Lulworth
Catherine Campbell
Lucy arrived in Lulworth by way of Wool
and taxi. It had been a mistake, taking that
taxi. The ride had been obscenely expensive,
and now she had barely enough money to return to school, let alone get a decent meal while she was here. She hadn't expected that. Her Rough Guide said buses were scarce in the middle of February, but she wasn't gonna touch a British car. It was stupid of her not to ask about the price. Stupid.
And the taxi driver. Jesus H, he'd been anything but polite. Maybe he was mad at her for dragging him out of bed on a freezing Friday morning, making him put on gloves, undershirt, shirt, sweater, jacket, cap, long underwear, trousers, socks, boots; he was pissed abut having to get into an icy leather seat and wait forever for the cab to warm up and go through the cold to pick up some girl who wanted to go to the beach in February. Perhaps it was just his face. When he had picked her up at the train station he'd scowled at her in greeting and she would never forget it. His face turned down, all of it: the eyelids, the baggy skin, rubbery jowls, the nose curving down down down and the mouth ending like a pinched roll of dough. Now he had transported Lucy five miles from the station in a silence only punctuated by the second-guessing engine and his phlegmy cough. She tried to let her mind wander to the open winter plain outside the taxi's windows, but the windows were fogged up.
They reached the end of School Lane. All the roads were named so simply: school, cove, beach, church. Nothing much here besides the end of the country. Lucy had counted out cab fare before they even stopped. She felt claustrophobic by the solid windows, the man's hot breath blown by a fan to her face. She climbed out with her bag, slung it over her back and walked around to the driver's window, where she handed him exact change. "Have a good one, then," he said gruffly, and left her in the white beach gravel and the quiet.
She didn't quite know what she was doing here. Something, she knew it had to be something. She had always been so reasonable. Getting away to the seaside was definitely one of her plans this semester, to take in the romantic white cliffs of England and all that, to picnic with her friends, maybe bring some beach stones home to Virginia for her sister. Only she had woken up in her dormitory bed that morning with a bad feeling and a sudden need to go, go now, to see the ocean immediately and it had taken everything in her to sit among her colleagues in her crack-of-fucking-dawn Shakespeare 301, to smell Tracy doused in her Chanel knock-off, to hear Nick inaccurately interpret--again--one of the bard's last sonnets; it had taken everything in her not to stand up in the middle of it all and just run.
So this was it. Here, unexpectedly early, on a strange coast for a holiday. She couldn't get rid of that feeling. Perhaps it would dissipate once she checked in at the hostel, slid this pack off, had some tea. Then she could enjoy Lulworth. Relax, she breathed. Holiday. She had fallen in love with the word "holiday," the way it left her throat in a sigh, the way it could mark itself upon the inside of a window. She wanted to abandon the language of the U.S. "Vacation" was out, with its sadistic bite.
The hostel stood at the very end of the lane, next to an old stone wall and a few bare, gnarled trees on the edge of a field. Its long, brown ugliness contrasted sharply to the whitewashed farmhouses on the lane, as if someone had picked it up from a different, more vile place, and set it down in the gulf between windswept Dorset hills. The building was faceless. A weathered sign. There was not even a sound in the distance, and nothing seemed to come from inside, no laughter or talking, only the whistle of wind gusts and then, suddenly, a far-off cry from a gull, a greeting maybe, she couldn't be too sure. She sighed. At least this wasn't Oxford. It didn't have Oxford's throng of moving bodies, the people shuffling to and from classes, the ceaseless hum even in the library, the constant sounds of heavy footsteps up and down the stairs outside her dorm door, the hourly crack of some idiotic indoor game of croquet. Who had that bright idea? Ben or Justin. Perhaps it took the two of them to think of it together, they were fucking morons. They were also off for the weekend by now, a large group of her classmates. Edinburgh, they said, they wanted to go drinking. They had asked Lucy to join them. Ben had tried to take her hand when the rest of the group wasn't looking. She shook her head at him, at them, saying No thank you.
She hoisted her pack a little higher and approached the timber door.
Inside, the building was made of the same brown wood paneling. All the daylight was swallowed up as it tried to reach the middle of the room. A few bare bulbs overhead were flipped off. Windows rattled in their frames. Someone had left a game of chess upon the lounge table and the black queen sat frozen in victory.
A young man walked down the hall toward her, wiping his hands with a towel. "May I help you?" Drops of water fell from his chin, so fresh-faced she could see the glow of his cheeks in the dim light.
“A room, please.”
"Yes," he said. He laughed. Flushed cheeks. Bright teeth, like a wolf. "We have those."
He walked over to a desk in the corner, gesturing for Lucy to follow, and instructed her to sign in. "You can have any room you like," he said. He leaned over the desk, his sinewy arm lifted and ran a length past her neck, a finger pointed down the hall. “How long?”
“Two days. The weekend.”
“You're American?”
“Yes.”
“Visiting?”
“Studying. School semester. Just...wanted to take a holiday.” When she said it aloud it sounded foolish. Who was she kidding.
“Nicholas,” he said, and stuck out his hand. When she didn't take it, he brushed back his hair. It was blonde and thin and he tried to tuck it behind his ear with no success. “Farmer.”
“What?”
He laughed again, this time showing all of his teeth. It made her uneasy. “Farmer. Surname. I'm your host, should you need anything.”
She nodded, but did not give her name in return, only signed it on the registration card and thanked him. She picked up her pack and walked down the dark hall.
In the first room the bunks stood unused, the mattresses clean in their plastic nakedness. In the second room there was more light from the windows. No one. She moved to the third room, where she found yet another set of empty bunks. She shrugged and decided to claim the whole room for herself. As she unrolled her blanket, Nicholas appeared in the doorway.
"So this will do then?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "Anyone else here?”
He shook his head. “There could be others. Slow season.”
“Oh.”
He straightened up. "If you're hungry, I'm making lunch in a bit. You wouldn't have to go out just yet."
Lucy nodded. She didn't want to set anything in stone with him.
Then he disappeared around the corner. She held her breath long enough to hear him walk to the other side of the building, shut a door. The next moments were small pleasures: carefully arranging her tiny tube of toothpaste and her travel brush and a bar of soap in the bathroom, rolling and re-rolling her sweatshirt into just the right pillow, then resting on it, studying the slats of the bed above her. Trying to remember exactly what brought her here.
