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‘But I do know. I’m renting one of the prefabs. I’m living in Sheppey now.’
‘Yeah, well, what you don’t know, apparently,’ Lily said, smiling, ‘is that I can report you to the police for walking down this road naked.’
The man, under considerable duress, tried his best to hold his own. ‘That’s my prefab,’ he said bullishly, ‘I mean I’m renting it. So this here is the front of my house. And that …’ he pointed, ‘is the nudist beach.’
‘But this,’ Lily indicated with a flourish, ‘this is the sign that says you must put on clothes to go beyond that point. See?’
‘But there’s no one about.’
‘I’m about. And someone else lives in that prefab. Your neighbour. He’s short and bald and he’s always well covered. He would probably also be disgusted if he saw you this way.’
‘I’m not disgusting, I’m just naked. And this is a nudist beach.’
‘That is a nudist beach. This is the public highway.’
The man said nothing. Lily appraised him, coolly. ‘I’ve lived around here a long while. See those over there?’
She pointed at a cluster of houses; small, purpose-built chalets. He nodded. ‘That’s where you people go.’
‘Pardon?’
‘The Hamlet. It’s fenced off, see? That’s where all the temporary people go. Nobody permanent has anything to do with them. We think they’re weird.’
He glanced over at the chalets as though he hadn’t truly noticed them before. ‘Perhaps they think you’re weird.’
‘What?’
Lily crossed her arms.
‘I’m going to the beach now. It’s too cold to stand around talking.’
‘Fine.’
The man – he was called Luke Hamsun, he was forty-seven and a professional photographer – walked past Lily and on to the beach. Lily turned and watched his retreating torso, then she threw down her bike and went to peer inside his prefab.
Luke had found the idea of a shell beach appealing, initially. It brought to mind the image of Venus rising from her oyster. This whole place is practically deserted, he thought bitterly, and yet fate brings me bang into contact with Prissy Miss Moon Features.
He wondered what Lily’s name was. He wondered whether she’d prove photogenic.
No people. He recited this like a mantra. No people. That’s why I’m here. No drink. No fags. No people. No sex. No stress. No people. Just emptiness. That’s all.
The sea was brown. It wasn’t even the sea, really. It was the channel. This place is truly the back of beyond, Luke thought smugly. It was grey and bleak and very flat. It was like the moon, in fact. But did they have seas on the moon? He remembered hearing something similar in a way-distant geography lesson but he couldn’t decide if the seas in question were wet seas or dry seas.
How could you have a dry sea? And if the sea on the moon was wet, wouldn’t the water float off because there was no gravity on the moon to hold things down?
He walked along the beach. The shells were actually quite hard on his feet. His feet were tender, underneath, and so was he. He held in his paunch. Nothing moved. He supposed that the muscles on his gut had stopped working. He breathed out. No, they had been working after all. He coughed. His belly hurt.
The brown water lapped at his feet. It was icy.
Oooohhhhh! Much colder than he’d imagined. He was naïve like that. This instance was entirely typical. He moved back a step. The sky was massive. Flat land, flat sea, and a great big, dirty, mud-puddle of a sky.
It looked like it was going to rain. He shivered. He peered over his shoulder to see if the girl had gone. It seemed like she had.
As Luke strolled back to his prefab he confidently sidelined any thoughts of his own physical timidity (shouldn’t the sea feel warmer in cold weather? He’d certainly always thought so. He’d been misled, clearly) and instead he bolstered himself by imagining the cosmos; black, enormous, dotted intermittently with diamond-chip stars, and then a sea, floating. A giant sea with waves and foam and everything. Just, kind of, floating.
He imagined himself, Luke Hamsun, on the moon, moon-walking. He’d been sent to the moon to recapture the sea, to tighten it up, to winch it down.
Over his shoulder Luke pictured heavy ropes which were weightless because nothing weighed on the moon, and in his hands a dozen giant tent pegs. He was supernaturally powerful. He was Flash Gordon. He had no back problem. No gut-ache. His sciatica was a phantasm. He would never keel over and die. He was no longer forty-seven.
And in some respects this was actually true. At least it could have been true in a different world. It just so happened that Luke Hamsun was an earthling, and as such, he was obliged to endure the drag of gravity. He was grounded.
But he endured phlegmatically, cheerfully almost. He didn’t complain. He saved his breath. In fact he hoarded it. He held it.
Lily, meanwhile, had made herself comfortable on Luke’s sofa and was inspecting one of his portfolios.
