Out

          Terry took Ali by the hand and pushed back the branches of the bush, stepped out onto the ledge and gripped the rope ladder with the other hand. He smiled at Ali and she half smiled back. The sun was low enough to light up her face and cast her shadow on the wall behind, Terry thought that she looked perfect. He found himself watching the two of them like a scene from a film, with him outside of it. He didn’t say a word.

          Ali moved forwards with less confidence than she normally showed, still gripping Terry’s hand, tighter now, nervous. He had to let go to get the ladder and pull himself on. She took a further step and held the bottom rungs as he climbed on and made his way up a few feet, allowing her room. The sea swirled below. It was a messy sea, no good surf now, no-one out there. A high tide with a lot of white water, just turning to fall back away and release the beach again, let go its grip. The sound of gulls was the only sign of life anywhere around them. Another time and Terry would have been happy to spend the rest of the evening sitting on the ledge with Ali, waiting for the sun to set and the sky to fill with orange and deep pink, bruised edges with promise of another good day tomorrow. But this time was the wrong time, Ali and Terry needed to get away from here. At the back of his mind he wondered what would happen if Dave suddenly turned back up.

          Ali climbed on the ladder behind him. It swang free beneath them, setting up a waving motion which took a while for them both to get the measure of – they clung on while it slowed itself down. Terry moved up two steps and then looked back; Ali took two rungs as well and gave Terry a reassuring glance. Another two rungs, then the same. Then another three – soon they were almost at the top. A gull flew close by Terry’s head and he studiously stared at the cliff wall until it passed. You never knew. Then his head reached the level of the cliff top, level with where the pegs holding down the ladder were. They looked solid – he’d worried a bit about the weight that they both were putting on them, but he’d not thought of that until he started the ascent and it was too late now. A bead of sweat trickled down his cheek. It was OK now, he could afford to be relieved now.

          He started to lift his weight off the ladder and as he did he looked back down at Ali, the ladder had started to swing in the breeze again and she fumbled with rungs as it slipped away from her foot. She gasped.

          Terry couldn’t understand. She was only a few feet from him. Her hands seemed to drop away from the rope and she fell, freewheeling her legs as she dropped. Terry watched, unable to move. Her body swung through ninety degrees and her head caught the cliff with a muted smack. She didn’t make a sound as she started to spin through the air, her arms stopped grasping at nothing. It seemed to be forever. She fell past the end of the ladder. Her foot clipped the ledge they’d stood on moments before, dislodging a piece of soil as she dropped. Dropped like a doll. It wasn’t real. She fell. She fell. Terry open mouthed but silent, not even breathing. Watching. She fell. Then the rocks caught her – broken teeth waiting. She hit them with her back, bending at an impossible angle, her shoe flying off into the sea below. She bounced sideways. A wave hit the rocks and she was gone in the spray.

Secret Spot - part 4

           Terry saw Dave. Saw the car. Couldn’t bring himself to just walk away. He knew Dave had followed Ali out. Wondered if at least he might know where she was headed. Swallowed his pride and started to walk back towards the beach, covering his eyes against the bright white end of summer low sun. The car went up the cliff route. Terry followed but lost sight of it before he’d gone a hundred yards. He had nothing to do – nothing to lose - so he kept on walking. Back. Could you go back ? He had to keep moving.

          It took about three quarters of an hour to make it to the clifftop. No sign of anyone. Dave’s car was parked up near the hotel road but the hotel was shut. Terry sat down on the grass and waited. There was still plenty of time to leave today if he wanted to. Plenty of time to stay as well. The sun was still warm and he lay back in one of the sandy hollows carved out by the wind and rain. It was secluded and he was in no mood to really see anyone and pass pleasantries. His face felt the breeze, his stomach felt like lead. He was stupid and naïve, angry at himself and so very sorry about what he’d said to Ali. He just wanted to make it right again and didn’t know where to start. It had taken him and his quickly lit temper just a few minutes to blow it and, now that he had, there was that familiar feeling of never having been able to say the right thing in the right way at the right time. He missed her already and all he wanted to do was make it better.

           It was a while, lying there, gazing at the sky, pulling out blades of grass between his thumb and forefinger, twisting and worrying them into balls of chlorophyll, before he heard any other sound. The sound of scratching and scrambling, distinct from the steady wash and crash of the waves below. He sat up. Seconds later Dave’s head appeared over the clifftop. He pulled himself up with a grunt and started to pull something else up from below. Ali wasn’t with him. Dave looked agitated and swore loudly a couple of times apparently at nothing. Terry didn’t want to speak to him – the body language was enough to make it clear that Dave wouldn’t be welcoming. He had these moods and you were advised to steer well clear of him when he fell into one. Even Joe kept away for days sometimes.

          Dave walked fast, back towards the car, jumped in and switched on the engine in one motion, spraying coarse sand as he pulled away and dipped down towards the paved road. The gears screeched as he hurtled around the first right hand bend and disappeared amongst the high walled lanes, noise absorbed by the thick banks of stone and earth.

           Terry sat there for a moment, then, curious he walked over to the edge where Dave had appeared a few minutes before. His mind was clearer now than it had been a while ago. Thoughts of the past chased out by the lure of the present, a puzzle to work out, a sense of needing to know that pushed out the self pity and the stupidity he felt.

           There at the top of the cliff was a ladder, securely staked in with two huge wooden pegs, just below the eye line of any casual passers by; pegs of the type used to secure marquees or circus tents. It was just in a heap on the grass, hastily pulled up. Thick coils of weathered hemp grey-green with age. Terry stood looking at it. He pushed it experimentally with his foot, towards the edge – it was surprisingly heavy and hardly moved. He bent over and found the bottom rungs, lobbed them over the edge, their weight taking down the rest of the coils and rungs in a clattering scramble to obey gravity. It fell straight and clean, no tangles. Terry stood still, looking over the edge to where the ladder seemed to end. It wasn’t long enough to make it all the way to the ground, he wondered what Dave had been doing – hell, it wasn’t like the ladder had been hidden, he didn’t feel like he was snooping. He decided to give it a try.

