A Day at the Beach

By Wendy Taylor

Uncle Bill had taken the photo.

The photo Chrissy found nestled in a stained cardboard box of receipts, in the closet in her father’s bedroom.

The photo of Chrissy, her brother Rob and their parents, at the beach, sitting under a lopsided, striped umbrella.

Uncle Bill was not really Chrissy and Rob’s uncle, but that is what they called him, when he moved into the spare room, all charm and cigarettes.

‘It’s just until he gets himself sorted,’ Chrissy and Rob’s, Dad said. ‘A week or two at most.’

When Uncle Bill took the photo, a week or two had stretched to six months. He was still unemployed, and his wife having not taken the cheating philanderer back into the fold of their six children, and sprawling peeling clapboard home, meant he was still sleeping in the spare room. The rest of the day he flopped around the living room. All day, every day.

‘It is so much quieter here,’ he declared, feet up on the coffee table, a steaming cup of tea, in large bony hands.

Uncle Bill slid into family life, slapping Rob on the back with congratulatory gusto after being selected for the football team, listening to Chrissy’s poetry reading, head tilted attentively and eating all their mother’s baking with appreciative plaudits. Mealtimes were raucous, as he entertained everyone, with his exploits from the time he was taxi driver.

So it was only natural, that Uncle Bill would join them on a day trip to the beach.

Chrissy peered at the photo, the colours leached out, giving it an arty vibe and turned it over. “Knotts beach, 1975,” was written on the back in her mother’s handwriting. A small whistle escaped her pursed lips. Almost fifty years ago.

‘Look what I found,’ she crowed, as she bounced from the bedroom into the study across the hall.

Rob, chino clad legs curled under him; fleece top zipped against the chill in the house, peered around a stack of boxes marked “charity store.”

Chrissy smoothed it out between her thumb and forefinger and held it out.

‘Do you remember that day?’

Frowning, Rob looked at it, over glasses that had slipped down his nose. He did not reach out to take it from Chrissy’s outstretched hand. He did not say yes or no.

‘Bin it,’ was all he said, a little more sharply than he intended.

Chrissy snatched her hand back and smoothed out the photo again, her mind swirling back in time. The had been day biting hot, blue sky devoid of clouds, welcome after days of rain and their bodies all five of them, were sticky with heat, suntan lotion and dropped ice cream splodges. Seagulls squawked overhead; rank seaweed curled along the water’s edge and laughter spiralled upwards from nearby sunbathers.

Four people, four smiles. Her Dad, bare chested, in mustard swimming trunks, looking over at her mother, his eyes soft. Her mother staring straight at the camera, make-up immaculate, hair bobbed, glossy, and her navy striped two piece, new.

The photo, Chrissy and Rob’s, Dad’s idea.

‘Take a snap of me and my crew,’ her dad had said, handing Bill the camera, smile toothy, eyebrows raised.

Uncle Bill directed the pose.

‘Mother to the right, kids in the middle, Dad on the left.’

Chrissy wanted to complain, as sitting next to her stinky brother was not ideal, but her parents were already positioning themselves. That was what she loved about her parents, always in sync, never arguing, doing things in unison like they could read each other’s mind. They were so happy together. But her mother always made sure everybody was happy too, and especially so that day, hugging Chrissy and Rob, laughing with Uncle Bill, touching his arm, warmth flowing, enveloping, comforting.

Rob sighed. He wanted to get sorting out their dad’s house over as quickly as possible, the funeral a week ago now, and back up north to his wife, sons and grandson. The photo of them all squashed together, on four matching knobbly orange beach towels, and the green bath towel retrieved by Uncle Bill from the linen cupboard, as he did not own a beach towel, a reminder of that day, he did not need. Images danced in front of his eyes. Images long quashed. Uncle Bill directing the composition, confident, in control, shoulders staunch. His dad, shoulders already red, gazing with puppy adoration at his mother. His mother, shoulders tilted, red lips pouting, gazing at the camera or rather the person behind the camera with half shut eyes. Rob remembered thinking his mother looked glamourous, like she was all made up for a night out, rather than a day at the beach. And how she smiled at Uncle Bill, the air sizzling between them, flicking her hair and ignoring his dad.

Can you not see what is going on he wanted to shout at his dad. He wanted to punch Uncle Bill too. Thump and push him away from his mother. But instead, he sat rigid on those silly towels, smiling like the good twelve-year-old son he was, clenched fists hidden under his thighs. Trying to ignore the fractures. Avoidance was better than truth.