Then there was a clatter of silverware upon a table somewhere close, almost outside the door, and then his voice. How long had she napped? She stood up, reached in to straighten the wires of her bra and smooth her shirt.
Nicholas Farmer had set two places at the table. Cocky of him.
“I'm going for a walk,” she said.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah? Well, you can simply take the lane to the left into the village.”
“Just want to check out the coast.”
He pointed toward the back window. “Trail there, through the field up Bindon.”
“Bindon.”
“It's a hill.”
“Right,” she said, not wanting to appear helpless. “Will my stuff be okay in the room?”
Nicholas gave a swoop of his head, checking around. He reminded her of a buzzard, something from a cartoon she saw once when she was child. He laughed. “I'd say yes.”
She nodded, went back to the room to collect her purse and didn't look at him as she headed for the door.
“Have a good time, Lucy,” he said.
She climbed over a broken part of the wooden fence, into the meadow behind the hostel. In the matted frozen grass a narrow footpath led up the hill, as if leading up to the sky. When she reached the crest of the hill, the hazy line of sea appeared, sapphire blue and creamy foam, growing lighter toward the horizon. Sharply below her was Lulworth Cove, its water scalloping out the beach in a brilliant blue-green tinge. A full seashell, she thought. She sat down and pulled out her camera to take pictures of the little fishing boats anchored in the cove. She zoomed in on them. They were empty. A gray boathouse, no bigger than her family's storage shed, sat nearby. Also empty. On the opposite side of Lulworth Cove she saw tiny steps leading up to the town, and what appeared to be the main road. But no one was traveling today. It really was freezing, way too cold for anyone to even think of fishing, and overcast, too. Her eyes stung. She could reach down and pluck tiny boats out of that dish of water and flick them away into the clouds. Lucy smiled and her face ached. She sniffed to feel her nose, and pulled her hat down over her ears.
Now she was hungry. Whatever Nicholas had been cooking had smelled wonderful—sausages, maybe—and her stomach growled. There were a few places listed in the guide, so she stepped carefully back down the hill, found a path that cut through the trees and ran along town above the church lane, and as she made her way to its cluster of buildings, she admired the thatched roofs, the painted walls and sweet blue shutters of cottages, the neat hedgerow gardens under frost. What could a person possibly grow here?
Her roommate, Angela, would have liked this. Since Lucy had arrived for her semester abroad she had made two good friends, and thankfully one of them was her roommate. It would have been a horrible time otherwise. But Angela was fun. She was a lesbian. I don't think we have any of those where I come from, Lucy had said. Angela had laughed, showed Lucy pictures of her girlfriend back home, told Lucy the girlfriend would probably fly over at the end of the semester so they could party around England. Angela was taller than Lucy, and much more fashionable, with short, fiery red hair. She had a job as a make-up artist back home. From the sound of it Angela was quite the socialite, and even took calls in the dorm's hallway phone not just from her girlfriend, but also from other “friends” overseas.
Lucy's only other friend was Suzanne. Suzanne was a head taller than both of them, with wide hips and shoulders. She had a soccer scholarship, even though she didn't need one, and dirty blonde hair and a nose upturned slightly, which reminded Lucy of a pig. But Suzanne was nice and often paid for everyone's rounds at the pub because she had a lot of money. Suzanne told Lucy that she did not have a boyfriend, that instead she had a lover, a married one at that. “It's the way to go,” she said.
There were twenty-five of them, all from the States, all rooming at St. Benet's. Lucy wondered whether Trinity wanted to hide all the Americans away at St. Benet's. She couldn't blame the school. Her fellow students busied themselves every night with tasks like making Pimm's on the lawn—it was a total mess—or playing war games while punting or hopping the same round of bars. But Angela and Suzanne were different. It was as if they were living on another level. They took the train to London instead, and took Lucy with them. Angela did her hair and makeup. Suzanne gave her glittery, low-cut tops to wear. They went to Candy Bar, where Lucy picked out girls who were chiseled and tan like statues. When they dance with Lucy they were not statues at all but water nymphs, and they slid their hands up and down her back and ran fingers through her hairspray sticky hair, and she let them put their little tongues in her mouth.
On Lulworth's main street, the Inn was locked.
Closed for water damage repair. See you in March!
Finlay's was on holiday. The other shops were also locked and empty, despite the business hours listed. This is hopeless, she thought. The trip was a bit of a disaster, although she liked the quiet, she did, she just needed to remember—what was it?
Back home in Virginia, Devin was waiting for her. They had been together two years. He also studied English literature, more of a critical theory guy while she studied classics, and he was one who stayed up thinking too much about the way things fit into place. She thought he had an active imagination. It didn't help her here. He loved her, very much, and she deserved to know how much he loved her, he said this on the telephone every night at Oxford. Lucy figured he must have racked up a three hundred-dollar phone bill by now, but didn't she deserve to know how much he loved her, he said, and he deserved to be listened to and hear “I love you” in return. Here in Lulworth, if the phone rang, it wouldn't be for her, and Lucy was thankful.
When she turned back onto School Lane, she looked the farmhouses as she passed. They were beautiful in their quaintness, and reminded her of home. She and Devin would have a bed, there, in that top bedroom, and under that window would be the couch where they watched movies while their snow boots steamed.
Something moved out of the corner of her eye. She looked sideways. There, on the side of the house. In the backyard stood a child. Lucy kept walking but tried to get a better look at him as she passed. He was a little boy, maybe five years old, blonde hair flopped in his eyes. He had a stick in his mittened hand. With little stabs he chipped away at ice in a cow trough. Suddenly he looked at her. His cheeks were flushed. When he smiled, he looked like he had too many teeth. Just like Nicholas, she thought. Then the farmhouse was blocking her view and she quickened her pace to get on the other side. When she did, she glanced back again. The child was gone. The cow trough stood untouched, perfectly frozen. Lucy looked up at the windows of the farmhouse, searching for a sign of life, a light behind them. No one was there.
The whole town couldn't be empty. It couldn't be.
Nicholas had set two places again for supper. This time, she wouldn't pass on his offer.
“How was your walk?” he asked.
Since he was apparently the only person in this damn place, she figured a little conversation would help.
“It was nice,” she said. She sat down at her place at the long dining room table. “But strange.”
