Observer

Enid tugged the paper from the typewriter, making the carriage spin with a satisfyingly angry sound against its cogs. She reached for the cigarette pack, flipping it open one-handed in the same movement as she lifted it from the desk. It was remarkable how quickly such gestures could become automatic again. The curl of her fingers round the filter, the languid curl of the rising smoke: a comfortable familiarity. She leaned back in the rickety chair, turned her head to look out over the sea, the little island now revealed just round the headland, the sandbar reaching out to it, the rugged head sheltering the beach, the beach itself, already growing crowded in the morning sun. She would have hated to be down there, among the common people - she used the term to herself the way a birdwatcher would talk of common gulls - with their smells of sweat, coconut sun-cream, last night's beer and today's fetid bacon. From up here at her high window, she could consider them vaguely as once she would have squatted, a child, considering ants or woodlice going about their arcane business.

This detachment, she knew, was what Bernard hated, what he could never understand or share. And how obsessed he was with sharing. Not actual sharing - they had hardly ever done that, not really - but the idea of sharing. An idea, she now felt, she had always been uncomfortable with, perhaps even repelled by.

She drew hard on her cigarette, feeling the corrosive stuff fill her lungs, half enjoying the sensation of choking toxicity. It was what drew her back, this summer as last, to this particular guesthouse: the fact that here, as in so few such establishments, smoking in one's room was not yet forbidden. It enhanced the feeling of freedom to become again the smoker she never was at home with sniffy Bernard and their foully well-brought-up children. Somehow, this had always been part of her image of "being a writer", this sitting at a portable typewriter, cigarette in hand. It hardly mattered - or did it? - that she had been here now three days, half her precious week almost gone, and not yet typed a word worth preserving. That too seemed somehow part of the essential writerly image.

Dave knew with some part of him that he was squeezing Martin's hand too tightly, pulling him along too hard. It was not the boy's fault he had a foul mother. But children had to recognise that grown-ups had their bad moods too, that they could be unreasonable, sometimes a little rough, without it lessening their love. It would do both him and the child good to have a brisk walk, dad and son, away from Sharon 's acid tongue. "Come on Martin," he said. "Can you see that island over there? Let's see if there are any rock-pools there. We might find a starfish."

Of course, it was not just that she could smoke. For that she might have gone anywhere. No, it was the sea she needed, and the sky, the view, the sense of being able to see: best of all, to see what other people could not, to see without being seen. For all that, the Cliffedge was perfect. She knew every detail of this view, its moods and rhythms, every bump and turn of its topography, much better than the common humans that crawled upon its surface. She had worked out, for example, by drawing imaginary lines with her eye, exactly how far one would have to go round the headland to see the island, and just how far one would have to return before seeing the beach. That little figure now, for instance - no, it was two, one much smaller than the other - stumping round the end of the rocks, where the sand was briefly uncovered by the tide, would right now just be going out of sight from the ice-cream bar and the candy-floss stand. They appeared to be moving with more purpose than most: perhaps they had more in their heads than the common crowd, or perhaps their movement was merely another random element, like the single fleck of spray that detaches itself from the top of a breaking wave. She exhaled, and for a moment the smoke against the windowpane disturbed her focus, disrupted the vision.

They found no starfish, but there were a few small pools with anemones waiting for the tide to bring in fresh food, a few translucent snails. Dave showed Martin how to dislodge a limpet from its rock perch with a sudden swift kick, and Martin found how firmly they clamp on if the kick is not sudden enough. Martin took off his trainers and put them down carefully on a dry piece of rock so he could paddle his feet in a pool and feel the tickly sensation of the blood-red anemones trying to nibble his toes with their waving tentacles.

Dave sat staring out to sea, brooding on his marriage, on whether he was sometimes too rough on Martin, on whether it was really the best thing for the boy to see his parents constantly feuding, or whether it might benefit him in the long run if they were to split. He was almost sure he would benefit himself, but it would be messy, emotionally and practically difficult, perhaps long drawn-out. He believed their friends saw Sharon and him as the perfect couple - they might see him as the villain of the piece if he were to demolish the fantasy castle they had built. He did not want to go on devoting his existence to a woman he no longer had any respect for, but he was not sure he could see any alternative: not yet. What he could see was one of Martin's trainers. It was floating.

Enid held the packet in her hand with the lid flipped open, but did not immediately lift out a cigarette. She had barely registered the rising water covering the sandy spit to the island. It was simply a normal part of the rhythm, like the slowly moving shadows of the sun's daily transit. She noticed now, however, that the little island was itself shrinking and that the two figures she had seen earlier moving out towards it were still there on the rock. They may have to swim, she thought.

Don't panic, Dave told himself. Then, Christ, how deep is that water? We should be OK if we go now, and keep on the line of the sandbar. Then, how can I be sure where that line is? I didn't look behind me when we came out: I don't know which bit of the headland to aim for. He knew Martin would not be able to swim that far: he was not sure he could have done it himself even if he had been alone. "Time to go, son," he said, trying to sound cheery. "You might need a piggy-back. Never mind about your trainers."

The two figures appeared to become one, then grew smaller as they took to the water. Almost immediately, Enid saw, they strayed off the line of the sandbar. She wondered if they would have been able to wade to shore if they had kept to it. For a moment she saw them as two figures again, then just one. She thought she could see a slight froth of splashing.

Dave grabbed desperately in the water for Martin as he lost his balance and felt the boy go under behind him. Martin was spluttering and thrashing, but Dave managed to get his own feet back under him, safely touching the bottom, and then pull Martin towards him, holding his face clear of the foam. "Put your arm round my neck," ordered Dave, putting his own arm round Martin's waist. "Stop splashing and breathe normally." He began walking towards the shore, with some difficulty in almost chin-high water, with Martin clamped to him, threatening to trip him with his thrashing legs. "Stop kicking!" Dave yelled, stumbling.

Enid watched as the figure became two again, then one, then simply disappeared. She wished, as she often had before, that she had thought to bring a pair of binoculars with her. Finally, she lit her cigarette and fed a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter.