Letters to the Universe

Letters to the Universe

On her first walk to the cliffs at Uphill, Jane thought of something that might change her life. She had left her bungalow at barely gone 11am hoping to catch high tide. Leaving behind eggshell coloured stucco walls, bay window needing repointing and wearing low beams inside, decorating could wait for now.

It was a twenty minute trek past a roundabout with wooden rowboat in the middle stuffed full of flowers, two pubs, a printing shop that sold signs to order and an ancient Norman church. The smell was of salt and ozone, winds blowing in from the coast, a sharp tang carried through beech and hawthorn. Hidden within the gusts, dreams drawn from the deep well of human longing.

Jane had moved following a relocation from Staffordshire, a divorce settlement granting the financial latitude to buy a new home. Two and a half hours away up the M5 were the remnants of unhappy memories and duplicitous affairs, misdemeanours summarised on reams of paper; petitions and summons, affidavits and settlements. They were imagined as corked in a giant glass bottle ready to be set free on the next ocean swell.

It helped that there was cloud cover overhead, blunting the withering glare of the sun.  Even so, it remained humid. Beads of sweat formed in lines on her forehead, wiped away by the occasional swipe from a surprisingly slender hand only to start again a minute later.

The uncoupling from her previous life had been painful. Not that she was in anyway at fault. The slow disintegration of that former union had been as lurid as it had been bewildering. Illicit WhatsApp exchanges, late nights working faux overtime and silent phone calls received on the landline had eventually amounted to damning evidence of an ongoing tryst involving her husband and a twenty-something from accounts. A fucking cliché if ever there was one but people did it, she rued. It was all incredibly lamentable.

Jane had since made peace with it all. Nearly all. Through the lawyers and the mediation, the one thing that she regretted was how things had worked out with their daughter, Matilda. Whilst she never expected to be granted custody of chocolate Labrador, Candy, the situation with her little girl was anticipated a shoo-in. Sadly, that had not proved to be the case.

Tilda was the only offspring. More children had been planned but not got around to as Jane’s life was busy as an NHS nurse whilst partner Daniel‘s time was swallowed whole by his constant manoeuvring up the career ladder at the bank. They both took for granted the time given by Jane’s mother Marie in covering for them both in caring for their child.

Any thought of more kids had been torpedoed once and for all by the unforgivable philandering. By now, her girl wasn’t so little anymore, aged sixteen as she was. It was that advancing maturity that had led to a breakdown in the mother-daughter bond. Constant bickering during teen years, invariably around where boundaries lay or should lie, had resulted in a declared preference for her laissez faire father when it came to future arrangements and custody.

Nights away without full disclosure, experimentation with alcohol and pills along with associating with unsuitable boys had caused storms that failed to dissipate entirely. If only these issues had been dealt with, head on, by both parents. Together. The acrimonious separation had flattened them all like a vengeful steamroller crushing everything in its wake.

The road to the beach was only wide enough for one vehicle at a time, such was the effect of parked cars in front of mainly garage-less properties. This rendered the footpath a tight space, pedestrians faced with stepping to the side when confronted by others coming the other way. Jane observed the different people she ghosted past; that’s how she saw herself – a ghost. Inconsequential and unobtrusive.

Many were dog-walkers, often in couples, eyes on meandering canines slaloming at the end of leads. Some were sans dog, gazes fixed on the path ahead and thoughts, for the most part, elsewhere. Occasionally, there was a phone zombie, lost inside a tiny screen only vaguely aware of life around them as they looked up occasionally to avoid bumping into something or being run over.

Jane considered them to be part of her new world, all rotating in orbits of their own, paths colliding now and again as determined by coincidence or fate depending on how much belief you had in self-determinism. It was hard to commit to anything that completely dismissed the creeping reach of external forces. The Cosmos was a big place with infinite resources.

The beach was within sight, a hump-backed asphalt bridge dividing holes at a links golf course, the last obstacle before picturesque sands. Beyond a sign on the right that stated tiered parking fees to be paid to the local council, an ochre strand gave way to waters in which islands as well as Brean Down sat on the horizon, blending into the ocean.  

Kicking her shoes off, Jane padded barefoot across the warm shoreline, camper vans and garish windbreaks evidence of beachcombers that had slipped into the salty embrace of the sea. In a string bag slung over her shoulder, a coca cola bottle contained the world as she wanted it.

