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CHAPTER 1

It was a hot day in the summer, one of those days that glimmers like a mayfly, only to be trampled under the heels of an unseasonal downpour twenty-four hours later. Eleanor was staring at the parking ticket on the windscreen of her car. (Eleanor is not the most important person in this story, but without her the story could not have happened, and so this is where we begin.) Eleanor's car was once an exclusive model, but it was too old and run-down to turn any heads now. Even the traffic warden beside Eleanor could see that this was a metaphor.

'But I'm legally parked,' said Eleanor. This was not the beginning of the conversation.

'Residents' parking until 6 p.m.,' repeated the traffic warden.

'But it doesn't say that,' said Eleanor.

'It does,' said the traffic warden, 'on that sign, and that one, and that one, and that one, and that one.'

'But not above this bay,' said Eleanor.

'There's the paint that marks the bay,' said the traffic warden, 'and there's the hole in the pavement where the sign used to be, before some kids kicked it down. You can extrapolate.'

Had the day been less hot, had the parking ticket been more fair, Eleanor might have noticed the traffic warden's use of the word 'extrapolate' and wondered what kind of a person he was. This was the kind of thing that usually interested Eleanor. But not when she was looking down the barrel of a £35 fine (£70 if not paid within fourteen days, which she had no intention of doing).

'I'm not paying it,' she said.

'That's your prerogative,' said the traffic warden, and turned to leave.

Eleanor found this unsatisfactory.

'I'll report you,' she said, 'for overzealous ticketing.'

'Be my guest,' said the traffic warden, walking away.

'What's your badge number?'

The traffic warden ignored her.

'Hey! What's your badge number?'

She ran after the traffic warden, feeling heavy and uncomfortable in the wrong clothes for the weather: tweed trousers, a synthetic blouse already patched under the arms with sweat. She grabbed the traffic warden by the elbow.

'Oi!' said the traffic warden. 'Let go!'

But Eleanor refused to let go. There was a brief, undignified tussle, during which the traffic warden's sleeve was undeniably ripped, and possibly – though Eleanor would deny this – he also received a kick in the right shin.

She'd never find her son now, Eleanor thought later, slumped in the back of the police car. Her children, she corrected herself. She tended to forget about Sally.

At the far end of the not-very-large town, Billy and his sister Sally had just stepped off the train. Although Sally was smaller than Billy, she was wearing the oversized rucksack, while Billy dragged the case on wheels, because of his back. There was nothing wrong with Billy's back, but it was important that it stayed that way.

'What do you think?' said Billy.

They looked around the station car park. There were several parked cars, and a cab rank with a waiting cab, the window half rolled down and a curl of cigarette smoke emanating above the 'No Smoking' sticker on the glass. Here and there the tarmac was cracked and some weeds poked through. There was a thin layer of sand on top of everything, and an angry seagull perched on a lamp post, although seagulls always looked angry, thought Billy. He wondered whether this counted as an original observation.

'I like it,' said Sally, which was the right answer. Billy smiled.

'Why don't you take both bags,' he said, 'and find us a B&B? I'll head to the beach, soak up the atmosphere, get the old creativity going ... Rolling,' he corrected himself, liking the feel of the word on his tongue, thinking it was a better word, and then changing his mind, 'going' was better, less try-hard.

Sally headed off up the hill into town, the huge rucksack above her short, stocky legs making her look like a dung beetle, thought Billy. Although didn't dung beetles carry the dung balls upside-down? Maybe he meant another type of beetle. A scarab. But then beetles' legs were spindly, not stocky. No matter what the type. So he probably didn't mean a beetle at all. She just looked like Sally, carrying a big rucksack and pulling the wheelie case behind her.

The beach wasn't far from the station. Even on a Friday it was packed, being the school holidays. Billy stood at the top of the strand wondering whether or not to take his trainers off. Walking on the beach in shoes felt wrong, but he hated putting his socks and shoes back on sandy feet, and he could never get all the sand off no matter how much he tried. Then the sand would get everywhere in his room at the B&B and, later, if they moved into a flat, it would somehow get there too, spreading and spreading like ... Germs? Butter? The Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan? Was that racist?

He decided to take his shoes and socks off anyway. If he wasn't going to feel the sand beneath his feet, he may as well not have come.

He walked towards the water. The sand was scorching underfoot, but even so he enjoyed the way it felt, the soft yielding and yet also the firmness beneath, the slight crunch. He scanned the horizon, took in the rise and fall of the waves, the pounding as they hit the shore, the inchoate cries of the seagulls as they swooped above – yes, he told himself, yes, this is it, finally, the place where I can write! But it was impossible to ignore the all-too-choate sounds of the human beings around him: babies screaming, kids demanding ice creams, teenagers pleading to go to the arcade, husbands and wives arguing over who forgot to bring the sunscreen. Also, he wasn't sure that 'choate' was a word. It should be. If Shakespeare can make up words, he thought, so can I.

