Shappey Holidays
When he was very young – too young to even know how young he was – holidays were the only thing he could really remember besides the walls of his house and the hedges in the garden. If anyone asked him how he spent his time, he would forget all of the unimportant details such as flashcards with the alphabet on and oddly flavoured yoghurts, and instead tell anyone who would listen about the beach. They spent a lot of time at the beach, Arthur thought – him, and his Mum, and his Dad. Mum would turn slowly brown in the sun and Dad – with them again after being away so long, flying planes Mum said – would sit back with a book and let Arthur build sandy mounds over his ankles. Arthur ran in circles and into the sea when his parents were murmuring in low tones and not paying attention, and Mum would run up red-faced and scoop him up before he could go too deep.
When he was a little older, and Arthur knew to pay careful attention to his holidays so that he could write about it in the Autumn term – at his teacher's behest – he appreciated the beach more than before. It had always been brilliant, but now it was made of layers and textures – of sand crunching underfoot and the sun burning his skin and the salty tang of the water tickling his nose. Dad didn't join them as often. When he did, he trailed behind them with his hands in his pockets as the three of them walked along the coast. It was only lately that Arthur had noticed the short, clipped way that his parents talked to one another. Once upon a time, he had thought that it was normal. Now he knew that Mum was never so quiet when it was the two of them, before and after school and on weekends alone. On the beach, it didn't matter so much. Things were good, Dad could be convinced to bounce a ball between them, and Mum relaxed as the coolness of the sea licked at her toes.
Beaches in Britain became pure yellow sand on distant islands when Dad traded a job with an airline for his own jet. Arthur's excitement at flying with just his Mum and Dad never faded – Mum played at being a stewardess and he thought it looked far more fun than the stressful job Dad had at the front, even if he did wish that he could fly GERTI too. It brought her to life. The nice thing about islands and private villas was that if Dad went and did his thing somewhere, and Mum accompanied Arthur down to the water's edge, nobody complained. It wasn't as if they were abandoning each other. For a while Arthur convinced himself he was too old for sandcastles. Then Mum rolled her eyes and scoffed and Arthur listened to her explain why wet sand had better structural integrity and hoped that he remembered enough to impress his science teacher when the holidays were over.
When Arthur realised that Mum and Dad were no longer friends, he realised that there wouldn't be any more beaches for a while – possibly ever. Sometimes Mum would take him up the coast on the weekend, but the rainy weather and the miserable donkeys didn't make up for the irritable set of her features. They were brilliant, but they would have been more brilliant if Mum had seemed to notice them at all.
In truth, Arthur didn't pay beaches much thought for years.
He didn't think about it again until he caught Martin and Douglas kicking lines into the sand of a Hawaiian beach, dressed in shorts and t-shirts and sunglasses the likes of which he had never seen on them, arguing over the possible effects of sand in the landing mechanisms – 'It would wear down the moving parts' 'Martin, we have literally landed in the Sahara desert. We drove her, bottom open, through an entirely different desert' 'But that was a different kind of sand.'.
It was the second Christmas in forty-eight hours and despite their separate plans, they had all come together. Arthur had wandered outside for no other reason than the sun was out and he was stuffed full of lunch. He didn't speak as he joined the pilots. They glanced his way and offered smiles and a short wave each, but they were too tangled up in their affectionate bickering to cut their discussion short. If Arthur was right, they were outside for the same reason as him – there was something alluring about the sea and the sand that drew them in. Martin was already pink from the sun and Douglas' hair was floofier than normal in the light breeze.
The picture wasn't perfect until Mum arrived. She huffed and puffed as her feet sank in the sand, but she never stopped making noise – talking and sniggering to herself as she made fun of Douglas' beach-wear. There was no silence. Arthur followed her when she wandered up to the water's edge and wondered at the fact that he was big enough now to scoop her up if she looked like she might drown. He didn't mention it though. He was sure that she wouldn't appreciate the glimpse into the past. Instead he slipped an arm around her shoulders and asked her whether there were any more beaches on the wall-chart to look forward to.