In which Mark and Billy apparently become friends.
Mark’s enthusiasm waned when he left the inn, and he stood pressed against its solid white wall for security and didn’t want to move. At the same time, he had an urge to talk to whoever was working on the boat, and although he fought against it, his legs moved as if they had minds of their own. With no choice but to go with them, he crossed the road and came to the beached boat.
‘What d’you want?’
An old man stood there, his yellow waders and jacket dripping blood. He held a long knife in one hand and a limp fish in the other, and it took Mark a moment to realise that what he was doing was perfectly legal.
‘I said, what d’you want?’
‘Nothing. Just… Walking.’
‘Who are you?’
The old man stepped closer than Mark would have liked, dropped the knife and pulled a pint glass from his jacket. This, he held to his eye, and Mark realised that he only had the one. The other was missing, leaving a deep socket. Mark really didn’t want to look at it, but he couldn’t stop himself. Worse, he looked into the void and nearly gagged. You’d have thought he could have put a glass one in it, he thought. Or at least wear a patch.
‘I said, who are you?’
‘Hi, yeah, I’m Mark. I live at the inn.’
The old man moved his pint glass to his ear. ‘Speak up?’
‘I said, I live at the inn.’
‘I know that. What d’you want?’
‘Just walking.’ By now he was walking backwards.
‘Well piss off and do it somewhere else. Bloody foreigners. Can’t even speak our language.’
‘I can.’
‘Who are you?’
Mark hurried away.
Not the best reception, but one he had expected. Up ahead, three women were still decorating the festival platform. They had hung fishing nets on the seaward side to act as a backdrop. Now they were placing lobster pots and other tackle around it, and someone was wrapping bunting around the stage.
Mark told himself that he had to be polite and say hello, but another voice in his head told him to ignore them because they would only ignore him. Much to his annoyance, by the time he reached the platform, politeness had won.
‘Hello,’ he said, as cheerfully as a petulant seventeen-year-old could. ‘Can I help?’
An ancient woman, narrow and accusing, fixed him with her cataracts. ‘You’re that boy from London, aren’t you?’ She offered him a stick, which he was about to take when he realised it was her finger jabbing at his chest.
‘Yes, I am.’ He cranked up a smile. ‘You’re the lady from the post office.’
‘She ain’t no lady.’ Another antique creaked her way towards him. The two looked scarily similar, like almost-matching furniture. ‘She’s my sister. And she’s a moaning old crow.’
‘Me?’ The first one turned her attention away from Mark. ‘You are the one who does nothing all day except carp on about your leaking bladder.’
‘You’re just jealous. Always have been, always will be.’
‘No-one’s going to be jealous of wizened old fish bait like you.’
‘Ladies,’ came a third voice from among the bunting. ‘I have never heard you speak to each other like this before. Please, remember what day it is.’
The two old witches regarded the speaker for a thoughtful moment before again addressing each other.
‘She smells,’ said the first, pointing one of her sticks to the bunting.
‘Don’t know how to dress,’ said the second. ‘Never liked her neither.’
‘Nor me,’ the first agreed. ‘Smells like a dog’s arse.’
‘Ladies, please!’ The speaker on the platform was upset. ‘What has got into you today?’
‘Not as many as has got into you, slut.’
‘And that’s only the ones we know about.’
The two sisters cackled in disharmony.
Mark decided against running after the third woman as she fled in tears, but it probably wasn’t the best idea to hang around the witches either, so he moved on along the beach.
If these were the people his mum had chosen to live among, she needed her head seriously seeing to. He’d only met four and hadn’t heard a friendly word from any. He wanted to go home, close his door and stare out of the window, but that annoying need to try to fit in bugged him. It wouldn’t let him turn around. Instead, it propelled him towards a man wearing a black dress.
Mark realised it was a vicar. This should go a bit better, he thought.
‘Morning!’ He greeted the clergyman with his laddish smile.
‘You’re pretty,’ the vicar said. ‘Fancy a shag?’
Mark wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. He thought all vicars were gay anyway, so the offer was no surprise, but it was a bit blunt.
‘No, you’re alright,’ he said.
The vicar passed him by with his nose in the air, muttering something about ‘bloody breeders.’
Mark’s heart stopped beating, but only for a second. It had taken a pause because the blonde hillbilly fisherman was heading straight for him. He tensed and prepared himself for some verbal abuse. If this guy said anything, he’d punch him in the face, knee him in the nuts and run home. Sorted.
