TITHE — an extract

1/365

Spades cut through bloodied sand tilling the salt and iron as the waves tug at the stain. On the horizon the boat grows smaller; a miniature eclipse on the newly rising sun. Once the stain is gone what evidence will be left? The sea has taken it all away.

      The wind and the water are cold and blue-grey. Like he had been. I can't feel much anymore but I can feel myself shaking.

      A tight grip wraps around my elbows and drags me forward. There's a mumble beside my ear and my hands are plunged into the water.

      'Come on. Wash it off.'

      Sharp nails scrabble at my skin, rubbing away the blood that's dried between my fingers and in rusty half-moons around the nails. The water is up to my knees, a whole new wave of cold washing over me. The adrenaline is like an ice pick through my sternum. I jerk away from the cold, splashing breathlessly back to the shore but before I can go any further I am grabbed by the scruff and heaved up the sands. I don't have a voice to scream with anymore. In the half-light I can make out the shapes of the others up ahead, already headed for the beach hut. They walk too quickly to be kept up and with and when I stumble, legs giving out, I am dragged the rest of the way.

      The one dragging me throws me down over the threshold, my raw palms grazing on the wooden floor. A final shadow steps in behind and the door slams shut. It's a moment before the match is struck to light the lantern on the table and then the tiny shack is filled with amber light and tightly packed bodies. I can't stand, wrapping my arms around my rib cage, forehead pressed into the floor. I hold myself together.

      'Get up.' A blunt kick to the back, it doesn't hurt.

      'Leave her. It's fine, it's done now.'

      'I knew we should have waited.'

      'Shut up. It's done. I'll talk to her.'

      'The six of us could have done it easily without her. Done a better job of it certainly. She was dead weight you can't deny it son.'

      dead

      'That's not how it goes.'

      I flinch. There's a hand on my shoulder. 'Did you bring fresh clothes like we asked?' The breath on my ear is warm.

      I nod. I need to change. I can smell the salt and the rust from the collar of my t-shirt.

      'Pass me her bag.' He rifles through it, dragging out fresh clothes and dropping them onto the floor by my head. 'You can go, I'll take care of this. We'll meet later.'

      The door clicks open and they're shuffling out. One of the shadows pauses in the doorway, silhouetted by the new sun.

      'Don't you think I should—'

      'No Mary, it's alright. I've got her. You go. Get back to Darren and the kids. It's all in hand.'

      The door shuts once again, a blanket falls over my back and his palm comes to rest between my shoulder blades. When I flinch away it doesn't move.

      'Get changed. You can't go back looking like this. I'll drive you home.' His knees crack as he stands and the hand disappears. 'I'll step outside.'

      My ragged breaths come loud in the quiet, echoing the waves beyond the wooden walls. Shaking, I uncurl and peer through the amber glow. The wind whistles faintly and the shack sways. It had been an apt night for a Tempest. How far has the boat gotten? It feels like only moments ago that it was on shore.

      It takes several minutes for my shaking hands to peel the shirt up and over my head, it lands with a wet thump on the floorboards. Then, remembering, I scramble forward and snatch it back up stuffing it into a bin liner. We can't leave any evidence behind; even if no one will be looking for him.

      The door rattles. 'What's taking so long?'

      I manage to pull a fresh hoodie over my head just in time as he throws the door open.

      His eyes scan me up and down, and he grimaces. 'We don't have time for this. Sun's almost all the way up.'

      I nod. Mum will be home soon and people will be on the promenade, walking their children to school or on their way to work.

      'You have one fag's worth of time, then we're out of here.'

      He slams the door shut behind him again.

It's a relief to be out of the wet jeans that pinched and rubbed at my legs for so long. I stand for just a moment longer casting about in the hut. Years ago it was a haven. There's very little sign of life left in here now, a broken mug in the far corner, forgotten bunting from the ceiling and a single mirror hanging from the wall. I always wondered why the Mulgoulds had renewed the lease after their children had moved away. They never seemed to be down here. I guess it's pretty convenient. No one thinks of a beach hut when they think of a murder scene or kidnapping, they're too benign. 

      Outside Finn has wandered a short way down the beach. A tiny plume of smoke rises over his head, whipped away sharply by the wind. I don't hesitate.

      Dropping the bag where I know he will see it, I break into a sprint. I can't stand to stay. The sand slows me momentarily, my feet sinking into it with every step, but then I'm racing up the steps and onto the prom. No one is out yet, it's still just early enough. The beach huts rattle past like train carriages, paint chipping and roofs peeling away. Come the summer season they'll be pristine again.

      'Rhea!' Finn is shouting behind me. His trainers slapping on the tarmac, but his voice is distant and I know I'm faster.

*

Hall, kitchen, dining room, lounge, hall. Each lap of downstairs takes eighteen seconds. The curtains are closed and it's raining outside. The clock in the hall reads eight twenty-three, in the lounge it's eight twenty-six. I don't remember which one is right. Mum will be home at ten past the hour.

