Being Henry Applebee

Ariel sank back into her seat.

The long journey north had begun.

It was dull and stuffy inside the shop, and she’d grown tired of sitting curled up in the window, her finger tracing the underside of the green and gold lettering on the far side of the glass.

She lifted the back of her hair and fanned her neck with her hand. Estelle was busy serving a woman with a sleeping baby strapped to her chest. Linus, huddled deep in concentration in the corner, was adding the finishing touches to a homemade display case for a brand-new delivery of dowsing pendulums. Of the handful of regular customers swaying like reeds among the shelves, all Ariel could see were their arched, round backs.

She blew a damp strand of hair out of her eyes and searched for Linus’s ancient Olympus behind the counter. The camera (her camera to be exact, now that she’d persuaded him to give it to her for her eighth birthday a few months earlier) was poised for action exactly where she’d left it the day before, on a concealed shelf below the till. She wanted to feel its sleek, black casing beneath her fingers and crouch down low like a photojournalist, whiling away the afternoon taking pictures of the tourists as they browsed, unsuspecting, among the stacks. White as death and slippery with factor fifty at the start of their holidays, by the end they’d be golden-fried and half a stone heavier from all the 99s, and the cockles and chips, and the drink.

But today, nothing.

Ariel trailed through the shop, along the cool, shady passageway leading to the back garden, and settled into a deckchair with a copy of The Adventures of the Wishing-Chair.

‘Hey, mind if I bring my coffee and join you?’ Frank shouted from the attic window. ‘It’s hotter than a Texan barbecue up here!’

She looked up, saw a smiling face, a crisp white T-shirt, a swirl of glossy, jet-black hair, and waved to Frank to come down. She hoped he might be wearing his stage clothes, but so far he hadn’t worn them once during the day, not in the whole two weeks he’d been lodging with them, not unless he was on his way out to do a show. And yet Frank managed to look like Elvis no matter what he wore, with his jutting cheekbones, his immaculately sculpted sideburns, his perfect, china-white teeth. According to Estelle, Frank wasn’t far off Linus’s age, but Ariel thought he looked years younger. Linus was in his early fifties and already had grey hair.

‘The mercury’s gotta be well up over eighty today,’ Frank said as he launched his six-foot frame through the back door. He ran a hand through his quiff and reached for a pair of aviator sunglasses in his back pocket. ‘At least out here there’s a trickle of fresh air!’

He crossed the lawn in four easy strides and lowered himself onto the grass next to Ariel’s chair. The turn-ups of his jeans rose to reveal a tattoo of an eagle on the inside of his left ankle. ‘I got that in Philly when I was eighteen,’ he said, rubbing his finger over the dull, black ink. ‘Thankfully, it’s pretty hidden away down there. I don’t like it so much any more.’

Ariel smiled and stared at her reflection in the mirrored lenses of Frank’s sunglasses. Her face looked small and oddly distorted beneath the sunhat Estelle insisted she wore to keep the heat off the top of her head. Whenever she became too hot, her head began to pound and she broke out in a prickly red rash on her chest and arms. She wasn’t supposed to be sitting out here at all at this time of day, but she liked slipping on her yellow Woolworth’s sunnies and gazing up at the cloud formations sailing overhead. She was convinced there must be other people like her somewhere on the planet, daydreaming beneath the rolling, marshmallow sky. Sometimes she invented stories about who they were and where they were living. Sometimes she imagined them inventing stories of their own about her.

Frank took a sip of his coffee and pointed a suntanned finger at her book. ‘Any good?’

Ariel’s smile widened so much, her cheeks began to hurt. ‘It’s brilliant! Do you read, Frank? I do it all the time. It’s one of my favourite things to do, but I don’t think it’s because we own a bookshop that I like books, because the books we sell aren’t really storybooks at all. I think it’s because when you’re reading it doesn’t matter where you are or what else is happening around you, it’s impossible to feel alone. Do you think that too?’

She was vaguely aware that her words had spilled out of her mouth in one long, breathless rush, but she hoped they made her sound smart all the same. She searched Frank’s face for a reaction, but it was difficult to tell what he was thinking without seeing his eyes.

‘Sure, I like reading!’ he replied. ‘But not as much as singing. That’s when I feel least alone in the world, when I’m singing and performing. Nothing can touch me then.’

‘What’s it like travelling around all the time? Don’t you miss home?’

Frank took another sip of his coffee and cocked his head to one side. ‘Being on the road can be lonely, I guess. But like I said, singing and performing is what I do. Sometimes you get lucky and make a new friend or two along the way. Cyn is with me most of the time, though, so it’s not very often I’m completely on my own.’

