The Sing of the Shore

‘How about this then,’ his father said.

Sometimes Ivor didn’t think his father really even minded if he caught a fish or not, because then he could just stand out there all day, all night even, and sip his beer and listen to the sea, until the mist came in and rose up around his feet, and everyone else had gone home a long time ago, and their lights would be on along the streets, and their curtains would start to close, and cooking smells would come out, and it would just be him and Ivor left on the beach, waiting and watching the line.

Crystal ate chips like a seagull – she held one up in her mouth, then dropped it straight down her throat. She sat cross-legged by the swings, the beach sloping down in front of them. Ivor dug in the sandy grass with his fingers.

‘We should be sitting on a rug,’ he said.

‘A what?’

‘A rug. We should probably be sitting on one.’

The tide was just going out and the stones were still wet – they looked like they were splashed with blue paint. A dog ran up, soaked and quivering, holding a crushed barbecue as if it was a stick to throw. Behind them, Gull Gilbert swung standing up, the bent chains clanking.

‘Why?’ Crystal said.

Ivor dug his fingers in deeper. ‘I don’t know.’

Crystal held her chips against her chest until the dog went away. ‘You’d have to know you were going to sit on it, then carry it down especially.’

‘I suppose.’

‘How would you know?’

‘What?’

‘If you were definitely going to sit on it,’ Crystal said. Her weird lacy skirt was rucked and there was sand high up on her legs.

The swing behind them thumped as Gull Gilbert rode it like a bull at a rodeo.

‘I don’t know,’ Ivor said. His chest started to tighten. ‘Maybe you’re just supposed to know.’

Crystal ate another chip. Sometimes she would pass one to Ivor, sometimes she wouldn’t. This round he missed out.

‘They’ve probably got them at that house,’ he said.

‘What house?’

‘The one on the cliff.’ His fingers hit against a stone and he started digging around it, working it loose. ‘We could go there.’

‘I’m not walking any more.’

‘Tomorrow,’ Ivor said. The stone was almost loose; he could nearly get his finger under it. ‘All of us.’ He thought about the lamps, the three yellow armchairs. He’d gone there again that morning and stood by the kitchen table in the strange, cool quiet, and thought something that wouldn’t go away. ‘We could stay there.’

Gull Gilbert jumped off the swing and staggered up behind them, his cheeks mottled almost purple. His tracksuit snapped like a flag in the wind. ‘That dog’s got itself a dead fish,’ he said. He dipped his hand in the bag of chips, then skipped away from Crystal’s fist. She was known for conjuring the blackest bruises. ‘Stay where?’ he said.

Ivor’s heart raced under his coat. ‘At that house.’ A hot feeling pushed at the backs of his eyes. If anyone asked why, he didn’t know what he would do.

Crystal finished eating, put her arms behind her head and lifted her hips until she was doing the bridge. ‘Like, living?’ she said. Her hair swung against the ground.

Gull Gilbert scanned the tideline, watching the dog’s owner chasing it over the seaweed. ‘Do you reckon that dog’ll eat that fish?’ he said. His eyes looked glassy and far away. Who knew what thoughts were teeming.

Ivor prised the stone out and clenched it in his muddy hand.

The dog started to eat the fish.

Gull Gilbert leaned forward, spat on his palm, said he was in, and shook on it, which was as binding as a triple-signed contract, amen.

When Ivor got home the light was on but his father’s shoes weren’t on the mat. That meant he was still wearing them, which meant he’d gone straight onto the kitchen sofa. Ivor went in quietly. His father was asleep under the scratchy blanket. Ivor had saved up for that blanket from the gift shop. It didn’t seem right that people could sell a blanket that was scratchy, to tourists, or to anyone.

His father murmured something and his cheek twitched. There was a scar under there from when Ivor was three and had bit him. ‘Is it right?’ his father said. ‘Is it right?’ He sat up suddenly, opened his eyes and rubbed his hand over his face. ‘Christ, Ivor, how long have you been standing there?’

He reached out and pulled him down onto the sofa. It was soft and dusty, and Ivor sneezed, then sneezed again.

