Helen's List

THE LIST

Start diet
Get job What? Paid? Voluntary? Local paper
Second-hand car? (later)
Meet new people. Not from university. Clubs? Evening classes?
Rent cottage? How much?
Learn Welsh? Class? Book?
Check trains/buses/taxis?
Leave Graham?


THE WRITING OF THE LIST

Late afternoon. Low tide. Cool. Two men dig for worms at the water’s edge. A man walks his dog. Beyond them, the pirate ship chugs back to harbour with its cargo of fretful tourists. Above the horizon the sky is navy blue but the sun shines fitfully, netting the seagulls in a silver flash; the cottages tucked beneath the cliff a necklace of shining sweets, yellow, pink and blue.

A woman walks along the seafront, stops and leans over the railings gazing out across the bay. She walks to a bench, picks up a polystyrene chip-tray between her finger and thumb and drops it into a litter-bin (Keep Greyling Bay Tidy) and sits down.

She pulls a notebook from her raincoat pocket and scribbles as the sky darkens further and spits of rain speckle the concrete.

She stops, reads, then slowly tears the page out, screws it into a tight ball and tosses it in the bin. She walks away. The bin is full. The paper ball rolls off and drops into the gutter. A seagull hovers, lands, stabs hopefully, flies off.

A boy on his way home from school dribbles it five hundred yards along the pavement until, bored, he kicks it over the railings.

The sun sets. Rain falls. The tide comes in. Goes out. The sun comes up, veiled and weary. A man walks his dog along the beach. The dog stops at something. Sniffs. The man calls. The dog runs on.


Sally Zigmond