Deborah Tomkins Tomkins

A WILDER SHORE

ONE

Rain Bomb

I’m crouched at the back of a minuscule cave halfway up a cliff at almost the very tip of Cornwall, waiting out a violent storm on this viciously cold January day. The wind doesn’t whistle as it gusts in through the entrance, it howls, it groans, it screams, it roars. Between gusts there’s the smell of clean salt air mingled with rotting seaweed. I occasionally get a whiff of my underarms too, when I shift position. I can’t get close enough to the cave entrance to see out because the tide is rising and the waves, driven by the powerful westerly wind, terrify me with their size and their slow inexorable movement. Seawater crashes in every couple of minutes, the spray drenching my feet and my legs.

I am very cold, and very wet.

Meanwhile, there you are, up on your narrow ledge above the high-water mark, watching me like a baleful god, your emerald-green eyes half-closed. You must have been here already when I crawled in yesterday afternoon dragging Jonnie’s battered old rucksack behind me, my hands red and swollen with cold, my hair plastered to my head, my clothing soaked through. It wasn’t the sea that made me so wet, it was the rain bomb.

Rain bomb. Descriptive, although not the technically correct term. That would be “micro-burst”, if you’re interested. I prefer rain bomb, a bomb made of rain.

A mere half-hour before it exploded, I was enjoying a sunny walk on the coastal path, gazing at the sea, scenting the bitterness of last year’s bracken, dry and flat, the colour of rust and amber, tasting the salt in the air, thinking about dinner. Just like a real bomb, it was entirely unexpected, destructive, traumatising, so that I ran immediately and instinctively for shelter, a rush of adrenaline making me take risks I would never take under normal conditions. Thankfully I was alone on the path. Perhaps everyone else had heard the weather forecast.

There’s a bleak beauty in this place, in this early morning light: the stripes of coloured rock – elephant-grey, burnt umber, blood-red. The little rock pools with blue-black mussels and yellow-and-white sea snails, barnacles spread across the rocks like spilled oatmeal. The crimson jelly blobs of sleeping sea anemones waiting for high tide. The eddies and swirls as seawater swooshes in and out. The fat vein of fool’s gold above my head. A smear of fresh water trickling down the rock at the back of the cave. An entrance that’s a mere slit in the cliff face, invisible from above, hardly visible from the sea. It’s a miracle I found it.

I must have slept a little overnight, despite the cold and damp and the lumpy shingle that digs into my back and buttocks, because I dreamt of Jonnie as a small child, four or five years old. He was running through a meadow, laughing, holding his hand out to me. ‘Run, Mummy, run…!’ I jogged alongside him, laughing too, neither of us out of breath, skimming the wild flowers and grasses, and then somehow he was outstripping me, running ahead, racing up the hill, disappearing over the top. When I reached the crest he was no longer in sight.

These dreams come and go. I have one every few weeks. Not exactly the same, more a variation on a theme. Jonnie is sometimes older, sometimes younger, but each time I lose him. I’ve lost him in the cinema, in supermarkets, in woods, at his graduation, the graduation he never attended. I’ve seen him mingling with guests at Flora’s wedding, when he’d been dead eight years. In that dream, I lost him several times. He walked behind a pillar in the Abbey and didn’t emerge the other side; he took a plate of food from the buffet and turned towards me, and was a different guest, not my son; he drove the happy couple away from the reception in a chauffeur’s uniform, his face expressionless, intent on the road ahead of him.

Do you ever dream? Of what, I wonder? Sailing the oceans? Fishing? The beauty of the cliffs?

Jonnie would have loved a day here. It’s a bit like camping – the wet and the chill and not enough hot food – and Jonnie always loved camping, making dens, exploring. He never lost his adventurous spirit. In many ways I wish he had lost it, had been a homebody like his sister Flora. But then he wouldn’t have been Jonnie.

I loved Jonnie more than the others. You’re not supposed to, you know, as a parent. From the moment he was born and placed into my arms and looked up at me with those dark blue eyes that never changed colour he had a hold on me that my other children never had, a hold that tightened until it felt like his hand was around my heart. We could read each other’s moods, and it seemed that I would always know what he was thinking, that we would always chime as we had when he was little.

Memories of Jonnie have hit me out of nowhere for over twenty years. They side-swipe me, they knock the wind out of me, they trip me up, they make me lose my way. I’m walking along, or cooking or feeding the hens or making a telephone call, and then, quite suddenly, Jonnie is there before me, as real to me as the walls of this cave. I feel that I could reach out and touch him, rumple his hair, kiss his cheek.

Flora and Hugo used to think I’d gone into some kind of trance. Maybe it’s a kind of post-traumatic shock, a flashback. Maybe I’m mentally ill. Maybe it’s petit mal.

Or, maybe, just maybe, it’s the solidity and permanence of grief.

#

‘What would you do in a zombie apocalypse?’

