Contributed by Andrew Cheverton on 25/10/08

She was watching Jimmy Stewart when he spoke.

“How many times have you seen this movie?” he asked. He lounged against the doorway, a paperback book hanging in his grip, like a caught bird, defeated. He lolled his head, knocking his temple repeatedly against the wood of the doorframe until she, infuriated, replied.

“I like this movie.”

“You watch it every year. You must be bored of it.”

“No,” she said. “I never bore of it. That’s why I watch it.”

There was a silence, as she watched the flicker of the film, and he watched her. The lack of their sound grew, with all the pregnancy of a tumour.

“How many times have you read that book?” she asked, without looking away from the screen.

He didn’t answer her. He waited until she looked at him – just a glance, and somewhat disguised by a blink – deliberate or not, he could not say – and then he held the book up, running his eyes over the pages.

“Four or five, I think.”

“Well…” she said, but was then silent.

“They filmed it, you know,” he offered. “Orson Welles. You could watch the film, if we had it, if you aren’t going to read the book.”

She hefted the remote control, pointed it fixedly at the television set like a gun. The screen died.

“I should have known,” she said. “I should have known, that day last summer, where…” she faltered, as if all the words she knew had fallen over each other on the stairs. “I did know, actually. I knew… that day…” She looked at him sadly, and her bright eyes glistened with tears.

“That day… on the beach. Do you remember how…”

* * *

The beach was so golden it hurt the eyes. A wind with the faintest hint of chill blew over the dunes and across them as they opened the doors of the car.

“It’s colder than I thought,” he said.

“It’s glorious!” She bounced out of the car, abruptly grasped the hem of her summer dress and pulled it over her head. Underneath, she wore a bikini of emerald green. She balled the dress up and threw it into the car, as she removed the picnic lunch from the foot well. She placed the food on the car roof, opened the tab of a can of Coke and drank it down.

“What are you wearing?” he said. He had been fetching something from the boot of the car, but now he stood and looked at her.

“What? It’s a bikini. For the beach.” She gulped more Coke and looked up at the sun, the muscles of her throat moving like the undulations of the sand dunes under summer winds, like the swell upon the sea.

“It’s very nearly a bikini. You can’t wear that.”

“I’m sorry?” She wiped her lower lip with the back of her hand.

“On the beach – you can’t wear that. There are kids about.”

“Kids?”

“Kids. And people. Families.”

“You are joking.” She turned to him, her head on one side, as if she were trying to understand a dog that had attempted to speak.

“Anyway,” he continued, “this wind will pick up soon, and you’ll be too cold. Put your dress back on.”

“I will not.” Somehow, she thought he was joking, because she hadn’t know him long enough to tell. She pulled her dress out of the car and dropped it to the ground. She upended the rest of her Coke onto it, where it fizzed and bubbled like acid.

The noise of the waves as they crash and move upon the beach, and the hushed sound of creeping sand. The chime of children laughing, and dogs, playing, bark. These are the things, the moments of the day, that she will not remember later.

He leant into the car boot, pulled out a huge and misshapen woollen jumper. Coloured brown, a dark shade like rain-soaked wood – the sort to sprout balloons of twisted, dank fungus – and the wool worn fluffy with age and use. Barely looking, he threw it towards her, and she caught it instinctively, and silently scolded herself for it. Annoyed, the skin above the bridge of her nose wrinkled into two short and vertical lines – a number 11 – and it was the thing you would notice when you were falling in love with her.

“Put that on,” he said, “as your dress is ruined. You’ll thank me for it later.” The breeze stops then, as if to make him a liar, and the warmth of the day is on her arms; the skin feels it, and moves, and the tiny fine hairs stand up as if to touch the sun. On her back, and across her stomach and all the way down the length of her legs. But then the air moves again, and brings that faintest chill, and the moment that was almost there is gone.

Her skin is that perfect shade between tanned and pale, the sort of colour that makes men want to touch it, just ever so lightly, with their fingertips. To kiss it, just the barest brush, with their mouths. She is slimly muscled, with juts of bone showing at her joints. The green of her bikini speaks almost only of summer.

She pulls the oversized jumper over her head, and it falls down around her easily, swallows her in its coarse folds. She shrugs and fidgets as it settles on her, and she smiles. She makes it look cute, a little girl playing dress-up with her parent’s clothes. Her bottom lip sticks out, and you would love her if you could.

Her hair gets lighter as the summer wears on, looking more and more like spoons of marmalade. Her eyes are green – just like emerald, just like her emerald bikini – which is why she chose it – and they seem to be lit from some source that can’t be seen.

She grins and runs a hand through her tousled hair – which is the wine-dark red of autumn leaves – and she thinks it will be funny to wear this winter wool on the August beach. It will be funny, for a while.