He sat down and passed her a basket of bread. When she took a piece, it was still warm and it felt good to hold it in her hands. “Strange? May I ask why?”
“Well,” she bit off a corner of bread and chewed it. “I couldn't find any place to eat. All the shops are closed.”
“Unsurprising, actually. I'm afraid that happens here from time to time.”
“But I didn't even see anyone. I mean, nobody. Don't people, you know, live here year-round?”
“Yes, but February is a hard month.” He heaped salad onto a plate. “It's hard for many reasons. When one person leaves, others follow.”
“Why?”
“Who knows why people do what they do?”
They ate, and didn't talk. Nicholas had made a beef stew, bread, salad, and brought out more bottles of cider for them. He apologized for not having something warmer, like wine.
“It's fine,” she said. She felt lightheaded.
He scooted his chair closer to hers. “So, you're staying until Monday?” he asked softly.
She was uneasy. “Yes,” she said. “But leaving early morning. You know, school.”
“Right, of course.” He smiled and looked away. “Well, if all the shops are closed, you don't have to wander around in the cold.”
She crossed her legs away from him.
“We could play games,” he continued. “Or I have some movies.” He laughed. “I just find it so peculiar that you're here at this time.”
“Well,” she said. “I really just needed to get away for a weekend.”
“School can't be that bad.”
She didn't say anything.
“Anyway,” he leaned closer. “I'm grateful for such beautiful company.”
Lucy stood up, and grabbed her plate. “I'm tired. Where do you want me to put this?”
“Allow me.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
He bowed playfully to her, and began picking up the rest of the dishes. “Of course. Goodnight, Lucy.”
Why did he say her name so much? She turned and walked quickly down the hall to her room. Inside, she shut the door and quietly tried to press the lock in. But it didn't go in. It didn't work. Damn.
Lucy took an extra blanket from the closet and put it over the other, changed carefully into pajamas while listening for movement outside the door. She got into the bottom bunk bed but didn't turn the light off. She shifted her makeshift pillow. She kept an eye on the door handle and drifted in thought.
Her classmate Ben left notes in her schoolbooks. He slid them in her copy of Much Ado About Nothing after they all had breakfast in the dining hall. On little slips of paper he would write times and places for them to meet, and Lucy met him. In the chapel closet after morning prayer. The unlocked attic floor bath. Or most often in his room, on the boy's dormitory. He had a single. Ben was quick about the whole thing. He, too, had someone back home.
It turned out she wasn't the only one who did this. There were scufflings at two a.m., laughter in the dark, eyes sharply cast down over tea. Perhaps all of them did, and no one told each other.
When she awoke, Lucy realized she had burrowed down in her blankets during the night, and her mouth sucked in the soft sheet fabric. She spat it out and took a deep breath.
She was shaking uncontrollably. The room felt heated, but not quite warm enough. When she pulled the covers off her face and sat up she saw that it was still dark in the room, maybe early dawn, and felt her whole head burning. Her cheeks and forehead were burning up. Feverish, even. Was she sick? Her throat was so dry she couldn't talk. Her bottom right lip had cracked, and now she brushed gently at a bit of dried blood on the edge of her mouth. The rest of her felt cold, colder even than yesterday and she couldn't get her shoulders to stop tensing and shaking. She couldn't let go.
There were four blankets on her. She went to bed with two last night.
Lucy threw them off as if they were covered in bugs. Nicholas. He had been in her room. While she slept he had touched her, put blankets on her, God knows what else.
The creep.
She had to go. Now. She had to get out of here. Grayish light through the window. It was too early to get a ride back to the train station. She could kill time down at the beach, go to Durdle Door. Hell, it was the only plan she'd actually made, might as well keep it, and Nicholas would only know that she'd left but not to where. The Inn was nearby. She would find a phone as soon as she could.
She packed quietly, now and then pausing to listen at the doorway, and carried her stuff in one hand to the lobby. She tried not to groan under the weight, but she also didn't want to risk Nicholas hearing the loud shuffle and click of belt buckles. The hinges squeaked when she opened the front door. Lucy froze. Nothing. He was probably still asleep. She didn't bother to close the door behind her, just threw her backpack on and ran.
When Lucy reached the empty parking area at the edge of town, she stopped to catch her breath. Everything was dizzy. The parking lot spun in front of her. She laughed. Of course, no one was here. Why did she expect anything had changed from yesterday? Lulworth was abandoned. Dead. She was alone, and there was nothing. Nothing in this town. No one. All alone. Would she have preferred the temporary arms of Oxford? The girls of London?
She started to wheeze and bent over. The pack shifted violently forward and she fell on her knees. Why had she come here? Was it any better than St. Benet's, her classrooms, that dining hall with eyes following her body, a body which she swung to meet their expectations? Was it any better than the bed she barely slept in, that Christ Church boy, and then whatshisname, Thomas, the one who put his hand under the pub table and grabbed at the crotch of her jeans? Or the couple she met one night in front of the chip stand--that poor, lonely dog-faced couple who had invited her back to their apartment?
All she had to do was take the train back to school, finish classes, fly back home, back to Virginia, back to Devin and she wouldn't wear makeup anymore, wouldn't dance with strangers anymore and when she looked in the mirror at home maybe she'd recognize herself again.
Lucy stood up and walked briskly across the parking lot, to the sea cliffs trail. A stone sidewalk took her up Hambury Hill, away from Lulworth. Over the hill, on the other side, she knew was Durdle Door. She had seen it in pictures: a great rock arch stretching out from the cliff into the ocean, forming a giant keyhole.
When she looked back on Lulworth, she was surprised by the softness of it all. The views of rounded hills and rounded roofs, all bathed in diffused light coming up on the valley. It was so unassuming and old, perhaps if there were people who lived here they all knew one another very well, perhaps their entire lives.
Over the hill and down again, down the angled steps anchored in eroding chalk and limestone, and finally her foot sank into the pebbled beach at Durdle Door.
It was lovely. To the left was the great rock arch, bigger than the pictures in her guidebook, unlike anything she'd ever seen back home, and to her right was the thin stretch of beach, all washed red pebbles with a thick line of black seaweed traced along the water line. The rocky cliffs were white, brilliantly white, and yes, they were romantic, just as she thought. There were no other trails leading back up the cliffs here. They were mottled red in spots, and the buckled and folded strata shot straight up before her eyes, layers of sediment forever pressed together.
