He said other things, but Dawn barely heard them. The inside took over, a kind of glow arresting her, numbing her to the rest of the difficult words that followed, which despite claiming not to invalidate her condition, invalidated her condition in the same way that a piece of paper balled-up then set alight and watched until it turns black can no longer be considered a piece of paper.
The trip home was silent as her mother sped over speed bumps and through fords, distractions like lambs lying in fields languishing under a strong autumn sun.
There were no raised voices in her mother’s new kitchen, surrounded by the marble worktops and brass handles. Dawn was not questioned to the point of being asked to prove her illness in the living room, which did not climax in Dawn barely being able to breathe through tears, as her mother pushed her out of her chair and her forehead connected with the newly stripped-back floorboards next to the kitchen island. No, this is not that kind of story.
Dawn returned to her essays and friends and abundant attentions of female friends, and men who were occasionally invited to take her on dates and even fumble around with her. Each of those men considered themselves better people for wheeling her along the cinema multiplex carpet, despite an attractiveness differential not in their favour that didn’t even occur to them when they were never invited on a third date. ‘She has her issues,’ they recounted to friends, while smiling with saintly looks on their faces. ‘Dawn is brilliant, we had a short but awesome time together.’
And slowly, in the first weeks of the third term, as exams approached, Dawn began to stand freely again. And when the word miracle was mentioned, she reminded the speaker that ‘This was never going to be forever, I knew it wouldn’t be.’ And when her female friends of that whole era receded into hallway well-wishers, and her male friends swelled as the student body saw that she looked just as good upright, she entered into a new life she barely looked back from. Her chair was donated to the theatre department, and that was that.
The first one inside the Sex on the Beach villa, Dawn skips past the pool, giggling as she dips her fingers in the chlorinated water, aware that cameras are watching her close, and imbuing her performance with all the day-glo colours of excitement they would expect.
‘Oh – my – god – this – is – flames,’ she says, in a kind of chant. ‘I hope that I look okay.’ And as she leans back over the pool like a latter-day narcissus, to catch her reflection, she hears another pair of heels enter the villa. She turns, glances over her left shoulder, feeling particularly grounded and statuesque, and looks up to see another pair of eyes meet hers so perfectly on cue it was as if the whole thing had been staged.
‘Oh – my – god!’ says Summer. Her blonde waves of hair look like she’s sitting on the back of a speedboat in front of a sun-soaked ocean.
‘You look amaze,’ Dawn says, running over to give her a hug.
‘Aw, you too, my love. That neon bikini is TD.’
‘Ha – is that good?’
‘TD? To die.’
Dawn squeals and internally berates herself for not getting that sooner.
‘What’s your name, darl?’ says Summer.
A pause. A hint of concealed disappointment. Of course, Dawn realises…Summer doesn’t know who Dawn is. Dawn is just one of five hundred thousand to Summer.
But Dawn rallies quickly. ‘Dawn. Like the early morning,’ she says. A hand clasp. Summer pulls her in. Bare right shoulder meeting bare left. Dawn squeezes back.
‘Summer. Like… what it is now,’ Summer says.
And she kisses Dawn on both cheeks. Summer smells just like Dawn thought she might. It’s such a coincidence, her being here, but Summer doesn’t think so. Summer doesn’t realise at all, as she runs her hand along the outdoor furniture, the sheen of the hot tub, the kitchen island counter.
Dawn watches her, recalling those girls she used to admire from sports outings. So competitive on the day. Then with a brush of hair across their reddened faces, they became fast friends. The Maynard School: Summer Charles. How can she forget? She used to stare at those pictures before bed. Just an idol, just a role model, no harm in it.
‘Hey,’ Summer says, running back to her to take Dawn’s hands. Is that an embarrassed look on her face? A remembrance, at last?
‘When do you think the boys get here?’ Summer says.
Dawn shakes her head in silence, blowing a curl of flame hair out of her eyes.
‘We’ve got the rest of the girls to come first,’ Dawn says.
‘Yes!’ Summer says, extracting enthusiasm from every surrounding atom. ‘Oh. Dawn?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m really looking forward to us becoming best friends.’
And Dawn feels the glow within her again.
Dogger. Fisher. German Bight. Humber. Thames. Dover.
Many miles away, the comforting sound of the voice that reads the shipping forecast describes still waters around the United Kingdom, but the sea around its furthest flung territory rises and falls with venom, like a great dark blanket shifting high into the air and crashing down many metres below. The water’s fingers shooting white spray into the air after crashing themselves onto the unfriendly rocks of Tristan Da Cunha.
The island’s two trawling ships are in, having retreated for the day after an early start in the navy-blue morning. Their modern motorised winches pulling in huge ancient nets, rudimentary things compared to those of many fishing vessels that sail the rest of the wide world, but strong enough to feed the residents of the island.
The British developed the first kind of trawler and christened it Dogger. A name that later was given to a patch of sea off the east coast: the pathway to Holland, co-star of the shipping forecast. It also happens to be the name of the larger of the two outrigger trawlers lying in wait, left to be beaten down in the harbour until the storm relents, which is scheduled to be some time tomorrow.
The Dogger’s fishermen left an hour ago, dressed in work-boots thick with various slimes. Above them begin the bib and brace overalls, a wet blackness at the ankles soon dissipating into the luminous orange they are intended to be. Rising to the stomach, they become caked in the grey remnants of assorted innards, and higher still, spackles of various hues of red, that are especially thick around the barrelled chest of one man in particular, dripping rain-diluted blood, from fish guts and whatever else, which fall down onto the front door step of the villa.
It is this that greets Simon, backed by his two makeshift henchmen, in the open doorway. The man in the stained overalls that once were orange. A long blunt instrument in his right hand, that rests low at his side for the moment.
‘HI!’ Roberto shouts, the noise escaping from him, far louder than intended. But Simon says nothing, waiting for the shock to settle as he looks at the fisherman’s face, shadowed by the premature darkness the storm has brought with it.
He is bearded and his eyes shine, though their intent can’t be judged with any accuracy at this point. Within the beard, his glistening red lips, caught by the light spilling from the hallway, open.
‘Storm on the way,’ he says, a growl in a minor key with little effort behind it. And as he says this, the one streetlamp blurred in Simon’s vision behind the man’s left shoulder flickers, then goes out, the orange glow disappearing from the wet concrete.
‘Thank you,’ says Simon. ‘We