The fridge hummed next to his ear. Ivor picked at the fraying cushion threads. ‘Did you ring Mev yet?’ he said.

His father moved the cushion away. ‘You’ll tear it.’

‘Did you?’ Ivor said again.

‘These aren’t our cushions. If you tear them I’ll have to try and buy new ones exactly the same.’

The clock on the oven glowed red – you could see the shapes of all the other numbers behind the lit-up parts.

‘Don’t you want to be here?’ his father said.

Ivor looked around. There was the kitchen, the dark outside the window. ‘Here?’ he said.

Once, in town, his father had passed someone he used to know from school. His father had recognised the man, Jody, straight away, but it had taken Jody a moment to come up with Ivor’s father’s name. Jody had been down visiting his parents and now he wanted to go – he kept looking towards his car and nodding in all the wrong places.

Ivor had pulled on his father’s hand but his father had kept talking. About the state of the tides, what was biting, the blue shark, the development out the back of town. Remember that party out at the Jennings’ place? he said. Remember the ambulance?

Ivor had pulled again at his father’s hand, until his father let go. And still Jody kept glancing round and checking his watch, and nodding, until finally he said, I have to get back.

His father had run his hand down his neck and watched him walk away. ‘Back,’ he said. Then he’d shrugged and walked into the pub. A beer for him and a Coke for Ivor, and those chewy scratchings that were so tough and salty they made your teeth ache.

His father’s eyes were closing again.

His phone started to ring in the front room. It rang and rang but he didn’t get up to answer it.

‘The warehouse might be hiring next week,’ he said.

Over went the blanket with its smoky, ketchupy smells. Ivor leaned in and his teeth were against his father’s cheek, and his father’s hand came up and smoothed and smoothed, like he did with the fish he caught when they were thrashing and gleaming.

Ivor got to the house first. It was late afternoon and the sky was dark, the cliffs silhouetted like breaching whales. He’d told his father he was staying at Gull’s and would be back in the morning. The town glinted in the distance, supermarket floodlights bright as haloes.

It was raining and he put his bags down and pushed at the window. It didn’t move. He leaned forward and pushed harder. The frame was wet and heavy. It shook but didn’t budge.

He ran round the side of the house, tried the other windows, then rattled the front door. The rain came down in sharp pieces. He looked towards the town, then back at the house. He shoved the door, then leaned all his weight against it. Something gave and he shoved again. A gap appeared and he forced it with his shoulder. The door jolted open. The wood around the lock was spongy and on his way in he pushed the screws of the metal plate until they nestled back in place.

When the others arrived he met them at the front. Crystal was carrying a rucksack. Gull Gilbert had brought nothing.

They stood inside, too close, Crystal’s arm pressed against Ivor’s. She smelled like apples and petrol and she was wearing lace-up boots that reached almost to her knees, and a pyjama jacket with clouds on it. Gull Gilbert had slicked down the sides of his hair.

Ivor’s cheeks were hot. Everyone was just standing in the open doorway, waiting.

Gull Gilbert prodded Ivor’s bags with his foot. ‘What’s in these?’

‘Nothing,’ Ivor said. It was just the food he’d brought. There was a packet of crackers, cheese he’d cut off a bigger piece, half a carton of orange juice, a tin of soup, eggs although he had no idea what to do with eggs. Also three cans of beer he’d found lurking at the back of the fridge.

When he’d packed it, he’d thought there was too much – he’d almost taken out the cheese – but now everything looked small and awful. Any moment now, Gull Gilbert’s lip would twist and everything would crumble.

A handful of rain flung itself across the wall. Gull Gilbert reached out and closed the door. ‘We should get all that in the fridge,’ he said.

They went into the kitchen. Ivor put the eggs in the cupboard, then took them out and put them in the fridge. He thought the orange juice should go in the fridge door, the soup on a shelf. He spent a long time deciding, even though he knew he’d be getting it all out again in a minute.

Crystal went to the sink and ran the tap. She opened all the cupboards and looked inside, got out plates and slammed them down on the table. Then she picked them up and placed them gently. Then she pursed her lips, crossed her arms over her chest and pretended to smoke. Finally she slumped down over the table with her head in her hands. ‘What are we supposed to do?’ she said.

