“Well it’s right there at the bottom of the street, for what it’s worth,” Flo said.
Patty pulled on her coat and went out. The wind was gusting and the sky was brightening a little. The cords of an empty flagpole were clapping repetitively, a solitary empty sound.
As Flo had said, there was no proper beach. The waterfront was just a narrow shelf of stones and broken shells where the waves were breaking. Out across the bay she could see the shadow of the other shore. It couldn’t be more different from the blue sky and limitless horizon of Weymouth before the war. Yet still the waves ran in endlessly and comfortingly on the strand. In and back, each a little closer, breaking in a rush of spray, and then the sound of the shingle being sucked back, drowned as the next wave came forward, each wave different and each the same. The sea was as new as the morning, and yet the same sea as when she had been a child and Oswald and her father still alive, and the waves ran in and back as they had been doing all the time since she had last seen them.
Above the seagulls circled and called. Nobody else was down by the water. Patty felt herself taking deeper breaths. There were other birds at the edge of the waves, not seagulls, black and white birds with sharp beaks.
She crouched down. It was too cold to consider sitting on the pebbles. She did not throw a stone because she didn’t want to hurt or frighten the birds. She watched them wading in the shallow water at the edge of the sea. It felt like a blessing being there and watching them. She remembered Mr. Price preaching from the pulpit they had built for him one of those summer Sundays, not the King Canute Sunday, and not the day her father had quoted “When Adam delved,” some other ordinary holiday Sunday. “You can always bring your troubles to Jesus, and you can bring him your happiness too. Jesus is always there for you. Jesus loves you, loves you, in your griefs and your joys. God is your father, everybody’s father. He loves you like a father. If you turn to him in your troubles, God can help.”
In recent years she had grown away from the simple piety of her childhood. In school many of the girls mocked at the way the teachers hypocritically mouthed religious sentiments, and some of that slopped over into mocking Christianity itself. And the war had lasted such a long time, and taken so much from her. But the sea was still here, and just like it God was still here, waiting patiently, although she hadn’t been paying attention. Jesus was there, and loved her, and the sea was there, endlessly going in and out. She had lost her earthly father and brother, but she still had her heavenly father. And of course they were not just gone, they were with God. In a sense she still had Dad and Oswald. She had the hope of seeing them again. Tears came to her eyes and she let them spill down her cheeks. There was nobody there but the sea and the seabirds. She felt as if she had been given a great gift.
Back in Stan and Flo’s kitchen they had breakfast just ready: Cumberland sausage and fried bread and strong tea with milk and sugar. “We’d give you an egg if we could,” Flo said.
“Sausage is more than enough. I know that’s from your ration,” Patty said.
“Sausage makes the meat go further,” Flo said.
Stan said grace unselfconsciously, as he had the night before. Patty’s “Amen” was less automatic and more heartfelt than it had been then, but nobody remarked on it.
“Did you find what you were looking for down by the sea, then?” Flo asked as she started to cut her sausage.
“More than I was looking for,” Patty replied as soon as her mouth was empty.
“More?” Stan asked.
Patty couldn’t speak.
“She said she hadn’t seen the sea since before the war,” Flo said.
“Reckon it might be a thing you could miss at that,” Stan said.
“What are those black and white birds with pointed beaks that run along the edge of the water?” Patty asked.
“Why, those would be oystercatchers,” Stan said after a moment’s pause. “Do you like birds then?”
“I don’t know much about them.”
Stan got up and went to the bookshelves above the big wireless in the corner of the kitchen. He pulled down a big green book and flicked through it to a sketch of the bird she had seen. “One of those, like?”
“Yes, that’s it!” she was delighted.
“Our Martin was very fond of birdwatching. It’s a nice hobby for a boy. Doesn’t cost much.”
“I can see this would be a good place for it,” she said. “And I’m sure my brother would have loved it, though Twickenham wouldn’t be so good.”
“You’d be surprised how many birds you can see in a suburb,” Stan said.
“That’s Martin’s room you were sleeping in,” Flo said. “He’s in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. We don’t hear from him half as often as we’d like.”
“At least he’s still alive,” Patty said. “My brother—”