Free The Sea Change by Joanna Rossiter Page A

nose, I could have caught a final glimpse of his face.
    He gets angry when I don’t look at him
properly. But he’s older. And, unlike me, he can hold a stare. I hoped my
awkwardness would dissipate after I left school; Mum said that when I was older I would
find it easy to talk to all sorts of people. But, to my dismay, it persisted through my
adolescence and into my university years. Even after all our months together, I prefer
the ground or the sky to the sight of James returning my gaze.
    ‘What are you drawing?’ he
asked, when we first met. I was sketching the sea of tents that stretched over the
fields ahead of us.
    I turned the pad over.
‘Nothing.’
    He sat down on the starched grass next to me
and I was aware, suddenly, of his skin and eyes and mess of hair – aware of them without
even looking.
    ‘I’ve seen your pictures –
I’ve watched you work on them around the place.’ I thought of the drawings,
hidden in my tent, of ruined abbeys and palaces with their hollowed windows and
ivy-riddled stone. I felt exposed: he had glimpsed something he shouldn’t
have.
    ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know
your name,’ I ventured.
    Ignoring my question, he reached for the
piece of paper in my hand. I snatched it into a ball just in time.
    ‘I just wanted a closer look.’
He smiled, unfazed.
    ‘I was going to throw it
away.’
    ‘What was the point of drawing it,
then?’ He laughed, pulling out his Player’s No. 6 instead and placing a
cigarette between his teeth. He lit up with a match and cradled the flame with one hand.
Then he took it from his lips and exhaled the smoke gradually, the wind carrying it off,
like the carriages of a train. ‘I’m James.’
    I did not reply; instead, I tightened my
grip on the screwed-upball of paper as if to squeeze out the ink. I
could hear the strum of a guitar muffling through the canvas of the tents and someone
singing the Beatles’ ‘She’s Leaving Home’. The song flurried in
places and faded in others. It spoke of sacrifice, of how they had given her most of
their lives.
    ‘You’re not making this very
easy for me.’ He sighed, wincing into his cigarette. I would soon learn that he
had different ways of smoking for different ways of talking.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘You know what I mean.’ He
raised a hand and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. I tried not to shrink away.
‘You’re interesting. I’d like to take your photograph.’ He
patted a brown-leather case that hung on a strap over his shoulder, smoke unreeling in a
river from between his two fingers.
    ‘Why?’ I murmured. The feel of
his touch on my ear persisted long after he had removed it.
    He took another drag and made no reply. I
waved away the smoke as if I resented the intrusion. In truth, I enjoyed the smell –
craved it, even, like a language I could understand but not yet speak.
    I never fully grasped why he chose to spend
time with me above everyone else in our cluster of tents. There were prettier girls. And
girls who had plenty more to say. As was the way at the festival, we fell into a group,
with a handful of Londoners and a Swiss couple. They were pleasant enough. But after a
day or so I found myself slipping off to watch performances with James on our own; we
sought each other out without even realizing we were doing it. I was taut, unsure of
myself or my thoughts; he was full of ease. I kept my distance from him, careful not to
brush against him in the crowds. I was aware of his movements always. After three days
together, with Sly and the Family Stone on stage, he leant in close and kissed me.
I knew then, with a flood of relief, that we were each other’s.
    When I open my eyes again, there’s the
heat of the roof on my belly, the bite of the sea on my hands and a faint drone, like a
washing-machine, humming in the distance. I sit up to see a snag on the horizon.
I’ve seen so many things over the last hours – pure water raining from the sky and
falling into my