Beside the Sea (3 page)

The sea had lost all its colour, it wasn’t blue at all, it looked like a torrent of mud, it was the same colour as the sky, what I mean is even the beach was like the hotel: same feeling of being in a cardboard box. It’s completely blue, really, I told Kevin, but it was making such a row he didn’t hear me – maybe I didn’t actually say it, maybe I was talking to myself, It’s breathing very loud! Kevin shouted, tugging at my arm. Don’t be scared, I said, it’s just saying how glad it is to see you, it’s really missed you! Does it know me? The whole world knows you, Kevin, that’s what I wanted to say, the whole world’s waiting for you, but that was wrong, I know there’s no one waiting for us. But aren’t we allowed to lie every now and then, to turn ourselves into fairies, children expect it and it gives them a chance to dream, what’s wrong with that?

Does it know me? Kevin shouted again, I nodded but I think he’d already stopped looking at me, he’d taken a sharp step back because a wave had come and licked at his shoes.

Stan was a little way away now, running all over the beach like something was chasing him. He’s not right, that lad, I thought, it was like he was trying to get away from something, the rain, the cold,
some imaginary creature, it was strange, he’d run with his head down, then stop suddenly as if there was a wall, then set off again just as quickly, turn to the right, turn to the left… what was he thinking right then, what sort of world was he in, I couldn’t say. I would have liked him to stop but I didn’t have the strength to run after him, my head was spinning horribly, I sat down on a rock, Kevin started playing with the wet sand at my feet, he’d lost interest in the sea. I couldn’t help looking at it, though, wanted to be like it, self-contained, not giving a stuff about anything and taking up as much space as I liked. It’s conceited alright, it isn’t friendly, it’s conceited, we come all this way to see it and if it could it would grind us into the ground, freeze the air in our lungs and fill our mouths with water if we got too close, and the waves were like huge mouths snapping at the empty air, waiting for us, just us.

Stan! I cried, Stan! Come back now! But he carried on running into his walls, so I went over to him, tripping on stones but not taking my eyes off him, while the waves smacked at the empty air behind him. Stan! I cried again, but even when I reached him he acted deaf, carrying on with his turns and half-turns, it drove me mad, I grabbed him by the hood of his jacket and then something terrible happened, Stanley raised his hand and thumped my arm, and I let go of his hood. He’d never ever done anything like that to me, There’s
the future, I thought, misery goes on for ever. I didn’t recognize my little boy, we looked at each other in silence, he was red in the face, exhausted, wide-eyed, breathing heavily, like he was crying without any tears. Go home now! I shouted. And he looked me right in the eye. Go home, go home, obviously that was stupid, there was nowhere to go home to, I knew that and I was the one who ended up looking away. We stayed there like that without a word, catching our breath, trying to recognize each other while behind us the sea battered the sand. We weren’t out for a stroll on this beach, we were hunting each other down, that was all.

I went back over to Kevin, Stan followed. We both felt ashamed. We didn’t speak. Kevin was making sandcastles, I sat back down on the rock, Stan just stood there with his hands in his pockets, staring at the waves, exhausted, he’d been fighting with the sea too.

It’s an enchanted castle, Stan! said Kevin, tugging the bottom of his brother’s trousers, it’s an enchanted castle! The older boy didn’t look at the littl’un, still staring at the ocean, like they had unfinished business. Find him a seashell, Stan, I told him, just to say something, to show him I was there, even if I was worried he would walk away. He heard me. He didn’t answer, but as he walked off along the sand he looked so alone, I felt like calling him back, how could he cope so well without me?

It’s an enchanted castle, Kevin told me, slightly annoyed. Yeah, it’s good, it’s good to make castles by the seaside, I thought, that’s what’s supposed to happen, we’re by the seaside and we make sandcastles, that’s what’s always supposed to happen: the way it is… but why’s Stan going so far away? Should I have smacked him when he thumped my arm? Should I have run after him and punished him? Maybe we should have had a fight, there, on the wet sand, rolling on the ground and biting each other, scratching and roaring, drowning out the waves, more like monsters than the ocean itself, forgetting about being a mother and son, just thumping each other, and then feeling better afterwards.

