The Wave
… Never see each other again. The reality of that hits me like a wave of cold water. I managed to keep the dread at bay while I was walking, but now I’ve stopped for a bit, it is rising in my stomach again. I push it back down again as I get to my feet. I should keep moving, live moment, by moment. There is simply no point thinking about the future I don’t have. It doesn’t change anything. I hoist my pack back on my shoulders. The straps chafe; it feels heavier than before, but the rest and food has done me good. As I walk, my thoughts return to Poppy; I imagine her falling off the board, enabling me to come to her rescue. In her gratitude she opens up her wetsuit, and lets me rub my face in her breasts, and more besides …
Poppy … Poppy … Poppy … I walk to the beat of her name, thinking only of the ground in front of me, till I reach Dowetha. I dump my luggage at the clubhouse where I keep my surfing gear. I grab a wetsuit, and force my thighs through the constrictive material. Jeez, I’ve got fat. Working from home has confined me too my desk for too long. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, wincing at the beer belly that indicates too many nights in the pub, too few in the water. God, I need to lose weight, an absurd and pointless anxiety now. I pick up my board and leave my gear behind. There is no need to lock the doors behind me – who will come here today but me?
As I turn towards the slope, it suddenly occurs to me that the message was fake, that I have turned up here full of ridiculous hopes that are about to be dashed. That all I’ve done is tire myself out with a long walk to reach a deserted beach and the prospects of facing my death alone. It is a relief to reach the top of the slope and see signs of her presence. A small blue tent pitched above the high tide mark, towels and a blanket spread out beside it. And there she is in the water: a slim figure, striding the waves till they crash on the shore. It is all the signal I need to run down to the water’s edge, ploughing through the waves with my board. I am careful not to come too close, I don’t want to crowd her. She is so focussed, she doesn’t notice me at first; it is not until I reach the surf zone that she acknowledges me with a wave and a smile. What a smile. It drives away every fear. I no longer care about anything other than the bliss of surfing alongside her. Waiting in unison for the swell, positioning the board, crouching, standing, riding the wave, till it takes us back to the beach. Then striking back out to sea for more. Again and again and again. We do not speak, we do not need words, already we are intimate. I could stay like this for ever.
That’s until the cold begins to seep through my wetsuit as the waves begin to strengthen in intensity. Ploughing back to the breaker zone begins to be an effort. Pride won’t let me stop till she does, and I am grateful when, at last, she shouts this should be the last one. I ready myself for the coming wave, rising at its approach, and then … disaster. The surf is stronger than I anticipated, I turn too sharply and slip off the board, my foot tangling in the rope. Suddenly, I am dragged under the water, eyes stinging with the salt, a rush of blue, green and yellow, a deafening gurgle of sea pounding my ears. I try to force myself upwards, emerging to gasp a breath before another wave knocks me down again. My lungs begin to hurt with the pressure, my eyes to tingle, my head to pound, as I flail up and down through the foam. Fuck, this is what is like to drown. As I slide down again, it crosses my mind that I might as well let it happen now. If I survive this, I am only delaying the inevitable. Why bother fighting it for the sake of a few more hours? But even as I have the thought, something inside refuses to give in to it. I push myself up through the water, and suddenly there she is. Her arms are round me pulling me through the waves. It wasn’t quite the way I planned it, but I love this sensation, lying back safe, cradled, as she transports me to my board, pushes me up, and helps me get back to the shore.
Once out of the water, and after we have disentangled the rope, I am able to sit back and catch my breath. I rub my ankle, red from the pressure of the rope, and thank her. ‘Thought I was going to drown for a minute …’ I grin as the thought occurs to me, ‘Ironic, considering.’ She grins back. When we introduce ourselves and I explain her Facebook post brought me, her smile is even warmer; I melt. I can’t stop myself from giving her a dopy smile in return. Luckily she decides she needs to change, giving me the excuse to return to the surf hut and do the same. By the time we meet at her car to collect the rest of her gear, I have composed myself enough to ensure I don’t make an absolute tit of myself.
