“I saw something on the television.”
“It’s been three days now.”
“That’s bad.”
“Real bad, yeah. So it’s not going to be a good result. But we’re walking the shore for her. There’s a lot of ground to cover.”
“I don’t think you’ll find her.”
I probably said that too quickly, but I didn’t care. He was making me sad – this man who always kept looking – and I wanted him to go away.
Hague inclined his head. Looked at me curiously.
“You don’t?”
“You know what the sea’s like around here. It happens, and it’s awful, but I think that she’s probably gone.”
“Well, maybe.” He frowned. “Maybe not. People have a way of turning up in all sorts of different places. Don’t they?”
“Do they?”
He looked at me.
“Sometimes they do. They sure do.”
I heard the fluttering of the helicopter alter slightly as it moved away. The sea, behind the police, was making steady progress up towards us. For a long moment, Hague and I stared at each other. And then the spell was broken. He came back to life.
“Well, I guess we’d better get moving. You keep your eyes open, Jonathan. Let us know if you see anything.”
I nodded. As they headed off, I watched him talking into his radio, and I knew that he suspected. Something, at least. Something that was too alien to make any real sense to him.
That’s the way it is though.
In my own way, I’m as incomprehensible as God.
Eight months ago, when I volunteered to walk with Hague, it had been out of frustration. Every day, I’d watched him trailing alone along the shore, knowing the whole time he would never find the little boy. I’d wanted to make him understand. Or maybe, more simply, I’d wanted him to stop.
At some point, as we walked, I tried to explain the truth of the matter. The little boy is gone, I told him. Because that is what the sea does. It only takes; it never gives back.
We stopped walking.
“Not necessarily.” He looked at me strangely for a moment, then shifted gears as empathy took over. “I mean, I know we never found Anna – but we looked. We walked then. I- ”
I missed the rest of what he said. Memories washed the words under. Her soft, brown arms, clear beads of water clinging to her skin. The tangled dreadlocks of her wet hair. The coconut scent of her suntan cream. And then the look of fear on her face as the sea’s strong fingers circled our waists and pulled.
Swim.
Jonathan – swim.
Her screams, after we were separated, the sound of them slashed apart by the waves.
The last I heard of her.
I interrupted him.
“It would be wrong, wouldn’t it?”
“What?”
“It would be wrong. If it got to choose.”
“Jonathan…”
I should probably have noticed how uncomfortable Hague had become, but I didn’t, or else I didn’t care.
“No,” I told him. “It wouldn’t be fair. If it took Anna and didn’t give her back, for no reason at all, why would it be different for anyone else? Why should it?”
He stared at me, helpless, not knowing what to say, then gestured at the sea: a motion that didn’t need accompanying words. It’s chance, he meant. Chaos. It must make sense on some unfathomable level… but we can never understand. All we can do in the face of it is walk the shore.
Take whatever scraps are thrown our way.
That’s what he meant.
I shook my head in disgust and walked away from him, not looking back. But I felt his gaze following me as I left. I don’t know what he thought.
I do know that, after our conversation, Hague stopped looking for the little boy.
Later – after I’d put the stinking rucksack at the far end of the cellar – I went outside again and made my way down the beach. The police and helicopter were gone now, and the sea was retreating. I spent some time following it down, stepping on its angry edges. If I was swimming in it then it could and would take me. But the beach and the coast were mine. It needed to know that.
“Fuck you.”
I kneeled down and flicked at the water with my fingers.
And I told it that it couldn’t choose people and single them out. I wouldn’t let it – and I didn’t care if it didn’t understand, or if it was angry about that. Here, on the cusp of incomprehensibility, we would meet each other halfway, or not at all. It could decide what it took; I would decide what it gave. And if it wouldn’t give me Anna back then it wouldn’t give anyone anything.
“Fuck you if you think she’s going home.”
As I stood up and walked away, I sensed a groan in the faraway water behind me, a melancholy whale-song of sound. The scent of coconut oil followed me as I made my way back up the beach. But there was no contempt in it this time. I understood deep down that it was simply giving me all that was left of her now.
I didn’t acknowledge it – just kept walking.
The sea was giving me all it could. And perhaps, in its own vast, alien way, it was unable to understand why that wasn’t enough.
STARDUST by Phil Lovesey
SOMEONE – IT DOESN’T matter who – once told me we’re all stardust. Just strange organic composites of the carbon atom; walking, talking, loving, killing. Humanity reduced to powder. Perhaps it was the dull old spud who attempted to teach me science; maybe the warbled lyrics from a prog-rocker; or a TV presenter doing his best to enliven some sort of astrophysics documentary – like I say, it doesn’t matter who – but the words, the concept of it, have remained with me since. Brought me comfort over the years at times, helped me sometimes to zoom out from the chaos, the injustices of life, see myself as merely a cosmic speck at the mercy of the universe and its frequent bitter ironies.
Pretty existential for a petty thief, I guess.
Then again, I have had the occasional six or nine months locked away with my thoughts and battered prison library paperbacks to think some of this stuff through. A not-very-good petty thief, in truth.
Anyway, back to the stardust and ironies…
I’d just finished a short stretch at one of Her Majesty’s less-than-salubrious hotels for the wretched, and had found myself fetched up in front of my new front door as sorted by the dear folk from the Probation Service. A good system this, for the serial offender like myself. Get given nine months, keep the old nose clean for five of them; smile, make the right noises, tell the panel how much you’ve changed, how nights wracked with remorse have brought about a life-changing conversion to go straight… and hey presto, they’re sorting you new digs, clothes and some cash in your pocket to tide you over.
Best bits of thieving I’ve ever done… and all from the taxpayer. Shame on me, you might say. But seriously, in my shoes, you’d do the same. Your dust ain’t no different from my dust.
It’s a horrible door, in a horrible block of flats, in a horrible part of town. The probation guy tries to sell it to me as an “apartment”, as if by his Americanizing the shabby place I’ll not notice the damp, the cracked windowpanes, worn furniture, and bare bulbs. But I smile and thank him anyway. After all, I tell him, home’s what you make it. Or what you take from others. He doesn’t react to the quip. He’s young, this one – would probably refer to himself as a “rookie” – and simply wants to go. I let him, knowing there’s no banter to be had. He’s too desperate to “check in for a burger and fries” somewhere, the perfect twenty-something product of a life made bland by corporate domination.
Like I said, I’ve had a lot of time to read this sort of stuff.
Now, there’s a drill for this sort of place. It goes like this – let them come to you. They always will. For where there’s one shabby Probation Service flat in a block, there’ll be others. And the occupants will soon know when the new bloke hitches up. And then comes sniffing, scratching, seeing what’s to be had. It’s just how it is – I’ve done it myself.