A couple of you have seen this before. It's the start of a finished novel I mostly wrote ages ago and reworked a bit this year, and which I'm not sure what to do with. I'd be interested in any feedback.
*******************
The last of the day had left the southern sky. Cal pressed his stomach against the promenade railing and hunched into the leather weight of his jacket. From the shingle bank came the rotted tang of weed dumped by the last tide, but now the sea was far out across the wet sand, beyond the range of the seafront lights. He glanced to his left, down the stretch of asphalt with its weather shelters, its snack vans, its scattered humanity. To his right, the amusement arcade at the pier’s landward end sent its jangling racket into the summer night.
Still no sign. But the coins had been strong. The Man would come.
Voices passed behind him. ‘She never, no way.’
‘Telling you mate, a whole aerosol.’
Cal watched the two boys join a group hanging outside the pier’s arcade. He’d seen them before: mostly a year or two younger than him, no one he recognised from college, no one who might ask him what he was doing here. The tallest leaned against a scrappy-looking motorbike, telling some story that made the others laugh. Boasting about a car he’d nicked, Cal imagined, or a drug he’d scored, or a girl. He turned back to the sea —
And snapped alert. Just as his eyes had left the group, he’d caught a figure behind them. His hands tightened on the railing as he shifted his gaze back, just enough, not too far …
No mistake. That long coat.
He straightened up and walked away from the group, legs unsteady. The noise of the arcade machines faded as he passed dog walkers, small groups heading between seafront pubs, a few lonely strollers — some of them close enough to touch, though they felt a world away. Passing by the doughnut van, he made a pretence of reading the price list, in reality checking he was still being followed. Only with he corner of his eye, nothing more, nothing that might risk dispelling the Man.
The cinnamon and sugar from the doughnuts faded into oil and vinegar from the fish and chip stall — again he checked, and still the Man followed, closer now, and then the only smell was salt, from the rotting weed, from the sea itself, and half-imagined from the sweat of those he passed, their skins yellow under the promenade lights. He passed the ironwork bandstand, whose Victorian builders had known only gaslight, and where someone had written in marker-pen what Chelle had done to Daz. He passed the weather shelter where a drunk had once thrown an empty beer-can at him. He passed the shuttered ice-cream booth. Ahead of him now was the end of the lighted section of the promenade, and it was deserted.
Beneath the last lamppost, he gathered his nerve. Here the seafront road turned sharply away to the left, taking the street-lighting with it. To his right, a concrete slipway led down to the expanse of low-tide sand, while ahead the promenade ran on, fading into the gloom between the beach and an unlit car park. Cal stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket, chilling his back with the sweat of his T-shirt. He stepped forward into darkness, his shadow lengthening rapidly ahead at first, and then more slowly, becoming indistinct as the last light fell behind. His chest tightened at the deepening of the presence at his back, the creep between his shoulder blades, the premonition of a hand … no, he had to focus, focus, not let his imagination loose. But it was stronger, more real — he could feel the Man taking solid shape in the deepening dark, perhaps acquiring features. He was now halfway down the length of the car-park, almost as far as he’d ever got. Ahead, the security lights of the holiday camp threw pink bars through its spiked steel fence: still some way off, but enough perhaps to illuminate the Man’s face — if he could just get a little closer, just hold out a few more steps. But his foreshadow had vanished into night, and the abyss stretched around him, and the chill on his neck was a breath —
He jerked round; the figure surged at him and he cried out, almost tripped on his heel. In a glimpse of silver eyes, the Man retreated and shrank and resolved into shadows, a trick of distant streetlights.
He swallowed hard, tried to calm his shaking. So close — and he’d got scared and turned too fast and wrecked it, like always.
But silver eyes: that was new. He looked up and down the empty promenade, to make sure no one had seen him jump from nothing, then hurried back home.
###
The closing theme from the ten o’clock news chattered through the lounge door as Cal sneaked past. But something gave him away — the TV cut, and before he could get up the stairs his mum came into the hall.
‘Nice walk?’ she said.
‘Uhm … yeah, it was OK.’
‘Bit warm for that old thing?’
Cal rolled his eyes; she’d never got over him rescuing the old jacket from one of her clearouts. ‘It’s for protection,’ he said. ‘In case I get into a fight.’
‘A fight …?’
‘Sure, the seafront’s a gang zone. Why d’you think I carry a knife?’
‘You don’t!’
He wanted to push it further, but the fear in her eyes stopped him. ‘Joke, Mum.’
‘Oh … good.’
‘Talk about fish in a barrel.’
She frowned at the balustrade. Cal wished now he hadn’t mocked her concern so harshly, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. His jacket creaked as he made to carry on up the stairs. ‘Don’t suppose you fancy a quick game of Scrabble?’ she said. ‘Been so long, I’ve almost forgotten how to play.’
