“Oh, that. Sorry, I meant to text back. Ben, give it to Mummy now. It was about a fire,” Kirsten adds to me over the sound of baby protests.
“A fire?” I stare at the phone, bewildered.
“That’s all I remember. You went to the police about a fire. You saw that guy Pete burning something? I really have to go. Bye!”
A fire?
I put my phone away, my head spinning. A fire? What fire? I shut my eyes, picturing a bonfire on the beach, a fire in a hearth, a house on fire.… But nothing feels like a memory.
Then boom. My eyes pop open. I remember! Yes! The fire in the bin.
I’m breathless. It’s all come back to me in a rush. I saw Pete burning something in a hidden-away yard, and that’s why I went to the police.
I only saw it because I’d slipped away to the newsagent to spend a pound coin that I’d found on the sand. I went right to the back of the shop to the vending machine, and I was just choosing my gum when I glanced out of the window and saw a fire. Pete was standing in some unused yard next door, poking the fire savagely. To be fair, he often looked kind of mean, but I noticed it particularly.
Still, I thought nothing of it, bought my gum, ran back to the beach, then heard the gossip that a life jacket had failed and that’s why a boy had nearly drowned.
It was only in the middle of that night that I woke up and thought, Oh my God! Pete was burning the life jacket in that bin! I went to Mum first thing and insisted I had to go to the police with important evidence. I guess whatever I said convinced her, because she let me go along and say my piece, even though Dad was feeling unwell and we were planning to leave.
But I’d blanked it. I’ve blanked so many memories from that time.
Now I can see it all, though. There was a fire in the bin—I glimpsed cardboard, papers, all sorts—and Pete was poking it with a stick. When I woke up in the middle of the night all those years ago, I thought I was a top sleuth—Pete had shoved the defective life jacket in there! But I was just a thirteen-year-old girl with too much imagination. Pete couldn’t have been burning the dodgy life jacket, because the gossip turned out to be wrong. The life jacket wasn’t faulty. The kayak was the issue. And how do you burn a life jacket, anyway?
I feel a warm wave of shame. The whole thing was clearly nonsense. I don’t remember the police laughing at me, but surely they must have done. And now I see that police visit for what it really was—Mum giving me a thing. Giving me a moment of importance. A little boost.
Anyway, at least now I know, and I might as well tell Finn. I write him a quick text:
Just remembered what I told the police about—a fire in a bin. Pete was poking it. I thought it was evidence!! Hope you’re having a good time with Mavis Adler. xx
I send it and scramble to my feet. I want to walk along the beach and think hard. Kirsten’s words are still bugging me. Needy, broken. Am I needy and broken? Maybe I was a tad broken. But I’m fixed now. Or at least I’m fixed-ish. I’ve changed. I’m sure I have. I feel stronger. Happier. Sexier.
As if to prove a point, I stride briskly along in the buffeting wind until I’m all the way at the other end of the beach, by the steep cliffs. There I stop and survey the sea, and into my mind, as ever, comes Terry’s hoarse voice. Why are you worrying about the sea? The sea sure as hell isn’t worrying about you.
The sea isn’t worrying about me. It’s just crashing onto the beach, over and over, totally unconcerned. I swivel around to face the cliffs, which seem to look back at me with blank, impassive expressions. They aren’t worrying about me either. I find this reassuring. And suddenly I know exactly what Wetsuit Girl meant about grounding. I’m aware that I’m standing on the earth on my own two feet. Not a soul in sight. Just me.
On impulse, I rip off my trainers and socks and let my bare soles squish into the sand … and I feel it. I understand it. The earth is supporting me. It’s holding me up. Wherever I go in life, it’ll be there for me. Like these cliffs and this beach and these million-year-old pebbles.
I can’t quite believe I’m saying such woo-woo stuff to myself, but it feels real and convincing and comforting.
“Hi, Dad.” The words are out of me before I know what I’m going to say. I clear my husky throat and draw breath. “I’m here. I’m back in Rilston. I’m … OK. I’m OK.”
It’s years since I’ve spoken aloud to Dad. But now, as I stand here, my feet rooted in the sand, on this beach that he loved too, I feel tears running down my face. The earth underneath me. Dad out there for me. Both of them will always be there. Whatever else happens. Whatever rocks me or hits me or buffets me.
The wind is getting steadily colder. But with every minute I stand there, I feel stronger. Taller. More robust. I’m not needy and broken, whatever Kirsten said. I’m mending. I’m resilient. I’m standing barefoot on a winter beach, for God’s sake! I’m tougher than I thought.
Spontaneously, I take a beaming selfie to send to Mum, Kirsten, and Dinah later. Then I summon up the 20 Steps app and gaze at Wetsuit Girl. Her smile doesn’t seem smug anymore but warm and friendly. I’m grateful to her, I realize. She’s been with me the whole time, and her advice was all good. I really am a whole new Sasha. Physically, I feel in better shape. Mentally, I feel in better shape. Maybe in better shape than I’ve been for years.
So now I need to sort my life out. Confront it instead of running away from it.
The thought hits me out of the blue, and I blink in shock. Am I running away? Am I dodging the big issues? I couldn’t stand my life. I wanted to leave. I couldn’t cope with any of it. I just wanted to blank the whole thing, get some rest and recuperate.
But now, for the first time since I’ve got here, I can imagine myself back in London. Tidying my flat. Finally throwing out those dead plants. Getting on top of stuff. And, most important, working out what my values and priorities actually are.
I want to enjoy life again, I realize. Because life is the ride, and the ride is it. You have to enjoy it. I imagine myself reconnecting with all my friends. Meeting up for a drink. Maybe even buying some food and cooking supper. Doing all the things that I’ve been putting off, that felt so impossible.
And the weird thing is, none of it feels scary anymore. It feels like a challenge—but a good one. The kind that makes you feel a pleasant rush of adrenaline, not the sort that makes you want to hide in a cupboard, whimpering.
I’d like to stay here all day, thinking this through, but it’s late February and my toes are practically numb. So at last I swivel to head back to the Rilston. At the very least, I decide, I’ll walk all the way in bare feet, then look back at my footprints on the sand and feel momentous and maybe take a photo.
But, oh God, I can’t manage that either. It’s so bloody freezing that after about twenty strides I cave in. I bend down to put my socks and trainers back on, and as I’m standing up again, I see a distant figure coming in my direction.
Finn? No. Not Finn. But a man. A tall skinny man with … I squint. Is that a hat? No, it’s his hair. His wild hair.
Wild hair which seems weirdly, impossibly familiar.
That can’t be—
That isn’t—