The Year of the Ladybird Read online

  But she looked away again and we walked on in silence. She took a deep breath of the air and then she made a strange gesture at the sea, raising her palm towards the waves, as if she could conjure the water. Then she stroked the back of her white neck and shook her hair free.

  After a while I said, ‘Shall we sit on the sand?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You’re not kissing me.’

  ‘I wasn’t about to,’ I said. Though the thought had crossed my mind. Of course it had.

  She lowered herself to sit cross-legged onto the sand and I sat beside her, but not too close. We stared out at the foaming, electric-blue discharge of the phosphorescent waves. ‘It’s beautiful!’ she said. ‘Beautiful!’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘It’s something to do with microscopic creatures reacting with oxygen to reflect—’

  ‘I’m not talking about the sea, you idiot!’ she shouted.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The freedom! A minute’s freedom! All this! Just being here with you!’ She looked at me and smiled and I realised it was the very first time that she had allowed herself to smile. ‘You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘You don’t know how I live!’

  ‘How do you live?’

  She looked out to sea again. She compressed her lips and narrowed her eyes. Then she flicked at her dress. ‘See this dress? I keep this in secret. He doesn’t know I have this dress. He decides what I wear and when I wear it. I’m not allowed to go out. I’m not allowed to go shopping. I’m not allowed any friends. I’m definitely not allowed to stroll along the beach at night.’ She picked up a pebble from the sand and tossed it into the lapping water. ‘You see those Muslim women who wear those bloody awful all-over things?’

  ‘It’s called a chador.’

  ‘Is it? Well. He treats me like they treat their wives. He covers me up. He hides me.’

  Forgive me, I thought, but at this moment I would want to hide you, too. She was a spark of light and he wanted to keep her under a glass jar. He knew that if he let her go the light would go out of his life. ‘Why don’t you just leave him?’

  ‘Ha! Don’t you think I have? Three times. He came after me and he beat me black and blue. Plus I’ve got nowhere else to go.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense. You can go anywhere.’

  ‘It’s all right for you to say. You have all of life in front of you. I’m stuck, cleaning floors, stuck with a man I don’t love. Jesus, I’m being a boring bitch.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘Change the subject.’

  I took a breath and described my life at University. I told her that my life wasn’t very exciting either, consisting of lectures in the daytime and drinking in the evening even though I wasn’t a great drinker.

  ‘What sort of lectures?’

  I didn’t know what to tell her. I started with some guff about William Faulkner, but then I tailed off. What could I say? Sorry, you’re not allowed to go to University to know about Shakespeare and William Faulkner because you were born the wrong side of the tracks? I supposed if she exhausted herself at night-school for three years and starved herself for a further three she could do it. But it wasn’t anywhere in her own expectation of herself.

  ‘That all sounds rubbish,’ she said. I was relieved that she didn’t want to hear any more about my University life.

  The conversation returned to Colin and she told me how she’d met him.

  ‘He rescued me,’ she said.

  She was fourteen and living in Chingford when Colin had ‘rescued’ her. He was twelve years older than she was. She’d been in and out of foster care and ended up with a violent uncle who was getting ready to put her on the game. Her life back then was a kind of hell that she said I didn’t want to know about. Colin was handsome enough, he was strong and he had his own flat. He took care of her. He took her away from the life she was living. She shacked up with him and carried on going to school for another year, cooking his breakfast, making his dinner, tidying his flat. She fell pregnant but it didn’t work out.

  Colin was sometimes flush with money. He knew some bad people and she had a good idea where he was getting it. But it seemed exciting. Then Colin had to do a stretch in prison. It was lonely. She got some cleaning work in a pub to make ends meet. In the pub she got a little too friendly with one of the bar staff, a young man more her own age. Colin came out of prison and first he dealt with the young man and then he dealt with her. She ran away from him. He came after her, beat her again and brought her home.

  ‘You don’t want anything to do with me,’ she said. ‘I’m trouble wherever I go.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ I said.

