Chapter 6
A few months later on a gloomy day in November Emma walks slowly across the green from the bus stop to Maple Cottage. On a day like this there is no one about. Everything is grey. A cold wind blows steadily from the east, it’s a dead time of the year, Christmas is still six weeks away, no one is on holiday. Most of the houses in the village are empty.
She knocks on Charlie’s door.
“Emma, hello.” Charlie is surprised to see her there. “Come in. You look well.”
“Hi Charlie, thanks.” They go through into the warm living room. “ I was hoping to catch you in the shop this week, but I don’t think you have been in.”
“No, I was in London for a few days. You’ll stop for tea?”
“No, I won’t stop. I was in the village and I just wanted to to let you know that we’ve moved, and I won’t be in the shop any more. I wanted to let you know and give you and Peter my address and say good-bye. I think you know that Mum has been ill and she has moved into a sheltered flat in Hastings. I am renting in Hastings while we sell the house. I have got a job there. I didn’t want to say anything until it was all sorted out, but Jo is taking over from me at the shop, you know her I think.”
“Yes, I know Jo. So when are you going?”
“I moved yesterday. Mum wanted me to say good bye from both of us, these are the new details for us,” and she hands Charlie a piece of paper with their addresses on it.
“Well I’m sorry you are going. Give my love to Carol, I’ll come over and see her when she is settled. Are you sure you won’t stop for tea?”
“No, I won’t, thank you.” She pauses, as if something is distracting her. “No, I must go.” But she makes no move to leave. She looks around the room and wanders over to some shelves next to the TV. She picks things up without looking at them and replaces them on the shelves. A picture, an ornament. There is a row of things collected on the beach over the years. Some coloured pebbles, some driftwood, a few shells. All familiar, but she feels as if she hasn’t looked at them before. There is an old wooden toy boat, and her hand reaches out and picks it up. It is warm, familiar, but she can’t place it. She turns it in her fingers, tracing the cracks and marks of the years.
“That was one of Peter’s toys. He found it on the beach.” says Charlie.
She wouldn’t be able to explain why, but the boat gives her an immediate sense of attachment, to the village, to the beach, to Peter. The colour has almost gone, but it is an interesting shape, a contrast with the other pieces of wood around. On an impulse she asks: “Could I keep this, something of Peter’s? I think I remember him playing with it.”
Charlie is surprised. “Sure. It’s just an old toy, I’m not sure why I kept it.”
Emma turns to look again through the windows across the green. Squally rain is gusting across. “Is there anything else?” Charlie is looking at her curiously.
She hesitates. “No, I should go.” She looks at the boat in her hand as if she wasn’t expecting to see it there, and then she drops it into her bag. “Thank you. Please tell Peter I’ll be in touch. Good bye.”
“Good bye.” Charlie watches her as she walks toward the bus stop. He has known her since she was a small girl, and it feels as if she is walking out of their lives.
He sees her again about two years later. Icklesham is a pretty village on the main road from Hastings to Rye, best known for having one of the better pubs in the area. It is popular with tourists and Charlie tends to avoid it during the summer months. But it is good for a cosy lunch out of season, somewhere to take visitors. Charlie is sitting in a corner with a couple of old friends, and he sees Emma come in from across the room. She is with a man, clearly a boyfriend, or perhaps husband, about 30, stocky build. She is pregnant, and also holding her hand is a small boy with a round face and blond hair. She is looking the other way and doesn’t notice Charlie, but as they walk past the boy turns and stares straight at Charlie. His gaze is strong, enquiring, engaging as small children sometimes are. And then he has gone, following Emma across the room.
Charlie hasn’t seen Emma since she left the village. He has seen Carol a couple of times, and Carol must have given him some news, but he doesn’t recall. Did he know Emma had had a baby? Peter would know. He doesn’t remember hearing about a wedding. He leaves the pub shortly after, looking back at Emma as he leaves but her back is to him. He doesn’t know whether she has seen him.
The next time Charlie sees Emma is about 6 years after that, down on the beach. Peter and Sarah have come down for a few days. They have two children now, Simon and Jake, and they are all squashed into Maple Cottage with Charlie. Charlie acquired a dog a few years earlier, a labrador cross called Rufus that he has “rehomed” after some neighbours moved abroad and didn’t want to take a dog with them. Rufus is a sandy colour, full of bounce and floppy ears. Simon and Jake adore him.
They are sitting round the table finishing breakfast. “Are we going to the beach? “ says Simon. He is seven years old, still at an age when a sunny day and a beach are all you could ever want, with perhaps an ice-cream thrown in.
“Yes,” says Sarah, tidying away the mess that Jake always seems to make when he is eating. “Peter, can you find the dog’s lead? And bring the bag of beach things.”
“Shall we bring something for lunch?”
“No, we can worry about food later. If it is nice we can eat at the cafe.”
