The printed words surrounded him as he pulled the old newspapers closer. He closed his eyes….
There, in front of him, is the junction. He slows but not quite to a stop. He always looks to the left. Always. But, no matter how many times he relives it, he never looks to the right. He pulls out slowly, so seemingly harmlessly. And then it comes, that sickening crunch he can still feel now – the boy’s bike is suddenly there on the bonnet, the small figure hurled through the air.
His wasn’t the only memory of not stopping and not looking right before he turned. The CCTV camera at the junction showed it all.
After two years in jail, and with no job, he was soon in the half-life, like a hungry child rubbing the misted glass of a sweetshop, looking in on a world that didn’t want him. So he just kept on moving until he’d run out of miles, and ended up in this seaside town like a bit of flotsam, all washed up on this park bench overlooking the sea. And he couldn’t sleep.
People had gradually drifted away from the seafront arcades. The candyfloss and doughnut machines were locked away, leaving just sprinklings of sugar below their metal grills, only enough to coat Tom’s fingers.
The iron gates of the funfair were closed, and the chairs on the giant wheel had fallen still. Lifeguards in their red caps and yellow shirts and shorts had taken their flags and left the beach and the donkeys had been led away. It was quiet, except for the sound of the waves rolling in to cast their lot on the darkening beach, and the wind fluttering the leaves of the trees in the park.
The streetlights, like a giant string of pearls, stretched to the far end of the prom. They had blinked from pink to orange and then slowly gained a fuller, whiter glow. Moths gathered around them, their wings beating furiously. It hurt Tom’s heart to watch their flickering lives fading in the brightening light.
A couple approached; he could hear her heels clicking on the pavement. She whispered in the man’s ear and pointed at Tom as they picked up pace to go past him. She looked over her shoulder, while the man concentrated on the chips cradled in white paper in his hands.
Tom sat up and looked out to sea. A fishing trawler was making its way home, its red and green lights alternated as it disappeared from view, inside the harbour walls. Seagulls, little flashes of white, floated on the surface of the black, rolling water.
He could hear heels clicking on the pavement again, more quickly this time, and then she was in front of him, her breath coming in clouds in the cold night air. ‘Here y’are, take ’em. There aren’t many left but they’re still warm.’
He looked up and she smiled. Tears formed at the edges of his eyes but maybe that was down to the sharp, seaside smell of salt and vinegar. ‘Thank you, this means….’
She turned to leave. ‘Don’t you worry, love, just tuck in before they get cold.’
And then she was gone. He finished the chips off, even the crispy remnants that had worked their way into the crevices in the greasy paper.
He leant back on the bench. His thoughts were turning on themselves once more. ‘You’ve had your chips … had your chips ….’ The inane, stupid words went through his mind again and again. He was so tired.
He lay down, closed his eyes and slept for an hour or two but the bench dug into his hip and woke him. His mind drifted to earlier in the day, when he was standing on the old pier. Below, the sea churned round the rusty iron supports. He’d edged closer to the handrail and it had seemed as if the water was dragging him with it as it spiralled down.
The memories burnt fiercely in his head again. The boy’s body was bent against his bike and the second Tom saw him he knew he was gone and it was his doing, and this day had been coming, a reckoning.
His body had begun to move forward, but something had stopped him and he stumbled off down the boardwalk. ‘Not today, not today… Tom lives to fight another day...’ But he knew he’d face that feeling again, like a spider you didn’t catch in a room, waiting to reappear.
He heard a shout, as if inside his head, echoing his dark thoughts. There it was again, louder this time.
‘Help!’
It was coming from the bay. A white sail flapped as a yacht was being thrown around in the waves. No one seemed to be on board. Then he saw a man in the water, waving an arm desperately above the waves, his voice almost drowned by the wind and the crashing of the surf.
Tom threw his overcoat to the floor and kicked his shoes off. He ran into the sea and swam as fast as he could – the cold water biting into his skin. His legs suddenly felt heavy in the thick, woollen trousers he wished he’d taken off. The man was further out than he had thought and his waving seemed to be more desperate now. Tom shouted as loudly as he could, ‘Hold on, I’m coming!’
He kept being carried by the force of the waves to the left, towards the pier, and he needed to head more to the right where the man’s head was bobbing in and out of sight.
The man heard him, he was shouting a reply but Tom couldn’t make out the words. He felt the nausea rising, the taste of chips at the back of his throat as he tried to keep the fear and the food down. Now he was as much in danger as the man he was trying to save.
Finally, he reached him and got an arm under his head to keep it above the water, a distant memory from survival swimming classes at school. He began to kick for the shore. The weight nearly pulled him down and he kept swallowing stinging, bitter seawater.
He wanted to let go, the man was so heavy and the pain was too much in his hands and arms, but at last they landed on the shingle. Tom dragged the man as far as he could beyond the edge of the waves, turned his head away and threw up – a mixture of seawater and chips.
The man was shivering but conscious, he half stood and grabbed Tom’s shoulders. ‘Thank God you were here!’
Tom’s teeth were chattering, the beach was spinning and he could feel cramp biting into his calf muscles. The man was still holding his shoulders. ‘You saved my life.’
