Flotsam

           Jaz and Crush walked the tideline, there were lights everywhere along the beach. Half the village was out. Not that that was many people at this time of year, but enough who cared for the sea and those on it, enough of those who’d had close brushes with it themselves and enough who’d lost others.

          It was three hours since they’d last seen Terry. It was pitch black and the wind was still howling through their coats and whipping the sand up into their faces with a vengeance. Neither of them flinched as they stood and looked, and looked and looked.

          “Over here!” a voice cried out from the rocks at the side of the beach, a torch waved. “Over here – gi’s a hand !”

          A dozen people ran over – there was a dark shape in the water, several people held back as the water flushed forwards again. Jaz pushed past and waded through the thigh high water.

          “Crush, help mate, come on, need you..” he sounded almost in tears behind the bravado.

          Between them they pulled out a ball of seaweed the size of a man’s torso. Some of the watchers on the beach sighed, but Jaz didn’t pause – he pulled and he pulled and the seaweed gave over to a long piece of yellow plastic…which in turn pulled up the back half of a red and white board. Smashed in two, foam protruding from the fibre glass, swollen and yellowed. Fins shattered. There was more seaweed tangled in this and they couldn’t pull the broken board free. Crush waded in next to Jaz and grimly tugged. Between them they grunted and pulled and resolutely never said a word. The water lapped around their waists as the ventured further and further out. An old nylon fishing net swept past them and was hauled up by the guys behind, pulling it away from them as they got on with their grim self appointed role.

          Then suddenly the board gave and they were tumbled back into the water, landing on their backs in the freezing darkness. Jaz clung to the piece of board like a limpet and pulled himself, then Crush upright, their bodies shaking with cold and effort. He reached down along the tangled seaweed and found what had been trapping the board. He hardly dare feel any further. The flotsam that held it back was part of another board. This time he didn’t even need to look. He pulled it out and slung it towards Crush.

          “S’yours mate.”

          They carried the broken boards up onto the beach and walked away. Leaving others to find whatever else was there.

          Behind them the sea was calming down, cleaning up. The sun was beginning to flood light across the horizon. They sat at the top of the beach, wet, cold, tired and silent. Jaz walked over to his car, parked up on the high sand, opened the door and reached in.

          He lit up a cigarette, offered one to Crush who took it despite himself. They sat and watched, sat and watched. The sea was still there, the beach was still there. Nothing else was.

Fin

Off The Rocks

           The sky was darkening by the minute. Night sweeping in on the horizon, ink bottle blue/black against the gun metal of the ocean. The trees lay flat against the wind and the road ran with water in sheets of silver. There was precious little beach left, it was a spring tide and the water whipped up to the very top of the sand, soon it would be over the road and maybe, if people were lucky, it would stop before it reached the shops and houses. If they weren’t it wouldn’t be the first time, not even this year.

           Waves crashed and roared and brought the night in on a fanfare of white noise. Where they hit the solid rock they sent up streams of white foam, twenty, thirty feet into the air, raining down the other side then momentarily revealing the rock draped in white before the next set obliterated it again. There was no one to be seen in the village. The spray whipped against the walls and carried sand far inland. Windows glowed dimly, curtains closed, drawn against the battering ram of the storm front. You could feel the pressure dropping.

           The car was empty when they got to the cliff. Keys still in the ignition and headlights still on, facing out to sea and reflecting off the torrential rain. There was no stillness, everything seemed to be unleashed. The noise of the sea, the wind, the rain coming together. There was no prospect of hearing them calling out Dave’s name but it didn’t stop them trying.

           Jaz knelt by the cliff edge peering down, looking for the smallest sign, but everything was in motion and the spray obscured the edge of the sea, the highest rocks were the only things peering back at him. Terry stumbled against the wind, heading for the lower path down to the rocks – the sea already well past them by now, huge rumbling swells rolling over granite and breaking maybe fifty feet inland of where they stood. The swell was easily fifteen feet high but hard and cruel, not like a summer swell. Their faces slammed down like great fists as they broke, no gentle peeling, no second chances, no quarter given. This was the sea in full pomp, this was the wave in untamed state. You knew who was in charge here and it wasn’t you – not even for a moment.

