Drift

Friday brought the third named storm of the month, and in its wake, another walk to comb the strandline. Little coal today, a half-sack at best. A few bricks resting on slimy cushions of seaweed, between tiny glittering black fists scattered along the shifting three-mile path to the Creek.

Razor clams crunched underfoot among the shattered debris of the seabed as he followed the winding tidemark, ripples in the sand still and soft as the ice cream being pulled onto fresh donuts back in town.

Wind fought the long grass all through the marsh overhead, animating it like a sea of tissue paper. A dog’s bark carried to him from he couldn’t tell where.

He moved between black lumps. Some he knew from striation that they were driftwood, and would dissolve under their own weight.

Some were charcoal, its telltale grit still crumbling under the slightest pressure from finger or thumb. Some were mere black stones with a rugged smoothness that leant a sheen from a certain distance; he'd need to weigh them in his hand before they could be safely discounted.

Then there were the great rocks of mud that had tricked him more than once into thinking he’d struck gold with a block of ambergris, bright oily scars along their surface producing an hallucination of undigested squid beaks, half-passed through a sperm whale bussing past the Wash.

But very little coal today. Hardly worth collecting, even. Enough to keep the fire running for maybe an hour. Still, now he could spare carriers to clear the rubbish rather than waste a walk. He collected the sand-pocked plastic spades, papery crisp packets, and old beer cans worn into rusty graters over slow years of degradation.

God knows he’d thrown a few in himself, back when ‘the environment’ was a half-arsed idea better left to beardy activists who should have been out at work. He’d never been messy, say, or completely mindless like those prats you see now chucking burger wrappers out their car window. Unless you counted the fag butts, apple cores, banana skins, and the odd bottle of his boy’s piss he’d ejected when they happened to be caught out on the motorway with no hard shoulder.

His boy didn’t approve of the sea coal, for reasons he could never quite fathom. You’re raising ghosts of the carboniferous…you’re driving climate change. Easy to say when you’ve got modern plumbing and your house isn’t battered by a North Sea wind eleven months in twelve.

Sand carried towards him in fine, snaking channels. He tightened his coat, a padded black parka with an inner fleece, did up the buttons around his neck. A glimmer of black caught the sun off ahead, on the surface of something half buried in long branches of egg wrack. Probably nothing, he thought. That was how it always went. Another flash of black just beyond it. And another. A whole group clustered together in the same patch of seaweed. Probably nothing, but he walked on up to it, since he was aiming for the Point anyway. As he tramped up the verge, the shapes resolved themselves into a bed of bulbous seaweed strung over a crow, its withered bulk draped in the weed like a fringe, empty sockets rimed with sand. The dry feathers were dull and could no longer cover the frame. Next to it lay a cuttlefish, its honeycomb body pocked with bullet wound hollows.

When he looked back, the peaks of Butlins pierced the sky like the long tips of a Mr Whippy, the shining white canvas of its Big Tops still dominating the skyline, obnoxious even in obsolescence. Nothing and no one was on the beach for a mile. He hadn’t seen anyone since that detectorist, sweeping the sand for the faintest shriek of treasure. And his girlfriend, half keeping a distance so she could pretend not to be with him.

The sun dropped behind a cloud, spilling streaks of light over the marshes of the headland, the sky marbling in a thousand puddles left by the tide.

One time, he won’t come back. She had said. One time, you won’t come back. Hard to miss it, the yearning in her tone. More with every passing year. Always pushing your luck, she said.

Would have been a good way to go, if it weren’t for the struggling for seconds, minutes as you cling to that last breath, escaping from between your lips, giving you just long enough to remember everything you still haven’t done, bringing into focus everything you should have said to her to make up for your one long broken promise of a marriage.

But it would have been something for the guys at work.

The last one who worked here, you didn’t hear what happened to him? Bad luck it is, to invoke that name. They didn’t tell you at Signalling School? Suffice it to say you won’t want to hang around long. Oh, you really want to know? Alright then…

Well, there was this Signalman. Not always the friendliest but he was competent. Prone to a bout of melancholy he was, so not always the best place for his sort. Only so much time a man wants to himself.

He loved walking the beaches all through the year, picking up bits of this and that. One day he goes out longer than usual, and there’s this storm coming in. His wife, she knows what he’s like. She starts to worry but she dunt want to cause a fuss, see, cause his moods when she kicks up a fuss…well. Anyway, he’s out still and this storm’s battering the house and the wind’s howling down the chimney and she’s thinking she’ll have to call the coastguard soon, but the moment she does he’ll be in through that door in a stink. So, she waits. And she waits. Eventually she’s asleep on the sofa, phone in her hand, two bottles of wine deep and her stone sober.

