The Other People: A Novel(56)

It’s a beautiful pink-and-white conch shell. You hardly ever saw ones this big and unbroken. Isabella checks that it’s empty inside. Satisfied, she tucks it into the pocket of her hoodie. She glances at her watch. Ten to seven. She needs to hurry.

She trots up the steps to the promenade. Cars line each side. The last of the day-trippers, perhaps enjoying a coffee or fish and chips in one of the cafés that line the other side of the road.

She takes the shell out of her pocket, unable to stop herself admiring it one final time. She remembers something Miriam said: “Hold a shell to your ear and you can always hear the sea.”

Miriam is full of funny sayings like that. Sometimes Miriam can be a bit strict, but Isabella knows there’s a different side to her. When she was little, Miriam would bake with her in the kitchen, creating sweet little fairy cakes and giant, fluffy sponges. Whenever her mother was feeling too tired, it was Miriam who would play hide-and-seek in the gardens or read to her on rainy afternoons. Now she is older, Miriam sometimes lends her the twisty thrillers she keeps in her room (rather than the literary tomes her mother prefers her to read). Their little secret.

Isabella smiles. She raises the shell to her ear and steps into the road. The sea roars inside her head.

Perhaps that’s why she doesn’t hear the roar of the car’s engine.





1996


It all happened so quickly. That’s what people always say, isn’t it? Oh God, it all happened so quickly. But it didn’t. Not for him. He could remember every agonizing second, every sound, every tiny detail. Her final moments indelibly stamped upon his memory, in glass and bone and blood.

He wasn’t even supposed to be driving. It wasn’t his car. But he was more sober than the rest of the gang: Mitch, Jase and Kev. To call them “mates” was stretching it. Really, they were just kids he grew up with. They lived on the same estate, went to the same school. Thrown together by circumstance and postcode.

This particular night, they were sprawled on a bench on a patch of scrubby grass behind the local Spar. Dale, the manager, knew they weren’t eighteen yet but he was happy enough to sell them cheap booze. The road curved up here away from the promenade and the straggly row of fish-and-chip shops, arcades, run-down cafés and tacky souvenir shops. You could just about see the sea and the pier.

They smoked and drank cider, and even though Gabe knew that he should really head home and make a start on his college coursework, he was feeling pleasantly buzzed. And hungry.

Echoing his thought, Jase suddenly said:

“Fuck, I’m starving.”

“Me, too,” Kev slurred.

Mitch jangled his car keys. “Let’s drive down the pier, get some chips, see if there’s any fit birds hanging around the arcade.”

It was about a mile from the estate to the promenade, walkable, but Mitch had an old Fiesta that he drove everywhere. He was the only one of them who had a car. His uncle had got it cheap from some bloke he met in the pub and Mitch had done it up with a stereo, neon lights and all sorts of shit that basically screamed “Pig Me!” to passing police cars.

“C’mon.”

Mitch jumped off the top of the bench and promptly fell flat on his face. Jase and Kev guffawed like wasted hyenas. Mitch rolled over and wiped at his chin. He stared at the blood on his fingers and laughed again.

“Man, I’m soooo fucked.”

“Maybe we should walk,” Gabe said. He could feel his own buzz waning.

“Fuck that,” spat Kev.

Mitch sat up and seemed to consider. For a minute, Gabe thought he might agree, and if Mitch agreed the rest would follow, like stoned sheep.

Instead, he chucked the keys at Gabe. Gabe somehow caught them. “I don’t have a license.”

“So? You know how to drive, dontcha?”

He did. Mitch had shown him the basics.

“Gabe-o, Gabe-o,” Kev chanted. Jase just grinned like a loon.

He wanted to say no. The weed and the alcohol were wearing off, but he was still over the limit. However, if he didn’t drive, Mitch would get behind the wheel, and he was in a far worse state than Gabe.

Not your problem. Walk away. Go home.

But he couldn’t. Because saying no wasn’t just about driving the car. If he walked away now it would be the moment Gabe-o let them down. The moment Gabe-o was a fucking pussy. The moment Gabe-o stopped being one of the gang.

He took the keys, sauntered over to the car and climbed in. Jase and Kev piled in the back. Mitch staggered over and collapsed into the passenger seat next to him. As Gabe started the engine, he leaned over and cranked up the stereo that he’d fitted himself, wires snaking everywhere. The Prodigy pounded out of the speakers, shaking the whole car.

“Fucking yes!” Kev shouted.

Gabe eased the Fiesta out of the Spar car park and pulled out on to the road. He ground the gears, forcing it clunkily into third.

“Man, you drive like my nan,” Jase chortled.

Gabe scowled, face flushing. And actually, he thought, kangaroo-hopping down the road at twenty was probably even more conspicuous than just putting his foot down. He accelerated and whacked the car into fourth, hitting forty, forty-five then fifty as they wound down the cliff road. Despite his initial trepidation, it felt good.

He cruised along the promenade, the bright lights of the pier drawing closer. To his left, the sun was sinking into the sea, drowning the sky in pink and orange. To his right, rows of shabby B&Bs; a blur of fairy lights, neon and plastic chandeliers. The Prodigy screamed about being a firestarter. His foot pressed down a little harder as the chorus came on…