Secrets (46 page)

Chapter Forty-two

Tess had made a picnic lunch. Another one. For the week that Joe had stayed home, the weather had been far too good to squander with meals indoors. Though the garden was at its most beautiful and lush, its place in their lives was restricted to long mornings and evenings. Middays, however, were for going further afield with lunch for four and a picnic blanket rolled into a rucksack which Joe happily hoicked. They didn't venture too far – sticking to the meadows, the woods, the cliff, the pier. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, the aftermath for Joe from Mary's death and funeral was an unexpected tiredness coupled with a need for a gentle routine. Secondly, town at the moment was a fun place to be.

Visitors were swelling Saltburn's ranks every afternoon in addition to each weekend and the local tradespeople used this to their advantage: the shops and stalls presented a plethora of wares, colourful and crammed window displays, and town was awash with vibrant hanging baskets and a flourish of leaflets. There were queues for the cliff lift and the miniature train; there were lines of people of all ages salivating for a milkshake or ice cream. It was frying time from sun up until sun down at the fish and chip kiosk and the unmistakable seaside scents of malt vinegar and candyfloss magnetized passers-by. Swimmers and surfers bobbed in the sea like pink gulls, pony trekkers mooched up and down the beach and school leavers lounged about the sand either fully clothed or else practically naked, all nodding in varying tempos to the joys of their MP3s. The elderly, whether townsfolk or visitors, were granted long hours in the fresh air to people-watch. Elsewhere, in the residential streets came enticing wafts from many a barbeque and homeowners were to be seen manicuring their front gardens or just sitting and enjoying their vistas with a glass of wine or a cup of tea with friends or neighbours. The traffic increased, undoubtedly, but so did the good spirits of the place. The car parks were full; a massed glinting of multi-coloured metal; boots wide open while a fidget of wet dogs and barefooted children were towelled off.

‘It's a great time of year to be a local, isn't it,’ Joe remarked. They'd had their lunch by the river and had decided to stroll to the front for a
frappé
before returning home. Tess, busy saying hullo to various people, linked arms with Joe to agree. She queued with Wolf and the empty buggy while Joe let Emmeline lead him to where she'd been pointing with great conviction.

‘Where are they, Wolf?’

It was surprisingly difficult handling three cups of cold liquid when a medley of scents lured the dog in various directions.

‘Oh, look – there they are. Wolf! Heel, you mad dog.’

Em was beaming.

‘Hope you don't mind,’ said Joe. ‘It wasn't expensive – and it was the one she wanted.’

Em was brandishing a bucket-and-spade set, emblazoned with Spider-Man.

‘Seems she's fickle in love, your daughter,’ Joe said. ‘She didn't give the Iggle Piggle bucket and spade more than a passing glance.’

Tess stared at him. ‘How do you know about Iggle Piggle?’ ‘Emmeline introduced me – quite some time ago.’

They sipped their drinks walking along the lower promenade; stopping to watch a juggler do a bad job and a fire-eater do a good job.

‘So Emmeline,’ Joe said, ‘what are you going to do with your bucket and spade?’

Emmeline shook her new present in reply. The items were still encased in lurid green netting.

‘Want to build a sandcastle?’ Joe asked. ‘I'm king of the sandcastle, little rascal.’

Tess knew what was coming. She thought of the letter rolled up in the toby jug in the kitchen.

‘Coming to the beach, then, Tess?’ Joe asked as if he'd suggested nothing more controversial than a cup of tea at precisely the appropriate time.

‘Not today,’ Tess replied quickly and she walked on ahead though well aware that Joe and Em and Wolf had all stopped.

‘Why not?’ he called after her.

She stopped, but did not turn to face them. She concentrated hard on the three huge iron ammonite sculptures mounted on the wall.

‘You live beside the sea,’ she could hear Joe say. ‘Your daughter would love the beach. Why do you hate it so?’

She could see the chimneys of Redcar in the distance, a similar fug filling her mind as billowed out from them.

They had caught up with her, she could sense them just footsteps away.

‘Why do you hate it so?’ he was asking her kindly but her heart was racing and tears were smarting and if there hadn't been so many people around she might well have turned on her heels and run away.

‘What's wrong with the beach, Tess? Why won't you go on it? Look at it – it's beautiful.’

She was paralysed to the spot. But Joe didn't mind, he walked right round in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders.

‘Tess? Can't you talk to me – can't you tell me why you hate it?’ Wolf and Em had joined him. They were all looking at her intently. And then, it lifted – the pall that had rested heavy over her since she was eight years old disappeared in much the same way that the sun can make a previously enveloping sea fret evaporate within moments. Something far stronger flittered it away into nothing.

I
can
tell them, Tess thought, looking at the three of them. Here is my family and look at them – ready to listen, wanting to help.

Tess glanced at the beach and then she looked from Wolf to Em, finally fixing on Joe. In her peripheral vision, she was aware that people were having to walk right round them, that hand-holding teenagers or arms-linked pensioners had to let go briefly to skirt around them before rejoining.

‘I don't hate the beach,’ Tess told Joe, ‘I'm scared of it.’

Of course his response was, but why? However, Tess felt compelled to make a point strongly before finally, at long last, she could give her reason.

