mistake. Everything’s too loud and bright, as if someone’s put the
volume on full blast and turned on all the lights. I’m drowning in
noise and animated faces, in sloshing, sparkling, jewel- coloured
drinks, in the clinking of glass and drunken laughter. That musty,
hoppy beer smell fills my nostrils. My mouth waters. My stomach
flutters, then twists. I’ll push through the bodies and catch up
with him. Tell him I’ve changed my mind. I want a beer too. I’ll
be okay with a small beer. Just half a pint. Just to turn down the
volume and dim the lights.
Fuck no! This is madness. I shouldn’t have come. I can’t stay.
I have to get out. I have to breathe fresh air.
Josh finds me on the street, not with the smokers outside the
pub but peering into the window of the gift shop next door, my
forehead pressed against the cold glass. People are looking at me
as if I’m some kind of weirdo. I know they are. And so is Josh.
‘I thought you’d done a bunk,’ he says, handing me my
drink. He peers at my face. ‘What’s wrong?’
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‘Sorry, I just needed some air.’
‘There’s a garden out the back. If you can face battling your
way through.’
‘It’s the crowds I can’t stand. I hate being hemmed in like
that.’
‘Me too. It was a stupid idea coming here. It’s much nicer at
the Old Schooner. Have you been there?’
‘No. I’m not really a pub person, to be honest.’
To be honest? Oh, Astrid, that’s priceless.
‘You should have said. We could have gone to the wine bar.
It’s much quieter in there. Do you want to go there instead?’
‘No, I’d better get back to Mum. Sorry, I shouldn’t have come
out in the first place. I’m not very good company this evening.’
Josh puts his beer on the pavement, close to the shop entrance.
‘That’s twice you’ve run away from me.’ He takes my glass
out of my hands and places it down next to his. ‘Is it what I said
about your smoking?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Only it must have sounded like I was spying on you.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with that. It’s me, it’s . . . it’s just a bit complicated, that’s all.’
Josh looks away. He’s gone very still. ‘Is there a boyfriend
back in London?’
‘What? No. No. Not any more.’
‘You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I under-
stand.’
He takes a step towards me and I wrap my arms round his
neck, bury my head in his broad chest. His hands cradle my
shoulders. He kisses the top of my head. Minutes pass.
‘The other day,’ he says, his mouth so close to the side of my
head I feel the warmth of his breath on my ear. ‘It was too soon.
You were so sad about your dad. And you’ve got your mum’s
depression to deal with.’
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Oh God. He’s such a lovely, sensitive man. So kind and ten-
der. So heartbreakingly beautiful. He isn’t the kind of man to
enter into a relationship lightly. He’s not like other men. If he
thinks smoking cigarettes is my shameful secret, how the hell
is he going to react when he finds out what I’m really like? The
things I’ve done. The lies I’ve told. I have to stop this now, tell
him he’s right, that things are moving too fast for me. That I
just want us to be friends.
So why are my arms still round his neck? Why am I kissing
him, tasting the beer on his lips and tongue? Drinking him in.
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21
The sun dips below the horizon above the sea, half of a giant
orange ball. We sprawl on the grass at the top of the cliff and
watch its slow descent. Now that there’s distance between us
and the Flinstead Arms, my heart rate has returned to normal.
I’ve been inside a pub and survived the experience. I’m stronger
than I thought.
Maybe I can conquer this thing after all. On my own terms.
I’m not kidding myself that the worst is over. I mean, it’s always
going to be an ordeal, but maybe it’ll get easier with time. Who
knows, maybe one day I’ll be able to drink normally, sip a glass
of cold white wine outside a pub with Josh. All this stuff they
say in AA, about people like me being allergic to alcohol, that we’ll never, ever, get better unless we turn our lives over to
God – it can’t be the only way, can it?
Maybe one day I’ll look back on this evening as a turning
point. Sitting here with Josh, gazing at this epic sky, all streaked with crimson and gold. One thing is certain: I’m not going to
let some poison- pen writer throw me off course.
‘Did you know that sunsets are an optical illusion?’ I say.
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Josh traces a pattern on the back of my neck with his finger-
tips. ‘And there was me thinking how romantic this was.’
‘I didn’t say the sunset wasn’t romantic. Just that it’s not real.’
‘I remember learning about that at school,’ Josh says. ‘Some-
thing about the light from the sun curving upwards so that by
the time we see it on the horizon it’s already disappeared.’
‘It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?’
Josh grins. ‘I’m hoping your “trumpey loll” will be equally
realistic. I’m looking forward to watching Dad’s mates walk
straight into the wall and bang their heads.’
