Written in the Sand

Written in the sand

She had grown used to revisiting the crisp folds of his shirt collars, the unusual wearing of spencers with his pants even though he was in his 30s and this was the ‘90s. That perfume, the one his first wife liked him to wear.

The way he padded about in bare-feet when preparing to go fishing in the middle of the night so as not to wake her – although she always stirred the moment his spooning no longer warmed her back even in mid-monsoonal summer.

These, and more images would roll themselves back over her like a familiar, if too insistent ocean. Some time ago between her leaving and realising his indifference she floated on the tops of the memories. And even four or five years later they would resurface to carry her mind to a beach where their names had been written with sticks in the sand. She thought it was probably just north of near Ballina, not far from where she now walked.

She didn’t blame him. Neither did she blame herself. Later she knew she had also lied when she said ‘I, Modelline Machin, do take you, John Peter Edwards’. That was because at the time, she really had no idea of who she, Modelline Machin was. So the 23-year-old nodding her life away was actually an impostor; the identity of whom was not to be seen for another seven years or so, and by that time, she had been divorced for more than four.

Mod felt distracted by her sensory reminders – the smells of insect repellent mixed with sunscreen merged with salt from the sea or his skin, and stale cigarettes, or spicy spearmint breath layered over tobacco in an attempt to make kissing him more palatable. Distracted, but detached. As if they were clumps of dry towels, shoes, piles of clothes, car keys and sunglasses clustered on the beach while their owners swam blissfully together in the adjacent sea.

She could stroll by, giving a cursory glance, perhaps even recognising an item that was a similar shade to something that was once in her own wardrobe, but was able to quickly disregard it and continue on.

Certainly, it was not like a trip to the town rubbish dump – an eccentric treat as a child – the flies only outdone by swarms of seagulls and later ibis picking through rotting remains of marital refuse. TV sets, old toasters, destroyed cheap wooden panelled furniture, 1970s orange vinyl padded chairs with rips in the seats and the stuffing hanging out. No, this chaos was the remains of other people’s disasters. Somehow, the outcome of hers’ was much more dignified.

Mod liked to think of them as recycled goods rather than outcasts. Thoughts, perceptions, emotions that could be re-used, traded on, or leant out if necessary, but not just dumped. There was still too much of herself in these items. She wasn’t clinging to them, no, but she reserved the right to break them down, make them bio-degradable mulch for the garden of her mind, if, and of course, when, she was ready.

She was not afraid. The memories alone could not harm her; not the early high thin greying hairline, not the strange hurried way his tongue darted around her mouth. The thick greying down of his chest, the slight scar above his top lip often obscured by a line of moisture. His collection of dark blue cotton singlets, his fondness, against her will, for wearing silk boxer shorts around the house, and his attraction for anything they could not afford.

Ouch. Its unexpected sharpness barbed her, like a knife-edge of dried kelp striking her soft instep. She took herself once more to the water’s edge. She could hear it now, the way he would chant ‘JP loves Mod, JP loves Mod’’ over and over like a campfire singsong till she laughed and gave in and chanted her refrain.

His uncanny knack of buying presents that coincidently he had also always wanted. The promised PC (where she longed to record secret thoughts) turned into a CD- player that drowned out regret.

Flicking her feet through the tiny waves surrounding her she remembered how he called her his ‘little squid’ as they swam in salty pools of happiness, but what she really felt like was one of those queenfish he would lure with live bait and who would dance for him before being dragged to the edge of the boat entangled in his net.

Mod had grown used to the bareness of her hand. The same ‘with this ring I thee wed’’ he’d tried to hock on their honeymoon when they ran out of money, as she stood outside the pawn store in silence. A silence that she welcomed now, like the onshore Nor-easter that flattens out the swell after lunch, smoothing out its recollections. She had tasted and smelt and touched and listened to them, like a set of familiar pianola tunes, never changing, often the same.

© Dominique White