The men came up out of the sea. They were the same size as average men, with broad shoulders and solid chests. Naked, save for the barnacles that coated their skin. Not skin, but armour, made of iron.
Connor traced his finger over the first man’s hand. There were a hundred of them; sea-men. Every morning they stood, waist deep in the ocean until the tides went out. Then, they would be stuck here, on the beach, marooned, with their iron feet wedged into the sand. They felt rough when you touched them. The way Connor had stroked his dad’s jaw when he was little. Only, it wasn’t hair across their skin, but time; decay, sand.
They had a smell, too. Like the sea, but something more. Rust. Salt. If time had a smell, it would be this. The smell of a man who had been stood here, facing the sea, waiting.
Connor touched the bruise at the corner of his eye; he liked pressing it, making it hurt.
He listened to the sound of the wind. Ssshhhhhhh across the ocean. A lullaby. Waves.
Footsteps padding across sand.
It was a black and white border collie, with sticky up ears and a sticky up tail. The dog bounded up to Connor. It began to sniff him, then decided to be his friend. The dog barked, rubbing its wet, leathery snout over his school trousers.
Connor bent down to pat the dog. It smelt mangy from paddling. Wet dog. That smell.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘G-good dog.’
‘Her name’s Shadow,’ the old man said. He wore a waterproof jacket and an Everton football scarf. He had a bald head, like an egg. An old scouser.
Shadow was a problem word. ‘G-good girl,’ Connor stammered; his eyes squeezed shut.
‘She likes you,’ said the scouser. ‘She doesn’t like everyone. She’s a smart dog.’
Connor said nothing. He stroked the dog between her ears, then down the bridge of her nose. Her fur felt funny if you stroked it backwards.
‘You been in the wars, lad?’
Connor touched his face.
‘Lads at school been giving you a hard time?’
They were doing Of Mice and Men. The teacher went around the class and they each had to read a bit. Connor had practised inside his head. But his stammer made it come out wrong. C-c-crazy f-fool. Everyone had laughed.
They called him a mouse, and said he was tapped, and Jack did this to his face – right here, where it hurt.
‘Bastards,’ the old man said. ‘They’re buggers. Trust Shadow; she knows.’
Connor ran home. Dad’s car was outside! He ran to the front door and rummaged around in his backpack for the key. When he couldn’t find it, he banged on the door and Mam came to answer it. ‘Fucking hell, Con? What happened to your face, lad?’
He pushed past her. Dad was in the front room, perched on the arm of the sofa, smoking a ciggie. He wore a T-shirt, even though it was jacket weather. He hadn’t shaved in days. His chin looked rough and scratchy; the skin around his eyes did too.
‘Fucking hell, lad,’ Dad said. ‘Look at the state of you.’
‘Are you staying?’ Connor asked.
Dad looked at Mam. Mam looked out of the window, at the row of houses opposite, just the same as theirs. ‘Connor, lad, we need to talk about this here face of yours.’
‘I fell over.’
‘On your face?’ Dad took another drag on his cigarette. Mam always moaned, behind his back, about him smoking in the house, but she never told him off while he was here. Probably because he wasn’t here very often. She didn’t want to jinx it.
When Dad left again, she put all the cushions back the way she wanted them, moved his plates from the sink, the odd sock that got left on the stairs.
Mam crossed her arms. ‘Your dad’s got something to say.’
Dad’s eyes narrowed. He looked around at the room, at the piece of tinsel over the picture frame that had been left over from Christmas, the wee ceramic dogs sitting on the TV, Mam’s magazine half-kicked under the rug. HOW TO LOOK G-
‘That’s right,’ Dad said. ‘These lads at your school. Don’t let anybody kick you around, Connor. You have to stand up for yourself.’
‘Not that, Ryan.’
‘This is important, Claire. Now, Connor. I want you to start being a bit more of a man, you know? Give ‘em what for.’
Mam snorted.
‘Don’t laugh at me, Claire. I’m trying to teach our son an important lesson.’
‘That he has to be more like you, is that it? Broke and out on your arse.’
‘I am not out on me arse!’
‘What’s g-going on?’ Connor stuttered.
‘Connor,’ Dad said. ‘I don’t want you to think this has anything to do with you. Or your mam.’
Mam snorted again.
‘I’m leaving, Connor.’
Connor sat down on the sofa. He brushed a bit of muck off his trousers, from the dog. ‘But you’re c-coming back?’
‘Pass me that ash tray, Con. It’s just on the floor, beside your feet.’ Connor handed it over. Dad finished his fag, then stubbed it out. ‘I’m moving back to Dublin.’
Connor looked at Mam. Sometimes she had blokes over who weren’t his dad. Whenever Dad came back, they went away. Dad would always roll back, surely as the tide.
Dublin, that was over the water. That was Ireland.
‘It’s for my work, Connor,’ Dad said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Connor ran upstairs. He slammed his bedroom door, then looked out of the window. Ireland was all the way out there, over the sea, that black expanse of murky, sludgy water. Past the men who waded out to the ocean.
He said to himself, quietly, the words getting stuck in his mouth like clay: S-she s-sells s-sea sh-sh-shells on the sssea shhhhhh.
Eve Chancellor is an English Teacher and writer, living in Manchester. She has a First in English from the University of Liverpool and an MLitt in Victorian Literature from the University of Glasgow. Her short fiction is published on East of the Web, and her poetry has been published by Ink, Sweat and Tears and Fly on the Wall. She was highly commended in the Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition. You can find Eve on Twitter as @eve_madelaine.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash.