‘Uh … tomorrow, yeah? Things to do.’
‘Oh, OK,’ she said. ‘I should be getting to bed soon anyway.’
Up in the stuffy bombsite of his room, he dumped the jacket and peeled off his T-shirt, grimacing at its dampness as he crammed it into his already full laundry basket, followed by his sweaty jeans, boxers, socks. Despite his mum’s urging that he limit himself to two showers a day during the water shortage, he went for his fourth, though he tried to be quicker than usual. With a towel tucked round his hips, he returned to his room, and prepared to do the coins for the next day.
The seafront again, he hoped. And next time, he would control himself better at the end. He would turn more slowly, gradually building definition until the face was revealed. Discipline should come easier now the glimpse of silver eyes had showed progress was possible. He straightened his duvet and laid his jacket on top, neatly aligned and with the front zipped up, then groped deep in the dusty chaos of books and magazines and used coffee mugs under his bed until he found his cashbox. With the key from under the clock-radio, he unlocked the box and took out the Locations: three old paperback covers, stiff with sellotape from mending. One showed a long seafront scene, which seemed as much influenced by Munch’s Scream as the promenade in town; the second, a church modelled on nearby St Mark’s; the third, an ancient burial mound surrounded by yew trees. In the middle distance of each, a tall figure was inked in black.
Cal arranged the Locations on his jacket, one to each armpit and one where the navel would be. Then he dug past the other papers in the cashbox, the ones that gave him most reason to keep it locked and hidden, and rooted out the only actual money it contained: three fifty-pence pieces, each with its own provenance related to the Locations, the oldest from when he’d met the verger in St Mark’s churchyard and asked him to change a pound. Last out were the cigarette lighter and the safety pin. He held the pin in the lighter flame to sterilise it, and pricked his fingertip. He watched the blood-drop swell, the red fluid with its long list of constituent compounds, learned by heart to rob the fluid of its mystery and fear.
When enough had welled up, he dabbed a small drop on the head-side of each coin, and chanted softly:
By the jacket of him who wanted me dead
By the blood I spilled upon the Queen’s head
By three coins each seven-sided for luck
By three cardboard covers each ripped from a book
By the seafront, the church and the old hilltop barrow
Where should I go to find him tomorrow?
He threw the coins up, almost to ceiling height. Down they came — thwack, thwack, flump. His breath caught in surprise. Two coins had fallen on the burial mound; the third was on the leather right next to it.
Two strong sets of coins in a row … something was going on.
*******************
The last of the day had left the southern sky. Cal pressed his stomach against the promenade railing and hunched into the leather weight of his jacket. From the shingle bank came the rotted tang of weed dumped by the last tide, but now the sea was far out across the wet sand, beyond the range of the seafront lights. He glanced to his left, down the stretch of asphalt with its weather shelters, its snack vans, its scattered humanity. To his right, the amusement arcade at the pier’s landward end sent its jangling racket into the summer night.
Still no sign. But the coins had been strong. The Man would come.
Voices passed behind him. ‘She never, no way.’
‘Telling you mate, a whole aerosol.’
Cal watched the two boys join a group hanging outside the pier’s arcade. He’d seen them before: mostly a year or two younger than him, no one he recognised from college, no one who might ask him what he was doing here. The tallest leaned against a scrappy-looking motorbike, telling some story that made the others laugh. Boasting about a car he’d nicked, Cal imagined, or a drug he’d scored, or a girl. He turned back to the sea —
And snapped alert. Just as his eyes had left the group, he’d caught a figure behind them. His hands tightened on the railing as he shifted his gaze back, just enough, not too far …
No mistake. That long coat.
He straightened up and walked away from the group, legs unsteady. The noise of the arcade machines faded as he passed dog walkers, small groups heading between seafront pubs, a few lonely strollers — some of them close enough to touch, though they felt a world away. Passing by the doughnut van, he made a pretence of reading the price list, in reality checking he was still being followed. Only with he corner of his eye, nothing more, nothing that might risk dispelling the Man.
The cinnamon and sugar from the doughnuts faded into oil and vinegar from the fish and chip stall — again he checked, and still the Man followed, closer now, and then the only smell was salt, from the rotting weed, from the sea itself, and half-imagined from the sweat of those he passed, their skins yellow under the promenade lights. He passed the ironwork bandstand, whose Victorian builders had known only gaslight, and where someone had written in marker-pen what Chelle had done to Daz. He passed the weather shelter where a drunk had once thrown an empty beer-can at him. He passed the shuttered ice-cream booth. Ahead of him now was the end of the lighted section of the promenade, and it was deserted.