I give his shoulder a playful shove. He’s so easy to be with, so
laid back. I want him so badly there’s a delicious ache in my
groin. He pulls me towards him so that I’m sitting on his lap,
my legs wrapped round his back. We kiss for so long I lose track
of the time. The light fades. The air grows cool.
‘Guess what I’ve got in my pocket?’ he says when we finally
stop kissing.
I raise an eyebrow. ‘Think I’ve already felt it.’
‘Not that, you twit! This.’ He slips his fingers into his jacket
pocket and pulls out two keys on a ring. ‘Come with me,’ he
says, levering me off his lap and scrambling to his feet.
‘Don’t tell me your dad’s got a pied- à- terre on the front as well?’
‘Sort of. Come on, I’ll show you.’
He pulls me gently towards the path that winds down to the
promenade. The path that not so long ago I ran up in blind
panic, convinced that Simon’s ghost was chasing me. And even
though I know it couldn’t have been him, that none of it was
real, the memory of him standing against the beach huts, ciga-
rette glowing in his hand, is so vivid I can’t help feeling scared
all over again. Because whoever sent me that photo and the pic-
ture of the blood- stained hands i s real. And for all I know they could be wat
ching me right now. I try to quieten my mind by
telling myself it won’t be someone who lives round here. It’ll be
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WHO DID YOU TELL?
some sicko in London, getting off on frightening me from afar.
I make a mental note to pull the wardrobe out when I get home
and retrieve the envelope, check the postmark to see where it’s
from. Why the hell didn’t I do that before? I hold tight on to
Josh’s hand. Even if I’m wrong and they’ve followed me to
Flinstead, no one’s going to try anything while I’m with him.
The hut is in the opposite direction from Mistden. It’s one of
the ones on stilts with doors and decked platforms that look
over the golf course and fields beyond but whose large win-
dows open out on to the sea. Now, at high tide, the surf breaks
against the stilts. Soon it will flow right under the hut. Josh
flings open the double windows and I kneel on the single bed
that serves as a sofa and lean out over the black sea with its
orangey glimmer. Now that the door of the beach hut is closed
behind us I start to relax.
‘I wish I could sleep here,’ I say, looking over my shoulder at
Josh. He’s stuffing something into one of the cupboards in the
kitchen area, his face flushed all of a sudden. Perhaps he’s con-
cerned it’s not tidy enough for a visitor. Who’d have thought I’d
be going out with the sort of man who cares about such things?
‘You’re not supposed to,’ he says, his voice unusually brusque,
as if the suggestion has annoyed him. He straightens up and
comes over to join me at the window. ‘It’s one of the conditions
of the lease.’
How is it possible I’ve fallen for someone so inherently sen-
sible and cautious?
‘But you could, right, just for the odd night? I mean, how would they find out?’
He shrugs. ‘They wouldn’t, I guess.’
Something is wrong with him. His mood has darkened.
‘Haven’t you ever wanted to?’
I think of all the places I’ve slept over the years as a
result of bravado, romanticism or, more often than not, sheer
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desperation: beaches, cars, abandoned buildings, a bothy in
Scotland, tents, bus shelters. Cold, hard floors.
‘It’s crossed my mind a couple of times.’
I get the feeling he’s just saying this because he thinks it’s
what I want to hear.
‘I dunno,’ he says. ‘Maybe it’s the thought of the stilts giving
way while I’m asleep, of waking up in the water.’
Our shoulders touch as we kneel on the bed next to each other,
our arms resting on the window frame. The sea creeps nearer and
nearer and for a few minutes we gaze at it in silence and awe.
‘Is that likely to happen?’
‘I guess not. Not unless there was a massive tidal surge.’
‘I thought you must be fearless, the way you swim so far out.’
He frowns. ‘You’d be a fool not to fear the sea, Astrid. It can
turn on you in an instant.’
Then I tell him how I almost drowned once, how if I hadn’t
managed to scramble onto a concrete groyne I wouldn’t be here
today.
‘That was probably what got you into trouble in the first
place, swimming too near the groyne. The currents deflect off
any obstruction like that. You were lucky.’
‘My legs got cut to ribbons trying to clamber on top.’
‘Talking of your legs,’ he says, slowly trailing the fingertip of
his right index finger from my knee to my thigh like a feather.
‘That’s some piece of ink you’ve got down there.’
I grin. Whatever was troubling him back then seems to have
passed. ‘Were you shocked when you saw it?’
