It's a beach. Not even a beach, just an inlet, rough and stony. Beautiful in its smallness, quietness, clinging to land like a child clutching the folds of his mother's skirt. I don't know why it's sad – something to do with solitary slowness, something to do with the end.
I find it hard to empty my mind. Really empty it. How do you stop thoughts rolling into your head? A name, completely random, repeating and repeating: Rachel Carson . . . Rachel Carson. Or a fragment of a discussion two years ago, inconsequential chat on the corner of the street with someone I don't even remember, or something else.
Something buried, resurrected.
Waves falling towards me, like row upon row of children’s faces, staring with sullen anger, simmering with discontent. Where have they come from, these moments whirling in my head? How can I be empty with all these remains?
Remains.
Ammonites are fossilized remains of extinct marine animals.
Fragments of the past. Reminders that something else inhabited this space once. It’s all so fast; it turns so fast, jabbering and stammering, shouting at me; rage, impatience, hurrying me, harrying me – want to stop. Joshua Daley. Emily Ford. Stop that now.
Stop. Breathe. Look. Listen. Don’t cry. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh at me.
Samuel Ledley Dartington, not quite a man, picking a shell from not even a beach, searching for ammonites, looking for links. Sam the Bam, the Dartington Fart. I don't connect any more.
It's Monday. It's morning. I think I should be somewhere. But it’s beautiful here. Poetic. The sun is on the horizon, sea silver beneath.
We revolve around the sun at 66,660 mph, but even so it takes a year.
You see, even fast is slow. But not as slow as me. "You need a year off, Sam." Someone said that. I don’t know who; don’t know why. It’s just too much.
I can’t keep up. I don’t want to do this any more. Jasmin Greengrass. Emily Johnstone.
Here, Sir. There, Sir.
The water’s biting my ankles. There’s a stone in my hand, pretty and sleek, round and heavy. It’s sedimentary, clastic rock. Washed down to the sea by a fast flowing river, the one that conquers us all. I can’t make out its texture.
It’s hard to stop crying when you don’t know what you’re crying for. How do you turn a stopcock when you don’t know where it is?
Jermaine Livingstone. Molly Pullman. Jessica Louise.
Jessica Louise. That’s a nice name, makes me feel warm. I’ll try to remember that.
Jessica. That’s my past, isn’t it?
I’m history. I’ve become that ox-bow lake I talk about year after year, gradually silting up, detaching from the current, becoming a backwater. Mr. Dartington, losing his marbles. Old Fartington, lost in the past.
Lost.
I think I should be somewhere. I think I should be in class – because the bastards need someone to laugh at. Rows of them laughing, and pointing, and laughing, laughing. Laughing at Barmy Sammy.
They won’t listen. No-one ever does.
Water, cutting my knees now. It feels denser when it’s cold, but I know that’s not true. It’s a flight of imagination, another one, something else to try to forget.
It isn’t possible to empty your mind.
I saw a little girl earlier, holding her mother’s hand, wobbling on knees not used to bending. She smiled at me. Blue eyes and wide mouth. An innocent, like me. She didn’t judge. Didn’t find me wanting.
Didn’t laugh.
Perhaps I’ll call her Jessica. Jessica never laughed at me.
Jessica. I remember Jessica.
She’ll be at home. I wonder where that is? I‘ve forgotten. But it’s there, on the fringes. Almost, almost. There’s a bush in the garden, a rhododendron, stinks like hell, but it’s beautiful in spring. Jessica sits beside it, reading her book, snoozing in the sun. I can’t remember where I sit, but it’s probably somewhere nearby. A husband’s sort of spot. Unobtrusive. The only place where it’s quiet, where there’s freedom, the chance to be me.
My ox-bow lake?
My ox-bow lake.
Next time I see it, I might even smile. Something tells me I don’t, much.
Jessica Louise Dartington. I’m sure there’s something important about her. Yes, she’s my wife. I remember that. But something else. I don’t know what it is. Don’t need to. Don’t want to. Don’t want to.
I always knew I would end up here. This maybe beach. First came across it ten years ago, with 3C, bunch of wasters. Even with Evie McKenzie pissing in the rock pools and Josh and Jeremy, the Turner twins, smashing each other’s heads against the shingle, I knew it was going to be a special place.
A calm place.
A place to come to. When you need it.
It’s been in my mind all these years. A little spot of reason in my unreasoned brain. Jess always laughed. Hated it here. "Nothing but fucking stones, Sam. Give me a beach. A real one." So we went to Cleethorpes. She didn’t like that either.
"Oh Sam, it’s so common. I keep expecting to bump into your school kids, having it off in the dunes."
So we went to Brighton. We went to Spain. We went to Nice.
"But Sam . . . "
"But Sam . . ."
It was all the same.
It’s all the time. It’s there. It’s overwhelming.
There’s a crab in a pool over here. Dead. It looks bleached, so white, even under the water. When I press forward, I see my own face on top of it. That looks bleached, too.
Dead, too.
How I feel.
Strange. I came here to die. Sort of knew it and didn’t. Knew the secret but didn’t let myself in on it, in case I chickened out.
I came here to die, but it’s not going to happen. And I feel fucking stupid again.
Everyone’s laughing at me.
People. Behind me now. I don’t know who they are, but I know they’re coming for me. I can tell: the way they’re edging towards me, as though I was going to turn into a fish and swim away. They’re here to stop me. They’re here to help me. Bloody counselors, no doubt.
"We want to work with you, Sam, to come to terms with your bereavement, Sam. We feel your pain, Sam."
Fucking whispery voices. Drawn-down eyebrows, so, so concerned. Hopeful smiles. As if they cared. Really cared.
I hear them coming, those bastards bringing real life.
But I’m not turning round.
My name is Samuel Ledley Dartington and my head is filled with random names and fragments of thought. My name is Sam and I'm lonely. My name is Sam and something has happened.
I know it has.
But I don’t want to know what it is yet.