Half an hour later, we are sitting back at our tents, with a cup of tea and two large slices of Madeira cake. She has taken off her wetsuit, and is now dressed in shorts, a loose cotton shirt and a bikini top that is low cut enough to give a good view of her breasts. I look away quickly, hoping she hasn’t noticed me ogle them, though her arch smile suggests I haven’t been as discreet as I’d wished. I resolve to rein it in. I need to take this easy if I’m to have any success
‘So what now?’ I say as I finish the last gulp of tea.
‘Fancy a swim?’
‘Always wait at least half an hour in case of cramp.’
‘Says who?’
‘My mother,’ I say, laughing ‘Fuck knows if it’s true. It’s just what she always said. Which reminds me. ‘I suppose I’d better call her …’
‘… but you don’t know what to say?’
‘Nope. How about you?’
‘My parents died a long time ago.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be. Are you close to your mum?’
‘Not especially. She lives in Poland now. She’s a bit of a recluse.’ To be honest, I don’t know if she’ll even have seen the news. It’s been at least six weeks since we’ve spoken, so how can I ring her now and tell her I’m going to die tomorrow? I could add that our relationship, always a tricky one, had got worse after Karo’s death, but that’s way too intimate for someone I’ve just met. I take a different tack.
‘What do mums know anyway? Let’s risk cramp.’
The wind has died down, but the current is still strong. Without our wetsuits the water is gaspingly cold, though once we start moving around we soon warm up. We race each other across the bay, dive and tumble, splash and jump the waves as if we are ten years old. It is exhilarating till the exertion of the surfing catches up with us and we decide, simultaneously, to head back to our camp. We dry ourselves off before flopping onto the towels. Poppy starts spraying suntan lotion.
‘Do my back and shoulders, will you?’ she says sitting up. Her skin is soft to the touch; I rub the lotion quickly and pull on a shirt before she can return the favour. I dive back on the towel and pick up my book; the last thing I need now is an embarrassing arousal. Particularly when she is lying so close to me. I wish I could reach out and touch her, confident that she’d respond in kind but she has given no indication that such advances would be welcome and I don’t want to push my luck. I force myself to focus on the page.
Soon, my eyes are crossing and before long I am asleep. I am walking in a forest with Karo and Mum, who is a few yards ahead of us. Karo and I are getting tired, we ask Mum to slow down, but she quickens her pace. Mum, we cry, slow Down, Wait for us. She doesn’t seem to hear us, and so we raise our voices louder. She stops this time, turns round and looks at us. But Karo, Yan, you can’t follow me. You’re dead. Why didn’t you tell me you were going to die? I wake with a start. My eyes are full of tears, and to my embarrassment I have dribbled on the towel. I can hear voices above my head. I wipe my eyes and mouth discreetly and sit up. We have a visitor, a white woman in her sixties, who is sitting beside Poppy, talking quietly.
‘This is Margaret,’ says Poppy. ‘She was in her car, but she needed some fresh air. Margaret, meet Yan.’
‘I’m not sure if it’s sensible,’ Margaret’s voice is shaking, ‘I should be on the road, really, but the traffic …’ I exchange a glance with Poppy, not sure whether I should feel glad or sad to be proved right. Margaret takes a deep breath and carries on, ‘It was so hot and there were so many cars – I just had to get out …’
‘Looks like you need to rest for a bit,’ says Poppy. ‘Why not stop and have a drink, then check traffic in a while. If things are better, you can get going, but if not, you can stay as long as you like.’
I know it is churlish, Poppy is right to be so sympathetic and, after all, this is what she promised she would do. Still, I can’t help resenting this stranger interrupting our little idyll. I am not sure I want to share her with anyone.
‘This is so kind of you.’ Margaret accepts a proffered cup of tea.
‘Don’t mention it,’ says Poppy. ‘The more the merrier, wouldn’t you say Yan?’
‘Of course.’ I am forced into my very best polite smile. I even let her know she can use the surf club if she needs to recharge her phone. But, although I take the tea Poppy offers, and join them on the chairs, I don’t join in the conversation; I pretend to read my book instead. It’s not Margaret’s fault – she seems pleasant enough - it’s just that she’s shattered the intimacy Poppy and I have been building up. And now there are three of us, the atmosphere isn’t quite the same. .
