Dear me, it has been some time since I wrote, dear readers. And this hardly seems like the sort of thing that’s worth the long break, but I am afraid I have been busy. Comedy shows, new jobs and all sorts. This few thousand words took me over six weeks, six weeks to put together, and I’m emailing it out not because I’m pleased with it, as such, but because it is finished!
Still, here we are, trouble at the seaside.
Friends and The Sea
Water pours from the tap to glass. I let it run. The glass fills quickly, and the water pours out into a metal sink below, faster than the half-covered plug can contain it. Did you know that you can drown in an inch of water? A lifeguard told me that when I was four. It is one of my earliest memories. The crash of divers, the yelling of children and the peep of his whistle. “Don’t go anywhere you aren’t confident.” He had a red t-shirt on and a bright yellow whistle. I do not remember his face. “Just do your best but don’t go any further than you’re confident. Did you know, you only need an inch of water to drown?”
I asked Mum about it in the car home and she frowned.
“He’s right, yeah,” she sniffed, “But I don’t think it’s appropriate for a lifeguard to be telling you at your swimming lessons.”
But my mind was already racing at the thought. An inch of water? How would that even work? And anyway, Mum, if you think it’s so inappropriate for some lifeguard to tell me, then when on Earth were you going to?
We’re a half-hour west of Falmouth here. Drowning is serious business. Like every coastal town if your parents are even halfway responsible, children are taught to swim as early as they can. Even the cautious will be tempted to the sea in the summer months and even if they grow to be a social recluse, preferring the solitude of the house or the country lane to the gangs of youth who colonise the beaches learning to protect yourself is essential.
See there on the sill, that’s him - Harry. Same smile as me, slightly lopsided that grew in my prime years into a wolfish grin girls told me they found cheeky. I wonder if he, with his lighter complexion and rounder face would have had the same effect. Or maybe his teenage years would have hardened his jawline or built a brow across those deep grey eyes of his. But for all the changes we go through as we become men, I know that I would have looked at him my younger brother and still see a little of this photo in him: perhaps the glint of his eye of the thickness of his hair, or the way he concentrated as he gripped the plastic spade he planned to use raising up sandcastles.
We lost him when I was six. Last sight of him I remember was him disappearing at the surf between a gaggle of girls. Them, blocking our vision squealing and giggling, hair tied into pigtails and bobs. The group then parted but he was gone. Days of searches I recall, boats and divers on the beach but nothing. Everything else I forget but the sound of the girls singing, a gorgeous little nursery rhyme “With silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row”. The sound of their singing, and the clip-clop of horse hooves along the promenade.
Drowning is serious business here.
This all makes perfect sense to anybody not born within the sound of seagulls and crashing foam, and most people intuitively understand the next thing too but they still have to be told whereas those of use on the coast already know. That is, that we are superstitious. Did you know that folk who live in seaside towns attend church at a rate nearly three or four times higher than those in the city? Source: the pile of dog-eared National Geographics mum used to leave next to to downstairs loo. Our church was full to the brim most Sundays whereas I’ve seen city places barely fill a pew. Maybe in London or Manchester you can distract yourself sufficiently from the grasping maw of nature, but here by the water the tides pull in and out inevitably like the earth is breathing, and even the tiniest change in the breeze provokes a violence beyond any of that crude muscle matter that keeps you together. We are closer to the void here, and myths, religions and stories thrive.
Mermaids are probably the one you know the most. Bodies or women, fishy tales. They’re everywhere here, adorning everything from swinging pub signs to at least one in three purveyors of summer side seaside tat. Personally I’m more of a kelpie person. Same basic function, beautiful women that lure you to your death but they’re also secretly horses with manes made of seaweed when they want to be. Brilliant stuff. It’s what we used to call ourselves as kids, running around the clifftops. The Kelpies: me, Susie, Chris Tithering and all the rest. The others all left town to go off to university, and then away like most young people eventually did, but Chris and I stayed. Me because I had a job out there on the trawlers, right there on the sea every day hauling in nets of fish, subsumed with the spray of the icy pre-dawn waters. Chris was different. I’d thought he’d go away. He was book smart, perfect for university, but he ended up enrolling in the local university and studying at home. I never really pressed him about it.