They set off, Simon and Peter first, Simon zig-zagging across the green with Rufus looping around him. Jake is four years old and can’t keep up, so he follows with a hand held on each side by Sarah and Charlie. Every few steps they swing him forwards, and he laughs. They walk up to the sea wall, and then away from the car park to where it is a bit quieter and find a spot at the top of the beach where they can sit on the edge of the path and rest their feet on the shingle below. Gulls are wheeling overhead, and out at sea are following a small boat fishing.
The tide is half out, and Peter takes the boys and Rufus down to the sea, throwing a ball for the dog as they go. It is too cold to swim, and the tide is going out leaving the sand and stones wet and cold, so after a while they head back up the beach towards the groynes. They look for shells in the shadow of the wooden buttress closest to where Sarah and Charlie sit.
“There’s a bigger one over there” says Peter, “with gaps in the wood that you can climb and more to look at.” So they move along the beach, investigating the next one, and the one after that. As they round the top of the next one they realise that there are people there. A woman hears them, stands and turns.
“Hello Peter.” Emma has aged and her face is drawn and tired, her hair pulled back. Two children are playing with her, a boy and a younger girl. She is wearing a wedding ring.
“Oh, hi,” says Peter, surprised and unsure what to say. “How are you? I should have guessed we’d meet you here.”
“Oh, we don’t live here now, we came back for the day.” She looks at his boys. “You’ve got kids too. Still married to Sarah? I don’t think I ever met her.”
“Yes, still with Sarah. She’s here with Dad. This is Simon and Jake.”
But the children have moved away, they are climbing the wooden buttress and, reaching the top, turn to look down on them. Emma’s children jump up and start to follow.
“Be careful on the wood, it’s slippery” Emma calls to the children as they climb up to join the others. Peter notices Emma’s son for the first time, and he catches his breath. The boy is familiar and Peter frowns, but it takes him a moment to realise that he looks just like the boy he met on the beach when he came as a child. Emma’s ghost boy. And as Peter looks at the boy, he seems to come more into focus and everything else fades and blurs away from him. It is as if Peter is looking down on the scene with the boy in the middle of it. And the boy turns to look straight at Peter. Peter remembers the gaze, the sadness. Peter looks away, and turns to Emma.
She says, “does Charlie still live here?”
“Yes, he’s here all the time now.” Peter glances over his shoulder. “He’s just back there on the beach with Sarah. Come and say hello.”
She looks back at the children. “In a minute, I don’t trust these two out of my sight.” But as she looks back she sees Charlie approaching them with Rufus, who rushes up as if they were old friends.
“Hello Emma,” says Charlie.
“Hi.” She walks a few steps towards Charlie, turning her back on the children. Charlie notices the children, and has the same shock of familiarity. He looks at the boy, stops, and it feels as if his feet are sinking into the shingle, as if his legs are suddenly fixed. It is hot, and he starts to sweat, and feels light-headed. There’s a ringing in his ears and he doesn’t notice that Emma is talking to him.
The boy is trying to climb up the buttress. It is not very high, but slippery, and he struggles to get a purchase on the timbers. The gaps between them are filled with wet and slime. The wooden structure is higher off the beach here, the small stones beneath it have been washed away creating a deeper hollow, sand at the bottom and some larger stones. The boy can not reach the top to get a purchase, and he is hampered by a wooden boat that he is clutching in his hand. Charlie notices that he is having difficulty and steps forward. He recognises the boat, it is Peter’s old boat that he gave to Emma. Gradually all sound fades. Charlie can not take his eyes off the boy, and can not move to stop what happens next. The boy slips and falls. The spell is broken, suddenly the sounds of the beach come back in a rush. The cry of the boy as he falls, a whine from the dog, the sound of the boy’s head hitting a rock. Emma gasps and turns, he can hear the sea crashing up the shingle. A hot wind blows across them.
Peter is there first. The boy is looking straight at him, pain in his eyes.
“Daddy,” he calls, “Daddy.”
Peter hesitates, looks back to where Charlie is standing, then back at the boy.
“Daddy”, but fainter now. The fall was only a few feet, but he landed awkwardly on his back as he fell, and although he looks fine, his face starts turning grey, his eyes are wide, his hair suddenly thick with blood. There is a strong iron smell in the air. Emma is there, cradling him.
“Don’t move him,” Peter says. But it is already too late. The boy shudders, as if having a seizure, and his legs jerk, and he is suddenly limp, his hand drops, and the boat falls from his fingers to be lost under the shadow of the buttress. And all is still again. Emma, sobbing irregularly, with sharp intakes of breath, cradling the dead boy. The other children quiet, stunned. Charlie and Peter take a step back, and remember that first scene on the beach, at this same spot all those years ago. The day they first saw the boy, the echo of this dead boy, when Peter found the boat.
And Charlie realises that when the boy had been calling for his father on that first day it wasn’t someone else he was calling for, and it wasn’t Charlie, it was Peter all along. And now looking at Peter he can see clear resemblance. He looks at Emma and the scene below him. Had she realised who her son was, did she have a premonition of this day? Peter has turned away, holding onto his own boys. And Charlie turns and walks up the beach, taking out his phone to call for help.
© Anthony Judge 2021