When she wakes, the place is dead silent. Till there’s a knock at the door. Loud knocking, near constant, like they’ve been there all night waiting to be let in. She gets up in a fog and rushes to the door, and who’s there? No one, that’s who. She gets the coastguard out looking for him, but there’s no sign. They have reports out and police combing the beaches and asking anyone who was there, which dunt take long, and no one’s saying anything. She dunt even remember the last words he said to her. Cause he hadn’t said a word for three days the morning he left.

I told him more’n once, those beaches they ent safe to be walking after dark, or even in broad daylight. The creeks are always changing, and it’s only too easy to get turned around with nothing but the coming tide and to guide you over the mudflats back to dry land.

The story would have been something to part-bury the truth at least, which went more like

- Here lies Pete Boldrewood. Could have done. Would have done. Should have done. Didn’t.-

He’d filled half a carrier bag with sea coal, now that he was close to the Point. Never anything past here but for the occasional lost buoy, shattered breezeblock, splinters of terracotta. Bright blue fishing rope tied to a broken bucket or around a lone wellie. A boat peeled back to rotting beams, pressure cooked by the ocean, iron skeleton barely distinguishable from the mulch of oak.

The creeks cut through the mudflats up ahead, still dotted with curlew, lark and plover. He should think about heading back, he knew, before the light turned with the tide. Out beyond the shallows, the windfarm stood regimented as soldiers among the waves. Standing somewhere over the original settlement that gave the ‘new’ town its name sometime in the Dark Ages.

Still, his boots carried him on. He followed the shoreline toward the tip of the headland, where the mud opened up before him, the higher paths crossing its surface like swollen veins. The trail of beacons ran out from the old channel, their flaking frames cold and empty. The channel itself, once a main port of East Anglia, was now weak and shallow, hardly deep enough for a kayak. The boy had been out there trying to ride that bodyboard more than once, the one they’d found. Bobbing stupidly on half a ripple, soaked through and freezing in his pants and t-shirt.

Out ahead a mass lay still, a way back from the water’s edge. His boot prints began to deepen, losing all definition. The blurring around the mass drew slowly into focus. A grey seal. How had he missed it? As he came nearer, it shifted - a feeble, struggling movement. Its big black spots spilled out in fronds. Not yet full grown, though not far off. He scanned the water for Mother.

Dry sand crusted its belly and up its sides, over the blubbery sand-angel that it was now slowly sinking into.

The pup let out a bark, which came more as a whine.

Then a real bark, much stronger, this time from behind. Ranging down the path from the reserve – some great, bounding thing. No owner to be seen.

Best be quick, then. He took out his phone and typed in the number for the Sanctuary. Nothing. He tried again, watching the call load…waiting for it to ring, until it flashed and beeped. No connection. A flock of Canada geese flew overhead, their cackles mocking him on their descent into the marsh.

A man appeared waving a bright yellow stick and shouting for Jackson or Jonty or Joseph. It was hard to make out over the wind and the barking. His dog turned at the foot of the ridge and galloped through the creek, scattering the feeding birds.

The pup began to moan and shifted again, its black eyes half shut with the exertion of it.

He tried the number again… Nothing… Still nothing… Christ.

Jonas!

The dog leapt over the bank, galloping straight for them, flaxen and drooling.

Might have been nice on another day but here he was readying himself, scanning his memory for everything he knew about fighting dogs. It wasn’t a lot. Don’t hit the ribs in case you kill it, Temple of Doom style. Kal-ee-maaa. Ribs - finger jabs only. Ground yourself, take a defensive stance. Don’t get bit. Don’t let it floor you in case it rips out your throat. Good, that’s it then.

Jonas!

The dog hurtled at him. He swung and missed, immediately overbalanced, and pitched onto his shoulder, sending up a spray of grit into his mouth and eyes.

JONAS!

The dog ran past him to stand, alternately growling and yapping at the pup.

Jonas!

The owner was still shambling down the ridge from the nature reserve.

Jonas!

You’re not supposed to be here with a dog.

His fist clenched and unclenched like a beating heart as he went to stand between the pup and the dog, holding out his palm like a lollipop man. Stop. Jonas leapt and bounced, circling man and seal like he was made of springs.

Who says?

The owner had finally caught up to them. Barbour jacket, hunter wellies and a Mercedes cap.

Who says. It’s a RESERVE.

Pete gestured back at the creek, the expanse of flats now dispersed empty, the ridges of the saltmarsh overlooking them.

You don’t read signs?