Except it looked like this guy wasn’t going to stop. He was coming at him fast, and Mark prepared for battle. The hillbilly, however, came to a halt at a safe distance.
‘Watch’a!’ he said.
‘Watch a what?’ Mark was confused.
‘No, watch’a. As in, hello. Alright? How’s it hanging?’
The lad sounded surprisingly friendly, and this put Mark on alert. Only a yellow alert, but better safe than sorry. ‘Yeah, I’m alright,’ he said.
The fisherboy offered his hand. ‘Name’s Billy. Billy Hill.’
Mark laughed out loud. The hillbilly was called Billy Hill? Perfect.
If his laugh had upset the lad, he didn’t show it. Billy simply carried on talking. ‘Just wanted to say that we don’t like your kind being here. At least that’s what I thought I wanted to say, but I got this hangover or something, and what I want to say won’t come out right.’ He fingered his shaggy hair. ‘I want to say something else, but it doesn’t feel like I can yet. Can’t explain it.’ His hand remained unshaken. He shrugged and shoved it in his pocket. ‘So I’ll just have to say whatever comes. We don’t like foreigners. There you go, said it. Been saying it all my life, got taught to say it when I was a tiddler. Now I’m older, I can say what I want. When I’m ready. Still deciding about you, but… To be honest? I reckon I’m not that bothered about incomers anymore. Don’t know why I said that, but there you go. See-ya.’ He walked away to the platform shouting, ‘Oi! Any of you rug munchers seen Ralph?’
Mark swallowed hard. The guy had been smiling and amiable throughout his little speech, but the words…? It was clear. No-one wanted him here, and the only people who spoke to him were nutters.
Villagers were coming and going along the seafront road. Some turned up into the sloping lanes behind carrying shopping, others stopped and chatted briefly before cries of ‘Oh!’ and ‘How dare you!’ rang out, and they split apart. One lady received a slap on the head with the handbag of another. A man was taken by surprise by a long, lingering kiss from a woman at least twice his age and ran away crying. Two men fought over a pram, shouting, ‘It’s mine!’ before a woman grabbed the baby from it and hurried away.
Mark had never realised that the village was this entertaining, or this pretty. Until now, he hadn’t noticed the window boxes in colourful bloom, the hanging baskets, the bright whitewash on the walls. Every step was clean and gleaming, every cobble polished. He realised that there was no litter, no road signs, and no satellite dishes marring the quaint old cottages. The sun warmed the pollution-free air that filled the clear, blue sky. The sea was calm, and the boats moored up along the wall were picturesque. He could have been looking at a biscuit box or a jigsaw puzzle.
Yet the village did not want him, and they were all inbred, cousin-marrying arseholes.
He turned for home.
Then turned back again. No. He wanted to take a walk around the village. A tiny pilot light inside him ignited a desire to meet people, and he crossed the road, wondering why he was experiencing this change of heart.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, crouching to retie the lace of his trainer, ‘it’s because I actually want to.’
‘Want to what?’
He looked up to see the blonde hillbilly towering above.
Mark stood nervously. ‘Er, I want to say hello,’ he said and held out his hand. ‘But I don’t know why.’
‘Still not sure about you,’ Billy said regarding the offered hand, but not taking it.
Mark withdrew it. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I ain’t sure about anything this morning.’
‘I’m certain of one thing,’ Billy said. ‘And that’s that I got to find Ralph and stop him from taking my place.’
‘Is that a fish?’
‘What? No. Well, yes, and no. Ralph’s the village leader, top dogfish, him with the white beard and the scratchy face, big hands, no teeth, yellow eyes.’
‘Sounds like all of them if you ask me.’ It just slipped out and sounded like an insult. He backed off, preparing for Billy to take a swipe.
‘Oh my Cod!’ Billy’s eyes opened wide. He didn’t say anything else.
‘Oh my… cod?’ Mark ventured. ‘Did you say…?
‘You gone and hit the haddock on the head. They do all look the same, don’t they? I thought I was the only one who saw that. What’s your name, mate?’
‘Mate? You hate me, and my name’s Mark.’
‘Billy, but I told you that. You want to help? Come with me.’
