Читать книгу The Wave - Virginia Moffatt - Страница 16

Harry is everything to me.

It’s been that way for years. I adore him.

I’d do anything for him, follow him anywhere …

And yet, lately, I have found myself asking myself whether any of this is true any more. Harry’s been my life for so long that I’ve never questioned him until lately. In the beginning, he seemed so thoughtful and sensitive. I was his special girl, his fair lady, his queen. He always checked how I was and made sure no harm would come to me. Yet today, when I’m frightened, really, really, frightened, it’s like he hasn’t even noticed. I know he’s trying to get us out of here, and maybe he’s right that a boat is the answer. But it wouldn’t hurt to ask me how I’m feeling, surely? He’s not even asked my opinion, just assumed he knows best. When I do try and say anything, he just sighs and speaks over me. It’s infuriating, insulting and upsetting all at once. But I still stagger after him in my five-inch stilettos, holiday bags balanced on shoulders, because, after all, what else can I do?

The trouble is Harry is always so sure he is right – there’s never any room for doubt. I suppose that’s what attracted me to him in the first place – that sense of certainty. I love Dad, of course I do, but he’s got this annoying habit of always seeing the other point of view, always weighing up one side against the other. Which was a bit wearing for a teenager looking for definitive answers. I think that’s why Harry’s absolute conviction was so attractive. Here was someone who knew exactly what he was doing, what he thought about everything. A real man, who understood what was what. The fact that he had money and was prepared to share it just added to the allure.

I wasn’t even supposed to be in the bar that night. I’d only gone because Liv reckoned we could get in if we had fake ID and I was trying to prove her wrong – and because I’d just had a row with Dad about my lack of GCSE revision. It was unusual for me to be so daring, to pretend to be at Liv’s when we were outside the nightclub hoping our false documents would get us inside. I was astonished that they did and even more so that it was so easy to pretend to be eighteen with all the men at the bar slavering over us, all eager to buy us a drink. Harry was the one who stood out, though. Tall white, muscular, he had something about him – a toughness, a sense he got what he wanted – that I found instantly appealing. Even the age difference didn’t bother me – it made him seem trustworthy. He offered us cocktails and treated us like grown-ups. It was so nice to be taken seriously for once; Dad and Alison always treated me like a kid. I lapped it up.

He invited us both back and we drank prosecco and ate canapés on his balcony. He talked about his hotel business, all the celebrities he’d had stay. It all seemed so glamorous and exciting. Liv was worried he might be a creep, but he didn’t try it on, and when I said it was time we went, he ordered a cab for us, kissed me on the cheek. So, of course, I gave him my number. I didn’t really expect him to call because nothing like that ever happened to me. But he did, and he took me to a posh restaurant and told me he thought I was beautiful and asked me out. I had to confess about my age, then, and he was perfectly lovely about it. He said he thought that I was very mature for my age – he’d assumed I was twenty at least. For the first time in years I felt that I really mattered. It wasn’t that Alison and Dad didn’t love me, or I, them, but they were so close after Mum died that sometimes I felt a bit shut out. Harry said I was the centre of his universe and for a long while that held true and he was everything I needed.

But lately, it’s all felt a bit wrong. Ever since I moved in, it’s begun to feel like he’s taken me for granted, that I’m not as important as I once was, that other things – work, mates, TV – come higher on his list. Take this holiday, for example. He’s promised me a holiday for ever. He’s had business trips to Rome and Paris, looking into setting up there, but he’s never taken me, even though I begged him. He said I’d only be bored, as he would be working, but one of these days we’d do it properly, do New York, maybe. But that’s never happened. We only came down here because he was meeting some potential investors in Penzance. He said that Cornwall was much nicer than New York anyway and we’d avoid jetlag. He only had a few work meetings, he said, and after they were done we could go to the beach. But the meetings lasted all day and in the evening he went drinking, leaving me to mooch around the cottage on my own.

It hasn’t all been bad. The cottage was pretty enough, it was rather like the house in Yorkshire, where we lived before Mum died. So even though I was a bit lonely, I felt quite at home. I watched my way through lots of box sets, and once or twice I got the bus into town to have a spa. On the second day, I found that the cupboard door in the back sitting room actually led into a small music room. There was a piano and piles of sheet music, including a bunch of folk songs that I used to sing with Dad. It had been years since I’d sung them, but since there wasn’t anything else to do, I thought I might as well give it a go. Though my voice was a bit rusty at first, the old tunes soon came back, reminding me of happier times – Dad and I performing for Alison and Mum in the days before her illness, when we were a proper family. I’d forgotten how much I loved singing with him, and how content the four of us were just to be together. We never seemed to hang out like that after her death, I think we all missed her too much.