Frank’s girlfriend, Cynthia, was a Priscilla Presley lookalike. She may not have been American like Frank, but she was a living, breathing, raven-haired Barbie doll; the prettiest girl Ariel had ever seen. She still couldn’t believe they’d be renting their attic room for an entire month while they did their It’s Now or Never summer roadshow. It was the most exciting news she’d heard since Estelle and Linus told her they were at last expecting Baby Number Two.

‘I’m glad you’ve got Cynthia,’ Ariel said. ‘It must be nice to have a friend like that.’

Frank smiled. ‘Well, sure! But you have friends too, don’t you?’

Ariel pointed at her book. ‘Of course. My friends are in there. That’s why I’m not lonely.’

Frank looked from her face, to the book, then back again. ‘That’s cool, Ariel. But I was thinking more about real friends,’ he said gently. ‘The kind you can call up and invite round to play?’

Ariel shrugged. ‘They are my real friends. They’re always there for me when I need them and they never call me names.’

‘Why d’you say that?’ Frank’s voice tightened. ‘Has someone been calling you names?’

Ariel gave a slow nod. ‘Just some of the children in school. They call me a weirdo.’

‘A weirdo?’ Frank cried. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know… because of the shop and stuff. They say my gym things smell of incense. Mam says I should ignore them, but one or two are really mean.’ She sighed. ‘They’re the ones living in fantasyland. I’m sure they think we sit around all day staring into crystal balls and talking to pixies.’

Frank ripped off his sunglasses and hurled them onto the lawn. ‘WHAT?! You mean the little fella with the pointed ears and the wings at the breakfast table this morning wasn’t real?’

Ariel burst out laughing. ‘See, that’s why I like you, Frank! You’re a weirdo like me!’

Frank held up his palm and high-fived her. ‘Loneliness is just an illusion, kid. Don’t let anyone dim your light! It takes an awful lot more courage to stand out than it does to blend in. When you’re older, you’ll understand. Anyway, where’s the fun in being ordinary?’

He shifted his attention to a giddy chorus line of geraniums soaking up the sunlight in the border along the side wall. He’d put his sunglasses back on, but Ariel could tell he’d adopted that far-off look that grown-ups got whenever they were trying to solve a problem in their heads.

‘Hey,’ he said, turning back to face her, ‘are you excited you’re going to have a baby brother or sister?’

Ariel almost squealed. ‘I’m nearly eight and a quarter! I thought it was never going to happen. A real-life brother or sister is going to be the best early Christmas present ever!’

Frank gave her one of his megawatt smiles, then dropped his gaze to the grass between his feet. He was still ruminating over something, she could tell by the way he was chewing on the side of his lip. She had a pack of cards under her deckchair and was about to ask him if he’d like to play a game of rummy, when he said, ‘Is your mom in the store today?’

Ariel nodded.

‘I’m just going to go inside and ask her something, okay?’

Frank pushed himself up off the ground and walked back to the house, his chest thrown out like a soldier on parade, his shoulders kneading the air. The grass where he’d been sitting looked flat and lifeless, as though some spectral hand had slipped, unnoticed, over the garden wall and combed it flush against the earth.

Ariel groped for her pack of cards and placed them alongside her chair where she could see them. She laid her book face down on her lap, made two circles with her thumbs and forefingers and held them up like binoculars to her face. She swivelled left and right, scanning the periphery of the garden from her seat.

It was quiet and empty as a church.

The only movement came from the plants, metronoming in the breeze, and her heart, which began to sink, gradually by degrees, when she realised Frank wasn’t coming back outside.

She pulled her hat over her forehead and watched a ladybird zigzag its way across the shiny turquoise cover of her book.

At its edge it tumbled, spread its wings, and flew away into the hot, yellow air.

The train let out a low, mechanical rumble, quietened, rumbled again.

Ariel extended her foot under the table and patted the carriage floor, searching for her canvas bag with her toes. Henry’s slumbering body jerked and resettled, his eyes quivering beneath shuttered lids, his expression placid and immutable as stone.

Gently, she withdrew her foot. Across the aisle, Travis was scribbling something in the margin of his guidebook. He’d raised his feet and legs onto the empty seat opposite and looked so damn chilled; like he didn’t have a care in the world.

She tried to look away, but her eyes kept returning.

She wondered if he knew she was looking at him.

His head bobbed back and forth, as though a private soundtrack was playing inside his brain. God, she wanted to speak to him.

She decided to wait until he’d finished writing and then ask him where he’d been to, where he was headed. What it felt like to be free.

Travis flicked his eyes to the window. When he turned and glanced expectantly in her direction, Ariel opened her mouth to speak, but her words lost their foothold and slipped back inside her, free-falling, like coins into a dusky well.