           Crush swung his van so that the headlights lit Terry’s way, he jumped out, pulled out some rope and ran over, sliding on the slick mud that covered the road. Terry turned back and faced him.

          “You know he’s gone in.” It was a statement not a question. “I’m going down too”

          Crush just nodded – he could see that wasn’t an arguable point. Terry looked grim. His face ashen and his hair flattened by the rain, wet clothes flapping in the gale he made no attempt to pull them close or button himself up – he looked like a man with nothing.

           “Board ?” He looked at Crush again. “I need to take a board”, again this wasn’t a request. Crush just turned and walked to the van, pulling out his old battered eight foot malibu from the back. Terry took it wordlessly and walked back along the path of light to the edge.

          Jaz stood up, unable to understand what was going on – he ran towards Terry but Crush grabbed his arm as he went past, pulling him over on the grassy clifftop.

          “Leave him – he’s not going to listen. I don’t know what’s gone on between them two – but it’s not ours to get involved in now. This is it. This is the end of things and we just have to be here ... for some god unknown reason.”

           “But….” The words died on Jaz’s lips as Terry threw off his jacket, stepped out of his shoes and disappeared out of the light, a shadow against the rocks and then gone.

           “We have to hope there’ll be some pieces to pick up, that’s all.” Crush looked into the darkness and then pulled Jaz to his feet, “Come on, we’d better see…”

          They walked to where Terry had last been visible to them, saw a figure on the rocks below, shirtless, waiting for the right moment. The moment that meant he could launch himself off without being dashed back against the cliff. Out in the water they thought they could see someone else paddling sideways across the bay, lifted by the water as it swelled underneath. But it might as well have been a ghost. When they looked again there was no sign of the figure, and now no sign of Terry on the rocks either.

Cutting Back

          ‘Terry !!’

          Terry swam back up into consciousness. At first all he could do was lie still with his eyes tight closed, smells of musty wood and dampness, yellowing paper and old cardboard filled his head and he started to retch. Eyes still closed he pushed himself up onto his knees and instinctively turned his head away as he was violently sick. His head pulsed whilst he sank back down onto all fours.

          “Terry !!”

          He couldn’t comprehend what had happened. He rubbed the back of his head and slowly opened his eyes. He had a cut, his hair was matted with blood and a slow thick trickle was spreading around the sore lump he could feel nestling underneath, throbbing slowly and perceptibly swelling as he sat up, head down. Dave.

           He ducked again. Avoiding perhaps another blow. The chair was upturned by his side. The room was almost dark, lights off, storm battering at the front windows, blocking out the white grey sky. Dave was gone.

           The smell of his own vomit almost made him throw up again. His thoughts pieced together the last few moments. Not all of them made sense until he realised that he was piecing together not just the last few moments but the moments from years and years ago, forgotten, hidden, unknown. He moved away, slumped up against the front of the counter dislodging some of the magazines.

          “Terry !!!”

          Somewhere someone was yelling his name.

          Sometime someone was yelling his name.

           He crawled to the end of the counter and curled up, wanting to be left alone. To sink into complete oblivion. His stomach was churning and it had nothing to do with the blow to the head. His eyes were watering and his fists clenched hard enough to hurt. The tightness meant to cause enough physical pain to stop that sickening inside – but it was never enough and it never had been.

          “Terry !”

          The yelling moved. It was somewhere behind him. He could hear the sound of kicks and cursing. Somewhere a long way away the sound of wood splintering invaded his attempt to disappear, to shrink small and be left alone.

           Behind him he heard the sound of a door crunch against the wall as it swung back and he felt the blast of wet air as the wind pushed past and flicked the pages of books, stirring dust from shelves and raising sweat on Terry’s forehead.

           He was aware of the people standing over him and could see the two pairs of feet, one in boots and the other in beach shoes. A hand reached down to hold his shoulder gently but with tension. It was cold and shaking.

           “Terry ?”

           Slowly he looked up – Jaz and Crush, it was Jaz’s hand on his shoulder. “What happened mate ?” he said almost gently.

          Terry couldn’t answer, but struggled to pull himself up using Jaz as a lever. Jaz didn’t try to help, just let him work at it for himself. Crush flicked on the lights.

          “Shit ” He just pointed at the pool of blood and vomit on the bare wood floor.