Mark had a choice: to follow this guy and see what he wanted or take this chance to escape. Where was Billy up to? Was he trying to get Mark alone up some alleyway so he could beat the crap out of him? That was the impression Mark had gained from all other encounters with the fishermen since he’d arrived here. Why was today suddenly different? Why was Billy almost pleasant? Perhaps it was the festival. Maybe they had some strange ritual where they charmed incomers and then burned them at the stake.
‘You coming, mate?’ Billy called back.
Maybe Mark should just go with it; he was fed up with being ostracised. Wasn’t that what he wanted to do? Fit in and make friends? How come he now thought that this guy could be a friend? Come to that, where did that word ostracised come from? He’d never used it before.
‘Well?’
Billy was waiting for him and, shock of all shocks, he was smiling.
‘You going to bash my ’ead in?’
‘What for?’
‘Because I’m not one of you,’ Mark said as he took a tentative step towards Billy.
‘I don’t care what you’re a one of,’ Billy said. ‘You’ve come to live here, we should treat you properly. And I have no idea why I just said that, but…’ He stopped in mid-sentence and thought about it. ‘Well, let’s go, yeah?’
Mark checked out his alternatives. There was something of a catfight going on at the podium. The vicar was deep in conversation with the old fisherman’s pint glass, and a middle-aged man was breaking into the post office. There were worse things that Mark could be doing, so he followed Billy.
‘Hi, Dad,’ Billy said as they passed the man wrestling with the post office door. ‘It’s closed. What you doing?’
‘Billy,’ his dad said, standing up and looking not in the least guilty despite the bent coat hanger in his hand. ‘I saw the sisters were busy, so I was just going to make them some tea and take it across. I’ll pick up our milk, and I need to post a letter. I’ll leave the money on the counter.’ He opened the door and stepped inside to the tinkling of a bell. ‘You need anything?’
‘No thanks,’ Billy said, and then changed his mind. ‘Oh, if they’ve got a copy of Penthouse, you could drop me one at home.’ He handed his father some money.
‘No need, son,’ his dad said. ‘I’ve got this month’s. It’s at the back of my wardrobe behind your mother’s vibrator collection.’
Mark felt slightly queasy at this revelation.
‘Great, thanks, Dad.’ Billy walked on. ‘Come on, Mark. Oh, Dad. You seen Ralph?’
‘Yeah, he’s up at the chandler’s paying the bill he’s not paid these past ten years. If they’ve got Reader’s Wives, you want one of them? Your mum should be in it.’
‘Whatever.’
Billy’s dad closed the shop door, whistling, and Mark trotted to catch up to Billy.
‘If you don’t mind me asking,’ he said, ‘do you and your dad always speak like that?’
‘No,’ said Billy. ‘No need. I know where he keeps his stash. He used to be a Playboy man. The things you learn, eh? Mind you, Ma’s toy collection came as a bit of a shock, but then so did talking to you.’
Billy was affable, and so Mark, driven on by the curiosity boiler recently fired up inside, probed further. ‘You lot don’t like us, do you?’
‘Us lot? You mean them?’ Billy pointed to the fishing boats as he turned into a side lane. ‘I ain’t part of that lot.’
‘You are, don’t lie. You’re a fisherman too, one of them who’s made us so unwelcome.’
‘To tell you the truth,’ Billy said. ‘I don’t feel like that today. So, we need a plan.’
‘What for?’
‘Long story short, I got to stop Ralph from making the Merman Speech.’ He looked at his watch. ‘And we don’t have long. How we going to do it?’
‘We?’
‘Went when I got up, thanks.’
‘What? Look, mate,’ Mark stopped. Did he just call him mate? ‘What’s going on?’
The lane climbed up the hill with cottages on either side. Most had their windows open, and some had flags hanging from their eaves. A few people crisscrossed the lane, hurrying from one house to the other, delivering parcels, carrying bottles,and greeting each other with friendly waves. Some, Mark noticed, avoided others and slipped inside their houses when they saw them approaching. It was all very odd, but then the whole morning had been strange.
Billy must have seen what he was looking at because his face screwed up and he shook his head.
‘Not a clue what’s going on, mate,’ he said. Then he grinned, and Mark caught a flash of straight, white teeth. ‘You want to meet everyone?’
‘All of them? Hell no. I’m not in the mood for rampaging villagers coming at me with flaming torches and carting me off to a burning windmill.’
‘Oh my Cod!’ Billy said it again. ‘Frankenstein fan?’
‘Well, yes. Bride of, too.’
‘Anything by James Whale. So camp.’
‘Camp?’
‘Got a better word for it?’
Mark couldn’t think of one right then, so he just shook his head. He was still trying to work out what was happening to him when Billy surprised him again. This time, he put a large, calloused hand on Mark’s shoulder and squeezed gently.
‘You’ll meet them all later. Now we got to go and find Ralph.’ He let go and carried on walking.
Mark looked behind. There were no fisher-thugs coming at him, no-one was gathering in small groups, throwing evil looks his way, no-one appeared to even notice him.
‘Morning, Mrs Lumpsucker!’ Billy called to a woman as round as she was tall. ‘How’s Lilac?’
‘Hello, Billy, dear,’ the fat woman said, examining some laundry.
Her smile was barely visible among the folds of her face. Mark realised that there was no discernible distinction between her face and her chins, her chins and her neck, her neck and her enormous bosom. He tried not to stare, but it was like the thing with the fisherman’s missing eye; he just had to.
‘Lilac’s not so good today,’ Mrs Lumpsucker continued, leaning into Billy’s personal space and keeping her voice low. ‘She had a really heavy period in the night. Came on completely out of the blue. Out of the blue and into the red, you might say. Now I’ve got to spend the morning washing sheets when I should be shaving my fanny. Not done it for three weeks. It’s starting to get a bit overrun down there, and Lambert reckons he caught crabs, so I thought I better check myself out.’
There was something of a stunned pause during which Mark tried to keep his breakfast down.
‘Lambert?’ Billy asked. ‘What, the grocer?’
‘Oh yes.’ Mrs Lumpsucker sniggered, and twenty stone of blubber quivered from her head to the bollards she called ankles. ‘Don’t tell Mr Lumpsucker. I’m looking forward to doing that myself.’ Her eyes flicked to Mark. They looked like two beads lost in a double duvet. ‘Who’s this?’
‘This is Mark,’ Billy said, and he sounded almost proud to be introducing him. ‘Him and his mum have The Fisherman’s Arms now. You’ve seen him around.’
‘I don’t go out much,’ Mark said. ‘So you may not have.’
‘Well, good morning and welcome to you, young man,’ the woman said. ‘Good to see Billy making friends. Might take his mind off my girl for a minute.’ She addressed Billy. ‘She knows you want to make her this year’s mermaid, and I reckon she’ll give you a blowjob for it, but that’s as far as she can go right now.’ She held up a bloodied bedsheet, and Mark felt sick. ‘Don’t get your hopes up. All said and done, mind, I can always stand in for her.’
‘Gosh,’ said Billy, and left it at that.
‘Still, this isn’t going to get the washing done.’ Mrs Lumpsucker stood aside. ‘You go on your way, and you…’ She scrutinised Mark, and his heart skipped another beat. ‘If you ever want a fresh lemonade or a fruit cake, you just pop by. The men around here think they rule the roost, they want you incomers out, but us ladies think different. Give me half an hour, and I’ll have a newly shaved fanny for you too.’ She winked. Mark retched.
‘Got to go,’ Billy said and pulled Mark by the arm to uproot him from the spot. ‘By the way, Mrs L, you should really dump some weight, you know? If they ever brought back whaling, you’d be the first one to go.’
‘Oh, I agree, Billy dear,’ she replied as if the insult had been a compliment. ‘Kind of you to say it. Everyone’s been telling me that this morning. I lost two pounds last year. A few more and I’ll be able to wipe my arse. Oh look, there’s the vicar.’ She waved down the lane. ‘Morning, Vicar? Lambert’s expecting you. Watch out for the crabs.’
‘You’re a porker, aren’t you?’ the vicar called back politely. ‘Thanks for the tip.’ He vanished into a shop.
‘Can we get out of here?’ Mark asked.
‘No-one gets out of here,’ Billy said. ‘That’s the trouble with this place.’ He looked back at Mrs Lumpsucker. She was preening herself suggestively and making eyes at a man across the street, who, as soon as he noticed, ran for cover. ‘That bloody woman,’ Billy whispered. ‘She’d shag any bloke who stumbled through her door. Come on, we have to make a plan and see it through.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘And we got to do it quick. I hope you’re a brainy incomer.’ With that, he threw his arm around Mark’s shoulders, banged a fist gently into his chest and then let him go. ‘Time for revenge.’