What signs?

Or carry a lead? Dog owners think you own the place. Those birds have come from South Africa.

He gestured vaguely at nothing.

… They can’t have come that far.

In truth he wasn’t sure where they had come from, or exactly what they were. Still, it was a haven for migratory birds so there was a good chance they’d come a bloody long way.

Jonas’ new favourite game was harrying the pup without the red-faced man being able to reach him. It was a game he was very good at, that kept getting easier every time the man almost fell and had to spend a moment regaining his footing. Until his owner caught him by the collar and dragged him back.

Do you need a hand? He asked, reattaching the lead.

Yeah – can you take that dog and…just….

He put the phone to his ear.

Yeah, oh hi. I’m down on the beach just off the Point.

He relayed the situation to no one on the end of the phone.

The owner watched in disbelief before eventually shuffling off back down the beach, looking sheepish or disgusted, he couldn’t tell. Pete glared hard into his back all the way regardless, still babbling into the receiver to be sure he’d sold it.

Too right.

But for the sand crust and some scarring along its mouth and right flipper, there was nothing on the seal’s body to suggest injury. The breeze and the haze of cloud cover were at least keeping it cool.

He drained what was left in his water bottle along the seal’s head and back. With the dog owner almost rounding the curve of the headland, and the phone dependably failing, he rested one freezing hand on the pup.

He headed up to the path that would take him through the reserve, turning back every fifty yards on the lookout for more dogs, crows, or worried mother seals. He climbed the stairs into the spiralling hedgerows of sea buckthorn – endless miles of it forming a vicious barrier around the reserve. Nature’s razor wire. As a volunteer, he’d spent months every year burning it to stop the spread from taking over every other living thing in the area.

As he crossed the footbridge, perfecting his chastisement of the dog owner, mumbling to himself, and occasionally arching an eyebrow in disbelief, he saw the visitor centre was shut. The car park was almost empty. He made his way along the decking towards the ranger’s hut and cleared his throat loudly on approach. No telling what these people might get up to in an empty hut with no visitors but a party of sandpipers all day.

He knocked. There was a number to call on a placard by the door. Frowning, he knocked again.

Bill!

Something flitted past him in a slash of autumn and teal. Swift or swallow, he’d been told a thousand times and still couldn’t tell the difference. He was inhaling for a louder call and reaching to knock again when the door screeched open as if to a bomb shelter.

A man stepped out in green overalls and matching hat. As he looked up, his face darkened and he looked a shade more tired than before.

Oh, err, Bill.

Pete.

There’s a beached seal pup, down by-

He pointed impotently.

Yeah, we just got a call. I’m heading down to wait with it – Sanctuary are on their way. You can come with me.

He followed Bill between sprawling brambles, onto the path on the Eastern face. He talked on about the pup for a few minutes, with Bill groaning or grunting at intervals. When he mentioned the dog, things got quieter. They walked in silence a while.

Eventually they rounded the brow of the hill, and from their overlook could see the pup, surrounded by a couple of quad bikes and a sky blue pickup. A group dressed like landscape gardeners had gathered around it like mourners.

Bill stopped.

We also had a call from a member of the public who said a man in a black parka jacket had behaved in a threatening and intimidating way towards them.

…Eh?

That you were out illegally collecting sea coal, and that when confronted, you became verbally aggressive.

That’s a stretch. Bill, how long have I-?

Don’t push it.

So what, you a copper now?

It’s a warning, is all. And I’m gonna need to see inside your bag.

What do you mean gonna need to.

What’s in the bag.

He wrung his hands.

What do you mean what’s in the bag.

…I need you to open it.

Good luck with that. What do you think - I’ve come to blow up Croft Marsh, like?

No, I don’t think that. As I said, I think you’ve got a bag full of sea coal, the unlawful removal of which, contributes to growing coastal erosion and the destruction of habitats in our increasingly fragile local ecosystem. He held out his arm for the bag.

…Wow. Take you long to memorise that?

Bill said nothing. His arm remained.

Fine. I’ve got nothing to hide. He dropped the bag from his shoulder and had almost put it in Bill’s hand when his phone rang.

He took it out and saw the name. His Boy.

Oh, now he calls.

He held it up and pointed at it, shrugged helplessly. Bill stared at him, lost somewhere between rage, pity and relief. With a last look at the seal and the rescue crew, Pete saw the Prat in the Cap now in amongst them, waving his yellow stick about, his Jonas mysteriously absent.

Have to get this, he mouthed, before turning and skipping on down the path, his phone in one hand, bag the other.

Good evening lad, how the devil are ya?