Temporarily OK

It takes a while for me to finally remove myself from the patio wall, stub out my silver wrapped cigarette and walk along the stretch of beach. For the past half hour I’ve been watching a father and daughter play batty-ball with limited skill, the little girl’s bangs obstructing her vision, and counting their streak (best: sixteen). There’s also a toddler toddling around holding a fishing net that weighs more than him, falling over every other minute, his nappy and Mr Men top dipping in and out of the waves. But, I muse, he never cries when he can’t catch the bluefish. The sun reflects upon his little blonde head in little blonde ringlets that resemble halos, which is sort of sweet. The sea does look appealing, but there’s no way I could be bothered with the aftermath of fixing my hair and rubbing the salt from my eyes, so the sirens get ignored.

I tease the sand between my black painted toes, and push a pebble as far down in the sand as it will go with my biggest, marvelling in how easily something can just be swallowed up and disappear. Then I locate my Converse, wriggle my feet inside them, and begin walking.

It still hurts a bit, so I limp a little as the sand fills up my trainers and the broken ticking of the batty-ball fades away. Don’t think about it, I tell myself, but in my head the beach is dark and empty, and we’re sat on the sunbeds, and suddenly his tone is different and his shadow bigger and then it happens.

I have to walk back the other way again so I can hear the batty-ball ticks, to remind myself that it’s over and it’s daytime now. I don’t really know where I’m going or if I’ll ever be able to tell my family about it when they ask why I didn’t come home last night, and part of me wonders if it is ever going to be okay again, the same part of me that is holding my other hand, trying to decide if touching my skin feels the same now it doesn’t feel like mine.

But, when I return to my spot on the patio wall and light up another cigarette, the batty-ballers have set a new record of twenty-two and the Mr Man has found a barnacle, so I decide that maybe just this once it is temporarily okay.