The Sand in my Shoes

I am not a boy anymore. 

You would hardly recognise me, I think. I’m tall, taller than you ever thought possible, I’m sure. But, in my mind, you still tower over me, little more than a faraway smile, a mischievous laugh, and an outstretched hand for me to hold. I reckon you’d be looking up at me now, and I like that. I like that I would be able to look into your eyes, see your face properly, study it and never forget it. All I have is flashes, a child’s-eye view of things.

I have a beard, too. I’m sure you’d approve. It’s better than Dad’s, far better, but don’t tell him that. He’s still very proud of his, but it’s greying now. White, even, in places. Kids call him Santa Claus. They pester him constantly in winter, but he laughs it off.

Why aren’t you at the toy factory?

Why aren’t you in the North Pole?

Are the reindeer resting?

He answers them all, every time. That’s your influence. His patience. His kindness. He learnt that from you. He’s mellowed in his old age; I don’t think he would’ve played along when I was a kid. He’s softened. I think you’d like it.

There’s one question he can’t answer. He doesn’t know how, I think. It pushes him into himself, backwards, away from the giggling children and bemused parents and towards something else. Something I recognise. I guess we have that in common, even now.

Why aren’t you with Mrs Claus?

He doesn’t know how to answer that.

I know what he wants to say. He wants to say I wish I was. He wants to reveal his deepest, darkest secret to these strangers who just wanted to quiz him on his grotto and the elves. And then he catches himself, tells himself off for being pessimistic, for being miserable, for being so selfish. He thinks of me, then. He doesn’t want to leave me alone. 

He’s staying for me.

I’m staying for him.

And so we carry on together.

--

I’m sorry I haven’t been back. For a while I was scared of the water, scared of the way it came up close on the shore and took everything away with it, scared of the noise it made, scared of how endless it seemed. It was like staring up into the endlessness of space and getting lost among the stars. Except for me, that was a nightmare, not a dream.

Then, for a while, I just got used to pretending it wasn’t here. For a long time, there was no lake here. No pier. No paddleboats or kayaks. Just a whole lot of nothing. That helped, I think. At least at first. Then it just became a blot on the landscape. An elephant in the room. The place that dare not speak its name.

So, here I am. It’s smaller than I remember.

There’s sand in my shoes and you’re not here to shake it out for me. Remember when you did that? When you sent me rinse my sandy feet in one of the small rockpools at the edge of the lake while you brushed out my trainers?

I should do it myself, but I like the feeling in between my toes. A pleasant itch. If I leave it there, till I get home, I’ll remember what it was like to sit here, on a small rock a few feet from the shoreline, feet in the sand, watching the reflection of the midday sun in the placid lake. I’ll remember the smell, that freshness that lifts off the surface of the water and just feels so clean.

The sound, too. I love that sound. Gulls cheering each other on as they dive for fish in the dark water or as they swoop tourists for chips. The muffled hum of larger motorboats in the distance. The splashing of oars in the water. The occasional melody of an idle ice cream down in the car park, tempting tanned and worn-out children with choc-ices, screwballs, and frozen chocolate bars. The laughter. The laughter of kids paddling or of toddlers building sandcastles or of parents urging their families to smile so they can take a nice photo.

We used to laugh here.

It feels wrong to, now, but I can’t help but smile when I hear the laughter from others. It’s like we’re still here, today, making friends with new neighbours and tourists. Maybe we’d get an ice cream and sit on the pier with our feet in the water. Maybe we’d look for crabs in the rockpools or collect shells from the sand.

But we’re not here. 

It’s just me now.

--

The pier looks different. 

Remember, it used to look so…rickety? We used to play Indiana Jones on it, didn’t we? We’d run across the wood and pretend we were being chased by soldiers or a boulder or snakes. We’d pretend that, as we were running, the pier was collapsing, and we had to outrun it to survive and reach the shore or jump into the water.

They’ve gone and refurbished it now. There are wooden barriers to stop people falling – or jumping – in and there are ropes coiled round each post to throw to people in the water. There’s a life-ring, too, at the very end of the pier, painted in white and luminous orange stripes. I think there’s a phone, somewhere, which goes straight through to the coastguard, but I can’t see it from here.

I suppose its safer now. I think there was a petition, but it took a while to get the funding and then the council were dragging their feet. It took a while. I’m sure you know all this, though. You never missed the local gossip, did you?

In fact, I bet you would’ve been the one leading the charge, if you’d been able. I can’t imagine you chaining yourself to fences or staging a sit-in, but Dad says that was your thing before me. Maybe you’d pick up where you left off, if you’d been able.

