Beach Bodies: Part Two

To be watched is to be safe, keep being observed, keep playing the game, it’s the best way to stay alive.

‘If you say so,’ says the fisherman, with a single shot of doubting laughter.

Zack crouches down to place his hand on the tiles. ‘He’s right. Underfloor heating’s gone already.’

A few noises of concern from surrounding boys and girls, who are now shivering with folded arms. Psychosomatic, Simon thinks. Tell them they’re cold and that’s what they believe. You could put whatever you want into heads like these.

‘Lights next,’ Justine says, with her eyes all over Simon.

‘No,’ says Simon, turning back to the fisherman. ‘We have a system.’

‘System, eh?’ says the fisherman, immediately triggering Simon.

‘I know the technology,’ he says.

‘I know the island.’

There’s a stand-off. All eyes on the two men in front of them, but the fisherman merely blinks and turns his gaze to Liv, who straightens and starts when she sees his sallow skin, yellowing eyes and the dark bags beneath.

‘Jumpy ones, aren’t you?’ he says, his eyes running along Liv, who gives a non-committal wince and shrug, a serrated kitchen knife in her hand, out of view.

‘Maybe a little,’ Dawn says. Offering a smile that the fisherman chooses not to reciprocate.

‘And I know why,’ the fisherman mutters.

Their eyes dart around the room. Simon swallows a sour taste. Behind the intruder, Roberto takes a step in, but to do what, he doesn’t know. Zack’s eyes go to Liv’s, catching her priming herself for something.

‘Because of the storm,’ the fisherman says. And the other bodies in the house relax, their muscles loosening. ‘You won’t get storms much like this back where you’re from.’

He reaches down for the package he carried here on his back; thick, rippling with weight and bound in a makeshift sack made from tarpaulin.

Then a sound stops him in his tracks; thunder that sounds more like a distant drill, trying to pierce its way into their world through the heavy clouds. The kind of noise that lodges in your bones and leaves a cold white shiver there.

The fisherman nods. ‘Not your average storm, I’d say. Not that I’ve anything to compare it to. Never left the island myself.’

‘No?’ Dawn says, placing the hand not wrapped around Summer onto a nearby sofa, like an actor in a soft-furnishings commercial, desperate to appear natural.

‘Nope. But I see things. We do have television. I watch it closely.’

He locks eyes with Dawn and smiles for the first time. She smiles too, and her face falls as she wonders whether he is referencing those two days when she sunbathed topless before being advised by Simon that, despite her efforts, she wasn’t out of view of the camera, and that this therefore might have undue consequences. She was only trying to make sure her tan was consistent while on the nation’s most-watched television show, but the result was Simon informing her to expect screenshots through the post when she returns home, with requests for her to sign them, which he warned her not to. Dawn hardly needed to be told that. But she didn’t expect to come face to face with a grinning fan happy to infer to her how familiar he is with her more secret parts.

‘Sorry, sir,’ Zack says, drawing the fisherman’s eyes his way. ‘What’s in the package?’

As Summer ponders why the fisherman is giving Dawn so much attention when she’s in the room, Liv considers what could possibly be inside…

Pump action shotgun, explosive, crossbow; she flips through the first few options that spring to mind.

‘It’s this…’ says the fisherman, before being stopped in his tracks, one hand on the damp tarpaulin package lazily slung on the cream tiles.

‘Can I ask?’ says Simon. ‘How did you know my name?’

The fisherman stalls, an odd stasis coming over him, his hands clenching in front of him. Simon raises his eyebrows as if to cue the man, but nothing comes out of him other than a low grunt, a long channel of air through which more confusion arrives into the room. All his imposing weight seems to disappear like someone has put a pin in him, all his previous character suddenly excusing itself from him.

‘Zack, Lance, Summer, Tabitha,’ he finally gasps. Tabitha, who had stayed skulking nearest the door in the half-light, planning to bolt if necessary, steps forward on hearing her name. ‘Er, Dawn,’ he says, smiling that weathered smile and lingering on her with his eyes. ‘Justine, er—’

‘We know you know their names,’ Simon says. ‘You must’ve seen them on television. But I’m not on the show.’ He’s incandescent, squaring up to the fisherman. It’s the first time the group notice this thin man can be quite imposing at full height. ‘How did you know my name?’

The fisherman smiles at the group, lost for words. He seems to look older by the second and is currently approaching 50. Justine pinches herself to check she’s not dreaming, such is the departure from reality they seem to have taken.

Simon closes in on him and grabs him by the strap of his overalls, voice rising with every syllable. ‘How. Did. You. Know. My. Na—’

‘Sandra told me it. The producer. When she left, she gave me instructions. And a retainer.’

Simon drops to a crouch as the others take a step in towards him, Sly getting close enough to give him a manly pat on the shoulder. They have, perhaps, neglected the strains it puts on a man when his job is to keep the strain off them. But none of them will be able to recall this abstract outburst with any ease.

‘Sandra told you,’ mumbles Simon.

‘Sandra told me,’ affirms the fisherman. ‘To watch over you.’ He leans back down to the package and pulls out a stack of firewood, kindling and firelighters, then takes them to the open fireplace, where he gets to work on them.

‘Good, yes. I’m sorry,’ says Simon. ‘Look, I would like to apologise…’

‘Fine,’ says the fisherman.

‘Yes, well, that’s very good of you. Sorry, to everyone, for my…’

Simon rises and goes over to the kitchen island where he leans and takes a few deep breaths and is comforted by Dawn in the partial silence. The fisherman strikes three lights within the fire and stands back to fan the flames.

Roberto crouches too, warming his hands. ‘God, it got cold fast.’

‘You should put on an extra layer,’ the fisherman says, drawing all heads his way as he turns towards the stairs.

A volley of shaken heads behind his back, in reference to the body up there. But none of the Beachers know quite what to say and Simon remains strangely inert.

‘We like it down here, you see,’ Lance says. It escapes from him under duress. But at least it makes the fisherman turn.

‘Weather turns fast here,’ he says, but all he sees is a roomful of bodies, static and unwilling to make any false move. ‘Why don’t you just go and get—’

‘Nah…’ Zack says, a long sound that means little. ‘It’s just… nice to have some cold… after all this… sun. Reminds us of home.’

The fisherman gives a slow frown. ‘As you wish.’

He notices not one of them is sitting down, nor have they been the whole time he is here. A couple of them give stiff nods to thank him for his time.

‘Well, I should get going—’

‘Of course,’ Sly says. ‘Don’t want to hang around with a bunch of melts like us.’

‘Black fella, eh?’ says the fisherman, looking Sly up and down.