           The difficult part was getting onto the ladder in the first place, he edged backwards to the topmost rungs and, still holding on to the cliff, let his feet feel their way down until they stopped on the next rung. Then the next, until Terry was confident enough to stand upright against the ladder and trust it to take his whole weight without relying on the clifftop. He was breathing heavily and starting to sweat. He wished he’d taken off his jacket. Part of it was exertion but the greater part caused by his unreasonably thumping heart. He looked down and his heart raced faster. The tide was well in and the rocks below were threateningly vicious. Like fins and humpbacks breaking through the waves, speckled with scars and encrusted with barnacles, sharp and solid. He’d scrambled up them from the beach before at low tide and even then they seemed high enough from ground level. The distance between him and their tops now gave them added scale, not diminished but enhanced by the perspective. Somehow more part of their parent cliff from up here than they ever were from below.

          He wondered idly how long ago they’d fallen and taken up their new location, down in the wash and thunder of the sea. Centuries ? Decades ? No-one ever seemed to see them fall, yet there were always those who could recall the old landscape of the beaches, before this arch had crumbled to a stack or that rock had moved to change the way the water flowed across the beach. Sometimes there would be a big rockfall after a storm, but other than that no-one saw the rocks move – although imperceptibly day by day they moved as surely as anything else on this planet. Nothing stayed the same for a moment.

          Gingerly he felt his way down the ladder, blood thumping in his ears each time he took a foot off a rung and let it down to the next, that instant instance when he was stepping out into space. His hands never left the rope sides, sliding them down each time, making sure that he didn’t let go. He could remember something about always having three points of contact from when he’d gone climbing years before and now he was making sure he used that knowledge deliberately and surely.

           He took his time, slowly and surely until he reached the last rung, just touching the grass of ledge where it fell. There were signs that the bushes had been disturbed recently and he could swear he could hear something. Somewhere close but out of sight. With a deep breath he stepped off the ladder, still holding tightly with his hands, the skin stretched white across his knuckles with effort. Then onto the ledge. Solid ground. He sighed with relief. Next he pushed through the scrubby bush that lay in front of him and stumbled into the darkness of the cave behind.

           “Jeez….! Shit !”

          Before his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he was hit full in the face and fell back against the side wall of the cave, smacking the back of his head against the dusty rock as he went down, landing on his back and blinking the tears out of his eyes. His nose was throbbing and his skull aching.

          “Bastard !” – he was kicked in the side of his leg.

          “Bastard!” – another kick as he instinctively curled up into a ball.

          “Whoaaah! Hey…no…..” he fended off a third kick, recognised the voice. “Ali, Ali, what the hell, it’s me – Terry !” He put his hands out in front of him, partly to ward off any blows, partly to show he wasn’t about to swing them at her – a gesture of surrender.

          “Terry…?”  The voice was filled with anxious surprise, but also with suspicion – it came from the other side of the cave, a dark corner.

          “Yeah – Terry. What the hell is going on, why’d you hit me ?”

          “Oh god Terry! It really is. I thought that you were Dave. The bastard. He ran off and left me here, I couldn’t get out. He’s so sick. He , he…” She started to cry. Then she stepped forward, out of the gloom and Terry saw her face for the first time since that morning. She came towards him and hugged him, sobbing loudly into his shoulder. He could feel her hot wet face against his neck and let himself relax to hold her, pulling her close and holding her tight. Wanting nothing more than to erase the last twenty four hours. It almost felt possible now. She shook, out of cold, out of fright, out of relief ? Terry pulled her even tighter and forgot about his bruised face.

           After an age they relaxed and she stepped backwards to look up at him, his eyes adjusted to the gloom, she looked small and tired. “I want to go now.” Was all she said. He nodded, took her hand.

           “There’s a ladder,” Terry added superfluously and kicked at the dust on the cave floor. So many questions he wanted answered and so many that he wanted not to have to ask. But for now it felt better. They were together and he started to think that whatever it was that Dave had done it had done them a favour. It had after all brought them back together, however unlikely the setting.

Diving For Pearls

          Ali edged along nervously behind Dave. He turned around as he reached the edge, a triumphant smirk on his face, waiting to be commended. He waited. As ever his timing was wrong.

          “What the hell are you doing Dave ? Why are we standing on the edge of the sodding cliff when I’ve already told you that I don’t want to be back here ? Why have you got that stupid fucking grin on your face, this just isn’t funny.”

          Dave’s face tried to remould itself into something more serious, but he still looked a little too pleased. He told Ali to come closer, which she did, but cautiously. Then he lifted the end of the rope ladder up to her puzzled face.

          “This is somewhere….somewhere to go, see ? You said you wanted to come back, but didn’t want to come back into the village, well, not for a while ?” The sentence hung there whilst he looked for some confirmation. None came and he struggled on.

          “Well, look, this place – down here – no-one knows about it. No, that’s not true, no-one knows but me and Joe an’ Jaz an’ Crush. It’s a kind of place to come and think. Joe’s here all the time.”

          Ali looked unconvinced – she went to turn away.

          “No, no, have a look, I think you’ll be surprised. I come out here sometimes, just to be here.”

          Ali was still looking cynical and was about to lay into Dave for having stupid boys’ own fantasies when what she really needed was someone she could talk to, let off steam to. Dave pulled his rabbit out of the hat, “Joe keeps a stash in there……”.

          Ali wanted a smoke more than anything, apart maybe from her need to lay into Terry and mankind in general . She shrugged wordlessly and Dave led her to the edge, holding her hand in his own cold fingers as she edged backwards towards the ladder.