          “It’s OK……..I’m OK”  Terry managed to speak at last. “I’m not, you know, OK, not really. But that…” he pointed at the blood, “Looks worse than it is…..got smacked over the head with something….Dave……..I….”

          “Easy mate – come on – you need anything….?”

          “We came down when you didn’t come back; saw Dave driving off like a lunatic and no sign of you. So we been bangin’ on the windows ever since, couldn’t really see in but thought that was you on the floor. Jaz kicked the old back door in. What the hell happened?” The words just fell out of Crush’s mouth, he looked at Terry, open mouthed and waited.

          “Dave, oh Christ Dave….!”

          “Terry, you’re not making any sense, he just smacked you round the head…”

          “No – leave that…” Terry was on his feet lurching and agitated now, holding the back of his head and walking up and down, round in circles, looking like he was trying to clear his thoughts simply by walking away from them and refusing to let them catch up.

           “Dave – Dave’s going to do something really bad…..” Terry stopped – stared at Jaz and Crush. “Where was he going ?”

          “Cliff road I guess…”

          “He’s going to go in off the rocks…”

          “In this fuckin’ weather, he’s not that fuckin’ crazy…”

          “He bloody is, isn’t he?” said Crush, looking directly atTerry.

          “Yeah, he is – and he isn’t coming out again.”

          They all looked at the window where the storm was driving great sheets of rain in blasts. Terry pulled himself up straight, “And you know what – the poor bastard doesn’t even need to. It wasn’t how he thinks…”  his voice cracked, he shook himself.

          “Get us up there – come on – get us some sort of transport – we need to get there too….”

          Crush pulled out a set of keys from his jacket,

          “Van’s outside”.

Old Faces

          “Couple of bloody cripples together now then ?” said Crush as he helped Dave walk back along the sand, part of his physio they said, the day after he’d been released from hospital.  Dave didn’t even acknowledge the remark. He barely spoke as the two of them made their way along.

          “Do you really remember nothing….?”

          “Nothing.”

          “The car was a mess, don’t you even remember that ?”

          “Only what’s been told me….it’s one of those things where I can’t seem to unpick what’s been said to me and what I really know…..I mean, I start to think I can remember stuff and then Joe tells me its just what he’s told me….makes no sense.”

          Dave glanced out at the sea a few times as they walked, Crush interpreted this as a return to old form, “Soon be back in there again then ? Autumn swells coming in now…” Dave looked at Crush as if he was speaking a different language and then seemed to shake himself out of it.

          “Yeah, right, yeah…” He glanced one more time back at the grey waters throwing up clouds of spray around the headlands and set his eyes firmly on the path ahead.

           No-one spoke again until they said goodbye at the gate.

                                                                              Crush walked back down, wondering where Dave had been.

But because it's such a short post....here's the start of the Seventies for those who lived in England and didn't go to Altamont.... when Rod still mattered....

Cover Versions

          "So why now Terry ? Why now ?"


          Jaz and Crush were sitting with Terry in the coffee bar at the top of the beach – it was still too early for anything stronger and Terry hadn’t decided what to do yet – stay in a hotel, rent a ‘van or head off somewhere else for now.


          It was Crush speaking, genuinely puzzled, uncomfortable being in the coffee bar anyway and not particularly keen on having conversations in the glare of the rest of the world.


          "I don’t know, been too long I guess. Call it whatever you want," Terry grimaced as the words ‘mid life crisis’ flew through his head, he fought back the glib opportunity to use them. "But there’s still stuff I never really understood about what happened to my life and some of it seems to come from here.


          I suppose I went one way and my life such as it was decided to go off in a different direction, kind of leaving me stranded. Does that make any sense ?"


          "Fuck all." Snorted Jaz. "What you mean is that you got to this point and decided that it was all you never wanted. Happens to all of us mate – happens to all of us. Difference is not all of us have the chance to find out what it was all about. Don’t get the luxury of a fuckin' gap year when you’re still trying to pay the mortgage or get the Tesco run done."


          Terry felt uncomfortable, he knew Jaz was right, but he knew as well that he wasn’t wallowing in self doubt or self pity, not trying to 'find himself' – he hadn’t explained it very well and wasn’t sure he wanted to right now; he had a nagging doubt about all those years ago and wanted to nail it before the chance was gone. Timing and circumstances meant that he’d the opportunity to do it now. It wasn’t a reason for being here just at this moment but the moment was the one he wanted to take.


