Eight
Two nights earlier . . .
‘So that’s it, then,’ Eddie declares proudly. ‘Our last rehearsal. In two days’ time, we’ll be up on the stage about now.’
It’s Thursday evening and we are at Morvoren Cove. Suzy is with us to watch our last rehearsal, and there’s an air of relief mixed with apprehension as we complete our final run-through.
‘We’re gonna be great!’ Mandy says with her usual confidence, flopping down onto the picnic rug next to Suzy. ‘We’ll whop the others. No one has an act like ours.’
‘How do you know?’ Claire asks from the rock we mermaids have been perched on until now. ‘We don’t know what everyone is doing yet. I’ve only heard a few rumours.’
‘Have confidence in yourself for once, Claire!’ Mandy props herself up with her hand behind her head. ‘If you believe we’ll be the best, then we will.’
I climb down off the rock and sit on the second rug we’ve brought with us, and I’m pleased when Rob comes and sits next to me, after putting his guitar safely away in its case to protect it from the sand.
‘Drink, anyone?’ Mandy asks, leaning over and pulling a large bottle of cider from the carrier bag next to her. ‘I have glasses too!’ She pulls a stack of clear plastic cups from the bag.
‘How did you get that?’ Eddie asks, kneeling on the rug next to Mandy and Suzy.
‘I have my ways.’ Mandy taps the side of her nose. ‘Be a dear and hold the cups, Eddie, so I can pour without spilling it.’
‘But we’re not old enough to drink,’ Claire says, looking worried. ‘We’ll get in trouble if anyone sees us.’
Mandy opens the bottle. ‘Claire, look around you. The beach is deserted, it’s only us here and now the tide has turned, the chances of anyone joining us is unlikely. You know how small this cove gets when the tide is in; there’s hardly any sand, unless like us you know where to go.’
Claire nods, but still looks concerned.
‘Right, who’s for cider?’ Mandy says as she begins to fill the plastic glasses one by one and Eddie hands them out.
We all take one, even Claire.
‘Now, who is going to make the toast?’ Mandy asks. ‘Eddie? This performance was all your idea.’
Eddie, always one for a grand gesture, stands up.
‘Hmm, now let me see . . . I would like to thank you all for coming on board in the first place. I know I had to pester some of you . . . ’ He raises his eyebrows at me. ‘But I think you’ll all agree now we’re just forty-eight hours away from the show, it’s all worked out really well. I’d also like to say a special thank you to Suzy, who, even though she probably has the best voice of all of us, has made a wonderful job of our costumes.’
‘Yes, hear, hear!’ We all raise our glasses to acknowledge Suzy.
‘You haven’t seen them all finished yet,’ Suzy says, grinning. ‘You might hate them!’
‘Nonsense, I’ve seen them and they’re amazing,’ Eddie says. ‘Now, where was I? Ah, right, here’s to the Misfit Mermaids! Not only an amazing act, but the best bunch of friends I could ever ask for!’
‘The Misfit Mermaids!’ We all cheer together, and we begin to drink our cider, which to my surprise actually tastes rather nice.
After we’ve all sat chatting and finishing off our drinks, Mandy begins to refill our plastic cups, and as she pours the last drops from the bottle into Eddie’s glass, Claire looks relieved. ‘Oh, is that the end?’ she says, not sounding all that upset. ‘What a shame.’
‘Nah, got another bottle, haven’t I?’ Mandy says, pulling a second bottle from her bag. ‘Now pass over your glass, Claire.’
Claire glances at me as she stands up to hand Mandy her plastic tumbler.
‘Claire, you don’t have to take a second one,’ I tell her as she watches Mandy prepare to refill her cup. ‘No one is forcing you.’
Mandy looks up at Claire. ‘Yeah, don’t take it if you don’t want to – all the more for the rest of us!’
‘I will pass if you don’t mind,’ Claire says. ‘I already feel quite lightheaded after my first helping.’
‘Nothing wrong in that, Claire,’ Rob says kindly as she sits back down again. ‘My parents say it’s a good thing to know your limits with alcohol.’
‘Another, Rob?’ Mandy asks, lifting the bottle.
‘Of course!’ Rob stands up. ‘I haven’t reached my limit yet! Frankie?’ he asks, holding out his hand for my tumbler. ‘Another?’
‘Yes, please,’ I say, handing him my cup, even though Claire isn’t the only one to feel a little lightheaded after her first glass. ‘Fill it up!’
The rest of us all take a second serving of cider.
‘Look how amazing the sky is this evening,’ Suzy says, as we all relax on the picnic rugs, the little bit of alcohol we’ve drunk making everything seem beautifully hazy and warm. ‘I bet there’s going to be an incredible sunset over St Felix Bay tonight.’
