Sea Change Read Free Page B

if someone was watching him, but no-one was there. He
turned to the right and followed the alley along, stopping once,
because he thought that he heard somebody behind him cough, a dry
rattling rasp, but it did not come again so he walked on. He could
not hear the sea, or any sound from the village at all.
    John walked
between teetering rows of cottages, brightly-coloured curtains at
their narrow, lopsided windows, and then out into one of the small
streets of the village, barely big enough for a car to pass along,
but a major highway compared to the alleys. The street ran
crossways though, not up and down the hill, so John paused for a
moment, trying to decide which way to go, and as he stood there he
felt a peculiar sensation, as if someone were standing a couple of
steps behind him, staring at him. He turned, quickly, but there was
no-one there.
    Had he seen
another flash of movement, something or someone ducking into a
doorway or around a corner? John carried on, hoping he was heading
down to the harbour, as from there he would be able to work out
where he was. As he walked, he looked behind him every few steps.
There was never anything there.
    At last he
turned a corner and he could see the glitter of the sea ahead. John
walked down onto the harbour. He was on the southern half of the
bay; he could see the road that led to his sister's shop on the
other side, across the calm water. A few small boats were tied up
in the harbour, bobbing up and down next to the wall, all looking
like they had seen better days. They had small cabins, tangles of
orange or blue plastic netting on their decks, faded, splintering
paint.
    He followed the
curve of the harbour round, looking down at the boats, and as his
gaze reached the north side of the bay the village suddenly came to
life. A small party of elderly tourists ambled onto the
harbourside. One of them was pointing at various things: more of
the mysterious baskets, old iron rings bolted to the harbour wall,
the breakwater. Maybe he had lived here once, John thought, been a
fisherman, taken a small boat out of the calm of the harbour and
into the choppy danger of the seas beyond the breakwater.
    A man came out
of the pub and stood for a moment, jingling his keys in his hand,
before disappearing up one of the streets into the village. As John
walked towards his sister's shop, a small tabby cat uncoiled itself
from the top of a low wall and stretched towards John, its tail
raised high, making an almost silent cry. John reached forward to
stroke it but something behind him startled it and it vanished in a
second.
    John spun
around, but there was nothing behind him other than the dull stone
of the harbour wall and the endlessly shifting pattern of the
waves. It felt though, not like an empty space, but a space that
was just empty, like a room when someone has just left it.
John felt a hot churn of panic inside, wondered: am I going mad? He
took a couple of deep breaths, and clenched his fists tight, turned
to walk away towards his sister's shop, and then there was movement
and colour, rushing towards him, seen out of the corner of his eye,
and he turned in a panic and air brushed past him and there was a
squeal of brakes and a shout and the bike came to a stop a couple
of metres beyond him, the rider turning an emergency stop into a
perfect skid.
    "Hey, you
stupid, or what?"
    "What?" John
said, still dazed by the sudden rush of normality.
    The bike-rider
was another boy, about the same age as John. He wore a pair of
grimy jeans, a fleece top, and a beanie pulled down low over his
eyes. He pulled white headphones from his ears, let them dangle
around his neck. "Deaf as well as stupid, then. It's middle of
t'road. If I was a car you'd be splattered all over. You're lucky
I'm such a good rider, or you'd be picking bits of bike out of you
for the next week."
    "Sorry, I
wasn't thinking," John said.
    "I can see
that. Got a death wish, then?"
    "Sorry?"
    "Never met
anyone who apologises as much