“I like what I like,” he said, twirling his pint on a barmat one evening at the Mermaid & Anchor (see what I mean?), “Anyway, if it weren’t for me it’d just be you of the kelps left. We gotta stick together.”
“Yeah but I’d fuck off in a second if I could,” I said, “You know that. I just didn’t get the grades to go uni like you lot did.”
“Please,” said Chris, “Anyone can go to uni these days. You're telling me you couldn’t get into Nottingham Trent or something? Nah, you want to stay just as much as I do.”
I snorted. Probably because I’d been up and on the water before 3am and I had the same planned for tomorrow. “It’s shit mate. I’m up all hours. I get paid fuck all and I’ll be lucky to inherit dad’s place if he dies, and what with all the Londonders and scousers and that moving over that’s the only way I’m affording a home round here.”
“No,” said Chris carefully, “No we want to be here.” He didn’t elaborate more but went into an almost pregnant silence, sipping slowly on his beer, “You’re giving up to be here, same as me. I want to be here. Although it would be nice if -“
He glanced around the pub. It was the same batch that had always been there, musty carpet, lowlit with a couple of occasionally trilling fruit machines that blinked stupidly in the corner. Under the dim light the drinkers gathered, little clutches of them like Chris and I, huddled together like penguins stood on each other's feet in the arctic freeze. Heads were bent, uniformly. There was nothing worth looking up for. Occasionally a chin would rise so one man could stare at another friend in the eyes, though only for a second. It did not do to examine the faces of the people you sat opposite for too long, it would distract from the proper purpose which was the drink.
“Not a woman in sight,” I sniffed, “Why do we always come to this hole?” We had been patronising the Mermaid & Anchor since we were 15. It was the only place that didn’t ask for ID of course, but there wasn’t much need to keep coming back, except that it was the two of us, it was home and so we came.
Chris didn’t reply. He was idly tapping at his phone, some chatlog from one or other of his games.
Of course.
“You’re not gonna meet anyone there,” I snapped.
“Why not?” said Chris, “Come on mate, we know every woman who actually presents herself socially here, there’s about five of them and they’ve three teeth between them. Can’t date any of those norns. Nah, what I need is a recluse just like me.”
“You could always up the age a bit,” I said, “Plenty of old divorcees around.”
“Your mum certainly says so,” smirked Chris.
“Fuck off,” I snapped, “Speaking of mums. How’s Sandra?”
“Still won’t leave the house,” said Chris gloomily, “Agorophia’s getting bad.”
“Alright well, get her to give us a call,” I offered, “Facetime with my Mum and Dad. Be good to get her talking.”
Chris shrugged non-committedly. He slipped his phone back into his pocket, though I could see he was a little downcast. Chris was built thin, and his shoulders sagged underneath the enormous green overcoats and shapeless hoodies he had a tendency to wear. He had never been one for style, neither was I come to that, but a career as an enthusiastic if not particularly gifted schoolboy rugby player, and a physical job made me at least fill out any piece of clothing I cared to fit into.
I don’t really know that Chris spoke to anyone else but me regularly, unless you counted the anonymous usernames from across the world he socialised with online. He seemed to sense what I was thinking about and his eyes narrowed, which only served to accentuate the lines that were already on his young face, crossing him like soil scored by a trowel.
“Look Kieran, I’m not like you - I can’t just hook up with some tourist girl who fancies another fling.”
“Nah, suppose not,” I said.
We finished up our pints and headed off early. “Mum sends her love,” I said as we wandered from our table. Chris smiled weakly, “Cheers.” He paused then, looking over the men huddled across that stained carpets, drinking under the sickly yellow lights.
“Did you know,” he said, “A man can drown in an inch of water.” He waved the pint glass clutched in his hand, sloshing the final few sips of beer and backwash about the base of it.
“Everyone in Cornwall knows that,” I said, “Lifeguard told me.”
“Me too,” he said, “Someone has to.”
We didn’t part immediately, just stood a few feet apart in an awkward silence. The night was cold and it seemed right to go, but I wanted to say something else though I wasn’t sure that I had the vocabulary. Instead I settled for, “Look mate you gotta download Hinge or something. Just do it.”
“Oh come on-” Chris started.