          A bored looking girl mopped over the glass counter with a cloth, looking warily at the three old men sitting huddled against the window, she felt sorry for them.


          "Yeah, I know." Terry tried a conciliatory tone, "It’s a bastard that – I still do that you know, well I did until the other day. It isn’t one of those running away from it all things – lots simpler really. Just trying to get some space and this is the best place I’ve ever found for that. Where d'you go for that ? Still go to Lanka or is that no good any more ?"



          He’s successfully deflected the conversation, and the guilt trip, by pointing up the fact that they still took off themselves and no-one would dare tell them they were entering the male menopause. They discussed the aftermath of the tsunami, the best beaches, who still made the pilgrimages out there. A few names that Terry had come across over the years cropped up. He’d heard bits and pieces, mainly about Joe and Jaz, in that time. Nothing much more than headline exploits, but he was surprised when he found out that Crush was a regular visitor over to India these days – not for the beaches, although he did manage to fit one or two in, but to help out building a school and generally doing good stuff out there. Terry felt rather humbled. Crush had grown quieter over time and wasn’t given to blowing his own trumpet but Terry was seriously impressed. Crush on the other hand brushed of the exclamations of surprise and tried to turn the conversation around.


          "You seen Dave yet ?" he asked.


          "No, only got here this morning and the shop isn’t open today – might go and see him later on"


          Jaz looked away. Terry couldn’t quite work out what was showing on his face. He took it as meaning that he ought perhaps to treat Dave gently. He’d always been notoriously flaky and with Joe gone it was difficult to know how to approach him.


          "Is he OK ?" he ventured, " About Joe I mean ?"


          There was a silence from the other two. Crush picked at some stuff on his sleeve and contemptuously blew the thick froth of his cappuccino. Jaz half laughed.


          "You know how he’s always been ? Well he’s like that really, but more so."


          Terry knew Dave had always been in Joe’s shadow, always been that bit more stoned and that bit more withdrawn than the others. He’d heard that he was on his own now after his long suffering wife had run off leaving a note stuck to the fridge. She’d left with one of his old friends and no-one had seen them since. Dave had withdrawn further into his shell. Jaz filled Terry in. Joe had become an even bigger legend in death than he was in life – the manner of his death having already reached heroic Buddha-like proportions amongst some and his letter writing to the council had made him some kind of eco warrior amongst the eulogists. Dave had seemed to shrink in the path of this unassailable image and he knew it wasn’t going to get any better. Worse still his social life had all but dried up and he hardly ever ventured out apart from his stints serving in the shop – and at this time of year these were few and far between anyway. Despite the fact that the rest of the village had adapted to the 21st century Dave was still embedded in working the way he had done since the mid seventies. He was a bit edgy too – prone to a quick temper at times. He wasn’t making any new friends and felt let down by the old ones on account of them all knowing what was going on with his wife before he did. He never felt that hey were laughing at him like some would have done, but he resented them not telling him before he was so mundanely cuckolded and left to explain it.


          Jaz suggested that he left Dave alone for a while. Terry nodded, but wanted to see him all the same – if only to compare what time had done to them both. Crush carried on picking at his sleeve and looked away.


          It was getting on for midday now – the sky held that pale early winter sunshine almost reluctantly – people trickled past in coats and boots to look at the beach, few kids, more animals. Some late starters, at least to Jaz and Terry, made their way past carrying boards and stepping across the damp sand like they were wearing high heels. Small ballet steps until they reached the finer sand further down. The tide was much further out now and no sound reached up this high. As it had receded the swell had dropped and Terry allowed himself a smile as he watched another forty-something, neoprene-wrapped, day-tripper pass by – he’d had it better – that was always the way to feel – ‘you should have been here yesterday’ had been the motto for pretty much every surfer he’d known over the years. Today he felt like saying to them, you really should have been here earlier...


          Jaz  stood up suddenly, he slapped Terry on the back and told him to call him on his mobile later, he had to go and finish off some odd jobs he’d started on a holiday home up the back end of the village. Crush shook hands with him and grunted.


