Memories

The way the water threatened to nibble her toes was an exhilarating game for Hannah. She walked along the beach, her bare feet pushing soft holes in the sand as she moved. Her white dress blew gently in the breeze and the sun baked the ground around her but was reflected away from her by the great floppy hat draped over her head. Her shadow stretched a little way behind her and played a similar game with the encroaching ocean. She squealed in excitement and terror as a particularly crafty wave breeched her defences and lapped right up to her ankles. Taking this not as a sign of defeat but as a call for all out war Hannah followed the retreat of the wave and confronted the next one as bravely as Tom could have ever imagined.

Tom watched his daughter from a small patch of shade provided by an eroded dune that, at this present time, was in the shape of a small cliff. Tom loved this beach. He marveled at the power of the ocean; seemingly so calm and yet so subtly destructive – and also creative. From week to week the topography of the dunes was rarely the same. The small cliff he now sat beneath would undoubtedly be gone next time he visited – or moved, or it will have grown. He was mightily grateful that his daughter didn’t change so whimsically as the sand. But then, she was not yet a teenager and all that could change. He twinged with excitement and fear as he thought about his little girl becoming a woman and the role he was expected to play. He felt sure there would be answers he could not provide; after all, he had always been as subtle with women – the few he had known – as the water was with the sand on this patch of northern Californian coastline.

Hannah was now knee deep and the water was creeping through the linen of her dress. Tom wanted to call out to her. Tell her not to go any further. But he knew she was in little danger and he resisted cutting the intimacy she had formed with the waves. There were certain times, he had observed, when there was only room for one mind. A child’s mind was such a huge place that it needed time alone with itself. The invasion of a smaller, more densely compressed adult mind could have a seriously damaging effect. Right now Hannah’s mind, through her body’s relationship with the water, was pursuing some solitary ambition that Tom had no part in. So he kept quiet and watched.

Eventually the sun lowered a little further in the sky but its heat didn’t diminish. Hannah was still playing at the edge of the sand. She glanced back every now and then to make sure her father hadn’t disappeared. Her fascination with the ocean seemed as deep as Tom’s fascination with Hannah. He wondered which was more complex. He wondered which was more powerful.

Tom stood up and stepped out of the shade of the cliff-dune and stretched his arms above his head. He, like his daughter, was bare foot and he scrunched his toes in the sand. He watched the grains play with his toes for a moment. They seemed to move of their own accord and Tom wondered if this beach wasn’t entirely at the mercy of the water when it came to its shape shifting personality. He walked fifty metres or so down the water edge and looked up towards the decrepit overhanging shack on the cliffside. It had once been a fantastic little cafe run by an old gentleman and his wife. they had served local sweets and occasionally had the catch of the day. The view of the ocean was quite unbelievable and Tom had spent many evenings there when Lucy was still around.

Tom smiled as he remembered the little old man’s attempt at a bloody mary. Lucy had challenged him – with a sweet smile and a slight flutter of her long eyelashes – to make her a cocktail. How can I enjoy such a beautiful sunset with out a cocktail, she had said to Tom.

Hannah was still splashing in the water. She had evidently discovered something – a small crab, perhaps – as she was gazing at the sea bed so intently that she paid no notice to the waves that splashed her face and wet her hair. She missed her mother, of course. But it had been just her and Tom for most of her life now and many of her memories were just stories Tom told her. Tom looked back at the deserted cafe and smiled at Lucy. She smiled back and sipped her bloody mary and then broke into a loud heart-filled laugh that found its way straight to Tom’s soul.