Page 26 of Summer in Sunset Harbour
‘You’re a pair of pansies,’ Lindsay snapped. ‘That extra protein is good for you.’
‘Doesn’t taste as nice,’ Geoffrey muttered.
‘Especially when they’re still moving,’ Barney agreed.
‘Can you please stop talking about insects,’ Josie said. ‘It’s bad enough up here during the day. I can’t imagine what it’s like during the night. Why on earth do you do it? I mean, are you trying to escape the world or something? Considering you’re only twenty minutes by bus from a major city, you probably want to try a bit harder.’
‘We all have our stories,’ Geoffrey said, staring at the floor. ‘Me … I was trying to find some meaning to it all. Had the corporate gig, running a little computer chip company. Suddenly it blows up, and I’ve got money coming out of my ears.’ He sighed. ‘It was the guilt more than anything. Why do I deserve all this when the next man has nothing? So I blew it. Threw it away on the horses. Sold the company for a fraction of what it’s now worth, ended up destitute. Spent my last money on a flight over.’
He had a slight accent which was either South African or German. Josie had never travelled much, so asked him.
‘Swiss,’ he said. ‘You weren’t far off.’
‘What about you?’ she said, turning to Barney. ‘Why are you here?’
Barney traced a finger along a grove in the wooden planks. ‘Dad’s a policeman,’ he said. ‘He brought us up to follow the law to the letter. Everything we did, everywhere we went, he would go on and on about following the rules and everything would be all right. Then one night last year my sister got killed in a hit-and-run in Plymouth. Dad’s a policeman, yet he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t catch who did it. My sister never put a foot wrong in her whole life. She didn’t deserve that, yet it happened anyway. Me, I was flogging pirated stuff on the internet, games, music, films. Making a decent bit of side money. Yet I’m still here. Chloe, she was a perfect, pure soul. Yet she’s dead.’ He looked up, and the way he stared at Josie made her feel like he expected a genuine answer. ‘Why?’
She turned to Lindsay. ‘How about you?’
Lindsay, all skin and bones, just stared at the ground. ‘What does it matter?’
‘We all ended up here for a reason.’
‘Did we?’ She looked up, glaring at Josie. ‘What about you?’
‘You want my sob story? It’s not much of one, perhaps, but here goes. I was married to a musician. You might know of him; his song was at number two in the charts, the last time I checked. I believed in him, supported him, put my hope in him. I gave him my money, my time, my attention, my energy … and he took it all, and gave nothing back. He found himself a rich older woman and then divorced me, taking everything. I have a few suitcases in a lock up and the clothes on my back.’ She patted the radio. ‘Oh, and the radio Nat gave me, that you stole.’
‘I just wanted to know the score in the Test,’ Geoffrey said.
Barney began tapping his fingers on the wooden planks, then started to sing, in a low, gentle voice: ‘When I gave up on my wife, I regained my life, now I’ve pulled those sutures, I can see the future….’
‘That’s the one,’ Josie said with a groan. ‘Would you mind not singing it, please?’
‘You have to admit it’s pretty catchy,’ Barney said.
‘It’s on all the stations,’ Geoffrey said. ‘I even heard it during a break in the Shipping Forecast.’
‘It’s still at number two in the charts,’ Lindsay said, still not smiling. ‘Behind some stupid charity single.’
‘He wrote that song while we were still married,’ Josie said. ‘He said it was a joke, and I forgot about it for years, then suddenly it’s gone viral. Now all my friends think I was a terrible wife to him. I lost my teaching job because the school governors sided with the lyrics in a stupid song and said that explained my actions in a certain disciplinary situation. So, if we’re playing the My Life is Hell game, I’ve got a pretty good hand.’
‘I think Barney still shaves it,’ Geoffrey said. ‘His dad’s a pig.’
‘At least he’s alive,’ Josie snapped.
‘If you can call it that,’ Geoffrey said.
Barney sniffed. ‘I was thinking … wondering, you know … if I should tell him how I feel.’
‘He’ll just shoot you down,’ Lindsay said. ‘That’s what all those people do. Shoot others down.’
‘He used to read me a bedtime story,’ Barney said, sniffing. ‘I liked Paddington Bear the best.’ He sighed. ‘I ripped the newest Paddington film off the Net and flogged it on an auction site to a distributor in China. I made about a grand.’
Josie gave him a small smile. ‘You could make yourself feel better if you give that money to charity,’ she said.
‘I spent it on shoes,’ Barney said, not looking up.
‘Well, why don’t you give those shoes to charity?’
