Z: Wails

December 23rd we would go for our christmas walk; no excuses, no
back-tracking, hell, high-water, swarms, plagues, gales, tremors, none
of the above will interrupt the annual family stroll. The wind was
blowing tiles from roofs all down our street. As we ran from the front
door to the car the wind and rain made the sound in my ears that you
get when you yawn, a crackling, creaking deafness. The street was
dotted with slate tiles smashed into piles of jigsaw black like
forbidding full stops. Anyone else might have been put off by the
grammatical suggestion that something, no, perhaps someone, is going to
end today but no, no such superstitious twaddle for my dad.

Even the drive there was peppered with wind related warning signs.
First off, at no point on the journey were we stuck behind a tractor,
in fact we didn't see another vehicle of any sort. This is probably the
most potent portent I can imagine. I'm sure there ought to be a phrase
that goes with it; something like 'nay tractor on the road, much danger
is forebode' or 'if no threshers block your way expect to have an awful
day.' The second worrying beacon was an enormous branch off an ancient
oak that had been blown down and was blocking the road. It was like a
wizened arm; it pointed in the direction of home. The link between a
splitting tree and a family tree soon to be severed was rather obvious
I thought but the oak's premonitions went unnoticed by my father.
Finally, the sheep that usually trot sedately in front of the car were
all huddled, sheltering behind an uneven stone wall. I've seen sheep
look bewildered, smug, content, stupid, but I can safely say this is
the only time I have ever seen them looking sheepish.

Since it was my fathers decision to go for a walk I suspect that the
chosen beach was my mothers area of influence. There is no questioning
her eye for scenery. Its half sand, half pebbles but never a dilute
combination of the two. Atop steep sand dunes on the far side is a
decrepit castle that on any other day would be swamped with A-level art
and photography students. On the side nearest us is a water tower that
seems like a bad joke as we endure our wettest december in thirty
years. There is a river that ploughs down the centre of the beach; on a
sunny day in August you can play 'spot the tourist who gets cut off by
the tide and has to wade through with their shoes in one hand and their
picnic hamper in the other'.

The sea spray carried over us as we trapsed clumsily over the sand
dunes. The sand was wet and clinging but at the same time loose enough
for vicious grains to get blown up, scrape your face and bury
themselves deep in your hair. For weeks afterwards I was leaving little
sand banks at the bottom of the bathtub.

The tall waves opened like Jaws, bearing their frothy incisors before
clamping down as they reached the shore. The heavy grey clouds made it
seem alot later than it was. We meandered towards the sea, climbing
over outcrops of rock, wading through shallow pools and eventually
crossing the river which occasionally splashed froth into our
wellies.

When we got close enough to the sea so that all communication had to be
shouted through hats and scarfs the wind inexplicably dropped. For a
time, we pulled our
heads out of their cocoons and breathed freely. The waves were still
threatening, but they became regimented, marching in sets, bowing not
breaking. With my hair tied back in a tight dyed black bun and my
brothers arm within a safe grabbing distance i unzipped my coat and
spread my arms out into wings. The wind was just enough for me to lean
forward into and have it prop me up. My father and brother had their
hats off and hoods down. I noted that my fathers thinning short red
curls were beginning to matt into one large ginger dreadlock. My
brother, with the longest and curliest hair of all of us, let his locks
free in an eighties rock-star guitar pose. All that could be made of my
mother was the occasional strand of sun-in'd blonde hair that would
shoot out from her deep reaper-like black hood and the every now and
then a clucking disapproval at the weather in general.

I was at full lean when the wind picked up again. It blew me clean up
off the sand and dumped me about five feet back in a comic book
'kazaam' sort of way. I screamed for dramatic effect but it wasn't
until a few seconds later that I realised I had actually twisted my
ankle. Mixed with the cold, the wet, the sand and the wind it was hard
to put my discomforts in an order of anti-preference.

My mother, without my knowledge of her having moved, was quietly
kneeling at my side, carefully applying pressure in a way which,
although unscientific, seemed to have the desired effect. I've always
thought that discomfort is the enemy of nostalgia, try happily
reminiscing when you've got a cramp, but I found that my mothers
attentiveness to my well-being, although perhaps feigned, allowed me a
moment with her out of the storm.

I never really had tantrums as a child except for at Christmas, one
every year, or so I'm told. I remember only one and, if I'm honest, I
suspect the memory is just as much created by my mum as by me. I don't
think it is the sort of thing children remember but somehow I've
convinced myself that I do. Perhaps I remember it better because it was
at an age when I stopped giving myself completely to that monsoon of
anger, forgetting all, but instead I'd begun to be more conscious of
myself, this may mean it ought not to be defined as a tantrum. I was
five or six I think, maybe younger, my warm festive rage served as a
neccesary low point from which all that excitement and bliss to come
could be contrasted. All a tantrum needs is a decent ignition, a
stubbed second toe, unconvincing admiration of one of my drawings or,
in this case, no, the only case, Monopoly. The overturned board, houses
and hotels tornado blown about the wooden floor and my pittance of
green, red and yellow money thrown in the air, fluttering like
confetti. Amidst my stomping and wailing my mother moved like a gas
around me, clearing up, allowing my fat hands to pummel her sides and
soothing me in a tone that suggests just enough anger to let me feel
I'd achieved something. Apparently my Dad heard me from the other side
of the house. Eventually with expert timing, appeasing a tantrum is all
about the timing, she deftly whispered a joke in my ear while I caught
my breath. Pre-empting my second bout of screams, what should have been
a red faced bawl tripped and came out a juddering half-cough
half-laugh. My mother is not reknowned for her wit but the suggestion
that my grandfather, dozing next to the fire, looked like a sleeping
troll was just the right balance of insult and surprising un-mumliness
to stop me in my tracks. "He does not look like a sleeping troll Mum!"
I said in a voice deliberately too loud. To my dissapointment there was
no amusing rebuttle from my grandfather who, in keeping with his new
role, kept on sleeping but by this time the tantrum, possibly my last,
was over. My mum was still at my side, attending to my ankle. I
realised that to be able to recount such a memory while freezing cold
and with a twisted ankle was some sort of a testament to her.