‘Ariel!’ Frank came bursting back through the garden door. ‘Your mom’s agreed to bring you along to the show today, kiddo! I told her the fresh air’ll do her good, what with her expecting and all. We’ll be leaving here together at three.’

Ariel stared open-mouthed as Frank disappeared inside the house to get changed. ‘I’m going to a concert,’ she said slowly. ‘Mam’s agreed to take me. Frank didn’t let me down after all!’

They set off in a cloud of hairspray, chugging along in Estelle’s second-hand Fiesta up the hilly Newton Road. Ariel wrapped her fingers around the Olympus and cradled it next to a bottle of orange Fanta, already turning tepid in the heat.

‘Frank says we can stand right down the front, Mam, near the stage. He says we can have free Mr Whippys on the way in.’

She looked at Frank over her shoulder and grinned.

‘Hey, it’s the least we can do!’ He tapped Cynthia on the arm. ‘Right, Cyn? It’ll be nice to see a couple of familiar faces cheering us on.’

Cynthia smiled. ‘You bet, babe.’

Frank’s hair was shiny and sleek, the sequins on his jumpsuit shimmering in a wide belt of sunlight streaming in through the rear window. Cynthia looked stunning as ever in a fitted lace dress and towering heels. She was holding on to the back of Ariel’s seat, her body bent forwards at the waist so that her hair – backcombed into oblivion – wouldn’t chafe on the Fiesta’s roof.

‘It feels so good to be out,’ Estelle said into the rear-view mirror. ‘Such amazing weather! I bet there’ll be an enormous crowd.’

Ariel looked at her mother sitting serenely behind the wheel. She smelled of something darkly sweet – a heady mix of fresh mint, patchouli and honeydew melon. Ariel breathed it in and stared at Estelle’s blossoming silhouette. Her mother was swollen-bellied and glowing in a loose cotton top and harem pants. An orange tie-dyed headband held her shoulder-length hair from her face, and a golden amber pendant dangled like a rising sun at her throat. She wanted to reach out and touch it, to feel the silky warmth of the stone between her fingers, but she was afraid she’d distract her mother from the road.

‘What’s up, poppet?’ Estelle flicked her eyes to meet hers. ‘Do I look all right?’ She lifted a hand from the steering wheel and smoothed it over the sweet, round spill of her stomach. ‘I think they call this hippo chic.’

‘You don’t look like a hippo!’ Ariel protested. She leaned in and smiled. ‘You look like an undercover angel.’

The first half of the show went off like a dream. But then, as Frank neared the mid-point of his set, Ariel heard a series of wolf-whistles and garbled shouts directed at Cynthia, who was perched on a stool at the side of the stage.

‘Who is it, Mam? What are they saying? I can’t see.’

Estelle scanned her eyes over the back of the audience enclosure. ‘It’s nothing. Just some boys being stupid, that’s all. Ignore them, poppet. Keep your eyes on the stage.’

The pungent tang of hot dogs, seaweed, and suntan oil hung heavy in the air. Ariel felt a flare of heat from the press of families packed in behind her. There’ll be plenty of kids in the audience, Frank had told her. Vacationers – here for a good time. I thought it might be nice for you to hang out with some of them. And a day away from the store with your mom will be cool, no?

Frank was serenading a woman in a giant straw hat standing a few feet away. Cynthia was beating one hand against her side in time to the music. In the other, she held a glass of iced water which she sipped at intervals through a red and white striped straw. She looks incredible! Ariel thought. Untouchable…

‘Hey! I’ll give you something to suck on, darlin’!’

Furious, Ariel spun round. The shout, like the others that had preceded it, had come from somewhere in the back row.

‘Oi!’ a man’s voice bellowed. ‘Watch your language, will you? The place is full of kids, for fuck’s sake! Let’s just take it easy and enjoy the show!’

Ariel raised herself up onto her tiptoes, but she was too short to see over the tops of the adults’ heads. ‘Why can’t you be quiet?’ she muttered under her breath. ‘Whoever you are, please stop shouting or go away.’

As she turned back to face the stage, a plastic water bottle sailed over the barrier and hit Frank in the centre of his chest. He stared at it for a moment in confusion, then picked it up and tossed it to one side.

‘Why would anyone do that, Mam?’ she asked. ‘Frank hasn’t hurt anybody.’

Before Estelle could reply, the crowd surged and Ariel felt herself being shoved up against the metal barrier separating the audience and the front of the stage.

‘What the –?’ Estelle cried. She reached down and caught hold of Ariel’s hand. ‘Okay, that’s it. Time for us to go.’

Ariel dropped to her knees and fumbled on the ground for the Olympus. ‘I don’t want to go, Mam. We can’t leave. We need to stay and wait for Frank and Cynthia.’

