Spring Tide
written by: Deryn Graham
@DerynGraham
Lizzie stood shivering in the frothy waves that lapped around her ankles, which was as deep as she permitted herself to go, and watched as her sisters frolicked in the freezing Atlantic. Rachel was wading purposefully into the surf, now up to her armpits. With each surge of the waves, she threw her arms into the air and gave a little jump to clear the crests. Becca was only a short distance behind her, bobbing up and down on her boogie board, and Lizzie knew she would soon turn to catch a wave back into the shore. She would jump off the board at Lizzie’s feet, splash her, call her a baby, then set off again into the ocean for another exhilarating ride back into the shallows.
The water terrified Lizzie. Although she could swim quite well and had earned her silver badge in the public pool where her father took all three of them for lessons every Saturday morning, she had never been a water baby. Now, as she stood on the beach, being goaded by the sisters to plunge into the frost bite inducing freezing temperatures of the Cornish sea, Lizzie could only think of sprawling on her (dry) towel with a book, soaking up the tepid warmth of the English sun. She had no inclination to get her body wet any higher than her kneecaps, and definitely not to get her costume soaked through so that it clung uncomfortably to her for the rest of the afternoon.
But along with her sisters was a whole gang of kids that gathered every summer in the idyllic cove on the Cornish north coast. They used to dig sandcastles and bury each other, but now as teenagers were way too self-conscious to indulge in such childish pastimes and had graduated to showing off and splashing each other in the ocean. Lizzie’s biggest crush, Neil, was among them, and she simply had to attract attention to herself and get into the water, if he was ever going to notice her.
The incoming tide pushed the waves onto the shore and sucked them back again with such a ferocity that Lizzie could feel the drag on her legs and the sand shift under her feet. She was petrified and unable to move. As she stood, hopping from one foot onto the other, Neil came hurtling into the shore, body surfing on a wave that was still inconceivably intimidating even as it ebbed and died. Neil stood, emerging like an Adonis out of the water, his wide shoulders and narrow hips marking his maturity next to the other less developed boys in the group. He tilted his head, banging the water first out of one ear, then the other and finally tossed his sea matted thick, dark hair, like a dog shaking the rain out of its coat.
He approached with a grin, lifting his knees high out of the water to wade towards her. She couldn’t help but notice the small triangle of hair in the dip of his clearly defined breastbone and the downy line running from his belly button, disappearing below the drawstring of his board shorts.
“Hey Lizzie, you not venturing any further? The sea’s lovely once you’re in.”
“Ah, but it’s the getting in that’s hard,” she smiled back at him weakly. “And to be perfectly honest, the power of the Atlantic Ocean is a little scary…”
Neil looked at her, his face kind, not at all mocking, perhaps even a little admiring of her in her slinky one piece. He extended his arm and took her hand.
“What if we go in together…slowly?” he asked.
Lizzie’s heart leaped but she couldn’t be sure if it was because of her proximity to Neil’s naked torso and the contact of his hand, or at the thought that she was going to have to venture into the sea, with its deep swells and roiling spume. What price, love, she thought, took a deep breath, grabbed Neil’s hand right back and started walking.
Soon they were neck deep and Lizzie had been dunked more than once. Neil had nevertheless managed not to let go of her hand as he pulled her up, higher than the crest of the waves each time one threatened to break before it reached them. When the waves just swelled in undulating sequence, the two rode up together, bobbing gently, even though Lizzie’s feet kicked furiously underwater to keep herself upright.
An enormous breaker loomed a way out in the bay. Everyone saw it, and turned, transfixed by its building size. The shrieking of the bathers stopped and the silence that preceded the wave breaking was deeply ominous. The fear that gripped Lizzie was indescribable as she saw a wall of water ascend high above her head. She had no idea who let go of whose hand, but she lost Neil in her panic, and turned to try and make it back to the shallow water. She heard voices urging others to duck under the power of the break and through the body of water where the impact would be felt less, but for Lizzie that was inconceivable, and she had to believe she would make it to where she could stand firm against the wave’s force.
Then, she felt the full weight of the water crash over her, pounding and tossing her like a piece of flotsam. She had no idea which way up she was, her arms and legs flailing, eyes scrunched tightly shut and trying to do the same with her lips, even though the urge to scream was primal. Her body was whipped by strands of the seaweed that always washed up with the spring tide, then she felt its threads twine around her legs, shackling her and preventing her from righting herself. She tumbled with the wave, her lungs bursting. Then she felt the light of the sun as she broke through momentarily to the surface. She gulped a mouthful of fresh air and not a small amount of briney sea water then was flipped again like a ragdoll into the tumbling water. She felt a rip current pull her sideways further into the peaking wave.
All of a sudden, the panic left her, and she relaxed her limbs and decided to succumb to what she now imagined was the inevitable. She would swallow the entire ocean and be found washed up across the bay in the days to come, her body pounded and beaten against the craggy rocks. Life – and death – were cruel.
***
Lizzie woke, her back, not her lungs, burning and tight from the sun. She rolled over on her bone-dry towel. There was no sign of anyone else. Then the shouting and whirring blades of the search and rescue helicopter that was hovering over the shore reached her and she sat up.
Neil was coming up the beach, wrapped in a tinfoil rescue blanket, the lifeguard holding him up. He was bedraggled and his board shorts were ripped and unlaced. He was trying to wrench himself free and turn back to the sea, which had resumed its rhythmic rise and fall, only the lick of water high up on the beach an indication of what had just hit.
Lizzie heard him as he fell to his knees just short of the mouth of the cove.
“I let go of her, her fingers just slipped out of my grasp. I let her go,” he sobbed. “Please let me go and look for her.” The lifeguard handed him into someone’s arms and ran back to the sea, torpedo in hand.
Neil staggered further into the cove and collapsed onto his own towel, completely ignoring Lizzie.
“It’s all my fault, I should never have convinced her to come in. She said she was scared.”
A small crowd had gathered around him, people she knew, but nobody saw her.
“It was a freak wave. You couldn’t have known, Neil. It’s not your fault. They’ll find her, I’m sure,” someone said, without conviction.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
Based on a deeply personal fear of the sea and many summer holidays spent in Cornwall.
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