Having conceded that this walk was a challenge too far for the Clare
family, my dad, his doughy wrinkles contorting in the wind, decided
with much sadness that we ought to turn round. Propped up on either
side by father and brother I began to hobble back the way we had come.
We must have looked like the insane locals in a bad horror film; hoods
up, arms round each others shoulders, limping and frowning...cue the
lost tourist with big boobs I thought. Contributing to this image of us
as potentially inbred provincials was our unnerving family resemblance:
pale freckled skin, thin lips, high foreheads, almost invisible white
blonde eyebrows.

When we got to the river we found it had risen dramatically. We should
have known; we've watched dozens of English, German and American
tourists grimly wade through the river, looking with confusion at the
tide times scribbled on the back of their hands. The river was probably
more than two feet deep now and at it's narrowest point about seven
foot wide. In the summer we would not have hesitated but you could tell
by my fathers pre-emptive promise of a big pub lunch by a roaring fire
that he was expecting the temperature to be pneumonia enducing.

With brother and father on either side of me we edged our way into the
river, the water was whispering the promise of cold to our toesthrough
our wellies . My mother said that 'we looked like the Swansea back
four'. I long ago noted that the rugby reference is the last refuge of
truly shaken parents. Stuck in Heathrow for three days waiting for a
flight to Morroco my Dad commented that we had to 'treat it like those
last ten minutes of Wales versus England in 1979 when we were two
points up and one man down. They could have let it slip but did they?'
As it turned out we spent more time in departure lounges than we did in
Marrakesh, the flight back was delayed too. My fathers rugby metaphor
carrying further than he would have liked, in 1980 England beat Wales
twenty-six to nine.

The water gushed over the top of our green wellington boots and
straight to the toes as promised. There was much jerky inhalation of
breath as the temperature lived up to expectation. I looked around for
my mother who was a few steps behind us, I watched her chest heave up
as the froth filled her boots and a tide line turned her blue jeans
navy. In the dark of her hood I thought I could make out a tear mixed
in with the rain. This is not necessarily cause for concern. My mum has
weak tear ducts and so the only way to judge whether her tears are
worthy of note is by looking at the shape of her mouth; a jittery
curled pout that weepy actresses get at award ceremonies.
"You alright ma?" I asked.
"I'm fine hon'. Hang on a minute Hugh..." she addressed my Dad. The
tremolo in her voice gave it away, for every couple of tears that were
faking it at least one dropped with real feeling attached.
"We can't hang around in the middle of a freezing river, can we?" said
Dad.

We fought our way through until we reached the other bank, my brother
and father wimpering theatrically as the water threatened to reach
crotch level. I hadn't noticed but it had suddenly got very dark and it
had started to hail. The clouds were the colour of slate. Pivoting on
my one good ankle I turned round to check that my mum was okay.

She was in the middle of the river which was now a dark muddy brown
after we'd kicked up the sand in crossing it. The water seemed somehow
deeper for her than it had been for us, it lapped at her chest. She
held her arms up and tried to take a step. She looked like a dark arts
conjuror, arms raised, face hidden under her black hood, all around her
she made the hail stones magically disappear as they hit the
water.

"You okay Mum, not stuck are you?"
The suggestion that she might be stuck caused my father a small
newsflash of blinking, the reception growing fuzzy in his confident
blue eyes.
"C'mon mum, I'm freezing." My brother looked bored.
"Here take my hand," said Dad, extending a white, thin hand, fingers
calloused at the tips.
The hood bowed and the water rose above her small breasts. She lowered
her arms into the grimy brown river. My Dad shouted at her something I
didn't hear. Without looking up she ducked under the water, the point
of her hood occassionally appearing like a sharks fin.
"Maybe she's getting herself loose", said my brother quietly.

A few moments later her head and shoulders popped out of the water, her
hood sliding off her head. Her pale eyes were like headlights, her
blonde hair pasted to her scalp with hailstone dandruff collecting on
her shoulders. My fathers hand was still hovering out over the water.
There was just her head and neck now. I became aware that we were all
screaming at her, she ducked under again, this time for longer. Our
yelling sounded hollow and dull with her out of sight so we stood in
silence, staring at the spot where she ought to have been. Around us
the hail had quietly turned the beach white, the dark river now looking
like a crack on ice. I'm not sure but I think what I felt was surprise
when my mothers head emerged again, the water just below her chin. I
looked at her face, she was staring at us, her mouth slightly open,
expectant. She said something which I couldn't hear, in fact, as it
turns out, none of us heard. Then all three of us together, although
afterwards we would all claim to have been the first to move, waded in
towards her.