Knocking on the red front door, number 32 facing number 63, of Diana’s house, Elizabeth recalled a beach she’d been reading about off the west coast of Ireland that disappeared in 1984. A storm came and took it away. Imagine that, she thought.
From behind one of the bevelled glass panes, curled light-brown hair and off-pink lips drew closer. The totality of Diana’s head then entering all of the panes to loom portentously as Elizabeth waited for contact.
You must get out of that rain right away, Diana said.
The tea was drunk in the living room. Artisanal Eccles cakes supplemented the liquid and Diana talked about Laos, only hesitating to continue as she glimpsed Elizabeth’s hands upon the armchair’s arms. But, of course, Elizabeth knew she’d been careful with the pastry grease, wiping the light webs in between her fingers thoroughly. She’d made a show of it.
What was genuinely surprising about the people there was the depth of their affection, Diana relayed. Because, you know, you go to these places and you don’t know, do you? What with the way different cultures can be. I mean, I suppose they didn’t have to take to Gordon and me. After all, who are we to them?
Elizabeth’s hands clenched one another on top of her lap. You’re a difficult one to get the measure of, Gordon had told her years and years ago. They were alone outside the women’s toilets in a make-shift club. The lights were up, the night over. A sickly-sweet trail of cider stained Elizabeth’s outer right leg. When Gordon slept, his resting face reminded Elizabeth of the expression on a tortured saint she’d observed in a gallery. Would that still be so now?
Diana got up to fetch the gift she’d brought back. It’s only a small something, she said as her voice ebbed away up the stairs and round the banister into one of four bedrooms.
From outside the window, anyone looking in through the drips of the front garden might’ve assumed a life for Elizabeth that had never happened to her. Eying her tasteful top and trouser combination, the restrained red strands framing a serviceable face, they’d perhaps suppose a woman comparable to her surroundings, always meant to be in her 50s, for whom the world of struggle and progress was a constant irrelevancy.
But she was a terror, wasn’t she? It was never meant for time to equal shrinking perspectives on the concepts she contained. But now she had to occasionally sit in living rooms of detached houses obliging confectionaries as if the way to age was as evident as tables and chairs. Like it was natural to accept a paradox of lived experience as having already come to a stop whilst also having never occurred. Or, at a stretch, everything that had been had happened to someone else who remained on the other side of the border line whilst she was detained, glimpsing the figure only laterally through the blinds, the dullness of her reflected eyes in the window glass a bleak contrast to the shining green irises of the foreigner standing in the bright outdoors.
Then, the systematic unsticking of her boot soles to the floor, left to right then right to left, inducing gratification, she’d replied to Gordon that his problem was in presuming fixed dimensions. He kissed her. That sufficed instead of words, of reckonings. Though she did wish that he, or indeed anyone, had locked onto her soul and asked: what are you most terrified of?
When Diana returned, she was holding a wooden carving. It’s Buddhist, she said. Isn’t it lovely? Elizabeth nodded. It’ll go well with all those line drawings you have.
The ones that John did?
Yes, those ones. He certainly gave you a lot of them.
He wanted to.
Yes, well. Y’know, we were told it’s supposed to bring good luck.
Diana pressed the carving forward. She held it there at arms’ length. If Elizabeth slightly adjusted her position, Diana’s face was blocked by the interlocking patterns of the wooden object. Without eyes, a nose and a mouth, the rest of the woman appeared to be up for grabs, as if any visiting spirit could possess the vessel and put it to other uses.
Elizabeth took the souvenir, thinking as she did that what was hard to grasp about the vanished beach in Ireland was that one day people had walked along it and left their footprints; they’d watched their dogs dig holes; they’d let grains of sand slip between their fingers as they looked out to the horizon. But the next day they did none of those things.
A silence took over.
Diana sat and shifted in her chair. The material of her dress didn’t succumb to the movement. Her body jerked, her hands going out to the sides, keeping her upright. Some bodies seem destined for their fate, Elizabeth thought. Diana’s an incredible physical specimen really. Time’s arrow has nothing on her. But, she consoled herself, whoever you are, the fight against decay is ultimately only ever going to go one way.
If she should find herself in such a position to do so, Diana said, pushing, she really ought to go to Laos. Of course, Elizabeth replied.
It’d do you good, Diana added.
The silence returned, thicker than before.