Further down was Bat's Head, a cliff jutting out into the sea and there the beach ended. She read it was almost impossible to go around, but on the other side lay another beach, apparently, rarely visited, inaccessible.
“Going to leave without saying goodbye?” A voice said behind her.
She turned. Nicholas stood, with his hands on his hips, wearing an old leather jacket. His hair whipped around his face. He bared his teeth.
“I was just...”
He stepped closer. “Lucy,” he said her name softly. “You look terrible. Are you okay?”
Her face grew hotter. She was sure it was obvious, her being out of breath, flushed with fever, heaving, wild-eyed. “I'm fine,” she said.
“I think we should take you back,” he said. He was closer now, he could reach out and touch her if he wanted. “We should get you home.”
“Home?”
He put his hands up and rubbed her arms gently. “Yes. Home. For tea. And breakfast. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Lucy?” His voice warped. He sounded like Ben in the chapel closet.
“You...came into my...room,” Lucy said. She gasped for air. Her throat felt parched. She needed water. The clouds overhead were dark and more than anything she wanted it to rain right now, so she could just open her mouth.
“You need someone to take care of you. And now we'll go home and--”
She stepped out of his reach. “Stop saying...that.”
He smiled. “What?”
“This isn't my home.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. He stepped toward her again. He stood between her and the trail.
She inched away from him, put her hands on her pack's shoulder straps.
“I just want to help, Lucy.”
She kicked in the sand, throwing up a spray of pebbles, turned and ran. She pushed hard into the beach and it slowed her down, she felt like she had mud on her shoes and her legs were heavy, and her chest was heavy like the weight of the Christ Church boy, but she kept running. She could hear Nicholas behind her, calling her name, gently, then sharply, once like a professor who called on her for an answer in class, once like her mother did when it was time to set the table, once like Devin in bed.
“Get back here, Lucy!” he called. He was running after her. She kept pushing, it was hard to breathe, and suddenly the giant rock wall of Bat's loomed in front of her.
She was trapped.
Nicholas was right behind her. She couldn't turn around. What he wanted with her, what he would do to her, in this abandoned town. No one knew where she was. Her family thought she was studying. Devin thought she was out with the girls. She had to keep going. If she could swim around the edge of the rocks, around the cliff, she could get to that hidden beach. Nicholas would be crazy to follow her.
“Luuuuucccyyyyy--” behind her the voice carried. “Let's goooo hooommmmmmme.”
She waded into the water. It immediately flooded her shoes and through her socks and she gasped at the iciness. Then her ankles, knees, thighs. She waded out, holding herself against the sharp rocky outcropping. She didn't know if the tide was coming in or going out, but she kept moving, waist high. The pack was heavy. The water was up to her ribs. Lucy gasped at the air. Long, deep breaths now. The air was leaving her. Everything was leaving her here.
Her hand slipped off the rock. She bobbed underwater. She came back up and sputtered, tasting salt, tasting blood, her eyes stung so badly she had to close them and now she was blind, she didn't know where Nicholas was, if he was still behind her, her lungs shrunk and fought to find air again, she flailed her arms and pushed back in the direction of the rock she couldn't see, and felt for it, and that pack was sinking her down but somehow Lucy could swim, just barely swimming.
She remembered.
A club called Heaven, somewhere Under the Arches. Angela and Suzanne had gone in. Staying out for a smoke, she had said. In the alleyway there were a few others smoking, and she pulled out one and put it to her lips. She was new to smoking. New to all of it. She was cool, and would return to Virginia and Devin would say you're so cool, and he wouldn't know the intimate moments that had made her this way, he'd only know there was something...different. As she reached up with her lighter, another flame flicked on before her eyes.
Need this? She remembered the depth of his voice.
His skin, leathery and tanned. He had missed a day's shave. His eyes a bright blue, his teeth too big. He had looked her up and down, and brought the flame to the cigarette at her lips. He was wearing a long, brown overcoat. She exhaled a thank you.
Her fever felt like it was breaking, she was soaking wet and swimming in an icy sea. Oh God, how did she get here? She opened her eyes. Nicholas Farmer was gone. She slid the pack off her back, felt it bump her foot as it sank beneath her. Get to shore. Her arms were sore. She kicked weakly.
She had found the man's hand suddenly at her waist, pulling her into him, pressing her against his hips. Sharp pain, unlike anything she'd felt before. You like that, don't you? You want to be kept out late tonight, little girl? You know you do. He had breathed hotly into her face. With one hand he had held Lucy in a tight grip and with the other began to reach into his pants. All the boys and girls of Oxford and London, all of them before him, had been built into her architecture, she had made them, hadn't she? She had placed them on her body with permission.
Beneath her a small rip current kept pulling, but she pushed up as best she could. Then on the shore, coming down the steps, was a family. They skipped onto the beach. Lucy could see a bearded man in a jacket, his wife wearing an old-fashioned hat and trench, their young children, a boy and a girl, in matching red sweaters and rubber boots. The children kicked up pebbles as they ran, the man and woman held each other around the waist. Their laughter carried in the wind. They swung toy buckets and shovels.
He'd shoved her down. Her scraping her forehead against his buckle, her running. She had ran past the club doors and back to Charing Cross. Back to school, the train ride, how long she'd been sleeping in her bed. Angela and Suzanne had not spoken to her for four days, they had not even said goodbye when she left for this little holiday.
The family did not see her. Lucy tried to scream for help. She coughed. Her lungs felt collapsed in the cold. Not like this. It couldn't be like this, could it? She continued to swim, first kicking forward, windmilling her arms, but the waves pulled her out again and yanked her forward toward sharp rocks jutting out the coast; then she remembered if you swam parallel to shore you would most certainly land on it, and she tried that for a few minutes, until her muscles ached and tightened and stopped altogether.
The water felt warmer. It was warm like a sunny day down by her family's pond.
She felt as if she was moving farther away from the shore. Up and down she bobbed as the waves rose. She dipped the side of her face into the water, taking some into her mouth. Cleaning everything. In her mind (or maybe it was outside of her?) was the cry of a gull, and when another wave came, she took more water in her mouth, gurgled it, spit. She felt her head roll to the side, the water covered half of her face, and she felt her body in the heavy arms of the sea, but with one eye open still she could see little spots of red wool. The gull sounded, calling out: here I am.
and taxi. It had been a mistake, taking that
taxi. The ride had been obscenely expensive,
and now she had barely enough money to return to school, let alone get a decent meal while she was here. She hadn't expected that. Her Rough Guide said buses were scarce in the middle of February, but she wasn't gonna touch a British car. It was stupid of her not to ask about the price. Stupid.
