‘Effortlessly cool and very funny’ Metro 19 страница

‘Cheesy,’ I say. ‘This ghost story is chee-zee.’

We reach the bottom of the steps and approach the hut. It’s still just about white but the paint is flaking off. I look in through a small, smashed window. The shack looks charmingly spooky from far away but when you get up close, you realize that it’s just an old shed: it smells of piss and there are broken Heineken bottles on the floor.

‘So the son comes back up on deck. But by this time the storm has really taken hold. The waves are towering, pushing them towards the cliffs. And in the battle to save the ship, the boy is thrown overboard.’

‘He’s wearing a life jacket of course,’ I say.

‘Yes, he is. But they are too close to the cliffs. And before the father can pull his son out, the boy gets tossed against the rocks. He gets flung against the cliffs and his father can’t do anything but watch.’

‘That’s just not convincing. You should have at least let the tension build a little,’ I say.

Dad’s standing next to the mechanism that they used to tow the boat in: a hook hanging from a kind of crane that sticks out over the water.

‘And the boy’s dead, or soon to be dead, still floating in his life jacket, with his desperate father screaming at him to pick up the life rope.’

‘Why didn’t the father dive in?’ I ask.

‘Because then they would surely have both died.’

‘It would have been a nice gesture.’

It’s too sunny and clear to be scared of anything. I could watch Hellraiser in this light, no problem. This is Ouija weather.

I can see why someone wrote a ghost story about this spot. In fact, it would probably be in my top-three best hypothetical spots to commit suicide. And on a day like this, you couldn’t do much better. I imagine the coastguard’s helicopter spotting the body, waves crashing into the cliffs below, seagulls at my eyeballs already, a pod of seals mourning from the water. And the coastguard has a high-quality video camera and they sweep past and the shot goes out on local news at first, but then it gets picked up by the international news corporations and photos of my corpse are being constantly downloaded from the net and soon it’s back on the News at Ten and CNN under the pretence of a story about how messed up the internet is – and how upsetting for the family – but actually, it’s such a beautiful helicopter shot that they’ll find any excuse to show it.

‘And so his son died,’ I say. ‘And the old man survived the storm, then hung himself from this beam?’

‘Correct,’ she says.

‘Yawn,’ I say. ‘I’m not frightened.’

Dad is standing on the edge of the concrete foundations. He is peering down, watching an ongoing grudge match: The Waves versus The Rocks.

‘It’s hanged, not hung. He hanged himself,’ Dad says. He steps back, turns around. ‘Who are we talking about?’

‘The creepy old lifeboat man,’ I say.

‘Oh yeah, that’s true,’ Dad says.

‘Shut up it’s true,’ I say.

Dad looks at me blankly. There is the sound of the waves slapping and butting.

‘He had spent years of his life saving people on the Gower coast and then his son drowned while under his supervision. He hanged himself,’ he says.

‘And now he haunts these shores,’ I say, wiggling my fingers in the air and making a horror face.

‘Oliver,’ he says disapprovingly.

The sunlight is coming side-on: making half his face bright, half of it dark.

‘My fault.’ Mum butts in. ‘I thought it was a ghost story.’

Dad looks at her. ‘Jill, that’s terrible.’

She bares her teeth.

‘It’s true. It happened,’ Dad says. ‘In the eighties.’

‘That is awful,’ she says. ‘Why did I think it was a ghost story?’

I put my head on her shoulder.

‘Because the thought of losing your beloved son – i.e., me – is so terrible that even when you hear about it happening to other people, you have to convince yourself it’s not real.’

I notice that the sun is setting. I do not believe in scenery but still, there it is.

‘It’s an absolutely stunning day,’ Dad says.

The sun dissolving against the horizon like aspirin. A bright, white path of light on the surface of the water.

Mum leans into my arm.

‘You might be right, Oli,’ she says.

I feel a little bit ill at the vastness of the ocean. There are dark patches and lighter patches on the water. The dark patches are shaped like continents.

‘Why are there bits of water darker than other bits?’

‘Maybe something to do with the currents,’ Dad says.

‘Imagine all the mental things that live down there,’ I say.

Particularly those at the deepest parts. Voluminous jelly creatures that could squeeze through a keyhole but have mouths so wide they could swallow a whale. Pressure makes no bones. I consider telling my parents that I want to become a marine biologist; it’s already one of the most commonly proposed career paths among my schoolmates.

The sun is setting. The light is yolky and warm.

‘You know they used ultrasound during the Second World War to detect submerged objects,’ I say.

I am standing in between them, shoulder to shoulder.

‘I didn’t know that,’ Dad says. He is a Welsh historian.

The sun is setting. All the colours are there.

‘How deep is the ocean?’ Mum asks. Her real surname is Hunter. Jill Hunter. The sun is setting.

‘Not sure,’ Dad says.

I like it when my parents do not know things.

Goldfish grow to fit the size of their bowls.

‘The ocean is six miles deep,’ I tell them.

The sun is setting.

And it’s gone.

Acknowledgements

I wrote the majority of this book whilst studying creative writing at the University of East Anglia. I am very grateful to all the tutors and students there for their help and encouragement. In particular, I’m thankful for the expertise of John Boyne, Megan Bradbury, Andrew Cowan, Doug Cowie, Sian Dafydd, Patricia Duncker, Seth Fishman, Paulo Mellett, Micheèle Roberts, Clive Sinclair, Joel Stickley and Luke Wright. Particular thanks to Tim Clare, whose patience, enthusiasm and friendship have been invaluable. Also, I would not have been able to write this book without the Curtis Brown Prize and the assistance of the AHRC.

For energy, support and attention to detail, I would especially like to thank my agent, Georgia Garrett. Hefty thanks also to Simon Prosser, my editor. I’d also like to thank Francesca Main, Emma Horton and everyone at Penguin, Philippa Donovan, Rob Kraitt, Naomi Leon and everyone at AP Watt and Claire Paterson.

I posted the first chapter of this book – when it was just a short story – on ABCtales.com; the response it received had a large part in my decision to write Submarine. I’d also like to thank Lara Frankena; in the chapter Apostasy, the twigs that spell the word ‘help’ are taken from her poem ‘Vipassana Meditation Retreat, Ten Days’ Silence’.

For their support and for living with this book, thank you: Fran Alberry, David Rhys Birks, Ben Keeps Brockett, Simon Brooke, Ally Gipps, Alison Hukins, Matt Lloyd-Cape, Toby Gasston, Gregg Morgan, Alastair O’Shea, Dylan O’Shea, Emily Parr, Ian Rendell, Laura Stobbart, Maya Thirkell, Hannah Walker and Mial Watkins.

To my family, for their encouragement and love: Mum, Dad and my sisters, Anna and Leah.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04