Jonnie sounded entirely serious. He was sitting opposite me, twelve years old, his eyes on the bowl of chocolate icing from which I was decorating Flora’s birthday cake. He’d had a cold but was much better, well enough to go back to school, but I’d granted him an extra day at home. We never had proper time alone together and I missed him. By the time he got home it was chaos, running around with Flora’s after-school activities and preventing for the most part the twins’ periodic meltdowns.

‘What’s a zombie apocalypse?’

‘You know, Mum…’ He lurched from the stool and began stalking erratically up and down the kitchen, legs stiff, arms out straight before him, hands dangling like a hideous scarecrow, gurning, eyes lolling, moaning and dribbling.

I laughed. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m being a zombie!’

‘But why?’

‘Well, if there was a zombie apocalypse you’d need to know. You’ve got to run really fast, because they can’t run.’

‘That’s a relief.’

‘And you’ve got to lock yourself into a building with plenty of supplies and weapons and food. Basically,’ he confided, climbing back onto the stool, ‘you’ve got to be prepared for a siege.’

‘Really?’ I raised my eyebrows.

‘Mmm.’ He nodded. ‘A long one. Most people don’t realise that. Most people think it’ll be all right after about a week.’

‘And it won’t.’

‘No. It might never be all right. Zombies can’t die.’

‘Ah.’

‘But you can blow them up.’

‘OK.’

‘And burn them. With flame-throwers and things.’

‘Yuck.’

‘Oh, it’s all right, Mum. They can’t think or feel, so they don’t know anything about it.’

‘So what are they after then?’

‘Er…’ He faltered for a moment, then brightened. ‘Oh, they want to turn us into zombies too.’

‘I see. Like a sort of virus.’

‘Maybe. Can I lick out the bowl yet?’

‘Here you are.’ I pushed it across the counter and watched as he bent his dark tousled head over it, intently scraping out the icing with a teaspoon. My firstborn, my secret favourite.

‘I’ll make sure you’re all right, Mum. I’ll take you with me. We can run together.’ Absorbed by the bowl, he didn’t look up.

‘Thank you, darling.’ I held myself back from rushing round the table and hugging him, my heart so full, so overflowing with love and pride that I almost wept.

‘That’s OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll look after you.’

He told me once, when he was about sixteen, that he looked for escape routes wherever he was - aircraft, boats, buildings, mountainsides, woods. He wasn’t scared of zombies by then. You’re not scared of anything at sixteen. You think you can conquer the world. He was beginning to learn that the world’s not always a safe place, that danger can lurk where you least expect it, and he was planning for survival. He mentioned plane crashes and earthquakes, tsunamis and terrorists. Zombies had been relegated to video games.

#

Each of the storms over the past few days has been worse than the last. And this storm is the worst of all, because I’m trapped in here, alone, with only you to talk to. It truly feels like it could be the end of the world – squalls of rain and wind lash the cliffs, thunder bursts overhead, flashes of lightning briefly illuminate the filthy dark clouds that roil above like in some dystopian movie.

Fanciful, of course. The end of the world won’t come so dramatically, so quickly. The end of me might come, though, if I can’t get out pretty soon. When the weather improves I’ll climb up that little track to the top of the cliff and seek help. I’ll trudge across the fields to a farmhouse, since the coast path is impassable, as of yesterday afternoon – what a drama that was, and how fortunate I am to be safe in here, despite the dank chill and the cramp in my legs and the terror.

I can manage this for a few more hours. No longer than that, though. At my age I need a few home comforts. I’m sixty-seven, you know.

Ah! Do I detect a little surprise in your eyes? Perhaps you think I look good for my years? – or maybe you think I’m too old for this caper.

I’m far too old, you’re quite right. I shouldn’t be here at all. I should be at my friend Anne’s, sleeping in her comfortable spare bedroom, enjoying her delicious food, drinking champagne, gazing out at the Cornish countryside, so beautiful even in winter. Instead of luxuriating in the comfort of a warm and convivial home, surrounded by loving family and friends, I’m huddled on this strip of wet shingle, all broken shells and pebbles, my spine against the rocky wall, my knees drawn up tight under my chin, hoping I don’t die from exposure, eking out my apples and walnuts while I wait for the storm to pass.

But right now I’m more concerned about drinking water than food. I’m incredibly thirsty. I might be able to fill my bottle from that trickle just here at the back, or failing that there are the torrents pouring down outside. Neither seems appealing. I expect there’s mud and grit mixed in, and I bet it’ll taste –

What’s that?

The ground’s vibrating... There’s a gritty grating and rumbling over my head... a thunderous scraping... the whole cave’s shaking... an earthquake? The vibrations go all the way up my back and along my legs... I duck, hold my forearms tight to the top of my head, protecting my skull from the pieces of rock that drop from above, crashing around me, smashing down on the rocks and into the rock pools… I need to get out before I’m crushed or trapped... on hands and knees… crawl towards the entrance through the shallow pools... ripples dancing across the water... so pretty... so scary... so deadly...