‘Oh good,’ she said calmly, when he strolled back inside, turning a photo around so that he could see it properly, ‘now you’ve returned you can set me straight on this. Is that a pickaxe up her arse or …’
‘How did you get in here?’
Lily lifted the photo and reappraised it. ‘If you’ve got no trousers then you’ve got no pockets. If you’ve got no pockets then you’ve got no keys.’
Luke felt enraged, violated, defiled, but when he finally spoke it was with great softness. ‘Put those down and get out of here.’
Lily, rather surprisingly, responded to the softness. She closed the portfolio.
‘You’re a bit of a pervert then, on the quiet?’
‘You’re a silly little sneak.’
‘A what?’
Lily stood up, smirking. Luke felt embarrassed by his nakedness and picked up a coat from a chair by the door. He put it on. He looked ridiculous now, naked, wearing only a coat. The coat was incriminating.
‘So that’s why you’ve come here,’ she said, pouting deliciously, ‘to take some more of these dirty pictures?’
‘They aren’t dirty pictures.’
She’d struck a nerve. She knew it. She always knew. She laughed. ‘So what’s that then?’
Against the wall, yet to be hung, stood a picture of a naked female cupping her breasts like they were two neat apples, but the breasts had been yanked up high as though she planned to pillow her chin on them. It looked uncomfortable.
‘It’s a nude.’
‘A nude. Oh. I get it.’
Lily continued to eye the picture.
‘Ouch!’ she said.
‘Get out.’
‘Certainly.’
She sauntered towards the door.
‘If you break into my house again I’ll call the police.’
Lily just giggled. ‘I didn’t break into anything. It was wide open.’
‘Get out.’
‘I’m getting out.’
The sea lapped coldly outside the prefab’s door. Three giant steps and she was in it. Fully dressed. Feet, knees, hips, breasts. She waved her arms at him.
‘I’m freeeee!’ she screamed.
He hated her then. She was free.
In fact she had screamed I’m freezing! but a small wave had hit her.
She had no grand scheme. Not yet. Nothing like that.
4
No one else would do these jobs. It was like being a spaceman, but with all of the discomfort and none of the glory. In the trade they called them skins. There was a theatrical side. Ronny did that sometimes but he hated being around children.
Then there was the industrial side. Councils hired him to spray weedkiller, to clean stuff up, to juggle with noxious chemicals. Someone had to do it. So Ronny obliged. He was that someone. A consummate professional.
Others found the precautionary clothing bothersome and claustrophobic. Several people had sued after contracting breathing difficulties and skin infections from handling dangerous substances. Ronny knew that this was because they took off their helmets when it got too hot. They didn’t take precautions. He always took them. That was his trademark, his hallmark. That was his stamp of quality.
Anyway, it was part of the kick. No air. To be enclosed. The chafing, the sweating. The chronic discomfort. That was all part of it.
He wore white shoes. Special shoes. In fact the entire get-up was white, even the helmet. Ronny peered down at his shoes. He thought about the man on the bridge, wide open, and in the same instant he thought of Monica.
Monica.
She had been his confidante. His correspondent. His best friend. His only friend. He’d liked it that way.
Monica had an opinion on everything. She had an interest in biology. Physical things. She was an adventuress. She hated to be enclosed, which was why, finally, she ended up in Sumatra, in the rain forests. She was working out there with a journalist. They were interested in DNA; all that complex genetic stuff which, quite honestly, meant precious little to Ronny.
Monica could never simplify the nature of her work in conversation without becoming impish and flirtatious. If Ronny couldn’t understand what it was that she was doing she’d crystallize it by saying, ‘I’m interested in what it is that makes a man a man, Ronny. I’m interested in apes.’
So they were searching for a missing ape in the forests of Sumatra. A missing link. A great ape. A fantastic ape. A pale giant. He walked on his hind legs and to all intents and purposes he resembled a man but his feet turned inwards. And unlike his human relations he had no big toes.
Monica had never seen him. She’d seen Ronny though, but only fleetingly, a long time ago. He’d made a great impression. He’d become indelible. He’d left his footprint in the mud of Monica’s brain. She couldn’t shake him.
Oran-pendic. That was the ape’s name. Mr Unpronounceable. In his dictionary Ronny saw that orang – or something quite like it – was Malay for man. Like in orang-utan which roughly speaking translated as ‘man of the forest’.
Oranpendic was not in his dictionary. He didn’t exist. Not yet, anyway. When Monica found him he would exist but not before. When Monica found him Ronny too would see him, not physically – nothing nearly so dramatic – but slotted in among all his other words and definitions. On paper. In print. In bold.