Stan was walking along the beach but he wasn’t looking for shells, that’s for sure. He was looking ahead, at that little rain-swept beach, with its stones and bits of black seaweed, its abandoned bottles and plastic bags snagged on the rocks, he was walking slowly, like someone thinking about something and lugging their tiredness with them. I’d like to have been inside his head, right in the depths of him, so that no one else could take that space, my space, me, the first… the first what, I don’t know, but the first, yes, that was it… I’m in him, on the inside, even if he doesn’t know it.

I’m cold, Kevin said, I’m cold and I’m hungry, can we go? Good idea, actually, let’s go, got to go,
have to go and have something to drink, got to. Come back, Stan! I cried – nothing in the world would have made me go over to him. Come back! I yelled, it felt good, Come back! Come back! I was an order, I was a shout, but the waves swallowed my words, you’d have thought the sea was a machine, it made more din than a factory.

Stan didn’t hear me. I no longer existed. I had no voice left, no more words, nothing could reach him. I stopped shouting. Stan’s outsize clothes were moving all on their own in the wind, he reminded me of a boat. I didn’t know how to bring boats back in.

Kevin had had enough. He shouted now, and then ran over to his brother, he took his hand and they walked towards me, they were soaked, the pair of them. There are my boys, I thought, two ice cubes melting away, you’d have thought I made them out of water, and they’ve just come out of the sea.

I was no longer angry with Stan, and when he reached me I took his hand, too. Walking through that town without pavements it was more reassuring holding hands, the three of us.

It
was
a nice feeling stepping into that café. We weren’t exactly cheerful, not at our best, but it felt good. The heating was on – happiness hangs on virtually nothing, a bit of heating after the rain and life opens up a little.

We took off our jackets and sat down on a bench seat, and then I thought I shouldn’t have gone all that way to see the sea, but just gone to a café, I should have left the sea to the kids, one last dream. In the summer it’s all blue, I said, they looked at me but didn’t understand. Kevin was worried, I don’t like coffee, what can I have? Whatever you like, I replied. A coke? he leapt up from the seat as he said it, he was happy and it was lovely seeing him like that, but still, I wasn’t going to spend all my money on coke, he’d still be complaining he was hungry afterwards. Have a hot chocolate, I said, it stays by you longer, and he shot me a sulky look from beneath his eyebrows.

Stan was listening to the men leaning up at the bar. They were having quite a laugh, with their cigarettes in their mouths and their beers in their hands, they were talking dirty and I didn’t want Stan to hear it, I was embarrassed like I had something to do with their vulgar words – a bit like when the two of us watch TV together, yes, like that evening when I felt so ashamed, I still remember it, because a man who’d just won crazy amounts of money in some game started gasping and whooping and ended up rolling around on the ground shouting. I didn’t like seeing that with my son, I can’t explain why.

No, I didn’t want Stan listening to the men at the bar, they were talking about a woman, and I bet she wasn’t one of their wives, they were laughing and scratching their bellies, one of them started burping and one of the others laughed so much he had a coughing fit. It wasn’t so nice after all in that café, and I couldn’t wait to get out. I can’t seem to stay in the same place for long, there’s always something that upsets me or makes me sick. Usually people make me sick. I wish they could be more like kids: with more questions than answers, but it’s often the other way round, where did they learn to be so sure of everything?

The owner came over, I asked him how much it would cost to have one coke, two hot chocolates and a coffee, Forty-two francs, he said after
thinking for a moment with his eyes turned to the ceiling. That’s fine, I said, that’s what we’ll do, will the straw be for free if we have a straw with the coke? He slipped back to the bar without answering, his feet thumping heavily on the floor, it was like he’d just got out of bed and was having trouble walking.

Is the coke for me? Kevin asked, and he rubbed his hands together. He’s already imitating
grown-ups
, I thought, and I wondered how long a child could go on being his mother’s son, exactly when he became unrecognizable, I mean: just like the others. Exactly when? The men at the bar with their bellies shaking as they coughed, with their dirty ideas about women’s arses, were those men still somebody’s son? You have to drink the hot chocolate first, I said to make myself think about something else. But after I can have the coke! he said and his little feet drummed gleefully against the seat. You’re spoilt, aren’t you? Really spoilt! I wanted to talk to him, had to talk to stop myself thinking about the men at the bar. Normally it’s Stan I talk to, but since he’d thumped my arm it was difficult. And, anyway, he hadn’t found a seashell. We wouldn’t be going back to the beach, I knew that, Kevin would never take a present back for Marie-Hélène… I heard the men laughing, I think they’d stopped making fun of the woman and moved on to a goalie. Maybe it’s the same thing.
We’re on our own. We wait there and take the blows without complaining. The others watch.

