Summerwater Sarah Moss (microsoft ebook reader txt) 📖

here any more, it’s no odds to him that they’re foreign, Romanian or what have you. He’d feel just the same about a bunch of lads from Stockport, and in fact he did feel the same and said so, that time they went to Scarborough and there was a stag party in the upstairs flat, and he doesn’t see why just because this lot is Bulgarian or whatever he should treat them any differently. It’s not OK, is it, keeping dozens of people up all night, they should have some consideration, there are young families here and old folk not to mention Justine was up at silly o’clock running, her own choice maybe but she doesn’t ruin everyone else’s sleep just because she likes to be up at unsocial hours. Live and let live, that’s what Steve thinks. They can stay up all night and deafen themselves if they want to but they should do it somewhere else, such as back where they came from. A holiday park in the middle of the summer break, for Pete’s sake.

He can feel the bass coming through the ground, echoing around the crawl space between the earth and the floorboards, vibrating in his bones. Christ, he says, someone should really say something to that lot. Justine sighs, pauses whatever she’s watching on her laptop and takes out an earbud. On the screen, he can see a woman frozen with her red lipsticked mouth open and a glass of wine in midair. He wishes he’d thought to download something of his own to watch. What, she says. I said, he says, someone should say something. About that racket. We can’t have it going on all bloody night again, it’s ruining the whole bloody holiday, everyone shattered all the time. Yeah, she says, it is a bit loud, and she puts her earbud back and presses play.

He pushes himself up out of his chair – she’s not wrong, Justine, he should do more exercise – and goes to tell the boys it’s OK, he’s going to deal with it, they’ll get their sleep, but when he pushes their door open over the weird thick carpet, they both seem to be asleep, or at least are lying motionless in the darkening room although the sound – almost more like force than sound, something you feel in your bones more than your ears – is pulsing through the windows and the wooden walls. Is the music bothering you, he whispers, I’ll go make them turn it down. Noah turns over and looks at him, confused. What, he says, I was nearly asleep. Shh, says Steve, go back to sleep then, I was just worried that music would keep you up. Oh, says Noah, no Dad, it’s all right, and he lies down again.

Steve goes into the bathroom to see how loud it is there. Loud, is the answer. He thinks the bass is making ripples in the water in the toilet bowl, echoing in the empty bathtub. His head is starting to ache, a hard weight in the base of his skull. He rubs his neck, catches sight of the movement in the mirror over the basin. It feels as if there’s one of those round stones from the beach lodged in there, and his reflection looks pale, uneasy, the face of a man who didn’t expect to be caught. Maybe it’s a brain tumour, don’t they start with headaches? Maybe he’s going to die, maybe that’s why he’s been so tired recently, not, as Justine likes to imply, too many bacon sarnies and not enough running but a tragic disease striking him down in his prime. Well, prime might be pushing it. You probably don’t notice when you’re in your prime, do you; in fact, if you’re thinking about your prime it’s almost certainly over. He catches his eye again. Mirrors are weird in the dark, everyone knows that. He picks up the bathmat which the boys have left damp on the floor, hangs it over the towel rail, flushes the loo which for some reason Eddie doesn’t, ever. The song changes, something faster with yipping and caterwauling pouring through the trees and still that bass like a boy bouncing a ball against the wall. It must be going right out over the water, the fish in the loch must be hearing it, scaring birds out of their nests and probably even keeping the damn sheep awake. Don’t sheep lose their lambs if they get distressed? He’d be doing something for the local farmers, too, if he went round there and told those Bulgarians what’s what.

He goes back down the hall to the kitchen. He fills the kettle in the dusk; you can still see what you’re doing, just about. Justine’s face glows in the dim room, up-lit by her screen. He’s not the only one starting to show his age, all the running and yoga in the world won’t undo the way her neck and chin are beginning to droop or the scribbled lines suddenly marked under her eyes. We’re halfway through, he thinks, not a new thought, exactly, a man knows when he turns forty, but he hasn’t really thought about Justine ageing before, that one day she might be holding on to his arm the way her mum does, will want him to carry the bags and do all the driving. Will she? Her mum’s always been a bit like that, a bit lame, though she’s a good cook, better than Justine, and keeps a cleaner house. Justine’s probably still going to be lifting weights in her nineties, isn’t she, years past the point where normal people have decided they’ve already beaten the odds and can eat all the pies and drink all the beer they can lift because they’re not going to ask your bloody cancer risk at the golden gates, are they? Maybe it won’t be so bad, ageing. He drops a couple of teabags into the pot. The thing is,