Beneath the last lamppost, he gathered his nerve. Here the seafront road turned sharply away to the left, taking the street-lighting with it. To his right, a concrete slipway led down to the expanse of low-tide sand, while ahead the promenade ran on, fading into the gloom between the beach and an unlit car park. Cal stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket, chilling his back with the sweat of his T-shirt. He stepped forward into darkness, his shadow lengthening rapidly ahead at first, and then more slowly, becoming indistinct as the last light fell behind. His chest tightened at the deepening of the presence at his back, the creep between his shoulder blades, the premonition of a hand … no, he had to focus, focus, not let his imagination loose. But it was stronger, more real — he could feel the Man taking solid shape in the deepening dark, perhaps acquiring features. He was now halfway down the length of the car-park, almost as far as he’d ever got. Ahead, the security lights of the holiday camp threw pink bars through its spiked steel fence: still some way off, but enough perhaps to illuminate the Man’s face — if he could just get a little closer, just hold out a few more steps. But his foreshadow had vanished into night, and the abyss stretched around him, and the chill on his neck was a breath —
He jerked round; the figure surged at him and he cried out, almost tripped on his heel. In a glimpse of silver eyes, the Man retreated and shrank and resolved into shadows, a trick of distant streetlights.
He swallowed hard, tried to calm his shaking. So close — and he’d got scared and turned too fast and wrecked it, like always.
But silver eyes: that was new. He looked up and down the empty promenade, to make sure no one had seen him jump from nothing, then hurried back home.
###
The closing theme from the ten o’clock news chattered through the lounge door as Cal sneaked past. But something gave him away — the TV cut, and before he could get up the stairs his mum came into the hall.
‘Nice walk?’ she said.
‘Uhm … yeah, it was OK.’
‘Bit warm for that old thing?’
Cal rolled his eyes; she’d never got over him rescuing the old jacket from one of her clearouts. ‘It’s for protection,’ he said. ‘In case I get into a fight.’
‘A fight …?’
‘Sure, the seafront’s a gang zone. Why d’you think I carry a knife?’
‘You don’t!’
He wanted to push it further, but the fear in her eyes stopped him. ‘Joke, Mum.’
‘Oh … good.’
‘Talk about fish in a barrel.’
She frowned at the balustrade. Cal wished now he hadn’t mocked her concern so harshly, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. His jacket creaked as he made to carry on up the stairs. ‘Don’t suppose you fancy a quick game of Scrabble?’ she said. ‘Been so long, I’ve almost forgotten how to play.’
‘Uh … tomorrow, yeah? Things to do.’
‘Oh, OK,’ she said. ‘I should be getting to bed soon anyway.’
Up in the stuffy bombsite of his room, he dumped the jacket and peeled off his T-shirt, grimacing at its dampness as he crammed it into his already full laundry basket, followed by his sweaty jeans, boxers, socks. Despite his mum’s urging that he limit himself to two showers a day during the water shortage, he went for his fourth, though he tried to be quicker than usual. With a towel tucked round his hips, he returned to his room, and prepared to do the coins for the next day.
The seafront again, he hoped. And next time, he would control himself better at the end. He would turn more slowly, gradually building definition until the face was revealed. Discipline should come easier now the glimpse of silver eyes had showed progress was possible. He straightened his duvet and laid his jacket on top, neatly aligned and with the front zipped up, then groped deep in the dusty chaos of books and magazines and used coffee mugs under his bed until he found his cashbox. With the key from under the clock-radio, he unlocked the box and took out the Locations: three old paperback covers, stiff with sellotape from mending. One showed a long seafront scene, which seemed as much influenced by Munch’s Scream as the promenade in town; the second, a church modelled on nearby St Mark’s; the third, an ancient burial mound surrounded by yew trees. In the middle distance of each, a tall figure was inked in black.
Cal arranged the Locations on his jacket, one to each armpit and one where the navel would be. Then he dug past the other papers in the cashbox, the ones that gave him most reason to keep it locked and hidden, and rooted out the only actual money it contained: three fifty-pence pieces, each with its own provenance related to the Locations, the oldest from when he’d met the verger in St Mark’s churchyard and asked him to change a pound. Last out were the cigarette lighter and the safety pin. He held the pin in the lighter flame to sterilise it, and pricked his fingertip. He watched the blood-drop swell, the red fluid with its long list of constituent compounds, learned by heart to rob the fluid of its mystery and fear.
When enough had welled up, he dabbed a small drop on the head-side of each coin, and chanted softly:
By the jacket of him who wanted me dead
By the blood I spilled upon the Queen’s head
By three coins each seven-sided for luck
By three cardboard covers each ripped from a book
By the seafront, the church and the old hilltop barrow
Where should I go to find him tomorrow?
He threw the coins up, almost to ceiling height. Down they came — thwack, thwack, flump. His breath caught in surprise. Two coins had fallen on the burial mound; the third was on the leather right next to it.
Two strong sets of coins in a row … something was going on.
)