But even rediscovering music couldn’t make up for the fact that I was alone for most of the week. And there was no way I could tell Harry about it. He’d only have laughed. Folk music is so not his thing. So as the week went on we just got further and further apart until last night, when I begged him to spend some time with me. He was clearly feeling a bit bad, because he said sorry and promised that today we’d do something together, Land’s End, sit on the beach, cream tea. My kind of day. Perhaps his negotiations had really completed, or perhaps he just simply wanted sex. Whatever the reason, he seemed genuinely apologetic that he’s neglected me, promised today would be perfect and we had dinner on the terrace. Afterwards, when we made love out in the garden, among the glow-worms, he called me his special girl, his lady, his queen. He was as sweet and as kind as he was right at the beginning and I slept well and woke full of hope that we’d just been going through a bad patch and today would put us back on the right track.

I was so happy this morning as we had a leisurely breakfast and began to get ready for our trip. It was only when we were about to leave that we heard the horrible news. Ever since, Harry has been obsessed with finding a boat. It’s a good thing, of course it’s a good thing, if it ensures our survival, but I can’t help feeling that he has set himself an impossible task. I don’t want to think what that might mean, and I haven’t expressed the thought out loud, but what are the chances, really? Was it any surprise that all the boats in Penzance had gone? That the person on the internet sold the boat to someone else? Hasn’t Harry been saying for years it’s a dog-eat-dog world? Why would it be any different for him? I understand his fury at being let down, but it’s astonishing that he didn’t see it coming, really. So, when a bird shat on him, I couldn’t help laughing out loud. I suppose it wasn’t kind of me, but, honestly, it’s the only funny thing to have happened today. Because when I let the thought in, that Harry might be wrong, that there might not be a boat to find, I am left with the inescapable conclusion that I’m about to die because my boyfriend was too mean to take me to New York. It isn’t fair. I am way too young. I haven’t even begun to live.

We’ve been trailing through the bays ever since that lost boat of Penzance. The treacherous thought that Harry is wrong has grown with every failure to discover an alternative. And the unfairness of it, the absolute bitter unfairness of it, keeps sweeping over me. I am twenty years old. All I have done with my life is meet Harry and work as a nanny for two years. I will never go to America, never go to Paris where I always fantasized that Harry might propose, never work out what my life could be about. I’ll die without having amounted to anything very much.

All this is running through my head, and Harry still hasn’t asked me, hasn’t even stopped to wonder why I am veering from tears to anger so quickly. Apart from a snarky query as to whether I’ve got women’s problems, he is oblivious to my feelings. He is too focussed on his personal mission, fulfilling his own personal myth that he will be the hero to save the day. I want to believe in him, but I’ve been teetering on the brink of disbelief since Penzance, and if there’s nothing at the next cove, I really don’t think I can go on any more. If he would only stop for a moment, talk to me, give me a hug, tell me that it will be all right, that he’s with me and he’ll take care of me right to the very end. Perhaps, if he did that, I might be prepared to stick with it. But he seems incapable of doing anything other than drive to the next bay and the next.

So here we are, parking the car at the top of another beach. To my surprise, we are not the only ones there. An old Ford Fiesta, a hatchback and a mini that has seen better days are already here.

‘Aye, aye,’ says Harry, ‘We might be on to something – others might have had the same idea.’ I’d like to think he is right, but before we are halfway down the path, I can see there is no hope here. The beach is too shallow for a jetty and there’s no sign of any boats. What I do see, however, is a small group of people gathered by two tent, and a campfire. When Harry spots them, he stops, probably thinking there’s no point continuing. But I am curious, so I walk on. I wonder who they are and what they are doing here, looking so relaxed and carefree, considering the circumstances. It crosses my mind that they don’t realize what is happening, that we should warn them.

‘Where are you going?’ asks Harry.

‘To check if they are OK.’

‘We need to keep moving.’

‘I’m tired. I want to rest for a bit. And they might have food.’ I think at first that he’s going to leave, but after a moment he follows behind. Perhaps he’s curious, too. Or hungry, more like.

My stilettos are useless in the soft sand, so I discard them at the top of the beach and swing them in my hand. The sand between my toes is warm, reminding me of childhood holidays, happier days. It’s a long time since I’ve walked barefoot in the sand. I’d forgotten how I always enjoyed this sensation. I reach the group – a couple of men and women in their twenties and thirties and an older woman in her sixties. She shouldn’t fit in, but she looks relaxed, sitting in a chair, swigging coke from a bottle, her feet spread out in the sand. Perhaps she’s someone’s mother.

‘What are you doing here?’ I ask as I reach them.

The man with curly hair says, ‘We’ve worked out we can’t get away. So we’ve decided to sit it out. Enjoy the time we have left.’

‘Join us,’ says the young black woman. ‘We’ve plenty of food and wine.’ Harry rolls his eyes, I can see him thinking bunch of hippies, but I’m intrigued.

‘We can stay, can’t we, Harry?’ He looks like he’s about to walk off, but he nods. ‘For a while.’

I sit down on the blanket, introduce myself and take the offered glass of wine. For the first time in eight hours I breathe deeply. I sip the wine and look at the sea. Tomorrow, if we don’t make it out, it will consume us, but at this moment the beach, in the pink and blue light at the end of the day, seems to be the most beautiful place in the world.