She clambered back to her feet and managed to pull her hand free of Estelle’s grip, but her mother caught her by the arm and began to manoeuvre her towards the exit at the side of the stage.

By now a full-blown scuffle had broken out behind them, and the troublemakers – whose faces Ariel still couldn’t see – were starting to hurl other objects into the air. Empty food packaging. Leftover scraps of food. It was disgusting. She saw Cynthia hovering warily in the wings. Frank’s backing music was still playing, but Frank wasn’t singing; he was striding towards Cynthia, motioning to her to leave the stage.

‘Please let me go,’ Ariel shouted. ‘I want to go and help!’

Estelle pulled her closer. ‘Listen to me – Frank will be fine. The event security team will make sure nothing happens to him or Cynthia, but we need to go back to the car now. Do you hear me?’

Ariel’s eyes filled with tears. ‘You’re just jealous! You’re jealous because Frank’s my friend and he arranged this treat for me, but you don’t care! You don’t care about anyone except yourself!’

She twisted away and stared over her shoulder at the stage.

‘Ariel,’ Estelle cried, ‘that’s enough!’

And that’s when it happened. Ariel called Frank’s name at the exact same moment a glass bottle, its edges serrated where it had already been smashed in two, shot through the air like a rocket and caught him squarely on the crown of his head. She stood and watched in horror as it pierced Frank’s scalp before tumbling, shattering into a million glittering pieces at his feet. For one agonising second nothing happened, then a stream of the brightest red she’d ever seen began to pour down the surface of his jumpsuit.

On it ran, over his collar, between his shoulder blades, trickling to the ground along the curve of his back and legs.

‘I’m sorry, Frank,’ she said when he arrived home from the hospital, his face drained, a bloodstained towel draped around his neck. ‘It was all my fault. You wouldn’t have been hit if I hadn’t called out to you.’

Frank tossed a painkiller into his mouth and knocked it back dry. ‘Hey, kiddo, there’s only one person to blame for what happened, and that’s the birdbrain who threw the bottle. You have nothing to apologise for. You’re my wing girl, you know that, right?’

Ariel stared miserably at the conspicuous expanse of bandage running across the top of Frank’s skull. The backs of her eyes began to prickle.

Frank placed his hand on her shoulder, then pulled it away again when he saw it was still smudged with blood. ‘Listen, when you work in this business as long as I have, you see it all sooner or later. I’ve had people throwing themselves at me in adoration, and other times, I’ve been called everything under the sun. Those teenagers today were high. A couple of bad apples from out-of-town, the police said. Don’t you give it another thought, okay?’

Ariel nodded. SHE WOULD. NOT. CRY.

‘Thank you for arranging it so I could come and watch you sing,’ she said in a muffled voice. ‘I really loved it. Maybe one day you’ll come back and visit us again?’

Frank brushed his quiff – which was now hanging lank and lifeless over his forehead – out of his eyes. ‘Sure! Why not? Never say never, that’s what I always say.’

Ten days later, he and Cynthia were gone. Ariel stood on the pavement and took a photo of them waving goodbye. The taxi beeped its horn and sped off to join a hazy stream of traffic snaking its way along the Mumbles Road. She lowered her hand and felt something sharp in the pit of her stomach; something wild and mournful, like a howl.

The following weekend, a postcard arrived for her from Blackpool. On the front was a cartoon image of a grinning donkey trotting along the beach dressed in high-tops, top hat and tails.

Ariel smiled and flipped it over:

Hello Ariel!

The fella on the front has the right idea – life’s too short to blend in! Don’t be lonely. And BOO to anyone who calls you a weirdo!

Chin up, and show ’em some razzle-dazzle!

Love from your wing man,

Frank x (and Cyn too x)

Ariel nearly screamed with happiness. She placed the razzle-dazzle donkey next to the lamp on her bedside table.

‘See you in the future, Frank,’ she said.

Which surprised her, given that she couldn’t have imagined – even for a second – the where, when, or why.

8

Snowfall

BLACKPOOL, FEBRUARY 1948

Henry

By the time Henry and Francine emerge from the Winter Gardens, only the coat tails of the afternoon remain. The sky shivers as rowdy swirls of snow begin to fall in dense, persistent flurries. Flakes gather in the grooves of Henry’s cap and along the shoulders of his uniform jacket. They nestle deep in the folds of Francine’s coat, and dust her hair with a riot of glistening white. She pulls a flimsy scarf edged with cornflowers from her handbag, and with fingers red-tipped and stiff with cold, she secures it in a casual loop around her head.

Henry gazes up and down the pavement, unsure what to do. The last train back to his billet doesn’t leave until just before midnight. They have hours together yet, and they can’t keep wandering around in this; they need shelter, or a temporary stopgap at least.

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