There was nothing but sea all the way from here to America. The water just kept going and going, aggressive in its vastness. She watched the waves breaking on the shoreline. Even the small ones curled like snarling lips. One or two children still jumped and screamed happily in the shallows. Their parents were nearby and watching. She used to come here as a child too, after school or at the weekends after Dad had seen the races. They weren’t allowed in the sea though. The day would always end with Mum screaming at her or at her brother and the walk home was made longer by the stinging shape of Dad’s hand on their thighs.

Two swimmers were out in it. They bobbed around near the buoys easy as bath toys. She wished she had learned. Silly, really, to live her whole life by the sea and not be able to swim. The water was far out – the tide low – now though. She didn’t need to worry about it for a while.

 It was getting late. The beach was clear of windbreaks and deckchairs and pop-up tents, but a few blankets still held cuddling couples or families with fish and chips. Most people had already climbed the steps where exhausted-looking wetsuits hung on the railings and children had their feet rubbed raw as parents towelled the sand off. At the foot of the steps, flip-flops and plastic buckets full of mussel shells, razor clams and seaweed waited to be forgotten. A breeze ruffled the umbrellas on the picnic tables in front of the takeaway.

‘God provides the wind,’ her mother always said. ‘But man must raise the sail.’ Julie never understood what she was going on about. Her mum never let them in the sea but then kept banging on about sails.

Julie looked at the clock. She was behind schedule. She was usually mopping by now. She was late. Always lost in daydreams, her mother would say. The wooden boards advertising ice-creams, deckchairs and pasties had to be collected from the path along the top of the beach. The boards were too big for her to carry really and bashed her legs as she walked with them, but she’d gotten used to it now, bruises flowering perpetually but painlessly on her shins. She folded down the umbrellas from the picnic benches then leant up inside the door ready to go back out first thing in the morning. 

‘Alright, Jules?’

She turned to see Batesy stumble in through the side door knocking over a stack of empty boxes.

‘Blimey, is it that time already? Everything’s to pot today.’

‘Got my burger, Jules?’

‘Not yet. I’ll have to cook it.’

She gestured at where his shoes had scattered sand across the floor. ‘Bloody hell, Batesy. I’ll have to clean all that up.’

He giggled and looked around the kitchen as though trying to focus in on her. His eyes were wide and bloodshot.

‘It’s alright, Jules. I ain’t bothered. You don’t need to clean up just for me. Can I have a burger? Cheeseburger, please. I’m starving.’

‘Alright. Alright. I’m doing it.’

He giggled again. ‘I went down The Ferrets last night.’

‘I know I was there.’

‘Right, course. Good, weren’t it?’

She waited to see if he was being tender or ironic, but there was neither in his eyes. It was just said out of habit.

‘Same as every night,’ she said. ‘Surprised you can remember any of it, the state you were in.’

‘That’s how I know it was good. I was completely wasted.’

She leant on the counter, the sweet words and promises of last night lost once again in a fog of weed and hangovers.

‘Can I have a burger, Jules?’

‘I’m cooking it now. Christ, that’s three times you’ve asked me.’

Julie flipped the burger and balanced salad in a bun. Batesy picked up the serrated knife and started carving nicks out of the chopping board.

‘Leave that alone. I’ll get in trouble for that. I’m fed up with paying for your messes.’

‘Sorry, Jules. You’ll come down The Ferrets tonight, won’t you?’

‘I expect so,’ she said coquettishly like the women on TV did. ‘We’ll have to see.’ She couldn’t help smiling at the idea that they might miss her if she wasn’t there.

‘It’s bloody hot in here, Jules. I’m spinning out because of it. What the fuck are all them knives for?’

‘Chopping up vegetables and that.’

‘Right, yeah. Could you cook me a burger please, Jules?’

‘Alright. Bloody hell. Repeating all the time. You’re off your face, you are. Here, have it.’

