It seemed like she could hardly breathe.
“Carlo got them!” she said. “Bang bang bliddy wallop with a great big stick!”
Bianca held them up before her eyes.
“Snakes! Aaagh! Bliddy snakes!”
“Aye!” she told Carlo as he came to her. “Aye! I’m all right, mate!”
Carlo mimed the kill again.
“Die, snakes! Die!” he snarled, thumping the beach with his stick.
Bianca whirled the snakes in the air, then wrapped them around her throat and danced in the sand with the terror and the thrill of it.
“Hell’s teeth,” said James at my side. “This is all we need.”
This is what we need, I wrote. He won’t come now.
Then I looked up from my book, and here he was on the beach, coming towards us, and here was Ella, coming from the dunes.
NINE
Maybe I started to understand it now, as I watched them walk towards each other that afternoon, as they greeted each other, kissed each other, murmured together into each other’s ears. They were beautiful, as they’d always been, of course, but their beauty had deepened, sweetened, intensified. They were as much part of each other as the sea was part of the beach, as the air was part of the sky. Terns danced above them as they stood together there, and the edge of the surf sparkled across their feet.
They walked towards us, shining.
“See,” said Ella. “He came.”
Orpheus smiled.
“Of course,” he said to us. “Did ye doubt us?”
He held both of her hands.
“This is my love,” he said. “The one I’ve loved from the very first moment, the one I loved before I even saw her. And she’s the one that has loved me. Who could doubt it?”
Ella sighed, and smiled.
“How could I not come seeking her?” said Orpheus.
See, Ella’s eyes told me. Everything is true.
Bianca and her friends were silent, watching. Then Bianca burst out laughing.
“Bliddy wow!” she yelled.
“That’s Bianca and her friends,” said Ella. “They go to school with us.”
He nodded towards them.
“Bliddy wow!” Bianca yelled again.
“Ding dang bliddy dong!” yelled Crystal.
Carlo stood with his hands on his hips and just stared.
“Do you want to eat something?” Ella asked Orpheus.
He shook his head.
“We’ll marry tomorrow,” Ella told us.
“In the morning,” said Orpheus.
Claire, said Ella’s eyes. Be happy for me.
So I stood up and hugged her.
“That’ll be wonderful,” I said. “We’ll get everything ready.”
I kissed Orpheus on his smooth cool cheek.
“I’m glad you came,” I said.
“Really?” he asked me.
“Yes. Yes.”
“Good. She wants you to be glad.”
Then Orpheus went with Ella to her tent, and we all sat in silence, and gannets flew northwards high above, and oystercatchers pottered across the rocks, and time passed by and time passed by.
And Angeline practised her wedding tune. I uselessly tried to write some kind of wedding ode. James lined his eyes in deepest black. We drank some wine, ate some pasta. The evening was very still. Fine clouds like scattered embers stretched above the Farnes. The birds stopped calling, the hoot of an owl was heard.
Bianca stamped the sand and whirled her snakes.
The sea paused, before the turning of the tide.
TEN
How can I write what happened next? I’m just a girl. A fine young person. Realistic and ambitious. Civilized and industrious. I’m…
I spent another almost-sleepless night. Told Sam I didn’t want him with me. Listened to the sea and the owls and my steadily beating heart. There was a noise of dogs or foxes coming from the land, and some strange yowling from the sea. Even from here in the shadows of the dunes, through the blue wall of the tent, I saw the turning of the Longstone light.
I listened for Ella, for Orpheus, but there was no sound from them.
Maybe I did sleep, maybe I’m still waiting to wake up. Maybe this is all a…
But no. No point in thinking that.
The day began as all days should. The air was still, the sky was bright. The sun rose golden-red above the sea. I crawled out into the day and saw the sun hanging great and golden above the lovely Farnes. The sea was whispering its way towards us.
Angeline and Maria were already in their wedding-day clothes: mix-ups of jeans and floral dresses. Maria had a necklace of seashells. Angeline wore dolphin earrings and a cardboard tiara she must have made in junior school.
She giggled.
“Glad rags! Not every day one of your mates gets wed, eh?”
We laughed, we lit the fire and made some tea.
Maria had to keep hugging herself with glee.
“Isn’t it so exciting!”
The others started coming out. We hauled some stones from the pools and piled them into a kind of rough altar on the dry sand. We put other stones in a circle around it. We put the bottles of fizzy wine and retsina into a rock pool to cool. We opened jars of olives and pickled chillis. We had a box of cheese that was already starting to stink. There were lots of biscuits, some cornflake and rice-crispy cakes, the chocolate cake. We laid out a blanket and rested these things on it.
We kept giggling, gasping, goggling into each other’s eyes.
“We’re mad,” said James. “We must be bliddy mad.”
He had dark red lipstick on.
“Get yer togs on, girls!” yelled Bianca.
She stood at the edge of the dunes, breathing great plumes of smoke into the air. She wore a golden metallic breastplate, thigh-length boots.
“It’s kicking off?” she called.
“I’ll go check on the bride,” I said.
