Does the beach love the sea and the sea love her back or is it a one-way relationship - one static and settled, reliable - the other fickle and vacillating? Does she feel fulfilled when the waves caress tenderly, is she excited when they roll and crash? All that foamy froth at the highest point, towering before the fall and then running towards her. How it gushes, over and over, sweeps out its arms and gathers her in, only to withdraw almost immediately, seeping back, retreating, only a sweet, thin lace at its edge.
Does it feel like one of those orgasms that go on and on and leaves you tingling at your extremities, quivering?
Afterwards, the sand lies naked, shifting with slight ripples, single stones like contracted nipples, waiting for the next visit.
Not for long. Back comes the sea, again and again, constantly changing its mind. I do. No I don’t. I will. No I won’t. Maybe... no... yee…sss..
I stand on beach’s smooth belly making only slight marks, and remember my teenage sun-lounging days when I looked down and could see my hip bones like jagged rocks protruding. I wonder, do the birds tickle the beach when they run along with their tiny, light feet, scarlet legs pattering on sun-tanned sand?
The winter swimmers wear neoprene gloves and slippers with their bikins. Lots have brightly coloured caps too,and their taut condom heads go rhythmically in and out of the water while angled arms power across and back.
There’s a slim sand-shelf for them to sit on. It runs the breadth of the beach where they spread their towels. With damp thighs, they struggle into their knickers. They pretend their bottoms can’t be seen from numerous windows, by fishermen on the breakwater, by the stately Elm in my garden on the hill above, by me.
Sometimes the ledge is not there, replaced by bulk of seaweed, dulse and bladderwrack. You have to be careful not to slip on it if you stand up too quickly with bare feet. In amongst the olive-brown blades you will spy bleached-white pebbles, spring-green fragments of glass, slithers of shell. There are rings, tubes and plungers of plastic as well. Did you know that the fronds of the female dulse are sexually mature after only a few days of growth, whereas the male needs 8 to 12 months of maturity before it can release its sperm? Such inequality preserves genetic purity.
I return exhilarated. I lie back on my bed and shut my eyes, hot water bottle at my feet. Still the swimmers shriek and scream; I can hear them, 200 metres away by crow, 24 above sea level. The waves are moving across the top of my nose, the wind whispers its sweet nothings in my ear, the elements pulse through my bones. Rain patters in stereo, the two sloping panes playing different rhythms according to the south wind from the Pentlands or its partner facing Fife. I dream.