‘Thanks. You’re an angel.’ He winked at her, and she felt her cheeks burn. ‘See you in the Ferrets tonight: usual time.’

Julie checked her watch – she was behind again – then pulled down the shutters and set the coffee machine to run through its cleaning cycle. Every day, she checked the dates of the milk and wrote Roger a list of what needed to be ordered. He ordered it when he came down to collect the takings early in the morning. Julie cashed up the till. She’d definitely done it wrong. She always did. She was no good with money. Roger would be waiting for her in the morning and have a go at her.

The coffee machine had finished its cycle, so she washed the milk frothing jug and the ice-cream scoops. She’d washed the sandwich knives and chip scoop earlier but had left them on the draining board to remind her to check the fryers were off. They were. And the coffee machine. And the till. And the display cabinets. All off. She checked the fryer again just in case. Julie knotted the bin bag and dropped it outside the back door then she sprayed and wiped down the preparation areas. She swept around then went back to check the coffee machine was off and the freezers were still on then mopped through. She liked seeing the little circles of clean water spread across the floor as she went. Julie went back again to check she had turned off the coffee machine – she had – then had to re-mop over her footprints on the wet floor. 

She felt dizzy from the smell of the disinfectant and the heat of the place with the shutters closed, but she liked the claustrophobic feel of it: how safe and cocooned she felt shut away from the roar of the sea. When she opened the back door a cool breeze rushed in. She emptied the mop bucket into the sink and watched it circle away down the plughole until just the suds and a few veg peelings were left. She pulled them out with her fingers and chucked them in the bin.

Julie set the alarm and – while it started bleeped monotonously away – she double-checked the dials on the fryer were off and went out. She locked the door and checked the handle three times, putting her weight behind her hip and pushing it to make doubly sure. She posted the keys into the little box for Roger to collect in the morning. 

She left her bag on one of the picnic benches in front of the takeaway and leant on the table for a moment. There were three metal detectorists in different places across the beach. Standing between her and the low sun, their silhouettes looked like vultures. They came every day to pick over what was left behind while the seagulls did their final check of the bins. Julie imagined finding buried treasure on the beach and wondered what she’d do with it. She could travel, go on a plane, cuddle someone on a blanket on a foreign beach. Or buy her own place. She’d probably keep working, she supposed. It was good to keep a routine. There was nothing else to do anyway.

An old man was walking slowly across the top of the beach with a stick. Children kicked a football and chased it. A group of teenagers came down the steps with disposable barbeques and bottles clinking together in carrier bags. It would be too cold in the evenings to do that soon. The seasons were changing. Everything was always changing.  The customers in the takeaway would soon change from sunburnt English tourists to the autumnal Germans and Japanese coach trippers. After that came the coughing dog walkers and old women in wetsuits. Not old at all, she corrected herself. She went to school with some of them. Middle-aged at most. There’d be them and there’d be children in wellies and Eskimo suits with little fur-lined hoods and red cheeks and runny noses that needed wiping and a nice hot chocolate to warm them up. Her working days would be shorter as it got quieter, and she’d need to spend more time at home with Mum and Dad anyway. They couldn’t afford the carers or meals on wheels in the winter with the heating, so she needed to help look after them.

The grates still needed to go up over the windows that didn’t have shutters. Julie dragged them round to the front and lifted the first one up to the window but missed the hooks they sat on and had to put it back down again.

‘Can I help?’

The old man she’d seen walking across the beach was standing behind her, though he wasn’t as old as she’d thought from a distance. No older than her father, probably younger. And the walking stick was more like a cane than an old man’s stick.

He took the opposite end of the grate from her and smiled while Julie counted to three then lifted. The man didn’t lift though and instead looked a little surprised. Eventually, he gripped his cane between his knees and then lifted his end. With the stick between his legs, he moved forwards in jerks and the grate rattled against the window’s wooden frame. Julie hooked her end into place then went down to help get his side in. She could see two places where the grate had scuffed the white paint revealing the blue it had been painted a few years before. Roger would go mad when he saw it. She’d always preferred the blue really. Still, at least he hadn’t smashed the glass or anything.