  She got to her feet. ‘I’m going to swim,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know when I’ll next get the chance.’ In one moment she lifted her black dress over her head and stripped it off. Then she unhooked her bra and let her breasts fall free. ‘Get an eyeful, why don’t you?’

  ‘You expect me to look away?’

  ‘No. You can look.’

  She left her white cotton knickers on and walked into the water. The blue-white threads of phosphorescence foamed around her calves, and then around her knees and then lapped at her thighs, as if the water had become excited, charged. Again I had the eerie notion that she was a dark spirit. She didn’t look back at me to see if I was going to join her. The truth is I was a little bit afraid. She went out deeper and began to swim.

  I waited on the sand until she came out again. She was shivering. She smoothed water from her shoulders and her breasts and from her hips and thighs with the palms of her hands. Then she slipped her bra on again and pulled her dress over her. ‘We’ll walk back now.’

  I didn’t want to. But I got to my feet and we started walking very slowly back towards the lights of the promenade. ‘How was it?’ I said, dumbly. ‘How was the water?’

  ‘Oh.’

  Then she skipped in front of me and reached up and, taking my face in both her hands, she craned her neck up to kiss me. I know I sound like a little girl, but I felt dizzy and faint. I tasted saltwater on her lips. Saltwater and the soft phosphorescence.

  I had kissed girls before. I wasn’t a virgin. But she wasn’t a girl and this was all new to me. There was a less pliant quality to her kisses, a brittleness that said the thing had to be more hard-won. She broke off and let her hands fall at her sides, staring hard at me. Then she turned and made towards the promenade. Before we reached the first lights she said that she would go on ahead and that I should follow after a decent interval.

  ‘But I should walk you back!’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  She skipped off the beach and up onto the promenade, quickening her pace, tossing her hair as she went. I watched from the shadows. When she’d disappeared from view I sat back down on the concrete platform of the sea wall. I held my hands in front of my face. They were trembling. I could still taste the saltwater from her lips. And the honey. And the fire.

  7

  Whereupon they gather to drink bitter tears

  Sunday was our start of the week. When I got to the theatre for Pinky’s up-and-at-’em briefing most of the team were already assembled – Tony, Perry the ASM, George who ran the disco in the nightclub, and all the Greencoats except for Nobby. I was hoping that Terri would be up there on the stage in her cleaning whites, swabbing the floor with a mop. But she wasn’t. It was probably a good thing. I would have found it impossible to take my eyes off her.

  Nikki perched on one of the front row seats so I went over and settled myself next to her. I said good morning but she didn’t answer me; instead she instantly got up and went to talk to George. I thought little of it at the time and anyway after a moment Nobby bustled in, huffing and puffing and blaming everyone but himself for his lateness. He crashed down in the seat Nikki had vacated and continued to talk nonsense about missing milk and no cereals and traffi
c and ducks waddling in the road until Pinky, unlit cigar wedged between his fingers, waved him into silence so that the various duties could be assigned.

  The Sunday programme was fairly light. Pinky nominated me to do the Treasure Hunt. I was hoping Nikki would volunteer to do it with me but she elected instead to run the Whist Drive with Nobby in the Slowboat. I was paired with another dancer called Gail, a pretty and dreamy girl who, when not dancing, spent most of her time examining the split ends on her long hair or studying her fingernail varnish. Before leaving the theatre I glanced up on stage, but Nikki had already disappeared behind the curtain.

  The Treasure Hunt was for kids between five and nine years. Gail and I led the kids around in a mob as they tracked down clues and locations all previously configured. The clues led to a set of plastic spades and then identified a spot on the beach where the treasure (a tin casket full of sticks of rock) might be dug up. I thought it was a bit lame so I suggested we tell the kids that Captain Blood the pirate was trying to beat them to the treasure, and that so they should look lively. Of course there was no Captain Blood so I slipped off to the props room behind the stage. Behind the sword casket used for the magic-act I found a headscarf and a belt with a huge buckle, plus a black eyepatch and a hook. I crept up behind the thirty or forty kids and roared.

