The Bowls Club Picnic

I’d invited the Bowls Club for a picnic on the beach. Of course not everyone had come. There were the usual excuses, “I do the big cleaning on a Thursday.” “It’s my day for the supermarket shop.” And the usual suspects who turned up.

Moira had brought a veal and ham pie made to the recipe given out on The Archer’s, the only homemade item amongst the co-op sausage rolls and tubs of salad. I had managed to avoid any responsibility for the feeding of the five because I had organised the time and venue.

Jill refused to leave the promenade because the pebbles would lodge in her sandals so we agreed to have the picnic up there. Roger and Ellie had already tottered down to the water’s edge and stripped to their costumes. I watched them feeling mildly concerned.
I had been my mother’s carer for seven months until her death. She had been a member of the bowls club and I used to go along to help her on and off the bus and that was how I ended up becoming an honorary member. Honorary because I don’t play bowls and at fifty-five, the youngest member by eight years.
Perhaps I still hadn’t shaken off the carer’s mind set, like young Mums who turn toward the cry of every baby, and I felt responsible for Roger and Ellie’s safety as I watched their white, blue-veined twiggy legs tremble down the beach. Once she reached the water Ellie walked in without stopping while Roger stood knee deep in water hugging elbows tucked under his armpits.
The sea was flat and blue-green paused between tides. A lane of yellow marker buoys bobbed between the two groynes next to ours. It was early on a weekday evening so there were a few people scattered about the beach and I was reassured to see that the lifeguard was still on duty so I turned away to watch the progress of the food arrangements.
Safe on the flat tarmac, Moira and Rita were laying out the picnic while Jill perched on a stool and delved into the cool-bags handing items to the table layers. Moira executed a glissade to snatch it from Jill’s hands and placed in the centre of the table. As she turned away for next item, Rita shifted the pie two inches to the left and placed a quiche beside it. I pulled my sunglasses from the top of my head and down over my eyes hoping that would hide my laughter. Moira pushed the pie back to the middle of the table and rearranged a tub of coleslaw of potato salad and a melamine plate of tomatoes as bodyguards.
My stifled laugh turned into a snort and I was glad to be drowned out by the high-pitched whine of the jet skis that shot like fireworks from between the groynes further down the beach and jostled between the marker buoys.
“Will you just leave that pie alone!” Moira snarled. I saw Rita’s mouth move in reply but her words were covered by a scream coming from the water. The sea was foaming and spraying with a jet-ski bobbing riderless in the exact spot where Roger and Ellie had been. I held my breath until I counted three human shaped blobs thrashing amidst the waves then glanced at the picnic table. Moira and Rita and Jill were rooted to the spot, still life with women’s institute and horror. I turned back to the water and there was red stain spreading around the jet-ski. My legs began to shake.
Two people were coming up the beach fast and with relief I realised it was Roger and Ellie, unmarked. Roger was striding ahead, Ellie trotted behind clutching an orange towel under her chin.
“Roger, what..?” I squeezed out as he passed me at a great clip.
“I hate those thingsand the idiots that ride them."
“But…”
“Only a nosebleed. He’ll live not to tell the tale. Too bloody embarrassing to say you’ve been thumped by a granddad.”