Chapter 2
The storm starts soon after they leave London to drive to the coast. The forecasters had predicted a biblical storm, the tail end of a hurricane that had started the other side of the Atlantic and had gained strength as it hit the coast of Ireland; and the reality lived up to the prediction. First the wind, and then rain in a torrent. There is thunder about, rolling back and forth across the landscape. Electricity charges the air. Driving through the tempest it feels as if big chunks of the ocean are being picked up and thrown against the car. Visibility drops to a few yards as they pierce a wall of water, the wipers unable to cope. Sections of the road are flooding as ditches overflow. Their world is reduced to a bubble of themselves, the car, moving slowly through a landscape of water and debris borne on the wind. The street lamps have come on but they hardly can see another car. The last few weeks have been July at its most oppressive, and the longed for release has come.
Charlie has struggled with his grief after losing his wife and trying to bring up Peter, his 8 year old son alone. Charlie thought he knew his son, but the day to day experience of looking after him had been strange, awkward for both of them. It was as if he was learning to know his son again, new routines that didn’t work well for either of them, but were gradually settling down. Now as they head away in the car for the rest of the summer holiday the tension falls away while outside it rains hard and the wind blows.
Hannah died quickly and quietly after being ill for just a few months; the speed compounding the devastation of the loss. Charlie works in a small firm of solicitors in Dulwich, South London, and his partners told him to take a few months off as sabbatical. After sorting out the funeral and the formalities that helped to provide a sort of structure to the immediate aftermath he decided that they needed to get away to the coast. A friend recommended a house, quiet, near the sea.
They arrive at Shingle Beach late in the afternoon, dark under the thunderclouds, and unpack the car, sprinting through the rain. They tumble into Maple Cottage, shaking off the water, laughing. It immediately feels comfortable, welcoming when they arrive. Tea things have been set out on a tray with a covered plate of homemade biscuits. They shut the door against the gale and feel a sense of calm.
In the morning the skies have cleared, the sun is shining. The living room where they have breakfast is on the first floor with a better view, and Charlie opens the window to bring in clear salty air. He can’t quite see the sea, but the house overlooks the village green, a grassy play area that runs up to the sea wall about a hundred metres away.
“Peter,” says Charlie as he finishes his breakfast. “I thought we’d explore the beach this morning, see what the storm has washed up, perhaps walk down the beach a bit. There’s a shop and a cafe here, we can find something for lunch.”
“OK.” Peter had finished his cereal and was looking out of the window.
“We’d better find your wellies, it’s going to be wet and muddy after yesterday. I think we brought them, they’ll be in the car.” They buy some sandwiches in the village shop and head down to the beach. It is hot and the sea calm. A few people are about, but it is not crowded. You could lose yourself in the quiet and the space and the sea. A few yachts are idling along the coast, and further out in the haze larger ships in the shipping lanes. All around is driftwood, seaweed and plastic debris thrown up by yesterday’s storm. Charlie and Peter make their way slowly along the beach. There is a shingle path along the top of the sea wall and Charlie walks slowly along the path while Peter explores the mounds of shingle on the beach. They make slow progress, and after about 20 minutes they have passed the point where the beach houses stop and the sea-scape opens out. They walk down to the water’s edge and look for suitable stones to skim across the water, and for a while stand and spin their stones across the incoming waves. Then they head back up to the top of the beach where they stop at a bench for their lunch.
They can see a family paddling down by the water line across the low tide sand, and further down the beach is a boy on his own. He is picking his way through the shingle, looking for something in the stones. After lunch Charlie dozes on the bench, and Peter wanders back towards the sea, fascinated by the ripples in the hardening sand, carved there by the retreating sea.
“I’ll sit here, don’t go far. Make sure you can always see me.” But Peter is already walking away along the beach looking through the plastic left by the storm. He is hot, the sun starting to feel oppressive, and there is no movement in the air. A few gulls fly loudly over, making the only noise he can hear. Every few minutes Charlie glances up to check where Peter has got to. He watches Peter searching the shingle in the shelter of one of the larger buttresses. He has found a few pieces of lego, but bored of picking through the plastic waste has started exploring the groynes themselves. Charlie watches him follow up one side, then round the high-water point. Peter notices Charlie watching, waves and calls out, and then drops down the other side. The sun is past its high point and the lower side is in shadow, cooler and sheltered. Peter is out of sight until he emerges a few minutes later further down the beach where the groyne finishes. He has picked up some pieces of driftwood.
