W: Seaweed

Seaweed

If anyone were to ask G.R. what was the luckiest thing that had ever
happened to him, he'd reply 'grabbing a handful of seaweed out of the
sea'. And it was, even after fifty years. And after fifty years he
could recount the event philosophically, with a melancholy smile on his
face.

It's late summer and the beach at Colwyn Bay, North Wales is crowded
with holiday makers. Children and their parents run up and down the
beach chasing balls and each other, some splash around in shallow
water, whilst braver, hardier souls swim farther out in a chilly Irish
Sea. The air is full of shrieks and laughter, the flap of three kites
dancing in the offshore breeze and the tang of ozone. Some anxiously
watch a sky that is quickly darkening to the west. Far out to sea, a
storm is brewing and the glint on the sea abruptly terminates in a
charcoal-grey column of rain.

'One last dip before we pack up, lad, eh?' G.R. asks his son, standing
to brush sand from his trunks and thighs. And off they go, running
awkwardly over the hard rippled sand before crashing into the waves.
G.R.'s wife, Ellen, watches them scoop handfuls of water at each other,
then glances over at her young daughter who is concentrating her
efforts on repeatedly filling a bucket with dry sand. She reaches for
her book and flips to lay on her stomach. Leaning on her elbows, she
leafs through the pages to find the point were she'd left off.

G.R. chases his son through the waves, laughing. What a sight they must
be, he thinks, lifting their feet high out of the water with each
stride like silly, over sized sea birds wading through the foam. He
lunges for the boy, grabs an arm and lifts his wriggling body to swing
him 'leg and a wing' fashion out into the ocean. The boy falls
backwards into the water, skinny limbs splayed and G.R. laughs again as
the boy splutters back to the surface wiping salty water from his eyes
and almost gagging on the brine. The boy gingerly lifts a slimy strand
of seaweed with a finger and thumb and lobs it at his father. It falls
short. G.R. reaches for the broad belt of leathery kelp and admires the
sleek and glistening, purplish-black weed. He aims and throws, the boy
ducks and the seaweed slaps the water's surface just beyond. G.R.
quickly reaches for another clump of floating weed, this one fine and
wispy like a spray of dune grass or hair. He tugs at the
weed&;#8230; and lifts his daughter's head above the surface. He
stands befuddled by the sight of the pallid face and tiny limp body
hanging from his hand. He scoops her up, supports her body with one
arm, squeezes her nose and blows air gently into her mouth as he rushes
for the beach. The boy stands open mouthed and rigid, waves lapping
against the back of his legs. G.R. falls to the beach with his daughter
and lays her body on the cold, wet sand, tears welling, almost unable
to control his own breathing in his panic. A crowd immediately begins
to form around him, though ten meters away in each direction, play in
the sea and on the beach continues unabated, unaware of the
crystallising crowd or of G.R.'s frantic actions at its centre.

Ellen lays her book on her towel and levers herself up onto one arm,
sliding her sunglasses from her head to cover her eyes. The bucket and
spade have been abandoned. Rising to her knees, Ellen scans the beach
for her daughter,

G.R. continues to breath air into the girl's lungs, his vision blurred
with tears, aware only of the pink swimsuit and the chest rising and
falling beneath. 'This can't be happening,' he thinks, 'this can't be
real.' But knows the body beneath his is slipping beyond his reach,
that his daughter's fragile systems will shortly close down. Despair
drives him on. Some of the adults drag their reluctant children back
away from the crowd, the children squirming under grips that are
tighter than the parents realise.

Ellen stands, her throat constricting with fear, the crowd around her
seems more noisy, more compact than before she began to read. Every
small swimsuit seems to be pink though none of the children is her
daughter. She scans the beach for G.R. and her son, waving animatedly
though she can't make them out. She hopes they will see her and give up
their game.

The young girl finally splutters, cries, coughs, cries again and opens
her eyes. G.R. scoops her up and cradles her head against his shoulder.
'She's alright, she's alright' he says to himself then louder for the
crowd to hear. The circle of onlookers opens to let G.R. through and he
hurries up the beach towards his wife, glancing back once to see his
son following. The boy wiping salty snot and tears from his face.

The storm never made it ashore, instead it headed north towards
Blackpool on a shift in the wind. On the beach, halfway between a
rising tide and the seawall, the girl sleeps fretfully in her mother's
lap, her hair matted with sand and salt water. Ellen, cross-legged,
weeps quietly, rocking her daughter and stroking her fingers across the
young girl's cheek. The boy half-heartedly digs through the sand,
forming the shape of a motor boat, the prow pointing towards the sea.
Behind him, G.R. sits huddled beneath a towel, his whole body shaking,
not with cold but in reaction to the shock, thinking different 'what
if's with the same regularity as the waves breaking against the Welsh
beach.