On the Cusp

If she leant far enough from the window, and focused in on the movement of the wind, Clara could hear the sea. It was there, waves whispering over dunes and tarmac and carpet, voices carrying themselves to her. Voices she wished to follow, to trace bare feet over the road, through the dunes, onto the shore. But she was not to go any closer. Her mother downstairs, kindle and Facebook balanced in each hand, had decreed today was for packing and nothing else. A heap of dirty laundry perfumed the air from behind the bedroom door, where it should’ve been in her suitcase. 

Clara swivelled on the desk chair so that she faced her phone. The screen showed 2:34 in bold white. Her hands fiddled with the floral pop-socket on the back of the case. Beside the phone was an unopened bottle of factor fifty sun cream, a yellow ceramic pot, and a single polaroid of Clara stood beside a boy, younger than her in the face, except for a similarly shaped button nose that poked out red. She could hear muffled squeaks faintly through the far wall which adjoined onto her younger brother’s room. 

They had been holed up inside their rooms since sunrise. It had all begun with her mother. At breakfast, Bertie had blown up. Mother told them they wouldn’t be able to go to Shingle Bay; he shot up the stairs, pummelled his door shut. Clara heard his frustrations shared on their wall. Clara had left only to the garden, to bring in the washing that was blustering about in the wind. Her mother had scolded her for taking too long. Washing usually took her no longer than ten minutes, unless she was being lazy; she had told Clara so as she bit down into her toast, cold from her chores. Dejected, Clara too had stolen up to her room, her mother satiated at the prospect of her doing homework. A test paper creased, blank, lounged in the bin.

Her mother had taken the holiday by the throat from the very beginning. It was unnatural, forced, as if she orchestrated the waves in their monotonous ebb and flow. Her mother, whose steadfast control over each day of the trip, second after second of military control, had reduced her enjoyment of the North Coast to the pallid insides of ruined castles and cold, plastic meals. The first night, she had sat jubilant at the dining table. A naïve businesswoman closing a deal with her mother, her father and Bertie watching attentively. 

“What do you all fancy doing tomorrow?” She had looked towards her mother’s face, thin lipped and tightly strung into a smile, hands clasped in front of her exposing pearls and breastbone, sharp and prominent.

Bertie, overly enthusiastic, all at once exclaimed: “I want to build sandcastles!” 

“No Bertie, what did I say to you in the car?”

Bertie had the unfortunate task of remembering what his mother had said in the car on the journey up. Clara had been half asleep at the time.

“‘Beach day at the end of the holiday if I’ve been a good boy.’” Bertie hung his head and his freckled arms fell limp by his sides as though a rock had punctured a balloon. Her mother turned her eyes upon Clara with a quick twist of the neck. Pangs of anxiety rolled against the inside of her skull and a heat prickled on the back of her neck. The impulse to obey her mother, vast and forever in motion like ceaseless waves, dulled any energy she might find from speaking out. 

“Clara, would you like to do anything? Go anywhere? Maybe take Bertie with you if he’s been behaving himself.” Bertie peered up at her from across the table, his eyes inflating with expectancy.

“I wouldn’t mind going to see the waves from Shingle Bay.” Bertie’s eyes opened a little more, begging, pleading. “And maybe also building some sandcastles.”

Her mother turned her eyes towards the ceiling, as if to think for a second, and then fixed them back directly on Clara.

“Shingle Bay below the cliff edge?”

She nodded her head in the affirmative, but not too much to mask how tightly she clung to the hope of going. 

“I don’t know, it seems too far out for a day trip. Maybe if we all went in the Jeep and your father drove us.”

As if summoned by an overlord, her father stopped picking at his nails and focused his attention on her mother. 

“I can’t drive on this wrist, you know that.” He turned to Clara and put his arm free of the cast around Bertie. “I’m sorry kids, it’s just not possible. Why don’t you drive them down Rebecca? I’m sure we can have a day down at Shingle Beach. Break from packing. Couple of ice creams maybe.”