One of the groynes has an unusually large drop, and standing at the bottom on one side, even on tip toes, Peter can not see over the top. It is as if a giant hand has scooped out the shingle and thrown it across the breach, revealing a small sandy area at the bottom of the wooden pillars. It is quiet here, Peter can’t see or hear anyone. It feels as if he is the only person who knows about the beach. He slides down into the hollow, where he can see a bit of wood sticking out of the sand. It is small, shaped, carved and different to the other driftwood about. He digs down in the damp sand with his fingers. The sand isn’t fine and soft, but hard and full of bits of broken shell that slide painfully under his fingernails; but after a few minutes he pulls it free. It is the remains of a carved toy boat, about 20 cm long. It was painted once, red and blue, but now the colour is almost gone and it has been worn and stripped by the water over the years. It feels damp to the touch, but not cold, and Peter imagines other children playing with it.
He stands up holding the boat, but too quickly and for a moment feels faint. A hot gust of wind comes off the solid wood next to him and he feels light headed. In spite of the heat he shivers, and at once notices a ripe, metallic smell, an animal smell. The shingle mounds are suddenly heavy, heaped over him, threatening; there isn’t enough air to breathe. And Peter has a strong sense of someone watching him. He scrambles up the shingle away from the wooden wall, and as he does he clearly hears a boy’s voice call “Daddy” from near by. Too near, and at the edge of his vision he sees something, or someone. He panics, and twists back to look, and there is the boy he saw earlier, right by him. As Peter turns the stones move beneath him and he falls back into the dip under the groyne, landing painfully, twisting his foot as he falls and crying out.
“Peter,” calls out Charlie. “Peter? Where are you?” Charlie can’t see him but heads in the direction the shout came from. His skin prickles, he is sweating in the hot sun. As Charlie looks past the first groyne, and then the second, he too can smell something, a rusty smell in the heat that catches in his throat. As he rounds the third fence, which is higher and more solid than the others, he sees Peter, and at the same time is struck by an overwhelming sense of sadness, a sense of longing, strong enough to stop him, as if walking into a barrier. Charlie realises that there is someone else there. The boy he saw searching the beach is standing the other side of the dip looking down at Peter, and then across at Charlie. He is pale, about the same age as Peter, wearing jeans and a blue T shirt.
He looks towards Charlie and is confused. “Daddy, daddy?”
“Who are you?” Charlie says. “I’m not your daddy. Are you lost? Are you OK? Where are your family?”
Charlie looks about, but there is no one else around. He looks down at Peter, between himself and the boy. Peter is standing up now, testing his weight on his ankle, his face is tear-stained, but he is trying to be brave.
“Peter are you OK?”
“Yes dad, sorry. My foot hurts. But It’s OK. I found this.” He holds out the boat. It is just a children’s toy, not old, but tired and scarred. But it has a presence, Charlie looks at it and feels drawn to it. There is a haze about it, as if it is the focus of the heat, the smell, the sadness that is all about them. Charlie feels the boy watching them and hears him call out “Daddy” again, but faint this time, sounding scared, lonely, in pain; and Charlie is aware that something is seriously wrong. But when he looks up the boy isn’t there. He must have climbed over the wooden buttress, or dropped into a dip in the shingle. Charlie looks about for him, walks up the beach a few metres, but he has gone. And the sense of sadness has gone with him.
He turns back to Peter, who is climbing up towards him. “It’s just an old toy. Keep it if you like, we can clean it up and repaint it.” He looks at his watch. “You’ve been out in the sun for too long, let’s go back and get some tea.”
It is still hot, but the heaviness has gone from the air. They look for the boy on the beach as they walk back to the village, but don’t see him again. At the van by the small car park they stop for ice cream. Charlie says to the man behind the counter:
“We saw a boy earlier, up the beach, calling for his father. I think he was lost. But then he vanished. Has anyone reported a missing child?”
“No, no one,” he says. “I’ve hardly seen anyone today.”