I can see it is going to be a very long night.
Margaret
I am in the middle of ironing when I hear the news. I’m still trying to work out what I think about the end of a play that I’ve just heard and at first I’m not really paying attention. It is only the mention of La Palma that makes me take notice. All at once, I am back in that horrible room sifting through paper after paper, trying to make rational decisions about which organisations to save and which to cut. Every decision was a bad one, but at the time some options were more palatable than others. La Palma was one of many such arguments. David tried to persuade us we needed the early warning unit because one day something bad would happen. He used the example of Cumbre Vieja to illustrate his point, providing graphic detail of how monitoring seismic activity could prepare us for its possible collapse enabling us to evacuate. His projections even identified Cornwall as a high risk area.But Andrew was equally persuasive the other way,arguing that we couldn’t afford the luxury of spending money worrying about things that might never come to pass. Now it seems that that David was right: the decision we made was the worst of all and I am caught in the middle of it. Shocked, I drop the iron on my favourite shirt. It sizzles, marking the material with a permanent burn as I pull it away. I curse and then it occurs to me that a ruined shirt might be the least of my worries.
The funny thing is that, once I’ve convinced myself that the choice we made eight years ago has nothing to do with what is happening now, my first thought isn’t escape, or whether I might drown. It isn’t even Hellie. My first thought is that I should ring Kath. Ring Kath? That’s a joke. We haven’t spoken for years. She’d hardly appreciate a phone call from me now and where would I start? I switch the iron off, put the shirt to one side and sit down by the window, considering my options. The sun is high in the sky, its beams glinting on the blue water in the bay in front of me. It doesn’t seem possible that this time tomorrow it will be gone. I stand there for far too long, pondering what to do: a balance between driving long distance with my dodgy knees or scrambling for a place on the train. Even getting to the station will take some effort. Hellie always said I’d regret living this far out of town but up until now I’ve always told her she worries too much, citing the freedom of walking into open countryside from my front door. Today, for the first time I have to admit maybe she was right.
Hellie … Thinking of Hellie makes up my mind. I have to get to her as quickly as I can, and judging by the pictures on my TV screen I’ll have no chance of making my way through the crowds at the station. Knees or no knees it looks like the car is my only option. I send her a reassuring text and begin to get ready to leave. Despite the urgency, once I’ve made the decision, I just cannot make myself hurry. A sense of disbelief washes over me. I still can’t quite take in the thought that I am leaving my home for good, that by this time tomorrow the house will be gone and with it all the possessions I can’t take with me. I find myself paralysed with indecision about what to take and what leave behind. Some things are obvious: Grandma’s recipe book, my wedding photos and Hellie’s baby pictures. Others less so. I want to bring the painting of Venice that hangs in the living room. Richard and I bought it on honeymoon – it’s had pride of place in all our houses since – but it’s heavy and takes up a lot of space. I’d love to keep the family Bible. It’s been with us since 1842, with every generation meticulously recorded since then. With regret, I decide to leave it: it is just too bulky. I spend far too long trying to choose what stays and what comes with me. In the end, I store the Bible, the painting and a couple of other precious items in a cupboard upstairs, wrapped in plastic, in the vain hope that this will protect them from the sea. It seems criminal to leave such things behind, but I just can’t manage them. It’s going to be hard enough that I’m going to have to camp in Hellie’s tiny flat for a while without me filling it with clutter. So, in addition to the personal items, I just take a couple of suitcases of clothes, a handful of my favourite novels, and a few CDs.
I am just about to leave when I remember Minnie, my nearest neighbour. She has no family and I can’t imagine the carer has been in today. Who’s going to look after her? I’ll have to bring her with me. I drive along the lane, park in the drive by her cottage and walk up the garden path. There is no answer to my knock, which is not unusual. Minnie often naps during the day, leaving a spare key under the mat for the rare visitor. I have been telling her for ages it’s not sensible in this day and age, but today I am glad she does so.
I call out a greeting as I enter. There is an answering shout from the back room where I find Minnie sitting in a chair, looking out to sea. The TV is on low and there is a remote control on her lap.
‘Is it true?’ she says. ‘What they’re saying on the news?’
