Return To Charmouth Beach

By Lorna Cook

You won’t find any if you just sit there.” The man’s voice sounded from over my shoulder. I turned to look at him from my cross-legged position on the beach and returned his smile. I recognised him immediately and my stomach flipped.

He was older now, but he still looked great. It hadn’t been that long really. Only a few years since I’d last seen him, briefly, walking down the high street.

Although he hadn’t seen me. I hadn’t had the courage to say hello, to interrupt him. He’d looked happy, his arm slung round a blonde woman’s shoulders as they walked. But it felt like a million years since we’d spoken face to face.

He’d been my best friend, once upon a time. Back when we were teenagers and had found those blissful stolen moments when we’d sit together putting the world to rights. Our group of friends had teased, asking us if we’d kissed yet. Asking us, why on earth not?

We never had. We never would. They’d been wrong about us. that, although I didn’t realise I’d missed it until just now. Was it because

I’d purposefully forgotten about him; forced him from my mind as the lure of a new city and new friends had come into view? But here, sitting on this beach, it was impossible to forget him.

“I won’t find any fossils at all actually,” I said, aiming for nonchalant, but knowing I’d failed. “And neither will they, I don’t think.” I pointed towards the few remaining tourists, their heads bowed as they searched the sand and pebbles for

much attention to the different names of fossils – the stock in trade of Charmouth Beach.

Iwas due home for the weekend, where my mum would attempt to stuff me full of roast lamb and Dad would pour endless glasses of red wine. I hugged myself comfortingly thinking about it.

I hadn’t intended to sit here for so long. Fossils had been the last thing on my mind. I’d been thinking, in part, about my life back then, and by default him and the part we’d played in each other’s existence. So much so that I wondered if somehow, by a miraculous twist I had managed to summon him.

But perhaps it was because he’d always lived nearby and he just happened to be here.

Having not been back here to Charmouth Beach in so long, curiosity took hold and I had just wanted to see it again, this bit of Dorset I called home. Like the tide, I’d been pulled back.

He’d been here the last time too.

We’d said goodbye and it had been strange and awkward.

He’d been my best friend since childhood, and I’d been moving away. I’d been twenty-three and I’d had my leaving party here, although I’d left for university years before and never fully felt I’d returned.

The fabric of that last night had been a chilly barbecue on the beach, singing, too much vodka. We thought we were so cool, although most of us confessed later we’d hated the taste of neat spirits. No one had thought to bring any mixers.

He’d been trying to tell me something. We’d been saying goodbye, enveloped in a warm haze of terrible vodka and warm jumpers.

We’d spoken at the same time and neither of us had quite heard what the other had said. The breeze had pulled small snatches of our conversation out of our mouths and far out to sea.

We’d hugged, held each other just that little bit longer than usual, not quite knowing when we’d see each other again. And the next day I’d left. A new life had called.

Now, all these years later, I knew in my heart that I would return here, properly, soon. I was ready.

Iturned to look at him. He’d moved from awkward twentysomething boy into confident thirtysomething man. I wish I’d known him in those intervening years. I wish we’d kept in touch. The odd Facebook “like” just hadn’t really been enough.

I knew what he did for a living. He’d set up a surfer’s paradise and coffee shop further down the coast but when he wasn’t running that, what had he been doing?

What did he read these days? Were his favourite films still the ones they’d always been, or had he moved on? Who had he been with? Had he been happy?

I so desperately wanted to ask him, but the words were stuck in my mouth. Instead I reached out and absentmindedly picked up a large pebble.

It was that strange time of year when it was neither truly spring nor summer. I wrapped my cardigan tighter around myself and wondered if we’d speak after today or whether we’d say goodbye, as we had that last time, and it would be another few years before we would see each other again. What would happen in the intervening years this time? We’d

be older. Wiser, too, maybe.

I thought of all those missed chances when he’d asked me on dates and I’d kept saying no. He’d been my friend since we were children. Why ruin it? Funny, only now did I consider them missed chances.

“It’s been so long,” he volunteered. His voice was wistful.

I wanted to purposefully misunderstand and say, “what has?” but it wouldn’t have been fair so instead I replied softly, “I know.”

He was looking out to sea and I knew I should continue talking. I should say something – anything.

Or maybe not anything. Something specific. He’d started, had handed me the conversational baton and I’d dropped it, unsure if I should pick it up and continue.

I had always wanted to know what he’d been so earnestly trying to tell me, that last night, here, ten years ago. The night I’d left. Always wanted to know, but never wanted to ask.

If there was a time to find out, it was probably now. I might not get another chance. I might not be able to summon him again just by thinking about him.

Not that I was sure that’s what I’d done at all. It might be another ten years. Things would be different then. What if I was married? What if he was? Panic surged through my veins at the thought.

I sensed he wanted to speak. I waited but he’d obviously decided against it. A slow sigh escaped his lips and he relaxed, just a fraction, next to me, uncrossing his legs and stretching them out in front of him.

His jeans were ripped at one knee and I drew my eyes away from his leg and looked up. A solitary gull soared and dipped and I was so focused on this that I didn’t notice at first as his hand touched mine. Perhaps because it felt so natural. When I did notice, I gave an involuntary “oh” and looked down. My heart raced. What it could mean?

His fingers brushed mine softly as he gently took the pebble from my hand. His fleeting touch had been intoxicating and I mourned the loss of his warm hand against mine.

He looked at the pebble and narrowed his eyes before smiling. Shivering children played in a nearby rock pool that had revealed itself from the retreating tide. Their parents called them back and reluctantly they packed away their buckets and spades and picked their way across the pebbles, towards towels outstretched and the promises of ice creams if they left without a fuss.

The sun was dipping and after all these years, he and I sat together on the beach once again.

I hadn’t realised I’d feel quite like this, seeing him again. It was doing things to my heart, my stomach, my mind. My mouth had become dry.

Did he still think about me as I did him? Did he ever picture us together and dismiss it, as I had done countless times over the years? Did he have the same pang of regret that I had when I thought about how perfect it would have been, that last night, to kiss – just once – the boy who had been my best friend. Only I hadn’t dared.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t give me a chance to ask what for.

“That last night, telling you I loved you – knowing full well you were leaving the next day. Unforgivable really.”

I looked at him but his eyes wouldn’t meet mine. He was looking at the large pebble intently and tracing a line on it with his finger. He handed it to me and I looked at it properly and smiled.

A small swirl, indented and ridged had formed from a creature, many hundreds of thousands of years ago. Between us, we had found a fossil, after we had thought it impossible.

Funny how things from the past could resurface as if they’d never been lost at all. He handed it to me and watched my reaction. I clasped my fingers around it, feeling the cold stone grow warm under my touch. Regardless of what happened next, I would treasure it forever.

I said his name and as I did, he reached down and took my hand in his, threading his fingers through mine. I looked down at our hands entwined and he did the same.

“I had no idea…” I trailed off because, I think, deep in my heart I did know he’d liked me. I’d always known. “So much time has passed,” I said quietly. I dared to look into his eyes.

He looked from the rock to me. “Sometimes the thing you didn’t know you were looking for was right there the whole time…”

FOCUSED on the gull, I didn’t NOTICE at first as HIS HAND touched mine