Chapter 49

[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]

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Friday 20th August 1999

 

 

Alright, let’s start part 2 with the morning after the argument. When Dakota, Kitty and I headed to the living area to get some breakfast, we found Bao, Zahid and Harriet already up and eating. I’d expected a frosty atmosphere to contrast the heat of the night before, but instead, Harriet almost immediately called me over with a pillow-soft tone of voice. I sat down opposite her, concerned for a moment about where this would lead… seeing her expression didn’t clarify things too much, considering she seemed to be composing herself even while her brow hung remorsefully-low.

 

“Listen… I’m sorry I got so angry last night…” she began gently. “I should’ve tried better to keep calm, but you got me worked up and… I’d been holding it in for a while. I probably should’ve spoken to you about it sooner, maybe even the day you came back.”

 

“It’s fine,” was the basic response I found myself providing. “I’m sorry I snapped and yelled at you…”

 

“I forgive you,” she smiled, sparing me the effort of elaborating as she had. Reaching across the table, she placed a hand on mine. “Friends?”

 

“Of course,” I nodded back, letting a light smile find its way to my face (which wasn’t hard when the relief that she wasn’t going to hold a grudge made me feel a little better). She patted my hand lightly in approval, and then withdrew her arm, and that was that. Water under the bridge, I suppose, if revolting muddy water.

 

If you thought that was a disappointingly calm start to the day (I don’t know why you would, but who knows?), have no fear. An hour later, we were whizzing repeatedly down the Cresta Run slide like our lives depended on it. After all the things we’ve done, you wouldn’t think riding down a giant wavy slide in what I can only describe as a cross between a sack and those thick brown doormats would feel that exciting, but it was still a lot of fun. It felt grounded, and normal, like the kind of thing anyone might do with their friends.

 

Mundane. But still fun. Fundane.

 

Besides, with there being four lanes (and only a handful of other visitors), we soon wound up racing each other down to the bottom and whisking up any kind of trick to help us accelerate ourselves. Kendal, of course, had played a large part in developing competitive sack-sliding, and seemed to be honing a luge technique to great effect. The only downside was, after a couple of dozen accelerated runs down the slide, she proceeded to bring up the breakfast she’d been singing the praises of not long before.

 

“Is she okay…?” Kitty asked from a safe distance.

 

“Is she ever?” Zahid snarked back.

 

“She’ll be fine…”

Dakota strode past us, effortlessly taking the supportive role by walking over to our puking friend and rubbing her back.

“You should probably take a break now,” she suggested. “Otherwise you’ll be throwing up last night’s dinner too.”

 

“Yeah… I’ll give it a few minutes…” Kendal gurgled, trying to recover herself as quickly as possible, standing upright and staggering as though she’d moved too fast and made herself dizzy.

 

“Or just call it quits,” Dakota countered with as gentle a tone as she could muster for what was clearly meant as insistence. Her hands had immediately moved to Kendal’s shoulders to support her.

 

“Mhm…” she whined disappointedly.

 

… I’m still not entirely sure how she wound up vomiting just from shooting down a wavy slide repeatedly…

 

The rest of that day was a little more low-key, as we visited the local aquarium in the afternoon and then had dinner at the park’s restaurant, during which Bao, his thirst for knowledge inflamed by the aquarium visit, reeled off every conceivable fact about ocean life while committing himself to learning more when we returned home. I actually dreamt about being in a submarine surrounded by fish that night.

 

“You’re welcome!” Bao grinned when I told him the next morning. “Were there any tarpons?”

 

“I… I dunno…” I told him truthfully. “I don’t know what they look like, so I couldn’t dream of them.”

 

“Good point,” he mused. “I wonder if fish mean anything in… dream language? Y’know, how things in dreams mean other things. Tunnels meaning sex and all that.”

 

“I think it means yesterday was about 64% fish.”

 

“Yeah… or…”

I braced myself for whatever idea he was about to pluck from the aether.

“It could mean… that you feel like a small fish in an endless ocean…”

My face must have betrayed how unconvincing I found that, as he hastily added:

“Subconsciously.”

 

“I guess we all are, in a way,” I shrugged, which was enough for him to nod and smile at his evident success.

 

Another visit to the beach that day, under a particularly warm and bright sun in a speckless blue sky. This time, Kendal had purchased a beach ball and a net for us to play some beach volleyball… I don’t know if all these months as a Painter has made me more athletic or if I’d just found my niche, but for someone with no natural aptitude for sport, I wasn’t doing half-bad. Obviously Kendal was still far superior, and Zahid was pretty solid too, but I was honestly kind of proud at how quickly I got the hang of it. And Kitty even joined in after a while (and a lot of insistence from the other girls)… it’s always nice to see her joining in with everyone else and finding her feet.

 

“Hup!” escaped from Dakota’s lips as she leapt up to knock the ball back over the net; it shot straight for an empty space to Kendal’s right, and before anybody could react, it bounced hard off the sand and flew straight towards a young woman sunbathing. Like something out of a comedy, it landed squarely on her stomach, startling her with all four of her limbs flailing out momentarily in surprise.