           Down in the cave Ali was silent, she was impressed despite herself; the cave sheltered them from the winds that flew along the clifftop and once Dave had lit the small oil lamp she gave a low whistle at the interior, at the sheer drop they had just lowered themselves down and at the idea that they could be seen by no-one. The walls shimmered and swayed as the lamp flickered and guttered, became solid as the flame established, solid shadows and solid rock. The floor had been freshly swept with a rudimentary broom of twigs that stood by the entrance. Joe was obviously keeping the place tidy. The walls were cold to the touch of Ali’s hands as she ran them along the stone but she stopped feeling the penetrating cold which had pervaded the outside world. Her eyes grew wide as she peered through the half light at the back of the cave; a small trunk, plain wood, sat there and she peeked inside. It held some incense, some matches, an ornate tobacco tin; which she lifted out and opened, revealing just a few bits of dry tobacco.

          “S’Joe’s treasure chest.” Dave laughed uncharacteristically. “Tried bringing a couple of them old Navy ammo boxes down here to sit on like, but the things were so heavy that they damn near dragged us off the ladder….we let ‘em go….they smashed down there,” He indicated the invisible rocks outside of the entrance, “really smashed – whew, they broke up into splinters like matchsticks…..”

           “Anyway…” He recovered himself and his train of thought, “That’s just Joe’s little box of treasure, he thought it looked like it belonged in here.” Truth was, thought Ali, it looked like it belonged in an old lady’s house, holding her treasured letters and photo’s. Still, it was something to sit on and she plonked herself down on it. “Where’s the stash then ?” she asked, still feeling cynical and unwilling to let herself look impressed.

          “Should be in there…where yer sitting.”

  

          “In the baccy tin? Bloody things empty Dave, come on. Any more ?”

          Dave looked at the tin and sighed. He reluctantly pulled out a packet of his own from his back pocket and threw it to Ali to roll. He sat down next to her whilst she did it, stiffly holding himself just a sliver away from her. She lit the spliff and inhaled deeply. Blowing the smoke out into the light of the lamp and then beyond into the darkness. She passed it to Dave and sat there looking away from him, starting again to think of Terry, to think of what to do and where to go next. How to make that move or how not to. She knew she was stumbling around at a crossroads and it scared her. She shivered. Dave passed the joint back to her and as he did he put his arm around her shoulder.

          Ali flinched slightly, but not noticeably to Dave, who was acting as if he’d done nothing untoward. Again she shivered and felt Dave’s arm rest just that little bit heavier across her shoulders. Perhaps, she countered to herself, he thought that he was comforting her or maybe somehow keeping her warmer. That’d be a first from him she realised darkly. Dave seemed to relax the way he was holding himself and imperceptibly he moved from stiffly not touching to allowing his leg, and then his upper body, lean in against her. The clamminess of his damp clothes permeating through to hers. She looked at him. Eye to eye. He returned the gaze and smiled. His fingers locked around her upper arm.

          “Fuck right off Dave !”

          Ali jumped up from the box, eyes livid with anger, pupils dilating and contracting as she moved in and out of the light.

          “I was only….”

          “You were only what ? You stupid tosser!” The anger she had been brewing up for Terry leapt out of her mouth in a stream of invective and half formed thoughts, “You were going to fucking comfort me by trying it on?? Well, fuck knows I’ve seen it before, but for heaven’s sake Dave. What the fuck makes you think that I’d be interested in being comforted by you again, huh?”

          Dave looked down at the ground, then up at Ali defiantly, the colour rushing into his pale cheeks, “I give you a lift, I bring you here, you smoke my dope, let me put my arm ‘round you – what the hell am I supposed to think ? You always were a bit of a bloody tease you were. No wonder we didn’t ever get it on properly.”

          “Nothing to do with that you twat !” Ali spat, “The reason why is exactly the same reason that I’m here shouting at you now you stupid stupid idiot. You have no fucking ability to read other people, can’t get it into your thick head when it’s not the right time. Now is not the right fucking time ! Jesus, if it wasn’t like you could tell how I was feeling. You dozy git – you – oh Christ – all of you – all you fucking men who think that you can tell us when we should be feeling right, what we should be feeling, how we should be doing things. Christ, why oh why?” Ali looked around the cave, the walls now seemed a sickly yellow, she wanted something to kick out at, something to damage. “Terry, fucking Terry, all he wanted to do was look after me, be with me, now look what I’ve done, look how it’s all gone. I’m in a fucking cave with some idiot who doesn’t know fucking up from down. You’ve done him a favour Dave, that at least I’m really glad of. He doesn’t look half so much a twat as you do right now.”

          Dave stepped towards her. Without speaking he grabbed at her arm and she clawed back at him with her free hand. “Fuck off Dave, come on, I just want to go…” He grabbed her other hand and threw her backwards, she hit the cave wall with a soft thump and staggered to stay on her feet.

          “Dave…” Her voice trembled and then regained its strength,” What are you gonna do now then ? Jesus Dave, this is fucking weird even for you… Look, let’s just go?” There was a hint of a plea in the last word that made Dave smile grimly again.

          “That’s it isn’t it?  Weird, fucking weird. Yeah, you always thought I was weird – I’m not, not weird you know, it’s you who needs your head examining, s’you who wanted to come down here, what the fuck was I s’posed to think eh ? You always blew hot and cold. I’m not the weird one in this place, not me no.” Dave picked up the joint from the floor where Ali had dropped it; he took a deep pull and then threw his head back and laughed as if he’d had a brilliant idea. “You don’t want me around – fine. You won’t find Terry around either – he’s gone, see. He probably couldn’t stand it living with a fucking nutter either.”

          Ali stood silent, tears running down her face. Her back was sore where it had caught the wall. Dave was between her and the cave entrance. “Bastard.” was all she could say.

          “Me?” Dave laughed again, “see how much of a bastard I can be shall we?” He stepped towards her again and raised his hand. Ali ducked instinctively and ran into the shadows at the back. Dave laughed again. “I ain’t that sort of bastard you stupid cow.” He made no effort to follow after her.