Suddenly there was a crashing sound. Both men looked up and watched as the man’s yacht was smashed against the pier. They could hear the splintering of wood and the sail splitting, and then the mast breaking and scraping against the huge iron supports as it was crushed like a tin can under a truck.
The man hugged Tom as tightly as he could. ‘How can I ever repay you?’
Tom felt hot, rasping air in his lungs. He knew he wanted to stay, to keep living. He promised himself he would try harder. And the next time he saw the boy on the bike and felt the water running out of his soul, pulling him down with it, he would remember this man on the beach, with tears pouring down his grey and frightened face.
‘You already have,’ he said.
Both men sat down on the beach, too tired to move. After a while the waves seemed calmer in the bay and the horizon was forming itself in the first grey hints of dawn. Tom could soon see fringes of foam flung back on the furthest waves. The tide had turned and the water was nibbling its way further up the beach, touching his feet – it felt like the first beginnings of forgiveness.
*******
The Warning Sun
Andy Siddle
The sands stretch as far
As forever thinks it is
The water rises
Nudging wormcasts
Under the surface
Nibbling sandcastle walls
Picking mermaids’ purses
Covering footprints and lovehearts
Curlew and plover
Tread gingerly
Like elderly deckchair attendants
The sun sends its message
Warming us and warning us
It will decide our fate
*******
The All-Seeing Eye
Andy Siddle
The sun reaches out
Its rays sending
Irisdescent hope
Tumbling over the sands
As the tide recedes
The estuary breathes
&nbs
p; Lies on its back
Feels the warmth
Between its sandstony toes
From runnel and rockpool
To the grains that run
Through its timeless hands
The all seen, all-seeing eye
Gazes and blazes across the sky
*******
The Camera Sometimes Lies
Andy Siddle
The shutter clicks
The moment is trapped
Fixed forever
You will never turn and face me
Never forgive
The sea will always be
A brilliant blue but far way
The fishing boats will die of thirst in the bay
Waiting for the tide that never comes
But turn you did
Your smile sent thoughts
Running through my mind
Like eager children looking for shells
Long after we left that spot
The wind picked up
Stirring the yellow gorse petals
And the fishing boats bobbed again
*******
As Long As They Could Remember
Andy Siddle
David was wishing it was all out in the open. Then he wouldn’t have to pretend. It was taking her an age to get to the door. At last, a blurred shape appeared through the frosted glass. She pulled the door feebly to the extent of its chain.
‘Hi, Mum. Sorry I’m late, the traffic was terrible.’
She hesitated, then slid the bolt back and the door opened. He stepped forward to embrace her but she was already heading up the hallway.
‘A cup of tea would be good, it’s taken me four hours to get here.’
‘Tea … tea … oh yes.’ She headed into the kitchen.
He settled back in the living room sofa, still feeling the miles of road in his mind and flexing his hands to relieve the tension from holding the wheel too tightly. He needed to tell her. He’d agreed with Sue to keep their break-up quiet until after Easter but, now he was here, it felt wrong to hide the truth. Even though they hadn’t been close for years, she was still his mum – she had a right to know.
He stood up and went into the kitchen to help her. ‘Come on Mum, I’ll do this.’ He filled the kettle and put it on. ‘Do you want one?’
She nodded and shuffled into the front room. As the kettle wheezed and grumbled into life, he rummaged in the cupboards for teabags and mugs. He opened three drawers before he found the cutlery. It was all jumbled up, but eventually he found a teaspoon. He was about to push one of the other drawers back into place when he noticed them – sheets of paper covered in spidery handwriting. He picked up the top sheet and his hands began to shake.
‘Making tea.’
Put water in kettle (white, by sink). Put switch down (red). Get teabag (jar, in cupboard) and put in teapot (blue, on shelf by sink). When red light goes out pour water from kettle into pot. Leave for two minutes. Put milk (white, in fridge) in cup. Then pour tea on top of milk. Put milk back in fridge.’
In the same drawer, written on a piece of card in black marker, were the words: ‘I am Helen Hardwick. I was born on 8 September 1942. My husband was called Peter. He died on 5 December 2010. I have a son called David. David is married to Sue. They live in Leeds.’
The floor seemed to shift beneath his feet and he had to sit down at the table. Silence poured from the room beyond the hallway, as if he was suddenly alone in the house.
She sat on the sofa, watching the flames move inside the thing that kept the room warm. She turned to look out of the … the ... She knew this word … it was like standing in front of the class again ... win … windig …. Well, whatever it was called she liked it, and the white shapes that moved slowly across it.
A man came into the room carrying something on a tray. She liked his face and felt she knew him from somewhere – he seemed quite at home. She asked, ‘Who are you, then?’
‘It’s David.’ He could barely look at her.
‘Which days will you be coming?’
‘It’s hard to get away. Work’s very busy …. Oh, you mean … I’m not the home help, Mum. I’m David ... your son.’
She looked at him and he thought he saw a flicker of recognition. ‘You were friends with Peter.’
