A The Shell

THE SHELL

The boy flung himself face down in the hollow between the dunes and
rested his sweating face on his crossed arms. His panting breath
disturbed small avalanches of dry sand that ran down the face of the
dune and powdered his sleeve. He lay still until his chest stopped
heaving, and then turning onto his back, he watched the clouds chase
each other across the sky like playful sheep. Seagulls rode the wind,
and their raucous cries punctuated the noise from the beach. This noise
rose and fell like the sound of the waves, a noise compounded of
screaming children, the occasional speed boat and the loud calls of
frantic parents separated from their offspring. It started mid-morning
and lasted until the very last holidaymaker had gone home and always,
just underneath it all was the endless hiss as the sea climbed the
shallow beach and retreated, dragging shingle down the slope into the
weed fringed rock pools.
He had run from the house when the noises from the front bedroom, and
the look of worry on his father's face had become too much to bear. He
had though he would be able to stay but the smell of antiseptic mixed
with his father's cigarettes had made him feel sick, and, mumbling some
excuse about needing fresh air, he had bolted, out of the gate, out of
the street, out of the town; to the place he always came to when he
needed to be alone. He felt ashamed of his weakness, but there was no
one here to see his embarrassment, and sheltered from the breeze, tired
after his run, he drifted on the edge between sleep and waking.
The sounds from the beach were quieter now and he raised his head to
look over the edge of the dune. People were packing their things and
gathering their children together in preparation for the scramble over
the loose sand to the car park behind the dunes, lugging buckets and
spades, beachballs, windbreaks and bags containing empty sandwich boxes
and flasks half full of luke-warm tea. They would be going back to
houses where no-one moaned in the front bedroom, or sat at the kitchen
table with their head bowed in their hands, and for a moment, he envied
them.
He watched as the beach slowly emptied, and only the seagulls,
squabbling over discarded crusts, remained, then, brushing sand off his
sweater, he climbed over the rim of the hollow and trudged down onto
the deserted beach. The brisk wind blew sweet papers into the tangle of
marram grass that clustered at the foot of the dunes and the beach was
littered with the debris of the day. Sand-castles, in varying degrees
of dereliction stood drunkenly here and there waiting for the tide to
come and iron the beach smooth again, ready for the next day's influx
of visitors.
The boy walked down as far as the water's edge, where the tide
gathered its strength for the final run up the beach to the edge of the
dunes. He ambled slowly along the water line, watching as the small
waves turned over pebbles, making their vivid colours glow in the early
evening light. He saw pieces of wave polished glass, worn as smooth as
one of his mother's beads by the constant fret of the sea, and there,
at the edge of a rock pool, caught in the fronds of seaweed, the most
perfect shell he had ever seen. He picked it up and turned it over on
his palm to see if it was damaged on the underside, but it was
unmarked. The mother-of-pearl inside the shell gleamed with the colours
of the rainbow, and the outer was speckled in shades of pink and amber
on cream. It looked out of place on this ordinary little beach,
tropical in its colouring, foreign in its intricate shape and like no
shell the boy had ever picked up in his fourteen years. He fished in
his pocket for a rather grubby handkerchief and wrapped the shell
gently inside, placing it back in his pocket with care. He climbed back
up the edge of the sand dunes and sat on the highest ridge to watch the
sun setting. He stared, unblinking, as the whole beach took on a ruddy
hue and the sun sank lower until it seemed to almost touch the surface
of the sea. A glittering red path ran from it towards the beach, and
the boy's eyes stung with the dancing shards of light on the crest of
each wave. He watched as the sea crept further up the beach, crumbling
the sandcastles and sweeping away the trampled footprints marring the
sand.
He sat patiently until the sun sank below the horizon and the air
turned chill and grey, and then rising to his feet, he turned
reluctantly for the long walk home. His father would be worried, and he
broke into a jog as the street lights started to flicker to life, away
from the peace of the beach, and back to the uneasy house, and the
waiting. He ran across the deserted car park and cut through the
alleyway that led to the narrow High Street.
He ran past the shops, some shuttered for the night, some, like the
chip shop, only just opening, with the fragrant smell of fresh cooked
fish sharpened with vinegar drifting through the open door. The smell
made him feel hungry, and he increased his pace slightly, and then
slowed again as he remembered his mum would not be cooking tea tonight.
He slowed to a walk alongside the park railings, peering into the dusk
beneath the trees in the hopes of seeing a mate, someone to talk to for
ten minutes or so, maybe kick a ball about and delay the moment when he
would finally have to go home, but the park was deserted. His mates
would all be at home by now, eating their tea balanced on a tray in
front of the T.V., as he usually did, watching stuff like 'Buffy the
Vampire Slayer' or the 'Simpsons' until it was time for homework.
It was almost totally dark as he turned on to the small estate where
he had lived all his life. He ran past the Infant School where he had
painted pictures in thick swirls of poster paint, and carried them
proudly home to his mum, to be fastened up on the fridge door and
displayed to relatives. There was the playground with the little swing
that he had fallen from the day before his sixth birthday. His birthday
photos showed him with a black eye and a fat lip, as did most of his
school portraits over the next few years. Accident prone, his mum had
said. Just plain clumsy was his dad's opinion, and he was probably
right!
He ran down the dark streets, with his shadow waxing and waning in
front and behind him as he passed the street lamps and as he neared the
end of his road, he slowed to a walk, past the lamppost on the corner,
past the Millers front garden, with the crazy paving and the hideous
garden gnomes that had terrified him as a small child, past the next
door neighbour's brightly lit windows to the end of his own path. He
stood for a moment, listening, but all he could hear was the beating of
his own heart, loud in the silence. He walked up the path, through the
side passage to the back door, and opening it quietly, slipped into the
warm kitchen.
The house was still, the T.V. in the front room silent for once. He
walked to the foot of the stairs to look for his father, but as he
lifted his foot to the bottom step, he heard the back door open and his
father stood in the hallway. The light from the kitchen behind him
threw his face into shadow, and the boy could not read his expression.
"You'd better go up", he said, and the boy climbed the stairs slowly
and stood outside his mother's door. A faint light showed round the
edge of the door and he pushed it open slowly and looked in. His mother
seemed tiny in the big bed, and older than he had ever seen her look.
The covers were pulled up to her chin and her faint breathing barely
moved them, so still she lay. He had walked round to the side of the
bed before he noticed the object beside it, and in the dim light he
bent over to see what it contained.
A tiny starfish hand opened and closed in the air above the tightly
swaddled pink shawl, and the boy placed his finger carefully in the
tiny palm. The fingers closed round it strongly and the boy smiled.
Taking the handkerchief from his pocket he unwrapped the perfect shell,
and folded it into the baby's hand. Eyes as blue as the sea in summer
looked up at him, and he bent to kiss the soft, milky smelling cheek.
"Hello, little sister", the boy said, as his father watched from the
doorway, and his mother, her breathing as faint as the echo of the sea
inside a shell, slept peacefully in the big bed.

1,566 words