Once the photo session was over the grown-ups lay back on the towels, waving the children off, with lazy hands.

Rob, with Chrissy behind, raced off, to jump in the waves, skinny, freckled arms, flapping for balance. Chrissy liked to venture out a little, then cried when knocked over by a rogue wave, eyes streaming, sea water gulped in an open, squealing mouth pouring from her nostrils. It always fell to Rob, older by six years, to pull her upright. A wave to their parents, an indication all was well. They always preferred to stay up on the sand, reading, touching hands and idly chatting, a tangle of whispers and limbs. Well, that was until that day, when Uncle Bill sat between them, hairy, brown legs stretched out, a barrier of bone and sinew.

Chrissy threw the photo in the direction of the rubbish pile. It fluttered a little then floated down landing at her sneakered feet. She bent and retrieved it. No, she would keep this.

Chrissy, remembered jumping the curling waves with Rob, her swimsuit ballooning out as she jumped. No lycra, back then. She remembered turning to face the shore where she could see her parents and Uncle Bill, all watching, her and Rob. She saw her dad jump up, grab the suntan lotion, shuffle around Uncle Bill to reapply more lotion to her mother’s back. They were always doing things for each other. Always. And she remembered the little flutters of happiness in her tummy as she turned back, and jumped and jumped before flopping down into the waves.

Rob rubbed his eyes. Dancing images of the day rolled through his mind, smashing and crashing like the waves on the beach that day. Resigning himself to babysitting his little sister and deciding to make the best of a bad situation, Rob jumped in time with Chrissy, waves knocking against his knees, sun scorching his shoulders. A turn of his head towards the umbrella and he saw his mother push his dad away. Suntan bottle held high, his dad blundered back to the other side of Uncle Bill, dropping the bottle into the sand. Spinning away from the scenario playing out, Rob had thrown himself into the surf, the water washing over him, stinging, relentless, pulsating.

Chrissy, photo in hand, sidled around the teetering towers of boxes, into the yellow painted kitchen, a relic from the eighties, cupboard doors open, devoid of the clutter of life and emitting the mixed aroma of bleach and grief and retrieved her bag from the counter. She glanced at the photo one more time, before slipping it into the side pocket.

She smiled. When sick of swimming her dad had chased her round and round, their bare feet cracking the hard sand down at the shore line, laughter bouncing between them, Uncle Bill and her mother lounging back, under the umbrella. Rob mooched off further down the beach, head hanging. Later, they bought fish and chips from a shiny, sterile take-away, up on the road above the beach, to eat, watching the sun set. Licking greasy fingers, umbrella down, a breeze now tickling their cheeks, tee shirts and shorts pulled over stiff dry bathing suits, they sagged, tired and sleepy. A blissful end to a blissful day. Except for when Rob stormed off, kicked around in the surf, soaking his shorts, which meant he ended up sitting on a towel in the car on the way home.

Rob rubbed his eyes again, trying to sort out the jagged memories playing out in his mind. Did they built sandcastles and chase each other around, that day like they normally did, their dad pretending to trip over his feet, play tackling his mother? He could not remember. However, he recalled eating fish and chips.

A shrug of the shoulders as they were ordering, from Uncle Bill.

‘Sorry, I can’t contribute.’

Rob had seen his mother place a gentle hand on his arm then quickly withdraw it.

When sitting on the sand to eat, Uncle Bill sucking up to Chrissy, pretending to be her friend, it became too much for Rob. He wanted Uncle Bill gone so they could go back to being the four of them. No secret smiles between Uncle Bill and his mother. They were doing it as they ate, his dad oblivious, gazing at the horizon and the setting sun. Rob vaguely remembered anger bubbling up, then springing to his feet and racing down to the waves and kicking and kicking. The fish and chips, rocks in his tummy, his heart thumping. Then the ride home, shorts wet, numbness inside and out, a cold shoulder from a singing Chrissy, frowns from his father, anxious looks from his mother and paranoid glances from Uncle Bill.

Rob turned back to his sorting. No need to get upset again. That day at the beach, all ancient history, he reminded himself.

And what followed.

In the kitchen, Chrissy felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She pulled it out.

A txt from her mother.

“Hope all is going smoothly re packing up your dad’s house. Bill says hi. Talk later when you are on your own.”

“Going good. Yeah it will be great to talk later,” she typed, as she walked back to join Rob.

‘Who was that?’

‘No one,’ she replied.