I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. (First line from Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome.)
I was feeling indecisive, so entered three. I have it on good authority that this was the best one. (I didn't win, obviously, but a friend liked this one best.)
Bottles
That is my beach. I sit here with my chin on my knees and my arse on the sand, ignoring the barbecue with that family all laughing together.
But when they dump their rubbish into the sea, I’m the one getting my feet wet to clear it up.
A letter in a bottle. How novel. Bloody hell.
There’s nothing to do but read it now. It might be from a dying kid in France or something. Full of bloody dust and a crappy piece of paper.
The pain of losing his daughter like that. Years and years of her being gone.
Loads of people lose children. It happens. Move on.
A second bottle floats by while I’m still knee-deep.
But it was him. He beat her. She turned up and showed me the scars and the chunk he pulled out of her hair. She kept it.
Once, long ago, I’d been beaten. A wooden spoon with my mother on the end of it. I learned to dodge.
The next bottle is green and small, like an old fashioned one from a chemist.
You never really know someone though. All I knew was his pain that she’d left.
The next is a pop bottle. I open it fast, spilling the grey dust onto the yellow sand.
Charles loved me. My lovely, gentle, funny, loving Charles.
I wait three hours for the next one.
So I’m sending him to you. Because it turned out I never knew him at all.
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In case you're interested or would like to judge for yourself, here are the other two:
Truth
‘You’ll never guess what.’
‘What?’
‘You know Pete’s not been in?’
‘Yeah.’
‘He were sacked for being a spy.’
‘No!’
‘Yeah!’
‘A spy?’
‘A spy!’
‘God! I’d never have thought it of Pete.’
‘He was using work email to send stuff to competitors.’
‘And they caught him?’
‘Oh yeah. They can read your emails, you know.’
‘You’ll never guess what.’
‘What?’
‘You know Pete from work?’
‘Fat Pete?’
‘No, Tall Pete.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘He were arrested for being a spy!’
‘A spy?’
‘A spy!’
‘Who’s he been spying on?’
‘Us! He was selling company secrets to competitors!’
‘Really?’
‘Yep. Using work email an’all!’
‘They can arrest you for that?’
‘Apparently so! Fraud innit. He’s not been into work or nothing!’
‘God!’
‘You’ll never guess what.’
‘What?’
‘You know Fat Pete that my ‘Shell works with?’
‘Oh yeah. Drinks in the Pins, don’t he?’
‘That’s Tall Pete. This is Fat Pete.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘He was arrested for being a spy!’
‘A spy?’
‘A spy!’
‘God! Who’s he spying on?’
‘Us! Police tracked him using his email!’
‘Can they do that?’
‘Apparently so!’
‘God! You’d think they’d focus on those others.’
‘What others?’
‘Them terrorists.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’ll never guess what.’
‘What?’
‘You know Andy’s bird’s mate, Phil?’
‘Tall guy? From the Fox?’
‘Yeah, right tall and fat with it.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘Got arrested last week! Terrorist, in’t he!’
‘A terrorist!’
‘Yeah. Who’d have thought it?’
‘Who’d have thought it.’
‘Peter Connolly.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you understand the nature of these charges?’
‘...Yes.’
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Trouble
‘You’re not in trouble, OK?’
She sits with her blue eyes blinking under hair so white it’s almost transparent. Not in trouble.
‘We just want to know what you saw.’
‘I didn’t see much, Miss,’ she says, with that annoying little sniff that she adds to every sentence. ‘I just saw him on the floor, afterwards.’
But by all accounts, she was right next to him when it happened, playing right there.
This one is exuberant, caught up in the excitement of the morning. He can’t stay seated; he has to act it out for me.
‘It was Billy Jessop, Miss! Billy Jessop ran up to him and pulled at his legs, like this, when he was running, like this, and he pulled him, and he fell, and there was blood and brains everywhere!’
There was no blood. That was the strangest thing about it.
This one is a small boy; slight, red-haired and freckled. His reports say, ‘Always reliable and mature’.
‘He was trying to get away from Billy, so he climbed to the top of the climbing frame and then he fell off.’
But he was found nowhere near the climbing frame.
This one, head in the clouds, tall and stringy with her long, brown hair. She’s wailing and gulping at the air.
‘It was just a game of tag, Miss! It was just a game that we were all playing!’
So there we are. Just a game of tag, that’s all it was. A game of tag.
Pip xxx