This made him think of his mother. He checked the pockets of his shorts. He had just enough change either for an ice cream or for a postcard and a stamp. He did send his mother postcards, so that she would know he was still alive. He tried to choose ones that were vague enough, that didn't give the name of the town he was staying in. He never wrote much on the postcards. He couldn't bear to think of her picking them apart, making comparisons, the way she used to with his school essays. A few generic phrases were enough. So that she would know he hadn't bothered to try.

He decided on an ice cream. There was a booth up beside the road. The woman inside greeted him with warm familiarity. People often thought that they knew him, but they never knew from where. Billy knew. The muddy hair, already at thirty-two fast receding from the domed forehead; the round eyes, brown, settling a 500-year-old debate; the goatee beard, which he could have shaved off, but which undeniably suited his face shape; the small, soft lips, ever-ready to pronounce great wisdom: they'd seen his face hundreds of times before, on books, posters, mugs, tote bags, T-shirts, novelty soaps ... It was surprising how infrequently anyone ever remarked on it. But then who expects to run into William Shakespeare chewing on the gooey end of a 99 Flake?

He wandered back towards the sea. He imagined himself stripping off (maybe just to underwear; even in these last moments he wouldn't want to embarrass himself) and swimming out as far as he could, and then farther, until he exhausted himself, went under. The authorities might even think it was an accident. They said that drowning was a good way to go, although God knows who 'they' were. He doubted very much that people who had been brought round after almost drowning said, 'That was great! I really want to do that again.' It was just something that people said at parties, people who had no idea whether or not it was true. He was a cliché even for thinking it. And also, he was a strong swimmer. He might get farther than he expected. He might reach France. Then, there he would be, alive, in France, wearing only his pants (just as well he'd decided to keep them on). There were so many things to consider. To be or not to be? Even contemplating suicide, that bastard had got there first.

Probably, he conceded, he would not reach France.

He imagined Sally coming down to the beach and looking for him. He pictured her finding his clothes in a pile, and waiting beside them for him to come back. Looking out to sea, trying to spot the dot that was his head. How long would she wait before she started to worry? To panic? And then, afterwards, how long before she didn't miss him any more?

The melting ice cream dripped onto his hand. He should have bought the postcard.

'There you are!'

Billy looked up and saw Sally approaching him along the waterfront.

'That was quick,' he said.

Sally frowned.

'Do you want one?' Billy said, holding up the ice cream. 'You can have the rest of mine if you like. I'm not in the mood.'

Sally hesitated, then grinned. 'OK!' she said.

Billy handed the ice cream over. Sally took a cheerful lick.

'It didn't take you long to find somewhere,' he said.

That frown again.

'I'll get writing soon,' he reassured her. 'I just had to take in my surroundings first.'

Sally's frown deepened. 'You shouldn't be writing now,' she said. 'You're late for lunch. Thandie sent me to get you. And you shouldn't be eating ice cream either, but that's OK, because you're not.' She grinned again and took another lick of the ice cream.

'Thandie?'

'Yes. She's really angry.'

Rather than explain who Thandie was, Sally turned and headed back up to the road. Billy pulled on his shoes and socks, feeling the unpleasant rasp of the sand over his skin – wrong decision again – and ran after her. Thandie must be the landlady at the B&B. Sally had obviously picked somewhere with full board, forgetting the rules they'd established after the Great Food Poisoning Incident of Barrow-in-Furness. Why would this Thandie be angry, though? What had Sally done? It was true that people often got frustrated with Sally, but rarely actually angry.

'But you think it's OK, though?' he asked her as they trotted along, past shops selling boogie boards and buckets and spades and miniature castles built from shells.

'What?'

'The place.'

'Of course it is,' said Sally. 'It's lovely.'

Lovely? That didn't sound right.

'We can afford it, right?'

Sally turned to him, worried. 'Gosh, I hope so,' she said.

Billy felt a stab of guilt. It was Sally's money, earned at a variety of low-paid jobs in the towns that they stopped in, that paid their B&B bills, not to mention all their other expenses. Billy intended to make up for this once one of his plays was produced, which would mean first finishing a play. His thoughts drifted reluctantly towards the half-filled notebooks in the wheelie bag at the B&B, the fragmentary thoughts and phrases that never cohered into anything, like that jelly Eleanor had tried to make for his birthday once, a sweet, viscous liquid that swam around in its rabbit-shaped mould but never set. In the end they'd drunk it all the same. Was that a good image? Maybe. Was it Shakespearegood, though?

Sally weaved her way through the streets of the town as though she lived there. Billy hurried to keep up, surprised at her sudden competence. How had she managed to find somewhere to stay so quickly, and so far off the beaten track? Usually they lodged on one of those strips where every building is a guest house more dispiriting than the last, where it feels like a minor triumph if your bedroom has a sink with a hot tap. The area Sally led them to now was uphill from the shopping district, a warren of low stone cottages with a faded charm and a view of the sea. It was, in a word, nice. That was new.

