The inevitable waters

The tide is rolling in now. I can hear it coming. I can feel it. And with each roll, my stomach turns and my knuckles go white.
I’ve never been scared of the sea before; I’ve never really thought about drowning or the creatures that lurk in its murkier depths, but it’s all I can think of now. When I come to the beach it fills me with dread.
A few days ago I had to tell Sylvie I was ill. There was no hiding it any longer; she’d done well to pretend she hadn’t noticed it in me. She looked at me for a while, right in my eyes, then welled up and asked if I was going to die. I told her that I didn’t know, that they didn’t know.
I stroked her arm, like it was her who was sick, and told her to sit down. It dawned on her this information wasn’t new, that I had likely been keeping it from her for a good while.
She asked me why I’d not mentioned this sooner, but I didn’t know what to tell her. She asked me how I’d managed to get myself to and from appointments, perhaps tests and procedures, without her help. She asked me earnestly and I just sadly shook my head.
She looked up slowly from the bed and queried with her eyes. Even more slowly, she shook her own beautiful head. Eventually, she stood up and pushed past me. I listened for her and heard the front door open and close, then the ignition of a car’s engine.
She hasn’t been home since. She must have picked Greta up and taken her too, because she never came home from school that day. I’d made ratatouille, just in case they came home. I ate what I could manage and threw the rest away.
I shan’t come to the beach much more, I think. I can’t get what I need from the water, it seems. Not anymore.
Ha! And now it seems it’s going to piss down upon me from above too. Well, if I’m not going to jump in, it’ll still drown me in the end, I suppose.

The strength of the sea

In my regular trips to the beach, I am often impressed by the power of those creatures that depend upon the sea for their lives.
It seems to me that such creatures have an overwhelming capacity for survival. I could go into numerous examples; the great spawnings that help defeat predation, and also the swarming of fish and the flashing of their scales to confuse those creatures higher in the food chain and help them to keep surviving. Still, nature often finds a way to break them down, no matter how well they protect themselves. It’s all quite inevitable, I suppose, but no less remarkable and fascinating.
It is, perhaps, the ability that many smaller, very simple creatures have developed to defend and protect themselves from the world that impresses me most. Take those creatures who reside within shells, for example. What miraculous creatures they are. They protect themselves from attack by coating their soft invertebrate bodies with a shield of their own creation. They manufacture crystals of calcium carbonate and add them in layers to create a protective exoskeleton. How amazing is that?
And then, they latch onto a rock. They hold fast and steady in the face of turbulent tides and the worst of storms. They wait in the baking sun for the sea to rise once more and cover them, and allow them to feed. And they just sit there, in the face of chaos, safe in their armour.
Anne agreed to pick me up from the hospital after my procedure. Heck, she even offered to come with me. That was nice of her. I’d quite forgotten she could be nice.
When she dropped me back home she asked if she should come in to make sure I was alright. Sylvie was at work, but I said no. ‘It wouldn’t be right’, I thought, but I didn’t say it.
I thanked Anne, and she told me to look after myself. I couldn’t help chuckling a little as I got out of the car. ‘Look after myself!’ I think it’s a little late for that.
I spent the next couple of days in bed. I told Sylvie I had a cold or flu or something. She brought me tea and sympathy, but she’s none the wiser. I’ll get the full results soon and then we’ll know.
Today I felt better. Today I have been to the beach and walked on the sand. I saw the mussels clinging to the grey rocks, just waiting, prone but secure enough, until the waters returned.
And then I watched the gulls, wheeling overhead. They held stones in their beaks and they dropped them from a height onto the mussels, smashing their proud shells and brittle bodies. Then the gulls descended and feasted.
It’s impressive. Nature; its capacity to survive and to devour. So magnificent.

This tale is part of a series. To read all the stories in this series search the blog for the keyword 'Anne', or click on the word 'Anne' in the 'Labels' tab below.

