Free Something Might Happen by Julie Myerson Page B

him.
    I’m sorry, I tell him as we continue on along the prom, it’s just that I can’t really think about it for very long, any of
     it—
    I know, he says. It’s OK. You don’t have to.
    I’m sorry, I tell him.
    Don’t be silly, he says.
    I look away from him and try to think. The tide is out—a distant frill of brown—and the shingle shines all over with smallish
     creeks. I love the beach best like this.
    Some little kids are running and shouting and building something in the sand exposed between the bumps of shingle. They have
     swimming costumes on even though it’s October, but they dash around in the jagged, goose-pimpled way of kids by the sea, waving
     their spades and shrieking.
    You’re used to this, though, aren’t you? I tell him.
    We stand for a moment and watch the kids—their small, curvy backs and tense, startled little legs. A dog is barking and barking
     at the far-out waves the way Fletcher used to when he was young and crazy, and a woman is hanging wet towels on the railing
     of one of the beach huts.
    Used to what?
    I mean this stuff—dealing with it, the really terrible stuff.
    I know he’s looking at me.
    He says, It’s my job. To support people—the victims and their families. But I don’t think anyone gets used to it.
    Do you stay in touch with people?—I mean, afterwards?
    Not always. Mostly not. Sometimes they just want you out of their lives.
    Oh?
    They want to start again and not be reminded. That’s fine. It makes sense.
    But, I say, what about you? Don’t you ever get—attached?
    He smiles. Doesn’t answer.
    Or them, I insist. Sometimes they must get attached to you?
    If they do, he says, it’s fake. That’s what you have to remember. It’s only because you’re with them for twelve or fourteen
     hours a day. You have to withdraw—carefully.
    How? I ask him. How do you do that?
    It’s called an exit strategy.
    He smiles again and looks at me.
    It’s not as bad as it sounds, he says. It’s just a job.
    You must be very strong, then, to do it.
    Not especially, he says. Just a good listener.
    Al doesn’t talk much, I point out suddenly though I don’t know why.
    No, Lacey agrees, he doesn’t. Where’s this coffee, then?
    In the buggy Livvy gurgles and bats at her toy.
    Estelle’s is the next one along, I tell him.
    What’s Estelle’s?
    The Tea Hut. Look, down there.
    OK.
    The best place.
    If you say so.
    I do.
    The day after Lennie died, they had Estelle on the local TV news. They showed her putting hot water in the big metal teapot,
     looking sad, looking out to sea.
    She said, This is a very rural community and everyone knows everyone else and we are all so very shocked that such a terrible
     crime could happen here in our midst.
    At Estelle’s you can buy just about anything. Windmills and air mattresses and pocket kites and buckets and spades, the lot.
     When they were younger, the kids would nag us for the little packs of paper sandcastle flags, the ones you can get for 35p.
     They’d swear to us that they couldn’t build a sandcastle without them—and then we’d find them later, discarded and crushed
     and sandy at the bottom of the nappy changing bag.
    I park the buggy and Lacey goes over and buys two mugs of coffee filled the way Estelle always fills them, to the brim. He
     brings them over carefully, picking his way between the big white plastic chairs.
    We came here all the time, I tell him, pulling my coat up around me, Lennie and me, you know. Even in winter.
    Jesus, he says, looking around him, I can’t say I really see the point of this place in winter.
    Oh, winter’s the best, I say, vaguely disappointed that he should say such a thing.
    I try not to think of Lennie and me, huddling on theshingle in our jumpers, with a mug of weak Earl Grey from Estelle’s, taking it in turns to watch the kids. When the beach
     is empty, you can let them run and run till they’re no more than tiny black specks heading for Blackshore. As long as you
     can