Journey to the Sea Page 7

  The British family have been ordered into the shade by Mum who has laid out all the above on one of the spare towels. It’s a nagging affair of a meal – ending with some serious scrubbing with the Wet Wipes, which seems a little illogical. The Mediterranean is just ten feet away – why bring some soggy towels with their anti-bacterial promises with you? Your little ones have been widdling in the sea all day – as have about four hundred other people. It’s unlikely that a moist towel will save them from a few runny moments.

  It’s mid-afternoon when everyone on the plage privée starts to notice the huge and growing bunch of Kiwis and Australians with the odd South African thrown in that has set up camp just outside the Premium Economy Beach Zone. What started out as a group of four of five, lazing quietly in the sunshine, has turned into a pack of about twenty – travelling their way round their late teens and the world with the deep tan, shaggy hair and friendship bracelets to prove it. Their body language suggests that many of them have had relationships with others of them. Waves of laughter roll out from under their umbrellas every few minutes. They seem impossibly free. They look too big for Europe – they are a different, hardier species. The boys are musclier; they have flippers for feet, huge heads and beaked noses. The girls are so tanned even their armpits are brown. This summer’s beach fashion for both the boys and the girls is the very low-slung surf shorts, which makes a British builder’s bum seem like a modest option. Nearly all of them have a tattoo somewhere. One of the girls has some kind of Celtic symbol across her midriff, which you imagine might look like a map of the Norwegian fjords if she has a large family later in life.

  With the sun at its highest, the rest of us have quietened down to a low murmur, flicking the occasional sand fly away and occasionally rousing in order to take a dizzying walk across the hot sand to the sea.

  The Antipodeans are loud, though, and completely unaffected by the heat. They are variously involved in body boarding, a game of sand cricket, cracking open a few bottles of rosé wine and challenging each other to handstands in the shallows – a game I would be hesitant to play if the only refreshment available was rosé wine. But it’s a wonderful sight – like a mini beach Olympics for the rest of us to gawp at without even having to sit up. They go on for hours without pausing for a rest. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one on the beach who feels that I simply don’t have the same chromosomes as they do. I can’t even say that I used to be that energetic when I was their age – well, I could, but it would be a big fat lie.

  The noise they’re creating hasn’t gone down well with everyone – I think I even heard some tutting from the other plage privée residents, especially when a newcomer arrived with a guitar . . .

  By four o’clock the American contingent had become restless and headed off to look at the medieval city of Carcassone. ‘It’s meant to be so totally like awesome,’ predicted one of them. Thankfully they wouldn’t be as disappointed by that as they had been by their air-conditioning. The British family had toddled off to get another meal ready. There were tears involved in this process, and sadly Dad’s copy of the Telegraph remained poking out of the bag, unread.

  At six o’clock on the dot, the bored beach attendant asks the rest of us to start packing up, which seems like a sensible option to me and my reddened skin. It’s that time of day when you know that the sunshine has baked your thoughts to their maximum optimism and to stay any longer would be foolish. As the sun loses its heat and height, the beach becomes the place for sauntering couples, and for illicit barbecues, spliff-rolling and the kind of drinking that leads you to imagine midnight swimming is a safe and fun thing to do.

  By now the guitar is being put to good use in the Antipodean gathering – and all of the above seems pretty much a given. There’ll be quite a haul for the Algerian man raking the beach tomorrow morning.

  As I pack up to leave I can see the two young French girls trudging over the sand back to the town, looking longingly at the group. Maybe next year they’ll be old enough and bold enough to join in the beach’s late-night activity, but for now I suspect there is a nice family supper waiting for them at one of the well-kept villas back in punchy old Narbonne town.

  But how wonderful to have all that beach action ahead of you, how reassuring to know that you don’t have to search out some paradise idyll with matching hammocks in order to enjoy your sandy moments. How wonderful to be able to spend just one day in the company of all ages of man displaying all kinds of beach etiquette. How wonderful to have found Narbonne Plage.

  FIRST SEA LORD

  ADMIRAL SIR ALAN WEST GCB DSC ADC

  IN JUNE 1972 MY ship was slipping through the south-west approaches heading out into the Atlantic. It was the middle watch (0001–0400 hours) and the sea was glassy with no wind, but the beginnings of a very long swell gave us slight movement. Above was a vast canopy of stars. A trail of phosphorescence (caused by millions of plankton disturbed by the ship) left a magical green glow. However, it had been a different story the last time we crossed this particular patch of water.

  HMS Russell was a Type 14 frigate; small by modern standards and reminiscent of the brave little escort ships that had ensured Britain’s survival during the Second World War. She was built in the mid-1950s, designed for rapid production in shipyards all over the UK should the feared war against the Soviet Union happen. She had only one engine, one propeller shaft, two boilers and no stabilisers.

  We had been returning from a visit to Bayonne, a French port in the south of the Bay of Biscay. The weather was foul. A string of autumnal gales had swept across the Atlantic and another deep depression was approaching. The wind howled and the ship shuddered, creaked and groaned. Water was sluicing over the decks. It was hard for the ship’s company to move around without being thrown into a heap on the deck or into a corner of some compartment. We had secured the ship by lashing furniture and wedging or stowing all movable equipment. The galley had produced ‘potmess’, an all-purpose stew, for those who weren’t too seasick to eat.