‘Can I help you with the other one?’

He had a slight accent. He sounded like someone from one of the old films.

‘Oh, it’s alright. Thank you all the same. We’re meant to do it on our own really. Insurance or something.’ It was a lie, but a pretty good one she thought. Might well be true.

She lifted the second grate into place and put the padlocks onto both. The man was still there watching her. He smiled and leaned on his cane.

‘All done for the day?’

‘Afraid so. Did you want to buy something? I’m afraid everything’s locked up now.’

‘My name’s Christopher,’ he said and held out his hand. 

‘Julie,’ Julie said. She thought of the crap from the sink and how she hadn’t even washed her hands afterwards, just wiped them on her apron. The same hand he was now holding and could probably smell.

‘I was just-,’ he pulled a bottle of wine from the canvas bag over his shoulder. ‘I was just going to sit and have a glass of wine and enjoy the evening. Would you like to join me?’

The man looked smart in his blazer and shirt. His trousers were clean and the front seam was straight and crisp. His cane and the cotton flat cap he wore looked expensive, but his shoes were tatty and his teeth were stained and crooked. She tried to think of an excuse. She usually went to The Ferrets in the evening. 

‘You’ve no idea how happy it would make me,’ he said.

‘Well, okay. One drink.’

‘Wonderful,’ the man said and started towards one of the benches. ‘Oh,’ he said and came back to her. ‘I haven’t got any glasses. Can you get some from the takeaway?’

‘No. Sorry, no I can’t.’

‘They surely won’t miss two paper cups?’

‘It isn’t that. It’s all locked now.’

‘Don’t you have a key?’

‘I’ve posted them in the box. I’ve got to put them in there and then Roger picks them up early in the morning when he collects the takings.’

‘They leave the money in there all night? That’s very trusting of them.’

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘This place is like Fort Knox.’

He rattled the grating and nodded. ‘So, no cups then.’

‘I’m happy to drink from the bottle if you are,’ she said.

His face brightened and they sat at a picnic table. Christopher made a show of opening of the bottle; flicking up the cuffs of his blazer before cracking the screw top open. He passed the bottle to her with the label against his sleeve like waiters do on TV. Julie took a drink and passed it back to him.

‘Are you here on holiday?’

He licked his lip and pushed the bottle back to her.

‘In a way. I’m just here for the day.’

‘Day trip.’

‘I suppose. Many people would say my whole life is a holiday.’

‘Retired?’

He laughed. But he didn’t seem to be laughing at her like them in the pub did. This was the kind, warm laugh that friends, fathers and lovers gave in the soaps her parents watched.

‘No, no, not retired. I’m not quite that old. Did you see the yacht that arrived in the bay this morning?’

‘A woman here earlier said it belonged to a film star.’

‘Not quite. It’s not as grand as all that, but I find it comfortable.’

‘Oh, that must be lovely.’

‘I sail up and down the coast and see some of the most beautiful places in the world,’ he said.

She tried to imagine it. Every day a different place. Staying in the best ones. Leaving the bad ones before you had time to settle.  He was watching her, his head tilted to one side and smiling quizzically, like someone pouring water into a bath and waiting to see when it will overflow the top. 

‘Have you ever been to the Biarritz?’

‘No.’ She shook her head and could feel the water brimming the top, hovering over the edges ready to pour out.

‘It’s really stunning. Amazing. Still, I’m not sure I’ve been anywhere quite like here.’

The plug had suddenly been pulled out again. The water was draining away.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘My mum always says: why travel when you got this on your doorstep.’

‘Very wise. Still, you must get bored in the winter.’

‘I suppose so. But my mum and dad are elderly and sick. They need looking after so that uses up time.’

He nodded and lifted the bottle that was still in her hand gently to her mouth.