 

“Sorry, sorry!” Kendal called out to her, dashing over to her immediately. “My bad, I should’ve gotten it and-”

 

“Don’t worry, I’ll survive…” the woman replied, handing the ball back to Kendal. “Just… please be more careful.”

 

“Of course!” my friend nodded. “And hey, y’know, if you feel like joining us, we’re four against three right now, so you could even the odds…”

 

Kendal and Zahid were on the smaller team. Five vs. three would’ve been more even…

 

“That’s sweet of you,” the brown-haired lady chuckled. “I’ll keep your offer in mind.”

 

“Have you played volleyball before?”

Kendal’s hips were swaying a little. Even without a clear view of her face, that along with the fact she had halted the game just to chat with a stranger was enough to make me clock that she was attracted to her.

 

“Not since I finished school. I’m not really that sporty.”

 

“You don’t have to be, beach volleyball’s all about having fun!”

 

“Excuse me…”

A man around the same age as the woman approached, holding an ice cream in either hand. He’d seemed to have grasped the situation just like I had, and from his expression, he wasn’t happy in the slightest.

“Why are you chatting up my girlfriend?”

 

“N-No, I wasn’t, uhm…” Kendal stuttered, more uncomfortable than I think I’d ever seen her.

 

“Are you a dyke or something?” he sneered at her, body language reading maximum intimidation (hampered only by the ice creams). His word choice seemed to cut harder, though, especially with how sharply he said it.

 

“Evan…” the woman glowered at her boyfriend.

 

“The ball- it bounced and-”

 

“Hey,” Zahid called out, striding over to the confrontation and the young man in particular. “You’ve made your point, now wind your neck in.”

 

“Keep your lezzer on a leash next time,” Evan grunted, passing one of the cones down to his girlfriend while keeping his line of sight on Kendal and Zahid.

 

“Grow the fuck up,” Zahid sighed, and then turned away. Kendal didn’t follow him, instead looking back down at the woman.

 

“Sorry your boyfriend’s such a dick,” she spoke solemnly before saluting the man and returning to us, exhaling heavily to calm her nerves.

“Alright… let’s play…”

Without missing a beat, she threw the ball up and effortlessly hit it across the net.

 

As we continued playing, I noticed Evan nag his girlfriend into moving further down the beach. Good riddance. The rest of our game went without any issue, unless you count me, Dakota, Bao and Kitty losing miserably as an issue.

 

“Why did you drop everything to start chatting that woman up…?” Zahid asked her later, once we returned to the caravan; the brave face Kendal had been putting on faltered.

 

“I dunno, I got carried away… she looked really nice and…”

She was fidgeting as she trailed off.

 

“Were you gonna ask her out or something?” Bao asked. “What if she was from… Cumbria or Lincoln?”

 

“Pen-girlfriends,” Kitty proposed succinctly.

 

“I wasn’t thinking about stuff like that,” Kendal insisted. “I mean, I wasn’t thinking about anything, I was on autopilot… I’m just kinda lonely…”

Her eyes moved to me when she said that. That was a loaded remark, and she was making that known to me. She was still missing Lucy.

 

“You’ll find someone, Kendal, I know it,” Harriet assured her with a warm smile. Kendal’s brave face snapped back on (maybe it was genuine, but the look she’d just given me made me doubt that), and she gave a hearty chuckle.

 

Before we knew it, Thursday had arrived, our final full day in Weymouth. After swimming in the morning, we spent the afternoon in town, shopping around for souvenirs. I should add, when I say souvenirs, I mean a very broad “anything that we can buy here and remember that we bought it here”, since I (rather sheepishly) got Transmetal Optimus Primal at the local Toymaster, and Bao purchased a book about fish from W.H. Smith. And then, for our last evening, we got ourselves fish and chips and sat on the short wall along the walkway behind the beach, watching the sea and chatting as we ate.

 

Satisfied and with full stomachs, we made our way back to the park.

 

“Bao and I are going to go for a walk,” Harriet informed the rest of us as we disembarked from the cars. “We’ll be back in a little while.”

 

“Have fun!” Dakota smiled back while fishing out the caravan keys (she’d taken over management of them after Bao almost lost them).

 

Bao and Harriet wandered off into the dimming light while the rest of us headed inside the caravan. Honestly, after a few minutes, it felt like the two of them had the right idea… we didn’t really have much to do now, having crammed so much into the past several days. Maybe it was an indication that we were ready to go back home – maybe it was the thought of going home, the feeling of finality, that had sapped away the remaining buzz of excitement – but we’d sort of melted into familiar territory. I sat in the corner part of the main sofa, watching TV with Kendal while Dakota laid back with her feet in my lap. Zahid was flicking through a magazine, looking disinterested, and Kitty was drawing in a sketchpad. We’d travelled however many miles and we were now doing what we could’ve done at Dakota’s place.

 

“Anything interesting in there, Zahid?” I asked him as the TV went to the adverts.

 

“Absolutely nothing,” he grumbled. “How’s the show?”

 

“It’s alright…”

There had to be something better than this…

“What’re you drawing, Kitty? If you don’t mind telling us.”

