I was thirteen years old. It was the kind of sickly summer when the air is thick and the sky is the hottest shade of blue.
We were staying in a Victorian hotel which my uncle had bought the year previous but had only recently given his attention to when a large segment of gutter fell from the roof into the road. The local council had written to him to make it safe and that’s when he called my dad who was a roofer by trade.
We arrived in our hatchback, pulled up onto the gravel and my dad pulled the handbrake till it clicked, almost perpendicular to the ground. He left it in gear just to be sure. Mum craned her neck back, removed her oversized sunglasses and peered up at the roof while dad searched for the specific plant pot which his brother had left the key under.
‘Got it!’ he said, clutching a brown envelope. He pulled out a large brass key, and a slip of paper. Wrinkles spread from the corners of his eyes. ‘Five Hundred Pounds!’
‘From Uncle Andrew?’ I said. Dad nodded.
‘A cheque?’ said Mum, screwing her face up.
‘What?’ said Dad. ‘He wouldn’t have wanted to leave cash – not safe.’
‘But we’ll have to find a bank and all that palaver!’ Palaver was one of Mum’s favourite words though I’m not certain she knew what it meant –I certainly didn’t.
‘Can’t you be grateful?’ said Dad.
‘Don’t start arguing,’ said Jess who was now awake and uncoiling her long limbs like a spider from the back of the car. ‘We’re supposed to be on holiday, having fun or whatever…’ She yawned. I wondered if she’d have come with us if she’d been allowed to stay home – she wasn’t quite old enough yet.
Dad fit the key and unlocked the large front door. We pushed through a thin sheet of white plasticky stuff which hung over the entrance, then found the whole of the ground floor covered in the same stuff.
‘Never mind this bit,’ said Dad, leading us up the central staircase. The next floor was just as empty, but without the plastic sheets. We went up one more floor; mum stopped breathless, clutching the banister.
‘I hope this is it?’
‘It’s only two flights!’ said Dad, just as breathless but putting on a braver attempt at disguising it. Jess was the only one who seemed not to have struggled with the stairs.
‘Come on,’ she said to me. ‘Don’t let me find the best room before you – cos we’re not swapping once we’ve claimed them.’ She said this evenly, not as a threat, just a statement of the rules which seemed fair to me. She strode down the hall; I followed. She flung open the first door she came to then folded her arms.
‘You take this one if you want.’ She turned aside and continued down the hall. I peered into what seemed like a decent enough room. It was mostly empty, dense sunlight flooded the bare wooden floorboards. It had a bed and a slim pine wardrobe in the corner. I was drawn to the window and for the first time saw the views the hotel had to offer. Our car sat on the gravel drive but beyond this, a short stone wall ran along a dirt path lined with trees and shrubs on the far side. The path dipped out of sight but undoubtedly led to the beach which could be seen gloriously blazing in a thin strip along an ocean bluer than anything I’d seen in my life. Bluer even than the eyes of Stephanie Simmons who I’d once sat next to on a school trip. We shared a bag of sweets and something else unspoken.
‘Steph look!’ I said, then ‘Jess – I mean.’ But she was away in another part of the hotel and I was glad she hadn’t heard me slip up. I found her a few rooms down, in a darker room where the window stood in shadow, facing the neighbouring farm. ‘Jess? You’re picking this room?’
She nodded and continued taking things from her backpack. ‘But don’t you want a view of the sea?’
‘No thanks,’ she smirked. ‘I’ll be quite happy here.’
I gave her a puzzled look.
She shook her head. ‘I’ll stay perfectly cool in here out of the sun while you bake in your oven over there!’
She was probably right but didn’t want to change my mind now.
‘Well at least I’ll get to watch the tide come in at night,’ I said.
‘You enjoy that.’ She patted my head. My cheeks warmed a little but not from the heat. I left without another word then heard Mum call my name.
I followed her voice into a room on the same floor which might have once been a study or library. There was a long counter on which sat a kettle, a microwave and a little camping stove hooked up to a gas bottle. On the side, steam rose from a small pan and bread rolls spilled from an open pack.
‘Here.’ She thrust a hotdog into a bun, then into my hand. ‘Sauce is over there.’
‘Is this the kitchen?’ I said, squeezing ketchup from the bottle.
‘It is for now – for us, this week at least…’ she said then muttered ‘What a palaver,’ as she scanned the room for plates, or cutlery or something. Seeing that lunch today would hold to no particular ceremony, I took my hotdog outside.
There was a sloping patch of overgrown lawn and a picnic bench which faced towards the sea. I had just sat down when Jess came, curling her long legs under the bench next to me holding a hotdog of her own.
‘Fancied some fresh air too?’ I said. She chewed a while, ignoring my question before saying:
‘You know why I’m so tall and you’re not?’
