Obsession (vi)

Part VI

Morphine: Sharks (link retired)

Sundays were my favourite days. I rarely worked then, so I could laze about on the beach, sleeping off my inevitable hangover.

My flat was part of a block that was originally built as holiday units, an old red brick building with a clunky metal stairway that spiralled up, exposed to the elements in the centre of the u-shaped building. Some of the units were still kept by families as holiday units, and the noise of children clambering their way up and down those steps announced the beginning of summer holidays. The beach was only a block away, and it was my favourite place to be. My little beach (and it felt like mine) was protected by headlands on both ends, which meant I could swim there and be confident that I would be seen if I was washed away, unlike the exposed beaches to the immediate north and south.

After getting home from Evan’s place, or my friend Tony’s, after a marathon video night, I’d try to shower away the smeared make-up of the night before. With a book and a towel, I would head down to spend the day surrounded by laughing families, watching the local teenage boys trying to catch the attention of the groups of girls who had already mastered that art of focused nonchalance.

My skin would warm, and at the point where the heat would become too strong to ignore, I’d pull up the top of my cossie and trot down to the water for a swim. Beyond the breakers, I would turn and face back into the beach. Floating on my back, the sound of people would be muffled by the breaking waves just ahead of me. The wind would carry off any meaning to the catches of sound that reached me, leaving it as meaningless as the seagulls squawking. The swell would gently lift me, lower me, lift me, and I would surrender myself to its slow rhythm.

Friends didn’t like to swim out with me. They feared sharks. I had looked into the eye of a shark and knew I had far more to fear ashore than in the water.

Sunday was the night for the World Music programme on the radio. Gypsy women would sing their songs in harmonic minor, to the erotic rhythm that had guided bodies to sexual bliss for generations.

And with Sam in my bed, our bodies would flow and shudder as the women wailed.