Perhaps when faced with such a sudden lack some of the villagers were appalled, defiant against the incomparability of their loss. This is our land, they said. We want it back. But maybe others were resigned. This is the way it is, they said. We used to live by a beach. Now we don’t.
Earlier, before the club, they’d been in Gordon’s kitchen. People came in and out. Some of them lived there. Others didn’t. Elizabeth spoke to them all. Gordon had made lunch from the vegetables growing in the garden. He was over by the sink washing up as she was round the table drinking coffee. She gave a light to the guy opposite her. His name something like Kurt or Karl from somewhere like Austria or Switzerland. He inhaled very slowly and, when he spoke, stared to the side of her. You are having the night out? he asked. Yes, she said. He should come along if he wanted. It was a place in the south. Nowhere you’d usually go but we’ve heard good things. She picked up a cigarette, lit it, and turned towards Gordon. A mate said she has a wicked time whenever she goes, he added. The sound system’s mint apparently so may as well give it a look. But we shouldn’t get too leathered, she said. I’ve got that birthday thing of Kate’s tomorrow. Gordon smiled. You say that now, he said returning to the dishes. On his upper left arm an inked band moved as his muscles flexed in response to his wiping. Not objectionable, she thought as she focused on the dark, entwined strands of the band, as she homed in on the intensification of the flesh. Though not perfect. Her judgement was this: it’s a bit esoteric that eastern design. Or, at least, it’s meant to be. What it says about its wearer is that he values the abstract made material. This is absurd. He doesn’t think that one thing can stand for another, but that one thing is another.
The realisation of speaking dawned on Elizabeth. It was her voice. Her words were attempting to explain her situation, the reason she hadn’t seen Diana and Gordon for some time, even before they’d gone away.
What is it, Elizabeth? Diana asked.
It’s that I went to the doctor. I thought it would be nothing because it never is. But this time it is something.
What is it?
It’s in my neck. They say operating would be risky.
Oh, Lizzie. I’m so sorry, Diana’s voice cracked and then her arms were around her friend, their outer angles evoking the points of misshapen fruit.
Unmistakeably, the scent off Diana was of the recently washed. It entered up Elizabeth’s nostrils, violating the structural integrity of the experiential clarity that she liked to think of as pervasive within her walls. There was such kindness in this gesture. Such goodness. A vent of Hell opened up in Elizabeth’s head. All her fury was released. These arms around her were awful, other people abominable, choices terrible. Her nerves strained to completion, forcing themselves against the blockage, and her skin wept with expectant violence. She wanted to harm. Diana’s body could break. Everything she was, all in this room, this house, could be ended and after the tumult there might be peace. It may be possible to rid herself of this rage via a Buddhist carving to the head, eject this rage that crashed against the edges of her organs, that deepened and swelled.
When Diana pulled back, her face was wet. Upon blinking, it appeared to Elizabeth that she was crying too.
There’d been a problem at the door. The guy said it was too full and they’d got here after time. Bollocks, she said. It’s 1am. There’s not supposed to be any security anyway. Fuck it, Gordon said. Let’s just go. Defeat had slid into his tone. It was not becoming, she decided. It was tedious. And then the potential future that occupied a desk drawer in one of her thoughts disappeared. What would be worth hearing that tone more than once?
But there are always options, Diana said. We can look into them together. Her stare was on Elizabeth’s neck as if trying to suss out the dwellings of the tumour. Moved by an impulse, Elizabeth’s hand went up to the area. It was a little raised. When her fingers pressed down against a vein, the lump developed greater prominence. There it took residence under her outer epidermis and grew.
Obviously, she’d got them in. But once down the stairs and amidst the throng, Elizabeth’s overriding desire was Gordon’s absence. His proximity needled her. The pressure of his good intentions. How he influenced her. It shouldn’t really matter, she thought. His mind is not mine. There is nothing lost from spending time together. And yet, so much is irretrievable.
A notion came to Elizabeth: the actuality of Diana. She’s a real person. Her every attribute indicates it. She has arms and legs, a torso with a head atop it, and using it all she manages words that somehow connect with what must be her. They must be the Diana embodied and sat here, the one whose fingernails are painted sheer pastel nude, here with bones in her thoughts and feelings in her veins. That’s how she lives. As for herself, Elizabeth could barely be called an entity. There was only disconnect. Diana acts. She commits. Elizabeth had her anger, but ask her what she did with it and she’d direct you to the floor.
