What I Was Read Free Page A

September morning was warm and intermittently sunny. Gold and purple heather set the marshes ablaze, and beyond lay the dark green surface of the sea. The low tide had created a long stretch of clear sand between the beach and The Stele, and Mr Parkhouse led us out on to the causeway at a brisk gallop. My breath, hoarse and loud, drowned the outraged calls of shore birds. Ahead was a small group of abandoned fishermen’s shacks, mostly locked up and rotting with blacked-out windows. As we rounded the point, a feeling that irreparable damage had been done to my Achilles tendon made it clear that I should sit down, and I took advantage of the first shack to disappear from view.
    As the rest of the boys ran on, Reese jogged on the spot, his desperate smile twisted into an unintentional leer. ‘What you doing?’
    ‘Bugger off,’ I said. He turned beet red and legged it.
    A dreamy silence settled on the spot. I lay slumped against the shack watching the soft rise and fall of waves, silencing my own breathing until there was no sound and nothing left in the world except sand and sea and sky. After a few minutes, the cloud cover gave way to a burst of brilliant sunlight and the slow dull sea leapt with diamonds.
    The voice when it came was clear, oddly inflected, not unfriendly.
    ‘What are you doing here?’
    I looked up, startled. In front of me stood a person about my own age, with black eyes and a quizzical expression. He was slim, slightly taller than average and barefoot, his thick dark hair unfashionably shaggy. A heavy, old-fashioned fisherman’s sweater topped baggy long shorts, chopped down from trousers and rolled.
    He looked impossibly familiar, like a fantasy version of myself, with the face I had always hoped would look back at me from a mirror. The bright, flickering quality of his skin reminded me of the surface of the sea. He was almost unbearably beautiful and I had to turn away, overcome with pleasure and longing and a realization of life’s desperate unfairness.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I managed to stutter, pulling myself to my feet.
    He gazed at me, taking in the exposed, blue-white schoolboy flesh, the stiff cotton shorts, the aertex vest plastered with sweat. From behind him a small grey cat gazed, its tail erect and twitching, as if testing the atmosphere for spies. Both looked, and neither shouted at me to leave. I took this as encouragement.
    ‘I don’t suppose I might bother you for –’ I fought for an excuse, any reason to stay – ‘a drink?’
    The boy hesitated, reluctant rather than unsure, then shrugged, turned, and disappeared into the little shack. The cat stalked behind him, crossing one delicate paw in front of the other as he went. I followed, delighted and amazed by this unexpected turn of events. Compared to the beautiful boy and the cat I felt scruffy and crass, but I didn’t mind, being not unused to scraping dignity out of pathos.
    It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the interior of the hut. There were only two rooms: a tiny sitting room at the front facing the sea and an equally small kitchen overlooking the reed beds. Flattened, nearly colourless rugs covered rough pine boards, and the chipped remnants of a once-fine set of china sat neatly on wooden shelves in the kitchen. Two smallish front windows opened on to sweeping views of the sea. Across the room, a narrow staircase led to what I assumed was a sleeping loft; a shallow pitched roof indicated that the space would be cramped. Beneath the stairs, a cupboard closed with a worn wooden latch. Simply framed photographs hung in uneven intervals on the wall above the staircase: a bearded man with a weathered face. A portrait of a young woman. A fishing boat. A shire horse.
    All black and white. All decades old.
    The low, banked fire in the iron stove threw off enough heat to make the hut feel warm and comforting as soup. Settled in front of the stove, the cat never took its eyes off me.
    ‘You can sit if you like,’ said