In the summer it’s all blue, I said again, you can sit on the sand eating ice cream and it melts on your fingers in the heat. Have you done that? Kevin asked me, brimming with pride… I hesitated… Yep, I said eventually, yep I’ve done it, and more than once, I’ve died of the heat by the sea before now, I’ve seen it when it’s all blue, with the sky overhead like a huge mirror… more than once… I would have liked Stan to believe it, too, to ask me questions, but I didn’t know what the little smile he gave me meant, did he think my story was nice, did he think I was managing it well and that I was full of wonderful memories that would make them drool with envy?

The owner came back, dragging his feet on the ground even more. He put the drinks on the table with a sigh, there was a straw in the glass of coke – maybe he liked children but didn’t dare show it because of the men at the bar watching him, waiting for the chance to burst out laughing, I could feel it – like I would do them that favour, what the hell did they think? Bloody hell! I’d forgotten how much men depend on us to have a good laugh together, I’d forgotten how it weighs you down having them look you over. Very happy to be on my own with my kids. No more You’re letting yourself go! Make an effort! No more living like I was on display in a
shop window, apparently… yes, apparently in some northern country the tarts sit in shop windows. Sometimes I wonder what difference that makes. Except that they’re paid, of course. When it’s over, when the men have done what they needed to do, it feels like nothing’s happened, men never remember it, maybe that’s why it has to keep happening again. A bit of money thrown in at the end does leave a trace, a bit of proof – we’re owed that, at least: a bit of recognition.

Kevin drank his hot chocolate through the straw, Stan called him a plonker, I was pleased to see him back in the land of the living, Leave him alone, I said, if it makes him happy. Sometimes I like seeing Kevin fooling about, it reassures me. There are times when I fool about as well to make them laugh. I do impersonations for them. They get them every time because it’s always the same people: the woman who lives along the corridor who takes tiny steps when she walks, like a Chink, with that horrified look on her face, like she’s trying to avoid some dustbins; the cashier at the supermarket with her octopus hands, her snooty expression and her huge tits; the pediatrician at the health centre, always waving a needle, we call him Doctor Dart and once Kevin actually said Bye, Doctor Dart! Stan and I were embarrassed but the quack proved he never listens to a word you say because he put his hand on the nipper’s head and muttered Well done, my
boy, well done, as he opened the door for us to leave. Anyway, all that just to say that sometimes the three of us have fun. We have good times. It’s only very brief, I never know where it comes from, but I know it’s good, the world around us takes up a bit less space, our shoulders feel lighter. It’s when we’re not talking to each other that we understand each other best, and when we fool around, too. But the kids are better behaved than me. I bet if I’d impersonated Doctor Dart in the café they’d have been ashamed of me. Like when I pull faces behind people’s backs if I don’t like them. They hate it. In fact, the kids are frightened of other people. I can’t fault them for that. You’re never what they want you to be. You irritate them, disgust them. The whole world’s disappointed by its neighbours. Sometimes, no one knows why, someone exactly matches what everyone expected. And everybody loves them, they cheer them and put them on the telly. It’s very rare. The rest of the human race is all mistrust and hate, what I mean is love’s nothing like as common as hate.

After the chocolate Kevin drank the coke and of course he wanted a wee. I asked Stan to go with him, he refused. What? I said, you’re nine years old and you can’t take your brother for a piss? At the time I didn’t think he might be frightened of passing the men at the bar, in fact I was panicking that he might still resent me for what happened on
the beach and I snapped at him, You’re off your rocker! I regretted it. It hurt him. He opened his mouth like he was going to speak, looked up at me with his little eyes, then turned his head sharply towards the window, like he wanted to hide. I’m desperate! said Kevin, and he couldn’t work out which of us he should be talking to.

