Staying Afloat

“But we’re just married six months” I explained to the young doctor in the green scrubs. 

“Please, Help him! Don’t waste time talking to me!”

He sighed softly and turned away, the lift and slap of his slip-on sneakers echoing down the polished corridor until he disappeared from sight through the operating doors.

Through the high sash windows, the afternoon sun gilted the dull plastic chairs, the beige walls haphazardly plastered with posters for vaccinations and patient clinics and the dusty clock on the wall beating out time.

In the distance, I can hear the faint jingle of the ice cream van and the muffled yelps of hardy sea swimmers jumping in off the rocks.

There had been others here when we arrived. An older woman, her eyes fixed on the clinic door, her fingers clack clacking on her needles, a lengthy scarf emerging from her capacious bag.  There were two young men hunched over screens, the bleep and dash marking their progress and a gap-toothed boy, proudly showing off his thick arm-cast to his mother. They’d all been treated, fixed, dispatched.

 “Nora, are you sure there’s no one we should call?” Daniel asked again. “Your mum, maybe?” Eve asked.

They’d been with us at the beach. It was Daniel who got him out of the water and called the ambulance.

I shook my head. I’ve texted the childminder, an innocuous general message, where life is still routine, every-day. She’s happy to stay. I continue to stare at the floor silently repeating my mantra it will be ok, it will be ok, it will be ok, my arms tightly wrapped round me, his sandy beach towel hugged to my chest.

We wait some more. I hear the quick lift and slap of Eve’s dainty kitten heels as she hurries down the corridor towards me.

“Here” she says “Another cup of tea! I told the intern you needed something medicinal in it and I made sure she put a decent slug in.”

She unclasps my hands, and carefully places them around the hot, polystyrene cup, a greasy sheen spreading across the thick brown surface.

Easing past me into her plastic seat she hugs me into her. Daniel sits on my other side and places a tentative arm across my back his hand squeezing Eve’s shoulder. 

We stay like this until we hear the slow, heavy tread of the surgeon coming down the corridor. He’s a slight man, and I notice his long, lean fingers  as he pulls down his mask. His bright, hazel eyes meet mine and I know. He takes his time responding to Daniel’s rapid-fire questions. “Painless, never regained consciousness, a genetic fault, a ticking time-bomb.”

He leans over me then and clasping both my hands says “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you” I say and retreat back inside my head where I’m auditioning ideas to make my son’s world whole again after I explain that Daddy won’t be coming home.

I’m asked if I want to see him. I must has said yes because the young doctor is there again. He’s gesturing to he’s laid out on the narrow gurney, the sky-blue cloth covering him bright against the theatre’s stark white walks and antiseptic reek.

Only it’s not him. He’s not there. Can no one else see this? It’s a stone-cold effigy, a likeness, certainly, with his heft and shape and his  dark hair still wet from the sea but this face is leached of expression, one eye open and staring, an almost-smile fixed on his face. A high-pitched wail echoes around the room, like an animal in distress.  I glance around to see where it’s coming from and all eyes are turned sympathetically towards me. Eve bundles me into her and the shrieking noise is muffled.

Daniel is driving. Eve and I are huddled together in the back seat, her hand fiercely clasping mine. Through the window, I see the long crescent of sea front, women walking by in vivid dresses with overflowing basket bags of buckets, spades and suncream and sleepy toddlers on Daddies’ shoulders trailing home. There are older kids on bikes too and teenagers kicking their feet against the rock wall and daring each other to jump in.

“Stop”, I say.

Daniel brakes suddenly. Opening the door, I clamber out, my sandals slap slapping on the stone walkway. I take them off and pick my way down the rocky beach, one hand clutching the end of my sun dress as I gingerly step over the seaweed fronds and green-mossed rocks.

 “Nora, wait” shouts Eve, clambering down after me.

“This is where he is” I say looking back at Eve.

“He wanted me to go swimming with him, just to try it. He loved it here so much.”

I’m crying now, great noisy gulps, my whole body shaking with the exertion.

“I wouldn’t do it. Too extreme for me. That’s what I told him. And I went to get coffee, Eve.” I look at her and she’s crying now too. 

“I should have been with him.”

We stand for a while at the edge of the wide crescent beach, staring at the blue horizon, the blurred space between sky and sea. It gives me solace, this everyday wonder, a knowing that we’re all singular and connected and that he has to be here too. Eve nods at me and pulling off my sundress I wade in. The chill water laps over my toes, and brims up around me, it’s coldness seeping into me, a numbing analgesic. The cold seared my skin, my hands and feet numb within seconds. I  wade in further and deeper, the  sea now lapping around my hips, and then I let go.  I’m swimming, my chest heaving with jangled shallow breaths, arms and legs slicing through the water. I feel the sea enveloping me, rendering me weightless, my short breaths lengthening and calming. Slowly, I swim back towards shore and wrap myself into his beach towel, the trace of his scent enveloping me, the weight of unshed tears a burning ache. I wave at Eve and walk slowly towards her, my feet sinking into the soft sand. There’s the faintest trace of footprints in the sand walking beside mine. I smile and wrap his towel tighter around me.