“Don’t go to church,” wheedles Adam. “Come for a walk on the beach with me, Beth.”
Aha! The old ‘walk on the beach’ line; age old courtship ritual of our town.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I say. “I should probably go home.”
“Don’t go home. C’mon. You come too, Caitlin. Just a little walk, then you can go home.”
His cajolery wins the day and we trip down the wooden steps that lead to the shingle beach. It has clouded over somewhat and a wind is whipping up, blowing my scarf up around my face and my hair out behind me. We crunch down a few yards, then Caitlin moans that her shoe is full of stones and hops back up to the pub. My cigarette has gone out, so Adam offers me another, but it is hard to light in this wind. He crouches right down over me, cupping the cigarette between his hands as I hold it in my lips and trying his best to apply the lighter. On the third attempt, his forehead touches mine and I think…though I’m not sure…he might have kissed the side of my eye. The cigarette lights and he crows with triumph but does not move away. I have to step back to elude his hopeful clutches.
I look back to the promontory on which the pub garden is situated, deciding to rejoin Caitlin up there before Ellwood gets serious.
But it’s already serious. It’s as serious as it gets. Standing up there like the figurehead on the prow of a ship, staring down at us while the wind ruffles his hair magnificently, is Sinclair.
Chapter Thirteen
“Whassup?” asks Adam, bemused by my suddenly frozen demeanour.
“Fuck! Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck.” I drop the cigarette on to the stones and try to force my body to respond to me, but it is far too caught up in its fight-or-flight dilemma to pay any heed. My hammering, shaking, cross-eyed self notes that Sinclair is negotiating the wooden steps on his way down to the beach, quite unhurriedly, his face impassive. My feet, never of a particularly athletic disposition, have suddenly discovered the urge to run like hell. I hop up and down on the shingle, looking this way and that, processing escape routes at compulsive speed.
“Beth…WHAT’S UP?” repeats Adam, grabbing my elbow and shaking it.
“Go away! Get away from here! LEAVE ME ALONE!” I scream at his stunned face, and uncertainly he backs off, passing Sinclair with a curious look on his way to the pub.
Despite my body’s best efforts, I stand my ground in the face of Approaching Menace, refusing to look cowed or frightened. Even though I am.
“Hello,” I falter once he is within earshot. “I thought you were in France.”
He says nothing, holding out his arm in what seems like a ghastly parody of a chivalrous gesture. I dither for a second then take it, feeling as if I have just sealed my fate; a character in a folk tale who meets the devil at a crossroads or whatever. “We need to talk,” he says, escorting me up the beach until we find ourselves in the shadow of some large rocks and we sit down, leaning against them and staring out at the roughening sea.
“Do you have anything to say to me, Beth?”
“Listen, about last night,” I open, trying my hardest not to blurt and quaver. “I’m sorry. Well, I’m sorry-ish. I’m sorry I lost my temper. But I’m not sorry I disobeyed you. I’m not sorry about that. I’m not going to be either.”
His eyes level with mine and I try to work out where on the scale of wrath he might be. He doesn’t look to be in a towering fury, but then, this is the man who invented self-control.
“If you defy me, Beth, I can’t just let that go. There have to be consequences.”
“Why? You’re pushing me too far too fast, Sinclair. When we first got together you said that this relationship would require maturity and sensitivity on your part, but it isn’t very sensitive of you to force me to do something I’m uncomfortable with. You said we wouldn’t do anything I didn’t want, but you lied! It’s you at fault here, not me. I won’t be punished for this. I just won’t!”
Sinclair looks utterly thrown by this. I have veered way off the script and he has forgotten his line.
I fill the space, continuing: “I’m not saying I never want to do…what you were asking of me…but…I need you to care for me more. I need you to…consider my feelings.”
“I consider your feelings every minute of the day,” snarls Sinclair suddenly, and I am shocked by the hostility of his tone. “All I ever do is consider your feelings. I give you what you want, I show you what you need, I drag you out of the pit of failure you inhabited before I took you on, I give you myself. I wonder how much consideration you would give to my needs if I didn’t make you?”
“Of course I would! I love you. I’ve told you I love you.”
“You don’t understand love, you stupid little girl. I want to give you everything.”
“Except yourself! You never give me anything of yourself; just this…performance version. Sinclair the sadistic intellectual, that’s all I get. I want more. I want to know who the hell you are. Whoever it is, I’d love you.”
“You’re the one talking about taking things too far too fast, Beth, but perhaps it hasn’t occurred to you that I need to trust a person before I’ll give myself, and trust takes longer than five minutes to earn.”
“You can trust me!”
“Oh, clearly.” A hateful sneering tone has entered his voice. “Of course I can trust the girl I just found canoodling on the beach with some ne’er-do-well. I hope he’s using a condom, Beth; don’t want any accidents do we?”
I open my mouth to defend myself, but find I have to inhale sharply when he takes my missing pills from his breast pocket and flings them down on the pebbles between us.