      I pause in the lounge, a little unsteady on my feet. In the half-light the room is hardly recognizable. The faces in the photos on the mantle are difficult to make out.

      Outside there's the quiet tinkle of a child laughing and footsteps passing the house. Mothers walking their sons and daughters to school. They're all awake now.

      I had seen them sweep away the blood stain, I knew rationally it was gone, but had we left anything else? Was there any small scrap of evidence that some dog walker might find on the beach? I pressed my knuckles against my lips to keep from retching. At the window in the dining room I can see the families trickle past in clusters. They're all smiles. Little do they know about the hands that planted the flower boxes on the seafront, or that mark their children's spelling tests, press stethoscopes to their chests when they're sickly and serve dinner to them on a 'nice' evening out. Little do they know about the man buried at sea a few short hours ago. I do another lap.

      The clock ticks. The light outside makes my eyes burn and water. The sun is coming out from beneath the grey shrouds. I can't seem to reconcile the day with the night that went before it.

      After another four laps I crawl up the stairs and into bed. I cannot stand to wait any longer. There is nothing to say to her anyway. The sheets are cold after an empty night, but it's not soothing. Sleep is elusive; each time I feels myself falling I'm suddenly tugged away by the tide. Jerked awake by cold panic.

      It could be moments or hours later that she knocks at the door. 'Rise and shine. What are you doing still in bed at this hour?'

      I tell her it's a migraine and roll away. As she retreats down the stairs she murmurs something I can't quite catch and a male voice responds. Finn followed me to the house, of course he did.

      There's a letter I have been hiding at the back of the bottom of my chest of drawers. Moving as slow and quiet as I can I fetch it from its hiding spot and tuck it into the waistband of my jeans. As a child the apple tree outside my window had been the cause of frequent nightmares on windy nights when the boughs scraped against the glass like claws. In my teen years it had become my escape route. I climbed down now through its open arms and slipped through the back gate shutting it softly behind me.

      I don't open the letter until I reach the clifftops. The village isn't big enough to make any noise that reaches me here. It's peaceful, as the sound of the waves crashing below can almost drown out a racing mind. I sit down against the outcrop and pull out the paper, crumpled now after weeks of disbelieving folding and unfolding. It was delivered a little over a month and a half ago, no doubt by Finn. He's got the least affiliations. An unstamped envelope wasn't so strange, why bother to post anything in a village so small. What was strange was that it was written in Dad's handwriting. Dad, who had been critically injured in a burglary gone awry two months before.

      I wonder now if they waited those two months to see if he would wake up, or if they wanted to give me a small enough window that I couldn't back out. It was his unofficial will. Bequeathing a portion of the island's legacy. A list of six names. Charles Mulgould, Finn Brown, Leon Ross, Mary Young, David Robertson and Gareth MacDonald. All of whom were household names to me like anyone else in town.

      Their legacy was far less familiar. Reading the words again they warped in his handwriting, twisting into unreadable blurs of ink before my eyes. I brushed the tears away with my sleeve. If it started it wouldn't stop. The letter told of a centuries old bargain between man and sea, and the necessary exchange of blood for blood. Death for the sake of livelihood.

      I can hear the last stuttering breath the stranger had taken each time I inhale. His desperate eyes roll back and become glass behind my eyelids and the indent between the tendons at the back of his[A1]  skull where my fingers had fit as we carried him still weighs on my hands. Everything is cold. Cold water, wind, skin.

      I stuff the letter into my pocket and edge toward the cliffs edge on my knees. I need to hear the waves louder, feel the spray on my skin so that it drowns out the memory. Hundreds of feet below the cliff the sea is rough and dark. Jagged rocks protrude from the water's surface, laced with seafoam. The wind howls, ripping at my hair and clothes. It wouldn't take much.

      'What the fuck are you doing?' 

      Finn wrenches my shoulders back away from the cliffs edge and I thud onto my back, head inches from the base of the rock outcrop. He stares at me as though he's never seen another human before. 'Don't be stupid Rhea. For fuck's sake.' His eyes burn, mouth set in a hard line. His eyes flick up to the crest of the cliff and then back to me. 'You weren't—'

      'Get off me.'

      He shakes his head but gets up anyway, takes a step back, hands up. 'Okay, Okay.'

      Life's come back to me now. I thought it had died with him, but it's roaring in my ears. As I get to my feet he lunges and grabs hold of me again before I can take off. We don't speak as he pulls me down the hill. His car is waiting at the bottom. The thought of being confined in a tight space with him for any length of time makes my skin itch but the lack of sleep has caught up with me now and I don't have the energy to run again.

      Dad's letter said that they were like a second family but I get in the back seat to put as much distance between us as I can. It smells like cigarettes thinly veiled by pine air-freshener. The sound of the winds is muffled inside the car and I can feel the cold water rising in my head again. 

      'You can't keep running off. There is a lot that we need to talk about.'

      'Take me home,' I demand.

