Chapter 23
‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.’ Jodie stands there, her entire body shaking, wringing her hands, tears streaming down her cheeks.
‘I’m so sorry. We had an argument. He told me I looked fat, that suddenly he could see how fat I was, sat there in the sand in this stupid jumper.
He told me I looked ugly and I kind of just told him he was no oil painting and then he grabbed me and said all this stuff to me, and then he was pushing me and it hurt, and… and I’m so sorry, he’s just gone.’
Kat lays a hand on her shoulder. ‘Jodie. You’ve done nothing wrong.’
Jodie’s eyes are wild. ‘But I have. He’s gone. If I’d not argued back, if I’d not said that stupid thing about the oil painting, he’d not’ve gone.’
Kat’s jaw is tight. ‘It’s him that’s the issue. Not you. It’s never been you, Jodie.’
I know that Jodie thinks it is her and that it’s going to take her a while to believe that it’s him, after all.
Sometimes even now I still think everything that happened with Marcus is my fault.
Even fifteen years later I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t led him to the edge of it all.
Maybe he wouldn’t have hit me. Maybe he would have stayed, and Jake would have had a father.
But it’s as if this beach, these women, this whole surreal afternoon, have all sparked a new clarity in the recesses of my mind.
It’s as if I can suddenly see clearly. Half-truths I have told myself for years become downright lies, shame I have carried is starting to melt away, like so much slush after the snow melts.
I hope it will pour down the drain and be gone forever.
Jodie drags her hands over her face, batting the tears away. ‘It’s my fault.’
Kat sighs. ‘No. It’s not. He’s a loser, lovely. But we’ve got other things to worry about now.’
‘What are we going to do?’ I say.
Violet shakes her head. ‘Never trusted him. Never should’ve come.’ She is clinging so tightly to her walker her knuckles strain against her skin.
Kat turns and snaps at her. ‘Look, will you stop being such a grumpy mare? We’re here, and Barbara’s felt the sand and the sea.’
Violet huffs. ‘Charming, I’m sure.’
Kat has no patience left for her grumblings.
‘Just stop it. Just stop being so up yourself you keep the rest of us down. It’s fine.
I’ll call one of those wheelchair accessible taxis for us, the ones with enough seats.
It’s fine.’ She digs her phone out of her pocket and stabs at it. ‘You have to be kidding.’
I go colder than the very cold I was already.
‘No damn reception,’ she says. ‘Not one bar. Nothing.’
‘I’ll check mine,’ Jodie says. ‘Might be a different network.’ She fishes in her jacket pockets, frowning. ‘Oh no, wait… Kane. The photo. He never gave me my phone back, did he?’
I stare at her.
She presses both hands to her forehead. ‘You couldn’t make this up. What about yours, Penny?’
I shake my head slowly. ‘My bag… it’s in the minibus. I didn’t think I’d need it and the sand was too wet and I had too much stuff. Has no one got a phone? Amina?’
I try not to worry too much about getting my handbag back.
‘I forgot it. It is in the hospital, on charge,’ Amina says slowly.
‘I don’t believe this,’ Kat says.
Violet doesn’t even have a phone. Those new-fangled things, she calls them, a look of distrust stamped on her face. You’ll never get her using one of those things. Except when she wants one of us to call Brian for her and tell him to bring her a clean nightie and decent food, that is.
‘Can’t you get the internet?’ Amina says to Kat. ‘I mean, have you any data at all?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What on earth are we supposed to do now?’ Violet says.
I look around me wildly, as if I might find an answer somewhere in the wilds of the ocean or the grit of the sand or the multitude of greys in the sky.
But the sand is silent and the sky is hostile. No one has a phone and there is no one else on this frozen lonely beach that stretches for miles. And the tide is creeping in.
‘I heard a dog, earlier,’ Kat says, shielding her eyes and searching the horizon in every direction. ‘Someone was out here somewhere.’
But there is nothing. No dog owner materialising out of the mist, ready to rescue us with a working phone.
Nobody.
‘Are there any houses, shops nearby?’ I ask Jodie, but she shakes her head.
‘There’s a caravan park over there, see?
And there’s a café and shop up there too.
’ She points into the distance where a few tired-looking static caravans sit behind a boundary of scraggly naked trees.
‘But it’s all closed down for the winter.
Besides, none of us are going to be able to get there, are we? Let’s face it.’