 

She looked up from her work, briefly taken aback, before tilting her head slightly in thought.

“Well… it’s kinda stupid, but… I made my own superhero when I was little, and I’ve been working on redesigning him…”

 

“Tell Bao! He’ll be your first fan!” Kendal rightly cheered.

 

“Maybe…” Kitty winced.

 

“You should show us sometime,” I told her. “You’re a great artist.”

 

“Thanks…”

 

“You’ve seen her art before?” Kendal asked me, curiosity piqued.

 

“She made me a birthday card on my 17th.”

 

“Oooh!”

Kendal turned to Kitty with wide eyes and a grin to match.

“Make one for my 18th next month, Kitty!”

 

“I… I could just buy you one…”

 

“No, it means more if you made it yourself!”

 

“Okay, I will,” Kitty relented, smiling lightly from Kendal’s enthusiasm.

 

“Sweeeet!”

 

“Watch out, Kitty,” Zahid spoke, “you’ll be taking art requests for life now.”

 

“Ah…” the girl muttered, realisation visibly dawning on her.

 

“You can just have them pay for each piece you draw,” I joked, although the idea honestly seemed to settle on her from the way she appeared to mull it over.

 

“Yeah, and you’ll be rich in no time,” Zahid added, smirking.

 

It was right around then that I saw Kendal moving around in my peripheral vision, and heard Dakota titter to herself. A moment later, Kendal’s now-bare feet landed in my lap – she was lying across her end of the sofa, perpendicular to Dakota.

 

“It’d be cool to draw for a living, but I know that won’t happen…” Kitty noted sullenly.

 

And in my lap, Dakota’s and Kendal’s feet started rubbing playfully against each other. My eyes couldn’t tear themselves from the display, and both girls giggled knowingly. I had no idea why it was happening, but I can’t say I wasn’t enjoying it.

 

“I dunno. You’ve got to be realistic, but it isn’t impossible. You have to work at it, hard. Nothing worth doing in life is easy.”
It was nice to hear Zahid be so sincere on something like this. Not that I really considered that in the moment, understandably.

 

“I guess… … uhm…”

 

And I knew what that “uhm” was about. I could almost feel Kitty’s gaze.

 

“Ah.”
And that was Zahid looking too.

“Yeah, he’s into feet.”

And that was the line that threatened to make my cheeks burst in a bloody eruption. Or to be switched to past tense and written on my gravestone.

 

“… wh-what do you mean…?” Kitty asked.

 

“What does he mean, Alex?” Dakota echoed, right before her feet stopped wrestling with Kendal’s and began sliding up my left arm. Kendal did the same on my other side.

 

“Why…?” I whimpered. We had an audience. “Conflicted” doesn’t begin to describe how I was feeling in that moment. Their feet reached my head. My eyes dazedly looked at a smirking Zahid and a perplexed, blushing Kitty.

 

“Cos it’s funny,” Kendal told me succinctly, as her feet and Dakota’s explored my hair.

 

I looked at the audience of two, flustered, panicked.

“Y-You two can go i-if-”

 

“Nah, I wanna see if you die of embarrassment,” Zahid told me. Kitty simply watched on, her sketchpad placed down on the table and forgotten now.

 

“Thanks man-”

And that was the last thing I said before two pairs of feet made their way into my face, accompanied by more joyful giggling. As embarrassed as I was, this was getting to me intensely.

 

I’ll spare you the details, but, well… when in Rome…

 

Yeah. I think that’s more in the ballpark of how you’d expect a teen getaway to come to an end.

 

(You should’ve seen Harriet’s face when she and Bao returned. … I wish I hadn’t…)

 

Friday morning was a blur. We ate breakfast, packed our bags and took one final stroll around the park before handing in our key. I shouldn’t have to describe that bittersweet feeling of leaving your holiday destination to return home… I’m sure you know it too. Driving out of the park, past the beachfront and through town, knowing we wouldn’t be seeing it again at least any time soon… that our time there was done…

 

And still, as we made the journey back home, once again stocked up on sweets, that homecoming feeling stirred up inside me. The holiday was over, and our everyday lives were awaiting us once more. Eventually, we reached familiar sights, heading steadily closer until-

 

Well, it got kind of messy here, because Harriet wanted to be dropped off home, and then we were driving from place to place to all drop off our luggage and greet our families. Kendal drove herself and Bao off to both of their places, while Zahid dropped Dakota, Kitty and me off at my house; Lucy wasn’t around but I at least got to see my parents, and they met Kitty while Zahid returned the car to his uncle. Eventually, the three of us walked back to Dakota’s place, where Kendal turned up with Bao and Zahid.

 

Still following?

 

You’d think we’d be sick of the sight of each other by now, but we figured we’d hang out for the rest of the day. And, true to form, we played video games and had pizza for dinner. Our regular lives solidly back in place.

 

But there it was, over so quickly and turned over to the past, history, memory; that one week in the summer of 1999 where we all went on holiday together.

 

(I say like it was years ago and not something that’s just ended. Alex Matthews, sentimental and ever-so-slightly tanned.)

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