Eddie

"OH, THERE YOU ARE, EDDIE," Michelle says. I'm back at the bar, and trying not to look like I've just jumped out of my skin. Michelle has this way of appearing from nowhere like she's trying to catch you slacking off.

I sneak a look at her face. She looks pissed off about something. I wait for her to tell me she knows what I've just been up to, that I'm fired—on my first proper day!—but then she sighs and says, "I've just had a couple on the phone begging me to move them from their Woodland Hutch to one of the sea views—obviously none are available, what do they think we are, a sodding Travelodge? It's opening weekend! I almost told them they shouldn't have been so stingy in the first place!"

It's all "we" with Michelle. She's totally bought into "The Manor family" stuff.And I suppose she's allowed to talk about the guests like this, to bitch about them, but if I said anything I'd get sacked on the spot. Even with the discount for the construction work, the Woodland Hutches still cost hundreds of pounds a night. I can take a guess at what Michelle gets paid—more than me but not that much more. But I suppose working at places like this kind of messes with your idea of what's normal.

She comes behind the bar and I get such a strong hit of her perfume I step back. They've got us wearing the fragrances that are available in the onsite shop—The Manor Market—as it's "so important in creating ambience" and it smells like Michelle has chucked the stuff on, like she thinks that will show everyone just what a loyal employee she is. She rummages around in the fridge, pulls out a bottle of white, and sloshes it into a glass, pouring so it's almost full to the brim.

"You holding up, Eddie?" she asks.

"Yeah," I say, carefully. During the pre-opening training period I noticed Michelle sometimes acts like she's your best mate, other times like she's queen of the universe and you're something caught on the sole of her shoe. It's hard to keep up and it's best to play it safe.

She takes a big gulp and half the wine seems to disappear in one go. She's gripping the glass so tight I'm worried the bowl might break. I suppose this must all be pretty stressful for her. I'm not going to be the one to remind her that she has to drive home (most of the staff drive). It's different in this little corner of Dorset. People drink and drive all the time on these country lanes, like it's the seventies or something.

"Why did they want to move so badly?" I ask.

"What?" She frowns at me over the rim of her wine glass.

"The guests: why did they want to move out of the Woodland Hutch?"

"Oh. They said they didn't like the"—she makes little quote marks with her fingers—"‘atmosphere.' That the trees were closer than they'd imagined. But they also kept going on about hearing strange sounds from the woods, seeing lights, that sort of thing." She rolls her eyes. "Don't know if that was before or after they'd drunk their complimentary bottle of sparkling Bacchus. Know what I'm saying?"

I don't blame them, not that I'm going to say that to Michelle. Mum always warned me not to play in the woods after dark. "It's not safe," she said. "You never know who might be prowling around in there." I always assumed it was her being super-paranoid, after everything that happened with my brother. But local people believe stuff about these woods. Lately I've gone back to doing what I did as a kid: closing the curtains carefully at night, so there's no gap. Otherwise it feels (I know how stupid this sounds) like the woods are watching me.

"You're off your shift now, aren't you?" Michelle's looking at her watch.

"Er, yeah," I say, "finished at midnight."

"Well. There are some youths down on the beach again." The way Michelle says "youths" makes her sound about eighty, even though I reckon she can only be about thirty-five. "Francesca has alerted me to it. Now we're open, she's extremely concerned about it."

The way Michelle says Francesca's name: it's like she gets this thrill from it. Ruby reckons she's a little in love with our boss. "Or in something, anyway. Doubt Francesca even knows her name," Ruby says. But she's wrong. The boss seems to know everyone's name. Even though she seems to float around, smiling at everyone... I don't think she misses a thing.

"So, Eddie," Michelle says, back in scary boss mode, "could you go and have a word with them?" She's quite small, Michelle, but you know you don't want to mess with her. She's all sharp angles: that white shirt with its pointed collar, the square blonde bob, the spiky shoes.

"Er..." I say, "I don't think—"

"You want to work behind bar, right?" Then she smiles. She's scarier when she smiles. "Let me spell it out. You do something like this, it doesn't get forgotten." She taps the side of her head with a finger. "Think of that appraisal, Eddie!" She looks me up and down. "You're a big boy. I believe in you. I've chosen you specially because I think you know this area better than most. Am I right?" She eyeballs me until I drop my gaze. Does she know I faked my address on the job application? That I actually come from next door, from Seaview Farm? I wouldn't put it past her to have found out somehow. I also wouldn't put it past her to use it against me if I don't do what she says.

"Er—"

"Good," Michelle says, even though I didn't actually agree to anything. "Sometimes as staff we have to go above and beyond. We have to do things that make us feel uncomfortable. I'm sure you understand."

I WHEEL MY bike out of the shelter behind the main building and leave it by the gate at the cliff edge. The moon is nearly full, and a way off the coast the limestone rocks of The Giant's Hand are lit up so they look like huge silver fingers reaching out of the black water. Beyond that, across the dark space of sea, I can make out the faint lights of the Isle of Wight. The stars are really clear, too. My brother knew a bit about stars. That's one of the last memories I have of him. "There's the Great Bear," I remember him saying. "That's me. And there's you, the Little Bear." I know if I searched for them now in the sky I'd be able to find them, but mostly I avoid looking.

There's a shout from down below. I so don't want to do this. But you don't say no to Michelle, so I plug in the code to the gate that leads to the steps down to the beach. This is the only way to reach the beach from land, via the front lawns of The Manor, so the local kids must've come by boat. Yeah: I can just make out a small inflatable dinghy pulled up on the sand. They've lit a big bonfire in the middle of the beach. I can see a load of figures sitting around it, hoods pulled up, the little orange dots of their blunts glowing in the dark. Stormzy's blasting out of a speaker. I take a deep breath and head down the steps.

Once I'm on the sand I call out. "Hey! Guys?" Not that loudly, though. What am I meant to say to them? There's, what, like twenty of them and one of me? And it's a free country, they're allowed to be here. The music's the problem, I guess. That's what Michelle would say. But I doubt they'll be like: "Oh yeah, sure, Eddie, sorry mate! Whoopsie! Whatever you say!"

I could still go back up the steps. I don't think any of them have noticed me. I'm in the shadows here. I could just tell Michelle I tried—

The hit comes out of nowhere, from behind. And then I'm sprawled on the ground, sand gritty in my mouth and nose, ribs aching like I might have broken something. All the breath knocked out of me.