Phyllis watches them as they scatter across the dunes. Darius before them, walking backwards, talking, always talking; each time he turns another child slips away until there is only the skinny girl left, standing beside him, straight as a rod. Field trip, Darius calls it; skiving, Phyllis thinks.
She can see them from where she waits, engulfed in the burr of her generator, the smoky fug of her van a bubble of heat. The children clustering together in the hollows of the dunes; smoking, some of them. Kissing. Never thinking that they're overlooked. The things she sees.
Darius stands awkwardly with the skinny girl, staring all around; his reedy voice rises as he calls for them. "Jellybean," he shouts, "Legless!" The thread of his voice tangling round the dunes where the children are all hiding.
Silly old fool, thinks Phyllis, not unkindly. Watching as Darius surrenders and runs down to the sea, squealing like a child, and his pupils peel out from the dunes and run after him, all pretence of work abandoned, their voices rising together into the thin blue air.
Jane Smith
Showing posts with label Author Jane Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Author Jane Smith. Show all posts
Friday, May 22, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Phyllis
To the south of Greyling Bay the mountains smooth and flatten and the beaches are bright with sand. The road cuts away from the water and for a couple of miles the salt marshes stretch, shallow and grassy, and narrow ridge of dunes holding them back from the beach.
Phyllis drives her van out every day and waits in the car park for customers who rarely come.
While she waits, she watches over the marshes and the distant line of dunes, the curve and flow of them so familiar to her now that even when she leaves she can see their low profile, their salted, faded greens: the water beyond them a narrow silver flash and then the sky arching above them felted with bruise-coloured clouds, constantly changing.
She used to be able to spot who was out on the water from the shape of the boats’ cabins, silhouetted against the glittering grey seas. Now she can barely see the boats at all and she stares at each distant blurred dot as it passes and wonders if it’s the Gwiddon. Thinking of Owen’s hands on the wheel, their familiar callouses softened and gone. The hot rasp of his fingers against her skin.
Jane Smith
Phyllis drives her van out every day and waits in the car park for customers who rarely come.
While she waits, she watches over the marshes and the distant line of dunes, the curve and flow of them so familiar to her now that even when she leaves she can see their low profile, their salted, faded greens: the water beyond them a narrow silver flash and then the sky arching above them felted with bruise-coloured clouds, constantly changing.
She used to be able to spot who was out on the water from the shape of the boats’ cabins, silhouetted against the glittering grey seas. Now she can barely see the boats at all and she stares at each distant blurred dot as it passes and wonders if it’s the Gwiddon. Thinking of Owen’s hands on the wheel, their familiar callouses softened and gone. The hot rasp of his fingers against her skin.
Jane Smith
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Under The Pier
Darkness soaks across the bay and settles in swathes over the heaving oily water. Chelsee stands in the seaweed layered beneath the pier, away from the reach of the moon, and listens as they talk.
“Course I don’t love her,” he says, his voice as oily as the waves. “Never did. I was just being kind, you know. A charity job.” A bubble of laughter from them both then the smooth drag of clothes against skin as Chelsee waits in the brine-spiced darkness, water seeping into her shoes, and presses the back of her wrist to her mouth.
Later, when they have finished, when they sit silently in the shelter of the rocks, their cigarettes punctuating the darkness, Chelsee circles behind them and flings a fistful of gravel and sand at the two bright spots of flame. She hears its wet weight shower over them in the dark; the girl’s shriek rising above his barking curses. Chelsee is out in the moonlight now and when he stands he sees her there. Stares at her for seconds as waves break softly beyond them on the shore: then he says to the woman beside him,
“There’s no one there. No one at all.” His eyes locked to Chelsee’s as he speaks, his voice as cold as the sea, watching as she turns and runs away.
Jane Smith
“Course I don’t love her,” he says, his voice as oily as the waves. “Never did. I was just being kind, you know. A charity job.” A bubble of laughter from them both then the smooth drag of clothes against skin as Chelsee waits in the brine-spiced darkness, water seeping into her shoes, and presses the back of her wrist to her mouth.
Later, when they have finished, when they sit silently in the shelter of the rocks, their cigarettes punctuating the darkness, Chelsee circles behind them and flings a fistful of gravel and sand at the two bright spots of flame. She hears its wet weight shower over them in the dark; the girl’s shriek rising above his barking curses. Chelsee is out in the moonlight now and when he stands he sees her there. Stares at her for seconds as waves break softly beyond them on the shore: then he says to the woman beside him,
“There’s no one there. No one at all.” His eyes locked to Chelsee’s as he speaks, his voice as cold as the sea, watching as she turns and runs away.
