Home > The Bench(7)

The Bench(7)
Author: Saskia Sarginson

It had been his father’s school before him. His father had been head boy. His name was inscribed on the honours board. Holder of the Fairly Cup. Captain of the cricket and rugby first teams. His record for the 400 metres never beaten. A couple of the masters were old enough to have taught them both, and when they realised the connection, they looked down their noses through smeary glasses and said, ‘So, you’re his son? Well, well.’ And he felt that he’d missed the mark. A disappointment, as he was at home.

He was a late developer, small for his age. It was a huge disadvantage when most of his peers seemed to grow inches overnight, were busy sprouting hair, calves and forearms thickening with new muscle. He was dropped from even the third teams, his gym shoes flung into the topmost branches of a tree.

The beatings happened almost daily. Fag Master Salt with a belt in his hands. Seven of the best. The reasons were many: daydreaming, smiling, burning toast, not properly polishing Salt’s CCF buttons. And then again, for resisting when a hand slipped into his trousers, for flinching at the groping and rubbing. So he ran away. It took him six hours, terrifying hours of walking through the dark and the rain, falling to his knees in ditches, hitching lifts on a blustery motorway. When he reached home, wet and exhausted, and explained why he’d done it, his father beat him for being a dirty little sneak. And then he was returned, like a parcel. Shame consumed him, shame for his weakness, for the fact that he could never be like his father.

*

Back at the hostel, Sam crawls into his bunk and pulls the covers over his head. The Dutch posse are still out. He hears the rustle of a body moving on the mattress above, and a muffled snore. He won’t think about his father. Outside, there is a roar of traffic. The hostel is near the freeway. He wishes he could hear the low moan of the sea, but all outside sounds are funnelled into the hiss of rubber on asphalt and engine roar. The city is an unexplored mystery to him. Somewhere in one of the unknown streets will be the girl. Cat. Hopefully safely arrived at her destination. She must be in her own bed by now, in her own room, dreaming perhaps. The thought of her is oddly comforting. He wishes he’d touched that untidy loop of hair, felt the texture of it between his fingers.

 

 

SEVEN

 


Cat, March 1983


I couldn’t sleep when I got home. Meeting that guy on the beach – it was almost as if he’d been looking for me, as if I’d been the only reason he was there in the dark and cold. But that can’t be true – can it? Meeting him has put me in a state of shock. It feels as though I’ve been hit with a pancake block. I’m scrabbling around for a way to get back into play. Sure, I want to see him again. But I’m disbelieving. Who wouldn’t be? I was relying on Frank’s voice popping into my ear to tell me that yes, this is really happening, and dammit, Cat, you deserve it. Only he’s remaining stubbornly quiet.

Girls fall over themselves to sleep with men like Sam Sage – I heard those comments in the john. I should forget I ever met him. Walk away before it’s too late. He’ll be arrogant, superficial; he’s bound to be, looking like that, sounding like that. I don’t need a man in my life. I’m not like Mom.

*

Ray sucks air through his teeth and shakes his head in disapproval when I bring the wrong body out of the reefer for the second time. ‘What’s up with you today, girl?’ He sends me off to do a makeover on a middle-aged woman whose relatives are insisting on saying goodbye to her face-to-face. She’s been dead three days, and without the help of embalming, she’s not looking her best. Lime-green fungus blooms across her cheeks. She’s on the cuddly side, and I’ve found that larger ladies decompose quicker.

I settle myself at her side and snap open the large make-up bag. It’s full of the tricks of the trade: mouth formers, needle injectors, and eye caps with tiny spikes to keep eyelids closed. Plus an array of commercial cosmetics: bottles of foundation, tubes of lipstick, even mascara. It’s going to take a lot of work to disguise the decay. Her name was Cindy, I see from her toe tag. ‘Okay, then. Let’s do this, Cindy.’ I lean closer. ‘I don’t have a magic wand,’ I tell her, ‘but I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve. I’m gonna send you to the ball looking your best.’ And I begin the task of closing her mouth, setting her lips into a winsome half-smile.

As I work, I’m imagining a story where she’s alive and centre stage, the main character in a plot where she gets her heart’s desire, like a modern Cinderella.

I get off the jitney with the holidaymakers in their brightly coloured leisure pants, shiny windbreakers and mirrored sunglasses, and pause by my bench looking down onto the beach. There he is, gazing out at the rolling breakers of the Atlantic. I recognise the back of his head immediately, the same untidy dark hair, now blowing about in the sea breeze.

Frank whispers, This could be the one.

Fairy tales aren’t real, I remind him, as I go down the steps onto the beach, my heart smashing into my ribcage. And it’s common knowledge that any Prince Charming comes with a massive ego. My reinforced shoes crunch over the sand. As I get closer, I’m trying to think of something clever to say, something witty.

Sam Sage turns before I reach him. ‘Hello,’ he says in his English accent, all the sounds standing upright. ‘You came.’

‘Yeah,’ I manage to croak. ‘I did.’

‘So …’ He gestures towards the city. ‘Where are you going to take me?’

Take him? I haven’t given it a thought. Not allowing myself to get further than this moment. ‘Um. Let’s sit on my bench awhile,’ I say quickly. ‘Then … I can tell you what’s worth visiting. The best attractions and stuff. And … you can choose.’

‘Passing the buck,’ he says with half-closed eyes.

When I take him to the bench, he pauses a moment to read the inscription to himself. Sitting together, with the sound of the ocean breathing and seagulls shrieking overhead, my nerves retreat. He seems pretty relaxed. I guess this kind of thing is all in a day’s work for a guy like him. His sleeves are rolled to the elbow, and I notice a tattoo of musical notes curving across his forearm.

‘If someone played them, would they make a tune?’ I ask, wanting to run my fingers over the quavers and crotchets on his skin.

‘That would have been a good idea, wouldn’t it?’ he laughs. ‘But no. I didn’t really think it through that well. Considering it’s going to be with me for ever.’

‘Have you had it long?’

‘About a month.’ He rubs his thumb over the tattoo. ‘You can probably guess by now – it was a spontaneous decision. Although, in my defence, I wasn’t drunk.’

‘But was there a reason for it? Does it … you know, represent something important?’

‘It’s supposed to mark a turning point,’ he says slowly, his voice becoming suddenly serious. ‘I want to stop doing what everyone expects me to do, and do what I want instead.’

‘Music?’

‘Yup. So the design isn’t exactly original, but …’

‘To the point.’

He laughs again. ‘You know, it’s odd,’ he says slowly, ‘I meant to say before, but the inscription on this bench reminds me of one on Hampstead Heath.’

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