Chapter 23 - The Field
A short story by James Garside
“I remember when this field were nowt but car parks,” I said in my put on northern accent.
She smiled in her odd, foreign way and I knew that I’d made no sense to her whatsoever.
We are in a car park. What are you talking about? I could see this written on her face but said nothing as she kept her arm looped in mine.
We walked slowly, way behind Petra and Andy.
England was missing when I tried to picture it, which was less often than I’d expected. When I did think of home I’d get stuck on the words blade grass until all I could see was a field of razors.
I held on to the image of my friend seeing me off in London before I jumped the tube to the airport. He shook my hand and told me to enjoy my plane crash.
Petra called out to us and told us to keep up with them.
Rome had caught my imagination, falling to pieces in elegant death throes. You could stand still for decades before you noticed. It made me think of all that Buddhist stuff about water breaking rocks and journeys beginning with a single step.
I put one foot in front of the other.
Astonishing heat, even though it was night. The path we were on led out to the beach like an arrow that had been shot at the sea.
Tourists and locals swarmed around us, in and out of food stalls and neon lit bars, carrying sand with them on wet feet. Other people just occupied the steps and watched everybody else go by.
I ordered a drink in Italian. My choice was limited by the words I knew and a stubborn refusal to seem ignorant in front of my friends.
The coke unsettled my stomach. Too sour to be the real thing, but the glass was emblazoned with a red and black logo and the chalked price list vouched for its authenticity.
Andy complained about something but we were so used to it by now that we just let it wash over us. It was our last night here and we were damned if we were going to let him spoil it.
I looked up at the sky, hung too low above us, and couldn’t see the stars for all the fake colours and noise we were making.
On the dark beach there was a great stillness. I was surprised how empty it was considering the number of people huddled around the late bars and tourist traps.
The sand was grey at this hour and three of us ran around like children playing in ashes.
Andy stood to one side and waited for something else to happen. He looked so pissed off that Petra grabbed him and dragged him away to walk along the beach.
Alone with the girl, we sat on a wet towel together. We’d barely spoken since the car, but now the silence opened up between us like a blank space in which we had to plant words.
What did we talk about? I don’t remember much. We were glad the others had gone for a walk. There was so little time left that we didn’t know how to spend it. We tried to relax into the moment.
The sea was black. That was the strangest thing for me. Because in all my dreams I never knew I’d be on a beach moonlit and watching the water furrow in dark waves as stars pierced the quiet sky.
A glittersmudge of fireworks from across the bay broke the deeper silence.
I noticed a dripping wet dog stood where the sand became mud as waves crashed down to claim a little more of the beach. The dog edged closer to the sea but whenever the waves broke it ran back down the beach in fright.
We burst out laughing and in this laughter I found her — the girl that I could talk to.
We huddled closer and she let me put my head against her warm belly, lying wet across her legs.
As we stared out at the black water moving, words flowed back and forth and flowered between us, growing into deep kisses.
We agreed that maybe what Allen had said to us about angels was true.
We made bad jokes about Romeo and Juliet being amateurs and picked out The Plough from among the deeply rooted stars.