Decca Aitkenhead - All at Sea

‘Let’s go back up to the cottage,’ I hear myself say, and lead the boys past the crowd towards the garden gate. Suddenly we feel quite peripheral to the drama; we slip quietly away, as if this scene on the beach, this unfolding catastrophe, has nothing to do with us at all. And in my mind, it almost hasn’t. What they all think is happening here right now cannot be true; it is not happening. We climb the path together in silence. I am too dazed to form words. As we enter the cottage a figure races past the open kitchen window and I hear him say ‘Him dead’, but still I do not believe it. They are wrong. In a minute Annabelle is going to come and tell us Tony is conscious and fine.

‘Will Tony be okay?’ asks one of the boys. ‘I hope so,’ I reply. ‘I think a doctor is on his way.’ I look at them, and see that Jake is still in his pyjamas. They are caked in sand.

‘Let’s go and wash all this sand off,’ I suggest, and as if in a dream I lead them into the bathroom. We are going to do something normal; it is going to make everything normal. I perch on the edge of the bath, and turn on the shower. Water explodes everywhere, drenching me. As I wrestle with the shower head I register the silence of boys who would ordinarily fall about at such comedic misfortune. I look up from the edge of the bath to the door and see Annabelle standing in the door frame. She gazes straight at me, unsmiling, and very slowly shakes her head.

I stumble into her arms. ‘No!’ I am shouting at her. She holds me tightly; I cannot stand. I lurch back, staring at her face, willing her to say I have misunderstood. ‘Dec,’ Jake says softly. He stares up at me, frightened. ‘Why is your face like that? What’s happening?’ I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. Joe wraps his arm around my leg and peers up anxiously. ‘Has Tony died-ed?’ he asks.

I look down at my children. ‘Yes. Yes, he has. Tony has died.’

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