water.
He climbed inside, checked the window wouldn’t fall shut behind him, then checked again. When he looked back out, the surfer had gone.
It was colder than before. The quiet was thick as dust. The floorboards creaked softly under his feet. That morning he’d put on his coat, found the shopping list and money his father had left next to the sink, and walked down the road into town. He’d got to the shop, picked up a basket, then put the basket down and kept walking until the road turned to the path along the cliffs, and then the house, and then the loose back window.
He moved slowly through each room, opening empty drawers and cupboards, running his fingers over a shelf of maps and books, a crackling bunch of dried flowers. There were patterned plates and glasses that looked like they’d hardly been used, and bowls that were too small for anything. There were leaflets heaped by the door and he picked some up, read something about window cleaning, something about gardening services, then he put them back down where he’d found them.
There were three pairs of sandals by the front door, three raincoats, three wetsuits folded over hangers. Ivor looked them over one by one. Nothing had sand on it, or mud, or crusts of salty rain. There was no torn and snapped umbrella, no piles of old newspaper, no takeaway pots flattened and ready for the outside bin. There were no tangled keys, no stacks of bills hidden behind the microwave. He looked under every bed but there were no cardboard boxes, reinforced with gaffer tape, waiting.
Nothing moved except Ivor. No clocks ticked. There were three yellow chairs round one of the windows and he sat in each one, then got up and watched the dents he’d made spring slowly back to smoothness. He opened and closed the curtains. He turned on the lamp. His trainers left faint treads of sand. There were some clothes in the small bedroom – not many, just a few shirts and a jumper – and he unfolded each one, studied them carefully, then folded them back up, matching the creases exactly.
In the bathroom, he opened the cabinet above the sink and took out the bottles and jars. He opened the lids one by one and dipped his fingers into the creams, then scooped up talcum powder, leaving behind shallow indents and the half-moon shapes of his nails. He tipped up a bottle and white tablets fell onto his palm. When he tipped them back in, one tablet stuck to his skin. It was small and perfectly round. He thought about swallowing it, then shook his head and lifted his hand to drop it back in. But now that the thought had appeared, there was nothing else he could do. It was like locking and unlocking the door three times, or touching the wing mirrors of every red car.
His breath fogged up the mirror and he wiped it away with his sleeve, but it stayed on there for a long time after he’d left.
Every day his father would go fishing. His lines and nets were always by the door. He would leave early, depending on the tide, and there would be the sound of him in the kitchen, packing his kit, the thump of the car boot. He would hum that song he liked where the tune went so low it was as if his chest was vibrating.
When he came in to say goodbye he would put his hand on the top of Ivor’s head and it would be warm and smell like bait. Ivor would pretend to be asleep. When he went downstairs, his breakfast would be on the table: milkshake, cereal that had soaked up everything, a plate of crackers to dip in. His father always said he’d only be gone a few hours, but he was never only gone for a few hours.
Ivor came down off the cliffs and glanced back once more in the direction of the house. There were bits of chipped paint on his hands from the window, and bits of talcum powder under his nails. He rubbed them off and crossed the beach towards the road. His father was down at the edge of the water. His silhouette was like a hawthorn bending. His line was arched over the sea and there were a couple of cans by his feet.
‘Did you get the shopping?’ his father said. Cold radiated off him, and he pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up against it.
Ivor stood as close as he could without knocking anything. The sky over the sea had turned dark yellow, like a very old piece of paper.
The line tensed and began to buckle, and his father gave his can to Ivor and put his hand on the reel.
‘I forgot,’ Ivor told him. He took his father’s other hand and blew on each stiff knuckle.
His father played out the line. The bones in his fingers made popping noises under Ivor’s mouth. ‘Remember when your breath smelled like those onion crisps for a week?’ his father said. ‘I almost took you to the doctor.’
‘Remember when you ate that whole sweetcorn and your beard smelled like butter?’
The line tensed some more, and it was important to watch it, and bring it in slowly. Now his father needed both hands.
The line went tighter and tighter, then slackened. His father took the can back and sipped it. ‘I’ll catch us something,’ he said. He still held the record for catching the biggest fish in town.
The dark yellow turned to dark blue. A ship flashed on the horizon. Somewhere the oystercatchers whistled and scolded like boiling kettles.
‘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
