‘Whaaaat? You cannot be serious!’ Sam shouts, doing a good impression.
We’re both laughing, and everything is all right again. As we leave the museum of curiosities, happiness opens inside me like blossom, sweet and natural and wondrous.
He stops on the boardwalk, and he’s not laughing any more. ‘I’ve just realised something,’ he says.
‘Yes?’ Our faces are close, and my heart thickens and slows so that I can hardly breathe.
He gestures with his fingers, counting. ‘Not one, but two decapitated heads on a first date.’ He grins. ‘Must be some kind of record. And I’ve discovered something about you. You’re not at all squeamish.’ He smiles. ‘Both my sisters would have found it creepy.’
The lack of the expected kiss makes me feel unbalanced. Then I remember that he called this a date.
‘Well … maybe it was a bit creepy,’ I concede, trying to sound like I mean it, trying not to think about Cindy’s sad face with her rouged cheeks and stiff expression. At least I got her skin tone to look more pink than green. I shut the image out of my mind. Right now, all I want is to concentrate on this moment, on this man walking beside me.
EIGHT
Sam, March 1983
The club is jammed. Sweat trickles down the side of Sam’s face. He wipes his sleeve across his forehead. The crowd are clapping and whooping. He can’t see anything out front except a riot of silhouettes. Cat is standing just behind the strip of curtain that serves as backstage space. She grins when he turns to look at her, and he’s jolted all over again by that sudden wide, gap-toothed smile. She looks amazing: long legs in bleached jeans, honey hair falling across her shoulders. He hardly knows her, but there’s nobody else in the world he wants here with him, sharing this.
He grasps the mic, brings it close and says, ‘This one’s for Cat. Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love”.’ There’s an expectant din from below, and he glances at Len the drummer, who taps the beat with his stick. Then all thought is gone, because he has a bellyful of words; he tilts his head back, eyes closed, and opens his mouth. But the image of Cat remains, blowtorched onto his mind.
*
He escapes straight after the set, turning down the offer to hang out with the rest of the band. He makes his way through the crowd as she waits by the bar. He’s enjoying glimpsing her in snatches, over the shoulders of others, in the sudden flash of strobe, knowing that he’ll be with her any minute, the whole of her revealed. When he reaches her, he whispers in her ear, ‘Let’s get out of here.’
The air outside is cool, sounds muted after the clamour of the club. Cat zips up her jacket and shivers. ‘Let’s walk,’ she says. ‘Warm up.’
‘Or we could go inside?’ he suggests. ‘Find another bar?’ He wonders if she’ll invite him back to her place. He doesn’t even know if she lives with someone else – or multiple someones.
‘Can we look at the ocean first?’
They make their way onto the sand, grey and gleaming in the moonlight. He can’t see another person. In the distance, the Ferris wheel is still working. She’s right. It’s good to be next to the ocean. The rush of waves soothes his pounding ears. They walk beside each other, hips and shoulders nearly level. ‘We’d smash any three-legged race,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘English tradition. You run a race with another person with your inside ankles tied together. Do you have that in America?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ she laughs. ‘We have that here too. It’s kinda funny to watch. I’ve never run in one, though.’ She’s pulling off her scarf. ‘Hey, let’s test out your theory.’ She’s kneeling at their feet, wrapping the scarf around her right ankle and his left. He feels the knot tighten. She stands up. ‘Now what?’
‘Well … I need to put my arm around your waist. And you do the same.’ He pauses for a second before he slips his hand around her ribs. Her breath rising and falling under the fabric of her top makes his senses reel. He forces himself to concentrate.
She places her hand lightly on his waist, then turns her head to look at him expectantly. ‘And now?’
He wants to lean in and kiss her, but instead he shouts, ‘Ready, steady, go!’
There’s a moment of complete disconnect. They wobble and nearly fall. Then he grabs her tighter, and they find a rhythm. His teeth jolt as they gallop with three legs over the sand through the dark, and it feels as though his heart is going to burst.
At the shoreline, they stagger to a stop; a big wave swills over their feet, freezing water soaking Sam’s trainers and the bottoms of his jeans.
‘Shit!’ he yelps.
Cat is laughing. She crouches down and unties the scarf, takes off her shoes, kicking them away from her. Her eyes are bright as she rolls up her jeans.
‘What are you doing?’ he asks.
‘Getting wetter,’ she says, as she wades into the black water. ‘Jeez, it’s cold,’ she exclaims. ‘But it feels kinda amazing. Come in!’
‘Is there something you need to tell me – this weird compulsion to take your shoes off all the time, does it have a name, or a cure?’ He stands at the edge. She’s only a few feet away, but he feels the sorrow of a separation. Waves splash against her legs, sending spray up her thighs. She shrieks and laughs again. Silver light catches in her hair.
‘Sharks can get you in the shallows, you know,’ he calls out.
‘God, that film has a lot to answer for.’
‘But there are Great Whites off this coast,’ he perseveres. ‘Aren’t there?’
‘I guess. But more sharks get killed by fishermen than the other way around. I’ve seen dolphins, though. Early morning’s best.’ She splashes out of the water. ‘I swim before breakfast most days.’
She’s shivering, teeth chattering like maracas on speed, and it’s a great excuse to wrap his arms around her and pull her close. Honey hair tickles his mouth and he takes a deep breath, inhaling the seaweed saltiness of the ocean. Like holding a mermaid, he thinks. His hands are inside her jacket, around the softness of her waist. Desire kindles in his groin. She breaks away, bending to put on her shoes. ‘Let’s find a bar that’s open,’ she says.
Holding hands, they walk briskly up the beach towards a flight of wooden steps and the lights of the boardwalk. He’s wondering if she felt the same careening into lust, or if it was just him. How can he feel this familiarity, and at the same time such hopeless ignorance?
As they pass the dark overhang of a pier, movement jags at his peripheral vision. Two shapes unfurl from the shadows. He grips Cat’s hand tighter. ‘Don’t look round. Keep walking.’
‘Hey!’ A shout. Rough, urgent, slurred. ‘Got a smoke?’
‘No. Sorry, mate,’ he calls over his shoulder, without pausing.
The men are walking with shambling but fast strides towards the steps. They’re parallel and gaining, and there’s an intention there; he can feel the arrowed certainty of it and he knows they’re planning on cutting them off. Adrenalin screams through him, instinct telling him the situation could escalate quickly. There are two of them. They might have knives. They’re probably high on something. He can’t take a risk, not with Cat here. ‘Run!’