Spirits seemed to revive momentarily. A faint line of a smile crossed Clara’s face and Bertie looked up at their father, open mouthed with little diamond teeth. As quickly as she had dismissed Bertie, her mother sat forward with her upper body poised over clamped hands, now tinged yellow, red at the fingertips.

“I’ll be too busy packing that day. With all your different polo shirts and beach shorts and Bertie’s board games, I don’t think I’ll be able to leave this house at all!” Her mother’s voice rang shrill in the dead silence. Her father had already begun to retreat, reclining back into his chair. 

“Clara will be helping me with the packing too.” Her mother shot a glance at her, to which she simply nodded, a small tilt of the head.

Her mother raised her hand and scrunched up the bobble on her hair, pulling wisps of flyaway strands taut under the tension. She then smoothed the flattened hair, palming the strands oppressively down against her skull. With her other hand, she revealed a piece of paper with detailed, closely packed print. Words were separated to different boxes, some bigger than others, all neatly arranged under headings that denoted every hour in the following week, colour coded.

“Tomorrow, I have us booked to see Bamburgh castle. We’ll need to be up early, no messing around with your hair like usual Clara. If you can shower and eat quickly, we’ll be off before nine. When we get there we’ll be in the Castle till at least two. Afterwards, we’ll have lunch at a café which I’ve booked us in for…”

She rested her eyes underneath the lids and dispelled a little sigh of air. Her brother’s chair made a brief groaning noise as he shuffled, as if learning the discomfort of bearing the weight of their mother’s oppression. These were motions all too familiar to the Montcrest family; routine founded and repeated since before Clara could remember. Her mother’s unwavering control, clasped hands and string of pearls; her father’s prehistoric submission, back pressed tightly against the chair awaiting another order. Her and Bertie, pebbles pushed and dragged by the tide, had learnt what they knew from their father, forgotten what they ought not to by their mother.

Clara tapped her phone screen. 2:37, and behind: a portrait of her with Bertie from a distant cousin’s wedding reception one year ago. Down her front, shiny, beige fabric cut off midway between her hips and knees. From her ears dangled tiny shells she had pierced herself. Bertie, stretched on his tiptoes beside her, in his oversized suit that drooped from his wrists. It had the effect of making him seem ever smaller, funnier than Clara could remember. He was pulling a face, clownish, the corners of his mouth stretched out by small, bony fingers; her mid-laugh, eyes squinted into the camera and the sun. 

Her piano fingers drummed against the desk. Bertie had receded, the wall quiet and upright. She looked down at her lock screen for a second time. Then back up to the polaroid. Around her the air was stale, stagnant as a dead fly. Her mother hung around her like a penance, had done for weeks, before the month, the year, behind each happy photo, every pointed camera shouting ‘smile!’ An anxiety, like the coming of waves, rose deep in her abdomen. With it came a desperation to visit those rocks. To feel the shingle fold into her feet, to scour for shells to then pierce through for pleasure and let dangle from her ears. 

Looking at the photo again, she knew where he would want to be. Amongst the waves, pacing through sticky wet sand, moulding sandcastles from tiny grains. Up to his shoulders under the ocean and beaten giddy by the wind. In her head, them together through the dunes under the hot, summer sun. Her firecracker of a brother and her, smiling, pacing, bound together like entangled seaweed. He couldn’t stand up to her mother, he knew no different. But she - she could try.

All it took was an instant, as if a blade had sliced the air; the sudden rush of feet, a door swung open, her brother called. Heavy footsteps cascading downwards, her mother’s unanswered questions rising within the conservatory, frantic scrambling for beach shoes, a door’s screech. Tarmac splintered by fast motion underfoot, then grains of sand uneven and the rise of a dune. 

Bertie tugged on her arm. She looked down at him as if aware, for the first time, that they were no longer at home. His eyes were wide open and mouth gap-toothed, smiling, freckles standing to attention against the sun. 

“That was awesome! Mum is totally gonna kill us!”

“Yeah, she might.” Clara pulled on Bertie’s hand; she had not let go since they left the cottage. 

