Page 70 of The Flowers of Bay C
Violet rolls her eyes.
‘No, she don’t mean that,’ Jodie says. ‘She just means, just… we should turn around.’
‘Why don’t you stand up for yourself?’ Violet says.
Kat gives her a sideways glance, an imperceptible shake of her head, a softly whispered ‘Not now.’
Kane sits with arms folded tightly, staring straight at the driver in his rear-view mirror. I can just see his eyes reflected; pale, cold as ice, holding in place with stubborn arrogance. We hang there in tense silence for what seems like minutes until the woman buckles and then breaks, shifting her gaze away and her car into reverse. She limps back down the road, past the track, all without so much as a last glance at Kane. He laughs out loud and revs the bus noisily as he reverses the rest of the way, grinding the gears then fishtailing into the track, slamming the horn as a final flourish. ‘Ha,’ he says.
The writing on the wonky sign to the beach is almost obliterated by weather and time. All I can see is the word ‘bay’. The beach is only a little way down the track, and Jodie was right, you can drive right onto it. The sand is dark and packed-in, that gritty kind of sand, not the light golden sand you can dig into and stream between your fingers. More like a mud-flat, really. But it’s still sand. It’s still a beach. It stretches off both ways into a wilderness of nothingness, sky meeting ocean in shimmering grey desolation.
‘Godforsaken place, this, isn’t it?’ Violet says.
‘What did you want, the bloody Seychelles?’ Kane brings the bus to a juddering halt, halfway between the entrance and the creeping tide.
‘No, it’s great,’ Kat says. ‘It’s the sea and it’s a beautiful crisp November day, and we’re here. What d’you think, Barbara?’
Barbara sits stock still, staring out at the ocean, her eyes reflecting the blue-grey in their faded glow. She lays her hands onthe window, her blankets slipping down, revealing the whiteness of her stringy arms. Her veins are like bulging estuaries in full flood, pushing starkly through her skin like the map of her life cannot be contained any more. ‘I think… I think my mouse is here.’
‘Then let’s get you outside, shall we?’
‘Oh, yes. Oh, yes, please.’
‘What is this beach, anyway?’ I say as Kane lopes round to the sliding door, dragging it open through a lingering rusty growl as it resists his pull. ‘I’ve never been here. Didn’t even know it was here.’
Jodie points to another tiny, battered sign on the edge of the beach near the track.Sea Bay.
‘Imaginative name,’ Violet says.
I’m all of a sudden infused with energy. I snap my belt open, grabbing my bag, and pile out of the van after Amina and Violet, helping Violet out with the walker. The cold air hits me in the face and steals my breath. Kat and Jodie help Barbara into her chair and they can hardly contain her, bubbling away and bouncing like a toddler being restrained in her buggy. They take hold of one arm of the chair each. ‘Help us out, Kane,’ Kat says, and Jodie looks at him with scared eyes. He is leaning on the side of the van, lighting a cigarette.
He sighs, then grunts, then grabs hold of the bar across the front of the chair, dragging it forward and pulling it down with little care for its angle, Barbara tipping dangerously towards the sand. She grips the arms and giggles. ‘You are a one, young man.’
Kat sighs.
‘Thought you weren’t coming out of the van,’ I say to Violet, who is leaning on her walker, gazing out at the sea. ‘Thought you hated sand.’
Violet screws up her nose. ‘Might as well, now I’m here, I suppose.’
‘Did you bring that hotchocolate?’ Jodie says to Kane, when Barbara is safely down on the sand, the wheels of her hospital chair sinking just slightly into its marshy surface.
Kane nods. ‘Anything for my princess, right?’ He chucks her under the chin and then kisses her full on the mouth, holding his cigarette too close to her blonde hair. ‘I said I would, so I did.’ He climbs back into the bus and scrabbles around under the passenger seat. ‘Here.’ He brings out two large tartan flasks and a nest of disposable cups. ‘Even remembered the cups. What d’you think of that, then?’ He winks at her.
Jodie wraps her arms around herself. ‘I think you’re brilliant.’
He hands the flasks to me and Kat. ‘I’m gonna stop in here, let you ladies go and look at the sea or whatever.’ He climbs back into the minibus, flops down on one of the double seats and splays his long legs out over the aisle to another seat. He digs out his phone. ‘Rubbish reception here. Don’t be long, will you?’
‘We won’t,’ Jodie says.
Barbara is animated, as if the wind has caught hold of her and swept through her fading body. ‘I want to feel the sand.’
Kat starts to shake her head, but Jodie smiles and looks back at Kane. ‘Kane’s got a beach chair or two in here, haven’t you babe? An’ a picnic rug too. Keeps it just in case.’
Kane shrugs. ‘Mmm. Under those seats at the back, I think.’ He makes no move to go towards the seats at the back, so Jodie clambers up, panting, scrambles over Kane’s legs and crouches down herself.
‘One’s broken.’ She pulls out the remains of a rusty old camping chair, the poles of one leg snapped in two, and shoves it away. ‘This one’s okay though.’ She tugs out another chair, opening it out; a smaller one, lime green, the back shaped like the face of a frog, cartoon eyes bulging from the top corners.
‘That’s a kid’s chair,’ Kat says, taking it from her.