Jane Smith
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Ann
Ann stands on the hollow rolling cobbles of the beach and watches the Gwiddon as she sails into the soft curve of the harbour. From this distance there is nothing but the angle of the cabin roof, the push of her through the waves to distinguish her from the other vessels on the sea but, after decades of watching, Ann knows her husband’s boat. She would know her even without looking: the ratchety sound of the engine, the stuttering exhaust; the Gwiddon needs money they don’t have.
They’d be better off if they scrapped the thing: the price of fuel, the endless repairs; it brings in no money. But Owen shouts whenever she suggests it; whenever there’s a bill to pay.
She can hear him shouting now. His voice rolls out across the heaving waves, the wind whipping the words away, leaving just the sound. And the Gwiddon: silent suddenly, no longer pushing on across the grey water but drifting, the tide dragging her swiftly back out into the bay as a burst of black smoke surges from her exhaust and Owen’s voice rises, dark across the swilling seas.
Ann imagines the tourists on the slatted bench seats which line the sides of the boat. Huddling against the wind, gripping their children’s arms as the engine fails. The splutter and fall of the engine and then nothing but the slap of the waves; the call of the gulls above as Owen, his temper freed, whacks his wrench against the engine.
Ten seconds, twenty: then the engine catches with a bang and the Gwiddon lurches forward again, cutting hard against the waves. Ann hears, from all this distance away, a ripple of voices, cheering; the belch and pull of the engine.
If she leaves now she’ll be at the harbourside to meet them when they get in, as she always is. To take the passengers’ money before they leave, to show them how to climb the algaed ladders which line the vertical harbour walls. To drag Owen out from the cabin where he waits for the last of them to leave. He’ll still be swearing.
Ann turns. Stares out across the ocean, and up into the sky. Watches a vapour-trail from a plane thin and disperse and imagines herself leaving here as easily, melting away into nothing against the dove-grey sky.
Jane Smith
They’d be better off if they scrapped the thing: the price of fuel, the endless repairs; it brings in no money. But Owen shouts whenever she suggests it; whenever there’s a bill to pay.
She can hear him shouting now. His voice rolls out across the heaving waves, the wind whipping the words away, leaving just the sound. And the Gwiddon: silent suddenly, no longer pushing on across the grey water but drifting, the tide dragging her swiftly back out into the bay as a burst of black smoke surges from her exhaust and Owen’s voice rises, dark across the swilling seas.
Ann imagines the tourists on the slatted bench seats which line the sides of the boat. Huddling against the wind, gripping their children’s arms as the engine fails. The splutter and fall of the engine and then nothing but the slap of the waves; the call of the gulls above as Owen, his temper freed, whacks his wrench against the engine.
Ten seconds, twenty: then the engine catches with a bang and the Gwiddon lurches forward again, cutting hard against the waves. Ann hears, from all this distance away, a ripple of voices, cheering; the belch and pull of the engine.
If she leaves now she’ll be at the harbourside to meet them when they get in, as she always is. To take the passengers’ money before they leave, to show them how to climb the algaed ladders which line the vertical harbour walls. To drag Owen out from the cabin where he waits for the last of them to leave. He’ll still be swearing.
Ann turns. Stares out across the ocean, and up into the sky. Watches a vapour-trail from a plane thin and disperse and imagines herself leaving here as easily, melting away into nothing against the dove-grey sky.
Jane Smith
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Ruth And Judy
As the day tips towards twilight the lights flicker on along the seafront, garlanding the bay; tracing the stretch of the pier across the dark heaving water.
The daytime crowds disperse. In an hour or two the night-time crowds will emerge, all fancy clothes and swagger but now, this pause between day and night, is Ruth’s time. As the light leaches from the sky the tides seem to hesitate; even the gulls are subdued. Just the quiet pad of a runner passing by and a solitary walker letting his dog chase the waves as they retreat. The sky flushing gold and soft, bruised mauve above the reach of the sea. And Doug, out on the beach still, stumbling across the cobbles. His worst time of day.
Ruth clips on Judy’s lead and grabs the bag and soon she is out beneath the softening sky and Doug when he sees her stops his frantic lurching, his yelling at the promise of stars and he is quiet again, so quiet that just for a moment Ruth thinks that today might be one of his good days. She lets Judy off her lead and watches as the little dog runs stiffly up to Doug, her stump of a tail wagging frantically, even after all these years.
Ruth has had Judy for longer now than Doug ever did: has fed her and walked her and watched her transform through the years from a swift little terrier to this lumpen, arthritic thing yet everyone still calls Judy Doug’s dog.
Doug walks towards Ruth, smiling; takes the bag from her hand without a word then hurries to the rock pools, Judy beside him. He sits with the little white dog and eats the sandwiches, the apple. The piece of cake that Ruth wrapped so carefully he flings to the few remaining gulls and soon the air around him is full of white flashing wings and as his voice rises with them through the cooling darkened air Ruth remembers when he laughed with her on this same beach, and held her hand and smiled. The way his gaze had focused beyond her, telling her before he spoke that it was over. His dog left behind with her like some sort of consolation prize.
