I thought, who you calling stupid, and was about to say ‘Who you calling stupid?’ but I didn’t because I was trying to be all good and nice and not mess things up and I thought I could impress her later with all my stories, all the stories from Pigeon and the bible and the books I’d read and I could scare her with stories of Queen Isabella and her pulsing heart and I thought in my head how we would be on the beach and it would be getting dark and I’d scare her and she’d cuddle into me to stay safe and I liked that thought even though I knew it probably wouldn’t happen because she was some sort of angel of death or war or pestilence and I’m sure they don’t get scared by ghost stories.
I said, ‘I’ve not been to the sea. Tom keeps us working on the farm or hunting in the woods and he wouldn’t take us. But he said we’d be going fishing soon.’
She didn’t say anything. She just hit at the grass with a stick, like she hadn’t even heard me. I was going to tell her how I was good at hunting, ‘I’m a shit-hot shot,’ I was going to say, but I thought it might not impress her if she didn’t like the killing of spiders maybe she wouldn’t like that I shot rabbits but we have to eat and I have to help Tom or I’d be out on my ear but I kept quiet just in case. I was getting all in a tangle in my head and not appreciating the walk at all, my palms all sweaty and my mood turning so that I was frowning like mad and suddenly she turned to me and was about to say something and stopped, seeing me look like I was crazy angry about something, my face all twisted up. I tried to turn all happy but turned contorted and probably looked like I was grimacing. It was exhausting being in love.
‘What’s eating at you?’ she said. ‘Don’t you want to go on an adventure?’
‘I do! I’m just—’
‘I’m not wasting my time on some old misery guts.’
I thought I might just collapse then and there but I thought, Goblin-runt, get out of your bloody head. Stop thinking so much. That’s what David would say. Getting all caught up in tangled thoughts and look how it turns out, all back to front.
So I came out of my head and I said, ‘I’ve never been to the sea. Are there mermaids and pirates? My brother said there was.’
She looked at me, laughed and ran off ahead.
‘Mermaids and pirates!’ she shouted back. ‘Let’s find out!’
I ran after her, yelling a battle cry.
There it was, sparkling in the sun. Angel had already kicked off her shoes and was splashing around. I just gaped. There weren’t any pirates or mermaids, no anyone except us. Cliffs slanted up into the afternoon sun, gulls floated overhead and trundled along the beach, squawking. Angel ran back onto the sand and threw off her clothes. She ran into the oncoming waves and disappeared. I was anxious and jealous. Her head bobbed up and she waved at me.
I took off my shoes and shirt, but kept my shorts on. I stuck close to the shore, just splashing around, enjoying the feel of the warm water on my skin. I sat down, feeling the pull of the sea. Angel waved at me again, and I shook my head. She swam for shore.
‘What’re you doing?’
‘I can’t swim.’
She took me by the hand, dragging me up. I stumbled after her, staring down at our joined hands, water dripping between our fingers like we were melting into each other.
She took me past an outcrop, letting go of my hand so it was easier to scramble over the rocks. I followed obediently and we came to a rock pool. I wasn’t sure how deep it was, but the water was clear and you could see to the bottom. Seaweed swayed when the waves came in, the water gently entering the pool, flowing over the top of the rocks, causing only a slight ripple. I stared in awe at the starfish at the bottom of the pool. Angel lowered herself in and I followed.
‘I’ll teach you,’ she said.
It took about three weeks, mainly because my chores took up so much time, but also because the Idiot had noticed I was always going off somewhere, and he would tag along, pretending like we were friends. CP and I would just lead him to the woods and we’d stop there so CP could forage – he loved collecting branches and leaves and making a nest, so I pretended that’s all we did and after a couple of evenings of this the Idiot got bored and left me alone. Tom didn’t care where I went in the evenings, as long as I’d finished all my chores and as long as I was up at dawn to do my morning duties. Angel’s pretend parents were the ones who’d shown her the path to the sea when she’d first arrived. They were happy for us to go out in the evenings as long as she told them where we were going. She usually had to be back by nine, but at the height of summer they let her stay out until after sunset.
By the end of three weeks I was swimming pretty good. I stuck to the pool. I wasn’t ready for the sea, and Angel seemed fine with that. She didn’t even tease me for being a coward and I felt bad because I thought of Stevie and how if I had been him and I was Angel I would have given him a hard time and he probably would have swam in the sea just to prove to me he could and he probably would’ve drowned or got eaten by sharks and I’d be all twisted up with guilt. Angel was a real angel about it, not one of those Revelation angels, but those angels who give you a break.
I liked the rock pool better than the sea in those first days. It felt more private, like the whole world had disappeared and it was just me and Angel. Corporal Pig would come along most days too. He couldn’t get up to the rock pool and he’d make a godawful noise when we left him behind but he’d soon amuse himself, snuffling about in the sand. He would swim in the sea too. The first time I saw him I scrambled out of that rock pool, ran across the beach and into the sea to rescue him before I even realised he was swimming as happy as can be. I stood with the water lapping at my chest, feeling like a fool.
‘You’re making me look bad in front of my girl, CP. Look at you, swimming in the sea and swimming better than a Goblin could.’
I went back to Angel who was watching from the rock pool.
‘Who knew pigs could swim?’
‘How did you think you could rescue him? How could you drag that fat pig out of the sea?’
‘I dunno,’ I said, annoyed, wanting her to drop it.
‘I like that you’d try,’ she said as I swam off, still feeling that ache in my belly, that fear of losing Corporal Pig.
I practiced hard that week, listening to Angel’s advice, determined to get good enough so I could swim in the proper sea with CP. After I’d done practicing we’d flip onto our backs and just float. Sometimes we’d reach out and hold each other’s hand and we’d float in silence or we’d chat about this and that, sometimes about what was going on in the town, about old Mrs Carter and her stupidness, or I’d complain about the Idiot but mostly I didn’t mention him because I didn’t want him messing up my happiness with Angel. Sometimes we talked about before, about London and who we were then and what we did and who our families were. I told Angel about how Devil used to swim in the canal next to Kensal Green Cemetery, but I was too afraid to go in.
‘Who’s Devil?’
‘My dog.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Buried. In Kensal Green.’
I didn’t tell her what really happened to him. I just said about how the Nazis had come to London without people knowing and killed all the pets so that we would feel all demoralised and not be as happy about being at war and we’d give up.
I said, ‘I don’t really want to talk about it. I want to know about you.’
She said how she lived not far from me and I wondered how I’d never seen her before. She said she was happy in London and her parents were nice, but her dad had gone off to fight and her mum was sad. ‘My mum loves me, so she sent me away. She didn’t want to risk me being killed by a bomb so she sent me off on that hellhole train and now here I am.’