Lucas (2 page)

That
was the moment I first saw him – a lone figure at the far end of the Stand, on the left-hand side, with his back to us, walking towards the island.

Apart from wishing that Dominic would shut up braying, my first thought was how odd it was to see someone walking on the Stand. You don't often see people walking around here. The closest town is Moulton (where we'd just come from), about fifteen kilometres away on the mainland, and between Hale and Moulton there's nothing but small cottages, farms, heathland, the ranges, and the odd pub or two. So islanders don't walk, because there's nowhere nearby to walk
to
. And if they're going to Moulton they either drive or take the bus. So the only pedestrians you're likely to see around here are ramblers, bird-watchers, poachers, or, very occasionally, people (like me) who just like to walk. But even from a distance I could tell that the figure up ahead didn't fit into any of these categories. I wasn't sure how I knew, I just did. Deefer knew, too. His ears had pricked up and he was squinting curiously through the windscreen.

As we drew closer, the figure became clearer. It was a young man, or a boy, dressed loosely in a drab green T-shirt and baggy green trousers. He had a green army jacket tied around his waist and a green canvas bag slung over his shoulder. The only non-green thing about him was the pair of scruffy black walking boots on his feet. Although he was on the small side, he wasn't as slight as I'd first thought. He wasn't exactly
muscular
, but he wasn't weedy-looking either. It's hard to explain. There was an air of hidden strength about him, a graceful strength that showed in his balance, the way he held himself, the way he walked …

As I've already said, the memory of Lucas's walk brings a smile to my face. It's an incredibly vivid memory, and if I close my eyes I can see it now. An easygoing lope. Nice and steady. Not too fast and not too slow. Fast enough to get somewhere, but not too fast to miss anything. Bouncy, alert, resolute, without concern and without vanity. A walk that both belonged to and was remote from everything around it.

You can tell a lot about people from the way they walk.

As the car got closer I realised that Dad and Dominic had stopped talking, and I was suddenly aware of a strange, almost ghostly, silence to the air – not just in the car, but outside as well. Birds had stopped calling, the wind had dropped, and in the distance the sky had brightened to the most intense blue I'd ever seen. It was like something out of a film, one of those slow-motion episodes played out in absolute silence when your skin starts tingling and you just
know
that something stunning is about to happen.

Dad was driving quite steadily, as he always does, but it seemed as if we were barely moving. I could hear the tyres humming on the dry road and the air rushing past the window, and I could see the railings at the side of the road flickering past in a blur of white, so I knew we
were
moving, but the distance between us and the boy didn't appear to be changing.

It was weird. Almost like a dream.

Then, all at once, time and distance seemed to lurch forward and we drew level with the boy. As we did so, he turned his head and looked at us. No, that's wrong – he turned his head and looked at
me
. Directly at me. (When I talked to Dad about this a little while ago, he told me he'd had the very same feeling – that Lucas was looking directly
at
him
, as if
he
was the only person in the whole world.)

It was a face I'll never forget. Not simply because of its beauty – although Lucas was undeniably beautiful – but more for its wondrous sense of being
beyond
things. Beyond the pale blue eyes and the tousled hair and the sad smile … beyond all this there was something else.

Something …

I still don't know what it was.

Dominic broke the spell by peering through the window and grunting, ‘What the hell is
that?
'

And then the boy was gone, whizzing past into the background as we left the Stand and veered off towards the east of the island.

I wanted to look back. I was desperate to look back. But I couldn't. I was afraid he might not be there.

The rest of the journey was something of a blur. I remember Dad making a curious sniffing sound, glancing at me in the mirror, then clearing his throat and asking me if I was all right.

And me saying, ‘Uh huh.'

And then Dominic saying, ‘Do you know him, Cait?'

‘Who?'

‘The droolee, the urchin … that thing you were gawping at.'

‘Shut up, Dominic.'

He laughed, mocking me – ‘
Shut up, Dominic
…' – and then started on about something else.