When the food is finished and the gulls have dispersed Judy noses her way back across the stones and stands by Ruth’s side, ready to go home.
“Same time tomorrow, then, Doug?” Ruth says but he is too busy pointing out to sea to reply; too busy watching the waves washing his footsteps off the beach, reaching for him still. Searching for Whitey in the dimming, empty sky.
Jane Smith
The daytime crowds disperse. In an hour or two the night-time crowds will emerge, all fancy clothes and swagger but now, this pause between day and night, is Ruth’s time. As the light leaches from the sky the tides seem to hesitate; even the gulls are subdued. Just the quiet pad of a runner passing by and a solitary walker letting his dog chase the waves as they retreat. The sky flushing gold and soft, bruised mauve above the reach of the sea. And Doug, out on the beach still, stumbling across the cobbles. His worst time of day.
Ruth clips on Judy’s lead and grabs the bag and soon she is out beneath the softening sky and Doug when he sees her stops his frantic lurching, his yelling at the promise of stars and he is quiet again, so quiet that just for a moment Ruth thinks that today might be one of his good days. She lets Judy off her lead and watches as the little dog runs stiffly up to Doug, her stump of a tail wagging frantically, even after all these years.
Ruth has had Judy for longer now than Doug ever did: has fed her and walked her and watched her transform through the years from a swift little terrier to this lumpen, arthritic thing yet everyone still calls Judy Doug’s dog.
Doug walks towards Ruth, smiling; takes the bag from her hand without a word then hurries to the rock pools, Judy beside him. He sits with the little white dog and eats the sandwiches, the apple. The piece of cake that Ruth wrapped so carefully he flings to the few remaining gulls and soon the air around him is full of white flashing wings and as his voice rises with them through the cooling darkened air Ruth remembers when he laughed with her on this same beach, and held her hand and smiled. The way his gaze had focused beyond her, telling her before he spoke that it was over. His dog left behind with her like some sort of consolation prize.
When the food is finished and the gulls have dispersed Judy noses her way back across the stones and stands by Ruth’s side, ready to go home.
“Same time tomorrow, then, Doug?” Ruth says but he is too busy pointing out to sea to reply; too busy watching the waves washing his footsteps off the beach, reaching for him still. Searching for Whitey in the dimming, empty sky.
Jane Smith
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Greyling Bay
A seaside town with a harbour full of fishing boats and tourists, where you can pay to sail across the bay and imagine yourself pulling your living from the lapping waves as the sky soars blue above you. But think about fishing in winter, when you set off hours before dawn; when the lines freeze to your hands as you heave them in, and the waves lurch above you with every turn of the wind.
Where the mountains rise high behind the town and the only road out is sometimes blocked by a sudden fall of snow, a slow slide of mud-choked rocks; a tree, falling away from the sweeps of pine which cloak the mountains' lower reaches, beaten by the relentless slicing of the wind.
There used to be a hospital in the town which people came to from all over: it overlooked the promenade and all day long the patients turned their faces westwards, to the sea, watched the silt-green waves rolling across the cobbled beach, and slowly they improved. Now the hospital buildings are raggedy flats and residents come and go as regularly as the waves on the beach.
There's a university a little inland, quietly failing; to the north, around the peak of the bay, a caravan park. The students, the holidaymakers, the tourists—these transitory people wash through the town, the numbers swelling and retreating like a tide. The real inhabitants—the fishermen and shopkeepers and cleaners, the waitresses and teachers: the permanent inhabitants, the people who live here, with nowhere else to go—what do they do with their days? What do they think? And why do they stay?
Jane Smith
Where the mountains rise high behind the town and the only road out is sometimes blocked by a sudden fall of snow, a slow slide of mud-choked rocks; a tree, falling away from the sweeps of pine which cloak the mountains' lower reaches, beaten by the relentless slicing of the wind.
There used to be a hospital in the town which people came to from all over: it overlooked the promenade and all day long the patients turned their faces westwards, to the sea, watched the silt-green waves rolling across the cobbled beach, and slowly they improved. Now the hospital buildings are raggedy flats and residents come and go as regularly as the waves on the beach.
There's a university a little inland, quietly failing; to the north, around the peak of the bay, a caravan park. The students, the holidaymakers, the tourists—these transitory people wash through the town, the numbers swelling and retreating like a tide. The real inhabitants—the fishermen and shopkeepers and cleaners, the waitresses and teachers: the permanent inhabitants, the people who live here, with nowhere else to go—what do they do with their days? What do they think? And why do they stay?
Jane Smith
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