“Just fucking do it,” I snapped, “I can’t go for more of these loser drinks just the two of us. I can’t. You’re drowning here same as me. Probably we’ll be here the rest of our lives unless the articl melts and the sea takes us before our time. Let’s at least try and get laid whilst we still can.”
“Fine,” snapped Chris, “Fucking fine.” And he whipped out his phone and downloaded an app then and there. “You’ll see,” he said, “Nothing will come of it, you’ll see.”
I have a picture of him if you want to see? I switch the tap off. The water which thundered so violently into its silver basin before pulverising the plug lying below settles, then swirls slowly towards its final destination. There’s lots online of course, I’m sure you looked me up on social media before we spoke but I have a couple here that I think really capture the two of them.
There, look, see how thin he is. Maybe not quite so gangly as I make out. In my head he’s practically a scarecrow. Isn’t it strange what death does. Even though I am telling his story all I can muster is some barely drawn facsimile of who he was. A seaside caricature of his person. We forget the dead. It is a horror that we do. We sit trading stories, we shed tears over the gravestone, but we forget them. We are meant to. When someone close to you dies the part of you that was with them, that acted that way just so around them dies to and is embedded within the coffin you buried just as their body is.
Who is that with him? She’s gorgeous? Right. They look so happy together, I thought you said he struggled. He did. Well, at least he found a bit of happiness before the end. We are meant to chase that moment, we men. Those of us who remain at the shore pray for our moments when we, like the pirates who were our fathers and grandfathers, snatch the joy that comes from life, the victorious laughter, the pursuit of beauty.
Chris hadn’t answered my messages for a good few days when he, out of the blue, asked for another drink. This wasn’t unusual for him. He’d often go dark for short periods of time, buried in video games - or his own brain - whatever it was that swirled about his head in that dingy seaside room of his. What was unusual was that it was him that prompted the meeting. Normally it’d take weeks of needling before a sullen sounding but grateful reply would flop into my direct messages. Sometimes I resented having to look after him, but he didn’t have anybody else.
That day, the talk flowed. So much so that the downtrodden drinkers of the Mermaid & Anchor actually raised their heads just a few centimeters from their pint glasses and craned their necks to ogle at the two young men, absorbed in animated conversation. What the hell could they be so excitable about? The barmaid, a dour looking woman scowled at us as we ordered more rounds, furious that our sparkle of friendly chemistry interrupted the bitter ambience of the pub. I smelled a rat.
“OK Chris, spill” I said.
“What?”
“Come on,” I said, “you’ve been clearly dying to tell me something all night. What is it?”
Chris passed. “Can we have a beach walk.”
I shrugged. I didn’t have work the next day and why the hell not?
“Fine. Hey, you’re not dying or anything are you?”
“No, I’m great. Better than ever really.”
“Alright mystery man,” I said, “Let’s go.”
We wandered from town onto the boardwalk. The streetlights vanished, replaced quickly with increasingly dim halogen bulbs hanging from the porches of beach huts, which themselves receded away as we reached the next bay. There was a small light in the distance. Perhaps some teenagers enjoying illicit late night drinks. The sea was calm, the waves brushed slowly against the beach and for a while we walked in silence, enjoying the feeling of our feet sinking into shingle. The light was low. The increasing distance between us and the jangling yellow street-lamps made the shadows longer and darker, but we could still see the cliffs yawning over the beach, casting their precarious shadows like a balled fist pitifully shaking against the inevitability of the sea waves that churned and spilled against them.
We kept walking. The light from the, I assumed, teens was closer now and we would likely pass them on our regular walking route across the bay. I could hear, above the slow swoosh of the surf, the sound of somebody singing. It was raucous, sticking just about to the tune but meandering this way and that as all the best drunkards do.
I glanced at Chris, “Classic,” I grinned. But he wasn’t listening. He stared out towards the little light with glassy eyes.
“Oi.”
He shook his head, “Yeah, sorry sorry.” He grinned weakly, “Sounds good eh?”
“What are you talking about?” I said, “Just some girl having a nighttime sing-”
But as soon as I’d said it, I knew what he meant. The voice wasn’t exactly beautiful, not like an opera singer or popstar. It was clean, unadorned by glissando and a little rough. It tipped and turned the phrases a little, like the crest of waves buffeting seashells, and it was clear too, so clear. We must have been half a bay away from her and we could still hear it.
