Final Cut(29)
I drop my camera and tear open the door to the living area. The door to the van is closed but there’s a movement outside, I’m sure. The door handle rattles uselessly and I slap the fibre-glass with the heel of my hand. ‘Let me out!’ I shout. I try the handle again, then I’m turning round, sliding to the floor, and after a moment of blackness everything bursts into life.
I’m not here, it’s like the channel has changed; a burst of static on the screen, then I’m in an empty room, yellow walls, a stained mattress on the floor. There’s the stink of cigarettes on him, stale sweat, clothes that have gone a touch too long without a wash. His hand is between my legs. I feel nothing. This isn’t happening. Or not to me, at least.
Leave me alone! I say, but his hand is over my mouth. I kick out but I can’t connect, and then he’s trying to kiss me. His breath is the worst, and even in the middle of it all I find myself thinking that at least the fucker could’ve sucked on a mint or brushed his teeth. He takes off his belt and my mouth fills with a metallic taste.
I’ve bitten his tongue. He spits. Right in my face. And I want to spit back but I can’t feel anything and, anyway, I don’t have any choice. I never did. I need what he’s got and he’ll only give it to me if I do this, so I do, I lie there, and I deserve it, I deserve it, I deserve it, and it doesn’t matter because I’m not here anyway.
My eyes open. The caravan’s interior shimmers in front of me, like I’m looking at it through fire. My heart hammers in my chest; my mouth dries. No, I think. No. That wasn’t here. That was in London, in the flat by Victoria. That came later.
Didn’t it?
17
I keep my head down as I walk back from The Rocks. I’m shaking. I don’t look back. My camera hangs off my neck like a noose.
When I tried the door a second time it flew open, so easily the lock might as well have been greased. I stumbled out, almost falling to the ground, anxious to get out of the van’s toxic interior, and gulped the air thirstily, desperately, as if I’d been drowning. Bluff House still loomed over me, silent and cold. Is someone trying to warn me off? Am I in danger here?
All I wanted was to get away, but not to Hope Cottage. Not yet. I need something to calm me down and there’s nothing in the house. I wait outside The Ship for a moment, breathing deep, but still I’m skittish as I go in. A trickle of sweat runs down my lower back, despite the cold. But maybe coming here will help me remember. Maybe I came here with Daisy.
The place is as I recall, pretty much. Shinier, if anything; in colour, as opposed to the black and white of my recollection. I look around as I shake off my coat at the door. A log fire burns in the grate; the dense air is muggy but comforting. Brass plates hang on the walls, along with framed maps and prints, the usual pub decoration, though unlike back home in London, at least here the scraps have accumulated over years, rather than been picked up as a job lot from some warehouse.
I imagine the teenagers in here. Sophie and her friends. Lockins after hours, lights out, candles lit, no need to even draw the blinds way out here at the edge of the world. Too many rum and blacks, drunken fumbling as barriers are dissolved, hands where they shouldn’t be. Hot, wet lips. The acidic sting of regret the next day, swallowed down with warm water and a couple of paracetamol. I can picture it – me and Daisy here, in the middle of it all – but is it a memory or just a forced imagining?
No one acknowledges me as I approach the bar. Not even a dipped chin.
‘What’ll it be?’
The interruption startles me. I look round and see it’s Bryan.
‘Let me buy you a drink,’ he says.
His words slur, just slightly, and the glass in his hand is almost empty. He’s been here a while, I can tell, but some company might be nice. I ask for a gin and tonic.
‘A double,’ he says to the woman serving, ordering himself another pint. She’s tall and solidly built, her hair blonde but cropped close, an inch or so all over. I notice she’s missing the ring finger of her right hand. It’s absent from the second knuckle, severed neatly, leaving only a stump.
‘How’re you?’ she says to Bryan as she pours the drinks and hands them over. Her voice has the gruffness of a heavy smoker. I find myself wondering how she lost the finger. An accident? Somehow, a fight seems just as likely.
‘You ’eard about David?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘What?’
‘Apparently he’s had a visitor. The other night.’
Shit. She means me. My stomach balls itself into a fist and Bryan glances at me for a moment. Almost like he knows. ‘Really? Who?’
‘No idea. This were according to our Matt. Says him and a group of lads were down on the beach and they saw someone up there.’
No, I want to say. There was no one there, no one on the beach. No one saw me. I’m sure of it.
But am I?
‘Looked like a girl.’
Bryan shrugs. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it.’
‘Aye,’ she says. ‘I guess you’re right. Seems whoever it was filmed it an’ all.’ She glances at me, then winks. ‘Not that it’s much to look at.’ She means the shots I took, the black sea, the ships in the distance. ‘Anyway. I’ll leave you to it.’
We take our drinks to the table nearest the fire. I sit as close as I dare, edging nearer until the heat scours my legs. I look over at the landlady as she serves the next customer. Her wink had been friendly. She’s watching the films, then. Maybe they all are. I scan the room. A couple of people look away as I do. It’s obvious they know who I am.