A Picture-Book Likeness

Published 'Vandeloecht's  Fiction Magazine' 1991

The beach was marginalised with an arc of pointed bathing-tents, in batches of dark blue, green-striped, orange and pink-striped. A smattering of near naked people on the sand took advantage of a fitful sun, but their hearts were not in it.

From the white bench on the raised promenade, I could just hear the bass notes of a small combo playing across the other side, underlying the otherwise lazy vibes of the day. A youth in green tracksuit trousers wheeled leisure craft down to the sea's edge, in each one of which mooning couples could foot-paddle out to sea. Nobody seemed to be currently interested in such past-times; maybe romance had died when I was younger, I mused.

I had decided to holiday here on my own, in this foreign resort, not because I needed the sun, since, on this coast, the weather was little better than the south coast of England; not because I would be able to see the ramparted town across the other side of the bay, a town which seemed possessed of more fantastic mystery (when seen from this distance with its sole spire topping the complex sandcastle-like formation of its old buildings) than when I visited that same town on a day trip from here and found its streets as tawdry as anywhere else; not particularly because I had told all my so-called friends that I was staying in the ramparted town across the bay rather than here; but mainly because I thought I would meet my dreamed-of-one out here. You see, the place had recurred during my love-sick youthful dreams… and, then, having fortuitously discovered its picture-book likeness (and hence its name and whereabouts) in a library back in England, I had come here to stay for what I hoped would be an endless summer of romance.

Imagine my ecstasy, then, during the first week of my stay, as I sat here overlooking this semi-circular beach, when my dreamed-of-one sat down beside me on the white bench. But, equally, imagine the double-force of the emotion at the other end of the spectrum when a man sat down with her and proceeded to jabber in French to her...

Instinctively, I walked off as fast as I could go, with the bathing-tents spinning round me like a top; the sea seemed to lose all sense of gravity. But it was not a nightmare, I realised, so I clenched my fist in terror. I would have to live forever with doubt, for the few words of the conversation I had caught were in a language I could never hope to fathom.

Perhaps I had jumped to conclusions or, at best, premature confusions. So, when I looked back to see if I could ascertain whether it was, say, her brother she was accompanying, not only had they both disappeared but so had the white bench.

In my frenzy, I happened to look out to sea and found that the mysterious sandcastle town in the distance was crumbling into the waves. I raised my hand against the sun to see if I could fade away too...

I ended my holiday early and returned to England, with only a few of my friends being forewarned, by telegraph, of the right boat to meet. Luckily, nobody who looked remotely like me got off the boat at Portsmouth.