Beside the Sea Read Online Free PDF

something. You’re looking for a café and you find the ocean, that doesn’t happen every day, it was quite a surprise.
    I stopped on the sea wall, my two kids holding my hands, I wondered how to do it, how to say hello to the sea. It was making a hellish noise, really angry, and the children cowered. I stayed there, not moving a muscle, watching it… I’d been waiting for it such a long time! Will it come right up to us? Kevin asked. Of course! Stan teased, it’s going to come right up and shake your mit! Really? said the littl’un… My God! Children really are prepared to believe anything, I could have admitted to him that I dreamt of seeing the sea at the foot of my bed.
    I’ve got to say Kevin was frightened out of his tiny mind, not at all in the mood for looking for shells or running through the lapping waves – lapping waves were thin on the ground, these were huge great waves stretching out furiously, not something you wanted to get close to. It wasn’t very inviting and the rain didn’t help. It really did look like it was coming towards us, at least it was trying to, gathering itself up, building the waves high to reach us and then falling back down… it was up to us to get closer. We’d better move, I told the kids, we’ll dissolve in all this water, and down we went onto the beach, the littl’un still wary, Icould tell from the way he squeezed my hand, he’d have been happier backing away, that’s for sure, and landing safe and warm in the classroom with Marie-Hélène, him being her favourite.
    The sea had lost all its colour, it wasn’t blue at all, it looked like a torrent of mud, it was the same colour as the sky, what I mean is even the beach was like the hotel: same feeling of being in a cardboard box. It’s completely blue, really, I told Kevin, but it was making such a row he didn’t hear me – maybe I didn’t actually say it, maybe I was talking to myself, It’s breathing very loud! Kevin shouted, tugging at my arm. Don’t be scared, I said, it’s just saying how glad it is to see you, it’s really missed you! Does it know me? The whole world knows you, Kevin, that’s what I wanted to say, the whole world’s waiting for you, but that was wrong, I know there’s no one waiting for us. But aren’t we allowed to lie every now and then, to turn ourselves into fairies, children expect it and it gives them a chance to dream, what’s wrong with that?
    Does it know me? Kevin shouted again, I nodded but I think he’d already stopped looking at me, he’d taken a sharp step back because a wave had come and licked at his shoes.
    Stan was a little way away now, running all over the beach like something was chasing him. He’s not right, that lad, I thought, it was like he was trying to get away from something, the rain, the cold,some imaginary creature, it was strange, he’d run with his head down, then stop suddenly as if there was a wall, then set off again just as quickly, turn to the right, turn to the left… what was he thinking right then, what sort of world was he in, I couldn’t say. I would have liked him to stop but I didn’t have the strength to run after him, my head was spinning horribly, I sat down on a rock, Kevin started playing with the wet sand at my feet, he’d lost interest in the sea. I couldn’t help looking at it, though, wanted to be like it, self-contained, not giving a stuff about anything and taking up as much space as I liked. It’s conceited alright, it isn’t friendly, it’s conceited, we come all this way to see it and if it could it would grind us into the ground, freeze the air in our lungs and fill our mouths with water if we got too close, and the waves were like huge mouths snapping at the empty air, waiting for us, just us.
    Stan! I cried, Stan! Come back now! But he carried on running into his walls, so I went over to him, tripping on stones but not taking my eyes off him, while the waves smacked at the empty air behind him. Stan! I cried