And the taxi driver. Jesus H, he'd been anything but polite. Maybe he was mad at her for dragging him out of bed on a freezing Friday morning, making him put on gloves, undershirt, shirt, sweater, jacket, cap, long underwear, trousers, socks, boots; he was pissed abut having to get into an icy leather seat and wait forever for the cab to warm up and go through the cold to pick up some girl who wanted to go to the beach in February. Perhaps it was just his face. When he had picked her up at the train station he'd scowled at her in greeting and she would never forget it. His face turned down, all of it: the eyelids, the baggy skin, rubbery jowls, the nose curving down down down and the mouth ending like a pinched roll of dough. Now he had transported Lucy five miles from the station in a silence only punctuated by the second-guessing engine and his phlegmy cough. She tried to let her mind wander to the open winter plain outside the taxi's windows, but the windows were fogged up.
They reached the end of School Lane. All the roads were named so simply: school, cove, beach, church. Nothing much here besides the end of the country. Lucy had counted out cab fare before they even stopped. She felt claustrophobic by the solid windows, the man's hot breath blown by a fan to her face. She climbed out with her bag, slung it over her back and walked around to the driver's window, where she handed him exact change. "Have a good one, then," he said gruffly, and left her in the white beach gravel and the quiet.
She didn't quite know what she was doing here. Something, she knew it had to be something. She had always been so reasonable. Getting away to the seaside was definitely one of her plans this semester, to take in the romantic white cliffs of England and all that, to picnic with her friends, maybe bring some beach stones home to Virginia for her sister. Only she had woken up in her dormitory bed that morning with a bad feeling and a sudden need to go, go now, to see the ocean immediately and it had taken everything in her to sit among her colleagues in her crack-of-fucking-dawn Shakespeare 301, to smell Tracy doused in her Chanel knock-off, to hear Nick inaccurately interpret--again--one of the bard's last sonnets; it had taken everything in her not to stand up in the middle of it all and just run.
So this was it. Here, unexpectedly early, on a strange coast for a holiday. She couldn't get rid of that feeling. Perhaps it would dissipate once she checked in at the hostel, slid this pack off, had some tea. Then she could enjoy Lulworth. Relax, she breathed. Holiday. She had fallen in love with the word "holiday," the way it left her throat in a sigh, the way it could mark itself upon the inside of a window. She wanted to abandon the language of the U.S. "Vacation" was out, with its sadistic bite.
The hostel stood at the very end of the lane, next to an old stone wall and a few bare, gnarled trees on the edge of a field. Its long, brown ugliness contrasted sharply to the whitewashed farmhouses on the lane, as if someone had picked it up from a different, more vile place, and set it down in the gulf between windswept Dorset hills. The building was faceless. A weathered sign. There was not even a sound in the distance, and nothing seemed to come from inside, no laughter or talking, only the whistle of wind gusts and then, suddenly, a far-off cry from a gull, a greeting maybe, she couldn't be too sure. She sighed. At least this wasn't Oxford. It didn't have Oxford's throng of moving bodies, the people shuffling to and from classes, the ceaseless hum even in the library, the constant sounds of heavy footsteps up and down the stairs outside her dorm door, the hourly crack of some idiotic indoor game of croquet. Who had that bright idea? Ben or Justin. Perhaps it took the two of them to think of it together, they were fucking morons. They were also off for the weekend by now, a large group of her classmates. Edinburgh, they said, they wanted to go drinking. They had asked Lucy to join them. Ben had tried to take her hand when the rest of the group wasn't looking. She shook her head at him, at them, saying No thank you.
She hoisted her pack a little higher and approached the timber door.
Inside, the building was made of the same brown wood paneling. All the daylight was swallowed up as it tried to reach the middle of the room. A few bare bulbs overhead were flipped off. Windows rattled in their frames. Someone had left a game of chess upon the lounge table and the black queen sat frozen in victory.
A young man walked down the hall toward her, wiping his hands with a towel. "May I help you?" Drops of water fell from his chin, so fresh-faced she could see the glow of his cheeks in the dim light.
“A room, please.”
"Yes," he said. He laughed. Flushed cheeks. Bright teeth, like a wolf. "We have those."
He walked over to a desk in the corner, gesturing for Lucy to follow, and instructed her to sign in. "You can have any room you like," he said. He leaned over the desk, his sinewy arm lifted and ran a length past her neck, a finger pointed down the hall. “How long?”
“Two days. The weekend.”
“You're American?”
“Yes.”
“Visiting?”
“Studying. School semester. Just...wanted to take a holiday.” When she said it aloud it sounded foolish. Who was she kidding.
“Nicholas,” he said, and stuck out his hand. When she didn't take it, he brushed back his hair. It was blonde and thin and he tried to tuck it behind his ear with no success. “Farmer.”
“What?”
He laughed again, this time showing all of his teeth. It made her uneasy. “Farmer. Surname. I'm your host, should you need anything.”
She nodded, but did not give her name in return, only signed it on the registration card and thanked him. She picked up her pack and walked down the dark hall.
In the first room the bunks stood unused, the mattresses clean in their plastic nakedness. In the second room there was more light from the windows. No one. She moved to the third room, where she found yet another set of empty bunks. She shrugged and decided to claim the whole room for herself. As she unrolled her blanket, Nicholas appeared in the doorway.
"So this will do then?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "Anyone else here?”
He shook his head. “There could be others. Slow season.”
“Oh.”
He straightened up. "If you're hungry, I'm making lunch in a bit. You wouldn't have to go out just yet."
Lucy nodded. She didn't want to set anything in stone with him.
Then he disappeared around the corner. She held her breath long enough to hear him walk to the other side of the building, shut a door. The next moments were small pleasures: carefully arranging her tiny tube of toothpaste and her travel brush and a bar of soap in the bathroom, rolling and re-rolling her sweatshirt into just the right pillow, then resting on it, studying the slats of the bed above her. Trying to remember exactly what brought her here.