“We’ll go past them on our route,” I said, “That must be close to the clifftop path.” Chris just smiled again. “It is,” he said.
“Chris,” I said as we walked, though he barely heard me. Instead, he picked up the pace, shuffling across sand and stone.
“Mate, is there something you’re not telling me?” I walked faster, eventually jogging a little as he began to race down the beach.
“Chris,” I shouted. I’d been drinking and barely prepared for a run. My breath was quickly becoming ragged and my trainers skidded on sea weed covered stones and shingles. The light grew wider and as we got closer I saw, from its flickering quality, that it was a small campfire, halfway up the beach built on old timber and crackling merrily. Next to it, hidden a little by the shadows cast by both the flame and cliff was a small, slim figure.
Chris reached it first. He was almost sprinting at this stage, and scooped it up into his arms. They embraced, and he turned to me grinning. Alongside him, smiling nervously with his thin arm wrapped about her shoulder was a girl.
“Hey,” she said. Her smile was a touch crooked and her eyes sparkled in the firelight. She was pale as the face of the moon and her hair, trimmed boyishly framed a face with wide greenish eyes and a devilish smile. She had on a long baggy jumper which she wore casually, covering her thin frame, but the effect of it was the polar opposite of Chris’ own baggy fashion. Where he sagged beneath the weight of his clothes, hers had the confidence of style, highlighted by the slim golden earrings and rings with which she accessorised her long fingers and ears.
“Kieran,” Chris said, “I want you to meet Morfwyn.”
I paused for a moment, nonplussed. Then I started laughing. “So this is it!” I said, “This is why you’ve barely been in touch with me you little bastard. You’ve met someone!”
“Shut up,” said Chris, but he was smiling.
“He’s told me all about you,” grinned Morfwyn. She had perfect teeth I noticed, something I always liked. Straight, pearly without a hint of a filling. The tiny sparkle of a nose piercing embedded into the side of her nostril set off the symmetry of her. I felt a familiar sort of warmth spreading inside me that tightened my chest a little. Her voice had a touch of an accent that I coudln’t quite place, it was musical like Welsh but her pronunciations weren’t quite right.
She was a student, I learned, who was staying for the winter as part of a marine biology course and she had actually looked up and seen Chris on the beach at the exact same time she’d received the notification that the two of them had matched on Hinge.
As she talked, she sat her hand softly over Chris’ thin wrist and the two of them rested lazily against each other. She wasn’t so much into gaming though, she giggled a little, she was glad that Chris had some way of keeping out of trouble. I sniggered, which was a touch too mean, but when on earth had Chris ever really got in trouble? What kind did she think he might get in?
As we parted, I gestured out to the barely visible sea, an ink wash of blackness sprinkled with a dappling of moonlight.
“So, you get out there much? Marine biology and all,” I asked.
“Keiran’s a trawlerman,” said Chris, “Sails every day-” I’d mentioned this at least five times of course but Chris could hardly be expected to listen to his mate at a time like this.
“Not as much as I’d like,” she said.
“I could take you both,” I said.
“Ohh,” she smiled and her eyes met mine, “That’d be lovely.”
I don’t know what made me say it, it was cruel and this was my friend, I was supposed to be happy for him.
“Chris, he can’t really swim though so you better be careful-”
It was a throwaway comment, but I could see the hurt in Chris’ face. He so rarely was able to show that he could compete with the best of them, and win, and there I was puting him down in front of his new girlfriend like a jealous tattle-tale, trying to take him down a peg or two just as hundreds of bullies had done in the past.
Morfwyn didn’t notice of course. She just grinned again, “We all have to be careful. Did you you know that a man can drown in an inch of water? A lifeguard taught me that.”
Later that night I thought about her. The waif-like girl with her deep green eyes. As I tossed and turned on the mattress my mind was a storyboard of potential scenarios, all of them involving a time with Morfwynn and I alone: on a trawler, a nightclub, a hotel, even in Chris’ own bed, her crooked smile and mouth slightly parted, the long jumper sliding away to reveal her thin but soft frame. I even felt flashes of anger at Chris which I tried to suppress. He was my friend? Couldn’t I be happy for him. But I found to my shame that I couldn’t accept it. I was happy the way things had been. Chris as my nerdy confidente whose company I enjoyed but still patronised. I knew that I liked the way that he looked up to me, that I was the object of a bit of his jealousy and now, after all these years our roles reversed and I couldn’t grasp why. I even imagined one scenario. Chris had passed away, and all of us surrounded a headstone at the church graveyard. Morfwynn leaning on my shoulder then later that night the two of us comforting each other alone.
