Soul Beach

hoping to slip past, but before my key’s even in the lock, my mother is there, wearing a manic smile that suggests she’s either been at the sherry or she’s about to try to talk me into something I don’t want to do.
    ‘Darling! How was school? I’m so glad you’re back in time, as there are some people here who’d love to talk to you.’
    When she gestures towards the living room, I notice a ghostly glow through the gap in the door. Bloody hell, what’s she got herself mixed up in now? Has she ditched Olav for a bunch of occultists? Are they holding a séance?
    ‘Go on, Alice, no one’s going to bite your head off.’
    I step into the room, and am immediately dazzled by three enormous lights on stands, all directed at Dad’s armchair, which has a table next to it, with three of Mum’s favourite pictures of Meggie carefully arranged on top. There’s a cup of tea, too, even though my mother never drinks it.
    Then I take in the other people: a man behind a large video camera, another with headphones, plus two women, one with a clipboard and the other wearing the expression of super-sympathy that I’ve seen too many times in the last few months.
    ‘Hello, Alice. How are you?’ asks Ms Super-Sympathetic so sincerely.
    I look at her suspiciously. ‘What are you doing here?’
    Mum’s behind me. ‘It’s a tribute, Alice. The new season of Sing for your Supper begins this Saturday and the programme wanted to record something about Meggie.’
    This Saturday . That was what Ellie must have been talking about. Not a party at all!
    ‘Yes,’ says super-sincere whatsherface. ‘We didn’t think it would be right to ignore the huge contribution she made to the success of the last series. And her millions of fans will be expecting something.’
    And her millions of fans won’t exactly do your audience figures any harm either, will they? I think. But I turn around instead of saying it out loud. ‘I don’t want to, thanks for the offer.’
    I try to leave the room, but Mum’s in my way.
    ‘I think it’s what your sister would have wanted, Alice.’
    ‘How do you know?’ I want to tell her that I’ll go upstairs right now and ask my sister, but funnily enough, I don’t. I want to ask her why there are three pictures of Meggie on the table but not one of them has me in it too, but I don’t. And then something else occurs to me. ‘And what about Dad? Is he doing it?’
    Mum looks away.
    ‘You haven’t bloody told him, have you?’ I realise. ‘This family, God.’
    She lets me pass, and I run upstairs. I know there’s only one place I can go where I’ll feel normal – and wanted.
    The sky is that same, gob-smacking blue, and the sound of the waves calms me immediately. It’s less than twenty-four hours since I was last here, yet it feels like weeks. I’ve missed it so much.
    Then I remember why I didn’t come onto the Beach this morning and I blush. Did Danny even notice I wasn’t around?
    ‘Hey, Florrie. I’m here.’
    My sister’s voice is too loud, and I jam the headphones into the laptop jack, so that no one else will hear. I don’t know how I’d explain this to a film crew and my mother.
    Meggie is standing behind me, her arms crossed. ‘You’re a bit late.’
    ‘Am I?’ I don’t want to explain about the tribute. Knowing Meggie, she’d probably write my script for me, and demand that they only use clips from the final shows, when she’d been on the Atkins to lose the half kilo she insisted showed so badly in the previous rounds. ‘I thought you didn’t have watches here.’
    She shrugs. ‘I tell the time by the shadows like a witch doctor. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you. Alone. Can we take a walk?’
    I nod. What now? Maybe she’s going to tell me that she’s worked out I have a massive crush on Danny, or warn me to leave the poor boy alone because I’m an embarrassment. When it comes to liking people, I am almost always the last one to realise how I feel.
    We walk further and further, until the chattering is a distant whisper, and the sand is completely empty. Here, Soul Beach seems less real somehow, as though whoever created this place ran out of steam or time at the last minute, and only sketched in the colours and the shapes. When I look down, the grains of sand have disappeared and the froth on the top of the waves freezes and pixellates, like a video game struggling to run on an old computer.
    ‘Here should do it,’ Meggie says.
    She settles herself under