  Heading into the waves, we were rolling and pitching madly, but in the dog watches (1400–2000 hours) the ship turned in to the English Channel. Now the vast swell was astern and our motion became easier with the following sea. Because the weather had slowed us down, the Captain took the opportunity to increase speed to make our planned arrival at Portsmouth. The helmsman on the steering wheel found it tricky to keep a steady course because the large following sea made the ship’s head veer wildly from side to side.

  It was the last dog watch (1800–2000 hours) and most of those not on watch were lashed in their bunks. I was in the small wardroom with Andy, the First Lieutenant. We had wedged ourselves in the bench seats and were chatting about the time we had served in a minesweeper together. There was an unpleasant feel about the ship’s movement and suddenly she broached. This happens when the following sea overtakes you and pushes her stern faster than the bow is travelling. The bow digs in and the ship rolls onto its side at right angles to the waves, or ‘beam to sea’. The result can be devastating and has led to the loss of many ships.

  As the ship began to roll I could see the whites of Andy’s eyes, and I knew mine were registering the same concern. The roll seemed to last an eternity and we were thrown against the ship’s side. There was a loud crashing as equipment broke free and catapulted across other spaces in the ship. The cords holding chairs and tables broke and they cascaded around us. All went black and then emergency lighting kicked in, bathing us in a ghostly glow. Alarms started ringing all over the ship. Still we rolled. There was suddenly the piercing howl of superheated steam as the safety valves on the boilers lifted. Were we going to capsize completely? Would we survive?

  The roll stopped and the ship recovered from what we later discovered was a 72-degree angle. The wave had broken over the funnel. We had lost all power and the ship was dead in the water, rolling like a pig, beam to sea. There was a smell of burning and people rushed to their duty stations. Mine was on the bridge. I ra
pidly confirmed our position and passed it to the main communications office in case we should need assistance. I then ensured that the officer of the watch had recorded everything in the ship’s log.

  It was a dark night and a large bulk carrier was bearing down on us, but our radios were unusable. Was he aware of our presence? When a ship cannot operate under its own power at night it must switch on two red lights to signal that it is no longer under command. With no power, we had to hoist two battery-driven lights on a rope lanyard. I grabbed two men and we went onto the flag-deck by the bridge, attached to lifelines. The ship still rolled violently and we were doused by heavy spray. It was impossible to talk against the screaming sound of steam escaping and the roar of the sea, but the lights were hoisted and a collision averted. Looking aft I saw stokers desperately working their way through pounding waves along the iron deck below to help in the boiler and engine rooms.

  Thanks to good naval training, discipline and skill, power was restored and the ship got under way again. The smell of burning had been a fire in the galley where the chefs had started to make chips when we entered the Channel. They put out the blaze themselves and, still blackened with soot, continued to cook dinner for the ship’s company. We berthed safely in Portsmouth, battered but not beaten by the sea.

  I shuddered at the memory of this incident as HMS Russell cut smoothly through the glassy, phosphorescent sea. After handing over the watch to my relief at 0400, I stood a while on the bridge wing drinking a cup of traditional kye (a concoction made of condensed milk, hot water and chocolate shaved from a giant block). I marvelled at the sea’s different moods and the fact that even the most experienced sailor must never underestimate its power.

  THE BEACH BUTLER

  RUTH RENDELL

  The seaside resort in this story came out of my imagination. It’s supposed to be somewhere on the coast of South America where the gulf between rich and poor is wide. I have never been there but I have been to Hawaii and it was on a beach there that I saw hotel servants combing the sands for lost jewellery and saw too the women who went swimming in a full panoply of diamonds. The story is a sad one because it shows how privation drives the poor to crime and that love is not always worth the price a woman may be asked to pay for it.

  THE WOMAN WAS thin and stringy, burned dark brown, in a white bikini that was too brief. Her hair, which had stopped looking like hair long ago, was a pale dry fluff. She came out of the sea, out of the latest crashing breaker, waving her arms and crying, screaming of some kind of loss. Alison, in her solitary recliner, under her striped hood (hired at $6 a morning or $10 a whole day), watched her emerge, watched people crowd about her, heard complaints made in angry voices, but not what was said.

  As always, the sky was a cloudless blue, the sea a deeper colour, the Pacific but not peaceable. It only looked calm. Not far from the shore a great swell would bulge out of the sea, rise to a crest and crash on whoever happened to be there at the time, in a cascade of overwhelming, stunning, irresistible water, so that you fell over before you knew what was happening. Just such a wave had crashed on the woman in the white bikini. When she had struggled to her feet she had found herself somehow damaged or bereft.

  Alone, knowing nobody, Alison could see no one to ask. She put her head back on the pillow, adjusted her sunglasses, returned to her book. She had read no more than a paragraph when she heard his gentle voice asking her if there was anything she required. Could he get her anything?

