Seahorses Are Real by Zillah Bethell Read Free Book Online

along...’’’
    â€˜I bet he says you fucking nobhead doesn’t he.’
    â€˜Well,’ David laughed, ‘he doesn’t say you fucking nobhead no. He’s not quite at that age yet!’
    They dissolved into helpless laughter for a while and David took a sip of water from the lipstick-clouded glass by the side of the bed. Marly smiled dreamily and nestled her head in the crook of his arm. ‘You tellin’ the truth now?’ she asked, childishly hopeful.
    â€˜That’s the truth yeah, that’s how it’s gonna be. It’s guaranteed see.’ He squeezed her arm. ‘And I’ll get myself a little job mending shoes just down the road. You can come in of a lunchtime, I’ll be sorting the soles out on a pair of alligator skin tips!’
    â€˜Fair enough.’
    â€˜So, you know, at the end of the day you shut up shop; you say: “Go away everybody. The shop is shut, it will not be open now...’’’
    â€˜Do I live at the top of the shop?’ Marly asked suddenly.
    â€˜Oh yeah, it’s a lovely little flat overlooking the sea. You’ve painted it up and you’ve got all your bits there...’
    â€˜Is it big, the flat at the top?’
    â€˜It’s a cute little flat, a cosy little flat, not cramped, not the sort of thing you’d give yourself a neck-ache standing about because the roof’s so small. You can stretch about in it, it’s very nice; and, you know, Snowdrop and Tipperary will be up there – they’ve got little baskets there.... And I come along from the shoe shop, me hands smelling of leather, I come up and you cook a nice little pasta meal for us, nice little pasta meal,’ he repeated, nudging her.
    â€˜I see. I cook it up do I?’
    â€˜Oh yes. Course you do! I’ve been slaving away in the shoe shop. I’ve been trying to nail some soles on, mush!’
    â€˜I’ll nail a sole on you in a minute, darling!’
    â€˜That’s not very nice is it? I mean I’ll do the washing up.’ His voice became gentler. ‘Anyway, at night we can go for a walk down to the beach can’t we. We can walk down the little cobbled street down onto the beach, Tipperary and Snowdrop following us. We can take our shoes off and run down to the sand, get the sand between our toes and have a little paddle in the water.’
    â€˜Oh, it’s nice.’
    â€˜You can feel the waves sort of lapping up; we watch the sun going down; listen to the seagulls squawking. We can go and stand there and hear the silence of the sea sort of coming at us.’ He took hold of her hand and they both lay very still. ‘I’ll hold your little hand, Tipperary will be down by my side, Snowdrop will be down by yours, paddling their feet. See that? And we’ll sit on the shore we will, watching the sun dipping itself into the water until it’s gone.’
    She murmured something, her eyes staring.
    He went on slowly, intently. ‘You can see the boats in the distance, you can… the ships going off to far flung lands, going off to America, going off to Africa, to China… Australia…. We’ll wave at them and they’ll wave back.’
    â€˜We wouldn’t see them if it was dark,’ she pointed out in spite of herself.
    â€˜We-ell, I mean they can. They’ve got fantastic equipment these days, these ships. They can see us and we can see them... sailing off….’ He waited for a moment.
    â€˜And then late at night we can walk back home, back to your little flat. Snowdrop and Tipperary are rather tired now: they’ve had a busy day, you know, cos Tipperary’s been trying to get his fish, Snowdrop feels rather stuffed up with orange segments….’ They laughed together and the mood lightened. ‘So we walk back through the quiet streets and the only noise you can hear is like a piano being played and a sea shanty being sung down at