I decided to give them a wide berth over the next few weeks. I sunk into my work, leaving early and staying out late. Not that Chris needed me much anymore. He rarely messaged and, since I didn't take myself into town I barely had a chance to run into him.
I knew that I needed to stay away. I’d had crushes before. I knew what that felt like. I knew that they’d pass too. A week went by, then another, then another with just a couple of quick messages each way, and then I received an invitation to his birthday the following week. Chris never celebrated his birthday, usually a quiet drink with me would suffice but it looked like he was doing something different this time. A nightclub, he said, well, the nightclub. Normally you couldn’t catch him dead there. And more fool them for ever allowing him in.
My phone rang that afternoon. I was exhausted from the day’s work, arms cramped and body caked in sweat. It was Chris’ home phone calling, which surprised me. I answered.
“Chris?”
A woman’s voice, older, his mum, “Kieran are you alright?”
“Yeah,” I could hear a slight shake in her voice, “Are you OK?”
“Yeah fine,” she paused, “Look have you seen Chris?”
“No? He’s about right, I’m literally just off to his birthday?”
“What? I thought he was at yours, I haven’t seen him for days…”
“Maybe he’s with his girl.”
There was a silence, “Morfwyn.” Her voice was sniffy.
I chuckled, “Do you not like her?”
There was a pause. “No,” Chris’ mum said slowly, “I just - well. Obviously I’m very pleased of course - but -”
I decided not to say anything. I wanted her to say it. I wanted her to say, she seems like the sort that you’d be with. I mean, Chris is a handsome boy but… well. But why would she? That’s Chris’ mother. And why would I want that? I kneaded my brow. Why was I even thinking this way now? She was clearly calling for a reason.
“- I just don’t know if she’s really good for him, you know,” she finished.
“You’re just being protective,” I tried to sound reassuring, “I barely see the little shit these days. Can’t pretend I’m not a little jealous of her.”
“But that’s it,” his mother pressed on, “He’s always with her. Follows her around like a dog. I -” She paused, as if she felt she’d said too much. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m just jealous, I just don’t really see what he sees in her.”
“What do you mean she’s gorgeous,” I said quickly. Too quickly.
There was another little pause. “Kieran,” Chris’ mother said, “I know you’re just looking out for him, but I mean come on. She’s just not very…” But what she was or wasn’t I didn’t find out because she quickly changed subject. “Look, Chris has been gone for at least two days and I’m worried. He might be with her. He might not. I don’t have the captivating little princesses number or anything like that and I haven’t seen him around. But I came down this morning, and his fish are dead.”
Chris had always had a large fish tank in his room which he filled every year with new exotic coloured fish which he routinely managed to kill by poison or neglect so this was hardly a surprise to me.
“Chris is always killing-”
But his mother interrupted me, “Or at least, I assume they are. They’re all gone you see.”
“Weird,” I replied, “Alright well I’m seeing him at Enchantments later”
“Thanks love,” his mum relented, “I’m getting worried, you know how I am. And tell him to stop spending so much time with that girl.”
Would you like anything to drink? I’m sorry that I didn’t offer anything earlier. You want to know about the birthday, how it’s all linked up. I can close my eyes now and envisage it. Fuzzy basslines; disco lights set to blues and indigo wash the writhing dancers, occasionally punctured them with flashes of rouge. I push through the struggling crowd to see him, sat in a corner sipping his drink. He is staring intently into the crowd.
“Happy Birthday,” I have to shout over the dismal club music.
He barely registers.
“Chris,” I shout again. “Chris.”
Again, he barely registers me, just grins a little weakly. Hot bodies jostle me though I stand firm. A splash of drink touches my arm, but I ignore the typical flare of rage that might on a different night lead to broken noses and bruised ribs in a scuffle on the paving stones outside.
“Kieran,” a soft voice says, “I am glad you’re here.”