A routine

Falling into old patterns and routines is a common failing of man. Perhaps, I should amend that to ‘men’.
I mean, I’ve been coming to this beach at least once a week for the past year; and for what? I prefer to come alone, I scowl at the sea, I flinch when the birds fly by in case they drop shit on me. Maybe I come here so that I can get all my frustrations out without company to aim them at? Perhaps I’m good at preserving my relationships; with friends, wives and lovers equally, because I just haul out my pent up feelings once a week and throw them in the sea? Maybe we could all try that?
I came here last week to look at the newspaper and the letter I hid from Sylvie. That morning in bed I looked at her as she was rousing and when she opened her eyes she saw me looking directly into them and gently holding her soft face.
The poor thing screamed and shot out of bed; thought somebody was trying to kill her. I explained I was just thankful for what I’d got; such a beautiful and tranquil human being to share my life with. Then I told her I loved her. I can’t remember saying it before to her, though I’m sure I must have.
She dismissed it and said I must still be drunk from the night before. Then she said if I was after a bit then I wasn’t in luck as she had a busy day planned. Then she asked me if I wanted a bacon sandwich for breakfast and left the room before I could answer.
Of course, she knew what I was going to say in reply. I love bacon butties, plus a cup of English Breakfast, of course. I have it every day.
When I open the letter, I’m propped up against the timbers of the old pier. The tide’s right in, but it’s lapping softly and there’s only a light breeze. A gull is airing its wings right beside me and it looks like the damn thing’s trying to sneak a peek at my letter.
I pull the white piece of paper close to my chest so nobody can read it. I think about letting it go, down into the salt water below, but I don’t. It’s got my appointment on it, and I’ll never remember when and where I’ve got to go without it. Especially as I’m not telling Sylvie.
I need someone to drive me to and from the hospital though. I wonder, should I ask Anne? I ask the seagull his opinion and he almost shrugs then turns away.
I feel like wringing his damn neck and go to grab him, but he’s easily away from me and flapping. Very soon he’s soaring, off over the sea, and then all his worries will seem far, far behind him. Insignificant specs, to him, will we be.
He’s so high and still climbing.

Gloomy Sunday

They’ve all gone home; finished early and left me here.
It’s a Sunday and I’ve been working overtime. “We have to get this all done and finished today,” I told Sylvie. “It can’t wait.”
Turns out I was panicking over nothing. We got the work done before 1pm, so the afternoon is mine to do with as I wish.
It’s been a few months now since I saw Anne. We both just let the contact slide, it was easy to do really. We were both pointing in opposite directions, but walking into the other, again and again; stuck fast and going nowhere. Once we worked out that all we had to do was turn around and walk the other way it seemed so easy to put distance between each other.
If I’m honest, now that the work’s done, I’d quite like to go home and spend some time with Sylvie. It’s more than that I feel I owe her some of my time: I want to give it. In the past I’ve felt shackled to her, dragged around, but now I want and desire her so often. I thought she was the lesser of two evils, but it seems she is shining in my eyes, now.
However, I just called her, there was no reply and she must have gone out. With no word from my Sylvie I’ll set out in the car to blow away the Sunday cobwebs with a promenade along the sands.
As I arrive at the beach, the weather closes in and I wait in the shelter of my vehicle. I eat the sandwiches Sylvie made me for lunch. I fantasise about one day buying a boat and living on it with Sylvie. I see Anne, dashing past with Millie, her dog, soaked through and loving it.
She gets into a black car just two spaces away from mine. I’m sure she won’t notice me, but even so I slip down in my seat as low as I can go. She’s already spoilt my lunch but she won’t spoil my day any more.
It must have been quite warm, slouched down there, because I doze off and when I awake – with a sore hip and a crick in my neck – the rain has stopped and I drag my sorry limbs out into the remainder of the autumn daylight. Anne’s gone.
I shake my head hard and take in a deep breath of the sea breeze. “The sun’s trying to poke its head through the clouds,” calls a man I may have seen walking here before. I wave politely and smile. It still might be a pleasant Sunday, I think to myself.

The glutinous tide

The strange giddy essence of summer has been long spent. I’m back to my beach now, back to reality.
How hateful it was to see Anne once more. It was as if, in exile from her, on the sunny south coast, she floated in a bubble of perfection, colouring every image that invaded my head. Then, once my eyes were confronted with the truth of her image, they were suitably repulsed. How her features hang from her face, how her bones seem to sag. I kissed her goodbye on her pallid cheek and headed for the beach.
This is a beach, this is a real beach. No streams and golden sand, no bikinis and balls, no surfers and no tanning crowds – just a miraculous red-brown slop, as far as the eye can see.
Who knows where the sand stops and the tide begins? None would dare walk out on it for fear of being sucked down beneath the cloying mud.
That’s what I’ve come to appreciate now. I don’t need the beauty of the blue sky and the miles of pristine beach. Give me a dangerous, windswept, miraculous, mudpool any day. Give me something that will swallow me up in its bleak glutinous tide any day of the week.
Give me Sylvie.

