Summer's End

'Their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, And are at their wits' end. Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, And he bringeth them out of their distresses.'

from the 107th Psalm.

They had spent the whole summer at the cape, and the tiredness was beginning to set in for the children. It was the summer kind of tiredness, that weary tiredness that was an accessory to the heat. The children had had fun. They would remember this summer. They wouldn't deny, when they were old enough to think in the pensive and reflective way that adults do, that it had changed them.

Anastasia was 14, too old to feel anything but a cringe of embarrassment at childish games, though she still played them, sand castles at the beach, and then Marco Poloing at the hotel pool when one day a jelly swarm had all the swimmers evacuated; but she was too young to have the mystery of the adult's conversation revealed to her. They spoke of people she had never heard of, said names she recognised the sounds of, but not the significance; and called to mind abstract concepts like a jellyfish sliding through her hands, stinging for a moment, but then floating out on the sea of her thoughts, a clear, blobbing, gormless form on the current.

Darius, her brother, was 10. He loved his sister, and followed her everywhere, which brought on mixed feelings whenever a certain apprentice lifeguard was on duty. Anastasia had walked the balance between the put on aspect of maturity and the genuineness of philadelphic care and duty. Darius was a spelling B champion. At least he had been until the crown had been retaken by the previous champion. Darius had misspelled palaeoichthyology. Now they walked on the beach among the sea shells, and however many ancient fish hidden in the rocks and sand under their feet. The holiday had been part regular summer get away, part consolation.

Driving home, father was his usual cheerful self. He sang along to the radio and pointed out places of interest to the children along the way. Mother peered out the window. From time to time she would take her sunglasses off and look around to make sure the children were behaving. She would then turn gracefully and fluidly to take in the sun through the window, putting her sunglasses back on, and saying that they needed to stop for fish and chips.

- There was a place your father and I used to eat, just around here.

Her husband looked at her questioningly.

- I think it was closed down by the time we met.

She looked at him as if he hadn't understood her language. Then she said,

- It must have been Sebastian.

- I'd say so dear.

After saying this, she seemed to be thinking more deeply about the same thing, as she took on a look of pained reflection.

- We have to stop.

- It's only a few miles until the next service station, said her husband, concerned at the change in his wife's demeanour.

- It's just up the road. We need to stop. The beach it's the next beach.

- Dear.

- It's the next beach.

He breathed in and out and gave a short nod of acknowledgement, but reluctant agreement, and turned off the road and onto the gravel path that lead to the beach. He parked the car under the tree and they all got out. The children were as puzzled as their father. Their mother walked ahead of them with a dazed purpose, half aware half uncertain. When they came to the water they saw that it wasn't a beach, but a rocky outcrop that was sprayed by the swell.

- Don't go too far, love, Father called out to Mother.

His wife of sixteen years, and the mother of his children, looked over and beyond the rocks, like an albatross surveying from her nest. She looked majestic in the light. Father felt guilty for how much he loved her at that moment. He thought about the selfishness of romanticism, that the beauty in something often came from the subjects sorrow, its deep and mournful sorrow. Something had happened here before he had met his wife, something she had never told him. She began to relate the story of the night her brother died.

- He had been fishing on the rocks all day. Mum and Dad and Aunty Doris, she used to come and stay with us, we had a holiday home around here. She told him to be careful. When the tide comes in there's a small but dangerous groundswell. It's known to come up and take even a seasoned fisherman out to sea. It saturates the rocks which have had time to dry in the sun, causing you to slip, then it drags you out and under. It pulls you down, and if you haven't hit the rocks the first time you'll hit them on the second. Even if you aren't smashed against the rocks, you'll be pulled out from the cape. Out and under, up and down. It dunks and turns you like a washing machine. They tried to save him. The fish and chip shop owner came running out to help. He had heard my screams. He did a silly thing. He knew it was silly, but the guard was at the next beach; and besides, what do you do when you have a second to weigh up the choice between letting a boy drown and trying to save him, even if you know it will kill you as well. He knew what he was doing, maybe he hoped he would be the rare exception to the oceans rule. So he went in. Reginald Barter, the owner of the fish and chip shop, after your uncle, children, whom you've never met, never heard of until now, your uncle Sebastian; and I watched them drown. I watched the waves envelope them. My brother was older than me, but I should have protected him. I don't what I could have done, but I should have done it.

She had spoken so matter of fact, which had surprised the other three.

- How old were you, Mum, asked Anastasia.

- The same age as you.

- And how old are you now, Mummy, asked Darius.

His mother laughed at the innocent question that had brought her mind back to happier thoughts.

- 44, darling.

Anastasia wondered who would be standing here in thirty years time, and what they would reflect upon, and whether they would see the ghosts of the memories they were now sharing, beholden by her mother's story, their own ghosts captured by the ghosts of a memory they hadn't been alive to witness.

Her mother had spoken of the ocean's law. God had set it into motion. He made the ocean not only with its physical features but also with its physical laws. He gave it the essence of ocean, its oceaness. The ancient people who lived here called the ocean itself a God, but it was just performing the character that God had given it to perform; it was just making the laws that God had given it implicit authority to use. And she began to cry for people she had never known, and summer days she had never felt, and times she had never known; and the sea rolled and crashed, surged and swelled, in that spot near where the first ships of officers and convicts had first dropped anchor in this land; in that spot where so many now lay, Mr. Barter and her uncle, and countless others.