‘I’d go and take a look if I could be bothered to move,’ Eddie says, stretching on his back. ‘But I’m so comfy here.’
‘Me too,’ Rob sighs. ‘Why can’t life always feel as relaxed as this? Right now, I’m not worried about anything. I’m just happy for once.’
He looks over at me and smiles. I know just how you feel
, I think, smiling back.
‘I’m sorry to pop all your lovely, chilled bubbles,’ Claire says. ‘But we might have to move in a minute; the tide is getting very close to the rugs.’
‘Nah, Claire. You worry too much!’ Mandy grins. ‘The sea never comes in further than this point.’
‘But it looks like it might today.’ Claire, who is still perched on the rock, is watching the waves ripple over the sand. ‘It’s been getting closer for the last few minutes.’
Eddie rolls over on his stomach to look at the sea.
‘You might be right,’ he says, his eyes at beach level. ‘But I kind of like the jeopardy of it right now. Jeez, what was that?’ He immediately sits up.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘I dunno, I thought I just saw a really big fish flip over in the sea. Well, I only saw its tail, but it was massive!’
‘Me and Frankie have seen that.’ Rob pulls himself up to look. ‘Like a really big goldfish tail, only more colourful?’
Eddie nods. ‘Yeah, exactly like that. It’s not the alcohol, then? I thought for a moment I might be seeing things.’
‘You’ve only had two glasses of cider!’ Mandy says mockingly. ‘You’ve hardly been downing shots.’
We all watch the waves for a bit, but we see nothing else unusual.
So we settle back down on the rugs. This time Rob manages to move closer to me, so he now has his arm around my shoulders as we lie back and look up at the pink-and-peach-coloured clouds moving across the tangerine sky.
‘What do you all want to do when you leave school?’ he asks. ‘I mean, I know we have another year yet, but do you know?’
‘Make lots of money!’ Mandy pipes up first.
‘How?’ Rob asks.
‘Dunno, but that’s what I want to be – successful and rich.’
‘I want to make a difference,’ Suzy says. ‘Probably environmentally in some way.’
‘Ah, Suz, now you’re making me look bad!’ Mandy grins. ‘Always the noble reply.’
‘It’s the truth. I do want to make a difference. This earth won’t last for ever, you know. Not if we keep treating it like we currently do. Take your empty bottles of cider there and your plastic cups. When we leave the beach, we’ll just throw them in the bin – and we’re good for even doing that. At least we clear our litter away – too many people just leave it.’
‘What else can we do other than throw it in the bin?’ Mandy asks.
‘Recycle it,’ Suzy says. ‘So it can be made into something else. But it’s not that easy here when there’s no facilities for collecting recyclable items. We have no choice but to bin them. But if we keep throwing all our rubbish in landfill, eventually it’s going to give off toxic gases that will affect not only the ozone layer, but eventually our environment too, and in the long term cause global warming.’
‘Is global warming like the Ready Brek advert?’ Eddie asks, grinning. ‘So in the future we’ll all have a warm glow around us!’
‘Laugh if you want, Eddie,’ Suzy says, not seeing the funny side. ‘But it won’t be far from that. The whole earth will heat up, and eventually if we don’t do anything it might explode.’
‘Bit dramatic, even for you, Suz.’ Eddie raises his eyebrows at the rest of us.
‘It’s not dramatic, Eddie, it’s the truth. And the sooner more people realise it, the more likely things will change.’ Suzy sighs and folds her arms determinedly across her chest. ‘Burying your head in the sand and making jokes is what the ignorant do, not the informed.’
Eddie glares at Suzy and there’s an awkward silence.
‘It sounds like you know exactly what you want to do, Suzy,’ Rob says in an attempt to defuse the situation. ‘It’s clearly a cause that’s important to you.’
Suzy nods.
‘So what about you, Eddie?’ Rob asks. ‘What do you want to do? Something theatrical, I bet.’
‘However did you guess, darling?’ Eddie says dramatically, forgetting his annoyance with Suzy for the moment. ‘The whole world is a stage – and I want to be on it in some form or another!’
‘I can’t imagine you won’t be.’ I smile at him. ‘You were born to be a performer! Unlike the rest of us who need a little persuasion.’
‘What about you, Claire?’ Rob asks. ‘What do you want in life?’
‘Oh, I just want to be happy,’ Claire says contentedly, completely comfortable with her answer. ‘I don’t want to be rich or famous or anything like that. I just want to be happy.’
We all look at Claire and smile. As she so often does, in her own quiet way she’s hit the nail on the head. ‘Well said, Claire. I guess that’s all any of us want really, to be happy in life. What about you, Rob?’ I ask, turning to him. ‘You asked the question – what do you want to do?’
