Read Online SUNK by Fleur Hitchcock - Free Book Online Page A

promenade.
    ‘Oh no,’ says Mr Fogg, sinking his face into his hands and moaning. ‘I’m done for,’ he says,collapsing onto the beach and pulling his coat up over his head.
    I check the beach – it’s empty – and Mr Fogg can’t see, so I wave at Jacob and he lets loose a long tongue of flame, which bounces across the deckchairs, crackling, singeing and sparking, but not really burning.
    The chair on the steps pauses.
    ‘Again,’ shouts Eric, already beginning to drip from his fingertips.
    The heat is immense as Jacob sends lightning bolt after lightning bolt at the chairs, and then Eric counters this by sprinkling them with water. A wall of steam rises from the beach and the chairs stop, evidently confused and hopefully intimidated.
    ‘I can shrink them,’ I say. ‘But it won’t really help.’
    ‘We can burn them this time,’ says Jacob.‘They’re not a bit cute.’
    ‘They’re still living beings, and they’re Mr Fogg’s deckchairs,’ says Eric. ‘They’re his livelihood.’
    The deckchairs stand facing us. Shuffling. Waiting.
    Mr Fogg is still sitting on the beach, his face hidden. Waiting as well.
    And then, as if someone switched them off, the deckchairs sag to the sand, tumbling, flopping, leaning and ultimately lying just as deckchairs should, awkward and floppy.

20
Foggis Fogg was the First
    We go with Mr Fogg to the Trusty Tramper, the café in the harbour that the sailors use.
    ‘The usual, Albert?’ asks Cheery Charlie, the woman that runs the place.
    ‘Aye,’ says Mr Fogg, wiping his nose on his yellow sou’wester coat and shaking his head.
    She provides him with a mug of tea and we cluster around a small yellow table by the door.
    ‘So when did it start, Mr F?’ asks Eric, arranging sugar.
    Mr Fogg stares long and hard at the tiny wisp of steam rising from his cup.
    ‘January. No – March.’ He takes off his cap and scratches his head. ‘Or was it before Christmas?’ He stares out of the window at the approaching darkness. ‘February it was. February, just as I got them out for a bit of a clean-up. That’s when I noticed something was up.’
    ‘What kind of thing?’ I ask.
    ‘Well.’ Mr Fogg sips his tea and sits back. ‘It’s difficult to say. There was a bit of this and a bit of that.’
    Jacob lets a long whistle out from between his front teeth. ‘Let me know if you find anything out,’ he says, standing up. ‘I’m just going to get a hot chocolate.’
    I check my pockets for change. I’ve no money.
    I try again. ‘What kind of thing – exactly?’
    ‘At the start of the season I like to check the chairs, wash ’em down, clean up the pedalos, see there’s no mouse holes in the windbreaks – that sort of thing.’
    ‘Oh yes,’ I say.
    ‘So it was a sunny day, and I opened up the shed there, and pulled out one or two chairs and they were – frisky.’
    ‘Frisky?’
    ‘Yes – frisky. Dancing about a bit in the wind, harder to pick up, put down and fold. I didn’t think anything of it, but then the next time I opened it up, probably about a week later, one of the chairs sort of fell – well, launched itself at me.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘And then, during Easter, it’s been getting worse. I found the ones at the side of the storewere less of a problem, but the ones towards the back have been the worst – so uppity – and as the season’s gone on I’ve had to hire out more of them, and now I’ve had to use the difficult ones or disappoint people.’
    ‘So what’s causing it?’ asks Eric.
    ‘Search me,’ he says, blowing on his cup. ‘No idea – kept the chairs in that lock-up all my life. Nothing’s been in, nothing’s changed.’
    ‘And have you found any way to stop them?’ I ask, thinking of the four little chairs still jammed in Jacob’s sweet tin, which are dancing around under my blazer, letting out occasional crashings and bangings.
    Mr Fogg shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says. ‘All I’ve managed to do is to truss them up or