There had been the time when, on a day like this one, she had been chatting to her daughter in the kitchen back in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Then the talk had been of communicating with the Universe, asking it to fulfil one’s unspoken desires. In the company of a potted geranium, an ornamental plastic bull the colour of Hades (a souvenir from a holiday in Granada) and a mug tree only half full sitting on the sill, the secrets of the elements had been passed on through a speculative mutual understanding.   

Air, earth, wind and fire – all ubiquitous and ancient, all woven into the fabric of day to day existence. Tilda, convinced by her mother’s revelations, had thoughtfully penned her missive. Theatrically, the letter had been set alight (fire) in its top corner then, after a few moments, doused (water) in the sink (earth) under a flowing tap. All this while the window (air) behind was open, a breeze rattling the blinds as though adding another incorporeal voice to an intimate conversation.

If you believed, truly believed, in the omniscience of something greater, something boundless, an invisible force that can be called upon under the right circumstances then, maybe, just maybe, a committed believer can get their true desserts. If they deserved them, of course. Karma was the great leveller, universal arbiter of cause and effect; moral essence of existence but not always instantaneous in its judgement.

When asked what it was that she had requested, the young girl had sheepishly alluded to wishing to win the lottery when she came of age; she would buy a big house in the country for them all to be happy in. The bad stuff would be forgotten. Only good stuff would be part of a new arrangement. A new future. Happy families.

With foam-topped waves gently rolling in and out, Jane let the water wash over her feet. There might have been a sense of sins being washed away if she was more religious. The wry thought occurred that a lot of brine may be needed to satisfy what was owed as a form of repentance from over the years. Perhaps the fact that she was open-minded in heart and soul was a decadence in itself.

Reaching into her bag, she produced a bottle containing parchment that had been screwed and twisted to fit inside. It could have passed for a Molotov cocktail, part of it sticking out at the summit as though waiting to be lit.

It felt tawdry that Tilda wasn’t there to see this. Suddenly feeling self-conscious, the plastic zippo lighter squirreled away in the pocket of her white cotton shorts felt as though it weighed a ton in her hand. There were mums, dads and whipper snappers playing close by, the sounds of childish laughter unmistakable. What would they think if they saw a random woman hurling detritus into the Bristol Channel?

Instead, she pulled the paper from its receptacle and opened it out to read. On it was her plea, a simple enough demand that would make a difference. Tilda had promised to be here today. That glaring oversight cast a gloom over everything else.

With fleeting ceremonial flair, the undisclosed message was finally set alight; Jane holding the note tentatively, straight-armed above the waves. She was waist deep having waded forward a few steps, the bottoms of her feet touching pebbles, rocks and slimy seaweed underneath. A few interested parties turned to register the curious gesture but it was done soon enough, ashes drifting into the yonder on an ocean current.

For what seemed an age, Jane stood there staring out at the vista. Above were the cries of gulls and crows, circling and swooping around their kingdom in the sky. Only the thinnest of clouds scudded by, radiating sunlight holding sway. Thoughts came once more of what had gone before; but this was a line in the sand, wasn’t it? A renaissance at a domestic level. Nothing to see here.

She pictured herself swimming out to sea, front crawl propelling her further and further from land. What if she just kept going? What if she swam so far that she couldn’t get back? The warm sensation of letting go, sinking, slipping below waves to a place of perpetual darkness where pain no longer existed.

Broken from that reverie, Jane turned to peer back at the shore. For a second she thought she saw a man looming, a familiar man, his hands pressed down firmly on a shorter girl’s shoulders. The lass was pretty with her elfin features and blonde hair, a pink bow tied in it as though professing innocence. Her daughter had come after all.

For an instant, time had stopped. She stared at the duo with a plethora of feelings overwhelming her: Anger, frustration, love and relief. More than this. Too many to label.

On closer inspection, it was somebody else. The vision palled, the tall male peeling away from a youngster in her early teens who giggled as she ran after a terrier chasing a stick.

The Universe had delayed granting favour; it would have to be earned. There was time enough to start again. In the meantime, her new town would bring its own challenges and opportunities. Patience was a virtue, a virtue she had in abundance.

Image free to use @WikiCommons