I went to the beach today
Henry St.Leger-Davey
I start to feel uncomfortable, sitting here still. Her damp cheeks make me want to stand up; push the world over; dismiss it; throw it away; reject it; tell it something must be wrong with it; tell it that it’s failing; make it see that its purpose, whether it doesn’t include her or me (or is one of those ‘the point is there’s no point’ so-zen-it’s-crazy mentalities), can’t possibly be doing its job right when she, she is sitting here at the edge of this wooden platform with her frame collapsing into her stomach and her sobs sinking ever deeper into her chest with each rush of salt sliding down the bridge of her nose, manoeuvring over and around the resigned freckles in its path, palely dotted like the careless afterthought of a painter flicking the last specks of orange off his brush. The way they rest on her, parallel to the curved hoods of her eyes, reminds me of the faint caresses prodded into the sand by the first dozen drops of February rain (who goes to the beach in February?).
I’m sat on the pier, which stretches out cheekily in its static attempt to taste the sea air as the tongue of Bournemouth beach, having followed her weeping sweep across the road and pavement and sand. The knotted black sail of her billowing hair (which looks oddly cheerful despite being attached to such a juddering structure) means I can’t see her and the wind means I can’t hear her. She seems to be vibrating mutely: a forgotten phone left on silent while its owner pops out to jump in for a damp dash to the buoy and back (their yearly ritual to convince themselves that their body is useful for something). The wind means it’s cold, but she shakes out of habit: in the specific remembrance of needing to move and convulse; to jerk the water out of her eyes and the blood into her feet. Her feet are gripping the last plank before we hit air. We construct these supports to keep our heads high and overseeing; with gravity we’ll always end up right at the bottom.
I watch her. Those arachnid limbs should be dangling over the edge, like the draped bodies of theatre-goers in the front row: forced to evolve into something with a longer neck, adorning the seat like a splayed curtain. Her legs should be waving and curving through the butter-substance of oxides and dioxides and everything else in-between.
I start to remember. Only a few hours ago we were passing by the landing ground of her brother. He fell quickly, slipping through the air. What was it like, she murmured through her curls, what was he thinking? Well I haven’t done this before… you should try everything once, Oscar Wilde said, I think… I wasn’t there when it happened. I wasn’t there to ask him. I would have gone for original sin instead of final but someone had beaten me to it.
I glance back over my right shoulder. A woman choking on her phone backs away, into shelter, at the wall of rain appearing in front of her, darkening the formerly pale pavement. Now devoid of life but full of flurries of rapid movement, the air is thickened and consumed and spat out as each motion satisfies its vendetta against the grey, the grey, turning and being overturned.
I consider the remnants of a small barbeque I saw further on down the beach, and some dug holes big enough for deckchairs, existing in their self-satisfied manner. The waves have introduced themselves by now, to-ing and fro-ing with the returning bashfulness of first greetings at a refreshments table. I can’t imagine looking back to try and see them again. The sea’s slimy mass is writhing under our lazy stare: I wouldn’t dare to look away now.
I lean towards her and swallow nothing in my throat. She whirrs on. Someone never switched her off; someone should think about the energy bill here; someone; I think someone’s behind us; I won’t check; the seagulls aren’t circling; it’s awfully pink: the sky, I mean, considering the rain; whatever happened to the busker outside M&S; someone’s breathing behind me or standing on the cliff with his staff and muttering orders for the wind to trick me and chide me if not hate me and make me forget the buzz of my stretched-out phone on the pier beside me. I have forgotten her. I’ll just pop her into my back pocket and take her out if I ever need her Outlook on things iThink might whet my curiosity. She’s A Marvel of Design; a Revolution in Relevant Technology; a leaking frame or case that may not be covered by the manufacturer’s guarantee that she won’t cry and won’t keep crying until she sinks into the damp wood and moans out a last creak under the aquatic assault from above.
I start to shiver. It is cold, after all. Now the scene seems to suit me and she sticks out of the wood: an unwanted nail at an awkward foot-threatening angle. She’s an extra object that just enforces my perception of the cold. She’s additional. Unnecessary. Unessential. Contingent. She’s not even looking at the water. Her face and hair are wet already from the outside sky and her inward well; her body is leaning in on itself, self-supporting but unsure: a swaying mast at sea.
I wander back across the beach and its faceless memories, before finding my way to the street and advancing towards the nearest payphone. The first streetlamp that finds me beneath it leers like a dull question mark, lost and out of place, fading into the grey backdrop of the doubtful expanse of clouds.
I can’t hear the tide from here.