A Sensible Life [antikvár]

One There was no wind; sea flat as a plate met sky the same colour as the water. Only an occasionai glint betrayed their meeting. The beach sloped so slowly to meet the sea it might have been an illusion that it inclined at all. Sand, dry as a biscuit near the shore, changed colour gradually, growing wetter, more sea-coloured as it smoothed close to the distant water. On an unexpectedly warm February day birds inland were rehearsing their spring song, but the beach was silent; it stretched wide and empty. A heron flapping its way with lazy sweeps emphasized the emptiness as it left the estuary to travel inland. The boy, imagining he could hear its wings, lowered his binoculars in disappointment; he had come to watch sea birds and there were none. He blinked into the sun, already low in the sky, and decided to go home. A movement half a mile out at the water's edge attracted his attention: a tiny figure moved. The boy screwed up his eyes against the shimmering light. The figure split in two. A child and a dog? It must have climbed down the cliff to the west and walked along the water's edge; there was no line of footprints from the beach, no mark on sand still damp from the last tide and the fresh water sweep of the stream from the estuary seeping its clandestine way to the sea. The boy moved higher up the beach to see further, limping, placing his right foot with care, using a stick for support. He trudged up through dry sand heaped with detritus, crisp dead seaweed, bits of bleached wood, broken razor shells, glass smoothed by pounding