‘Do you remember telling me how you didn't tell anyone – about the stuff that went on at home? You said,
I couldn't say anything to anyone because I knew no one would believe me?
Something bad happened – and you couldn't tell anyone about it?’

Joe nodded.

‘Well, something bad happened to me, Joe – and I told everyone and no one believed me,’ Tess said.

‘Jesus, Tess – what happened?’

He couldn't imagine.

And when she told him, he thought to himself, bloody hell, you couldn't make that one up.

‘I found a hand, Joe,’ she said. ‘I found a hand on the beach.’

‘You found a
what
?’

‘I found a hand on the beach. It was in seaweed. Near the shoreline. It was the last family holiday we had before we fragmented. I had been sent off to look for crabs – I thought my parents were suggesting something nice to do; actually they were packing me off because they weren't talking to each other and I don't think they could handle having all my noisy joys of the seaside in such close proximity. So they said, go and search for crabs, Tess. Take your bucket with you. I joined my sister but she was looking for perfect shells and she didn't want me getting in the way so she told me to go off, go over there, where the seaweed is. That, she said, is where crabs like to be. So I went over there and I dug around a bit in the sand and I shifted the weeds around with my foot. I couldn't find any crabs. It was an overcast day – headachy weather and actually, it wasn't a very nice beach. It was in Norfolk somewhere, I forget the name. There was the odd coke can and bottle and jag of plastic in and amongst the seaweed. And there was a hand. I was looking for crabs, Joe – but I lifted up a clump of seaweed with my toes and I found a hand.’

‘What the fuck did you do?’ Joe looked appalled.

‘I didn't scream. I kept saying to myself, scream, scream – get the grown-ups. But my scream was inward – I was physically incapable of making a sound. I was held captive by that hand, terrified into silence. It looked rubbery and grey but I knew it wasn't grey rubber. It was as if it had physically grabbed me tight and wasn't letting go of me, I couldn't free myself from the grip of the hand I found on the beach.’

‘Jesus
Christ
, Tess.’

‘And the moment the horror of it released me – the moment my voice came through – was precisely the moment that my father bellowed for me. I ran to them, panting and sobbing. They were all together by the time I got there – my parents, my sister with all her pretty shells. I was pointing to where it was and I was telling them, there's a hand, there's a hand, a dead hand in the seaweed. There are no crabs.’

‘What did they do?’ Joe's incredulity butted in.

‘Nothing. They didn't believe me. Unlike you, I thought – deludedly – that if I told them, of course they'd believe me – they'd help, they'd do something.’

‘Why the hell didn't they?’

‘Because, Joe, then as now they were wrapped up in themselves. They'd obviously had some flaming row and we all had to frogmarch off the beach in time to their temper. Stop crying, they kept telling me. You can go crabbing another time, they said. But I saw a hand, I sobbed. Oh, for God's sake, they said, that child!’

She paused. Joe saw her glance out to the beach, wide and golden, at Saltburn. He followed her eyes. There was little seaweed with today's tide, though there was some, lying in straggly lines a few yards from the water.

‘I don't know, Joe,’ she said and she sounded so forlorn. ‘Over the years, I've wondered if I imagined it. But of course I know I didn't. I don't know the story behind the hand but I've always hoped that the family of that person didn't need to know about it. I hope I don't hold the key to some dreadful mystery, some unsolved crime or some terrible tragedy. I used to go to bed at night and pray: please let the rest of that person wash up nicely so that at least they are found and the missing hand won't matter to anyone but me.’

‘Christ, I'm so sorry, Tess – I didn't mean to trivialize your phobia. I just had no idea it was anything as hideous. I would never have come up with
that
.’

She shrugged. ‘I know it makes me a rubbish mother to deny my child a romp along the sand – a paddle and a wade.’ She paused, then she looked at him. ‘But you know something, Joe – in a similar way to you coming round to me visiting Swallows, so I'm happy for you to take my place on the beach with Em. I know you've done so already. I didn't mind that you didn't say. I saw the sand in her nappy that day. It was in her room too. I tried to sweep it up. Most went through the gaps in the floorboards.’

Joe thought about this.

‘OK,’ he said, ‘if you're happy for me to do so, then OK.’ They walked back along the promenade until they came to the cobbled ramp down to the beach. Tess ground to a halt. Em had been holding her hand and Joe's. Tess wriggled from the clasp of her daughter's fist.

‘Off you go, baby girl,’ she said. ‘Joe's going to build sandcastles on the beach with you and Wolf will probably demolish them.’

Joe looked at Emmeline a little sadly. ‘Say, bye bye, Mummy,’ he said. ‘Mummy's going home to make you your tea.’

They parted, Tess pushing the empty buggy inland.

‘Tess!’

Was that Joe? Did he just call? She wasn't sure – there was such a joyous cacophony coming from the sands already.

‘Tess!’

That
was
him.

She turned. He was waving. He was beckoning. She retraced her steps. She came to the railings. She recalled her first morning in Saltburn, when Joe had shown her around town and had taken Wolf for a blast on the beach and she'd stood at these very railings calling him, mortified that she had no money to buy the bread and milk like she said she would. When was that? Last year? The year before? A lifetime ago? It was earlier this year, Tess, when winter was becoming spring. About three or four months ago, that's all.