But for now, I'll just bring the sea to you

[Pippi]

“Bloody tourists.”

Graham leaned on the horn, tutting as it blared from the front of his truck, making the swimming trunk and sun hat clad family traipsing down the road ahead jump out of their skin and scuttle to the side of the road, like a pack of brightly coloured insects. He gave them a quick nod as he drove past their sheepish waves of apology, which quickly shifted into more disgruntled noises and a shake of his head.

“Should get rid of the whole lot of ‘em.”

From the seat beside him, Kay looked up from her book, a dog-eared and well-loved copy of ‘A Field Guide to the Seabirds of Britain and the World’ that permanently lived in the passenger-side door of the truck, and gave her dad a wry smile.

“Dad, you don’t think that. You love seeing folks down in the water. You said the other day-”

She cleared her throat, before launching into a passable imitation of her father.

“You said ‘Anyone who can appreciate the beauty of the Ceredigon coastline, well, they’re alright in my book’. You said that, dad. Came right out of your mouth, it did.”

There was a massive, beaming grin on Kay’s face, as she looked straight at Graham, watching as he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, waiting for the scowl on his face to, inevitably, shift into a smile of his own.

“Ah, you got me,” he said. “Suppose I did say that, didn’t I?”

“Yup.”

“Well, sure, they can stay, then. I know most of them are just here to sunbathe or for the kiddies, but anyone who takes a moment out of their day to spend time down by the coast, they’re alright in my book. Just so long as they stop walking down here like they’re dragging their arses to their mother-in-law’s.”

“I don’t think that’s gonna happen anytime soon, dad.”

“No, you’re probably right. Oh, and so long as they’re not bloody English.”

“Or not until they all learn to say ‘Su’mae, dw i ddim yn dallt dim byd’.”

They both chuckled at that, before Kay tucked the birdwatching book back into the side pocket. She rested her chin in her hand as she gazed out the kinda-grimy window, just in time for the bank of trees to her left to thin out, and give way to the small valley leading down to Penbryn beach, the fast-flowing slate-coloured river visible in intervals, poking out from between wild flowers and tangles of coastal grass. A towering expanse of woodland stretched out on the far side of the gully, sprawling from the very lip of the cliff all the way back up the hill to the town itself, stray trees intruding down into the valley itself. Gaps in the treeline exposed light-brown wooden slats and a thick, light-blue rope, a pathway winding its way through the woods and leading right onto the sand.

It didn’t matter how many times they drove down this road. The sight never failed to make her heart soar.

They were about halfway down now, the bright yellow sand slowly pulling up into view, nestled next to the sparkling ocean, stretching far to the west, all the way to the mist-covered Cribach Bay. It wasn’t a long journey down, practically a straight line from the car park to the beach, and on those grey, off-season days, the blissful afternoons where they were the only ones present for miles around, it took even shorter than usual to reach the shore.

They always had to take things slow and steady whenever they hitched the RIB to the back of the truck, though. Kay was pretty sure that the Welsh woodlands would feel a whole lot less magical if they had to spend hours dragging the trailer out of a ditch because they were just a little bit too hasty. And on days like today, with the sun beaming down, only a handful of tiny, fluffy, lazy clouds in the sky, it was inevitable that they’d have to stop-start whenever-

“Oh for the love of…”

Graham shook his head again, exasperation plastered across his face, as the truck slowed to a crawl behind a family carrying enough backpacks and baskets to fit an entire beach worth of sand inside.

“Right in the middle of the road as well,” he muttered, sounding the horn as soon as it became evident they weren’t about to move for love nor money. “Use the bloody woodland walk, for Pete’s sake!”

Kay felt another grin stretch across her face as they trundled past the group, who were a lot more reluctant to show any sign that they’d been an inconvenience than the previous family had been.

“That lot were definitely English, right?”

“Oh, absolutely. No-one else shows such a flagrant disregard for common decency while in someone else’s back garden. Did they not see the signs for the woodland path at all?”