Then there was a clatter of silverware upon a table somewhere close, almost outside the door, and then his voice. How long had she napped? She stood up, reached in to straighten the wires of her bra and smooth her shirt.
Nicholas Farmer had set two places at the table. Cocky of him.
“I'm going for a walk,” she said.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah? Well, you can simply take the lane to the left into the village.”
“Just want to check out the coast.”
He pointed toward the back window. “Trail there, through the field up Bindon.”
“Bindon.”
“It's a hill.”
“Right,” she said, not wanting to appear helpless. “Will my stuff be okay in the room?”
Nicholas gave a swoop of his head, checking around. He reminded her of a buzzard, something from a cartoon she saw once when she was child. He laughed. “I'd say yes.”
She nodded, went back to the room to collect her purse and didn't look at him as she headed for the door.
“Have a good time, Lucy,” he said.
She climbed over a broken part of the wooden fence, into the meadow behind the hostel. In the matted frozen grass a narrow footpath led up the hill, as if leading up to the sky. When she reached the crest of the hill, the hazy line of sea appeared, sapphire blue and creamy foam, growing lighter toward the horizon. Sharply below her was Lulworth Cove, its water scalloping out the beach in a brilliant blue-green tinge. A full seashell, she thought. She sat down and pulled out her camera to take pictures of the little fishing boats anchored in the cove. She zoomed in on them. They were empty. A gray boathouse, no bigger than her family's storage shed, sat nearby. Also empty. On the opposite side of Lulworth Cove she saw tiny steps leading up to the town, and what appeared to be the main road. But no one was traveling today. It really was freezing, way too cold for anyone to even think of fishing, and overcast, too. Her eyes stung. She could reach down and pluck tiny boats out of that dish of water and flick them away into the clouds. Lucy smiled and her face ached. She sniffed to feel her nose, and pulled her hat down over her ears.
Now she was hungry. Whatever Nicholas had been cooking had smelled wonderful—sausages, maybe—and her stomach growled. There were a few places listed in the guide, so she stepped carefully back down the hill, found a path that cut through the trees and ran along town above the church lane, and as she made her way to its cluster of buildings, she admired the thatched roofs, the painted walls and sweet blue shutters of cottages, the neat hedgerow gardens under frost. What could a person possibly grow here?
Her roommate, Angela, would have liked this. Since Lucy had arrived for her semester abroad she had made two good friends, and thankfully one of them was her roommate. It would have been a horrible time otherwise. But Angela was fun. She was a lesbian. I don't think we have any of those where I come from, Lucy had said. Angela had laughed, showed Lucy pictures of her girlfriend back home, told Lucy the girlfriend would probably fly over at the end of the semester so they could party around England. Angela was taller than Lucy, and much more fashionable, with short, fiery red hair. She had a job as a make-up artist back home. From the sound of it Angela was quite the socialite, and even took calls in the dorm's hallway phone not just from her girlfriend, but also from other “friends” overseas.
Lucy's only other friend was Suzanne. Suzanne was a head taller than both of them, with wide hips and shoulders. She had a soccer scholarship, even though she didn't need one, and dirty blonde hair and a nose upturned slightly, which reminded Lucy of a pig. But Suzanne was nice and often paid for everyone's rounds at the pub because she had a lot of money. Suzanne told Lucy that she did not have a boyfriend, that instead she had a lover, a married one at that. “It's the way to go,” she said.
There were twenty-five of them, all from the States, all rooming at St. Benet's. Lucy wondered whether Trinity wanted to hide all the Americans away at St. Benet's. She couldn't blame the school. Her fellow students busied themselves every night with tasks like making Pimm's on the lawn—it was a total mess—or playing war games while punting or hopping the same round of bars. But Angela and Suzanne were different. It was as if they were living on another level. They took the train to London instead, and took Lucy with them. Angela did her hair and makeup. Suzanne gave her glittery, low-cut tops to wear. They went to Candy Bar, where Lucy picked out girls who were chiseled and tan like statues. When they dance with Lucy they were not statues at all but water nymphs, and they slid their hands up and down her back and ran fingers through her hairspray sticky hair, and she let them put their little tongues in her mouth.
On Lulworth's main street, the Inn was locked.
Closed for water damage repair. See you in March!
Finlay's was on holiday. The other shops were also locked and empty, despite the business hours listed. This is hopeless, she thought. The trip was a bit of a disaster, although she liked the quiet, she did, she just needed to remember—what was it?
Back home in Virginia, Devin was waiting for her. They had been together two years. He also studied English literature, more of a critical theory guy while she studied classics, and he was one who stayed up thinking too much about the way things fit into place. She thought he had an active imagination. It didn't help her here. He loved her, very much, and she deserved to know how much he loved her, he said this on the telephone every night at Oxford. Lucy figured he must have racked up a three hundred-dollar phone bill by now, but didn't she deserve to know how much he loved her, he said, and he deserved to be listened to and hear “I love you” in return. Here in Lulworth, if the phone rang, it wouldn't be for her, and Lucy was thankful.
When she turned back onto School Lane, she looked the farmhouses as she passed. They were beautiful in their quaintness, and reminded her of home. She and Devin would have a bed, there, in that top bedroom, and under that window would be the couch where they watched movies while their snow boots steamed.
Something moved out of the corner of her eye. She looked sideways. There, on the side of the house. In the backyard stood a child. Lucy kept walking but tried to get a better look at him as she passed. He was a little boy, maybe five years old, blonde hair flopped in his eyes. He had a stick in his mittened hand. With little stabs he chipped away at ice in a cow trough. Suddenly he looked at her. His cheeks were flushed. When he smiled, he looked like he had too many teeth. Just like Nicholas, she thought. Then the farmhouse was blocking her view and she quickened her pace to get on the other side. When she did, she glanced back again. The child was gone. The cow trough stood untouched, perfectly frozen. Lucy looked up at the windows of the farmhouse, searching for a sign of life, a light behind them. No one was there.
The whole town couldn't be empty. It couldn't be.
Nicholas had set two places again for supper. This time, she wouldn't pass on his offer.
“How was your walk?” he asked.
Since he was apparently the only person in this damn place, she figured a little conversation would help.
“It was nice,” she said. She sat down at her place at the long dining room table. “But strange.”
He sat down and passed her a basket of bread. When she took a piece, it was still warm and it felt good to hold it in her hands. “Strange? May I ask why?”