‘Yes, I’m just about to leave.’
‘I thought it might be a hoax – like Orson Welles, perhaps.’
‘Sadly not ‘ I sit next to her and take her hand. ‘Come with me.’
‘Where?’
‘We have to get to higher ground. We have to go now if we’re to have a chance.’
‘I don’t know, dear.’ Minnie shakes her head. ‘I don’t think I can leave this house.’ Her clock strikes one o’clock. I try to ignore the panic that it invokes and concentrate all my efforts on her.
‘You’ll drown if you stay here.’
‘But this is my home, dear. I have nowhere else I could go.’
‘You could stay with me and Hellie.’
‘Your daughter? She won’t want an old woman like me around. She’s got a little one to look after.’
‘We’d manage.’
‘I think I’d prefer to stay here. In my own bed. With any luck I’ll sleep right through it.’
Why does she have to be so stubborn? I blank out the ticking clock and offer to make her a cup of tea, hoping that perhaps she just needs a little more time. Hellie calls while I am in the kitchen. ‘Mum, where are you? Are you on the road yet?’
‘At Minnie’s. I’m trying to persuade her to leave.’
‘You need to get going; they say the roads are jammed already.’
‘I will.’
‘Please get out of there.’
‘As soon as I can.’ There is a wail from the end of line.
‘I must go. Toby needs me. Call me when you’re on the road.’ She hangs up.
With renewed urgency, I return to the sitting room, only to find that Minnie has fallen asleep. Her mouth is open, her head droops forward on her lap. She often does this, drifting in and out of wakefulness for short intervals. I have to leave, but I can’t just abandon her. I put the cup on the coffee table and wait, watching the rise and fall of her chest. It is just like sitting with Grandma, in the days before her final illness. I was in my twenties, then, a time when old age seemed remote and unreal. Forty years have passed since and though I still have the energy and health of the well-off retiree, a life like Minnie’s can’t be too far away. Perhaps she is right. Perhaps it would be best to sit and wait for the wave to take us away rather than escape to battle through years that will only weaken my body into helplessness. I shake my head. What am I thinking? I’ve only been retired a couple of years. There is so much I want to do still.
‘Margaret? Are you still here?’ Minnie suddenly raises her head, ‘You must be going, dear.’
‘Not without you.’
‘It’s all right, dear. I’m too old to start a new life. I’d rather stay here.’
‘But …’
‘I’ll be asleep, anyway. I never get up before eight. Much the best way.’ She waves away further protest. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’ve got Misty to look after me.’ Right on cue, the grey cat enters the room, meanders across towards his mistress and sits on her lap, purring contentedly. ‘You see? I have everything I need right here. You have a daughter and grandchild to live for. Go.’
I hate to do it, but Minnie is insistent, and she’s right – I do have more to live for. I head out to the car, drive off down the lane and onto the road to Penzance. At first all is well. I speed along, hopeful that the reports of traffic jams were exaggerated. Even so, the sight of the vivid green grass, the bright blue sky and the sea sparkling in the distance is filled with menace. As if, underneath the surface of the water, there is a malevolent being that will bring the sea to life and destroy me. I feel sick and anxious, a mood not improved when I hit a queue of cars four miles from Penzance.
The traffic moves slowly. I inch forward and now the traffic reports are of solid jams further ahead. By three o’clock I have just reached the outskirts of Penzance. This is a nightmare, made worse by my engine beginning to steam. In my hurry, I forgot to check the water levels. Something else Hellie is always nagging me about – this car has a propensity for overheating if stuck in traffic too long. I switch off the engine to cool it down – the cars ahead aren’t moving, anyway – and try to think. I glance down at the map. They say Dartmoor is safe, but that’s still over eighty miles away. I’ve driven four miles in two hours. At this rate, I’m never going to make it. That can’t be right. It can’t be possible that I won’t get out of this alive, that I’ll not get to see Hellie and her family ever again. I pull out my map to see if I can find an alternative route. But the radio announcer is reporting pile ups at Bodmin and Redruth and gridlock on every road going north. There are no alternatives, this is my only way out.
