Sand between my toes

Sand Between My Toes.

Two big white feet were sticking out over the end of the bed. I mean, really big white feet. They were propped up on a pillow and jutting out from dark blue pyjamas. I couldn’t help noticing them as I walked through ward six. I can’t explain why, but quick as a flash, my mind went back fifty years to a girl called Anne and a moonlit beach in Donegal.

          Our family, like many others, went on holidays to the same cottage for the same weeks, every year. This was long before the sunshine package holidays became popular. It was good, because you met up with the same friends every year. That particular year we were a group of 15 to 20 teenagers. We made our own entertainment such as beach games, swimming, dances and barbeques or, as they were called in those days, Sausage Sizzles. It was the Skiffle era and we had our own group, guitars, washboard and tea chest base. Our disco was LP records on an old Dancette record player.

          I hadn’t seen Anne before, as she was visiting for the first time. Her friend Hilary had introduced her to the gang when we were swimming at the pier. Stupidly, I confided in a couple of my mates I rather fancied her and planned to get to know her better at the Sausage Sizzle the next night. This was held in the deep sand dunes behind the beach, starting sometime after ten in the evening and going on until whenever. We would pool our pocket money to buy food and drink and spend the day gathering driftwood for a big fire.

          The more bossy girls took charge of the cooking. We all sat round the fire, ate the burnt buns and blackened sausages, drank some beer and sang whatever songs came into our heads. I sat with my mates but kept an eye on Anne.  She was talking to loads of people and laughing a lot. I kept telling myself I hadn’t a chance with someone so popular, but my friends kept digging me, wanting to know when I would be making a move. At this stage, some of the older ones started to pair off and disappear into the nearby sand hills. Time was running out, but the last thing I wanted was a “no thanks” and getting my leg pulled for days. She was nice and it was now or never. She was sitting with Hilary and a couple of others. As I walked towards her, she smiled at me, which helped.

        “Hi Anne, I was thinking of going for a paddle. Would you like to join me?”
        “Yeah, great.”

          Fantastic! I couldn’t believe how easy it was.

          I held out both my hands, she took hold and I pulled her up. She was just about the same height, brown hair, shorts, chunky blue jumper, bare feet and a big smile. We found ourselves laughing as we helped each other slip and slide up the steep sand hill to the ridge above the beach. We stopped, amazed at the scene opening out before us. Down by the fire was in shadow, but the beach was bathed in an eerie silver grey from the full moon. The rolling surf glistened white, the far cliffs jet black. You could see clearly, but it was like an old black and white photograph with splashes of silvery white from the moon. We just stood and stared.

        I broke the silence. “You have a choice slide or run – you choose.”

        “Run” and she was away.

We ended up halfway down the beach before we could stop. It took minutes to get our breath back, so we walked slowly down to the water. At this point she turned to me and said, “I hate people with white feet. I always look at feet and if they are white I don’t want to know the person.”

        I was a bit taken aback by such a sweeping statement.  “I saw yours yesterday. They were nice, the same brown colour as your legs. Most of the guys back there wear sandals and socks and have white feet.”

        As you can guess, we were both looking at our feet and while, in the moonlight, they weren’t brown, but at least they were the same colour as our legs. I explained I loved the feel of sand between my toes and wore shoes as little as possible.

      “There,” she said. “I’m the same, so that’s a good start.”

        I wasn’t going to argue.

      The water was freezing so we paddled about on tip toes until we got life back in our feet. Then we just went daft. We kicked the water up, watched the moon catch the drops and turn them silver. We ran up the beach to escape bigger waves. I suggested a game we played as kids in which you tried to jump on each other’s shadow. We ran about laughing, jumping, and splashing in the shallows gradually making our way to the rocks at the far end of the beach.

        We sat down on the rocks facing the sea and started to talk. First, all the usual stuff: school, teachers, music, parents and the like. I don’t know why, but we gradually moved onto other things like how we felt about Christianity and the purpose of life. I found myself saying things I had never put into words before.

        I tried to explain how I liked to go off alone in the evening, sit on a rock, and feel the relentless waves beat in on the shore. I would watch the sun sink slowly below the horizon, the clouds catch fire turning from white to red and then to grey with the far hills black.

          She told of writing private poems while alone on a hillside near her home. Not love poems, but about hope and wondering and happiness. We just talked, the more we talked the more, we seemed to be sharing experiences we had never shared with anyone before. It seemed amazing that a girl had the same hopes and worries and somehow, by sharing them, it made things better.

        We fell quiet, watching the waves breaking, the white surf rolling in gradually reducing to a ripple on the wet sand before being sucked back. I turned and looked at Anne. She smiled, and something happened. A warm glow, a feeling for this person, a feeling I had never felt before just surged up from inside engulfing every part of me. I couldn’t stop myself; I leant over and kissed her ever so gently on the cheek.

        “I’m sorry. I just felt.”

Her fingers were on my lips.  “Don’t be” and we fell into each other’s arms, kissed and stayed locked together for ages. She felt warm, soft, and nice. It seemed so right I didn’t want it to stop. We kissed again, and for a moment I heard the breakers, it was if they were roaring approval. I had kissed girls on dates before, part out of curiosity and part because that’s what you did. Never like this, never ever like this!

        I grew up a little that day fifty years ago. For the rest of the holidays we were inseparable. We did exchange letters for a while, but they petered out and I’ve not heard from or seen her since. Years later, someone told me, she had married some guy none of us knew and went to live in England.  To this day, at every opportunity I take my shoes off and get sand between my toes, climbing the Donegal Sand Dunes. After all, I’d hate to meet Anne again and be caught with white feet.

(PS - pyjamas is the UK spelling)