Linda Mitchelmore - Summer at 23 the Strand

Each day Cally and her family spent most of their time on the beach, coming back up to the chalet to eat their lunch and tea, squashed together on the tiny deck if it was warm enough, or inside when it wasn’t. Noah and Riley loved being barefoot, sand between their toes, in their hair – loved the freedom of being able to run on the sand without their parents urging them to be careful of the kerb, or other hazards, as they did in everyday life.

‘I want to swim!’ Noah announced on the fourth day.

‘Me too,’ Cally said, ‘but it’s too cold. Even to paddle. Your feet will go blue if you paddle.’

‘Blue feet are silly,’ Noah said.

‘They are,’ Cally agreed.

‘I swim!’ Riley yelled, racing away from them. Jack leapt up and went after him, tucking the small boy under his arm, legs and arms flying like windmill sails in the storybook Cally often read to the boys at bedtime.

‘Is it really too cold?’ Jack said, sotto voce , when he came back with Noah.

‘It’s May, Jack,’ Cally said.

‘I know. But the tide’s coming in over sand that’s had the sun on it for a while. I used to go in the sea with the Cubs when I was six or seven.’

‘Riley’s only three. I don’t want him to get a chill.’

‘No, but they’ve got to learn to take risks. Live a little dangerously now and then. It’s not as though I’m going to stand here and watch him drown, now is it?’

Cally didn’t answer that because, really, it needed no answer. Jack was as committed to their boys as she was. And so they left it at that – the issue unresolved, but only showing up their differences; Jack prepared to have a go and sort out any problems as they arose, and Cally seeing dangers and problems everywhere. She shivered then, despite the sun’s still being warm on her cardiganed-shoulders, to think that, should she have to face the worst-case scenario of all and no longer be around, Jack would more than likely let the boys paddle in May.

‘Time to get back?’ Jack asked. ‘You shivered then.’

‘Did I?’ Cally said, touched he’d noticed and yet alarmed too, as though he were constantly monitoring her mood. ‘I was thinking of something.’

‘Well, I hope it involves what we might eat later. All this fresh air is making me ravenous.’

And I seem to have lost my appetite.

‘It does. Pancetta, olive and tomato pasta,’ she said. A little white lie because she hadn’t been thinking about supper at all, and at home Jack often cooked, starting to prepare meals from whatever he found in the fridge and cupboards while she was fetching the boys from their grandparents’ house.

At least he’ll be able to feed them.

‘Sounds good to me. You go on. I’ll pack up and bring the boys back with me via the supermarket. I’ll get something for us for later.’

‘I’m getting quite used to this little kitchen,’ Cally said as she put away the crockery and red-handled cutlery Jack had washed and dried. ‘Galley kitchen, I suppose. But everything we need is here and within an arm’s length.’

‘Bijou it said in the brochure,’ Jack said. ‘I didn’t have a clue what that meant, apart from it being the name of the jeweller where I bought our wedding rings, so I thought maybe it meant jewel or something.’

‘It was Bijoux , with an “x”, where you bought our rings,’ Cally said. ‘It does mean jewels, translated from the French, but it also means small and compact, I suppose.’

‘Like you,’ Jack said.

‘Oh, Jack, you say the nicest things. I’m taking it as a compliment anyway.’

‘As it was meant. Now come and sit down. Wine time now the boys are asleep, although we won’t be able to get up to any noisy athletics or we’ll wake them!’ Jack, seated in the small leather bucket chair, a throw draped over one arm of it, patted the other one, inviting Cally to come and sit beside him.

She went. She sat. It would have been churlish not to. Jack had nipped up to the small supermarket in the middle of town to fetch wine while she’d been cooking the pasta sauce. She didn’t know how she was going to turn down his offer of ‘noisy athletics’, as he put it, should their kisses and cuddles move from the sitting room to the bedroom and on to other things, as they usually did at home.

‘It’s quite lovely in here with the lamps on low,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘Do you think sometimes, Jack, that we’ve got too much stuff? Our first flat was small and we filled that up, and now we have a much bigger home, we’ve filled that up too.’

‘Everybody does,’ Jack laughed. ‘I daresay even the Queen looks around her sometimes and wonders if she’s got too much stuff in her palaces.’

‘Yeah,’ Cally laughed. ‘But I like the pared-back look of this place. I mean, we only need a knife, fork and spoon each for everyday use, and a plate and mug each, and yet when I open drawers and cupboards at home they’re stuffed with the things.’

‘Eh?’ Jack said. ‘You’re coming over all deep here! Time to relax a bit. Jack filled a glass to the brim with chilled Sancerre and handed it to her.

‘It gives me space to think,’ Cally said, accepting the glass and taking a large gulp of it, ‘with less stuff about, I suppose.’

She yawned. Jack gave her rather a sharp look.

‘Sorry. You’re not boring me. Honest,’ she laughed. ‘It must be all the sea air.’

‘Phew! I thought it might have been something I said.’

No, it’s something I haven’t said.

But now? Could she? Should she? Wouldn’t she want to know if there was something bothering Jack? If he’d found a lump somewhere and hadn’t told her, she’d be furious with him for shouldering the worry on his own, she knew she would. And yet…

‘Nothing you said,’ Cally told him. ‘Only it’s been a long day and I think I’ll go to bed when I’ve finished this.’

‘It’s only nine o’clock, Cally! The boys have only been asleep an hour.’

‘I know. But we might wake them if we chat.’

‘Then we won’t chat,’ Jack said.

‘And do what instead?’

‘Kiss. Cuddle. Progress to other things. The rug here looks nice and thick. Comfy. Not for nothing do they call that fabric “shag pile”.’

‘Jack!’ Cally said, although just a few short weeks ago she’d have gone for that suggestion hook, line and sinker. Jack was a tender and considerate lover. It was rare for her not to climax.

‘Or, like I said, we could go in for some noisy athletics. In the bedroom with the door shut. It’s what couples do on holiday,’ Jack said. ‘And we haven’t yet, have we? Since we’ve been here, I mean.’

‘No, Cally,’ said, ‘we haven’t. It’s not that I don’t want to but—’

Again Cally couldn’t finish her sentence and she was beginning to hate herself for her weakness.

‘Are you going to tell me what this is all about?’ Jack asked, sitting up straighter. He reached for Cally’s free hand, and held it between both of his.

‘It isn’t about anything, Jack,’ Cally lied, looking into his mud-brown eyes. She saw all the worry frowns on his forehead and knew she was putting them there. ‘I really am tired. I was overdoing things at the salon. And I know the boys are safe with both of us there but the ocean is just so big and vast and everyone knows there are things like riptides…’

‘Not here there aren’t,’ Jack interrupted her. ‘I checked it out. It’s why I chose this place – for the boys’ safety.’

‘But I can’t help worrying.’

‘Well, do you think you could try not to? It wouldn’t be good if your anxiety got transferred to the boys somehow and stopped their adventurous spirit. Now would it?’