here’s the thing,’ Ronny said, appraising Luke and detecting a powerful smell of fish, ‘he’s changed his name and now he’s called Jim.’
Luke turned to Jim, surprised and clearly determined not to believe the testimony of a total stranger. ‘You changed your name since this morning?’
Jim nodded. He already seemed thoroughly reconciled to this superficial alteration. The new name had settled on him during the previous hour as softly and as completely as a thin layer of soot over the rim of a chimney.
Luke frowned, somewhat disgruntled. ‘But what was wrong with Ronny?’
Ronny interjected. ‘It was his dad’s name and he didn’t like his dad.’
‘Anyway,’ Jim said, carefully steering the conversation away from his father, ‘my friend here is called Ronny, and if we’re both Ronnies it makes things too complicated.’
Luke was tickled by this. His broad face broke into a grin. ‘So in fact,’ he said, chuckling, ‘you’re The Two Ronnies.’
Ronny shook his head. ‘No. We’re not the two anythings. That’s the whole point of it. He’s Jim.’
Luke stopped smiling. Jim took his chance and handed him the car keys. ‘I really appreciate you lending me the car. It’s been a real life-saver.’
While he spoke, Luke squinted at Jim’s cheek. ‘You have a slight rash …’ he indicated, ‘just there.’
‘He knows,’ Ronny said. Jim nodded. ‘I think it may even be going down a bit now.’
‘Actually,’ Luke glanced wistfully over Ronny’s shoulder, although all that lay behind him was darkness and the roar of the tide, ‘I met one of our neighbours today. A girl with a flat face. She looked slightly …’
‘Dirty,’ Jim filled in.
Luke laughed, as though this hadn’t previously occurred to him. ‘That’s true. She was dirty. Her neck especially. Do you know her?’
Jim shook his head. ‘I’ve seen her around but we’ve never spoken.’
‘Well she was snooping around my prefab and then she jumped into the sea. With all her clothes on and everything. Crazy, really. I didn’t warm to her at all.’ Luke paused. ‘In fact she actually objected to me walking the short distance from here to the nudist beach with no clothes on. It’s not even as if there was anyone about …’
‘She was about,’ Ronny said, but not provocatively. He was rubbing his ear and seemed uninvolved now that the naming issue had been resolved. Luke just grunted.
‘Anyway …’ Jim said, his voice trailing off into the sound of the waves.
‘Yes …’ Luke responded brightly and jangled the keys in his hand, ‘any time.’
‘Great.’
Jim walked off, expecting Ronny to follow. But Ronny didn’t follow.
‘Did you see the black rabbits yet?’ he asked.
‘Black rabbits?’
Luke was temporarily bewildered.
‘Jim said that there were black rabbits here. Wild ones.’
‘Uh …’ Luke considered this for a moment. ‘I’ve never …’ he frowned, ‘although now you come to mention it …’
He disappeared into his prefab in search of something. Ronny held the door ajar with his foot. He saw the picture of the woman with the chin-high breasts which Luke had now hung squarely, unapologetically, above his sofa. Ronny touched one of his own nipples with his left hand. He had a fantastic capacity for empathy.
‘Ouch.’
‘Pardon?’ Luke reappeared, looking testy.
‘Nothing. It’s just …’ Ronny pointed, ‘her breasts are very high. That isn’t natural, is it?’
‘Natural?’
Luke didn’t understand the implications of this word. He was holding a pamphlet. It was a free handout from the Nature Conservancy Council about the Swale reserve. He cleared his throat. ‘Breasts are fatty tissue. That particular model has quite large ones which means that there’s some …’ he searched for the right word, ‘slack,’ he said, finally, although he couldn’t help thinking that it sounded ungallant. Graceless, even. And it was such a real, no, not real … it was such a resonant image, after all.
Ronny was already inspecting the pamphlet.
‘Take it,’ Luke said, ‘I think it mentions something about rabbits in there although I wouldn’t swear to it.’
‘Thanks.’
Ronny took the pamphlet and turned to go. Luke half-closed the door and then said quickly, ‘It didn’t hurt, you know.’
‘What didn’t?’
Luke thumbed over his shoulder. ‘The breasts. She’s my ex-wife. It didn’t hurt. It was actually her idea in the first place.’
‘Oh,’ Ronny nodded, still clutching his pamphlet, ‘well, that’s good, then.’
‘Yes.’
Luke closed the door. He resolved not to show Ronny his portfolio. He was alone in this wilderness. This moonscape. Although Jim, at least, seemed relatively open-minded. Or was that just … uh … he searched for the word. Then he found it. Reticence. Maybe Jim was just reticent.
Jim. His neighbour. Jim. Bit of a blank spot, really.
Jim’s prefab was bare and functional. One bedroom. Small. A shower, a toilet, a sink. The living room and a tiny kitchen. White walls. Linoleum flooring throughout. Red in colour. A portable TV. Terrible reception. No lampshades. Bare bulbs. Chilly. Ronny was impressed. It was already dark when they arrived but he quickly got the gist of it.
They’d had to wait for ten minutes before entering the island. The Kingferry bridge had been raised for a tanker to pass through. Ronny had clambered out of the car and walked to the river bank to watch. The bridge was a great, concrete, multi-storey car park, but roofless. A monstrosity. A giant. When he climbed back into the car his face was alight. He hadn’t bargained on it being a real island.
‘You could swim it easily,’ Jim said, as they crossed over the river, ‘but it’s pretty deep in the middle.’
And now they were by the sea. Jim pulled his curtains wide. Outside Ronny saw blackness broken by foam-tipped waves. It was fantastic.
He pointed. ‘You’re almost on the beach.’
‘Yes. In fact, we are on the beach.’
‘Just five foot of it and then the sea.’
‘That’s right.’
Jim was making something to eat, heating a tin