I put my head on the steering wheel and howl. I’ve had long and happy life; in a previous era sixty-seven would have been considered a good innings, but I’m not ready to die yet. I still have too much to do. I am booked on a tour of Greece and Italy in the summer. I have signed up for a Masters in Theology in the Autumn. Hellie is pregnant. It cannot be possible that I will miss out on all that. But … there are too many cars, the road is too packed. If we don’t get a move on, nobody in this jam is going to make it. None of us. By tomorrow morning we might have reached Truro – and it won’t be far enough. Even if we could outrun the wave, the constant rain this summer means that the water table is so high the whole county will be awash with water. A line from the Bible comes to me: ‘The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.’ So God, you gave Noah fair warning – why not us? And don’t tell me a wild theory about a possible volcanic collapse was a divine message. Not on the basis of that flimsy evidence. Why didn’t you give us more? Why didn’t you allow us enough time to build ourselves an ark? Why are we left behind to drown?
I cannot stand any more news, so I switch to the CD player. Immediately the sound of French monks singing Vespers in plain chant calms me.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen.
I stare at the crowded road ahead. It may be my only chance of escape but I’m beginning to believe it’s no chance at all. I am hot and tired and I can’t stay in this car for much longer: I need some air. I passed the turn to Dowetha Cove a mile or so back. Perhaps if I go down to the sea, spend a bit of time by the water’s edge, the fresh air will revive and renew me. Perhaps by then the traffic will have died down and I can try again. I am not giving up yet, I tell myself, I am just taking a breather. I turn the car round, passing the long queue of drivers heading towards Penzance. Ahead of me flecks of golden sunlight light up the blue sea, calming my spirits. I text Hellie, traffic slow, but on my way. I don’t want to worry her yet. I just need to get out of the car for a bit, breathe some sea air and then I can be on my way again.
James
I hate it when Yan is right. He’s always so smug about it. Even in these circumstances, if we meet again, I bet he’ll be smug. Because he always is. It’s infuriating.
I was so sure he was wrong three hours ago when I turned up on his doorstep, telling him we had to go, NOW. He just replied in a maddeningly patient voice that due to the number of cars on the road, the average speed of traffic, bottlenecks and likelihood of crashes we wouldn’t be going anywhere. He smiled like a patronising professor, putting me right on the glaring errors of my pathetic dissertation and was totally immune to my increasingly panicked pleas that he leave with me. I couldn’t understand how he could stand there, so resigned to the fate I was certain we would be able to escape. I know he’s always had a fatalistic streak, but this deliberate refusal to move seemed stupid beyond belief. Though I begged and begged, he wouldn’t budge. In the end, I had to give up on him and go it alone. I hated leaving him, but if he was going to be such a stubborn bastard there wasn’t much I could do about it.
I was still sure once I was on the open road. Though it was busy, the traffic kept moving initially, while sunshine, green fields and glittering sea lifted my spirits. Poor Yan I thought, as I raced towards Penzance. Poor Yan. I put the radio on, singing along to Uptown Funk to push my fears away, as I pretended that this was just an ordinary summer’s day and I was heading north to see friends. It worked for a while, but my optimism was short-lived. The road stayed clear for only a few miles. As signs to Penzance began to appear, suddenly cars were coming from every direction. Red brake lights flashed up in front of me. Drivers beeped their horns, yelling obscenities at each other as I found myself at the end of a long queue of traffic and came to a grinding halt. I wound the window down, pushed my seat back, grabbed a sandwich and told myself it was a small setback. It wasn’t time to panic yet. I switched on the radio to hear the tune that has tormented for too many months …
Never Leave Me, Never Leave Me
Believe me when I say to you.
Love me, darling, love me, darling,
Cos I’ll never, ever be leaving you.
Lisa’s first big hit as she transitioned from dreamy ballad singer to techno pop artist, the song that told me that she was gone for good. The song she wrote for the man she said had broken her heart, that she dropped from our set because, she said, she didn’t need to think of him any more. The minute I heard her new version, the version she had released without telling me – same lyrics, same basic melody, but surrounded by a thudding beat and a swirl of technical effects – I knew it was the goodbye she hadn’t got round to saying to my face.