Gull Gilbert pulled out a chair, sat down, and got up again. The chair screeched against the floor and made everyone flinch. He opened the fridge. ‘We should have a drink,’ he said.

‘Now?’ Ivor said.

‘It’s Friday, isn’t it?’

The cans opened with a hiss. When Ivor drank, all he felt was very cold. He realised that the lights were off. He clicked them on and the kitchen turned orange. The room appeared in the black window, three faces staring back in.

He went out into the hall and looked at the pictures. In one of them, the table was laid with all the different types of cutlery, and the food was on mats in the middle. He went back into the kitchen and started laying out knives and forks and spoons, then he opened the soup and glooped it into a pan.

Gull Gilbert had one leg up on the table. His fingers drummed. ‘We need to turn the lights off,’ he said. He tipped his can and drained it to the dregs. His voice sounded huskier, as if his throat was very dry.

‘I want the lights on,’ Ivor said. He tipped his can up until the bubbles burned his throat. The taste was getting better, or maybe his mouth was going numb.

‘Someone will see us,’ Gull Gilbert said. He got up and clicked off the lights. The kitchen plunged into gloom. He sat back down and up went his leg. He stared at Crystal’s beer. ‘Are you going to finish that?’ he said.

Ivor got up and drew the curtains, glanced at Gull Gilbert, then turned on the lamp in the corner. He took another long drink, then clicked the burner under the pan of soup. Nothing happened. He clicked it again.

‘The gas is broken,’ Crystal said. ‘I tried it before.’

‘Shitting frick,’ Ivor said.

‘You have to hit something when you say that,’ Crystal told him. ‘Then you have to go and lock yourself in the bathroom.’

Ivor drank some more beer, then spooned the soup into bowls. There were only a few cold spoonfuls in each one but he laid them out anyway, then the cheese. ‘Someone else could help,’ he said.

Gull Gilbert got up and brought over the crackers and spread them across a plate. He took out the eggs and looked at them, then put one down in front of each of them. ‘I’m not hungry yet,’ he said.

Ivor looked at his watch. ‘I think this is the time we’re supposed to eat.’ He cut the cheese into slices and gave them out. The rain hit the windows with clinking sounds. ‘We should have a conversation,’ he said.

‘Us?’ Crystal said. She had taken more than her share of the crackers.

‘Say something,’ Ivor said.

Gull Gilbert was pushing his spoon around his bowl. ‘Did you make this soup yourself, Ivor?’

Crystal snorted into her bowl. ‘Why are you talking in that voice?’

Gull Gilbert’s spoon clattered down. ‘He said we had to have a conversation.’ His leg wouldn’t stop drumming.

Ivor poured out the orange juice, which looked too thick. He couldn’t remember how long it had been open. ‘Don’t actually drink this,’ he said as he passed it round.

Crystal took hers and started drinking.

‘I said don’t drink it.’ Ivor tried to slow his breathing. There was sand everywhere. He should have got everyone to take their shoes off. He crouched down and started scooping it up into his hand.

‘Where are we going to sleep?’ Crystal said.

Gull Gilbert leaned back in his chair. ‘Depends,’ he said. ‘Do you snore?’

‘How would I know?’

Ivor crawled under the table. The sand was everywhere. The grains he’d already picked up kept scattering out of his hand. ‘I think we should take our shoes off,’ he said. He followed the gritty trail out into the middle of the kitchen.

Gull Gilbert was staring at Crystal. ‘You’ll have to sleep in my room.’

Crystal stared back, harder. ‘Why?’

Gull Gilbert’s eyes shifted away, he put his leg down from the table, got up and started pacing. He pointed to her beer. ‘Are you going to finish that?’

‘I already did.’

He reached out and shook it to check, then crushed the empty can in his fist.

Ivor tipped the sand in the bin then sat back down. No one had finished their soup. Gull Gilbert was circling the edges of the room, wall to wall to wall.

Ivor took a spoonful and raised it to his mouth, but he couldn’t do it. He pushed his bowl away. His spoon had rust on the handle. His stomach made a thin, hollow noise. ‘Soon we have to go and sit in the armchairs,’ he said.

