The Rose Petal Beach (2 page)

‘It felt like it.’

‘But why did you say that? It’s horrible.’

Scott shrugged. ‘Something I heard my brother say.’

‘But it’s horrible.’

‘So’s my brother, I suppose.’

‘OK.’

We didn’t say anything again for a long time. Then I said, ‘Just because your brother’s horrible, doesn’t mean you have to be.’

Scott stared at me. ‘Doesn’t it?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘You can be nice if you want to. Or you can be not horrible. Like, see, my sister loves teddy bears, even though she’s miles older than me. I don’t have to like teddy bears because she does. You don’t have to be horrible because your brother is. You can be whoever you want.’

He frowned at me for ages like I’d spoken to him in another language that he didn’t understand. ‘Do you really think so?’

‘Yeah, course.’

We didn’t say anything to each other for ages and ages then I said, ‘Are you going to do this thing then?’

‘Dunno. Depends what my parents say. Are you?’

‘I don’t know, depends what my parents say.’

‘So you’re doing it then,’ Scott told me.

‘Yes, I suppose I am. And you’re not doing it then,’ I told him.

‘No, I don’t suppose I am.’

The sound of chairs moving on the other side of the door stopped me from leaning against the wall and to stand up straight instead. Scott Challey didn’t, he kept leaning against the wall, because he didn’t care what anyone thought of him and what he did. As the door handle turned, I saw from the corner of my eye that he pushed himself off the wall. He took his hands out of his pockets, tucked in the front of his off-white shirt, which had been hanging out like a tongue, and he stood up straight.

‘Oi,’ he said.

I looked at him.

He tipped his chin up at me.

I grinned at him in return. He was all right. For a Challey.

Call me Beatrix. All my friends do. Some of them call me Bea, of course, but that’s only when they’ve known me a while and we’ve only just met so if you don’t mind, I’d like you call me Beatrix.

It’s amazing the amount of people who’ll shorten your name without so much as a by your leave when they’ve only just met you. It’s a bit of a liberty, wouldn’t you say? Not that I think you’d ever take liberties like that. I simply want it to be clear that right now, I’d prefer if you called me Beatrix. Once we get to know each other, you can shorten my name, or lengthen it – but I probably won’t answer if you call me Trixie. (My best friend in school, Eilise Watford, had a dog and they called it Trixie, so you can understand why I won’t be answering to
that
.)

This is what I’m going to say to the man opposite me if he slips and calls me Bea. Although, out of all of the men I’ve met online, he’s the best so far.

Yes, I’m internet dating. Well, dabbling in it. No, it’s not really worked out for me. Yet. I’ve met four men after ‘talking’ to loads: one turned out to be twenty years older than he claimed to be (he’d sent me an old picture, too), one decided to tell me on our first date that he was addicted to visiting prostitutes but was sure the love of a good woman would help him to kick the habit, one claimed to be single but hadn’t bothered to cover up the pale band of skin where his wedding ring usually sat, and the fourth is sitting opposite me.

Never thought I’d be doing this still, to be honest. Even after my husband ran of with some
whore
– I mean some
one
else – I thought … I don’t know, I just didn’t think I’d
still
be doing this.

This man opposite me seems normal. When we ‘met’ online he’d been witty, he hadn’t started any sex talk and had completely understood when I asked for a picture of him with a copy of that day’s newspaper. I also quizzed him relentlessly about his marital status and he’d been honest enough to say he’d been married and divorced and would bring the paperwork with him if necessary to clear up any ambiguity.

This is our first ‘in real life’ date, and in the flesh, he’s pretty hot.

We’re in a very expensive restaurant in Brighton – I’m not a name-dropper so I won’t tell you which – and this is the truly impressive part, he’s got us a booth. You have to
know
people to get a booth, especially at such short notice, so kudos goes to him for that.

‘So, Beatrix, tell me about yourself,’ he says.

And I smile at him, knowing I’m going to do anything but.

I’m still shaking.

It’s been two hours but I’m still shaking.

I was able to put it to one side while I held the girls and kissed them and told them it was OK. I was able to hide the shaking and confusion and the fear as they clung to me, sobbing and whimpering at what they had witnessed.

