‘Oh,’ Pim says, when he comes down the stairs on Saturday morning in his pyjamas and dressing gown, and sees Claire and Ash in the kitchen. He’s carrying the cup of tea Claire put by the bed earlier. ‘Where are you two off to? It’s early.’
‘The beach clean, remember?’ Claire says.
‘Oh, yeah.’ He’s clearly forgotten. He takes a sip of tea. ‘You’re going with Mum?’ he asks Ash.
She asked Ash if he wanted to join her and the Sea-Gals today and when he said he was up for it, she felt like punching the air. He’s done loads of research for his project and she’s delighted that he’s found something that he’s interested in apart from that damned video game. Pim looks impressed as he nods.
She catches sight of herself in the hall mirror as they go out of the door. She feels different since Lotte did her hair. It took Pim a whole ten minutes and the boys an hour on Friday morning to clock it, but to Claire it feels wildly different. She feels younger. More alive. Revamped in a way she hasn’t done for years. She keeps catching Pim looking at her, as if he can’t quite put his finger on her transformation. Even Ash told her that she looked pretty. She’s racked her brains, but as far as she can remember, her son has never, to her knowledge, used any kind of adjective to describe her. She’s just been part of the furniture as far as he’s concerned, so ‘pretty’ was fairly impactful. She’ll take pretty.
She joins Dominica and Tor, Helga and Maddy on the beach and introduces Ash, and she’s proud when he’s polite. She can see him re-evaluating her, as he watches her with her friends, curious that Claire has a life beyond her domestic cage.
‘You should come in for a swim with us one day,’ Dominica tells him and the expression on his face makes them all laugh.
‘So, you swim in there?’ Ash asks, as if he’s seeing the sea for the first time.
Claire follows his gaze to the water. She feels a physical yearning to fling herself in and she regrets not bringing her kit. She’s tempted to go in anyway, but she suspects that Ash would die of embarrassment if she stripped off in front of him and swam in her pants. She never thought she’d become so addicted to the water but looking at the expanse of blue makes her feel as if she’s discovered treasure.
Dominica is talking to the organiser of the beach clean, and she gives Ash a high-vis tabard and a picker-up stick and shows him how to work it and gives a plastic bag to Claire, as she struggles with her vest. Claire’s first instinct on seeing that she would need to wear one was dread. There was no way one was going to fit, but the large size slides on easily over her T-shirt. Yesterday she got on the bathroom scales and noticed that she was half a stone lighter than she was at Christmas. And it’s not as if she’s been particularly dieting, but she’s not eating as much sugar.
It’s to do with the swimming, she’s convinced. The midmorning and mid-afternoon slumps when she used to crave the kids’ snacks don’t happen when she’s been in the water. But that’s because she fills up on nourishing food when she’s cold, not junk.
The crowd disperses into little groups and Claire sees them setting off along the beach in both directions.
‘Which way do you want to go?’ she asks Ash and he nods towards Hove and they set off together. Dominica and Maddy come with them.
Now they’re searching for litter, Claire can see it everywhere. It’s still weird seeing surgical masks, she thinks, as Ash picks one up and puts it in her bag, his nose wrinkling with disgust. A year ago, if she’d seen a mask on the beach, she’d have assumed that there might have been a terrible accident, involving an ambulance and that a medic had dropped one, but now she sees them everywhere. A horrible sign of the times. She hopes that, before too long, they’ll be an anathema, something people remember and go, oh yes. We wore masks. Maybe that’s why she’s been so drawn to the sea. Because on the beach, by and large, she’s been able to forget all about the pandemic.
Dominica chats easily to Ash and Maddy joins in too.
‘Oh, I’ve remembered. I’ve got a joke. Do you like jokes, Ash? This was always a favourite one of my son’s.’
He nods eagerly and Maddy’s face cracks into a wide smile. ‘OK, then. What’s a pirate’s favourite letter?’
Claire stops with Ash too, trying to think of the answer. Ash loves this kind of thing.
‘I don’t know,’ he says, giving up.
‘You’d think it’d be arr, but it be the sea,’ Maddy says and Claire and Ash laugh.
‘I’ve got to get Felix with that one,’ he tells Claire, and she nods. She’s glad he’s having fun.
‘Oh. Wait up, you missed something,’ Dominica tells Ash, as they pick through the debris in the line of tangled seaweed. She points.
‘That’s just rope, isn’t it?’
‘No, that, I’m afraid, that is a tampon,’ Dominica explains.