          Once he was gone Crush looked at Terry again, with an intensity that he found a little unnerving.


          "So, what you really here for ? You hear about Joe or something else ?" There was a tone in his voice that verged on hostile. Crush had never been one of Terry’s closest friends but he reckoned they’d always rubbed along together OK. Now the low growl was making him worry, there was almost a threat to it.


          "It was Joe," he ventured, "What else was there ?". Terry smiled awkwardly. There was more, but not yet.


          "Just wondered what you heard ? Who’d you hear it from ?"


          "Just what everyone seems to know – the Devon boys told me – you know how word gets around. Shame I was too late for the funeral, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

         
          It didn’t really matter – Joe couldn’t have cared less about these things could he ?"


          "Right enough – he couldn’t. But," he paused, "nothing else ?"

    
          "Crush," Terry was getting exasperated now, "What else is there – you sound like there ought to be?"


          "No, Not." Crush looked away again, "Not anything in particular, just seems strange you pitching up now. Like, we’ve seen a few old faces over the last few days, like you would. But we were talking about you only yesterday as it happens and, well, Dave figured we’d not see you again."


          Terry was intrigued, Most people are when they know they've been spoken about in their absence,


          "Why’d he say that then ?"


          "Just, well, the subject just came up. No reason I s’pose. He just didn’t figure you’d come back after all…."


          "After all what ?"


          "After all – that’s all." Crush finished his drink and put the glass cup down on the table with the force of a full stop. He returned to reticence as easily as he’d suddenly let things out.


          "Better go and see him then." said Terry equally emphatic.


          "Wouldn’t just yet – see what Jaz said? He’s a bit, well, cranky at the moment. ‘Sides, he knows you’re here, saw you in the water with Jaz, well, saw someone and figured out who it was soon enough. He’ll probably show later on.


          Look, time for me to go too. I’m fixing up a boat down at St Inver, helping out a mate. Should be there already."


          He stood up and held open the door of the little café – letting the cold wind slip through the gap as he pulled his jacket tighter. "See you later maybe. OK ?"


          He half smiled and was gone. Terry watched him climb into his fifteen year old battered green Bedford van and weave up the road, avoiding the sand drifts gathering at the sides.


          This wasn’t quite how Terry had imagined it, yet how could he have seen it any other way ? He decided then that getting an out of season caravan was probably the best way to spend his money – on his own he really didn’t care about the comfort factor, although he wondered if that was just him kidding himself at this age.


          The hotel was pretty expensive now and any associations with Victor were long gone. The bar was apparently unrecognisable – even the shattered board, the stuff of legend, had come down from the ceiling years ago – the new owners at the time neither caring nor recognising what it was. The new place, Crush had told him in resigned tones, had a bright airy feel, trying to get something of that ‘New Cornwall’ vibe going – trying to fall in line with places like the Eden Project, the Tate at St Ives, those fancy celebrity restaurants down at Watergate – all bright and airy, open with big windows and abstract paintings, terraces outside and bottled lager. Not the same place that used to be dark and comfortable, with huge armchairs at one end and a pool table and pinball machine at the other. Where they knew the entire bar staff and after hours drinking was the norm. Terry wasn’t moaning about this – he’d seen it happen at home and pretty much everywhere and it wasn’t a major problem to him – this sort of stuff happened. It just made him want to be somewhere else. Made him feel like his time in places like that was over.


          Reflecting, he traipsed over the road, heading down to the site where most of the travelling plots lay empty and the static ‘vans crowded around one another on their breeze block moorings, like a wagon train drawn up to protect themselves from marauding indians.


          He looked at the window above the shop – the old doorway was gone, replaced by one at the side now, making just enough room for a small boutique to have been shoehorned into the space. But the window was still the same, still the same rotten wood frame that seemed to have got no better or worse over the years. Maybe it was a new frame, just that it was now as bad as the old one it had replaced, he couldn’t tell. That was the problem. The palimpsest of life and time kept placing new over old over older over….well, it just kept covering up – but somewhere underneath there was the real past, the real events. He allowed himself a small moment of memory, the room they’d spent that whole summer in. He felt a ripple of, of what ? Emotion ? Maybe a chill ? He shook involuntarily and took his eyes away again, there would be time enough.

Not a cover....well, it is...but not the song.....