad is busy downstairs getting the bar sorted. We can go in the back way. Nobody will see you.’
She nods, and for a moment I think she might even say thank you.
The moment passes quickly, and she follows me around to the back of the building.
Smoke is coming from the chimneys, and the light dusting of snow has settled on the thatch.
It looks super-pretty, like something from a film, and I might have stopped to appreciate it if not for the fact that I’m freezing my arse off.
We go upstairs, and I lead her back to my room. I give her my robe and tell her to dry off in the bathroom. I do the same in my dad’s, cautiously checking first, just in case he’s in the sack with Sharon Stone or something.
I feel better as soon as I’ve peeled off my jeans, and when the shaking stops, I head to the kitchen to make drinks.
Hot chocolates for us both, I decide, as well as a couple of the cookies I made earlier.
I carry them back through into my room, knocking on the door before I go in.
I find her bundled up in the robe, a towel turbaned around her head.
Her damp jacket is thrown on the floor, and her headphones abandoned next to it.
She’s staring at the photos that are pinned to the cork notice board.
I remember her ‘feck off’, and my conclusion that she was part of the Byrne family.
She reaches out, touches the picture of me and Liam in our Tenerife T-shirts. ‘This is you…’ she murmurs. ‘And Liam? Is this Liam?’
‘Yep. When he was half the size he is now. See that one of him jumping off the cliff there? He was always doing stuff like that.’
She looks at me, her eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘Really? Because he’s super dull now. Like, brain-numbingly boring.’
I didn’t think he was boring, but she is a teenager. Everyone is boring. Still, this is the longest sentence I’ve heard from her, and I notice that she has an unusual accent. I can’t quite locate it, but it’s definitely not local. It’s a strange mix.
‘You know Liam well?’
‘Yeah. He’s my, um, dad. Stepdad. Male authority figure. Whatever.’
Wow. I was not expecting that. She’s got to be somewhere between fifteen and eighteen. I wonder how long Liam has been in her life?
She dismisses the whole thing with a wave of her hand and takes the offered mug of steaming hot chocolate.
She sits on the edge of my bed, and I immediately wrap Bernadette’s hand-crafted shawl around her shoulders.
She glares at me for a moment, as though about to tell me off for daring to show some concern.
‘Don’t bother,’ I say, beating her to it. ‘I am impervious to your abuse. It just slides off me.’
‘Impervious?’ she says, raising an eyebrow at me. ‘Does that mean you’re not a pervert?’
‘I suspect you know what it means, but for the record no, I’m not. Now, what the hell was that out there? And don’t try to bullshit me. I’m impervious to that as well.’
She snorts into her drink and shakes her head. The towel promptly falls off. She takes a nibble at one of the cookies, and nods. ‘These aren’t awful,’ she mutters, which I suspect is a high compliment.
‘Be still, my beating heart. Can I put that on my business cards?’
She bites back a laugh, because it’s not cool to laugh.
‘I wasn’t trying to kill myself,’ she says, staring into her mug. ‘So don’t go running off to tell Liam I was. You didn’t need to come and get me. I swam at regional level; I know what I’m doing.’
‘Maybe. But you might not know this coast as well as others. You have to respect the sea, the currents, especially on a wild day like this. And that was not just going for a swim… what’s your name, anyway?’
‘Bella. And okay, yes, you’re right – I should have been more careful.’
‘You shouldn’t have been doing it at all. And if you were planning on sea swimming in December, then at the very least you need a wetsuit, and a buddy.’
‘Well, you were my buddy, weren’t you?’
Like all teenagers everywhere, she is desperate to win the argument and have the last word. ‘I was not your buddy, no. I was someone trying to enjoy a walk on the beach who saw a young woman disappear into the ocean. With bloody headphones on.’
She grimaces and looks at the abandoned headset on the floor. ‘He’s going to kill me. They’re my third pair this year.’
‘That’s for you to deal with. I’d guess they’re dead, but who knows? How are you feeling now, Bella?’
She sips some more hot chocolate and bites the inside of her cheek. She is jittery, her knee rising and falling as her toes tap the carpet. ‘I’m okay. Warming up. Please don’t tell him.’
That all comes out in a jumble, and she meets my eyes properly. There is an imploring look in them, but also a hint of manipulation. I’d guess those big baby blues have got her a lot of leeway over the years. I shake my head.
‘Impervious to that too. And please don’t ask me not to tell him – I have to. I won’t over-dramatise it, or claim I have any clue what your motives are or what you intended, but I need to tell him. Where are you staying? With Bernadette and Brian?’
The baby blues narrow a little, but she nods. ‘Yeah. Some of the time. But I move around, stay with my cousins, and at Rosings sometimes.’
Rosings… the name is familiar, but it takes me a few moments to put my finger on it.
Rosings Hall is the abandoned manor house that we used to hang out in as kids.
It was a shell of a place last time I was here, but Bella is talking about it as though it’s a place to live, so I guess that is yet another thing that’s changed.
I am literally made of questions at this point, but I hold back. Bella is clearly a smart operator, and I feel like I have to stay on my toes around her. I remember better than most exactly how clever girls of that age can be.
‘Right. Well, get yourself properly dried off. You’ll have to wear some of my clothes for now.’
She looks horrified, and mutters a shocked ‘No way!’ I laugh out loud – her reaction is so genuine, so disgusted, that I have to.
‘It’s that or my dad’s,’ I reply, rooting through the wardrobe.
I find a few things that got left behind in the move and throw them onto the bed.
They’re a bit dusty, but at least they’re black and a bit more cool than my current outfits, at least to someone like Bella.
She pokes the black jeans with one finger, but manages a smile for the Nirvana T-shirt with the yellow smiley face on it.
‘I’ve got one of these,’ she says, grinning, ‘but it’s a new one. This is, like, ancient.’
‘Yep. It’s vintage, like me. Come on, get yourself sorted. Then you can have the unrivalled pleasure of me driving you home.’
‘Why will that be a pleasure?’
‘I lied. It won’t. I haven’t ever officially driven in the UK – it will be terrifying. Just think of it as a theme park ride that could end in death.’
‘Cool,’ she says, sounding way too enthusiastic.