I took two mugs of tea to Ella’s tent.
“Knock knock,” I whispered.
Ella pulled the door aside. There was an intense shining from inside there, as if the light from the risen sun had been concentrated by the orange and white walls of the tent, or as if a new sun shone from within it, from within them. They were naked. Their skin was golden, their eyes were bright. I hardly dared to look at them but I couldn’t turn my eyes away.
“Forgive me,” I found myself whispering.
Ella laughed.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. She took the tea. “Good morning, my sweet Claire.”
“Good morning, Ella,” I whispered. “Good morning, Orpheus.”
He whispered, “Good morning, Claire.”
I saw how young he was, as young as she, how happy he was, as happy as she. They were teenagers, like me, like all of us. It could have been any of us lying there like them, transformed by love. But could it have been any of us? Did it have to be these two, Ella and Orpheus, Orpheus and Ella? Were their fates sealed long ago, long before they heard each other, saw each other, long before they even knew the other existed? Was I…
I must have been staring, must have been entranced by them.
Ella giggled. She waved her hand before my face.
“Claire. Where are you, Claire?”
I blinked.
“It’s me that’s supposed to be the dreamy one,” she said.
“Sorry. We’re getting everything ready. It’s going to be…”
“Lovely,” said Ella.
“Yes. Lovely.” I tried to make a joke. “It hardly looks like you need a ceremony.”
“We do,” said Orpheus.
“Yes, we do,” said Ella Grey. “We have to be married surrounded by my friends, and by the beasts and the birds and the sea and the sun.”
“Is there something I should be doing for you?” I asked.
“Something?” laughed Orpheus. “You should do everything.”
“I mean, do I have duties, as the giver-away of my b
est friend?”
“Your duty,” laughed Ella, “is to have the happiest day of your bliddy life.”
“Of my life.”
“Yes. Then you’ll be as happy as me. Say you will. Say it fast. Say it true.”
“Yes,” I told her. “Yes, I will.”
“Excellent.”
She reached out and caught my arm as I made to turn away.
“And will you love me always, Claire?”
She held me tight on the threshold of her tent.
“Will you? Say yes, Claire!” she hissed. “Say it fast.”
“Yes,” I whispered into her ear.
“Say it again!”
“I will love you forever, Ella Grey.”
“And you will never abandon me.”
“I will never abandon you. I am yours, Ella Grey, until the very end of time.”
“Good,” she said.
“Good,” said Orpheus. “Until the end of time. That is what you must say.”
And then he leaned past Ella and kissed me, too.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
He grinned, and he seemed suddenly shy, and again he looked just like any boy, like Sam, like James, like Michael; like any boy caught in the delightful trouble of growing up.
“For Ella,” he said. “For bringing us together, Claire.”
Thud.
“Happy Wedding Day,” I said.
“Happy Wedding Day, Claire,” said Ella.
Thud, went my heart. Thud. Thud.
I put my dinner jacket, dress, yellow shoes and black hat on. The others dressed themselves as well.
We waited on the shore, and then they came hand-in-hand from the dunes. Orpheus wore a loose pale blue shirt, blue jeans. He held the lyre in his hand. Ella was barefooted, wore her Biba dress and had pink flowers tangled in her hair.
The sun shone on them more brightly than it did on us.
Their faces glowed, golden.
“Something else,” said Angeline.
“So bliddy gone,” said James.
Angeline took one of her dolphin earrings out and put it into Ella’s ear.
Then we all stood around them, and were strangely awkward with them.
Ella laughed.
“Do you need us to tell you what to do?” she said.
No one answered.
“Make some music first!” she said.
Angeline started to play. James played a whistle, Maria a tambourine. I knocked stones together, Michael whirled dry kelp.
“And have a dance!”
We danced. I danced wildly, kicking the sand, dancing through the edge of the water and dancing back again. I wanted to lose myself in the dance, to forget myself, to forget everything. My heart quickened, quickened.
Thud thud thud
Thud thud thud.
Ella brought me out of it. She took my arm and laughed.
“Calm down,” she said. “It’s time.”
Orpheus was already at the altar, at the centre of the ring of stones. He faced the sea, the islands, the sky.
The sunlight silhouetted him, blazed through his hair.
Ella squeezed my hand. She was very still.
“I’m ready,” she whispered.
I couldn’t move.
“Lead me to the altar, Claire,” she whispered. “And put my hand in his.”
There must be something I should say, some advice, some congratulation, some warning. I started to blurt out something, I didn’t know what.
“Are you certain…” I started.
She put her finger to my lips.
“Just take my hand,” she whispered. “Lead me to him.”
I took her hand. I hesitated for a final moment, then I led her the short distance through the brilliant Northern light across the soft sand of this lovely beach in the far-flung North of England.
I stepped into the circle of stones and to the altar.
The others stopped their music and watched in silence.
Silence from Bianca and her friends.
Silence also from the sea, the birds, the air.
Silence, it seemed, from the whole wide world.
He didn’t turn until we were right behind him.
“Put my hand in his,” said Ella.
I did this, and he folded his hand around hers, and he turned.