Crystal was moving her chair closer. Ivor sat very still. What he was probably meant to do was lean in to her and smell her hair, like his father used to do to Mev.

His breathing was so fast and shallow it was as if he couldn’t catch up with it.

‘You took too many crackers,’ Ivor told her.

Crystal stopped moving for a moment, then tipped her chair back and swung on its spindly legs. She started humming something fast and looping.

Gull Gilbert turned on the TV. There was someone on there doing a magic trick with cards, but you could see where she’d tucked the spare ones in her pocket. He picked up the remote and changed the channel. A zebra was running through a wide river. He changed the channel again and there was a crowd of people. He flicked it again and again.

The room was cold and dark. The blue from the TV and the orange from the lamp cast a strange, underwater light. Crystal’s chair was almost at the point where it would snap. Gull Gilbert was staring at the screen with unfocused eyes. His hair had sprung up slowly from under its layer of gel. He kept moving from channel to channel without stopping, one image blurred into the next; there was a voice, then music, then more voices. The zebra was still in the river, the crowd of people was getting bigger. The magician’s hidden cards fell on the ground like leaves from a wilting plant.

Ivor pushed his plate off the table. It slid across the shiny wood and kept sliding, then seemed to pause for a moment before it hit the floor and shattered.

Crystal stopped tipping. Gull Gilbert blinked and looked around.

Ivor picked up his glass. It glinted in the TV’s light. He held it out over the floor, then he dropped it.

Slowly, Gull Gilbert’s elbow moved towards his plate. It teetered on the edge of the table, then broke with a hard clunking sound across his shoes.

Crystal picked up her plate, licked off the last crumbs, and dropped it. She got up and kicked her chair over behind her.

Then they all picked up their stupid eggs, raised them in the air, and smashed them into a million glorious pieces.

Ivor finally caught up with his own breath. His hand touched against Crystal’s hand and he tried to make it mean that he would miss her when she wasn’t there. Even though he didn’t know if you could say that just with hands.

The sea paced with its heavy boots through the house. If you listened closely, you could tell how high the tide was, and what kind of waves were breaking. Ivor’s father could walk out the front door and know that the waves were mushy, or that it was low tide and the waves were clean as a damn whistle.

Ivor picked up his can and rubbed the back of his neck. Later, but not now, he would clean up the house, and whoever came in next, whenever they came in next, would find, what? Not anything worth mentioning really: a scatter of crumbs, a few missing plates, a lamp that had been left on by mistake, sand in the floorboards, a smudge of breath on the bathroom mirror that could have been anyone’s.

The Dishes

The baby was teetering on the edge of speech. Bru, she would say. Da Da Da. She had a way of looking at him as if she knew. Her forehead would furrow and her eyes would go dark as oil. Then he would pick her up and carouse around the room, giddy up, giddy up horsey, while the mist pressed against the windows from the sea, wet and dripping like bedding on a line.

They were there for three months. His wife, Lorna, had a temporary posting and they’d been given the use of a small, brick house in a terraced row. Theirs was on the end and it backed onto rough ground: tussocks, bracken, horned sheep sprayed blue and red, as if they were going into battle. Beyond that were fields, hedges tangled like wires, a few lonely farmhouses. The beaches were stony. The trees were not in leaf. In front of the house there was a road that hardly anyone drove along, then a barbed-wire fence with No Entry signs and cameras that pointed in all directions. Behind the fence were the dishes, where his wife went to work every morning and came back later and later into the evening. Sometimes she would have a shift in the middle of the night, and when Jay turned over in bed to hold her, she would be gone.

The dishes were on the edge of the cliff and could be seen for miles – hard white shapes that looked like a chess set waiting to be played. They were data gatherers, listening stations, bigger than the house and smooth and silent. Some were full spheres, some were hexagonal, others hollowed like the dip in an ear. At the centre of each tilted dish there was an antenna that reached upwards, and, sometimes, if Jay watched carefully, he would see them slowly turn, like a flower might, or someone following a voice that no one else could hear.