‘Oh, I dunno, really. Mine’s a bit like Claire’s. I want to be happy, I want to have a job that I enjoy and I want to have a relationship like my parents have – one that lasts a lifetime. I see them together and I think that’s what I want to have when I’m their age.’
‘ Man
, can you get any cuter?’ Mandy looks at me. ‘Frankie, you’ve fallen on your feet with this one!’
I blush furiously.
‘What about you, Frankie?’ Suzy asks, trying to rescue me from my embarrassment. ‘What do you want?’
‘Oh, I really don’t know yet. I just want to pass my exams and then see what happens next. I don’t have any plans or goals or anything like that.’
‘Frankie wants to be a professional artist one day,’ Claire announces from her rock. ‘She’d like her own gallery like the ones dotted around St Felix. Don’t you, Frankie?’
I frown at Claire.
‘What?’ she asks innocently. ‘You told me all that, and you said you wanted to go to art college, but you aren’t sure if you’re good enough.’
‘Are you kidding?’ Rob is looking down at me while I lie on the rug wishing the beach would open up and swallow me. ‘You’re an amazing artist. You’d have no problem getting into art college.’
‘See, I told you he was a good ’un!’ Mandy grins.
‘Maybe,’ I say, trying to play it down. ‘We’ll have to see what this next year brings, won’t we? As long as the Misfit Mermaids are still all together, then I’ll be happy.’
‘Hear, hear to that!’ Eddie lifts his empty glass.
‘Where are you going, Suzy?’ Claire asks as Suzy gets up and begins to walk across the sand.
‘Flotsam and jetsam!’ Suzy calls back over her shoulder. ‘Back in a mo.’
‘What does she mean?’ Rob asks.
‘Flotsam and jetsam are things washed up from the sea,’ I explain. ‘That’s what Suzy calls them, anyway. It means she’s going to collect some rubbish she’s seen floating in the water or lying on the sand. She often does it if she sees something on the beach that shouldn’t be there.’
‘We should probably all do that,’ Rob says. ‘Maybe there wouldn’t be so much if everybody picked up rubbish from the beach.’
‘I feel bad about what I said earlier,’ Eddie says, watching Suzy. ‘I’ll go and help her.’
Eddie gets up and jogs across the little bit of sand that the sea has left us.
‘We sometimes have our fallings out, but we never stay mad with each other for long,’ I explain for Rob’s benefit. ‘Do we?’ I look over at Mandy and Claire.
‘Nah!’ Mandy says. ‘Life’s too short.’
But Claire is intently watching Suzy and Eddie.
‘What’s up, Claire?’ I ask.
‘I’m not sure, but I think Suzy and Eddie have found something interesting.’
We all sit up and look over at the two of them standing together on the edge of the water. They seem to be examining something.
I call out to them. ‘What have you found?’
They both look back at us.
‘Not sure,’ Eddie replies. ‘We’ll bring it over.’
Suzy and Eddie walk back over to the picnic rugs carrying something made of wood. As they get nearer, it looks very much like a small beer barrel with rusted metal hoops holding the wood of the barrel together.
‘Is that a barrel of beer?’ Mandy asks as they put their find down on the sand next to us.
‘It feels a bit light to be full of beer,’ Eddie says. ‘But it’s still sealed, which is a bit odd.’
‘It looks more like a cask that would have held whisky,’ Rob says, examining it. ‘There were some at the pub when we moved in. The people that owned it before us had used them as decoration in the bar. This one is old, though, by the look of the wood – is there a date stamped on the outside anywhere?’
We all crowd round to look at the barrel.
‘There!’ Rob points as Eddie turns the barrel around. ‘On the bottom. There’s some numbers.’
‘I think it says . . . something 1824.’ Eddie squints at the barrel. ‘But some of the letters and numbers have rubbed off, so it’s a bit difficult to see properly.’
He lifts the barrel again to get a better look, and something rattles inside.
‘What was that?’ Suzy asks. ‘It doesn’t sound like liquid.’
‘I’m out!’ Mandy says, sitting back down on the rug. ‘If there’s no alcohol left inside, what’s the point?’
‘Can we prise it open, do you think?’ I ask. ‘Then we could see what’s inside. I don’t suppose anyone has a penknife or something similar on them?’
‘Funnily enough, no.’ Eddie grins at me. ‘Knives aren’t something I usually carry.’
‘Don’t touch it!’ Claire suddenly announces this in a commanding voice, very unlike her usual tone.
We all turn to look at her.
‘What’s wrong, Claire?’ I ask. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost!’
‘Not a ghost,’ Claire says, her voice trembling now. ‘But I think we might have seen a mermaid . . . ’