They let me take them upstairs and put them in the big bed, and they sobbed and clung to me a while longer as I sat between them, stroking both their heads until slowly, carefully, the sobbing stopped and then they drifted off to sleep.

I used to love this happening when they were littlies and neither of them would sleep through the night: we’d all end up in the big bed, a tessellation – complex and delicate – of bodies needing sleep. Scott hated having to sleep on the edge of the bed but I secretly loved it. Yes, I could never allow myself to fall into a deep sleep in case one of them rolled over or crawled off the bed but we were all together, all close, all sharing our time together even though we weren’t awake.

After climbing out of the space between them, I sat on the top step, where I haven’t moved from, my mobile on one side of me, the house phone on the other, shaking. I curl my fingers into my palms to stop my hands trembling, but the rest of me is still at it.

I don’t need to glance down at either phone to know that Scott hasn’t rung or texted me. I don’t need to, but I do, in case I’ve missed something, in case I didn’t hear.

The look on his face as they led him away … There was something on his face, in his eyes, latticed in the language of his body.
My mind won’t settle long enough for me to decipher what it was, but it was there and it should not have been there. The Scott I knew, loved, married, had children with would not have had that look. My brain is racing ahead, racing back. Whizzing and popping, too much, too fast for me to keep a single thought for too long. This is too much. I unfurl my hands, watch them quiver in the half-light of the hallway.

I need to do something. Anything. Sitting here, waiting, is going to cause my mind to implode. The trembling stops when I pick up my mobile and log onto the internet, find the number for Brighton Police Station. There are two, one in Hove, the other in Brighton. Where would they have taken him? Hove is nearer but Brighton is bigger.

Distance wins over size. The shaking returns, though, as I dial the number. It increases as the person who answered the phone checks to see if he’s there. He’s not. He must be at Brighton. I call the other number. They can confirm he’s there. I cannot speak to him. They will not tell me why he was arrested, they will not let me know if he has been charged. They cannot tell me when or if he’ll be released. The only thing they’ll tell me is that he is there. I need to know more.

Should I go down there?
is the punctuation to every heartbeat.
They won’t be able to ignore someone who’s right in front of them.

It’s late, there are only two people near enough who can sit with the girls at such short notice. Beatrix, the one they’ve known the longest and who lives at the diagonal opposite side of our bottle-shaped road, is out on a date tonight. I’ve tried her phone anyway on the off-chance her date’s been cancelled or she’s come home early, but it keeps saying her phone is switched off and you can’t leave a message. If she was here instead of me and the girls woke up, they’d be fine. They’ve known her all their lives, they call her Bix, she’s Anansy’s godmother and they both miss her when she’s not here. I’d have no worries about not being here if she was.

The other person is Mirabelle. The girls love her, in a different
way to Beatrix. They call her Auntie Mirabelle but she’s only been in their lives for two years, since she and I became friends. She works with Scott and spends time here with the girls, but never without me somewhere nearby. I’m not sure how they’d react to her being here if they woke up, nor how she would react to having to comfort them at a time like this.

The silent phones continue their passive mocking of my ignorance. I have no choice. If I want to know what’s going on, I’m going to have to go down there. Maybe the shaking will stop if I find out more – if I do something.

I call up Mirabelle’s number on my mobile, then press dial. The phone rings out and then, ‘Hi, this is Mirabelle, leave me a message.’ I hang up. Then try again. Nothing. I try again. Nothing. The fourth time, her distracted voice answers, ‘Hello?’

‘Mirabelle, it’s me,’ I say, so relieved tears cram themselves into my eyes. ‘Thank God, you’re there.’

‘Tami?’ she asks cautiously. ‘What’s up?’

The familiarity of her voice causes tears to overwhelm my vocal cords, my words, my ability to speak. It’s replaying on loop in my head: the handcuffs on his wrists, the police officers leading him away, the look on his face I cannot name. ‘I, erm, I need your help,’ I say, trying to control myself, trying to bury the fragile, fractured, almost broken tone in my voice. I want to be stronger than this. I want to take charge and show no weakness.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asks carefully. I can imagine her light hazel eyes narrowing in the dark skin of her face as she awaits my answer.

