The cool of the misty morning gave way to intense heat and they got stuck in traffic leaving London. Having slept for a while, the baby began wailing and its jowly face went puce. Ralph called instructions to Jane about how to calm it down: the dummy was spat on to the filthy car floor, the rattle was ignored and the bottle of milk was drunk in a trice before the crying began again. Then there was an awful stink and, despite the girls’ attempts to breathe through their mouths and cover their noses, it became necessary to stop. Ralph turned down a country road and found a field in which to change the nappy. Daphne and Jane went to have a pee and eventually found some bushes where they squatted awkwardly amongst prickly, thistle-laced grass. On their return, Ralph handed Jason to them and announced, ‘I’ll just take a leak too.’ He walked a few steps, turned his back and, legs slightly splayed, shoulders squared, let out a golden arc. Nothing was said, nor was it necessary, but it was a moment Jane always remembered – how the easy pride of a man urinating signified so much more than pissing. It remained as a moment she’d seen the inequality of the sexes laid bare.
In the car once again, Jane noticed Ralph’s hand sneaking across and stroking Daphne’s fingers, while singing more bits from Madam Butterfly. ‘It’s pop music really,’ he said. ‘But it proves the power of a good tune. Pure emotion – that’s all most people want. Isn’t that right, Lady Jane?’ She didn’t answer. Occasionally, he shouted jovially, ‘Everything all right back there?’ Jason munched his way through a packet of Farley’s Rusks and Jane sneaked one for herself, nibbling it cautiously while pretending to look out of the window at the green rise of the South Downs in the distance.
‘So, girls, the delights begin. Where shall we start?’ Ralph radiated geniality as they walked towards the sea and turned along the promenade. The front was packed with noisy day-trippers strolling or sprawled in lines of striped deckchairs. On the beach, people had established their territories with towels, umbrellas and folding chairs and the sea was rimmed with others paddling. Some braver souls were swimming and playing with rubber rings. The baby – actually a toddler, Jane and Daphne agreed – tottered unsteadily along the pavement for a few yards before being strapped into a pushchair, a sunhat plonked on his head and another rusk thrust into his hand.
‘I’m starving,’ said Daphne.
‘Nothing like the sea for giving you an appetite,’ agreed Ralph, with an expression Jane supposed was meant to be suggestive. He’s so babyish, she thought. And he’s only six years younger than my mum. It wasn’t nearly lunchtime, but they bought cod and chips and sat on a bench overlooking the beach to eat them, blowing on the chips and handing them to the baby when they’d cooled down.
After they’d eaten, they bought tickets for the pier. It was horribly crowded and they were drawn along its length by the throng, the wooden boards vibrating below their feet.
‘Hoi polloi,’ said Ralph, gesturing at the hordes. ‘The multitudes. Just like the Roman crowds in the Colosseum – in search of cheap thrills.’ He likes raising himself above the crowds, and acting like someone special, she thought. And sure enough, he edged himself to the front of the queue to buy tickets for the merry-go-round, leaving everyone else to wait in line like the hoi polloi they were. Still, it was fun on the old-fashioned carousel with its painted horses, which rose and fell like decorous dolphins. Jane sat on a pink and gold pony next to Daphne, and Ralph was behind them holding Jason and clinging to the barley-sugar pole. Afterwards, they had to hang around while he got out his tape recorder for the tenth time. He’d already done it next to someone busking with a banjo, and he kept stopping for another little session – it was evidently the excuse for the trip.
They all took turns in pushing the baby – he wasn’t bad, Jane agreed, when Daphne said he was sweet, though she found him at best irrelevant. The pier became overheated and even more congested and she felt trapped and angry. To add to the misery, the stabbing period pains were becoming worse. If she didn’t change her sanitary towel soon there would probably be a leak. She’d been through this particular mortification and walked around for ages with a great red stain on her jeans before a woman at a bus stop told her. Her body seemed designed for treachery – a vehicle bringing public and private shame. Three spots on her chin throbbed in the heat and her T-shirt was damp with sweat despite much rolling with Mum deodorant. It was a great injustice that Daphne never appeared to be brought down by these biological weaknesses; she’d only ever had one spot and didn’t appear to sweat, or at least not in any quantity. Jane’s mother said, ‘Horses sweat, men perspire and ladies glow.’ Daphne only ever glowed. So I am a horse, thought Jane.
They stopped to lean over the cast-iron railings, squinting at the sunlight that turned the sea silver. A father and son were fishing and had boxes of live maggots wriggling by their feet.
‘Listen, if any of us get lost, shall we say we’ll meet right here at this bench?’ Ralph said like the leader on a mountaineering trip. ‘Opposite the candyfloss stall, if you forget. OK? There are so many people, you never know. Best to be safe.’
Yes, Ralph. Whatever you say, Ralph, she thought and nodded obediently.
It did not take long before she found herself alone. She’d seen Ralph whispering in Daphne’s ear earlier – that was nothing new – but she didn’t imagine her friend would conspire against her. For about ten minutes, her anger at this abandonment brought on a renewed energy and she strode past the bench where they’d agreed to meet, where naturally there was no sign of Daphne or Ralph with his stupid baby. Giving up on them, she went to find the toilets, changed her ST, placed the old one in a paper bag provided and took it to the special bin by the basins. Deciding to teach them a lesson, she left the pier and walked down to the beach. This brought temporary relief. She shuffled along in the shallows, holding her shoes and letting the sea splash on to her turned-up trousers. I hate him, she thought, kicking the water with irritation rather than joy.
She persuaded the ticket seller to let her back on to the pier and returned to the assigned meeting place, hoping the others would be waiting. Nobody. Now she hated Daphne too. The cool reprieve of the sea was soon forgotten as she sat on the appointed bench and began overheating again. Her arms were red from the sun and her glasses were slipping down her painfully hot and presumably burnt nose. An elderly couple sat next to her eating ice-cream cones, licking slowly, gazing out past the screaming gulls that dive-bombed down to pick up pieces of discarded food. When the pair got up in silence and trudged glumly in the direction of the pier’s end, Jane wondered whether they were going to jump off and drown themselves. And what about me? What am I going to do? What if the others don’t come back? How long would I wait here? What if they’ve run away, eloped?
Half a dozen teenage boys walked past, holding bags of sweets and ridiculously large sticks of pink Brighton rock that they thrust and jabbed at each other like swords. They stopped to buy some candyfloss and one of them, lanky and narrow-eyed, called out to Jane. ‘Oi, feeling hot?’ He fell against his friend crowing with laughter. ‘Fancy a snog?’ he shouted, looking at his small gang for approval as they yowled like hyenas.