  They turned and looked at me in complete silence.

  I was regretting my input, and then they charged. I really had to run fast to get away. Luckily I knew the lay of the camp and I gave them the slip. I have no idea what they would have done had they caught me. I took my pirate kit off, stashed it away and went to rejoin the Treasure Hunt. Out of breath, I told the kids I’d just seen Captain Blood on the beach and off they charged again, screaming for his hide.

  ‘This is brilliant,’ Gail said, ‘we can forget about the clues.’

  We rounded up the kids from the beach and I said I was going to look for Captain Blood but that I was a bit scared, so if they heard me blow my whistle they should come to my aid. On my way to put my gear on again I was intercepted by Pinky and Tony.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Pinky wanted to know.

  I explained the game.

  ‘This is like the old days,’ Pinky said brightly. ‘Go up on the theatre roof and when they see you, duck out of sight.’

  There were stairs onto the roof of the theatre and I went up there to slip on my pirate gear. When I blew my whistle they came running. They saw me on the roof. They pointed and shrieked. Pinky and Gail led them in a chant of ‘We want Captain Blood!’ I ducked out of sight. There followed a chorus of boos and another round of chanting and then there was another chorus of excited screams. I looked over the parapet and the kids were no longer looking in my direction. There at the poolside was another Captain Blood in an almost identical get-up, this one waving a sword at them. I could see it was Tony. He legged it and the kids went charging after him.

  I could see right across the resort: the playing fields, the offices and staff dorms, the blocks of chalets, the pool with its gay flags drooping in the windless heat of the day. I could also see the sandy beach beyond and the still blue sea rushing towards the vanishing point. The kids chased Tony down and at the crucial moment I would pop up so they would chase me. It was wonderful: Captain Blood had magic powers. But I made a foolish mistake and almost killed myself.

  When the kids approached again looking for Captain Blood I decided I would cross the roof and roar at them from the other side, but in order to do so I had to spring over a low wall running down the middle of the roof. I cocked my leg over the wall and was about to let go when I glanced down. Where I expected to see a flat roof inches under my foot the ground thirty feet below flashed at me like the edge of a shiny blade. Down there stood the man in the blue suit and the boy. The man had his palm extended towards me.

  In that moment it looked as though the man was reaching forward as if to grab me, to pull me, or at least to encourage me over the edge. The flat roof of what I took to be the same building was divided by a narrow alley. I hadn’t realised. I was horribly arrested with one leg dangling over the wall and my eye fixed on the man with the outstretched palm. A fraction of extra momentum would have taken me clean over.

  Brought to my senses, I staggered backwards and lay down on the roof, holding my heart where it punched at my ribcage. If I had let go I would have fallen either to my death or to certain serious injury. I lay on my back for a long time, thinking about what had just happened. When I got up to look over the edge again, both man and boy had gone.

  Finally, I crept down from the building. The only thing that seemed to bring the game to an end was the midday heat and the cloud of bugs – ladybirds – that were starting to become a nuisance. We gave in. I allowed myself to be ‘caught’ by the grown-ups and marched to the swimming pool at the point of the sword. There I was made to walk the plank, or rather the diving board, into the swimming pool. It got a big cheer. The casket-treasure of rock was dug up and the children were fed with red sugar.

  Tony and Pinky took me for lunch. They told me I was no longer on probation. I hadn’t known that I was on probation. You’re one of us, Pinky said. I wasn’t certain whether that meant I was good at wearing an eye patch or draping myself in the flag of St George.

  ‘Speaking of the old days, who’s polishing the Brass?’ Tony said, and Pinky looked glum. Nobody wanted to polish the brass, it seemed. Every Sunday afternoon the camp was visited by a brass or silver band representing a colliery or a village somewhere in the North of the country. The musicians travelled a long way by coach to play. All that was required of the Greencoat was to place deckchairs around the bandstand and then fold them up again after everyone had gone. It was hardly onerous and I said I’d do it.