‘More than friends, Mum. Peter was my dad – your husband.’
Her face lit up. ‘He liked chocolate cake – huge pieces. Always ended up with bits around his mouth.’
At least that’s a start, David almost said aloud, as he stood up and took the mugs through to the kitchen. He glanced at the sheets of paper in the half-open drawer. ‘David is married to Sue…’ Not for much longer, he thought.
He went back to the room and sat down next to her. She pointed a trembling finger at him. ‘I remember, you’re … now let me see….’
‘You don’t have to pretend anymore Mum.’ He showed her the notes from the drawer.
Her shoulders slumped slightly.
‘Do you understand?’
‘Yes, yes I can understand you. I just need a little time to work out what you’re saying.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘Everything’s a muddle. The doctor says it’s a demon … demon … I can’t think of it….’
‘Dementia.’ He said the word as gently as he could, so it wouldn’t sound like some sort of punishment.
She reached out and touched his arm. ‘They’re taking the treasures you know, from inside my head, while I’m asleep. The best ones are safe, though…’ She leant down, picked up a shoebox from the floor by the side of the sofa and took off the lid.
The tree decorations were packed neatly in white paper. The colours shone brightly as she unfolded them, like the memories themselves. She looked into his eyes and it seemed part of her mind was clear again, as if a light was flickering in a supposedly deserted house. ‘You’d ask to do the lower branches. We used the same ones every year....’
He remembered the breathless, tinselled thrill of Christmas mornings and favourite presents, like the pirate ship his dad had made for him, complete with black sails and a flag with skull and crossbones.
She delved into the shoebox again and passed him an old photo. It was of her mother’s house, tucked into a cliff-side. She talked about childhood holidays there – from the fifty steps they’d count on the way down, to the creak of the saddle when she rode the old donkey on the beach.
As he listened, he remembered diving into the green fizz of the surf, the sudden silence under the waves, and then emerging to sunlight and shouts. Eyes stinging, he’d run up the beach with goosebumps on his arms, before enduring a sand-scraped towelling.
The pebbles between the beach and the ice cream van would give his feet a hollow ache but it was worth it for a cone with a flake that would sweeten the sea’s taste away. At last he’d feel the relief of cool, wet sand squirming between his toes. And when it was time to go, they’d count the steps up the cliff-side again until they arrived breathlessly at the top.
By nightfall, logs would be spitting in the fireplace while stories rose like curls of wood-smoke to the ceiling. He’d drift off to sleep with the sound of waves breaking on the shoreline below, matching his breathing to their rushing in and drawing out.
David reached out to hold her hand – her eyes were glazing over again. He knew the floodwater would keep creeping into the edges of her memory. Maybe he could hold it bay, at least for a while.
‘I’m going to stay a few days. Help you find more of the….’ He lifted the shoebox up.
Rain was pattering against the window and the light was starting to fade. He needed to tell her, before it was too late, that he hadn’t forgotten being happy as a child. He wanted it to stay like that for as long as they could remember. And as for his news, well maybe that could keep.
*******
Sally
Adele Cosgrove-Bray
Her toes were featureless spectres benea
th tenebrous water. Lapping at wind-scored wood, sucking at glutinous mud which held upright posts as loosely as a withered maw of splintered teeth, the circling waves slapped the shrunken planks of the boathouse.
Subtle groans of wood rubbing against crumbling wood; the muted creaks of slow decay; a dank pungency rising from rotting fibres sprouting moist fungus; and the sharp-sour scent of disturbed slime coiled into her receptive senses as familiar as an incubus and as enticing.
She smiled as bitter cold burned her flesh. The sun had warmed only surface inches and even this had faded faster than the day's final rays. She drained the merlot in her glass and lifted her calves from the ocean's edge. The water had reddened her goose-bumpy skin. Rubbing her feet with a towel stung but she anticipated this.
Beside the narrow walkway where she sat, the waters formed an oblong portal. The rippling obsidian liquid reflected nothing. All stars were veiled by sooty clouds. Later, if a wind rose over the hills, then a few silver slivers might find a route to the sea. What little remained of the roof could not repel their beams.
She gazed down at sunken rowing boats, ruined beyond repair. Things had not always been like this. She remembered oars cutting through soft summer waters, when rowing home from lazy picnics had brought perfect endings to lyrical days. She could even invoke the heat of that July when Desmond had come to stay and everyone assumed they would get along famously but they hadn't.
She thought of Des as he was now, as smug in middle-age as he had been at seventeen. He'd been one of those tedious boys who displayed Chaucer and Hardy under his arms, whilst hiding copies of Brodie's Notes deep inside a pocket. He behaved similarly now; parroting tabloid critics rather than trouble to read the books he feigned knowledge of.
Her mother had considered Desmond the scion of their family. "What a pity you and he are cousins," she wistfully observed more than once.
While folding the damp towel, memories resurfaced of Des dogging her footsteps. He fancied himself the wiser, older teen and she the clueless girl who needed bossing around, only she wasn't having any of it. She knew this land far better than he. She'd hear his voice fading as she slid deeper into the woods: "Where are you? Sally, you're being silly."