We stand on the
pier. I’m holding her. My chin rest on her head. I breath the scent of her shampoo.
I can’t describe the smell, but an image comes to my mind of the cream-coloured
bottle sat on the bathroom shelf of our little holiday lodge.
The seagulls caw, the ocean swells, salt fills the air; the moment is everything it should be.
‘Don’t you just love it?’ she breathes. I feel her chest rise in my arms.
‘The holiday?’ I ask. ‘Yes, everything is perfect.’
‘But what about that?’ she points to the horizon. ‘Doesn’t it just fill you with a sense of excitement and longing?’
I pause. Her body tenses as she awaits my answer.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I say. ‘I bet this place is gorgeous in the summer.’ It felt like the right thing to say. She doesn’t say anything. The silence is heavy.
I kiss her cheek. Her skin is cold.
‘I’ve always thought it was magical,’ she tries again. ‘That unreachable line in the distance where the sky bends down to touch the sea and the two become one.’ She pulls my hand into her waist and holds it there.
‘Magical,’ I say. I feel her smile.
‘Do you mean it? You’re not just agreeing to make me happy?’
‘Yeah, totally. I mean…’
‘What?’ she twists to see my face.
‘Well, technically…’ Too many of my responses begin with these words and too often they lead to an argument. ‘I mean the sky doesn’t actually touch the sea does it?’ Her face tells me everything. I attempt a rescue. ‘I suppose they both just go on and on forever but never actually meet…’ In desperation I add: ‘It really bends your mind, doesn’t it?’
She pulls my hand away and leans on the railing. I have been emptied of her and am cold. I picture the tiny spare bedroom in our little holiday lodge, the bed still made, untouched.
Idiot, I say to myself as a cold wind fills the silence between us.
The hot scent of cooking oil, seasoned with salt and vinegar, wafts past my nose. Food will fix everything, we’re on holiday after all.
‘Hey,’ I touch her shoulder. ‘I don’t know about you but I’m starving, why don’t we…’
‘No, you don’t know about me.’ she sulks.
‘Sweetheart, come on…’
‘To you, this holiday is all about food and sex.’ she says. ‘I wonder sometimes if that’s all I am to you too.’
‘Well not the food part; I’m not into cannibalism!’ The joke evaporates.
‘I just don’t feel like you really understand me.’ She stares at the ground.
‘Because I didn’t agree with that poetic nonsense about the horizon?’
‘It’s not just that, I feel like we’re on two different frequencies, like we’re running parallel to each other but we’re never quite together.’
‘Like the sky and the sea?’ I say sarcastically. She frowns, her lip wobbles, she turns her back.
We lean on the railing side by side. The tide laps at the steel girders stretching beneath us, suspending us between sky and sea.
‘So, fish and chips?’ she mutters at last. ‘You’re starving right? That’s what you fancy?’
I’ve somehow lost my appetite. ‘Dunno. Why don’t we walk around a bit first – see what’s here?’
She shrugs and dawdles behind me as I choose a direction at random.
We leave the sea behind, navigating a maze of cobbled streets. I point out interesting things in the town’s architecture: ancient corner stones engraved with a date and the name of the dignitary who laid it, faded brass brackets that once housed shop bells. She smiles and hums but says nothing. We pass a jewellers and I pull towards the window with obvious interest. She swerves away, looking instead at a gallery window where the story of the coast land is told in vivid blues and greens across many large canvasses.
I sidle up to her. I follow her gaze to a simple little canvas on which is painted three blocks of colour, blue, then white, then turquoise from top to bottom.
‘Which country does that flag belong to?’ I say with a wry smile. She rolls her eyes and tuts but there’s a hint of laughter in it. Seeing her thaw a little, I take a chance. ‘Do you like it?’ I ask.
‘Do you?’ she returns the shot masterfully. I chew over my next words.
‘I like the colours.’ I say, checking her response. ‘Reminds me of the sea.’ A smile breaks in the corner of her mouth, then a giggle.
‘You could be an art critic!’ she laughs.
‘Do you want it?’ I say. Her eyes widen.
‘It’s two hundred and fifty pounds!’
‘So?’ I stifle a choke. ‘If you really like it, I’ll get it for you.’ My heartbeat quickens as I await her response. She waits to give it, I can tell she’s enjoying the moment. She takes out her phone and snaps a quick picture of the painting.
‘I’ll make do with this.’ she grins. ‘You can save your money for something else.’
‘I’ll do you one better.’ I dash into the shop before she can reply. I come out minutes later with the print I’ve bought. It’s only the size of a postcard and cost much less than the original but it’s the same picture and it makes her smile and that makes me smile.
‘Thank you,’ she whispers then kisses my cheek.
We wind up the hill arm in arm. A gust blows her hair across my face; I breathe her in once more. We puff and pant, ascending stone steps cut into the hill. The lighthouse stands at the cliff edge, dwarfing a flat roofed modern restaurant of the same name.
‘What about that place?’ I suggest.
‘Looks cosy.’
We can’t get near the menu displayed in the window. There’s a crowd of about ten huddled round it, their faces yellow in the glow.
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s get inside before this lot.’
‘We haven’t seen the menu?’
‘Let’s just risk it.’
She follows me in. I feel her thaw in the warmth of the low-ceilinged bistro.
‘Table for two?’ The girl in the black shirt with The Lighthouse embroidered in gold letters says.
She weaves us through the crowd to a table at the back. The entire wall is made of enormous glass panels framed in steel. The seaside town spills down the hillside to the harbour under a burning sky. I think I spot the pier where we started our walk.
‘We’ve come quite a distance,’ I remark. The waitress places a glass bottle of water on the table and asks if we would like to order drinks.
‘I’ll just have a cola. Do you have anything with passion fruit?’ I glance across the table.
She smiles. Her hand touches mine, her skin still cool but warming. She makes her choice from the waitress’s suggestions. We watch the sky move slowly.
Our drinks arrive. She sips through a tiny straw.
‘My favourite.’ She smiles and gives my hand a squeeze.
We browse the menu.
‘They have muscles in white wine,’ she says.
‘Yes, I spotted that. I wondered if you might like to try the crab?’
The romance is returning. I can taste the food already, and the wine and her kisses that will come later. I picture the double bed in our little holiday lodge, the book on the dressing table at her side, the glasses case and phone charger on mine.
The sky blushes pink outside; it paints her cheek. A tiny speck flashes in the corner of my eye. I turn just in time to see a distant grey shape with a tiny, yet unmistakable, dorsal fin. It leaps out of the waves.
‘Look!’ I gasp.
‘What?’ She turns. .
We watch in silence, hand in hand. When it happens again, we see it together.
There are two of them playing together just under the horizon, where the sky bends down to touch the sea.
‘It’s magical.’ I whisper.
‘I love you.’ she says.
About the author
Daniel Joseph Day is a writer and musician, living with his wife and
two children in Yorkshire. He has had short fiction published on CafeLit and East of the Web.
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