She glides through dancers like a surfboard catching a rip. Her eyes are glistening and green, the touch of her fingers on my arm are cold.
“Let’s dance.” she says.
We move together on the packed floor. She is close to me. The scent of her perfume above the cheap air freshener and industrial cleaning the club sprays across its dance floor. It reminds of the salt spray that freshens the stagnant dawn.
“What is up with Chris?” I ask.
She giggles. “He’s had a little too much.”
“To drink? Already?”
“No,” she says, “Not that.”
We are so close that when she speaks I can feel her lips tingle against the whirl of my ear.
“You want me,” she whispers, “But I do not want you.”
I try to protest but her hands grasp my wrists. They are cold, but stronger than a vice and as I instinctively try to wriggle away they crunch so painfully that I yelp like a kicked-dog.
She leans in again, “Be grateful that I don’t.”
I part from her and see Chris bumbling towards us through the crowd swaying. He looks to anybody else watching like a drunk, like the hundred others swaying on the dance floor, buffeted like driftwood.
“You two getting along?” he grins stupidly.
“Of course,” she demures, “Keiran’s a terrible dancer.” She grips him by the arm as hard as she has just held my own. I can see his flesh go white, but he just carries on grinning, eyes like saucers and barely blinking.
I try to grab hold of his shoulders and shake him.
“Chris, Chris, fuck sake you bastard snap out of it. Snap out of it.”
But nothing happens as much as I shake him. She is watching me, amused for a few short seconds before she has had enough. Then she shrieks so loudly that the dancers around me notice our tussle and within seconds (what were they supposed to think?) the burly hands of nightclub bouncers are on my shoulders. Come on mate, outside and calm down, go home now.
I did not see him for days. I phoned his mother, she wouldn’t pick up, though she did phone my parents to tell them that Chris and I had been in a fight on his birthday. Morfwynn had told her. I went to try and explain but she wouldn’t open the door. In the end I traipsed back to town across the clifftops, sodden in my working boots and lashed by biting winds.
Eventually, after an hour of morose stamping, I unwound myself into a quiet corner of the Mermaid. A pint of lager sat in front of me growing slowly stale, barely sipped. I contented myself with playing with the beer mat and brooding in the shadows offered by bar dividers. The drowning men were clustered throughout the place and I knew that here, alone, picking at the corner of the beer mat, that I was one of them.
She slipped onto the stool opposite me so quietly that, staring into my pint glass I didn’t see her arrive.
“Why are you being like this?” her voice was soft and low, an urgent whisper.
I stared at her. She was wearing the same uniform as she had been the moment we saw her that night on the beach, but she seemed thinner. The bridge above her nose was narrow and her cheekbones were sharp and hollow.
“Where is he?” I said, “What have you done to him?”
“He’s in town,” she replied. She spoke slowly. “But you cannot do anything for him. You know that you cannot.”
I made to stand up but once again, I felt the iron grip of her fingers close about my wrist.
“Please,” she was pouting, almost whiny, like a child who had been told that she couldn’t have another service of ice cream, “What is he to you? Just let me take him.”
“No,” I snarled, struggling against her. Lances of pain speared my wrists and arms as I pushed against her fingers, as unable to move them as paper could move rock despite the daintiness of her fingers.
“But I’ve treated him well!” she moaned, “I only ever take ones that people don’t really want. I’m not like…” she lowered her voice, “Some of the others are so much less ethical!”
“Ethical! You’ve done something… what have you even done to him - “
“Come on,” she whined, “Would you rather one of my sisters hunt this bay?” She didn’t wait for me to reply.
“I just want to do things the right way,” she whispered, “I never take babies or young children. I don’t even eat a lot!” She shook her wrist, “Look how skinny I am. And don’t I make him happy?” She gestured behind her. Chris stood, blank faced on the greasy pub carpet, serenely unaware of the stares of its patrons. His eyes were glassy, but his smile a rictus of bliss.
“I always give them a good life,” she said, “And that’s all anybody can really ask for isn’t it? He’s probably happier than I am now and you remember him before, you were there to pick up his misery. If anything I’m helping you. Just, stop making me feel bad for it -”
“Please,” I tried to yell, but I could barely summon more than a croak, “Whatever it is that you are doing. Please stop. I just, I just want my friend back.”