          Ali shrunk into the darkness, the cold running through the wall and into her skin. Her eyes stung and her head spun. She was finding it all too abstract, she felt like she was watching this all happen to someone else. She didn’t really think that Dave would hit her again, but she’d seen him flare up before, she didn’t really know what he might do. It scared her. She was utterly on her own and Dave was stalking around the cave entrance like a victorious rutting stag. She had to make him see her as Ali and not as this messed up person he’d turned her into in his head.

          “Dave…?” Ali was quieter, more measured this time, “Dave?” He stopped pacing and turned around to face her. “I’m sorry Dave; I’m sorry, look I’m a bit in shock. I just wasn’t ready for well… what almost happened…”

           Dave roared, “Nothing fucking happened, nothing ever fucking happens….” He moved towards her again, arm out in front of him like he was feeling for her in the darkness, he pushed her again. This time down onto the hard floor. Ali kicked and scrabbled her way to her feet. Dave reached for her again and this time she flew at him, arms and nails and teeth and feet all waiting to make contact with Dave’s body. Her nails found him first - she dug them into his cheek with a ferocity that she didn’t know she had. Dave recoiled and tried to fend her off, tried to cover himself at the same time. She pulled her nails away, raking him, tearing a strip of skin from below his eye and across his nose. He yelled. He hit out. Ali went down on the floor without a sound. The dust flew up from underneath her.

          Dave stepped back, wiping his face on his sleeve, trying to see if there was blood or not, unable to tell in the pale unnatural light. Ali didn’t move. She was staring at him. Blank. Dave went to say something and then thought better of it. He walked away from her prone body towards the mouth of the cave. He turned and looked at her again.

          “You stupid bloody bitch, fucking calm down!” He  stepped half out of the cave. Holding onto the ladder. He stooped down and did something Ali couldn’t see. She was fixed to the floor. Scared and afraid.

  

          “Bye then,” Dave seemed to virtually leap up the ladder and Ali watched his feet disappear from view. She sat there alone. Too stunned to move at first. Then, as what was happening began to dawn on her, she scrambled across the floor of the cave, kicking over the oil lamp, killing the flame and plunging her into an almost total darkness save for the light which pushed its way between the branches that fell across the entrance.

  

          She yelled at the top of her voice and broke through the opening to see the ladder being hauled up from somewhere above. Dave had deliberately unpegged it and left her down there.

          Below her the tide was rising and the waves slammed on the rocks. Above sheer mud slicked rock. She sat and howled, her voice barely registering above the wind.

On The Edge

          The van took off down the main road, clattering away as it hit thirty five, grey-blue smoke clinging to the road surface behind before thinking better of it and drifting slowly across the hedges, gaining height before losing its cohesiveness and disappearing on the breeze. Crows flapped lazily away from the remnants of rabbits on the roadside, cawing in unhurried amusement at the red van with back doors held together with string, flying back down once the noise passed to strip the rotten flesh from the carcass all over again.

          There wasn’t a soul to be seen. The early autumn skies threatened rain but so far only the odd spot had fallen on the grimy windscreen, the laughably ineffective wipers spreading it about until it was almost opaque and the driver had to lean forwards to peer out for any potential hazards. The last of the crops were ready for harvest in the neighbouring fields but for now they lay listless awaiting the combine. Behind them the sea lay quiet, its mass reduced to a thin line between the land and the horizon, the steep incline they faced reducing it further as they climbed. Thin traceries of currents just visible on its surface, waves reduced to ripples. The empty road, all corners and blind hedge-filled verges, spun away from the coast reluctantly, taking the van inland and away from all that promise.

           “Stop!”

          The van screeched to a halt with an unimpressive braking distance, the rear wheels locking up for a second and the back end swinging out across the road.

          “What ? What is it ?”

          “I don’t want to go back. Not there.”

          “Oh Christ….what d’you want to do ?”

          “I don’t know….I don’t know….I don’t want to walk out like that…but I don’t want to go back to the flat….don’t want to leave…oh shit why is this so fuckin’ difficult !”

          Dave sat in silence, the engine barely ticking over, spluttering and knocking. He looked down in his lap, fiddled with his hands and tried not to look over at Ali.

          “He’s being so … so bloody stupid and blokey… I didn’t even intend walking out, just kind of did… now I’m bloody stuck here. I’m just going to look an idiot if I go back, tail between my legs. Christ, I’ve had enough of wandering around with a bunch of no-hope travellers, I really have. I like it down there in the village. I want to stay there, but I can’t just go back….” Ali was close to tears. Her face was red with confusion, anger and she dragged her fingers again and again through her short hair. Her eyes were filling up.

           Dave looked up. He was, he reckoned, only about three miles from the village – he mentally weighed up how much petrol he’d used, he couldn’t help it. He’d picked Ali up as she walked through the village – she had the air of someone who was going somewhere with a vengeance. She was striding out and looked furious. Dave had just been about to set off for the weekly shop at what passed for a supermarket but put those plans on hold and asked her if she wanted a lift. He still felt that things had been left out of balance when they’d split and liked the idea of being able to offer her help for a change. She’d looked at him with furious eyes and for a second he thought better of it, but she just mumbled something about Terry being a complete idiot and wrenched the door of the van open and got in. Dave figured out they’d had some sort of argument and had, without a word, started the engine and driven on the road out of the village in the direction she was heading. They’d gone about a mile before he asked her where she wanted to go and was surprised when she asked him to take her to the quarry. She’d then not spoken again until she’d yelled at him to stop. Dave was secretly pleased that she seemed so vulnerable. He’d never seen her like this before – certainly not with him – and he was happy to make the most of it.

          “Where to then ?”

          “Oh god, I don’t know ! Back. Not to the flat. Certainly not back to your bloody mothers. Just back. Somewhere. Somewhere away from people.”

          Dave revved the engine and the van stuttered into a three point turn, back end banging against a low stone wall hidden in the gorse. He swore, revved some more and swung back around one hundred and eighty degrees.

          “I can take you up on the cliff road if you want…?” His words hung in the air. Ali was sniffing, determined not to cry. She let out a sob, snorted it back in and sat there silently.