‘Because you’re older?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s because I had breast milk and you were given formula. She took another bite. ‘Gross but true.’
‘Why?’ I said, though I didn’t really want to discuss it.
‘Something to do with Mum’s hormones. I dunno.’
‘Shall we go to the beach?’ I said, determined to change the subject.
‘Sure.’ she wiped her mouth.
‘Shall we tell Mum and Dad we’re going?’
But she was already halfway down the path.
Our footsteps crunched the gravel. There was a buzz of heat in the air and the soft shush of the sea in the distance. When the slope steepened then rounded a sharp bend, the path gave way to wide open blueness – the spotless sky and the crystalline sea.
There were families dotted here and there, some with dogs chasing frisbies, some visitors huddled in beach towel camps which they had claimed as their own sovereign states for the day. We walked on with sinking steps, looking, I supposed, for a clear spot.
‘What about here?’ I said, pointing to an empty patch.
‘Want to sunbathe, do you?’ Jess smirked.
‘Well, not really…’
‘Look!’ she pointed away down the beach at an arching rock, speckled in deep black shadows and sandy bright ridges where the sunlight caught the raised surfaces. When we came near, we found ourselves in cool shade on wet sand. The air was damp and refreshing after the stark heat.
‘Ah!’ said Jess. ‘I thought it might be!’
‘Might be what?’
‘A cave, look!’
In one of the deeper shadows, a narrow slit shaped like a dagger breathed out a cold draught. She bent low and crawled like a crab into the crack.
‘You coming?’ her voice echoed.
I hesitated, stepped onto the smoothed stone and steadied myself with hands on the craggy walls. The draught was fierce inside the cave. It rushed violently into my eyes and nostrils.
‘It’s a bit windy!’ My voice was caught by the current and tossed behind me.
‘Brilliant isn’t it!’ she answered then whooped loudly.
It was pitch black and seemed far longer than I imagined it would be. Just at the point which I had decided I would turn back, a brilliant white light wrapped Jess’s silhouette in front of me, catching the wind-thrown strands of her hair.
Suddenly we were out on the other side of the cave. Daylight blinded us for a moment before we could take in where we'd ended up. We stood on a rocky ledge above a circular pool. It glistened like a crescent moon at one edge where the sun peered over the high wall at our back, the rest of it in shadow like the deep blue of night. Ledges of rock climbed in circles like an amphitheatre. It was quiet. The rush of mighty waves outside could not be heard over the gentle lap of the softly swaying pool.
It’s magical! I wanted to say, but Jess would have laughed, though I read a similar thought in her expression.
‘Awesome!’ she said, finding an appropriate word.
We skirted the ledge, hands brushing on stone walls, sometimes finding a ledge to grip, sometimes leaning in close to feel the cool of the rock on our cheeks. When we had done a half circle and were looking across the pool at the entrance, we saw the sign. It was inscribed on a worn wooden plaque which sat above the cave and simply said:
The Wishing Pool
‘The wishing pool?’ I said, ‘What does it mean?’
‘What do you think it means?’ said Jess. ‘You throw in a coin or something and make a wish.’
‘Have you got any coins?’
‘No, have you?’
I didn’t, though at that moment my eye landed on the broken half of a brilliant blue shell.
‘What about this?’ I said, then in one motion swept it up from the floor and tossed it into the centre of the pool. It glugged then sank beneath the surface in reeling arcs.
‘Well?’ said Jess.
‘Well, what?’
‘What did you wish for?’
‘Oh pants! I forgot about that!’
‘Well wish for something quick then.’
I screwed up my face and immediately thought of Stephanie Simmons and her gorgeous blue eyes.
‘Well?’ said Jess.
‘What?’
‘Aren’t you going to tell me?’
‘It might not work if I tell you.’
‘Ugh, whatever.’
‘Aren’t you going to wish for something?’
‘Don’t be silly.’ she laughed.
*
Mum and Dad hardly seemed to have noticed that we’d been gone. The room which was pretending to be a kitchen actually looked like one now. There was a table covered with a white linen cloth, plates and cutlery were set out and a bottle of white wine sat in a bucket of ice in the centre. Mum already had a glass in her hand and smiled with rosy cheeks as we came through.
‘Hello my darlings!’ she beamed, kissing us both in turn.
Jess eyed the bottle, lifted it from the ice – it sloshed half empty.
‘Dinners almost ready,’ Mum went on. ‘Your father went and bought us some fish, didn’t you sweetheart?’ As Dad walked in, she cupped his cheeks in her hands and kissed him longer than was comfortable for any of us.
We ate and talked and laughed and said how we ought to play a game like we used to. When no one could agree what to play, we walked down to the sea and let the waves chase our bare feet further and further up the beach. When there was hardly any beach left, we called it a night, though daylight still lingered on the horizon.
