Baby

She hadn’t expected it. The woman stopped, and asked a question, taking off her sunglasses, which M took as a friendly action, to build trust.

“Do you know the Blue Geranium Hotel?”

It seemed familiar. Perhaps in the streets that led to the harbour, amongst the rows of bed and breakfasts and their backlit signs. M shook her head, watched the woman cross the road to a man who ate an icecream on the sea wall. He pointed and she walked away, pulling a suitcase until the cobbles, where she lifted and cradled it as if a sick child.

Later, after dark, M looked for the hotel. When she failed, she turned back, walked up the hill past the car park to the graveyard. On a bench dedicated to Jake Roberts, a  fisherman, and his mermaid, she listened to the gulls and the waves slapping the beach. A red light from a room near the church cast shadows on a curtain. It seemed to her they were those of a baby.

Outside, on stone painted steps, M traced the shapes of outstretched arms and hands with a finger in the air. The door opened. She stepped in. The room was at the top of the stairs.