old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Right. You’ll be going to Penwith High with Jade then. You can help each other with homework, hang out and stuff.” He was over keen. I think it was awkward for Jade as well as me. I found out later he’d checked me with one look and reckoned I’d be A Good Influence on Jade. Different from the type she normally hung out with.
We went into the kitchen to drink tea and eat a cake they’d brought with them, her dad – Bob – and Mum chatting away about Cornwall, me and Jade competing at who-can-say-the-least. She liked Tegan though. Jade gave her bits of cake to feed to the scruffy sheep dog.
When they stood to go, Bob said, “Jade was going to take Tess for a walk. You could go with her… Oh, daft, aren’t I? You’re unpacking. Another time.”
“That’s okay,” said Mum. “You go, Sam, but not too long. If it’s all right with Jade?”
“Okay.” Jade and her dog were out of the kitchen before I could say a word.
Jade made a line for the nearby hill, pelting straight up the path like she was on a mission.
“What’s the hurry?” I said, catching her up.
“I need to check something.” She had a Cornish accent. But soft; husky.
At the top we climbed up on to a large, flat rock and sat down. She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and, using me as a wind shelter, lit one.
Beyond the moor was the sea, blue and white and shining. The light of it hit me so hard I had to screw up my eyes. I hadn’t seen the Cornish sea in years, not since I was four, after Dad died. I couldn’t even remember it much. I hadn’t expected that just looking at it would make my head spin. It was big as the sky.
“Great view,” I said.
“Yeah. Right. Hold this,” she said, passing me the cigarette. She pulled a tiny pair of binoculars from her denim jacket, fiddled with the focus and pointed them at the distant sea. Along the coast was a thin headland of cliff knifing into the Atlantic. Jade didn’t move an inch. She just stared through the binocs, reaching out a hand for the cigarette once in a while. The dog lay beside her, its black and white head on her lap.
Then, suddenly, she sat upright, tense, like she’d noticed something. All I could make out was a thin line of white water, rolling into the distant cliff.
“What you looking at?” I said.
“Signposts.”
“What?”
“That’s the spot’s name.” She sighed, and pocketed the binocs. “I can see the waves there, that’s why it’s called Signposts. Swell’s about three foot. Do you surf, Sam?”
“No.”
“Shame. I do.” She jumped off the rock, leaving me holding the smouldering fag butt. And I thought, Oh, right, see you then. But…
“Come on!” she shouted, running down the hill.
“Surfing?” I shouted. But she’d already gone too far to hear me.
AS I RAN, I was thinking, Shit, this is already nothing like London.
The moors in the sun were nothing like the flats that filled up the sky in Westbourne Park. Running off to the beach was nothing like heading to the dog-turd littered park for a kickaround. And Jade was nothing like… any girl I’d ever met. She wasn’t just beautiful. There was something about her. Something raw and naked. Something you wanted to look at – had to look at – but felt you shouldn’t.
We went past our place and straight to their cottage. They’d built a wooden barn-garage right next to it. It was full of junk: an old washing machine, bikes, crates of books. I clocked the surfboards stacked against the wall, but she walked past them to a ladder leading up to an attic. I was going to follow her, but she said, “No, wait here.”
After a minute or two, she climbed back down, carrying a wetsuit and towel.
“What’s up there?” I asked. She didn’t answer. She stood by the surfboards, eyeing them up before choosing the middle one of the three – a blue beaten-up old thing about half a foot taller than she was, with a V shaped tail.
“Love this fish,” she said, stroking its edge. “Flies in anything.” She balanced the suit and towel over her shoulder and stuck the board under one arm. Then she took an old bike from where it leant against a fridge.
“You can borrow Dad’s bike,” she said.
“But I don’t surf.”
“You said. Come anyway. Don’t be a kook.”
“What’s a kook?”
“It’s what you are,” she said, getting on the bike.
“Do you want me to carry…” I started. But she was already out of the door, riding the bike with one hand, and holding the board under her arm with the other. The dog followed, jumping and wagging its tail.
“How d’you do that?” I said.
“Practice!” she shouted.
It was making me dizzy. One minute we’re eating cake, then we’re up a hill, then we’re off to the beach. And she was bossy. That annoyed me. But I was dead curious, and yeah, she was that pretty, you wouldn’t not follow her. I grabbed her dad’s bike and pedalled after her.
After ten minutes we took a path off the road and cycled down a stony trail, with the dog running behind us, stopping where the ruined towers and walls of an old tin mine hung to the cliff edge.
We dumped the bikes. Jade led us past a ‘DANGER – KEEP OUT’ sign by the mine and down a steep path that ended by a huge granite boulder, right on the cliff edge. She walked up to the large rock, and put the board on top of it, stretching, nudging it over the top with her fingertips. She left it there, balancing. Then, placing her body tight against the rock, and still with the towel and wetsuit over her shoulder, she moved around the rock, till she disappeared. A few seconds later the board disappeared too, pulled over the rock’s edge. The dog ran up the cliff and over the boulder.
It was like they’d just vanished.
I stepped up to the cliff edge and looked down. The sight of the sea hit me in the gut. It must have been a thirty-foot drop. She’d shimmied around the rock, casual as anything, along a ledge inches wide. If you slipped, you’d fall. If you were lucky, you’d grab a rock and hold on. Chances were, you’d go over. And die.
“Coming?” said her voice, from behind the rock, teasing me.
“Sure,” I said. I knew that without the