My lungs are blocks of stone, my throat’s closing up... breathe out, Roly... all the way out, that’s it... empty your lungs, Roly... now breathe in, very slowly, easy does it... well done... well done...

Slow, steady, breathe... don’t think, don’t panic. Breathe... breathe... I wish I had an inhaler. But my specialist said there was no need. It’s just panic, she said. Just panic. As if that means nothing.

And... breathe...

And... breathe...

#

There’s been a landslide, a rockfall.

I lie on my stomach, peer out of the narrow cave-mouth. The cliff’s ruined. All my handholds and footholds, that little animal track – gone. The boulders just below are treacherous, smooth and slippery with slimy green weed, the sea heaving around them. There’s no way up on the other side. Sheer vertical cliff. Sheer horizontal rain. And my thigh’s bleeding, blood pouring out of a massive gash, soaking my clothing. I don’t remember when that happened, maybe when I slipped down between those two narrow rocks as I crawled along. I’ll tie it up tight with my scarf. It hurts really badly.

I’ll just sit here for a bit, have a think. Gather my resources. Tie up my leg. Rummage for painkillers.

What a mess. What a mess.

Grab rucksack, crawl back to where I was sitting. Oh, and there you are, still there on your ledge. Still staring at me, still suspicious of me.

Look at you, barely moving, barely alive. I think you’ve got a broken leg.

Look at me, talking to an injured cormorant.

TWO

He Won Medals, You Know

A whole day has passed, and I have no idea what I’m going to do about getting out of here. My phone’s run out of battery, and that’s not in the least surprising as I left my charger behind. Not that I could charge it in here anyway, but you know what I mean. I could have charged it on the way. If I’d remembered.

However old I am, however mature – although Hugo might have something to say about that – there’s something creepy about being here alone at night. I find myself wondering what’s hiding in the darkness beyond this tiny pool of slowly-dimming light from my torch. I have to wind the torch every few minutes, and meanwhile – have you noticed? – the shadows creep closer and closer when we’re not looking. The rocks freeze when I swing my torchlight onto them, like a game of grandmother’s footsteps. Like the worst kind of nightmare. Because, you see, no-one knows where I am. And I’m terrified that I’ll never get out of this cave, that my bones won’t ever be found, that my family will never know what became of me, and that I’ll never know what became of them.

I mustn’t panic. I must hold on, hold tight, hold fast to – what? What exactly can I hold on to now? My sanity? Precarious, at the best of times. The love of those I hold dear? Maybe. The hope of rescue?

I have no certainty that any of these things is true and solid. Everything feels insubstantial, like sea mist.

And so it starts – the anxiety, the fear... My lungs set like concrete, my throat’s held in a vice. I push the air out slowly, carefully, counting back from ten to zero, my eyes squeezed shut, watering with effort and terror.

I gasp, a long shuddering gasp, raucous in the sudden silence of this space, a deep wheezing rasp that startles me as much as it gives me relief.

I must breathe very slowly... out… and in… and out… and in…

I must concentrate. I’ll time my breaths to the waves coming in… and out… and in… and out…

There… there… there…

#

Sometimes I forget to breathe.

I wake choking, gasping, spluttering and wheezing, my heart racing, the panic rising within me like nausea. Even awake I forget, sometimes, to breathe. I’ve always done it, held my breath when concentrating, or if I was in pain or frightened or shocked, and someone would tell me to ‘Breathe!!’ - a teacher, a parent, a friend, or most irritably, Hugo. ‘Breathe, dammit!’

This sea, this sea... the slow heavy rolling of the waves that crash grey and white on the rocks below, this sea reminds me of Jonnie’s last moments. I saw him die six thousand miles away, my most beloved son. Twenty-three years ago, give or take a few weeks. Twenty-three years. I remember it so clearly.

It was played over and over on the news, a few seconds of blurry footage – two people on a ship, holding a banner which billowed and flapped like a sail in the strong wind. They seemed to be swaying back and forth in a kind of slow-motion dance, taking a step back, then another step forward or to their left or right. Then I realised it was the ship swaying from side to side at the same time as going up and down. There was no horizon, no sky, or maybe the sky and the water were the same colour. Enormous white and lead-grey waves broke over the guardrail at the front of the ship, and the two people swayed and stumbled, trying to stand upright in the wind.

Then one of them tripped and fell, and slid slowly along the side of the deck. Water crashed over them, and, when it cleared, he or she was no longer there.

The video footage swung back to the other person, on their knees, crawling towards us.

The film cut out at this point, the news anchor gravely explaining that the first person had fallen into the sea, and the rescue operation was ongoing. The two people had been holding a banner objecting to whaling, holding it up in the storm on the off-chance that a whaling ship which was close by might see it, despite – we heard later – having been warned not to go up on deck in that weather.

That is how I found out. The news.