‘Surprised more than shocked. What with the braids and the
Doc Martens, I guessed you might have one somewhere.’
‘You were looking for a discreet dolphin or butterfly on the
hip or shoulder, weren’t you?’ I say, teasing him. I can just imag-
ine some of the trendy middle- class girlfriends he’s been out
with in the past.
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A slow smile spreads across his face. ‘I might have guessed
you’d go for something more dangerous. There’s something
subversive about people who change their names.’
Within seconds we’re tugging each other’s clothes off. The
bed creaks as Josh lowers himself on top of me. His mouth
closes over my left nipple and I wrap my legs round his warm,
smooth back. Over his right shoulder I watch the darkening
sky framed by the open window of the beach hut. In the top-
left- hand corner is a small circular patch still streaked with
crimson. The last vestiges of the fraudulent sunset, like a blood-
shot eye staring down at me.
Josh walks me home and I can’t help noticing how relaxed I
feel when I’m with him. How safe. The last time I walked home
at this time of night, I was petrified, couldn’t wait to get inside
the cottage and be with Mum. Now, I’d do anything to stretch
time and make these precious moments with him last as long
as possible.
We kiss goodbye in front of the neighbour’s hedge, just in
case Mum happens to look out of the window. But as soon as I
waiting for me in the hall, stony- faced.
‘Pam phoned me earlier,’ she says. Her voice is cold, her eyes
like small black bullets, boring into me. ‘She saw you go into
the Flinstead Arms. You lied to me, Astrid. You said you were
going for fish and chips.’
I stare at her, open- mouthed. How dare she accuse me of lying?
And how dare that wretched friend of hers spy on me like that?
‘Did Pam also tell you I ran out of there literally five minutes
later? Did she tell you I drank lime and soda? Did she? Well,
did she?’
I walk right up to her and breathe out in her face. ‘Can you
smell any alcohol on my breath?’
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Her nostrils quiver. Her upper body bristles with rage. ‘What
were you doing in a pub? What were you thinking?’
‘Look, I made a mistake, okay? I thought I could handle it
and I couldn’t. I came straight out again. I promise you, Mum,
I didn’t drink anything. You have to believe me.’
‘Like I believed you all those other times, you mean?’
‘That’s not fair. You know it isn’t. It’s different now.’
‘Is it, Astrid? Is it?’ She walks away from me into the living room and sinks down into her armchair. ‘How do I know it’s
not exactly the same?’
‘Because I made you a promise, Mum, and I wouldn’t break it.’
‘You made promises before, remember? And you broke them
all. Every last one.’
I perch on the edge of the coffee table and take hold of her
hands. ‘I’m telling you the truth, Mum. Pam’s right. I did go into
the pub, but I was always going to have a soft drink. Then when
I got inside and saw all the people drinking and laughing, I
thought for a moment I could have one and it’d be all right.’
Mum closes her eyes and shakes her head.
‘But as soon as I thought that I changed my mind. I got out
of there as fast as I could. Please, Mum, please believe me.’
She opens her eyes and they’re full of tears. ‘Oh, Astrid.’
I lean forward to hug her and, for a few seconds, I think she’s
going to push me away. Her body is hard, unyielding. But then
she softens against me and I’m sobbing into her shoulder. ‘I’m
so sorry for all those other times, Mum. I’m sorry for hurting
you. I’m sorry for everything. But I didn’t have anything to
drink tonight. I didn’t.’
She squeezes me tight and we sit there for ages. Me still
perched on the edge of the coffee table and her on her armchair,
clinging on to each other in a way we’ve never done before.
‘I believe you, darling. I believe you.’
*
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Another week. Another Wednesday. Why does AA night always
come round so fast? Because if there’s one place I don’t want to
be, it’s here, in the vestry of Flinstead parish church, sitting on
a rickety wooden chair with this bunch of losers. But of course,
I’m one of them, aren’t I? I nearly blew everything by walking
into the pub last week.
The man with acne is rambling on about his boring life. I
stopped listening after the first few sentences. I know I should
be concentrating and making the sort of encouraging noises
the rest of them are making – those little ‘mm’ sounds when he
says something they can relate to, but my mind’s too scattered
to take any of it in. I feel like telling him to relish the boredom, to make the most of the fact that he’s not having his every
move scrutinized, that he’s not receiving threatening messages
through the post.
I’ve been so jittery lately. Jumping at the slightest noise. Not
sleeping. It’s ever since I pulled the wardrobe away from the
wall to check the postmark on that envelope. I think part of me
was hoping there’d be nothing there except bits of dust and