Sea Change Read Free

happened. Mum and Dad..."
    "Yeah, I know.
They told you. That's why I got invited up here all of a sudden,
isn't it, get me out of myself a bit."
    Laura looked
hurt. "Not just that, John, do you think I've not wanted to have
you up here before now? Just to have you here?"
    John shrugged.
"It's been over a year." His hurt was in his voice, he'd been
saving this up for a long time. He'd always been so close to Laura
when she'd been at home, stuck up for her when she went to live
with Steve, argued the toss with mum and dad to defend her on
anything, everything.
    "Yeah," Laura
said. "It has been a year, don't I just know it." All of John's
indignation crumbled and he felt sorry and stupid, and wishing that
you could unsay words that had been said.
    "I'm sorry," he
said. "I was being selfish."
    Laura turned
away, brushed a hand across her face as if to move her hair from
her eyes, although John knew that it was not. "S'okay," she
said.
    "No, it's not,"
John said. "I wasn't thinking. Stupid."
    "It's not that
I didn't want you to come up. I've been looking forward to this for
so long. But I didn't want you to be here if I wasn't...if I
hadn't...I needed time. To get myself back. To be me again. After
Steve. I wouldn't have wanted you to see me like that, I wasn't
good to be around. I'm sorry love, but that's taken a year. A year
out of my life."
    "I'm sorry
too," John said again, only this time he wasn't talking about what
he had said, he was talking about everything and both of them and
the way the world worked and always would.
    #
    By the time
John left the house the sun had come out. Little stray fingers of
fog still clung to the streets and sneaked around corners, but they
were fighting a losing battle. He stood outside the cottage for a
moment, and then decided to head off up the hill, get onto the
cliffs above the village, have a look around, and then work his way
down to the harbour. From there he could walk round the
harbourside, and find the road that led back up to Laura's
shop.
    The road was
steep, and soon John was forced to slow down by the burning feeling
in his legs, and the panting of his breath. If nothing else, he
thought, I'm going to be fit by the end of my time here. As he
thought the words he felt a wash of sadness, then muttered crossly
to himself. It was his first full day here, he was here for weeks,
and he wasn't going to spoil it by thinking about the day when he
would have to go back home again.
    He trudged up
the road, and the houses spread out, the jumbled bustle of the
lower village being replaced by space: house then garden then house
then small field, another house, then nothing but fields. John
found a narrow path that led off towards the cliffs.
    The path led up
to the cliff top, and then ran alongside it, a safe couple of
metres away from the edge. John ventured off it once, stepping
cautiously to within a couple of paces from the edge, but the grass
gave way to the yellow of freshly crumbling rock, and the beach
below was covered with loose lumps of cliff, so he returned to the
path, having performed the ritual of demonstrating to himself that
he was brave.
    As he got
further from the village, John took in the great sweep of the bay.
He could still see the red roofs of the houses in the upper
village, clinging to the slashed gap in the rocks like limpets in a
sea-washed rock pool. Out at sea, the waves moved in towards the
land in relentless rows, like an invading army. On the opposite
cliff, John could see lines of orange tape fluttering in the breeze
around a raw scar in the earth.
    The horizon
seemed a long way off, and the world was bigger than the one that
John was used to. I don't mind that, he thought. I could stay here,
where it is open and wild on the cliff tops and close and
reassuring in the village, and be happy. Then he his mood crumbled,
because he knew that was just hiding away from his problems, and
then he wished that he had not thought about hiding, not thought
the word at all,