          “D’you want…” Dave tried again. Ali was beyond caring, beyond knowing which way she wanted to go, she nodded and rubbed at her nose with the back of her hand. Dave drove on, still no-one around, he wondered why he was running around the countryside with a stupid girl like this – he owed her nothing now, so why was he doing this ? Her emotions didn’t touch him, she’d get over it. He had.They always did.

  

          As the van clunked around another bend, approaching the point where the road split to either go down to the village or up and over to the houses on the cliff, Dave saw a figure walking down the road, kicking at the dislodged stones by the side as he walked. He swung out to pass him, saw it was Terry. Ali, head down and eyes red, didn’t notice him.

          The van limped down the left hand turning; Dave looked briefly in the rear mirror, but saw no-one. The road here was barely driveable at points – tarmac so old that great clumps of grass had pushed through, chunks of black road surface lay apart from the rest, chipped off by wear and the weather. Potholes erupted with water as the tyres smacked down into them, jarring the van and making Dave wonder how much more often he could afford to do this. The back door clanked as the string tensed and relaxed with each new shock. Ali looked up as they arrived back at the coast – although this time they were way up above the beach, a crow’s eye view of the sand and the sea. The tide was out, the sand slicked with water looking almost glassy. Dave pulled up and pushed the gearstick into neutral, he kept his foot on the pedal and wrenched the handbrake up with a groan. The van slipped forward an inch or two before the brakes took effect and then rocked unsteadily as it settled into position.

          Dave stared out of the windscreen. Ali sat and looked at her feet.

          Tentatively Dave put his arm out and rested his hand on her shoulder. He wasn’t sure why, but it seemed an appropriate thing to do. Anyway he didn’t like the silence. Ali reached up and put her hand over his, squeezing it lightly as if to at least recognise that he was trying. She turned away and pulled at the door handle again, the door dropped slightly on its hinges as it opened, the handle itself stayed in her hand. She looked at it and laughed.

          Dave smiled for the first time and told her not to worry. She threw it over the back of the seat to sit amongst a pile of old boxes, wrappings and blankets. He got out of his side and slammed the door shut, for a moment the van looked as if it might set off down the hill on its own, but once more it rocked gently and settled down after a second.

          “I don’t want to go back down there….not just yet.” Ali sounded subdued and inwardly she was feeling completely foolish. Dave grunted noncommittally.

  

          The rain was starting to fall now, light drizzle, the wind was picking up. Ali shivered and Dave offered her his coat. She laughed again, “Who’d have ever thought that you’d be doing the chivalry thing for me again ?”

          Dave laughed back, not too sure what the joke was. Ali turned down his offer, mainly because apart from the light jacket all Dave had on was a t-shirt and a pair of board shorts. Ali walked along the cliffs, away from the houses, out towards the headlands.

  

          “What you gonna do then ?” Dave was awkward again, part of him wanted to get off and get on with his day, part of him wondered where all this was going and was curious. He liked Terry and all, but didn’t feel any duty towards him, this was all because he finally felt that Ali was letting him see her in a role other than the sarcastic, confident, brash persona that she’d always had around him in the past.

  

          “I don’t know Dave, I really don’t. I feel like I want to just be away from everyone, hide away for a few days and let it all wash over me. Get rid of all this stuff in my head. Numb the pain.”

  

          “This do for a start ?”, Dave pulled out a joint from his shorts. For the third time Ali laughed and took it off him, fumbling in her pocket for a lighter and fighting the strengthening breeze as she turned to find shelter to light it. Dave stared into the middle distance, thoughts coming and going in his head.

          “Got somewhere you could try…..if you want….” Dave was almost apologetic in his approach as he took the joint from her fingers, barely touching. She looked up at him, his long hair straggling around his face and blowing into the corners of his mouth. “It’s a bit of a, well, its a bit of a local thing to be honest…”. He grinned at the secrecy.

  

          “What sort of local thing ? Thought you used that sort of terminology for the best breaks ?” Ali looked at him, intrigued but not expecting much.

          They walked out past the hotel, shut up and as silent as the stunted trees that marked the boundary of its garden. The last building on the clifftop, from here the path meandered before turning into trodden down grass, clear enough at first but gradually fading into barely perceptible tracks. Ali hadn’t spent much time up here and for the first time she wished she had – there was something wild about the clifftops if you kept the village behind you – it had the air of antiquity, the smell and the feel of a hundred years in each blast of sea air. She found herself unable to keep her mind on the day's events. A feeling of total insignificance overwhelmed her and made it all seem so distant. She knew that the smoke was helping her along, but more than that the sheer emptiness up here, facing the sea, looking out onto nothing for hundreds of miles, seemed to be inviting her to join in nothing, to become part of nothing.

          “Go on,” she said, when she finally became aware of Dave again, “what sort of local thing?”

  

          “I’ll show you.” He said firmly this time. He took her by the hand again and started to stride along, so much so that she had difficulty keeping pace with him on the greasy surface. He led her further along the cliff, out of sight of the hotel, down towards the edge.

Different Roads

         

           Ali stroked Terry’s head, consciously rubbing his hair against its natural grain, like stroking a cat from tail to head. He sighed and leant back against her, feeling the material of her blouse against his bare back.

          "Why do you have to go now ?"


          "Just do, you see. It’s not like me to stay anywhere even this long. Haven’t stayed this long in one place for a while now. Tomorrow morning, we move up country. Too much hassle over the last week or so. End of the season anyway and I need to get hold of some money. Benefits stopped paying me and there’s a couple of us who thought we might go rose patching." She stopped and waited for his reaction. Terry shook his head free of her hands and smoothed back his hair.


          "What’s that , for starters ?"


          "Rose patching ?" She laughed, "I thought a boy from up country might know that ! Just crap work really, putting, well, patches, little bits of rubber or something, on roses – not even sure why. But some of the others on the site have done it and apparently it’s pretty good money, once the season’s finished over here they go over to Holland, might go there too. Don’t know yet."


          "And…?"


          "And what ?" she laughed softly. "And us ?"