“Well,” she bit off a corner of bread and chewed it. “I couldn't find any place to eat. All the shops are closed.”
“Unsurprising, actually. I'm afraid that happens here from time to time.”
“But I didn't even see anyone. I mean, nobody. Don't people, you know, live here year-round?”
“Yes, but February is a hard month.” He heaped salad onto a plate. “It's hard for many reasons. When one person leaves, others follow.”
“Why?”
“Who knows why people do what they do?”
They ate, and didn't talk. Nicholas had made a beef stew, bread, salad, and brought out more bottles of cider for them. He apologized for not having something warmer, like wine.
“It's fine,” she said. She felt lightheaded.
He scooted his chair closer to hers. “So, you're staying until Monday?” he asked softly.
She was uneasy. “Yes,” she said. “But leaving early morning. You know, school.”
“Right, of course.” He smiled and looked away. “Well, if all the shops are closed, you don't have to wander around in the cold.”
She crossed her legs away from him.
“We could play games,” he continued. “Or I have some movies.” He laughed. “I just find it so peculiar that you're here at this time.”
“Well,” she said. “I really just needed to get away for a weekend.”
“School can't be that bad.”
She didn't say anything.
“Anyway,” he leaned closer. “I'm grateful for such beautiful company.”
Lucy stood up, and grabbed her plate. “I'm tired. Where do you want me to put this?”
“Allow me.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
He bowed playfully to her, and began picking up the rest of the dishes. “Of course. Goodnight, Lucy.”
Why did he say her name so much? She turned and walked quickly down the hall to her room. Inside, she shut the door and quietly tried to press the lock in. But it didn't go in. It didn't work. Damn.
Lucy took an extra blanket from the closet and put it over the other, changed carefully into pajamas while listening for movement outside the door. She got into the bottom bunk bed but didn't turn the light off. She shifted her makeshift pillow. She kept an eye on the door handle and drifted in thought.
Her classmate Ben left notes in her schoolbooks. He slid them in her copy of Much Ado About Nothing after they all had breakfast in the dining hall. On little slips of paper he would write times and places for them to meet, and Lucy met him. In the chapel closet after morning prayer. The unlocked attic floor bath. Or most often in his room, on the boy's dormitory. He had a single. Ben was quick about the whole thing. He, too, had someone back home.
It turned out she wasn't the only one who did this. There were scufflings at two a.m., laughter in the dark, eyes sharply cast down over tea. Perhaps all of them did, and no one told each other.
When she awoke, Lucy realized she had burrowed down in her blankets during the night, and her mouth sucked in the soft sheet fabric. She spat it out and took a deep breath.
She was shaking uncontrollably. The room felt heated, but not quite warm enough. When she pulled the covers off her face and sat up she saw that it was still dark in the room, maybe early dawn, and felt her whole head burning. Her cheeks and forehead were burning up. Feverish, even. Was she sick? Her throat was so dry she couldn't talk. Her bottom right lip had cracked, and now she brushed gently at a bit of dried blood on the edge of her mouth. The rest of her felt cold, colder even than yesterday and she couldn't get her shoulders to stop tensing and shaking. She couldn't let go.
There were four blankets on her. She went to bed with two last night.
Lucy threw them off as if they were covered in bugs. Nicholas. He had been in her room. While she slept he had touched her, put blankets on her, God knows what else.
The creep.
She had to go. Now. She had to get out of here. Grayish light through the window. It was too early to get a ride back to the train station. She could kill time down at the beach, go to Durdle Door. Hell, it was the only plan she'd actually made, might as well keep it, and Nicholas would only know that she'd left but not to where. The Inn was nearby. She would find a phone as soon as she could.
She packed quietly, now and then pausing to listen at the doorway, and carried her stuff in one hand to the lobby. She tried not to groan under the weight, but she also didn't want to risk Nicholas hearing the loud shuffle and click of belt buckles. The hinges squeaked when she opened the front door. Lucy froze. Nothing. He was probably still asleep. She didn't bother to close the door behind her, just threw her backpack on and ran.
When Lucy reached the empty parking area at the edge of town, she stopped to catch her breath. Everything was dizzy. The parking lot spun in front of her. She laughed. Of course, no one was here. Why did she expect anything had changed from yesterday? Lulworth was abandoned. Dead. She was alone, and there was nothing. Nothing in this town. No one. All alone. Would she have preferred the temporary arms of Oxford? The girls of London?
She started to wheeze and bent over. The pack shifted violently forward and she fell on her knees. Why had she come here? Was it any better than St. Benet's, her classrooms, that dining hall with eyes following her body, a body which she swung to meet their expectations? Was it any better than the bed she barely slept in, that Christ Church boy, and then whatshisname, Thomas, the one who put his hand under the pub table and grabbed at the crotch of her jeans? Or the couple she met one night in front of the chip stand--that poor, lonely dog-faced couple who had invited her back to their apartment?
All she had to do was take the train back to school, finish classes, fly back home, back to Virginia, back to Devin and she wouldn't wear makeup anymore, wouldn't dance with strangers anymore and when she looked in the mirror at home maybe she'd recognize herself again.
Lucy stood up and walked briskly across the parking lot, to the sea cliffs trail. A stone sidewalk took her up Hambury Hill, away from Lulworth. Over the hill, on the other side, she knew was Durdle Door. She had seen it in pictures: a great rock arch stretching out from the cliff into the ocean, forming a giant keyhole.
When she looked back on Lulworth, she was surprised by the softness of it all. The views of rounded hills and rounded roofs, all bathed in diffused light coming up on the valley. It was so unassuming and old, perhaps if there were people who lived here they all knew one another very well, perhaps their entire lives.
Over the hill and down again, down the angled steps anchored in eroding chalk and limestone, and finally her foot sank into the pebbled beach at Durdle Door.
It was lovely. To the left was the great rock arch, bigger than the pictures in her guidebook, unlike anything she'd ever seen back home, and to her right was the thin stretch of beach, all washed red pebbles with a thick line of black seaweed traced along the water line. The rocky cliffs were white, brilliantly white, and yes, they were romantic, just as she thought. There were no other trails leading back up the cliffs here. They were mottled red in spots, and the buckled and folded strata shot straight up before her eyes, layers of sediment forever pressed together.
