Anyone from a seaside town knows the slow shuffle of the pensioner – socks in Scholl sandals, Neapolitan ice-creams shielded from beaky gulls. In ‘Revenant’, Tristan Hughes assigns to them the role of the zombie. Amphibian, talon-clawed and crawling, old people are a force to blight the lives of any young blood that has the misfortune to grow up by the sea.
Stranded in a North Wales coastal town, a gang of four misfits takes solace in each other. They are led by the podgy, bored, daredevil Del who is tatty and speccy. She holds in thrall Ricky, the cocky scouser with no dad; Steph, the pretty outsider; and Neil, distant, nervous, mind dipped in aspic.
Told partly in flashback, the story is relayed separately by Ricky, Neil and Steph who have regrouped as young adults to revisit the scene of a tragic incident a decade earlier. Teenage obsessions, insecurities, rivalries and crushes are explored in the dynamics of these four tense young people. They traipse through the Monkey Puzzle woods in the dead of night to visit the Candyman, or goad each other into dares.
The sea, the mist and primordial powers dominate much of the text into which Hughes invests vast energy to build up atmosphere and suspense. At key points, clumps of oldies appear, staring into mid distance, cooing like pigeons while false leads splay off here and there to create thrills.
But we know what happens to Del from the outset. Despite touches of sharp writing, the paragraphs are often baggy, suspense and momentum sacrificed to description. We’re guided towards a climax, but the narrative tension is insufficient to keep us guessing on the way. When the end comes, there is redemption, and a tiny feeling of relief.