          "Yeah," Terry repeated sulkily " And us."


          "I don’t know. It’s been good – I mean it’s been seven weeks and I don’t think we’ve been apart for more than a day. I need to get away, get my head back in gear and sort out where I’m going. I mean, it isn’t you…" she trailed off.


          "That’s original," He snorted and sat up, pulling on his t-shirt, white emblazoned with the logo of some or other band,


          "Don’t get like that…"


          "Like what ?" He demanded. Terry was feeling hurt and was lashing out, even though he knew it was stupid and self defeating. "It’s just that, well, just that I thought we were doing OK, that we were, I don’t know…"


          "We were. We are. It really isn’t about that. I didn’t intend you to see this as the bloody be all and end all. I like you so very much, but there are other things out there you know."


          Terry’s voice rose a minute amount, cracking slightly around the edges. "What, other blokes you mean ?"


          "No !" the response was emphatic. "Well, yeah there are, but that isn’t what this is about. I won’t disappear from your life." Ali dropped her head in exasperation.


          "How come. Sounds like it." Terry retreated into chopped up sentences, monosyllabic words were the best expression he could find to show his feelings. Not everything about him had matured as well as he thought.


          "Oh fuck off. I’m going to go up country and I’ll write to you – I promise – I’ll come and see you – I’ll tell you where I am once we settle down and you can come and find me."


          Terry grasped at the lifeline she was offering and comprehensively missed it.


          "Oh yeah, like letters are as good as this thing we have here right now."


          "You’ll have to get used to it" Ali snatched up her jeans and pulled them up over her slender pale legs, adding a carapace of denim to hide her vulnerability. She was close to tears but not given to backing down.


          "Huh, I should have listened."


          Ali swung ‘round, "To who ?"


          "Doesn’t matter..."


          "To who ?" she repeated


          "Jaz." Terry mumbled, ashamed that he’d gone down this route but unable to see a way out.


          "You listened to some advice from him ?" she put the emphasis on the last word leaving Terry in no doubt as to what she thought of any advice that would come from him. "He’s half bloody Neanderthal. What did he say ?"


          "I didn’t listen to him – that’s the point. He just said something like I’d regret it getting mixed up with you."


          "Mixed up ? Mixed up ! Is that all it is now – mixed up ?" Ali threw her jacket across the bed and laughed sardonically.


          "No….no…. that’s not what I meant…" Too late Terry tried to retrieve something.


          "Yeah well you said it didn’t you." She snorted back some tears. Grabbed her shoulder bag and opened the door.


          "Don’t go…" Terry saw what was happening and again left it too late. The door closed. He didn’t follow, he lay on the bed exhausted and bewildered. Picking over the argument in his head he also felt guilty. He was always telling Ali that she ought to do what she wanted, he admired her for the fact that she wasn’t conventional, he admired the way she lived. He kept telling her that didn’t he ? So why now that it came down to it had he behaved like a total idiot ?


          He got up, dressed and went out to look for her.


          Out in autumn’s sporadic sunlight the street was empty, most tourists had left and the shop doorways filled with miniature dunes of wind blown sand and dust. He walked over to the shop. Joe was sitting on a stool behind the counter flicking through a copy of Vogue, embarrassed he dropped it to the floor and put on his usual show of bonhomie.


          "Hello hardcore." he said, "Big wave day today ?" Knowing full well that the sea was as flat as the pavement outside.


          "You seen Ali ? She should have walked past a few minutes ago."


          "That’d be the one with the Peter Pan hair and nice line in insults ? Yeah ?"


          "Come on Joe – just yes or no will do." Terry was exasperated "Have you seen her ?"


          "OK, OK, keep your flat top on – yeah, she was outside talking to Dave. Think she got in his car, he went off up the hill anyway. What’s the problem ?"

          "Nothing, nothin. Shit..." Terry spun around and marched up towards the corner house that Dave lived in with Joe and their mother. When he arrived, a skim of sweat on his face, the house was empty, no sign of the car and no-one to answer. Great.


          Dave must have taken Ali back out to the quarry. But with no transport Terry was stuck. He decided to walk the six or so miles there, stomping off at a pace that soon slowed after the first hill. There were no cars around and no people, just wind and cloud, pale yellow-brown fields of stubble and the occasional field of skinny looking shorn sheep. On the hills across the valley he could see cows grazing and the odd tractor moving. But otherwise, nothing. After a few miles, almost halfway, he sat down. He wished he’d brought a drink with him. A late bee buzzed around his face and flew off to settle on a pink scrubby hedgerow flower. So devoid now of any romanticism Terry lobbed a hard piece of mud at the careless insect, making it hover sharply upwards and then fly off. Terry wanted out of this rurality and back to some sort of reality. He looked up at the clouds and sighed again. The season was over, everybody, including Ali it seemed, was running out so he wasn’t going to stay either. In that dry moment he made the decision. There was no going back and there was no chasing. The time now was for him. He ripped up a handful of dessicated wild grass and let it go into the wind; the wind blew it out across the road in front of him. Resolutely, stubbornly, he turned in the opposite direction and began to trudge back to the village to pack his bags.

And this one's for Ali....

Too Perfect

This was just one of those days – one of those fantastic, sky blue, hot sun, rose scented, everything’s all right with the world and all it contains days.  

Terry’s hair fell across his eyes as he climbed over Ali and out of bed, the taste of her kisses lingering in his mouth from the night before. He made coffee, opened the windows and took in lungfuls of early morning breeze, light and almost fizzing with a tangible health. Was this the healthy seaside air that the Victorians went on about so much ? The kettle came to the boil and he poured, the ground coffee releasing wave after wave of bitter fragrance that swept through the room and drove the scent of the sea momentarily back to its own borders. The tide was about halfway up the beach and a perfectly glassy left was peeling across the mouth of the bay. Terry could see one or two people in the water and a few more on the beach staring out, the clock read 5.30am. he nudged Ali, she slept on for a second or two and then flickered her eyes open with a soft smile, he offered her the coffee and she shook her head sleepily.