‘I—I … Can you come over? It’ll be easier face to face.’

‘Well, um, not really, I’m not exactly dressed to go out. Can’t you tell me what’s wrong on the phone?’

‘Um … No. Please, I really need your help.’

‘I … um … Are you alone?’

‘No, the girls are here, but Scott’s not.’ I say his name and crack myself. Break myself into tiny little fragments that glint from their
scattered places on the corridor floor. I am sobbing silently, the inhalations of my tears, soft enough not to wake the girls, but strong enough to be heard on the phone.

‘OK, I’m coming,’ she says. ‘Just give me a chance to get dressed.’

I can’t even say thank you as I hang up the phone.

Twenty-four years ago

It didn’t seem fair. I was the only girl in the class to not get a Valentine’s card. Even Kim Meekson who sat at the back of the class picking her nose and eating the bogeys got a card but not me. Genevieve, my sister, had five pushed through the door this morning and Sarto, my brother, had eight. I had a big fat zero. I thought maybe when they opened the red postbox that sat next to my form tutor Miss Harliss’s desk, there might be at least one for me. Nope. Nothing there, either.

After the box was emptied and there was none for me, I looked around, saw that I was different and felt really small inside. My throat got lumpy but I couldn’t let anyone see it mattered. Phyllis Latan, my best friend, who sat next to me, said, ‘You can share mine.’ I didn’t want to, hers was from Harry Nantes who smelt because he didn’t wash his hair, but it was nice of her, so I held the card for a bit then had to give it back because I could tell she thought I was going to keep it.

No one liked me. No one. I didn’t really want boys to like me like that, but I didn’t want no one to like me so I was the only person who didn’t get a card. I was probably the only girl in the whole of the school who didn’t get one.

I dragged my feet going home and as I turned the corner to my road, I knew Genevieve and Sarto were going to laugh at me for weeks and weeks. It was bad enough I was the youngest, this was going to be the worst thing to make fun of me yet.

Scott was suddenly there. He was standing in front of me as scruffy as he always was: I mean, there was no point in him wearing his tie when it was almost off, and his shirt – peeking out from
under his school coat – had mud smudges all over it. His red jumper was tied around his waist and his grey trousers were mud-smudged, too.

He didn’t say or do anything for a few seconds, then ‘Here,’ he said, shoving a red envelope at me. I didn’t even get the chance to say, ‘What is it?’ before he took off, his black leather Head bag, slung on his shoulder with football boots tied to the handle, bobbing as he ran. I stood watching him go, and didn’t look down at the envelope until he’d turned the corner at the end of my street.

I opened the envelope and inside was a card with a white bear holding a big red heart on the front. ‘Happy Valentine’s Day,’ the front read. ‘Your secret admirer’ it continued inside.

Scott had neatly written:

You’re all right, you.

I knew what he meant: he didn’t like me like Harry liked Phyllis, he just didn’t want me to be sad and not be the only girl in the world without any Valentine cards.

Coat. Shoes. Bag. Mobile. Purse. Cash. Keys.

Twenty-four years ago

‘What were you doing with that Challey boy?’ Genevieve asked me after dinner.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I saw you, from the bedroom window. He was standing there talking to you. It looked like he gave you a card. What were you doing with him?’

‘Nothing,’ I said.

‘Stay away from him, Tami,’ she said.

‘I’m not coming near him. He was outside when I got home.’

‘Did he ask you out?’

‘No!’

‘Look, stay away from him or I’ll tell Mummy and Daddy.’

‘Tell them what you want!’ I said. ‘I haven’t done anything.’

‘His family are really racist, you know.’

‘Why does that matter to me? I’ve only spoken to him once in my life and then earlier. That’s all.’

‘Tami, trust me, he’s trouble. Just stay away from him.’

I shrugged at her because my big sister knew nothing when it came to this. I didn’t like him, he didn’t like me. We hadn’t spoken since the day outside the headmaster’s office and we wouldn’t speak again, probably. He was just being nice, that’s all. Yes, he was a Challey and yes, they were all – including him – nothing but trouble, but even a Challey was allowed to be nice at least once in their lives, weren’t they?