  Tony and Pinky looked at each other. ‘Why can’t they all be like you?’ Pinky said. A ladybird settled on his brow and he seemed not to notice. ‘Where’s that fucking Nobby?’

  I was very glad of the chance to sit still. I hadn’t felt right since I’d almost plunged to my death. The jolt had put the world out of joint. Meanwhile the brass band was a sadly outmoded feature of the entertainment programme; notionally it was kept on ‘for the oldies’ and in truth that’s who turned up to listen. The white-haired old folk. They bought with them thin white-bread processed-meat sandwiches and thermos flasks filled with tea.

  I helped the brass band set up, too. They were the Brigthorpe Colliery Band in smart sky-blue cotton blazers. They had already appeared earlier in the season. As I was tightening a music stand the bandmaster said, ‘Are you new? What happened to Nigel?’

  Nigel, I gathered, was my predecessor in the job. ‘No idea,’ I said. ‘He cleared off.’

  ‘Shame. Good lad, Nigel was.’

  After everyone was settled I slumped into my own deckchair with a printed repertoire programme and the band struck up. The pure sounds of the brass band went to work on me at once. My breathing returned to normal. I started to drift into a world where I was half asleep, floating and soaring and falling with the music. These unfashionable musicians carried with them a beautiful sadness even when they played something jaunty and up-tempo. We had the William Tell Overture. They played the Floral Dance. They were into Largo from the New World Symphony when I felt someone settle lightly into the deckchair next to me, and I felt sand closing over my head. I lurched awake, opened my eyes and found Terri sitting next to me. She said nothing.

  ‘I don’t want you to think,’ she whispered, ‘that I’ve come here just because you are here. Because I come here every week.’

  Maybe I looked sceptical.

  ‘It’s the only place he will allow me to come on my own where he knows I’m not going to get chatted up.’ She indicated the snowy-haired audience with a nod of her head. ‘But I like it. And I knew you would be here.’

  I waved away one of the ladybirds that were becoming a plague. ‘How?’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s all all right. All of it. It’s meant to be. You’ll se
e. It’s meant to be. But it’s all all right.’

  The band stopped for a breather and to swig water. The sunlight winked on their tubas and trombones and cornets. Sweat ran down the faces of the musicians and pooled in the crevices of their armpits. Then on a command from their leader they picked up their instruments and started up again. I went to speak but she held up a hand to stop me. I looked at my programme: Adagio for Strings. Terri sat forward in her deckchair, hands clasped under her chin like someone praying. Every now and then, as the movement began to swell, I stole a glance at her. Then I saw that she was indeed weeping. Not just a pretty tear rolling down her lovely cheek, but bitter, bitter, tears expressed in silence. I felt my own chest constrict. I wanted to do something but I couldn’t. The music had completely taken her over and it was almost as if she no longer knew I was there.

  A ladybird alighted on her face, on the angle of her cheekbone. I do believe it was drinking from her tears. She brushed it away.

  The afternoon was evaporating in a shimmering haze. I felt very strange. For a moment I hallucinated that the men and women and boys and girls of the band were all made of glass, and their instruments, too. They were transparent and fragile, and I feared for the hammer that could so easily break them. The sun refracted off the brass instruments, but slowly, and air was filled with music, fat glass globes of sound rising from the band and drifting across the camp like bubbles blown from a child’s water-pipe. I know I wasn’t asleep, and anyway it only lasted for a second or two. But I felt like I’d had a glimpse at a world just behind the physics of this one. I’d been delivered into a state of unaccountable bliss, happy just to be sitting next to her all afternoon.

  ‘Do you ever think,’ I said ‘that you might have someone watching over you?’

  ‘Never,’ she said, a little sharply. ‘Do you?’

  ‘I think I might have,’ I said.

  ‘Like an angel?’

  ‘No, not at all like an angel.’