The Call of the Sea

by John Heap

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The next day the weather was worse. Peter had been up for hours and ever since their meeting he hadn’t stop thinking about Maria. Yesterday, buzzing with anticipation, he’d walked taller through a world now bursting with colour, life and new possibilities. It was only on the wet and windy journey from his flat, past the silent pier to the deserted shore, that he started to worry. Who was Maria anyway? They’d only exchanged a few words, so why would she bother to turn up, especially in this weather?

  He arrived at the shelter early, he hadn’t wanted to be late, so he’d put in contingency after contingency to avoid it, but now he had thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of shivering self-doubt, thirty minutes to think on the absurdity of the shelter, the rain, this meeting.

  He lit a cigarette and looked out in search of the horizon, but in the gloom the exact place could only be guessed at. It was sometime yesterday, whilst going over every word and nuance of their short conversation, he had discovered the key. He had realised that she’d been talking about the tide turning, and he had quickly confirmed that yesterday’s low tide would have occurred just before she had got up and left.

  But what was this about the sea? Why come out in this weather to witness a non-event, wouldn’t high tide be better? Of course he’d consulted the tide tables but deep down he knew that she’d felt the tide turn and that Maria was attuned to a more earthly current than a broadband connection.

  A seagull arrived on the railing; it may not have been the same one. It watched, waited, and nonchalantly defecated.

  Peter saw Maria as she turned the corner a good two hundred yards away. She was dressed as yesterday, her leather jacket was fastened tight against the rain, and her head was down. He tried to look at her dispassionately, to see her as others might. She was short and, whilst slim, looked sturdy as she leant into the wind. From this distance she could have been a chunky schoolboy and there was nothing remarkable about her at all. However as she came closer Peter found it more and more difficult to be objective, and when she finally looked up he was struck with a powerful rush by how beautiful she was. Those eyes, those cheek bones, her sturdiness transformed into strong feminine lines, this was Maria, and she had come.

  Maria smiled, said her hellos and accepted a cigarette. She leant closer for the proffered light, holding his hand steady, water still dripping from her hair and nose, the drops creating dark grey circles on the concrete floor.

  ‘Thanks’ she said and leant back against the bench eyes half closed, half open, looking out to the distance.

  Maria looked perfectly at ease with the following silence, but Peter was busy inventing and dry running his next lines. In exasperation, and much to his horror, he just erupted with, ‘So how come you’ve this interest in the sea then?’

  Taken aback she looked at him, as if not sure whether to take offence at the intrusion, admit her interest, or to deny it.

  ‘You know about tides and their cycles, you knew when it was turning, you come here at low tide for some reason and you seem to know a hell of a lot about the sea for a Polish girl’.

  Peter was panicking. This wasn’t going to plan, what had happened to the smooth enticing conversation he had practised, envisaged, even fantasised about. Why was he being such an arse, who had said she was from Poland? He awaited the smack down.

  It came slowly but steadily.

  ‘Excuse me but I am not Polish. Your phrase ‘Polish girl’ is meant in a derogatory way is it not? Well I must tell you Mr Peter whoever-you -are, that I am an educated Russian woman, I know five languages, each of which I speak better than you speak your own English. I know many things about the many things about which you know nothing.’

  ‘But you do know about the sea’ he replied quietly, like a petulant twelve year old.

  During the silence that followed, Maria gazed again out at the gloom hidden sea whilst Peter concentrated on another cigarette, determined now to keep his head down in the vain hope he hadn’t blown it.

  ‘Yes I do know about the sea.’

  Peter kept quiet.

  ‘I am drawn to it.’

  ‘It can be very beautiful.’ Peter liked to show his sensitive side.

  ‘You do not understand.’

  Wrong again he allowed her to continue.

  ‘The sea is terrible, it is a curse.’

  He couldn’t let that sentence hang there, he wanted to know why she thought that, but he would have to tread carefully.

  ‘Why do you think that?’ he asked as neutrally as possible.

  ‘I cannot explain, it just is’.

  She looked across at Peter, and he noticed for the first time that there were shadows under those dark eyes and that she had a tired, lost look that produced in him an almost overwhelming desire to hold her. He glanced at his watch, and noted that if events ran as previously she would be leaving soon. Low tide would be forty eight minutes later today, so he must make a suggestion quickly.

  ‘Listen Maria’, he said, ‘can we walk back together; I’ll treat you to a late breakfast down the café if you’d like?’

  ‘Perhaps.’, she turned her head as if listening; Peter tried but failed to either hear or see anything through the persistent rain.

  ‘I must go now’ and Maria stood quickly and without another word left the shelter. Peter grabbed his cigarettes and lumbered after her, trying to run and refasten his waterproofs as he went.

  They sat facing each other, separated by their bacon sandwiches and coffee, damp clothes gently steaming with the heat of the rushed retreat.

  Peter asked Maria where in Russia she was from.

  ‘I was born in St Petersburg, a beautiful city I’m told, but something went terribly wrong and when I was three I moved with my father to live in Omsk.

  I don’t suppose I had your western idea of a happy childhood, but with school and the housework there was little time to dwell on it. They were exciting times in Russia, and I knew that if I studied hard I could get a scholarship in Europe, so that is what I did. I grabbed a chance to study in Frankfurt, get a European student card and travel. I came to Liverpool, and now here I am. ‘

  Peter took a sip of coffee; he didn’t want to finish it too quickly.

  ‘Is your father still alive then?’

  ‘Yes, well I assume so, he never writes. My father is a good man but like a lot of men back home he drinks too much. He was never violent though; he just became more and more sad.’

  ‘And your mother?’ it would be rude not to ask.

  ‘I do not know my mother.’ suddenly angry, Maria finished her coffee.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘She is the cause of my father’s sadness. As I said I was only three at the time, but I still have a vague impression of the trouble, then my world was all mixed up and I was on a train travelling through the night. I arrived in a cold place and she wasn’t there for me anymore.’

  Not wanting to break the moment Peter mimed another cup of coffee, she looked at the rain against the window and nodded. As he got up to get it, her eyes were cast down and her attention was once again somewhere else.

  He brought back the coffee and waited.

  Later she spoke again.

  ‘I used to ask my Father about her sometimes, especially when he was sad, and I would ask why he wasn’t angry at her for abandoning the two of us.’

  Maria looked up at Peter and continued.

  ‘He said that it wasn’t her fault; that she was sick, and it was her illness that made her leave. He said that she was beautiful, and wonderful, and kind, and that they loved each other very much, and that she loved me very much too, and that she was very sad to go.’

  There were tears in her eyes now, and Peter grabbed her hands across the table in a spontaneous gesture of support. She didn’t remove them, but said quietly.

  ‘Peter, I am ill too’.