Over the sound of water passing through pipes, a message tone emanated from a phone. Both women checked their devices. It’s only Archie, Diana informed. Elizabeth hadn’t asked about their son. She presumed he was fine now and out in the world of competitive science. That’s what became of the well-brought up: they prospered and crumpled. Then flourished again, more definitively. The trickling in the walls sped up and slowed down. Elizabeth wasn’t sure if she’d remembered to put her heating on timer. Would it be cold when she got back? Her cheeks were damp but drying. Screen light spread into Diana’s features, her cheeks hollower, forehead overhanging. Sorry, just replying quickly, she said. The sharp, focused fury within Elizabeth had turned into a vague remnant of itself. It was a false memory revealed, displaced and returned, lurking still, yet with no rights to speak its truth. I won’t mention anything to Archie now, Diana said. No, Elizabeth replied, it’s alright. It’s not a secret.
That night there was an encounter with a stranger in a toilet stall. His chest spartan, a glow stick around his ankle; this is fine, she thought, not sure if a life goal had been reached or ruined. Towards the end, when the glitter on her face had already been transferred to the unknown’s abdomen and below, a woman seemingly uninvested in gender entered to tell them men couldn’t be in the ladies’. On the dancefloor, she found Gordon again. Her fingers ran down his arm and secured themselves around his biceps, covering up the esoteric band and squeezing. In the early afternoon of the next day, she survived and took herself out of his house and onto the bus to the party. After only maybe an hour or two of unconsciousness before she left his bed, she could’ve been in much worse shape for the daytime. Conversing in this state was a thing unto itself. Processing and producing sound happened out of her head, at a point above it, automatically, releasing her from all responsibility of the content. The push towards slumber mounting and overcoming the amphetamines and hallucinogens travelling through her regulating systems. Tonight she would close her eyes and nothing would come. It would completely vanish her. As Diana ordered a round, small groups cheered for one of the teams playing on the tv over the bar, and the pleasure of controlled sleeplessness followed by inevitable sleep bled across all the territories of Elizabeth. She wouldn’t call Gordon. Maybe she’d get back to him if he called first, though. Kate was helping out with the round, bringing Elizabeth a pint, the following touch of the foam to her lips a reward for persistence.
Lizzie, y’know Diana, don’t you? Kate asked.
I don’t think so, Elizabeth said.
She smiled at Diana and introduced herself. The thing with Gordon, she thought, is that there just isn’t any point in forcing something to be what it’s not.
I should put the lights on, Diana said. The darkness had nested around them. Whenever it was dark and the room illuminated, Elizabeth had noticed that Diana never drew the curtains. It was a hostile act, she thought. They were vulnerable as the view inside was clear, the one outside obscure.
What is it? Diana asked.
Nothing. Just the feeling of someone out there, Elizabeth said.
There’s nothing to fear. Would you like anything?
No thanks.
I could start the hot pot now.
I was thinking, Diana. There’s this beach in Ireland that disappeared. Have you heard about it?
No.
A storm took it away in 1984 and everyone thought it was just gone. They all would’ve had to adapt to life without it, thinking that it’d never return because why would it? Things don’t go and come back like that.
I suppose they don’t. But what of it?
Well, it came back last week. Out of nowhere, there it was again, thirty-three years later. Isn’t that incredible?
Yes. Everybody wants to live by the beach.
But… Y’know I…, Elizabeth stalled. Diana’s gaze was fixed as it dug out the bones in Elizabeth’s spine. The pipes cranked, the water flowed. Why?, Elizabeth wanted to know. How often does the boiler come on and off? Should she continue speaking?
Headlights entered through the window brightening the floorspace between the two figures of friends. The engine stopped. A car door opened and closed. Footsteps scraped the tarmac, moving away from the vehicle towards the house. It was raining still. Into the lock of the red front door, a key was inserted and turned.
Cassandra Moss was born in Manchester and grew up just outside the city. She studied English with Film at King’s College, London and subsequently worked in the film industry for Sister Films, Working Title, and Vertigo. Since 2009, she’s been an EFL teacher. After moving to Ireland, she recently completed an MPhil in Linguistics at Trinity College, Dublin. Her short fiction has been published in Succour, 3am Magazine, Cricket Online Review, Squawk Back, And/Or, The Passage Between, Posit and is forthcoming in Sunspot Lit and Beyond Words.