I got up, took him by the hand and stormed to the back of the café, when we passed them the men at the bar turned round and suddenly stopped talking, and one of them came out with Isn’t there school today? as if he knew that would upset the littl’un the most. Neither of us said anything. I couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel. For no one to be watching us. For no one to talk to us.

The toilet was tiny and dark, with crates of empty bottles stacked right outside, there was sawdust on the floor and cigarette butts, it smelt of red wine and damp. Lucky that Kevin had learnt to pee standing up. There’s school today, what are we going to tell Marie-Hélène? he asked me… and that was when I started thinking about it, too, in that stink of booze and half-stubbed cigarettes… I wondered what they would tell her, what they would tell Marie-Hélène… Will you write a note? the littl’un asked as he zipped up his flies. That’s right, I said, I’ll write a note. It reassured him. There are magic sentences like that. I’ll write a note.

When we got back to our table Stan had started counting the money, he’d taken the coins from our jacket pockets and was making little piles. Everyone was watching him, and as I passed the bar the owner turned towards me, shot me a nasty look and nodded his head as if to say What’s that boy up to? What’s going on? We’ve… we’ve got a lot of change, I said, and Shit! my voice had run off again, it was like not all of me was there, like I’d left a bit at home. All the men at the bar hitched their balls up and turned to look at me, this wasn’t looking good, they were far too interested in us, didn’t they have anything better to do?

The owner came out from behind his counter and slouched on over to Stan. The kid was very calm, very busy with his coins, so lost in his own world he couldn’t even see us. But the owner was right up close to him now, with a nasty, nosy look in his eye. Come and have a look at this! he said to the others, and that was exactly what they’d been waiting for, this bunch of alcoholics, they rushed over to the table as if a baby had just been born there. That’s it, I thought, it’s too late. I wanted to spare them all this, but it was going too fast for me, my kids had seen the fury of the sea and now they were going to see how hostile the world is, this town was the beginning of hell.

The men stood round Stan, like a pack of dogs, I could tell they were ready to pounce as
soon as he gave the word. He knew it. He took his time. He made it last. Stan, my Stan with his nice manners was still just as calm. He carried on with his little piles: one-franc coins, fifty-centime coins, twenties, tens… I admired him, I really did. With one swipe of his hand the owner toppled the lot. The others laughed and one of them, still the same one, he started coughing, his belly heaved up and down, and he farted. Stan looked up at the owner, no longer so sure of himself, stunned, yes that was it, he still didn’t realize what was going on. Kevin gave a tiny, sad little groan, he doesn’t like it when people have a go at his brother, I made a desperate effort to speak and I said, We’ve only got change. I would have liked my voice to be very loud, way more posh than that café but it was pathetic, almost begging. But coins are still money, aren’t they? They could make the forty-two francs, no problem, they could even have managed a tip, we were good customers, four drinks in one round, that’s not to be sniffed at!

The owner looked disgusted, he looked at the scattered money like he’d never seen anything so dirty, but what could he do to us? He wanted us to pay and we were paying, only those men were watching him, and he felt it was all up to him. So he hoiked up his belt with both hands and then with this outraged expression he said, Come on, come on clear all this away! and waved his hand around
over the table. The men clicked their tongues, it was like a group of good honest people facing a pack of hooligans, and the hooligans were us.

The owner went back to his bar, stooped and heavy-footed, the game was over. The men were sorely disappointed, you could tell, looking pretty stupid now it was all over, now there was nothing else they could wring out of us and, nodding their heads like a bunch of disgruntled little old women, they followed the owner back to the bar, going home to their kennels. One of them asked Isn’t there school today? again and the others started sniggering, why did they hate us so much, I didn’t get it.

Stan gathered up the coins and we put our jackets on, they were soaking and when I put mine on my whole body started shivering, I tensed myself to fight off the cold and wet, I hurt all over. Kevin took his brother’s hand again, like on the beach, like he was the one who had to bring him safely back each time, his big brother had taught him that: taking care of someone.

We left without saying goodbye, but the men had lost interest in us anyway, the owner had bellowed It’s my round! and they were all holding their glasses up to a bottle of white wine, a gift from the gods, as far as they were concerned.