Ash’s cheeks pulse red at the word. ‘Err … That’s gross.’
Claire picks up the tangle of seaweed and the bundle of white cotton.
‘Mum!’
‘It’s clean. It’s been in the sea. But look how much it’s unravelled.’
‘Ugh, stop it,’ Ash begs. ‘Put it down.’ He hurries away to a plastic lid a few metres away.
‘Sorry,’ Dominica says to Claire. ‘I didn’t mean to embarrass him.’
‘Don’t worry.’
‘He’s a sweet kid,’ she tells her and Claire smiles.
‘Yes, he really is,’ Maddy agrees.
Claire catches up with Ash and leaves Dominica and Maddy to chat.
‘Hey, wait up,’ she says. ‘Dominica said sorry. She didn’t mean to embarrass you about the tampon.’
He flinches at the word and Claire realises how little they’ve talked about anything female. She’s been annoyed that her sons have belittled her, but what has she really taught them about being a woman? She’s assumed that he’s picked up all this stuff at school, but what if he hasn’t? Pim said he would do the talking about the birds and the bees to the boys, but now she wonders how good a job he’s done.
‘I was shocked, not embarrassed. I hadn’t thought stuff like that ends up in the sea. It’s revolting.’
‘It is, but that’s why it’s important to take part in beach cleans so that you’re aware of what’s going on. Because then you can change it.’
They walk along for a little bit and Claire points out the black-headed gulls flitting across the stones. ‘How do you know what they’re called?’
‘My friend Helga has taught me,’ Claire says. ‘But whilst we’re on the subject of tampons—’
‘We’re not.’
‘But whilst we are’ – Claire is amused by his resilience – ‘let’s chat about periods. I want to know what you know.’
‘Mum.’
‘This is important. Come on. Give me some facts. What do you know about periods?’
‘You’re so embarrassing.’
Claire stands her ground. She can’t let this slip.
‘It’s just bodies, Ash. Fifty per cent of the population. It’s not embarrassing. It’s life. And it’s important, as your mother, that I know you have the facts straight. So … come on?’
This is new turf. She’s never pushed him like this before, but she feels powerful and determined. Being by the sea is giving her strength.
‘Dunno.’
‘Seriously?’
Claire sighs, realising that he doesn’t even know the basics. Walking side by side with him, the sound of their footsteps on the pebbles, the waves breaking on the shore and the cries of the gulls, she decides that now is probably as good a time as any. She’s read that it’s good to chat to your kids when engaged in an activity outside and she glances across at her precious boy and the way his dark hair flops into his eyes.
Five minutes later, Ash stops walking and stands with the grabber, his eyebrows creased together in concern.
‘So, you’re saying girls do that every month? Girls in school? They’re dealing with that all the time?’ he asks.
She’s touched by his concern. ‘Yes. Some are at your age, but more when they get to senior school.’
‘But how do you know which ones are doing it? You know, bleeding?’
‘You don’t. Girls are secretive. They don’t want boys to know, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know.’
He nods, then something dawns on him. ‘Does that happen to you? Every month?’
‘It used to, but when you get to my age, periods stop and then you get the menopause.’
‘The what?’
Claire shakes her head and smiles at herself. It feels brave to be having this conversation. Her mother didn’t ever tell her about the menopause. She’d never mentioned it once. She knows Pim will almost certainly say that Ash is too young to be receiving this information, but it’s just biology. She wants him to know. Besides, if he’s old enough to play Fortnite, which is technically a twelve plus, he’s old enough to hear this.
‘The menopause. Or the change.’
‘Oh.’ Ash is genuinely bemused. ‘What changes?’
‘Your metabolism. Your hormones. It’s called the change because a woman stops being fertile and able to have babies.’
He looks at her as if this thought – that she might have still been able to reproduce – is horrific, but she ploughs on. ‘So, you know I get forgetful sometimes? Or you tease me because I misspeak or get my words jumbled up?’
‘Or you say Dad’s name, then Felix’s before you get to mine.’
‘Exactly.’
‘That’s all part of the menopause. And I get really hot flushes.’
‘You’re going through all of this and you didn’t tell us?’
She’s touched by how genuinely worried he sounds.
‘I’m telling you now,’ she says.
Dominica comes back over. ‘How are you getting on?’
‘Fine,’ Claire says, putting her arm around Ash’s shoulder. ‘We’ve been chatting.’
‘Well, keep up the good work. Coffees and cakes are at ten by the peace statue.’