Chapter 12: Firelight

We rushed around in the surf, retrieving the boards and swim things. It was fairly dark now, and the pebbles were painful underfoot, so in the end only Kayleigh had both parts before we had to give it up ... My trunks were nowhere to be found, and nor were Sarah’s bottoms or Rosie’s top.

“Oh god,” giggled Sarah, “we’re fucked!”

“Where are we?” Kayleigh was looking around. It wasn’t the beach we’d started from.

“There must be a current along the coast,” I realised.

“And the wind,” Rosie pointed out. “North-east, so we’ve drifted and the car must be along up there, north.”

“Bare feet!” Kayleigh was hopping from foot to foot.

“We can’t walk it with no shoes,” Rosie ventured, “and we can’t have Colin caught like this...”

“Taking advantage of us,” Sarah was still amused.

“Is your dressing still on Colin?” Rosie took my arm to check it.

“Yes it’s stayed on, thanks.” I’d forgotten about it. I was busy thinking about getting back to the car without being arrested! “You did it perfectly.”

So we got back on the boards, out to sea beyond the breakers, and paddled north. How would we recognise the right beach? We’d parked in a conservation area with no lights or buildings, and now it was too dark to see much. The car park was out of sight from the sea, behind a belt of trees. We’d been a bit stupid, or I’d been a bit stupid, being seduced by young girls instead of making sure we paddled back properly in daylight, in our swim things!

It was harder going against the wind, but we were passing beaches and groynes, making progress. Luckily the girls still had energy, and even I could still paddle, if I paced myself. We passed holiday homes and caravan sites, then, at last, it was trees. But still, which beach?

I was starting to recognise a sequence of groynes, I thought, when Sarah stood up. Inevitably she was balancing effortlessly, looking like a young goddess with her hair blowing round her - a nude goddess since she hadn’t bothered with her bikini top. She was looking towards the shore, then pointing.

“Fire!” she called. “Two.”

The others stood up as well.

“Careful!” I had to caution them, as loudly as I dared. The last thing we needed was to capsize, or be spotted, or both - the sea was catching the last of the light all too revealingly. I couldn’t see the fire without standing up...

“It’s the girls,” said Sarah. “Two fires is us. We often use two, of things, and who’d have two camp fires?”

“Which girls?” I asked. Stupidly.

“Nance and Thee and Jades. They’ve come and done a beacon for us. Stars.”

“How can they be here?”

“Relay, Col.”

It took me a moment to realise they hadn’t been running in sequence. It’s how these girls steal cars!

“Not again!” I protested impotently.

But when we got to the beach there they were, laughing as usual, greeting us with hugs and kisses.

“How did you know we were here?”

“Location tracking obviously, Col.” Nancy was taking off her skimpy clothes in the firelight, for some reason. “We could see your phones just sitting here and it was getting dark.”

“You could’ve been lost at sea,” Thea explained further. “Here are your phones,” she was handing them out. They’d been in ‘the’ car of course.

“Whose car have you stolen?” I asked.

“Dunno,” Jade’s white teeth shone in the gloom, “some tosser with a stupid great SUV.”

“Don’t tell me SUV’s are wrong now?” I sighed.

“Nobody actually needs two tons of metal to get round in do they?” Thea clarified this new wokery, taking off the last of the clothing she didn’t need. “It’s just to be bigger. Using more steel and fuel or lithium and everything else, and safer for them but worse for pedestrians and people in ordinary cars, being selfish. So now they can collect it, from wherever we leave it.”

“Suppose somebody comes?” I knew I shouldn’t be saying, but hoping nobody would ask what type of car I had before the Tesla.

“Nobody’ll come Colin,” Sarah stroked my bare ass affectionately. “It’s a wildlife area and it’s the night.”

“We brought some food,” Nancy was opening a cool box. “And some big fluffy towels.”

“It’s nice and warm and we can be in between the fires,” Jade was nude too now, like everybody in fact except Rosie.

“We’ve got to get up to Beaningham,” I pointed out, “to get rid of the other phone.”

“Oh I don’t know,” Nancy wasn’t keen. “Let’s just do it here, it’ll look like they did something together, got in a boat or tried to swim or something. It doesn’t need to be that far out does it, I mean a hundred metres or something.”

“I’ll take it,” Thea had it in her hand already, “I’m feeling okay now and Jades can come with me.” She set off back down to the beach with her sister.

So there I was, tired and hungry, by the camp fires crackling with pine cones. The air was an aromatic mixture of sea, the pines and wood smoke. I sat down on a probably purloined towel and Rosie came and sat next to me, in her skimpy bikini bottoms.

“How’s your dressing?” she took my arm.

“It’s fine I think, thanks.” I let her inspect it.

“We’ll have to change the dressing, as soon as we get home.”

“Thanks.” I was leaving my arm there, for her to keep stroking with her delicate touch.

“You were great with the paddling,” she said. Her voice is a bit deeper in tone than one might think from looking at her.

“So were you,” I had to reciprocate.

“You’re great with the girls too.”

Nancy, Sarah and Kayleigh had gone off into the trees, in trainers and nothing else, collecting firewood.

“Am I? They think I’m just an old wrinkly.” I had to smile.

“You like them, and you care about them, and they can tell. And you’re a power figure for them.”

“They do exactly as they like, whether I approve or not.”

“Generally, they’ve been oppressed, up to now.” Rosie’s voice was privately low, as she leaned into me. “They haven’t had any money, or influence, or proper parents, like with fathers protecting them. There’s been men trying to exploit them, for a long time - you wouldn’t believe how long. Cops even. Teachers. Strangers. And now they’re with you, with your status and power, your standing. I mean they’ve always had fight in them, they turned sex around with choosing it, making it theirs, but you control the adult world, or your world at least. You make them safe. But at the same time you don’t oppress them, they’re free.”

“They’re free around you as well.” I moved my shoulder, so my arm was in position to go round her. She leaned in more, rather than less, so I continued with it.

“I’m free, because of you. Rod came into your territory, after me, and you all felt it was him out of his own territory and in yours, and it was just always likely, you know, somehow, that he’d brought a knife to a swordfight. Even if it’d been the police instead, he’d have lost. But Thea’s wanted to kill him for a long time. I bet she noticed those swords straight away and thought of him! And then, that you’d help her get away with it. The digger, everything, letting me drive it even, cos you knew it’d help me...” she tailed off.

“So, when you were that age, were you oppressed?”

“It’s hard for you to imagine, what it’s like: half of everyone being stronger than you and wanting to have you, get started with you, take your clothes off, take photos or whatever. You don’t even really know what, but they’re looking at you, trying to talk to you, and to start with you don’t really understand but you know it’s not safe, to be anywhere on your own.”

“So you have to be with someone?”

“Yeh. You have to pick someone. And so I went with someone, who seemed strong, had mates, all that.”

“But he turned out to be an asshole.”

“He insisted. Once we were started he insisted, on everything. Where we went, what I ought to wear, who I spoke to, what I posted, everything, and sex. And not using anything.”

“Do you think he wanted to get you pregnant?”

“I don’t know. But it was all ‘his child’. It was supposed to be a boy, or boys, but it got difficult and I couldn’t have any more after Nancy...”

“Ah,” was all I could think of to say.

“Yeh, so after that it was ... me being a fail, basically.”

“And so the girls being together, doing karate...”

“It’s a different world from yours. They have to look confident, always. Be on the move, going somewhere, as though there are guys waiting for them. And be a group of them too. And have some cops on their side.”