  When first she heard his – well, what? His title? – when first she heard he was called the beach butler it had made her laugh, she could hardly believe it. She thought of telling people at home and watching their faces. The beach butler. It conjured up a picture of an elderly man with a paunch wearing a white dinner jacket with striped trousers and pointed patent shoes like Hercule Poirot. Agustin wasn’t like that. He was young, handsome, he was wary and polite, and he wore shorts and white trainers. His T-shirts were always snow-white and immaculate, he must get through several a day. She wondered who washed them. A mother? A wife?

  He stood there, smiling, holding the pad on which he wrote down orders. She couldn’t really afford to order anything. She hadn’t known the package excluded drinks and meals and extras like this recliner and hood. On the other hand, she could hardly keep pretending she never wanted a drink.

  ‘A Diet Coke then,’ she said.

  ‘Something to eat, ma’am?’

  It must be close on lunchtime. ‘Maybe some crisps.’ She corrected herself. ‘I mean, chips.’

  Agustin wrote something on his pad. He spoke fairly good English, but only, she suspected, when food was the subject. Still, she would try.

  ‘What was wrong with the lady?’

  ‘The lady?’

  ‘The one who was screaming.’

  ‘Ah. She lose her . . .’ He resorted to miming, holding up his hands, making a ring with his fingers round his wrist. ‘The ocean take her – these things.’

  ‘Bracelet, do you mean? Rings?’

  ‘All those. The ocean take. Bracelet, rings, these . . .’ He put his hands to the lobes of his ears.

  Alison shook her head, smiling. She had seen someone go into the sea wearing sunglasses and come out having lost them to the tide. But jewellery!

  ‘One Diet Coke, one chips,’ he said. ‘Suite number, please?’

  ‘Six-oh-seven – I mean, six-zero-seven.’

  She signed the chit. He passed on to the couple sitting in chairs under a striped umbrella. It was all couples here, couples or families. When they decided to come, she and Liz, they hadn’t expected that. They’d expected young unattached people. Then Liz had got appendicitis and had to cancel and Alison had come alone; she’d paid, she couldn’t afford not to come, and she’d even been excited at the prospect. Mostly Americans, the travel agent had said, and she had imagined Tom Cruise lookalikes. American men were all tall and in the movies they were all handsome. On the long flight over she had speculated about meeting them. Well, about meeting one.

  But there were no men. Or, rather, there were plenty of men of all ages, and they were tall enough and good-looking enough, but they were all married or with partners or girlfriends and most of them were fathers of families. Alison had never seen so many children all at once. The evenings were quiet, the place gradually becoming deserted, as all these parents disappeared into their suites – there were no rooms here, only suites – to be with their sleeping children. By ten the band stopped playing, for the children must be allowed to sleep, the restaurant staff brought the tables indoors, the bar closed.

  She had walked down to the beach that first evening, expecting lights, people strolling, even a barbecue. It had been dark and silent, no one about but the beach butler, cleaning from the sand the day’s litter, the drinks cans, the crisps bags and the cigarette butts.

  He brought her Diet Coke and her crisps. He smiled at her, his teeth as white as his T-shirt. She had a sudden urge to engage him in conversation, to get him to sit in a chair beside her and talk to her, so as not to be alone. She thought of asking him if he had had his lunch, if he’d have a drink with her, but by the time the words were formulated he had passed on. He had gone up to the group where sat the woman who had screamed.

  Alison had been taught by her mother and father and her swimming teacher at school that you must never go into sea or pool until two hours have elapsed after eating. But last week she had read in a magazine that this theory is old hat, you may go swimming as soon as you like after eating. Besides, a packet of crisps was hardly a meal. She was very hot, it was the hottest time of the day.

  Looking at herself in one of the many mirrors in her suite, she had thought she looked as good in her black bikini as any woman there. Better than most. Certainly thinner, and she would get even thinner because she couldn’t afford to eat much. It was just that so many on the beach were younger than she, even the ones with two or three children. Or they looked younger. When she thought in this way panic rushed u
pon her, a seizure of panic that gripped her like physical pain. And the words that came with it were ‘old’ and ‘poor’. She walked down to the water’s edge. Showing herself off, hoping they were watching her. Then she walked quickly into the clear warm water.

  The incoming wave broke at her feet. By the time the next one had swollen, reared up and collapsed in a roar of spray, she was out beyond its range. There were sharks but they didn’t come within a thousand yards of the beach and she wasn’t afraid. She swam, floated on the water, swam again. A man and a woman, both wearing sunglasses, swam out together, embraced, began a passionate kissing while they trod water. Alison looked away and up towards the hotel, anywhere but at them.

  In the travel brochure the hotel had looked very different, more golden than red, and the mountains behind it less stark. It hadn’t looked like what it was, a brick-red building in a brick-red desert. The lawns around it weren’t exactly artificial but they were composed of the kind of grass that never grew and so never had to be cut. Watering took place at night. No one knew where the water came from because there were no rivers or reservoirs and it never rained. Brilliantly coloured flowers, red, pink, purple, orange, hung from every balcony and the huge tubs were filled with hibiscus and bird of paradise. But outside the grounds the only thing that grew was cactus, some like swords and some like plates covered with prickles. And through the desert went the white road that came from the airport and must go on to somewhere else.