“But now we’re here, let’s make the most of it!”

She attempted to replicate Bertie’s unwavering elation in her face; all she managed was a half-smile. Why had she taken such a rash action? Her mother was bound to have woken up their father by now, informing him of their escape. An empty glass of wine left on the conservatory table, her mother would pour herself another one and wait until they returned, harbouring her rage. Clara was fearful. Not only for herself, but for Bertie. She had dragged him from his room, flown down the stairs hand in hand, acting rashly against better judgement. Standing sideways, Clara had a view of the main road which they had crossed, and as far back as the corner to the cottage. It might not be too late to apologise now, return Bertie safely back to his room.

“Clara! The waves! Jump in the waves! They’re so massive!”

Bertie beside her pummelled the sand; a ball of energy, hand extended towards the sea, away from the house. Clara twisted her head to follow his arm. Waves upon waves battered the shore far out of reach, each falling one after the other in rhythmic hums. Further out, barely visible on the vast ocean around it, a small fishing boat like a grain of sand static against the skyline. 

Clara’s shoulders moved down and arched her back. Her mouth closed into a sealed line, curved upwards at the edges. Little creases darted from each side of her lips. She took off her shoes, holding both from one hand. Beside her, Bertie began to do the same, whilst staring agape at the waves. Around him, the voices of other beachgoers stuck in the wind.

“C’mon Bertie, don’t you want to get to Shingle Bay?”

“But what about the sandcastles?”

“We can build those afterwards. We need to get to Shingle Bay before it goes dark. The pebbles there are so beautiful. You can take some to show your friends at home!”

Bertie looked up at Clara, his left eyebrow raised. Clara released a heavy breath, a monosyllabic chuckle.

“No one does that. But okay. I’ll come. But promise we get to do sandcastles later.”

Clara smiled at her brother, and pushed her hand into his fist, rearranging their fingers so they were linked.

“Promise.”

Time passed through silent steps on the shore. Four prints - two smaller, two larger - made their way towards the Bay. Every step would settle in the sand for a second, maybe two, then the grains would argue, shift, fold in on themselves until there was no trace left to discern. In this way, the two figures made it to Shingle Bay.

Clara had not been this way along the coastline before, not for many years. It was unfamiliar, alien to her. This was not the gritty, scorched sand, nor the boys with a frisbee, nor the girls lying on pink, purple, green towels with wandering eyes, of the beach near the cottage.

Instead, shingle under her bare feet reflected glassy rays of Northumbrian sun; her feet must move quickly if she was to avoid the sting of overexposure. The soles of her feet were alone in this predicament. Blown back by nature, her cream smock dress pressed back against wind-bitten skin. On her cheeks vibrant patches of red betrayed her calm exterior. She thought her deceit would gnaw on her mind a lot more than it was. In fact, it almost did not exist. Anxiety had given way to another feeling, a tinge of excitement lifting her ribs. The feeling went against everything she had known up to this point her entire life. And yet it was still there, a butterfly trapped amongst the weeds.

An undercurrent, something invisible yet forceful grew inside of her. It was rebellion, freedom, surging like the waves. Supplanting, overlapping, growing stronger, pushing far out onto all else. Submerging and re-emerging, making war and making peace. Her mother’s tight control eroded, a small crack in its vast wall. Looking to Bertie, who walked along silently next to her, Clara realised a thousand freedoms within herself.

They arrived at Shingle Bay in record time; the sun was still overhead, and waves reflected a silver glint, dazzling and muted. Around them was a small alcove that hid precariously well, tucked away from most by a looming cliff. As the cove was horseshoe shaped, Clara and Bertie had scaled over sizeable rocks to reach this secluded section of the coastline. Far down the shingle, where land met sea, shells collected naturally as if it were a landing strip for fossilisation. Clara was immediately drawn to it. Her feet moved swiftly, uncaring of the pebbles underneath her. Bertie had flung himself towards the rock pools on the far side of the bay.