“I’m going to go in,” he said gently, “s’beautiful – you coming ?”

Ali laughed silently and shook her head again, “Make you breakfast when you come back…”. She shut her eyes. Terry smiled at her and ran his hand across her head, touching her neck and wondering if he should just get back into bed. But she’d be there when he came back. The beach wouldn’t look like this for long though. He gulped his coffee down; too hot and he burnt his tongue. Abandoning the rest he pulled on his wetsuit, leaving the top-half rolled down, and picked up his board from the corner of the room. Putting it down almost immediately, but reluctantly, he left Ali’s coffee by the bed in case she woke up and wrote her a note telling her he’d be back for breakfast, signing it simply 'T x'. Then he rolled a cigarette, popped it into the corner of his mouth, lit it and picked up the board again, exiting the room rather awkwardly, dancing between the door frame and the dog-leg staircase all the while protecting his beloved stick from any inadvertent dings.

Outside the front door the early sun flowed through him, it was going to be one hell of a hot day and the tourists would soon be swarming over the beach. Terry had forgotten how much of a tourist he was himself. Within a few weeks he'd started to feel part of an elite. Not that he could outsurf anyone, some of the tourists were way better than him, but out of the water he was accepted, had friends, felt a part of the scene. He fitted in here so much better than he ever had at home where for so many reasons he always felt on the outside of life. Here he’d been able to reinvent himself pretty much as he was from the day that he’d spoken to Jaz and co in the pub. Sure, they’d seen him before but they knew little enough about him for him to be able to be selective about his past and ambitious about his future in a way that he never could have been in a town where everyone had seen him grow up, where he’d been to school, where that great big drag of his personal history was always going to hang around him and mark him out as someone different to the person he knew inside that he was. He knew that this new start was perhaps only temporary, but he was enjoying it and the combination of the early morning, the rising sun and the sheer rush of living made today feel like the first day that he believed it himself. He breathed the ozone air in deeply, felt the sand rub under his heel, looked up and down the almost empty road and began to walk down to the water’s edge. 

The water crackled as it hit the upward slope of the beach. Sparkles of the long low sunlight bounced off and made it impossible to see the sands underneath. The waves rolled in constantly, even and beautifully glassy – Terry had never seen the sea this perfect. It was as if the day was made for him – he drank in the sight, almost scared to walk in the water in case his presence spoilt the transcendental perfection of it all.

When he did walk in, even the early chill of the salt water failed to register much, he waded out and then pulled up the rest of the bulky suit, wrapping it over his body until the bulk took on his form and slimmed to fit - a second, thicker skin. He reached behind his back and tugged at the zip, leant down and secured the leash around his ankle. Pushing his board alongside he strode out and revelled in the pure total gloriousness of the moment. He could see why so many surfers he’d met down here had become religious – he wasn’t about to let those thoughts enter his head, but on a day like this there seemed something quite majestic about the world, about the sea, that made you think that this couldn’t, just couldn’t, be an accident of geology and tide, there had to be a bigger plan.

 That was the romantic side of him to be sure – he found out much later that the religion tended to come from being thrashed about in cruel breaking sets, out the back on a day when the skies turned dark and there was no-one but yourself to blame for being so stupid – that’s when the praying usually started and not to the god of beauty and life and sun either, but to a wrathful Old Testament god, one bringing down walls of water from on high, a Kali, a destroyer, a force which considered you so tiny and insignificant that it wouldn’t even take note of you once you were in its juggernaut path.

 

Today was not that day. Terry paddled out, caught good clean waves, paddled back out again and again. Almost every ride was long and clean and implausibly pleasurable. There were guys out there pulling aerial stunts, flipping back from the lip and looking for all the world like pro’s. Terry had been told only the other week that once you could surf in cold choppy English waters then the Pacific breaks were as good as yours – watching these guys he could believe that. As he sat in the line up, now maybe ten or eleven of them, he waited his turn and watched the sheer grace of some of them, taking off and then disappearing from view as the water rushed after them and lifted high above their heads. Terry knew a few of them by sight and nodded respectfully, he saw Dave paddle out, but for whatever reason the two of them never came close to each other in the line up.

After maybe two hours the numbers were swelling, word moved fast when there was a swell like this and the car park up on the beach was filling up, full quivers of boards being unfastened from roof racks. Terry was also getting hungry now and he caught his last wave right into the shallows, walking out with a grin plastered across his face, wet hair shining and flat, heart still pumping at the love of it all and ready for what promised to be a hell of a day.

Jaz ran past him, yelled something about not getting up on time and sped to the sea. Joe stood outside the shop as Terry came off the sand, watching silently from the doorway. Terry knew that he and Dave had an arrangement where one would cover for the other when the surf got good – in the mornings and at the end of the day mainly, in season there was no way they could leave the shop during the busy hours – it looked as if Joe had the short straw this time. Terry went over.

“It’s a beauty out there today Joe, you going in ?” Terry expected Joe to be pissed off having been left up here on dry land, but he was surprisingly cheery, maybe the day had embraced him with the same feeling that Terry had earlier on.

“Dave’s turn. Might get in after a few hours, still I don’t mind – it’s pretty good just to look at it to be honest.”

“Can’t you get in when Dave comes back ?”

“Too busy by then mate. Get all the emmetts coming in for their 'papers”

“I'll cover you for an hour if you want…”  Terry found the words falling out of his mouth unexpectedly.

“Bit difficult really – you need to know what’s what…” Joe seemed reluctant to accept the offer, but his eyes told a different story, gazing out at yet another rider taking off and sliding down the face, the wave almost barrelling, not quite.

“What about when Dave comes back ? I could serve and he can do the difficult stuff ? “ Terry waited, whilst Joe carried on gazing at the sea and presumably thinking it through. His face contorted, half distracted, ruminating, physically chewing the issue over. He turned and looked at Terry. 