The postcard

Hi Anne,

Wish you were here in sunny Cornwall (instead of me)!
Having an awful time, as expected. Just managed to sneak away from Sylvie for an hour and thought I’d grab a coffee and send you this.
This is a picture of the beach where I’ve spent most of my week. The river runs out across the beach. It would be quite a beautiful scene if there wasn’t the odd shit floating in there from the holiday camp.
Weather has been changeable, but it’s improving now. Sylvie has been a dream, as always. I don’t know what I see in her!
So, there’s a new man on the scene, eh? I’m only gone away a week… Well, I just hope he’s better than the last one.
See you soon, anyway,

Love from S. xx

Back to the sea

What is it that drives us back to the sea? We escaped from the tides and the surf and the foam all those millennia ago, so why does the crashing pound of those rhythmical waves claw at us still, mirroring the Sirens' call?
I wonder this as I lounge here on a Cornish beach. It is the height of summer now, and this is the second sunny day we've had. We go home tomorrow. Still, the weather brings us out in our droves; the weather and the whisper of the water.
I'm on holiday with Sylvie and her family. It is as fun as it can be. I'm enjoying peering through dark sunglasses at the perfect and the almost perfect bodies of the women who waltz by, and wondering which of them I could realistically have.
Anne has texted me twice this week. I can't decide if she's making a real effort by texting me, or if this meagre couple of texts shows I'm worth anything much to her at all.
This whole weekend, it's made me question why I bother holding on to this relationship with Anne. Of all the people to choose to have an affair with, why the woman I previously loved and lived with? I may as well have chosen some beautiful young thing. An oozing, raw, sexual presence whom I could just meet for a meal and some red wine in a shaded corner of a bistro, before whisking off to a hotel room for a few hours of sweating, heaving passion.
That way sounds good. I get everything I want - all the sex, the excitement - and I don't have all these unresolved issues cropping up, all the raised eyebrows and impatient huffs as I manage to annoy Anne, yet again. At least now I can leave before the row starts. That's probably why it's just about working. It's funny that I never row with Sylvie. She is an implacable pond before me and I can just skim right over her without a care.
Everything inside tells me I should concentrate all my attentions and affections and time on just one person, Sylvie. But then, I'm thinking, is she worth it?
So, as the waves crash in my ears like tribal drums, I close my eyes on the bikini beach and drift off to sleep while the sun's still high and my body's still warm and Sylvie's still by my side.

Summer, on the way to Sylvie's beach

Sylvie’s beach has sand dunes, did I tell you that?
There’s Sylvie, struggling up the dune, trying to balance as the plush sand subsides beneath her comfortable shoes.
Greta is lagging behind and Sylvie’s mum, Patricia, is saying something to her. Patricia is probably telling Greta that she’s done something wrong.
I’m lagging behind too.
I pretended I was just interested in the flora. How does something so green grow straight through sand? I suppose I am a little interested, but I’ve never so much as Googled it, so what the hey!
It’s true that I don’t want to talk to Patricia. She has a penchant for ‘tuts’ and ‘tsks’. At first I thought she couldn’t abide me, but she treats me as fairly as she does her own, so I suppose I can’t complain.
Apart from Sylvie, the other of ‘her own’ is Louis. He’s visiting too and struts about with such purpose and vigour, you’d think he was younger than Sylvie. But he’s not; he’s fully forty years old and still living with mother. A total berk, anyway. You can just make him out, disappearing over the hill.
Father, by the way, is not dead – heaven forbid! No, he’s too ill or lazy to come to the beach. Too much sand, too much sun, that’s not what England is about for him. Patricia would have had to go home soon after and fix him a roast dinner – it’s Sunday, after all!
What do you reckon? You’re not really interested in these photos, are you Anne? Anne? Anne!

