Stones - Polly Johnson

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isn’t any more. It didn’t help to write about that Sam. That Sam began to vanish as he grew up and I didn’t like the one that took his place. It was like a creepy movie where a demon possesses one person in a family and sucks the life out of all of them. He certainly drained me.

      Now, though, after meeting Joe, something is changing. Down inside, where I thought I was sleeping, something stirs. I’m not even sure if I like him yet, but I want him to like me. I write his name in the margin of a new page, then wonder why I did it, so I hide it away and lie in blue dimness on my bed. The curtains are drawn and the faint noise from outside plays a background tune to my thoughts. No one will come looking for me until at least four o’clock. I can just lie here and do nothing at all.

       3.

      Thought Diary: ‘Wakey-wakey eggs ’n’ bakey.’

      I wake with a jolt in the early hours. I’ve slept through the evening and the whole night too. I think for a minute that no one even missed me, but someone must have because I’m covered in a blanket. The worried feeling is there again, but today it only hovers, like an unsure guest. What gets me out of bed is the thought of Joe.

      The house is silent as I creep downstairs, making a little jump past the door to Sam’s room. The kitchen is temptingly warm, but I’m not hungry yet. I shove two croissants into a brown paper bag and let myself out into the cold morning.

      I like this empty time. The air is fresh, the sky streaked with the new morning, and despite what happened yesterday, I head for the beach. It’s my thinking place and no nutcase will keep me away. All the same, I go a different way and walk right along the shoreline, just in case.

      The air is full of seagulls squabbling over the tide’s edge, snatching bits of dead fish and jumping into the wind to escape with them. There’s a family out early with a brown puppy, a little girl screaming and laughing at the dog as it dares the breakers. Usually, I hate happy families, but today I smile. Perhaps this is progress; something to tell the Shrink Woman to shut her up.

      I leave them behind and walk until I’m halfway to The Mansion, then stop to look out across the grey water. It’s because the wind is in my ears and my mind’s far away that I don’t hear the scrunch of feet until they’re right behind me. I whirl round, remembering the red-headed man, slipping on the loose stones in panic. For a moment I think perhaps it’s Joe, but it’s not. I glimpse a dark coat and long hair and recognise him – the tramp with the pale face who saved me from the shouter. I turn back, heart thumping, waiting for him to go past, but he doesn’t. Instead he comes over to me and sits down right at my feet.

      ‘Hi,’ he says, but I don’t answer. I can feel him there and worse – I can smell him. It’s the stink that alcohol makes when people take it like food until it oozes out of their pores. A smell that makes me feel sick and afraid.

      Just down towards the water is a little pyramid of stones someone has left, and the man starts to pick up pebbles and lob them at it: chunk, chunk, chunk.

      ‘I wanted to say sorry,’ he says, ‘for what happened with Alec. He’s a mad bugger, but he shouldn’a done that. I notice people who come around and I see you lots, walking on your own. I told him to lay off.’

      Maybe it’s his voice, which is unexpectedly calm and gentle, but instead of walking away, I answer him as if he’s just a regular person.

      ‘Why do you notice?’ I say. ‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’

      He throws more pebbles. I can see his hand sticking out of a black coat sleeve – long, knotty fingers, dirty with an oily grime. Across his knuckles is tattooed ‘Lilyn’.

      I already know the answer to my question. Of course he doesn’t have anything better to do, because he’s a tramp; an alky that soaks himself in booze until he can’t stand up. He probably makes someone else’s life a misery too, unless he’s done the decent thing and disappeared. He stays quiet and I feel awkward, as if he can hear my thoughts.

      ‘Why are you always down here then?’ he asks. ‘Don’t you go to school? You gotta get an education.’

      I feel like laughing. ‘An education? Like you I suppose?’

      He doesn’t answer, just sends a big, grey stone crashing into the pyramid, tipping it sideways.

      ‘I do go,’ I find myself saying, ‘but I’m allowed leeway.’ I use that word a lot – leeway. It’s what the headmaster said. It means I’m allowed to do things other people can’t, because I lost my brother in difficult circumstances. Stupid words – like we got separated in a storm or something – when Sam was the difficult circumstances.

      ‘They don’t want me to freak out,’ I say, ‘or do something weird – like I am right now, talking to some… tramp.’

      I look at him to see whether he minds what I said, but he’s smiling at me. He’s waiting for the answer to a question I didn’t hear him ask.

      ‘I said, do you want what’s in that bag?’ he repeats. ‘’Cos if not, I’ll have it.’

      He grabs the bag when I hold it out and folds a croissant into his mouth in one go, chewing it up while staring out across the grey water. I take the chance to have a good look at him. He’d have an okay face if it wasn’t so tired looking. It’s criss-crossed with little cuts, all bright red on the white skin, as if someone’s cleaned round them. His hair would be a reddish brown if he washed it, but now it’s greasy and hangs in long waves to his collar. His eyes, despite being weary and watery, have green flecks running through them, like gemstones. I guess he’s about thirty – a grown man – and suddenly that worries me. I glance around and see we are alone. I shouldn’t be here.

      He’s finished the croissant and is rolling a little cigarette with one hand.

      ‘I like it down here,’ he says. ‘It’s quiet – know what I mean?’

      I do, but don’t answer, keeping my eyes instead on a big gull which struts up and down, eager for crumbs, its legs doing a nervous dance closer and closer. I step towards it and it takes off, only to drop down again not far off, waiting. I watch it for a moment then turn back. ‘I have to go,’ I say, and start to walk before stopping again. ‘But thanks for keeping that man off me.’

      He doesn’t answer. He’s lying back now, eyes shut, one arm across his forehead blocking out the light. The cigarette has dropped from his fingers. He’s sleeping.

       4.

      Thought Diary: ‘A whole lot of nothing.’ Me.

      I feel rude for leaving him. He might wake up and wonder where I am, but I can’t just stay and watch him sleep. I walk away and think of him still lying there, long eyelashes on his cheek, snoozing as if he was on cushions. It’s not till I reach the promenade that I remember the other one – his mad mate – and then as if my thoughts have conjured him, he appears, weaving across the path towards me. He comes right up and stands there, nose to nose, almost touching. He stinks, and his lips are outlined with a grey scum which flies out as he speaks. I keep my mouth closed.

      ‘I told you,’ he says. ‘Gotta message for you – stay away! Don’t wanta see you.’

      I’d love to go, really I would, but he doesn’t move. The rank smell from his clothes is disgusting. I can’t hold my breath for ever.

      ‘I know what you want,’ he tells me. ‘But you can’t touch me – I’m telling you.’

      His hands come up close to my face so the black nails are in front of my eyes. I could tell him right now if he’d listen – the last thing I want to do is touch him!

      His mouth curls open again and he spits at

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