‘I expect that the season will end soon, and the town will be lifeless. Then the autumn storms will be rolling in before long,’ he said.

She noticed raindrops hitting and soaking into the wood of the table then felt them on her bare arms and face.

‘What a shame we can’t get one of the parasols out from in there,’ Christopher said. ‘There’s no secret way in? Oh well. Come along, drink up.’

The wine didn’t seem to be going down very much at all. She felt like she’d drunk more on her own than was gone from the bottle. The old man’s hand brushed past her knee under the table and she flinched. He looked at her questioningly.

‘Are you alright, my dear?’

Maybe he had just been looking for his cane. Someone with a movie star lifestyle like this wouldn’t be interested in someone like her.

It was getting dark now; the rain had let the evening slip in early. The sand shivered under the growing breeze.

‘I suppose you’re closing for the season soon?’

‘No, we’re open all year. We get customers all the time. Older people,’ – she hesitated over the words – ‘older people start coming now on coach trips then we get busy again at half-term and Bonfire Night and around New Year.’

‘It must be pretty miserable here in the winter.’

It was, she supposed.

‘I couldn’t bear the cold,’ he said. ‘English winters are too cold for me. I always take the yacht down to the Med over winter; the Mediterranean.’

Julie shivered, the cold suddenly grasping her shoulders. She thought of Batesy and the others up at The Ferrets. She’d usually be there by now. It would be loud and stink of piss with sticky carpets and flat beer and the people in there were all scabs and druggies and drunks and she knew they took advantage of her, but they would all be wondering where she was and the place was warm. She rubbed her hands over the goose bumps on her bare arms.

Christopher took off his jacket and wrapped it around her. He left his arm across her back, his hand rubbing her arm. Every few rubs, his fingers would reach further round towards her breast, but he didn’t react when she looked at him. Perhaps he didn’t realise. She’d feel guilty having to turn him down after he’d been so nice. Batesy and the others would have a good laugh about it when she told them: an old man feeling her up.

‘Here,’ he said and pulled another bottle from his bag. ‘Another round! Drink up. It will keep you warm.’

He wasn’t so old really. Anyway, men didn’t age like women. She’d read a thing on Facebook about a man who had a baby when he was ninety-two. It was quite common really.

‘What’s the Mediterranean like?’

‘Oh, wonderful. You’d love it.’

‘I’ve never even been out the country.’

‘You’d love it, the air actually tastes metallic with all the golden light in it.’

He spoke like someone off of the TV. His hand worked down lower to hold her far hip.

She pictured herself sunbathing on the deck of a yacht with glistening, calm water around her. She would be in a white bikini with bronzed skin and her stomach would be flattened by not being surrounded by chips all day long. Her skin would be cleared by being out of the fryer grease and in the sunshine. She imagined parties with champagne and cocktails, waiters in white suits and black bow ties, guests commenting on her style and elegance.

The rain started to get heavier. It worried the surface of the incoming sea, hiding the currents and blurring the outlines of the now submerged rocks.

‘Perhaps we should shelter under the awnings,’ he said. 

He took her hand and led her to the patch of decking under the ice cream hatch that was dry. She looked at her hand in his, sheltered and warm. There were splits in her knuckles from bleach, the nails misshaped and the fingertips swollen from biting. Christopher’s hands were tough but tanned and well-kept. The backs of them weren’t wrinkled or hairy. He couldn’t be that old. You can always tell someone’s age from their hands. She’d heard that somewhere. She was a little drunk.

He held her close in the small area of shelter. He smelled of aftershave. She liked the familiarity of his pipe tobacco, the same her grandfather had smoked. He kissed her. She let him and within a few seconds opened her mouth for him, tasting his breath and feeling the stubble of his top lip on hers. She could see his eyes rolling back in his head and giggled that she was the one causing such pleasure. He laughed too, pushing that warm breath like a tropical breeze into her mouth. As they parted, his head continued the rolling movement for a second. She imagined herself stepping onto a jetty in Africa and grasping the rope railing before telling the tanned harbour master who’d rushed to help her that she just needs to shake off her sea-legs. She could see his face – foreign, handsome, confused – desiring her. Part of Africa must be in the Mediterranean.