Sylvie's beach

Sylvie took me to a new beach today, near the mouth of the river. The weather was fresh and calm, the sun was pleasing. I realised I hadn't been to another beach, except for my regular haunt, in four years.
Greta was back at school today, but Sylvie and I had one more day's holiday left. 'Let's make the most of it, honey,' Sylvie had said, and made coquettish, seductive eyes at me. That made me smile, but I almost smirked. Sylvie isn't very good at being sexy. She sounds like she's in a bad movie or she's reading lines from a Mills & Boon novel.
When we got to the beach we walked a little way and I plonked myself down in a spot sheltered from the light breeze. Sylvie had brought a rug along and motioned for me to shift onto that, alongside her.
Just the late summer sun and the odd wanderer along the sands for company, Sylvie rolled in towards me for an embrace. I was surprised, but reciprocated. I'm unused to public shows of affection and I had to keep one eye open and trained on the beach ahead, incase of peering nosey walkers.
I rested my left hand on her hip and she tried to pull it up so that it cupped her breast. I resisted and instead settled it lightly on her buttock, which seemed to appease her.
I began to wonder if Anne ever came here with Derek. I guess I had a small panic attack about it, because my breathing increased quite quickly. Sylvie broke away, looked deeply into my eyes and stroked my hair and my face sweetly, I think she thought she'd really quite turned me on. But then the moment was broken by a couple who strolled along the sandbank before us.
"Who's that, is it Anne?" I cried and broke away from Sylvie. Of course it wasn't her and I flushed with childish embarrassment. I looked at Sylvie out of the corner of my eyes and saw her face change from hurt to angry.
She turned away and pretended to sunbathe. We didn't speak again until she unpacked the sandwiches.

Greta and me

Now, when I go walking upon that same stretch of coast, I fear I’ll see Anne.
It hasn’t happened yet, maybe it never will, but the clicking heels of Anne behind me is a sound that makes me wheel around with fear on stronger days, and pick up my pace in ignorance on more usual days.
I dread most to see her today, because today I’m walking with Greta.
Greta is not my new girlfriend; Greta is my new girlfriend’s daughter. She has strange falling locks of boy blonde hair and a propensity to bounce and giggle. She reminds me of Millie, Anne’s dog.
I guess if I’m going to see Anne, I’ll see Millie first. I wonder if Millie will recognise me still. I wonder if Anne will.
It’s funny that as the seasons roll on by and the storms and tides come and go, it’s difficult to tell the month when you’re at the beach.
I like to think my face is like the beach, weathering the beatings of nature and standing almost timeless, just shifting sands giving away its slow changing nature. But maybe I’m the only one who can’t tell I’m changing?
The wind picks up and slaps our faces and Greta has teary eyes. I’ll get her home now. I’ve avoided Anne again.

Evening stroll

I’ve taken to walking along the front most evenings now. It’s calm in those unique fractured moments, at the end of the day.
There are always other people around. No matter how cold or how little sunlight there is, people are making the most of the day.
I see other people walking dogs. I started taking Millie with me, every day, but Anne had always walked her enough in the day. It seemed strange to Millie that she be allowed out so often, I suppose, so I stopped bringing her. She’s quite literally a creature of habit, like her mother.
I’m not habitual in many things. That’s why I could get away with this evening walking; Anne is never surprised by anything I do anymore.
So I’m looking out onto the beach or maybe the sea, and then I tend to grow tired of nature and I’ll turn around and look at the cars whizzing up the coast road, or I’ll stare straight down the long path that runs along the seafront. This promenade of life; I can see everything I want to see here. Everything I want to be, everything I want to possess, everything I haven’t got.
No wonder I always arrive home in a worse mood than when I left.

Millie and me

I never told her what I was thinking about. When we got back from our walk, I didn’t tell her it was over.
Instead, I said that I felt refreshed and I was going to have a glass of wine and did she want one too. She did, and we drank and watched TV and forgot that it was difficult to talk without our little crutches.
Still, things must be disintegrating instead. Perhaps a slow decline is better than full blown war.
She hasn’t accompanied us on our walk today. She didn’t really feel like it, she said. And she had some other things to be getting on with, she said.
So we’re walking together, Millie and me.
I’ve decided not to go across the sand today. It’s muddy and wet, of course, so I’m sticking to the path. A good sturdy path goes right along the distance of the beach, with an old Victorian railing running its length.
Millie’s free to run and play in the puddles though. That’s fine, she doesn’t need anyone else. Just some open space and her tongue’s lolling and her tail’s wagging.
A shallow slope runs down from the path to the beach. It helps to break the waves at high tide, keeping things pretty smooth.

Low tide

We slopped and plopped through the wet sands and puddles where the rain fell.
I was wearing jeans and my trainers. She had waterproof gear covering her, almost entirely.
Millie padded along beside. She loved this walk, her favourite of the week. She’d skid through confusing puddles, sniff crabs and snap at lugworms. Maybe it was Anne’s favourite walk of the week too, I don’t know.
I walked along behind them, trying to think of a way to tell her I didn’t want to do this anymore.
The water seeped through the cheap stitching of my shoes and my every step was uncomfortable.
I’ll tell her as soon as we get home, I told myself. As soon as we get home.