Brighton in the Afternoon

We don't always go to the beach at sunset. Take Sunday, for instance.

We were at my mum's visiting. It was 4 o'clock, and 42 degrees. She packed us off down the road for a swim, but she didn't come. The beach is no place for an old person on a day like this, she said.

We walked down Smith Street to the beach, down the steps and into the sea. There were more people in the water than out, feet balanced on underwater ripples of sand edged with an algal green. Knees bent in the sea not swimming. Hands floating in the top layer of water which was hot. Breathing the humid air hovering at head height over the flat slightly heaving green and yellow sea.

Not every old person had felt like my mum. Knees bent in the water close to the shore an old man harangued his wife and regaled her with a funny story. He stood up. His swimming trunks sagged. He pulled them up. He bent towards his wife and adjusted the strap of her swim suit. She continued to stare at the shore.

And I continued to stare at the shore, with the sun behind my head. Bright amoeba-like shapes slid over the skin of the waves reflecting the rocks and the tall creamy houses over the road. The first time I'd ever noticed those slices of houses shimmering in that sea.