      'You don't want that. Your mum saw you sneak out. She's not happy.'

      She hates it when people are rude. Escaping from a second story window to avoid guests comes under the umbrella of cardinal sin.

      Finn fiddles with some things on the dashboard, pings the air freshener, pulls his sleeves down over his hands. 'You're not the only one who's new to this. I know how you feel.'

      'Then why have you done it twice?'

      He starts the car instead of answering and takes the first road out of the village heading inland. Craggy moorland gives way to mountains spotted with pine copses as we head further from home and from what we have done. I roll the window down so that the fresh air blasts my face and roars in my ears. I don't care where we are going.

I wake, slumped over the back seat of Finn's car. His jumper is tucked around my shoulders and a rough tartan blanket around my legs. The light is fading but outside but I vaguely make out the shape of the mountains around the loch. By the water's edge Finn sat hunched over on a log with a small fire burning by his feet. He looks up as though he felt the weight of my gaze on his shoulders and then gets up and comes over to the car.

      Opening the door, he offers me his hand. 'Are you going to sit in there all night?'

      'Are you going to keep me here all night?'

      He rolls his eyes. 'Don't be so dramatic, I couldn't take you home and I doubt you wanted to come to my house. So, it was here or the beach hut.'

      The beach hut makes me feel physically sick, and he's right about his house. Nowhere in the village is safe anymore. It's all been tied up in the ugliness somehow. At least this is neutral ground. Reluctantly I take his hand and let him pull me out.

      As he takes his seat again by the fire he pulls a scrap of paper from his pocket and holds it up in front of the fire. With a sinking feeling I realise it's dad's letter.

      'You shouldn't still have this. Let alone be carrying it around with you?'

      'Where did you get that?' It had been safely tucked into my pocket when I got into the car. 

      'It fell out when you fell asleep. Forget about how this implicates all of us, have you considered how this ties you to it? At this point the six of us could be charged with murder and deny any and all of your involvement. A letter like this directly ties you to what you did last night.'

      I snatch the letter back from him. It had been the last communication I'd had from dad. It wasn't enough, it didn't explain anything and it bore no real sentiments, it was just a list of instructions. But it's written in his handwriting. Since the attack mum had doubled the number of picture frames around the house, and dug through drawers to find every scrap of him left in the house. She'd saved shopping lists, Christmas cards, post-it notes and doodles. No matter how mundane it may have been each item was a little piece of him. The piece I held in my hands was more important than any sentimental note he'd left because he'd written it knowing that the only reason I would ever read it was if something happened to him. It was direct to me and only me. I was his contingency plan. Perhaps that's why I went along with it. I didn't want to let him down and though he might not technically be dead, this was his dying wish.

      'Burn it.'

      I fold it and tuck it down inside my bra. 'I can't.'

      'It can't ever see the light of day. This would ruin your whole life Rhea.'

      It already had, but he knew that and it wasn't worth saying. 'I'll keep it safe.'

      'You slept for a long time. Almost six hours. You need to eat something and then you need to go home, make up with your mum and go to sleep again. You can't just go to pieces. They won't let you, it's a liability.' His phone buzzes in his pocket. 'They're already concerned. I've had at least 10 missed calls today.'

      The weight of mine isn't in my pocket, I must have left it at home. No doubt I had my own flurry of texts and missed calls from Mum.

      'How do I explain it to her?'

      He shrugs. 'Don't explain anything. You're a teenager. Parents expect their kids to lie and keep secrets. Just eat, got to school and go to sleep. It's all you have to do.'

      'Is this all you wanted to say in this big 'talk'? just tell me how to act like a normal human being?'

      'Partially.' He nods. 'It's harder than you might think. People notice things. But also, the others rushed into pulling you into this because they didn't have time to think about it. Now they're worried about what they've gotten themselves into. They'll be watching you. You have to be careful.'

      'What they've gotten themselves into,' I repeat.

      'I know. But Charles, David and Mary have been doing this for decades. They don't see it the same way anymore.'

      'Poor them.'

      'Rhea,' he warns. 'Be careful.' 

      I stand and brush off my jeans. 'Is that all?'

      'For now. Just don't shut it all out. We can help you. We take care of our own.' 

      We, we ,we. He can't make up his mind, is he a part of it or is he warning me against it? 

He takes me home and I do what he says. Mum doesn't react how I expect her too, she doesn't seem angry that I'd tried to avoid Finn as our guest. Since dad she doesn't get as angry as she used too, not that I'd given her much cause to be until now. I can't bring myself to eat anything yet, the idea of biting into anything makes me gag, so I appease her by watching Casualty reruns until late.

      When she falls asleep her head falls slack against my shoulder and I can't help but jolt away. I can't bare the weight of it. Or the sight of her neck twisted at such an uncomfortable angle. Or the blue of her skin in the glow of the TV.

      Finally she crawls upstairs to bed I sit alone in the dark downstairs. The air is still. The house is quiet.

 [A1]Should this be uppercase?