“Ask if he accepts me.”
“Do you,” I asked, “accept my friend, the good Ella?”
“I do,” he answered, and he sighed, and smiled, as if his whole life had been moving towards this moment.
“Now ask me if I accept him,” she told me.
“Do you, Ella, accept Orpheus?”
“Oh, yes I do. Of course I do.”
She caught her breath.
“And now, Claire,” she said. “Tell us we’re wed. Do it fast.”
I took a breath and then I whispered,
“I pronounce you…wed.”
“And tell us we can kiss.”
“You may kiss,” I said.
They smiled. They kissed. She giggled.
“It’s done!” said Ella.
“It’s done!” cried Orpheus.
The birds began to sing again, the sea to roar, the breeze to blow.
Sam threw his Paradise Lost confetti across their heads.
“Crack the beer open!” said Michael.
“Get the champers from the sea!” said Maria.
“Let’s celebrate!” said Ella.
We drank, ate cake, played music, sang and danced. The sun intensified. We ripped off jeans, frocks, dinner jackets, boots and hats and scattered them beside the jetsam. We played our music hard. We yelled in rhythm with it and with our thumping hearts. We threw away all thoughts of home, of the world we’d left behind. We entered Italy, Greece, our transformed selves, the transfigured North.
I danced with Ella in my arms, like the time we danced beneath the gathering stars such a short time ago.
“I love you, Claire,” she said. “Thank you for everything. Without you…”
“Shh,” I whispered.
I put my finger to her lips.
Then Orpheus took the lyre from his back.
ELEVEN
Orpheus sang and played. Northumberland was Greece. The sun blazed down, grew warmer, warmed the sand and warmed our skin. It shone onto the sea and made it azure. It shone onto white birds and made them glitter, onto the dark and made them gleam. Orpheus sat on the sand and played and sang. Ella leaned against him. Red-lipped black-eyed James and bare-breasted snake-wrapped Bianca sat before him. Then we others, a little further back. The music played Orpheus, played all of us and played the world. Sand drifted down from the dunes to hear him. The marram grass tilted to him. Birds came down and the seals came up and crabs crawled from their pools. Porpoises rolled in the turning surf and dolphins danced. From their hiding-places in the dunes, the adders slithered out and slithered out. Did even the rocks roll closer? Did the altar move? Did the sea creep higher than it ever had before?
The music moved our bodies and we danced. We felt it thrumming in our chests and throats. We felt it flowing in and out with breath. We felt it running with our blood. We felt it scattering our thoughts. We felt it annihilating us, turning us from individuals to one thing, one single group, turning this bunch of Tyneside kids into a single being in which we existed with birds and crabs and snakes and dolphins, a single being that blended with sea and sand and sky, a single being with Orpheus at the heart. And it went on and on and on and on. Simple music from a simple lyre and a youthful voice on a Northern beach. Simple music that came from the furthest places of the universe, the depths of time, from the darkest unknown recesses of ourselves. It was the song of everything, all life, all love, all creation. It was his song for my friend Ella Grey.
And then he stopped. Just stopped, just like he did in the kitchen that day. He lowered the lyre. He seemed to stagger and to reel. He looked at us all and seemed amazed that we were ther
e. He whispered into Ella’s ear. And then walked through us. Kept his eyes downcast. Went alone, climbing up into the dunes with his blue clothes flowing.
“What was that?” said Bianca, coming out from the enchantment.
“Hell’s damn teeth,” said James.
“Ding dang bliddy dong,” said Crystal Carr.
“But why’s he stopped?” we asked.
“Where’s he gone?”
“Over there, look.”
“Ah, yes. There’s his head above the grass.”
“Yes. There and there.”
“What did he say?” asked Angeline.
“Just that he’d be back,” said Ella. She laughed. “He’s always wandering away.”
She picked up a mug of Tesco fizz and swigged from it.
“You can’t make music like that,” she said, “and come straight back down to earth again.”
She hummed some of the melodies he’d played.
“Can you imagine what it must feel like,” she said.
She stood on tiptoe, looked inland.
“We’ll leave him for a while,” she said. “I’ll go to find him if he’s not back soon.”
The sea turned and splashed behind us.
“He’s not really made for this kind of thing,” she continued. “He doesn’t…socialize too well.”
A black jet fighter streaked low across the horizon.
“You’ll understand,” she said, “once you get to know him better.”
She gazed towards the dunes, the Cheviots behind the dunes, the sky above the Cheviots.
“Orpheus!” she called softly.
No answer, just the turning of the sea, the calling of the birds, the muted roar of another distant jet.
“Play something for us, Angeline,” she said.
“OK.”
Angeline played sweet music. No birds flew down.
“I’ll go and have a look,” said Ella. “Shall I?”
“I’ll come with you,” I said.
She laughed at me.
“He’s my husband,” she said.
“Be back soon,” she said.
She ran alone barefooted into the dunes.
I let her run barefooted into the dunes.
A few short moments passed, and then we heard the first scream, then the second, then the third.
We found her surrounded by the slither marks of snakes.