Page 73 of The Flowers of Bay C
‘It’s wonderful,’ Barbara says.
So we do. I slip off my ballet flats and my fluffy socks, Amina kicks her stilettos off. I wonder fleetingly what on earth moved herto wear them when she knew where we were going. Kat unlaces her Docs and throws them aside.
‘Go on, Vi,’ Jodie says.
For once, Violet doesn’t correct her. She shrugs, then meticulously removes her own slippers and socks, placing them carefully in the basket underneath her seat, away from the harmful reach of the damp sand. She draws her frame closer still to the rug, and places her bare feet on it, toes just poking out of the Dressing Gown of Doom and edging off the rug, distaste twisting her mouth as fine grains of sand skitter up towards her.
I curl my own toes into the cold sand and breathe out slowly, remembering the sandy ground in the village I was born in, how I would run barefoot and free, catching my feet on scrubby bushes and falling flat on my face and getting up again grinning as Haki stood laughing his head off at me.
We sit together on this rugged November beach, gazing out at the grey Bristol Channel, the horizon heavy with hazy grey mist under a watery sun. I turn my face up, closing my eyes and feeling the weak rays stroking my eyelids.
‘My mouse is here, I think,’ Barbara says.
No one replies.
‘But I want to feel the sea, as well. I want to feel the water.’
Kat shakes her head. ‘It’s too cold, sweetheart. It wouldn’t do you any good.’
Barbara’s face falls. ‘But I want to feel the sea. Bill and me, we liked to take off our shoes and socks and paddle together, only sometimes he’d jump right in, clothes and all, and pull me in with him.’
‘Maybe just a little bit?’ Jodie says.
Kat frownsat her.
‘How about if we bring the sea to you, Barbara?’ Amina says. ‘Here, give me one of those cups you have, Jodie. I will put the sea into here for you.’
Barbara’s brow crinkles, but then smooths. ‘Yes. Yes. You bring me the sea.’
Amina glides down to the water’s edge, hersalwar kameezglittering in the pale sunlight. She scoops seawater into the polystyrene cup and brings it back to us. ‘Here is the sea.’ She takes one of Barbara’s feet in her hands, brushing away the sand, and dips her finger into the cup and then caresses it over Barbara’s foot, tracing the line of a vein so tenderly Barbara must barely feel it. Then she dips again and strokes more water over Barbara’s foot. Barbara sits transfixed, clasping her hands together.
‘Do the other one.’
Amina’s eyes crinkle up in a smile as she gently lays Barbara’s foot back down and takes the other one in her hand, repeating the process. The sea seems to lap in time with her strokes, the creeping tide weaving in and out, in and out, the sound of it like the sounds I listened to in shells I picked off beaches like this when I was small, when we had come to the UK and I was lost and alone and longed for the great open skies and all the colours again. Listen to the shells, my father said to me, hear the sound of the skies and the water and the great trees waving in the wind. And the sounds were always there.
‘What about some hot chocolate, then?’ Jodie says, unscrewing the lid from the first flask.
‘Good idea,’ I say. ‘How about we just have a little cup, then we go back?’
‘I don’t want to go back yet,’ Barbara says.
‘Nor do I,’ says Jodie. ‘Let’s have this, at least. Let’s sit a while longer.’
‘Okay,’ Isay.
Jodie has the flask open. She wrinkles her nose and sniffs at its contents. ‘What the hell, Kane? What’s he gone and put in here?’
But Kane is back in the minibus, warm and oblivious.
‘What is it?’ I say.
‘It’s bloody brandy,’ Jodie says, then splutters out in laughter.
Kat rubs her nose. ‘We can’t give Barbara that. We can’t have that, really. Not sure IVs and alcohol mix so well.’
Jodie shrugs. ‘I reckon it’d be okay.’
Barbara says, ‘Brandy? Give me a little nip of that stuff!’
