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I look out to the shoreline to see Jez heading back towards us, pink Docs glowing. Aiden waves and she gives a double thumbs up, silhouetted against the sky.
‘Have a good night, the pair of you.’ Aiden gives me a sly wink.
I focus on rolling another jay while Jez returns, held in the interval between these two weird companions. I’m still on a high, not just from the weed. As in the day like nothing I have experienced before, and now strangely moved by Aiden seeing his dead brother in me. Jez makes her slow way back, looking down like she’s deep in thought while crossing the ridges of wet sand. Something troubling her for sure.
I finish rolling just as she arrives and present it to her with a flourish, along with the whisky. She accepts both with a smile and returns to her rock. I lean back and look at the sky staining blood orange as the sun starts to set. Still not a cloud.
‘Perfect end to a spectacular day, wouldn’t you say?’
Jez takes a slug of whisky and hands me the bottle. I drink some more, keep on talking.
‘I felt such a sense of, I dunno, purpose, today. Like totally with something that’s not about me?’
‘Yep, that might be a novelty.’ Jez laughs.
Wow, reaction. Keep on with that, then. ‘I’ve been drifting for a while now. As in dropping out after bombing in my AS exams, then my girlfriend dumping me for no obvious reason. Sinking into hopelessness, you could say, no sense of direction.’
‘Maybe there’s like no senseindirection?’ Jez hands me the spliff.
‘Hmm, yes, but, well, know what I mean?’ I take a toke, not at all sure of what shemeans. ‘Aw, too stoned, spinning into senselessness. I did have a point…?’
I stare into the fire. Aiden’s stick is now a creature with a long smouldering snout.
‘I suppose the trip up here, looking for Don,’ it comes to me as I say it, ‘was the first thing I’ve done, like a positive action? Outside the comfort zone, all that?’
‘And you end up taking a ride to the top of the world with a crazy woman on an illegal bike. Risk drowning yourself rescuing whales. Hardly what you were expecting?’ She looks at me as she talks, her face glowing in the firelight. But her voice lacks its usual spark.
‘Ha, but even getting here was a trip. As in, sleeping out with proper homeless people.’
‘Proper homeless?’
‘Yeah, makes you feel lucky, know what I mean? There was this guy from Sudan, God only knows what his story was. And this Slovakian dude who’d just lost his job and accommodation and his wife and kids were coming to join him. I helped him trap rabbits, only, well, it didn’t exactly go too brilliantly…?’ I tail off, aware I’m rambling way from the thing.
Jez nods, lips pursed. ‘Yeah, I’ve worked with Eastern Europeans, picking cabbages in Lincolnshire. Hotel work as well. They get paid jack-all and send it all home, right? A rabbit can brighten up the cabbage soup.’
‘Oh, well you know all about it, then,’ I say, a bit deflated. Then I remember. ‘Yeah, but the point is, the point is…the whales. It’s like, to come up here and to know I am in some way a part of it, and then have Don shut me out like that…hmm.’ I muse on this as Jez reaches for the spliff. ‘But the thing now is the whales, how awesome would it be to be able to do something like that properly? Like one of those marine scientists?’
‘Or a navy bomb disposal expert?’ she says, deadpan still.
‘Ha, yes, not so good. But know what I mean? As in I could get some science A Levels, train as a marine biologist. I reckon I’d be motivated.’
Jez gives a snort, shakes her head. ‘How about those sausages?’
‘Yeah, sorry.’ I spread the burning wood with a stick for Jez’s cooking pan. Drop in a bit of butter followed by the sausages. They spit and sizzle as I move them round.
I leave them to cook and lean back. The beach spreads pale violet to the dull slate of the sea, a few stars pricking through the velvet blue sky, though it’s like eerily light on the horizon.
‘You can see the Plough already, Polaris, and the evening star, Venus, of course.’ I point upwards. ‘I wanted to be an Astrophysicist when I was a kid – I had a telescope and everything. That like childhood belief in your own special future, know what I mean?’
Jez pulls herself up, serious eyebrow raising at me.
‘I went off the whole idea when it started to involve mega maths,’ I add.
‘Yeah, and you are so very middle class, aren’t you Gethin?’ Jez pulls a patronising smile. ‘You look at some stars, you’re going to be an Astrophysicist. Help rescue some whales, it’s marine biologist.’
‘Wow, prick my bubble!’ I shoot her a resentful glance. ‘Isn’t it good to know what you’re aiming for?’
‘Yeah, Follow Your Dream! Like life is just one straight path upwards. If you don’t make it, you didn’t dream hard enough, right?’