She smiled sadly, “Sorry Keiran, it’s too late. Now, I’m going to go now and take him. He’s a bit beyond you and he won’t ever really come back. I really am sorry. This is the hardest part for us-”
“For you?”
“- We have to watch you panic, get sad, get angry, all of it? We don’t want to. We do this as ethically as possible, but,” she sighed, “Well, we have to eat.”
Chris stands on the clifftop now. His mum is calling to him and so am I. The crash and spray of waves that pound them rumbles below. He is pale, paler than the blank face of the moon. He has been there all morning. He isn’t in any danger of falling off, he is stood metres back well in front of the Danger signs. I have tried speaking to him, even grabbing him and shaking him. He reacts a little, to shove my hand weakly away. The police are here standing back on the hill, brandishing megaphones.
“Just piss off,” he mumbles, though the sound barely matches the shape of his lips.
He goes home with his mother hours later. I try to tell them about the girl but they don’t do anything. Well, would you?
There are days where he seems normal, and days where he does not. Morfwynn is there always, at his side as he walks through town, with a slow ghostly step. Other people avoid him, crossing the road rather than come close. She sometimes hold his hand, sometimes doesn't but is rarely more than a few feet away. Sometimes she simply follows him slowly and deliberately. I once saw a documentary about komodo dragons. Their bite is poison but slow acting. They strike once and then simply follow their prey for day after day until it overwhelms them.
Once, I step out into his way. He brushes me away with ease, but Morfwynn grasps my wrist again in the same way she did at the club. She says nothing but her stare is cold. Her eyes now, not green but deep as the gloomy sea-floor.
This is outlandish? Well, perhaps so. Let me tell you of another morning. Waves hammer at the side of our boat. I am strapped to the aft yanking at a section of trapped netting. Shouts register above the crashing of the sea. I am freezing, drenched through the heavy boots and gloves, which cannot prevent my hand from blistering. Dawnlight casts a lance across the wave and I swear I see her just below the surface lying perfect perpendicular to the sky. Her eyes and mouth and wide open and her skin is translucent. Her mouth is a rictus grin. How about that? You don’t need to believe me. Of course you don’t, but this the day he dies.
I ran from the jetty to Chris’ house. I don’t know how long it took me but my breath was ragged when I arrived. If she was there, in the sea, she couldn’t be with him, and I could take him away and… well, I wasn’t sure what yet.
But when I reached the dismal cliffside cottage, I found the door to his home open. I charged into the living room to find his mother sat, eyes glazed over, the volume of the television so loud it nearly burst my eardrums.
“Chris!,” I yelled. “Chris!” I charged up the stairs two at a time and rounded my way towards his room when I saw the bathroom door swung open, the carpet of the landing wet from the drenched floor.
Chris was laying there, in the dirty porcelain of the bathtub. He was rigid and his fingers curled together. I run to him to yank at his arm and the weight of him slides against the tub. There was no breath in him. His eyes were glassy and his skin parched.
We are more religious, I’ve said out here, on the edge of things. Where the hungry sea pushes up against the cliffs, nibbling and biting here and there whenever it can. Did you know that sharks are older than trees? All of us, who dwell on land were there once, below the waves and there was something there so terrifying, so alien and repulsive to us that we did everything we could to escape with our lives. But the sea is not so kind. It has given us respite, for a while perhaps, but as the arctic caps melt and it rises, slowly inexorably and then all at once it will take us again, I am sure.
Personally, I don’t go in for faith. We are nothing more than an animal to be stalked and hunted by predators like everything else. We escaped once, dragging ourselves away from the sharks along our bellies from the surf. But they changed too, and they never stopped hunting. Matter and darkness. That is what there is. And the sea. When I walked from Chris’ home that day, in the distance, the whinnying of horses.
I saw her once again, Hannah, on the cliff edge staring out over the beach as the tourists made their play defying the ocean.
She did not notice me at first, but when she did she waved, a big happy wave like mum to a friend she’d planned to have a catchup or a natter with. I started towards her, ready to do, I don’t know what. Fight? Kill her? Maybe kiss her even, and more. But a lorry roared past as I reached the edge of the road, and when it cleared she was gone. The voices of children rose from the beach. They were singing.