'This is a good, solid town,' Billy observed. 'It's not run-down enough to be depressing, but nor is it all gentrified and ...' Intimidating, was the word that popped into his mind. He decided not to say it. 'I feel like this is somewhere we could really belong, you know?' he said instead.

'We do belong here,' said Sally.

'Oh. Yeah. Maybe, yeah. That's really optimistic of you, Sally. Good attitude.'

Sally peered at him. 'You're acting weird today, Bill.'

'Well, you know, there's always an adjustment period.'

'Saying things like that. That's exactly what I mean.'

'Yes, well, you're acting weird too.'

Sally shrugged and, having finished the ice cream, licked the remnants off her fingers. Then she suddenly turned and skipped up the steps to a small grey cottage with a neatly tended garden in the front. Billy looked around. There wasn't any kind of sign that it was a B&B.

'Sally,' he said, 'you didn't just meet someone in the street who invited you to come home with them? You can't trust people like that. They could rob us, or worse.'

'Of course not,' said Sally. 'Not after last time. Whoo! That was scary.'

'What last time?' said Billy.

'If it hadn't been for that passing policeman,' said Sally, ringing the doorbell, 'I'd have been in a whole lot of trouble, but don't worry, I've learned my lesson, never gonna do that again.'

'What last time?' said Billy again, but as he spoke the door opened, revealing a strikingly beautiful and even more strikingly annoyed-looking woman on the threshold.

'Thandie?' said Billy.

She had long, curling black hair, huge eyes, and the kind of voluptuous body Billy would happily move into.

'About bloody time too,' she said.

'I'm sorry?' said Billy.

'So you should be. Glad you made it at long last.'

There didn't seem much he could say to that. He offered: 'Yes.'

Thandie turned and headed back into the house, Sally close behind her and, after a moment, Billy followed her in too. The entrance hall was surreal: nothing like the places they usually stayed, it had pale-blue William Morris wallpaper and a few framed botanical prints, and no signs of mould. It was – he searched for the right word – pleasant. He was uncomfortably aware of tracking sand on the polished floorboards.

Thandie rooted around in a handbag on the hall table and pulled out a £20 note which she handed to Sally with a heart-melting smile.

'I need to talk to Bill alone, love,' she said. 'Why don't you head down to the pub?'

'Thanks, Thandie,' said Sally, appearing pleased but not surprised. 'See you later!' And with that she went back out, shutting the door behind her. What kind of a place was this, where the landlady handed out cash?

Meanwhile, Thandie was walking ahead of him, the rear view as good as the front. She headed through a wood-panelled door into a room at the back of the cottage. 'And don't you start about me giving money to Sal,' she was saying. 'I know you won't approve, but she doesn't have much, and she's out of work, and she's feeling so down about it ... What can I tell you, I'm a soft touch.'

Sally had a knack of making friends quickly, reflected Billy. He, less so.

He followed Thandie into a living room running the width of the house, with French doors open onto a sunny patio, bursting with plants. At one end of the room was a round table, set for two.

'I cooked, like an idiot,' she said. 'I actually thought it might be nice, for us to share a meal together, while we talk things through.'

Billy tried to remember if he'd ever been offered so much as a Mint Imperial while previous landladies had detailed how to unblock the shower drain and that towels would only be changed every other week.

'It will be nice,' he said.

'Well then, why weren't you here any earlier?'

This woman's moodiness was incomprehensible.

'I came as soon as I knew you were waiting.'

'The chicken'll be dry now,' said Thandie, ducking through a door into what presumably was the kitchen. 'You could at least try to keep to our arrangements.'

'Yes,' said Billy. 'I will in future. This is a lovely house, by the way.'

There was a long silence, and then Thandie said, in a peculiar tone, 'I know.' Then she added, 'I'm just going to make the gravy.'

Billy wandered around the living room, asking himself what kind of a deal Sally could possibly have struck to allow them to stay in such a swanky place. As well as the dining table, there was a comfortable-looking sofa with a matching armchair, both with all their springs and stuffing still inside them. Against one wall stood a polished upright piano, with a few framed photographs displayed on top. The other walls were lined with bookshelves, and instead of the torn-jacketed Jeffrey Archer novels and Shades of Grey sequels he was used to – when the places where they stayed had books at all – there were classic novels, modern prize-winners, volumes of plays and poetry. He spotted several of his favourites, a few of which he had stolen from libraries in towns they'd passed through and were now stuffed in the wheelie bag. He couldn't have asked for a better living room if he had designed it himself.

'Do you want wine?' said Thandie from the kitchen. 'I know I could do with some.'

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Excerpted from "Oh, I Do Like To Be ..."
by .
Copyright © 2019 Marie Phillips.
Excerpted by permission of Unbound.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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