Soul Beach

Metro . When I realise no one else is getting in, I let the paper slip and watch the world. It’s been raining, which makes the browns and greys of the bricks and pavements even more depressing. Winter’s almost here, and I feel like it’ll be the longest of my life.
    Already I crave the Beach, even though I was there only two hours ago. I decided to make up a story to explain to Meggie why I might not be around later, rather than get her hopes up about my trip to Greenwich. Right now, I can’t see how it can end in anything but disaster.
    Yet I have to try. I promised her, even though by then she wasn’t listening. And she’s not the only one who needs answers.
    When I get on the little toy-train carriage on the DLR towards Cutty Sark, I begin to shiver. I’d decided not to try to contact Tim before coming, in case he went to ground. But how exactly will he react when I show up on his doorstep? Even Cara, who loves living dangerously, might have had something to say about me taking a suspected murderer by surprise.
    Shit.
    The train cuts between the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, which look less real to me than the huts on the Beach. I put on more make-up, so I look older.
    I think of what that awful bloke of Cara’s said in the pub, about not believing I was Meggie’s sister. And it makes me laugh, because for so many years, I woke up every morning hoping my eyes had lightened overnight from pigeon grey to baby blue, or my hair had self-ironed itself to match hers.
    Now, for the first time, I’m glad to be ordinary.
    ‘White wine spritzer, please.’
    The barman weighs it up. Despite my kohl and my mascara, and all the crap I’ve been through this year, I still look like a schoolgirl who knows nothing about anything, unless you count AS Level Media Studies.
    But I can’t be the only underage drinker here: this is the pub where Meggie used to take me to meet her friends when I visited her, and it was always full of teenagers from the local sixth form too. I came here because I’m not ready to face Tim yet. I need to remember how things were between him and Meggie, and steel myself for what I have to do. And I never drink during the day, so the wine might be enough to give me the courage to do this crazy thing.
    The barman shrugs to himself, then turns his back on me to make my drink. The bubbles in a spritzer will disguise the taste of the wine, and anything will taste better than this fear.
    ‘Ice?’
    I nod. He puts the glass down, and I can see the little cracks in the ice cubes and the vapour rising inside the glass.
    I nod.
    ‘Say when,’ he says, as he tops up the wine with water from the siphon. Was he working the night that my sister died?
    ‘When.’
    ‘So you’re a fresher, then, are you?’
    I stare at him. ‘Um . . . yes. Sorry, I said When!’
    Could he have recognised me?
    He looks at the glass, which is overflowing. ‘Whoops.’ He pushes over the drink. ‘Three fifty, please. Nah, make it three. I’ll throw in the fizzy water for free.’
    I gawp. ‘Oh. Thanks.’
    ‘So what are you studying?’
    I gulp. ‘Um. Media.’
    He grins. ‘Cool. I’m gonna see you on TV, then, am I?’
    Oh my God, he’s chatting me up . And I thought he was checking me out because I was underage, or because he knew who I was. I haven’t really noticed him properly till now. Twenty-two, twenty-three maybe. Fair haired. An open face. Kind-looking. A practical joker, I bet. Plays football on a Sunday. Likes classic comedy and stadium rock.
    Before it happened, I might have fancied him. I’d certainly have been flattered – barmen have that confidence, and that power, that Cara at least finds pretty irresistible. But it’s not happening for me any more.
    ‘Not on TV, no. I’m more a behind-the-scenes kind of person.’
    I take my drink and walk away, quickly.
    ‘Hey, blondie?’ he calls after me, and I prepare my brush off. Meggie always had a good line, a way of making it clear they had no chance, but leaving them with a smile on their faces.
    I can’t think of anything.
    I turn.
    ‘You forgot your change.’
    I take my drink outside. The benches are damp from the rain showers, but the sun is brighter here by the bend in the Thames than it was back home. I see the flashy towers of the bank buildings on the other side of the river, and then the Dome to the right. This was Meggie’s favourite pub, and Greenwich was her favourite place. It is beautiful here, but the majestic limestone Old