Thy wee
bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An'
bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!
Robert Burns
CHAPTER 66 NOTHING.
Sunshine. Families and children packed onto Bournemouth Beach. Balls, and inflatables. Sunbathing. Surfers paddling out to the artificial reef. Mums drying children. Dads buying ice creams and burgers and fizzy drinks.Girls walking slowly by, heads in the air, pretending not to notice boys, and their half suggestive remarks.
“They reckons the beach is going to stay this size,” said Hosmer Angel. They reckons the ice caps aint getting no smaller now.”
“Who gives a shit,” said Adelaide Savage.
“Well, I mean, these shades. Look out there. That could be one on the horizon now.”
“It's just a waste of money. All that spent just to stop the sea rising. Just so rich people can save their sea side houses and stuff. It don't stop rich people for carboning the place up do it. Don't do nothing for normal people.”
“I suppose, but, I bet you'd look good in a bikini,” said Hosmer.
“No. Why would you think that?” said The Savage.
“Cos….Well. You’ve got….You look nice.”
“You’re bloody stupid. I look like shit.”
“I bet you don’t.” Hosmer tried a smile.
“I’ll just have to bloody show you then won’t I?”
“What?”
“You dope. You’re useless. You don’t know anything.” The Savage looked disgustedly at the beach. “Look at those idiots there. Those boys.”
Hosmer looked.
They were tanned, muscular, self confident. Lounging, laughing and joking. Nudging each other to look at more girls. They were everything Hosmer wasn't. He looked down, ashamed of himself and his wretched, skinny body. His torn shirt and dirty second hand trousers.
“Look at them. Showing off. Bloody idiots. They’re going to get married, get into debt, work themselves into the ground, get fat and die. They are nothing. It’s people like us who know the truth.”
“The truth?”
“The truth! There really is no point in any of it. Non of it. It is all a stupid waste of time. All this trying. All this boasting. All them girls. Buying make up. Trying on bikinis. Posing. Thinking they look great.”
Hosmer thought they looked great, but he wouldn't say so.
“All this thinking how great you are. All this stuff at work. All meetings and going on useless courses, and all this stuff with reports. Its all just your boss can show you how important he is. How good he is and how stupid you are. Then you get to be the boss and you treat people like shit an, all. It’s all rubbish. It’s people like us. We know we are scum. We accept it.”
“I….” Began Hosmer.
“I mean what are we? Just two total losers.”
“Uh….”
“But we don’t have to take it. We don’t have to take it.” Then the Savage looked at the ground. “We don’t have to take it. None of it.”
Hosmer wasn’t sure, he couldn’t see her face when she looked down like that, but was she actually crying?
“No. Don’t you bloody touch me. I don’t need nothing. Not off anyone.”
“OK.” And Hosmer looked down as well. Then he looked back at the sunny beach and all those happy people.
A gaggle, (giggle?) of teenage girls, pretty in pink, and plastic jewellery, took up the whole pavement between parked cars and garden walls. They would have noticed another posse of schoolgirls, studying their styles with envy or disdain. They would notice boys and tease them. They would pretend not to notice men in their twenties or thirties, then whisper with more giggles.
But an old man, arm in arm
with an old woman, was not in their perceived universe. Not in their
world view. They saw Arthur and Sarah Holder the way they half
noticed the orbital shade leaving the horizon. The way they half
noticed other obstructions on the pavement. Dust bins or lamp posts,
This page has been visited 5 times. Legal and copyright information can be found here.