But for now the oranpendic was their own special creature. Not a fact or a definition. Nothing absolute. Merely a fragment.
Ronny looked up pendic for the exercise but could find only pend which meant to hang (as in ‘pendant’). He guessed the word had something to do with per-pend-icular. Upright. Vertical. But frankly he found both this description and the original name unsatisfactory.
Oranpendic.
Monica didn’t give a shit. It didn’t matter. She was more interested in the hunt. She’d been called a hoaxer. Well, not Monica so much as the journalist, Louis, who was the truly infamous half of the duo.
She’d heard him on the radio and then she’d saved up all her money working as a lab assistant at a school in Swindon to fly out and join him. She was impulsive like that. Some called it gullible. Either way, she was never afraid. Nothing daunted her.
Initially the journalist had been discomfited by Monica’s presence. He’d felt invaded. Monica could have that effect sometimes. But then he grew accustomed to her and they began the hunt proper.
Ronny had seen several articles about the hoax. Naturally people doubted the existence of the oranpendic. But the journalist claimed to have seen him, briefly, and his account of this fantastical discovery was fairly convincing.
Monica had a theory about faces. She said honesty was something you could see in a person’s face. Someone’s sincerity, their integrity, was as apparent to Monica on the first meeting as their hair colour or the shape of their nose. This was her preoccupation. Her instinct.
In fact she had two main instincts. The first was for honesty, and the second told her that the oranpendic was alive but that he was afraid. The threat of discovery terrified him. So he kept hidden.
She wrote to Ronny.
He’s afraid, Ronny. I know that much. He lives and walks in fear. Some days, if I wake early, I go out alone just after dawn. Everything is glazed. The air is full of moisture. It’s as thick, as dense as a woollen scarf pressing down on to my lips and up into my nostrils.
At these times I dream I’ll see him. But he’s pale like the mist and he’s so afraid that it’s as if he’s only a ghost. I always have the camera – not Louis’s big professional thing, I have my own, a cheap one that I’ve never yet used, just in case – but I sometimes imagine that if I tried to photograph him, the fear, the focus, the technology, would obliterate him. And all that would remain – in the camera, in the world – would be vapour. A mist and a smell.
Fear has its own special aroma. Like soil. Like cider vinegar. Did I lose you yet, Ronny? Did I? Could I?
Here’s the truth. If I saw him I would not photograph him. It would be so rude, don’t you think? I’ve never told Louis I feel this way. He’d scoff. I mean that’s why he’s here, after all. He has more to lose than I do. He’s been publicly and uniformly ridiculed and slandered, so that’s fair enough.
But if I saw the oranpendic I would not photograph him. I would kneel and I would hold out my hand. I would not stare. I’d look off sideways, like a friendly cat. That’s what I’d do. I’d adopt a submissive posture.
Oh God Ronny I wish you were here. I’m sorry you lost your hair. I am. Did I ever say that before? I can’t remember. Do you miss me? My own hair is long now. I tie it back. Otherwise it catches on twigs and on branches. It’s stupid and impractical but I’m growing it as a tribute. I’m growing it for you.
You feel very close at this moment. Is that stupid? Are you near me? Are you out there, hiding in the jungle, watching, waiting but I just can’t see you? Is it me who’s dense or is it the forest? Is it me?
Shut your eyes Ronny, and imagine me here. Close your eyes. Close them. Do you see me? My hair is longer. My nails are dirty. Do you see me? I am kneeling. I am holding out my hand.
Take it.
M.
Ronny continued to stare at his shoes. White shoes. Then he stirred himself and picked up his bottle of weedkiller. He had walked five miles that day. He’d sprayed every crack in every bit of pavement. No weeds would come after he’d been. There would be no green after he’d been. No lush diversity in the pavement’s monotony. He’d seen to that.
It was hot inside his helmet. But Ronny walked and he sprayed. Like a tomcat, scenting all those docile miles with the stink of poison. He didn’t think of the poison though, only of Monica. His own breath soaked his face. The forests were hot and airless. Like this, he supposed. He was close to her. She was right. He was very close. And she was certainly a rare bird.
5
He drove home later than he’d anticipated and hit the rush hour. In his keenness to evade it he’d skipped changing, so wore his white skin-suit, in full, but without the helmet. From the neck downwards he resembled an alien. Or an astronaut. He even wore his plastic gloves, which generated a curious friction on the steering wheel as he turned corners.