None of us can walk more than a few metres, let alone miles to some battened down caravans in the vain hope the owner might be around out of season.
Barbara stares dreamily at the sky. ‘Look. The sun is starting to go down.’
I gaze out at the sea. The sun is low behind the gathering layers of cloud, but there is a break in the grey as rays play and reflect on the water, muted corals and pastel peaches draping the horizon, as if through a gauze curtain of mist. The colours gather and race through the heavens, twisting and whirling like ribbons, a dance of glory as the sky begins its fade into darkness.
The clocks went back a couple of weeks ago and the nights draw in early.
I shiver and pull my scarf tight around my face.
‘Can we watch it? The sunset?’ Barbara wheedles like a small child, seemingly unaware of our plight.
‘One more sunset. Bill used to take me to the beach at sunset. We’d take this tartan flask, like these ones today, full of hot cocoa, and watch the sun go down beyond the sea.
He’d bring these deckchairs, he would, remember them ones with the blue stripes?
He’d have them under his arm then he’d set them up and say here, my queen, take your throne, and then he’d pour out the cocoa and we’d just sit and gaze at it, the beauty of it all.
We did it when we were young and when we were old too, we did, and those deckchairs, well, they never even got broken.
Still got them in the shed, but I don’t go in there now. I don’t want to use them chairs now.’
We stand there and stare at her. What are we supposed to do now?
Jodie sinks down onto the sand and puts her head into her hands.
‘Are you sure there are no houses nearby?’ Kat says. ‘I think I could walk a little distance.’
‘I, too,’ Amina says.
Jodie shakes her head. ‘Don’t think so. There’s a village, further down that main road, but it’s miles away, like literally about three miles I think.
We used to go in the little shop there and buy drinks and crisps to bring here.
An’ I don’t know about houses, but I don’t think so.
Not that I’ve noticed before, anyway. An’ I’ve been coming here since I was small.
It’s nice in the summer, honest.’ Her words pour out in a rush and suddenly she wilts, rubs at her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut against tears that spill out regardless and crawl down her cheeks.
She looks too pale to me, too worn out. Maybe this was too much for her, after all.
Maybe it was too much for all of us. Maybe we’ve done a really, really stupid thing.
I look at Barbara and my stomach cramps with anxiety.
She looks warm enough, all cocooned in her blankets, but what if it rains?
What if no one comes by? What if we can’t find anyone?
We could die of exposure out here, all of us, stranded on a freezing beach in the middle of winter.
Why did I go along with this stupidity? Why am I Penny who always says yes?
Kat crouches down next to Jodie. ‘Look. It’s no good getting all upset. We’re just going to have to get ourselves up to that road, and flag someone down. There’ll be someone.’
Violet narrows her eyes. ‘Can we all get up there?’
‘It’s not so far,’ I say. ‘Look, we can see the top of the track from here. We can. We have to.’
I know it’s going to just about finish me off, but I also know I will manage it.
Whether Violet will I’m not sure, or Amina, who looks grey and shattered, her head bent low as she shivers, arms clasped tightly around herself, or Jodie, who all of a sudden looks as though she should be tucked back in her hospital bed with a warm drink and hot water bottle.
I’ve never really understood that saying about all the colour draining out of your face, but as I watch Jodie now it happens to her before my eyes.
She looks like a ghost, almost translucent with paleness and fragility.
She was the strongest of us all, I thought.
She has to be the strongest of us all, but now it seems like Kat might be.
Or even, maybe, me.
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s start walking, before it gets too dark.’ I fold up the frog chair and the picnic blanket and stow them under my arm.
‘But I want to watch the sun go down,’ Barbara says, her mouth quivering into a pout as Kat gets hold of her chair and begins to push it slowly back up the beach. ‘I want to see the sun setting again. Just once more.’
Kat stops and looks at me as if I must suddenly have the answer.
Her eyes are wide and scared. My heart is beating too quickly as I kneel down in front of Barbara and place my hand on her knee.
She feels skeletal, even under the tightly tucked-in blankets.
‘Barbara, darling. I know you do. But look. Jodie’s a bit poorly, and you’re getting cold. We need to get back.’
Barbara’s mouth is set in a stubborn line. ‘I want to see the sunset.’
Violet tuts and opens her mouth to speak, but Amina turns to her, placing a finger against her mouth and shaking her head, and Violet shrugs and looks away.