Hours later, I woke in a sticky sweat. When I peered through the curtains and saw the crescent moon glinting against a deep blue, I remembered the wishing pool. At that moment, two yellow beams sliced the thin night air outside. I pressed my face to the glass to see the shadow of a car chasing its headlights down the narrow lane. My heart stopped when the brakes screeched just as it passed from my sight, a wash of red spilling into the road from the brake lights.
It wasn’t fear that I felt so much as excitement – expectation rather. I climbed back into bed and fell endlessly into deep wells of blue. After some time, it wasn’t Stephanie's eyes that I was thinking of but her soft pink lips. My dreams were warm, her lips were warm – warm and wet…
When I woke, my thin sheets clung to my skin, though not from sweat.
‘Pants!’ I said, then bundled my underpants and the sheets together ready for the washing machine. I dressed quickly in a white T-shirt and khaki shorts then ran to find mum. ‘Where’s the washing machine?’
‘Oh don’t tell me!’ she began, and I knew that the merry mother I’d had last night was back to her usual self. ‘Whatever mess you’ve made, you’ll just have to make do! There’s no washing machine here.’ I didn’t stop to argue; I’d rather die than explain.
I thought of Jess. She would know about this stuff and whilst she would think it was absolutely gross, she’d know what to do at least…?
No way! – this was one of those situations I had to deal with myself which I did by running back to my room, stuffing the sheets and my pants deep under the bed and erasing both them and the whole episode from my memory.
‘Beach again today? I asked Jess at breakfast. She answered me with a groan.
‘Jess didn’t sleep too well last night.’ said Dad. ‘Apparently some folks arrived late at the farmhouse, making quite a racket by the sounds of it!’
Jess groaned again and I knew I would be going solo perhaps until the afternoon.
The beach was emptier than the day before. There were feathers of cloud and a silent breeze which nudged me to the left, the same way we’d walked yesterday towards the wishing pool.
That’s when I saw her – Stephanie Simmons, wrapped in sunlight, her reddish hair tied back, a few loose strands blown about her face. Her T-shirt clung to her gentle curves and stopped short of her naked abdomen. I stared, hesitating as my feet sank deeper into warm sand.
‘Oh my days!’ she squealed, seeing me. She stretched out her bare freckled arms and trotted across the sand. ‘I can’t believe it! We just arrived last night.’ Then without warning, she pulled me in for a hug. She smelled of sun-cream and shampoo and it made my veins rush with something agonisingly wonderful. A strand of her hair clung to my cheek as she pulled back. She tucked in neatly behind her ear and smiled, waiting for me to say something. But I was dumbstruck, chiefly because of a problem down below. My shorts had a small bulge at the front which I was desperate for her not to see.
‘Come on!’ I said, turning side on, heading up the beach towards the wishing pool. ‘We found something really cool yesterday.’
She gave me a curious look then skipped to catch up. ‘We’re in the farmhouse just up the lane, .’ she said as we walked.
‘So that was you last night?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Oh, I saw the car.’ My cheeks flushed, I tried not think of the bundled sheets under my bed. ‘We’re in the old hotel.’ I explained.
‘Really? Oh gosh, sorry if we woke you up.’
‘No worries.’ I thought of Jess’s broken sleep and smirked a little. ‘Just up here.’ I pointed.
‘What is it?’ she said as the shade fell on us. ‘You’re not going to show me a dead body, are you?’
‘I wish!’ I said, then realised how weird that made me sound. I checked her expression: still smiling, if a little confused.
I climbed into the gap, felt the wind whip my face and neck. Taking a glance over my shoulder, I asked her if she was OK.
‘Yeah!’ she shouted then whooped the same way as Jess had done.
The way seemed shorter this time. we stood at the pool's edge. I glanced at Steph whose expression was that of wonder and excitement. My fingers tingled as I dared myself to grab her hand.
‘Round this side.’ I said.
She let her hand remain in mine. Our arms sometimes touched as we skirted the edge, then once our legs – the bulge returned.
‘The wishing pool!’ She whispered, reading the sign. ‘Cool!’
I found a shell, smoothed the wet sand from it with my thumb then placed it in her hand.
‘Make a wish.’ I said. She giggled, then keeping her eyes locked onto mine, tossed the shell over her shoulder. When it landed unseen with a plop, I leaned in close, I could smell her skin. She closed her eyes. Our lips touched then everything became hot and dizzy.
A moment later, I pulled back and looked into her blue eyes.
‘It came true.’ she said.
About the author
Daniel Joseph Day is a writer and musician, living with his wife and two children in Yorkshire. He has had short fiction published on CafeLit, East of the Web and Fiction on the Web.
Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)
No comments:
Post a Comment