Kay had always liked the woodland walk. It had been a while since she’d taken it; journeys to Penbryn were for boating purposes nowadays, rather than trips to the beach. It was a bit of a trek, but it always made her feel at peace, surrounded by trees and other flora in every direction. She knew which bend would lead to the huge, moss-coated rocks that flanked the path like eternal stone sentinels. She knew exactly which way to look in order to best see the waterfall, the visible origin of the river, flowing into the sea that she loved so dearly. There was even another route that doubled back up the hill to an old stone church, in case you found God on the way to the seaside.

“Saw a few folks standing near the entrance to it,” she said, idly fiddling with a loose bit of skin on the back of her knuckles, watching the spider web that had been in the corner of the passenger window for donkey’s years bounce and jostle with the movement of the truck. “While you were in the loo. Glanced at the sign for a mo, then headed off down the road instead.”

“Typical. Would it kill them to take a little longer so they don’t clog up the roads? Beach isn’t gonna run away.”

“You don’t know that.”

The familial banter carried on for a few minutes longer, their journey suffering no further interruptions, until they reached the end of the road, the tarmac falling away - quite literally, as it was weatherbeaten and crumbling away, one of the stone bollards used to stop cars from driving onto the beach itself cracked right down the center - to rugged grass and sand. The truck stopped, the engine making an uncomfortable noise in the process, and both Kay and Graham hopped out, near-simultaneously, a movement performed repeatedly day after day, for years upon years.

“So what’s the plan for today?” Graham asked, walking round to the back of the trailer. “You wearing your trunks under your jeans? I doubt the water’s cold enough to justify the wetsuit.”

“Oh, uh…”

Kay paused, hands in the back of the truck, looking away from her dad, hoping that the sound of the waves and the crowd spread across the beach would cover the unease in her voice.

“I was actually just kinda planning on doing some more birdwatching, honestly. Maybe take the boat round the bay, I heard rumours about a litter of seal pups recently.”

“Hm.”

It wasn’t a noise of disappointment that exited Graham’s lips - something Kay had been fearing beyond all else - but concern. He began to unclip the cover from atop the RIB as he spoke.

“So long as you’re certain. It’s just been a while since you’ve so much as dipped your toes in the water. You sure everything’s alright?”

Her hands clenched around the lip of one of the crates strapped down in the truck bed. She took a deep, long breath, her shoulders rising high, before they sagged down again, and her limbs relaxed. She reached into the crate, pulling out the wheels used to roll the RIB over the sand and into water, then gave her dad a gentle smile.

“You remember a few weeks back, at Mwnt, when that dickhead in the powerboat almost plowed into me while I was swimming? Just flew on past like nothing had even happened? Yeah, I dunno, that like… that really scared me, y’know? I really thought he was gonna hit me, and I’ve been… I dunno, it’s stupid, I’ve just been terrified of going into the water again, I guess.”

The frown on Graham’s face had slowly morphed into a dark scowl while she had been speaking, and as soon as she came to a close, he shook his head, ripping the cover the rest of the way off with more force than he’d intended.

“No, poppet, don’t you worry about that for a second,” he said, bundling the fabric up and throwing it into the back of the truck. “That stupid goddamn prick. I think I recognised that boat too. Can’t be many folks in the whole of Ceredigon who own a powerboat after all. I’ll find him and give him a piece of my mind, don’t you worry.”

The discomfort, the disgusted feeling at the thought of her standing in her old swimwear, the dismay at how quickly and easily the lie had come to her, it still lingered, but the genuine smile on her face was enough to break through to the other side, shining like the sun.

“Cheers dad. You should take the anchor with you, for extra intimidation.”

“Might just do that, might just do that indeed. Speaking of, you sure you still want to head out?”

“Sure as sure. I wouldn’t miss it for the world, dad.”

“I know you wouldn’t. So long as you’re certain,” Graham said again, stepping forwards, tousling Kay’s hair; it completely messed up her fringe, but this was the one occasion she let such an injustice slide. “Just wanna make sure you’re happy.”

And as she walked around to haul the RIB off of the trailer and attach it to the set of wheels, Kay looked up over the top of the truck, at where the sea and the sky merged into one endless, perfect blue horizon. The sun beat down upon the sand. Seagulls flew overhead, screeching, searching for a prize of loosely-held chips or sand-coated sandwiches. The coast was full of life, and joy, and love.

And in moments like these, even with everything happening in her head, her home, her heart, she truly was happy.