When I think back to that night what I remember most is the stars. It was such a dark night, the kind of darkness which is close around you, the kind of darkness you can almost feel. In the sky you could see every star sparking furiously in the heavens. It felt as though each tiny light had been racing for thousands of years across the void of space just to reach us in that moment, so that we could lie there with wonder.
I’m warm by the fire. I gathered the driftwood, and you lit with your zippo lighter, you know, the silver one with a skull carved on it, the one you won arm wrestling Nick in the pub that time. I mean it’s not like Nick was ever strong or anything, but he etched that skull himself, and he hated you for years for taking it from him. But we never had much, did we? And what we did have we clung to. Yes, we hid things, like pirates burying their treasure. We never gave anything up easily, not our possessions nor our secrets.
Those stars that night, I remember thinking… feeling… remembering that it was like looking up at the sky through the blanket in one of the dens we made on the back lawn. That stupid tiny lawn, perfectly flat and exactly square, mowed so often it was like the grass didn’t even grow on that thing.
We were always the chaos in the order, weren’t we? The weeds in the flowerbed, the wrinkle in the neatly ironed skirt, the accidental splodge of gravy on the crisp white Sunday tablecloth.
Nestled inside our den, in our own world, we’re insulated, safe, together. The summer sun through the weave of the blanket creating dapples on our skin. You looking at me, me looking at you, and we don’t need words to share our thoughts. Us against the world, right?
And here is my sworn statement:
I don’t know how Nick died. We left the pub at closing and walked back to town along the coast path. I don’t remember if he was with us or if he got a lift back with Pete in the van. I fell asleep on the beach. When I woke up in the morning the coastguard was there, and the police. Nick was dead on the rocks, and you were gone.
They say he was pushed – scuff marks at the edge of the path. They say he had been in a fight.
We often staggered home that way with the coast path wavering before us like Rainbow Road, Mario Kart at Pete’s house. Do you remember how much you hated it when I’d win? Did you think somehow because you’re the male and I’m the female that you should win? Didn’t they always try to separate us that way? Make me the girl. We were always the same before all that, and always the same underneath all that.
We’d often sleep on the sand under the stars. Much better to wake up hungover to the sunrise glittering on the sea and seagulls calling overhead. Unless it happened to be raining then we’d end up in the shed curled up on the old canvas car cover like hibernating dormice.
Don’t you think it’s mad that even when we became adults, she’d never let us have a key? Can you imagine if we’d ever actually got in there drunk? She would have had a fit! So, we’d slink in at breakfast and she’d pretend like we’d just come down dressed for Sunday. God only knows why she adopted us. Bad luck for her, eh?
Did you know? Did you know what you were going to do that night?
You left Nick’s lighter on a rock near the fire…
I imagined the sea stealing you from me in the dark drawing you into the waves, while you claw at the soft wet sand trying to get back to me, until your strength gives out, and you sink helplessly down into the underworld. Meanwhile I’ve got crack in my veins, I’ve flown right off the top of the Rainbow Road and I’m floating in a warm pink cloud among the brightly coloured stars, totally unaware.
In the morning I wake up alone. The tide has washed all the footprints away.
I’ve tried, but it’s been years, and I still can’t make it fit into my head. Me without you, the world without you in it. You raced off without me and now I can’t see where you’ve gone.
Everything came out. After that I pretty much disappeared too. Then when let me go then I was just a rag being blown from doorway to doorway, somehow stubbornly still living. Sometimes men would catch hold of me, mostly people just pretended I wasn’t there.
I have a child though, a son… out there somewhere. Can you believe my body did that?
I hope life will be kinder to him than it was to us, I hope he’s with good people, I hope he’s loved.
He was a kind of miracle though, you know. I felt like wasteland covered in abandoned junk, decayed and broken. Nothing could grow there, so I thought, but he did grow, and he did thrive, and oh my god, when he arrived, he was just beautiful. Tiny, perfect, and he smelled so good, like heaven, I think. He had dark eyes like us, thick dark lashes, and I think he looked a lot like you too.
She died, you know, that’s what brought me back. Out of the blue some guy tracked me down to tell me she’d left it all to me. Really? Not the cat rescue? Couldn’t have expected that.
Can you believe everything was exactly the same? The garden, the kitchen, everything. You’re not surprised by that at all, are you? You knew from the start we’d never fit with her, and she’d never fit with us. We’re the wild things, we don’t belong in a house or a home. We escape from our bedroom at night to prowl through the dark.
They’re all still here, all the things we claimed for ourselves. The fields, the sky, the sea; the sand, the song of the seagulls. The woods where we’d swing over the stream on a rope and pile up sticks into campfires, or shelters. The thrill of survival, of racing to win.
I couldn’t race half as well as you, you know that, right? I always kept up by following your route and then stealing the win, shooting past you just before the finish line. I guess that’s why it made you angry.
I sat in the pub earlier. I hardly recognised the place let alone any of the faces. It’s a gastropub now – gourmet fish and chips!
After a couple of bottles of wine it felt familiar enough walking back along the coast path, feeling the thrill of knowing I could so easily misstep and stumble off into the sea.
I gathered the driftwood, how you liked it, some small bits, some bigger bits, all of it dry enough to burn steadily and warmly without too much smoke. You lit the fire with the silver zippo lighter with the skull carved on it, you know the one you won off Nick that time.
It’s an exceptionally dark night, the kind of night which closes in around you, the kind of darkness you can feel, the kind of darkness you can reach out and touch. The sky is filled with stars, but you know some of them aren’t even there anymore, they’ve imploded or exploded or however stars die, and all that’s left is the light that they once gave out still just racing across the universe.
So, I sink back onto the sand and I’m on the rainbow road, brightly coloured, twisting and turning in front of my eyes. The road rises then drops and I catch sight of you, up ahead racing towards the final bend and the finish line. You’ve missed the speed boost under the shining archway, but I catch it and I shoot past you just beating you across the line. I fly right off the Rainbow Road and into the sky of technicolour stars and fluffy pink clouds.
Morning comes.
The sun is glistening on the sea.
The tide has washed all the footprints away…
I look at you and you look at me –
You’re lying beside me on the sand
We don’t need words to know each other’s thoughts.
E. Travelli 