As she got closer to the sea edge, waves retreating and advancing over wet sand, the ground became cool underfoot. Her feet left inch deep prints. Clara could feel the salt in the breeze and squatted down, fiddling with shells in her hands. Sharp edges, smooth surfaces, some with intricate spirals that looked like they belonged in an Oxfam. Occasionally Bertie would shriek, startled by something underwater, a shadow, seaweed, a crab scuttling. 

As she continued to prod at the different shells, Clara was taken back home. Back to her tiny, box room with its thin, forest green walls and creaky single bed. To her displays of crushed flowers pressed flat into resin and the long chains that dangled, packed with shells that clinked whenever a window was opened. 

She remembered a time when her mother had come in with breakfast and she was lying on her bed with her phone held over her face. Her mother stopped short of her wardrobe and had begun to touch the shells delicately, smoothing them through her fingers. Clara pretended not to notice at first, but this was disrupted by her mother’s voice.

“These are lovely Clara.”

Stiff in her shoulders, Clara sat up against the headboard and she eyed her mother, whose fingers passed from shell to shell with innocent delight. Her mother paused for a second, then turned her head to face Clara. There was something unseen, beautifully fresh in her mother’s shy gaze.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any spare?”

Clara swung her legs off the bed and walked over to a small cabinet near where her mother stood, retrieving a necklace made entirely of shells fixed to a piece of string. The effect of their colours together – cream, sandy brown, faint green, red splashes on white backgrounds – had a calming effect. Her mother’s eyes widened and a thin-lipped smile formed, her front tooth poked out slightly.

“Oh my!” Clara was slightly embarrassed by her mother’s naked show of amazement.  

“Clara, you’re wonderfully gifted. I love this little streak of red here, and this shell is so so pretty. This must have taken you ages to make!”

Her mother ran the shells individually along her palms and studied each with a mouth ajar. Clara folded her hands against her chest, red in the cheeks. A warm, tight feeling struck up in her stomach.

“You can have it. Actually, I made it for you last holiday.”

Her mother turned her focus from the necklace and back to Clara. The plate of scrambled egg, beans, and bacon long forgotten, she bridged the gap and hugged Clara tightly to her chest. The necklace swung softly behind her back. That embrace. It was a crack in time, a small pebble of sincerity against a wave of current emotion, but it remained solid, resolute in her mind. 

Picking up shells with a newfound pace, hands frantically, maniacally scanning, touching, feeling for imperfections, Clara continued. To her left the waves rolled with energy, leaving foam in the sand where it had touched last. The lullaby of the ocean, soft and evermore, cooed in a spray of emotion. Her mother’s calming, loving words wound themselves into the fabric of her memory. The fiery burst of rebellion receded to stronger feelings of nostalgia and love, and nostalgia for that love, faint and buried in the sand. Her mother’s astonished face chiming like the shells in the wind, her hands rolling over each with delicate fondness. She loved her mother, more than she could express.

It was getting late. Clara checked her phone. 4:51. Overhead, the sun had hidden behind the cliff edge. Bertie, still head down in the rockpools, was a fragile silhouette against the horizon. They must start back. Her mother would be waiting for them at home. But she did not feel afraid. All she felt was a warmth, deep inside of her chest. She clasped the shells tighter into her hand and felt a little stab where an edge dug into her palm. Her mind went to her suitcase where a ball of string lay unfolded, a pair of scissors unused.

She stood up straight and looked at the rockpools folded over in darkness.

“Get down from there Bertie. Yes, right now. You be careful coming down from those rocks.” 

Bertie’s form slowly made its way down the side of the rocks.

“Sandcastles!”

“Yes Bertie, sandcastles now. Be quick! Then back to the cottage.”

Clara’s voice broke off so that the end was left a whisper under her nose, frozen by the coastal air. To her left, the waves retreated.

She looked at them for a moment, her eyes beady and focused. Then upwards at the pale blue sky. A smile, warm, resolute formed on her face and she outstretched a solid arm to embrace Bertie’s fast approaching form.