I remember Dad changing gear and gunning the car up Black Hill with a rare burst of confidence, and I vaguely remember passing the sign that says
Beware Tractors
, only the
T
and the
R
are hidden behind a hedge, so it says
Beware actors
, and whenever we pass it one of us always
makes a point of saying, Look out, there's John Wayne, or Hugh Grant, or Brad Pitt … but I don't remember who it was that afternoon.

I was somewhere else for a while.

I don't know where.

All I can remember is a strange, buzzy feeling in my head, an intensity of excitement and sadness that I'd never felt before and probably won't ever feel again.

It was as if I knew, even then, what was going to happen.

Over the last year I've often wondered what would have happened if I hadn't seen Lucas that day. If we'd crossed the Stand ten minutes earlier, or ten minutes later. If Dominic's train had been delayed. If the tide had been high. If Dad had stopped for petrol on the way back. If Lucas had left wherever he'd come from a day earlier, or a day later …

What would have happened? Would everything be different? Would I be a different person right now? Would I be happier? Sadder? Would I dream different dreams? And what about Lucas? What would have happened to Lucas if I hadn't seen him that day? Would he still …

And it's then I realise how utterly pointless such thinking is. What if, what might have been …

It doesn't matter.

I did see him, and nothing can ever change that.

These things, these moments you take to be extraordinary, they have a way of melting back into reality, and the further we got from the Stand – the further we got from the moment – the less tingly I felt. By the time we turned into the narrow lane that leads down to our house, the buzzy
feeling in my head had just about gone and the world had returned to something like normal.

The car lumped and shuddered down the lane and I gazed out at the familiar view: the poplar trees, with the sunlight strobing through the branches; the green fields; the pitted driveway; then the old grey house, looking restful and welcoming in the cooling sun; and beyond it all, the beach and the sea glistening in the evening distance. Aside from a lone container ship inching across the horizon, the sea was empty and still.

Dad told me once that this part of Hale, the east side, reminded him of his childhood home in Ireland. I've never been to Ireland, so I wouldn't know. But I know that I love everything about this place – the peace, the wildness, the birds, the smell of salt and seaweed, the call of the wind, the unpredictability of the sea … I even love this straggly old house, with its mouldy old roof and its uneven walls and its scattering of outhouses and tumbledown sheds. It might not be the prettiest house in the world, but it's mine. It's where I live. I was born here.

I belong here.

Dad parked the car in the yard and turned off the engine. I opened the door. Deefer bounded out and started barking at Rita Gray, our neighbour, who was walking her Labrador along the lane. I got out of the car and waved to her. As she waved back, a pair of Mute swans flew in low across the field, their wings throbbing in the breeze. The Labrador started after them, barking like a lunatic.

‘She'll never catch them,' Dad called out.

Rita shrugged and smiled. ‘It'll do her good, John, she needs the exercise – oh, hello Dominic, I didn't recognise you.'

‘Yo, Mrs Gee,' Dom replied, scuttling into the house.

The Labrador was halfway down the lane now, its tongue hanging out, yapping at the empty sky.

Rita shook her head and sighed. ‘Damn dog, I don't know why she – oh, Cait, before I forget, Bill said would you give her a ring about tomorrow.'

‘OK.'

‘She'll be in until nine.'

‘All right, thanks.'

She nodded at Dad, then strode off down the lane after her dog, whistling and laughing, swinging the dog lead in the air, her red hair blowing in the breeze.

I noticed that Dad was watching her.

‘What?' he said, when he saw me looking at him.

‘Nothing,' I smiled.

Inside, Dominic had thrown his rucksack on the floor and was stomping up the stairs. ‘Give me a shout when grub's on,' he called out. ‘I'm just going to have a quick kip. I'm knackered.'

The bedroom door slammed shut.

It felt strange having someone else in the house. It unsettled me. I suppose I'd got used to being alone with Dad. Our sounds, our quietness. I'd got used to the calm and solitude.

Dad picked up Dominic's rucksack and leaned it against the stairs. He smiled reassuringly at me, reading my thoughts. ‘He's just a big kid, Cait. He doesn't mean any harm.'

‘Yeah, I know.'