But then, I suppose, if you’d been able, there wouldn’t have been need for a petition in the first place. The pier would still be old and rickety, and the kids would still be playing Indiana Jones on it.

Maybe I’d prefer that.

Or maybe not.

I don’t know.

--

I got an ice cream. 

There was a small queue, mostly eager, sweaty, red-from-the-sun kids, but there was a young mother there, too, with a baby in a papoose made from a shawl. We got to talking. She’s here with her baby, obviously, and her mother. Three generations, one beach. They’ve been coming here years, apparently. 

The baby’s cute. A little boy. Thomas. His eyes were so wide and curious, and they seemed to sparkle. He smiled at me, but perhaps it was just wind. He had little tufts of blonde hair and his mum said he was beginning to teeth. Awful, at night, apparently, when he’s screaming and crying, but an angel in the day.

We got an ice cream – Thomas got a flake to play with – and spoke a little while longer. She pointed out her mum to me. She was reclined on a beach chair by a towel laden with buckets and spades and collected bits of driftwood and a packed lunch.

They invited me over to join them. They missed adult conversation, apparently. 

She told me her name as she left. Kate. She smiled and her eyes sparkled like Thomas’ and I told her my name in return. She blushed. She held out her hand, awkwardly, because she was holding a baby and two ice creams, and I shook it. It was warm, but not clammy. It was firm, gentle, kind.

I smiled at her and then she left.

I came back to the rock and sat. I can see them from here. The baby is playing in the sand. His grandmother is enjoying her ice cream. Kate is looking out at the lake, deep in thought. I wonder what she’s thinking about.

I wonder what I’m thinking about.

I’ve finished the ice cream. I swear, it tastes different that it did when I was a kid. It tastes wrong. The ice cream of my childhood was sweet and rich and creamy, and it seemed to last forever. This was sugary and false and just wrong.

You wouldn’t like it.

I’m glad you get to remember the good ice cream.

--

It’s strange, isn’t it, how memory works?

I remember only flashes, but I’ve crafted the rest out of assumptions, dreams, nightmares, newspaper stories, imagination, hope, fear, guilt.

I remember rinsing my feet in the rockpool and seeing a crab scuttle away, disturbed by the movement of my toes in the water. I followed it, I think, but I stopped looking where I was going. I was stupid. I followed it too far out and then I was waist deep in the lake and something seemed to catch my feet and I was knocked off balance and then the water was in control.

The water was always in control.

I screamed. I remember screaming. My throat hurt for a week afterwards. I inhaled water and coughed and spluttered but I kept screaming. It would be okay if you saw me.

And you did. 

And it wasn’t.

You swam out to help me. You were half-dressed because we’d been getting ready to go home. You got to me quickly, so I can’t have been too far from shore. You got me to the pier, but the water was rougher than it looked, and we were being thrown about like rag dolls in a washing machine.

I was crying.

You were whispering to me.

It’s okay, sweetheart.

It’s okay.

You’re okay.

You managed to get me onto the pier. It could take me; I was only small.

It couldn’t take you, though. You tried. You really tried. But the wood was rotten and unstable, and it wouldn’t take you. You fell back in. Hit your head on something. You disappeared. I watched the water for ages, crying out, but you didn’t come back.

I waited for hours.

Hours.

Until they found me, sitting on the pier, waiting.

They had to drag me away. I was shivering and cold, but I didn’t want to leave.

You were found in the morning.

--

‘Away with the fairies?’

Kate’s voice. Sweet. Melodical. A little teasing.

I looked away from the water. I was in my own world, I think. I was thinking of you, of that day, of how cold I was on the pier. How wrong everything felt afterwards. Nothing felt right. Going back to school. Eating dinner.

Getting ice cream.

I smiled at Kate. She blushed again.

Then, she apologised.

I asked her why.

She didn’t want to bother me, she said. Only her mother had insisted she come over and talk to me because I looked like I needed to hear a voice. Perhaps her mother was right. Perhaps she wasn’t quite right. I want to hear your voice. 

I want to hear Kate’s voice.

Kate asked me to join them. I said I would.

I’m sat in the sand, with Thomas. He and I are building a sandcastle. Or, rather, I’m building a sandcastle and he’s knocking it down with a plastic spade. We make a good team. Kate is watching, smiling, recording on her phone.

I think her mother knows who I am. Or suspects.

She looks at me with kindness, with pity. 

I ignore it.

I look at Kate. I look at the lake.

I think of you.

There is still some happiness here.