It was early morning and Lorna had already left. Jay was in the kitchen clearing away the breakfast things. It was cold outside. Rain blew across the road in thin lines. He turned the heating up higher.

The baby was strapped in her chair. He wiped her face with a warm cloth. Her skin was so soft, almost translucent, except for all the dried food stuck to it – it was on her cheeks and on the floor. Some was in her wispy hair. She laughed and squirmed while he wiped around her mouth, then puckered her lips and blew a bubble. Jay crouched down and tried to blow one too but it didn’t work and he ended up drooling down one corner of his mouth. The baby laughed and blew another one.

‘How are you doing that?’ he said.

‘Hamna fla,’ the baby told him.

‘Oh, OK,’ Jay said. ‘I thought you were doing it a different way.’

He picked up the plates and put them in the sink, then ran the hot water until the washing liquid foamed up. He plunged his hands in and his wrists went red.

‘What do you want to do today?’ he said.

The baby banged her hands against her tray.

‘Do you want to go out anywhere?’

She banged again.

‘Or we could play that xylophone game you seem to like so much.’

She kept banging.

‘Bang your hands if you’ve got food in your hair.’

She kept banging.

‘Bang your hands if you woke me up five times last night.’

She banged again.

‘Bang your hands if you think I’m the best.’

She stopped banging.

Jay ran more hot water and swiped plate after plate with the cloth, until they were all stacked on the draining board. He liked washing up now – the hot water, the steam, how, when he rinsed out a tin of tomatoes, he pretended there’d been a shark attack. He liked the way the bubbles had bits of colour in them. He would blow them off his hands so that the baby could watch them floating. He hardly ever felt like smashing it all against the wall any more.

He dried his hands and lifted the baby out of the chair and onto her mat. There was an arched bar over it with bells hanging down. They made a dull, jangling noise when she grabbed at them. They sounded like a doorbell and he wished he’d packed her other mat – the one without any bells. They hadn’t brought much from home – just a suitcase for him and Lorna and a few boxes of the baby’s things. He liked it that this house was small and empty. He could walk around each room seeing nothing that reminded him; just a table, a couple of chairs, a sofa, a wilting pot plant on top of the fridge that he watered every day.

He sat down next to the baby, then got up again. If he sat down he would fall asleep. He had that heavy, dull feeling behind his eyes which pushed down towards his jaw. It had been five times last night; the night before he’d lost count after seven. He straightened the curtains, the chairs, then picked up the cloth and wiped at another weird stain on the floor.

‘Was this you?’ he said to the baby.

She looked at him, frowning, like it was inappropriate to even ask.

It wasn’t even nine o’ clock yet.

After a while he noticed the sound of low voices coming through the kitchen wall. He stopped wiping the floor. There it was again: a low murmur of voices.

The wall was thin and connected with next door, but he didn’t think there was anyone living there. When they’d arrived there weren’t any lights on, and there were no cars parked at the front. The curtains were half-drawn and there was a pile of rubble by the steps – bricks and plaster – that looked as if a room had recently been knocked through.

He couldn’t hear what they were saying. He stayed kneeling on the floor. Water dripped off the cloth and pooled next to his leg. The voices rose and fell and then they stopped. The baby let out a cry and he turned to her quickly, thought he heard a door open and close somewhere. The baby cried out again and he picked her up and cupped her warm head with his wet hands.

The front door of the house next door opened then shut with a bang. Jay sat upright in the kitchen chair, where he’d been slumped over a cup of coffee, on the edge of sleep. It was mid-morning the next day. He glanced over at the window. There was a man crossing the road further up, heading towards the dishes. Jay glimpsed the back of his coat before he disappeared through the gates.

An hour later there were footsteps behind the wall, someone ran up the stairs and there was a strange rattling, which might have been curtains closing across their runners.

It was misty again, and too cold to go out. He brought the baby into the living room and turned on the electric fire. Soon the room was warm and fuggy and smelled like burned dust. He brought out a box of toys and emptied it onto the floor. He put the rattle and the fraying bear in front of the baby, then found the spinning top, spun it up, and let it go. It whirled and clinked out tinny music. He spun it up again.