Further down was Bat's Head, a cliff jutting out into the sea and there the beach ended. She read it was almost impossible to go around, but on the other side lay another beach, apparently, rarely visited, inaccessible.
“Going to leave without saying goodbye?” A voice said behind her.
She turned. Nicholas stood, with his hands on his hips, wearing an old leather jacket. His hair whipped around his face. He bared his teeth.
“I was just...”
He stepped closer. “Lucy,” he said her name softly. “You look terrible. Are you okay?”
Her face grew hotter. She was sure it was obvious, her being out of breath, flushed with fever, heaving, wild-eyed. “I'm fine,” she said.
“I think we should take you back,” he said. He was closer now, he could reach out and touch her if he wanted. “We should get you home.”
“Home?”
He put his hands up and rubbed her arms gently. “Yes. Home. For tea. And breakfast. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Lucy?” His voice warped. He sounded like Ben in the chapel closet.
“You...came into my...room,” Lucy said. She gasped for air. Her throat felt parched. She needed water. The clouds overhead were dark and more than anything she wanted it to rain right now, so she could just open her mouth.
“You need someone to take care of you. And now we'll go home and--”
She stepped out of his reach. “Stop saying...that.”
He smiled. “What?”
“This isn't my home.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. He stepped toward her again. He stood between her and the trail.
She inched away from him, put her hands on her pack's shoulder straps.
“I just want to help, Lucy.”
She kicked in the sand, throwing up a spray of pebbles, turned and ran. She pushed hard into the beach and it slowed her down, she felt like she had mud on her shoes and her legs were heavy, and her chest was heavy like the weight of the Christ Church boy, but she kept running. She could hear Nicholas behind her, calling her name, gently, then sharply, once like a professor who called on her for an answer in class, once like her mother did when it was time to set the table, once like Devin in bed.
“Get back here, Lucy!” he called. He was running after her. She kept pushing, it was hard to breathe, and suddenly the giant rock wall of Bat's loomed in front of her.
She was trapped.
Nicholas was right behind her. She couldn't turn around. What he wanted with her, what he would do to her, in this abandoned town. No one knew where she was. Her family thought she was studying. Devin thought she was out with the girls. She had to keep going. If she could swim around the edge of the rocks, around the cliff, she could get to that hidden beach. Nicholas would be crazy to follow her.
“Luuuuucccyyyyy--” behind her the voice carried. “Let's goooo hooommmmmmme.”
She waded into the water. It immediately flooded her shoes and through her socks and she gasped at the iciness. Then her ankles, knees, thighs. She waded out, holding herself against the sharp rocky outcropping. She didn't know if the tide was coming in or going out, but she kept moving, waist high. The pack was heavy. The water was up to her ribs. Lucy gasped at the air. Long, deep breaths now. The air was leaving her. Everything was leaving her here.
Her hand slipped off the rock. She bobbed underwater. She came back up and sputtered, tasting salt, tasting blood, her eyes stung so badly she had to close them and now she was blind, she didn't know where Nicholas was, if he was still behind her, her lungs shrunk and fought to find air again, she flailed her arms and pushed back in the direction of the rock she couldn't see, and felt for it, and that pack was sinking her down but somehow Lucy could swim, just barely swimming.
She remembered.
A club called Heaven, somewhere Under the Arches. Angela and Suzanne had gone in. Staying out for a smoke, she had said. In the alleyway there were a few others smoking, and she pulled out one and put it to her lips. She was new to smoking. New to all of it. She was cool, and would return to Virginia and Devin would say you're so cool, and he wouldn't know the intimate moments that had made her this way, he'd only know there was something...different. As she reached up with her lighter, another flame flicked on before her eyes.
Need this? She remembered the depth of his voice.
His skin, leathery and tanned. He had missed a day's shave. His eyes a bright blue, his teeth too big. He had looked her up and down, and brought the flame to the cigarette at her lips. He was wearing a long, brown overcoat. She exhaled a thank you.
Her fever felt like it was breaking, she was soaking wet and swimming in an icy sea. Oh God, how did she get here? She opened her eyes. Nicholas Farmer was gone. She slid the pack off her back, felt it bump her foot as it sank beneath her. Get to shore. Her arms were sore. She kicked weakly.
She had found the man's hand suddenly at her waist, pulling her into him, pressing her against his hips. Sharp pain, unlike anything she'd felt before. You like that, don't you? You want to be kept out late tonight, little girl? You know you do. He had breathed hotly into her face. With one hand he had held Lucy in a tight grip and with the other began to reach into his pants. All the boys and girls of Oxford and London, all of them before him, had been built into her architecture, she had made them, hadn't she? She had placed them on her body with permission.
Beneath her a small rip current kept pulling, but she pushed up as best she could. Then on the shore, coming down the steps, was a family. They skipped onto the beach. Lucy could see a bearded man in a jacket, his wife wearing an old-fashioned hat and trench, their young children, a boy and a girl, in matching red sweaters and rubber boots. The children kicked up pebbles as they ran, the man and woman held each other around the waist. Their laughter carried in the wind. They swung toy buckets and shovels.
He'd shoved her down. Her scraping her forehead against his buckle, her running. She had ran past the club doors and back to Charing Cross. Back to school, the train ride, how long she'd been sleeping in her bed. Angela and Suzanne had not spoken to her for four days, they had not even said goodbye when she left for this little holiday.
The family did not see her. Lucy tried to scream for help. She coughed. Her lungs felt collapsed in the cold. Not like this. It couldn't be like this, could it? She continued to swim, first kicking forward, windmilling her arms, but the waves pulled her out again and yanked her forward toward sharp rocks jutting out the coast; then she remembered if you swam parallel to shore you would most certainly land on it, and she tried that for a few minutes, until her muscles ached and tightened and stopped altogether.
The water felt warmer. It was warm like a sunny day down by her family's pond.
She felt as if she was moving farther away from the shore. Up and down she bobbed as the waves rose. She dipped the side of her face into the water, taking some into her mouth. Cleaning everything. In her mind (or maybe it was outside of her?) was the cry of a gull, and when another wave came, she took more water in her mouth, gurgled it, spit. She felt her head roll to the side, the water covered half of her face, and she felt her body in the heavy arms of the sea, but with one eye open still she could see little spots of red wool. The gull sounded, calling out: here I am.
