The Last Swim of the Year

The east wind has been blowing softly all afternoon, and it has brought a haze in off the sea. Along the shore, everything has gone pale and quiet. The far end of the beach is only a shape.

Behind the rocks at this end lies the hidden cove, small and sheltered, with the swell kept outside. You come down to it by the narrow way between the boulders, carrying the old towel. The sand here is coarse and full of little stones, worn round by the sea. You fold the towel on the flat rock above the water, where the sun has left some warmth.

The sea here is slow to change. It warms all through the summer, and gives the warmth back through the autumn, a little less each week. In the village they say the sea is warmest in September, and kindest in October. By then the summer people have gone home, and the beaches are empty again. Tonight there is still warmth enough.

You step in over the stones. The first of the cold comes up around you, and you stand for a moment, and let it come. Then you go on, slowly, until the sea lifts you gently off the stones.

You lie back, not far from the shore. Inside the haze, the cove is very quiet. The small waves lift you and set you down again, and lift you. A gull goes over, high and slow, and does not call. Under the water there is a faint sound, like sand being poured somewhere far away. It is the pebbles at the edge, turning over each time a wave draws back.

Something moves around you in the shallows. A shoal of tiny silver fish, hundreds of them, turns all at once, and flashes, and is gone. A moment later it comes back, and turns again, as though the whole shoal were one small thought.

On the clearest days, when the west wind blows, you can see the mountains of Africa from here. They make a faint blue line, far across the water. Tonight there is only the haze, and the soft place where the sea ends and the sky begins.

Far along the beach, the lighthouse stands pale on its headland, waiting for the dark.