His face betrayed a slight doubt but he said, “OK – you go off and do whatever you need to do, Dave’s back in about an hour I reckon, come back then and that’d be really good. Buy you a few pints for that – for definite. That’s really good of you – I’d half a mind to shut up for the morning, but mum wasn’t having any of it. Her day off too.”

Terry grinned and Joe slapped him around the shoulders like a bear playing with a cub, sealing the deal. Terry wondered why he was so pleased at having just put himself into working in the shop on a day like this and then he knew why. Now he was really one of the set. Joe’s trust. The ‘being part of the community’ – he’d cracked it and he would even be happy to do an eight hour shift if it proved that to him.

 

Almost jogging he went back to the flat and Ali, true to her word, had cooked up a big plateful of scrambled eggs and toast, as well as more coffee.

“Saw you coming out of the water so I got it ready,” her eyes flashed blue, the day had transferred something of the perfect sea into them as well. She was wearing a long shirt of Terry’s as a cover up and Terry couldn’t help but gaze at her and wonder what the hell she was doing with him.

 “So what was it like ?” she left the question open ended – she knew, she’d been watching from the window for the best part of an hour, willing Terry out of the water but at the same time glad that he would come up buzzing and happy for the rest of the day. She just wanted to give him the opportunity to tell her whatever it was he had to tell, tales of perfect lefts, missed opportunities, blissed out nirvana on a plank. It didn’t matter – she knew he wanted to say it so she might as well give him the chance. She sat down on the bed with her plateful whilst he stood outside the flat door and peeled off his suit, rubbed down his hair with a battered towel that always hung there, and launched into a breathless saga of the last two hours.

When he finished Ali pulled him down next to her as he sat to devour his plateful, kissed him with all the freshness of her newly brushed teeth and got a taste of the saltwater in return. Terry told her about his deal with Joe. Her face dropped, then recovered quickly enough so that Terry didn’t notice.

 

“It seemed only fair to him,” explained Terry through mouthfuls of toast, “I couldn’t let him not go in to be honest.”

“Didn’t anyone else offer ?” asked Ali, trying to hide the slight resentment in her voice.

“Dunno, I expect not – Joe’s just a bit of a fixture to Jaz and co – perhaps its only because I’m the soft newcomer that I offered, still, he does deserve it – he’s a nice bloke and I just felt so stoked that I’d probably have done anything right then, all’s right with the world and all that.”

Ali softened. Terry really was a nice bloke and it was still nearly an hour until he had to go. She couldn’t begrudge him this for long. She put the empty plates on the floor and pulled him down to lie beside her, his damp hair tickling her face.

Oh hell, why not !

Short Cut

(C)Nic Wise

They stood grinning at each other in the sixty watt halflight in Ali’s bare holiday-let flat – truth be told it wasn’t even hers, she’d ‘borrowed’ it for the week from a friend who was away up country, so that she, Ali, could have a break from the ancient caravan she had holed up in for the past three months. The smell of damp was less here, but it still pervaded the room, slowly turning the wood soft and the furniture black and musty.

 She reached up to Terry’s head and pulled his mouth down to hers – they’d both drunk until the pub shut, talking, listening and fixing all those common points in their lives that proved their compatibility to each other and to themselves – places they’d been to, bands they’d seen, tastes in food, all the usual trivia and surface gloss that people pick up and toss about as reference points. They even discovered that they'd been on the same demo once, about a year and a half ago, a coincidence that they could only have shared with about two hundred thousand other people but which seemed to be quite unique to them right now.

 Ali’s tongue flickered over Terry’s lips and he saw her eyes light up with something more than just normal excitement. He slid his hands across the rough cotton of her jacket, up to her neck and pushed his fingers through the short hair on the nape of her neck, she threw back her head, eyes closed and mouth so slightly parted.

 Encouraged, he pulled her close and kissed her deeply again, her eyes opening and staring at him so forthrightly that he was in no doubt, even at this point, what was going to happen. He felt his fragility fall away from him along with the last traces of any questions and he pushed her gently but with unfamiliar assertiveness up against the bare magnolia wall, still running his hand through her hair, holding her submissive head, part protecting, part owning. Ali came out of her trance and pulled him closer still, their hip bones clashing through the denim. She reached down for his belt and fumbled with the clasp before pushing the palm of her hand against front of his jeans, making him gasp. Simultaneously Terry pulled open her jacket, feeling her body through the thin material that separated them, just.

 Ali drew back, Terry worried that he’d moved too fast, too soon. But she slipped off her jeans and presented herself to Terry with a smile exaggerated by her swollen lips and wide blazing eyes. He pushed her back against the wall, tore down his own jeans and let her push herself against him until he could no longer think of anything but wanting to have her.

 Looking back Terry wondered how much of it had been the drink, how much had been pure lust, and how much of it had been that indefinable-something-else which separated this from any other experience he’d had up until that point in his life. The distant wash and rumble of the surf soundtracked the night; the dust from the beach made the curtainless windows almost opaque, but still they were both aware that anyone could have glanced up to see them coupled furiously against the dirty paintwork and neither of them cared, in fact quite the opposite. The quietness of earlier in the evening left them as they gasped and sucked in great draughts of air along with the sweetness of each other’s bodies, scent and sweat. Ali half sobbed, loudly and unrestrainedly as she felt her body being taken over by the sheer force of what was happening, she pushed and pulled Terry into her and away again, feeling every single movement with a new sensitivity. Terry told her everything that he wanted to do with her, for her, to her and she replied in single syllables between otherwordly not quite words, making it clear that she wanted him to do them all and that she could still promise more in return.

 Later in the bed of crumpled sheets and ragged Indian throws they lay across each other in silence, lit by the three quarters full moon which dragged the tide inwards whilst they slept. For a brief time all was still, a tableau pieced together from the poorest of materials with their naked bodies strewn artfully across the centre of the scene like the exhausted, unwrapped torsos in some Renaissance vision of the afterlife.

They woke together frequently and continued their explorations in the way that only the newly found or long separated lovers will.