‘Come with me.’

‘What?’

‘Come with me. Come with me tonight to the yacht and then tomorrow we’ll head off. We can be in France by tomorrow night, then work our way down to the Med.’

The tide was pushing right up now; shrinking the beach, the whole town, everything. Maybe it would come all the way up and submerge the takeaway, hiding it forever. She saw it rising over the cliffs and the harbour, sinking The Ferrets, washing away Batesy and all of them, the old school, Mum and Dad’s, the corner shop, her little bedsit, all of it gone.

‘I’ve never met anyone like you. We’ve only had these few short hours, but I can’t imagine going on without you,’ he said and kissed her neck.

‘I haven’t got a passport. All of my money and clothes and stuff is at home.’

‘We can sort all that in the morning.’

‘I can’t go to the Mediterranean in my work apron.’

‘There’ll be time for all that in the morning.’ 

In the corner of the decking was a football that had been left behind. A child somewhere, a little boy, would realise in the morning. They’d sigh or moan or cry and need a hug and a kiss on its salty, tear covered cheek.

‘We could have a life of luxury together. Eventually we can have a family.’

‘Alright.’

He kissed her again and she watched the waves coming up towards them, waltzing their way up the sand. He collected his bag and cane; it seemed like a ridiculous affectation as he clearly didn’t need it and climbed the hill away from the beach easier than she did. He walked with one arm around her hip pulling her close to him. She could feel the change moving in his pocket. The sea rolled unstoppable up the sand behind them, pushing them on their way.

On the dark pathway that looped back over the takeaway and towards the town, he stopped and kissed her. Christopher’s hand slid up her ribs and pawed at her breast. Julie smiled. It was just like she thought: he was the same as Batesy and the others. There was no yacht or Mediterranean, just like there was none of the promised tenderness and relationship the day after from Batesy. At least Christopher’s promises were better. It was a nice dream to choose for a night. She heard the sea sigh as it reached its highest point and started to roll back out.

‘Let’s go,’ she said.

She looked back over the beach, covered in footprints now; wrinkled and thrown back like a hotel bedsheet. She hadn’t taken the bags up to the bins. The seagulls would pull them apart by morning. There’d be rubbish and mess all over the decking. Roger would be livid. Well, she couldn’t do anything about it now, she’d just have to clear it up in the morning.

Christopher must have forgotten that he was supposed to be a stranger in the town: he led her, pulling her gently on through the streets. They were heading away from the harbour. She smiled to herself and wondered how he’d explain away the fact they were arriving at a B&B  or a dingy flat rather than a yacht. He was quite young, really. Probably no older than Batesy, just that his skin was worn from the sun whereas Batesy was pickled in cider.

‘This isn’t the way I would normally take to the harbour,’ she teased him.

‘Well, I don’t know the town very well,’ he said.

She wondered how long he would keep up the pretence.

He stopped them outside of some flats and kissed her again.

‘This doesn’t look like a yacht?’ she said in faux-innocence and dug him playfully in the ribs.

‘What?’ he asked and rubbed where she’d hit him. ‘Come on.’

He pulled her down an alley at the side of the flats. It was so dark and narrow that she couldn’t see anything at all, and just allowed herself to be pulled by him. They twisted around corners that she didn’t even see.

Then she heard it.

At the end of the alley in front of them was the sound of waves beating at the promenade. Ocean winds rattled rigging and boats strained on their ropes like vicious dogs. He gripped her hand tighter and lead her onwards like a sail helplessly caught in the wind. One more corner and she saw it, shimmering in the moonlight: that ever-changing, churning, rebirthing sea and the yacht bobbing on it.