‘It'll be fine. Don't worry.'

I nodded. ‘Do you want something to eat?'

‘Not just now, eh? Give him an hour or two and then we'll have something together.' He leaned down and tightened
one of the ribbons in my hair. ‘Plumes, you say?'

‘Plumes,' I agreed.

He fixed the ribbon then stepped back and looked at me. ‘Very becoming, indeed.'

‘Thanks,' I grinned. ‘You're not too bad yourself. Did you see the way Rita was looking at you?'

‘She looks at everyone like that. She's worse than her daughter.'

‘She's always asking after you, you know.'

‘Look, Cait—'

‘I'm only joking, Dad,' I said. ‘Don't look so worried.'

‘Who's worried?'

‘You are. You worry about everything.'

We chatted away for a couple of minutes, but I could tell he was itching to get back to work. He kept looking at his watch.

‘I'm going to ring Bill,' I told him. ‘And then I'll take Deefer out for a walk. I'll make something to eat when I get back.'

‘OK,' he said. ‘I suppose I'd better get a couple of hours in while I've still got the chance.'

‘How's the new book going?'

‘Ah, you know, same old stuff …' For a moment he just stood there staring down at the floor, rubbing at his beard, and I thought he was going to tell me something, share some of his problems with me. But after a while he just sighed again and said, ‘Well, I'd best be getting on – make sure you're back before it's dark. I'll see you later, love.' And he was gone, stooping into his study and shutting the door.

Dad writes books for teenagers, or
Young Adults
, as the bookshops like to call them. You've probably heard of
him. You may even have read some of his books –
Some Kind of God, Nothing Ever Dies, New World
… No? Well, even if you haven't read them, you've probably read
about
them. They're the kind of books that get nominated for prizes but never win, the kind of books that get rubbished by all the papers for being immoral, for setting a bad example, for contributing to the destruction of innocence in the youth of today. Basically, they're the kind of books that don't make very much money.

Bill was eating when she answered the phone. ‘Mmyeah?'

‘Bill? It's Cait—'

‘Just a mm – hold on …' I could hear the television blaring in the background, Bill chewing, swallowing, burping … ‘Right,' she said. ‘
Urrp
– sorry ‘bout that.'

‘Your mum said to ring you. I saw her down the lane.'

‘Yeah, I thought she was never gonna go – just a minute …'

‘Bill?'

‘That's better, dying for a ciggy. You all right?'

‘Fine—'

‘I saw you coming back in the car, where've you been?'

‘Picking up Dom.'

‘Hey, now you're talking—'

‘Oh, come on, Bill—'

‘What?'

‘You
know
what. He's nineteen, for God's sake.'

‘So?'

‘You're fifteen …'

‘Girls mature earlier than boys, Cait. It's a well-known fact.'

‘Yeah? Well
you
certainly have.'

She laughed. ‘Can I help it if my hormones are hungry?'

‘Maybe you should try going on a diet?'

‘Ha!'

‘Anyway, Dom's got a girlfriend.'

‘Who?'

‘I don't know, someone at university, I think.' I quickly formed a mental image. ‘A tall blonde with long legs and pots of money—'

‘You're making it up.'

‘No, I'm not. Her name's Helen, she lives in Norfolk somewhere—'

‘There you are, then.'

‘What?'

‘She's in Norfolk – I'm two minutes walk up the lane. End of story.' She laughed again, then covered the mouthpiece and spoke to somebody in the background.

I twiddled the telephone cord in my fingers and wiped a cobweb from the wall. I jiggled my foot. I told myself to ignore it, forget it, don't let it bother you … but I couldn't. This thing with Bill and Dominic was getting out of hand. It used to be funny –
Dear Trish, My best friend fancies my older brother, what should I do?
Yeah, it
used
to be funny, when Bill was ten and Dominic was fourteen. But it wasn't funny any more, because Bill wasn't joking any more. She really meant it. And that bothered me. The trouble was, if I told her what I really thought she'd just laugh it off. She'd say – oh, come on, Cait, don't be so bloody
serious
all the time, it's just a bit of fun, girl …