In my experience. Maybe other people do it better.
“Sasha, I have it. I know exactly where you should go.” Mum looks super-pleased with herself.
“Where?”
“I’ve already phoned up and there’s availability,” continues Mum, ignoring me. “We should have thought of it at once!”
“Where?”
Mum raises her head and lets a moment pass before she says simply, “Rilston Bay.”
The words are like magic.
It’s as though the sun has briefly come out and touched my skin. I’m caressed by warmth and light and a kind of euphoria I’d almost forgotten existed. Rilston Bay. The sea. The huge open sky. The feel of sand under bare feet. That first, magical view of the beach from the train. The piercing sound of the gulls. The foamy surf, flashing and glittering in the baking summer sunshine …
Hang on.
“Wait, but it’s February,” I say, coming out of my reverie.
Rilston Bay in winter? I can’t even imagine it. But at the same time, I can’t relinquish the idea, now Mum has mentioned it. Rilston Bay. It’s tugging at my heart. Could I really go there?
“There’s availability,” repeats Mum. “You could go by train, just like we always did. Go tomorrow!”
“You mean there’s availability at Mrs. Heath’s?” I say uncertainly.
We stayed at Mrs. Heath’s guesthouse every year for thirteen years running. I still remember the smell of the lino on the stairs, the shell pictures in our bedroom, the crochet blankets on the beds. The little shed where we left our buckets and spades every evening. The tiny garden with the fairy grotto.
“Mrs. Heath died a few years ago, love,” says Mum gently. “I mean at the hotel. The Rilston.”
“The Rilston?”
Is she serious? Stay at the Rilston?
We never stayed at the Rilston. We weren’t those kind of people. It had a dress code and a weekly dinner dance and its own “Rilston” taxi for guests that you’d see around town. It was situated grandly, right on the beach. Not like Mrs. Heath’s place, which was a steep fifteen-minute walk back up the cobbled streets we’d run so merrily down each morning.
But once every holiday, we’d put on smart clothes and go to the Rilston for drinks, feeling delightfully grown-up as we stepped into the lobby with its chandeliers and velvet sofas. Mum and Dad would have drinks at the bar, while Kirsten and I sipped Coke with a slice of lemon and giggled over the incredible luxury of crisps served in silver dishes. One time we had dinner there too, but it was all meat and creamy sauces and cost an “arm and a leg,” as Dad said. So the next year we went back to just having a drink. A drink was enough. More than enough.
So the idea of actually staying there gives me a weird frisson. But Mum’s holding out her phone, and I can see the words Rilston Hotel on it. She’s serious.
“Very reasonable rates,” she says. “Well, it’s off-season. And I’ve heard the Rilston has gone a bit downhill. Bit of a faded glory, these days. So I’ll get you a good deal, darling.” I can see the negotiating light in Mum’s eyes. “Take as much time as you can. Get yourself all better. And then decide what to do.”
I open my mouth to protest that it’s too drastic a step—then close it again. Because the truth is, I’m suddenly desperate to go. To see that view again. To feel that sea air. Rilston Bay feels like a closed-up, almost forgotten part of my soul that I haven’t visited for … how long? Since Dad was diagnosed, I realize. When that happened, a lot of things changed. And one of them was that we never returned to Rilston Bay. Which means I haven’t been there for, what, twenty years?
“The sea air will restore you,” Mum is saying now, as she busily googles something. “The peaceful atmosphere.”
“The ozone,” puts in Pam knowledgeably. “The sound of the waves.”
“Long walks, yoga, healthy food …”
“Wild swimming!” Pam exclaims. “Best thing for you, whether you’re menopausal or premenopausal.”
“Isn’t it a bit cold?” I say warily. “In February?”
“Cold is good,” says Pam with emphasis. “Shocks the system. The colder the better!”
“There won’t be a lifeguard,” objects Mum, glancing up. “I’m not having you swimming out to the buoy, Sasha.”
“She won’t swim out to the buoy!” scoffs Pam. “She’ll just splash about a bit. Have you got a wetsuit, love?”
“Here we are,” chimes in Mum. “This is what you should do. Follow the program, step by step.”
She shows me an image on her phone and I stare at it, transfixed. A woman in a black wetsuit gazes back at me, her eyes confident, her arms strong, her smile infectious. Her wet hair is lashed across her damp cheeks. Her feet are planted firmly on the sand of a beach that could easily be Rilston Bay. She’s holding a bodyboard in one hand and a green smoothie in the other. And below her is a tagline: 20 Steps to a Better You.
“There’s an app!” says Mum triumphantly. “We just need to download it and get you a few bits and pieces.… Do you have a yoga mat?”
I can barely hear her. I’m fixated by the girl on the screen. She looks glowing. Happy. Put together. I want to be her so badly, I feel almost faint. How do I do it? How do I get there? If it takes plunging into the icy sea, I’ll do it. Greedily, my eyes run down the text beneath, taking in random words here and there.
Noni juice … manifest … 100-squat challenge … grounding …
I don’t even know what some of those words mean. Noni juice? Grounding? But I can find out, can’t I? This list finally feels like the answer. The road map out of who I am right now. I’ll go to Rilston Bay. I’ll follow the twenty steps. And I’ll be a better me.
Four
Twenty steps. That’s all it takes. And I’m already doing the first one. Step 1: Have a positive attitude. The words keep running through my mind and I keep mentally answering. Yes! I will be positive! Just watch me!
As I hurry along the platform at Paddington, dragging my suitcase behind me, I’m talking to myself so loudly I’m amazed the people around me can’t hear my thoughts. I can do it. Just follow the steps. I’ve got this. Slogans keep popping into my head, each one more inspiring than the last. I feel like a walking Instagram post. I’ve printed out the photo of the girl in the wetsuit as inspiration, and I’ve downloaded all the steps from the app, and I’ve brought my bullet journal and gel pens and stickers. I’m on this.
It’s only two days since I banged my head, but already I feel different. I’m not relaxed, exactly—nothing about preparing for a six-hour train journey is relaxing—but I’m not in the frantic, wired state I was. I feel as though there’s an edge of light on the horizon, and if I just keep focusing on it, I’ll be OK.
The train is massive—twelve carriages long—and it will take me as far as Campion Sands, where I’ll have to change to a smaller, rickety train for the last part of the journey. One of the million things I love about Rilston Bay is the tiny railway station. The little train trundles back and forth to Campion, looking as though it might fall off the cliff at any moment. You can see it from the beach and wave up at the passengers.