“I don’t know what happened,” I admit. “I flipped out. It was the well-being officer who did it. She wanted me to answer 375 emails and be joyful.”
“Joyful!” snorts Dinah. “When you’re at work you’re a laboring woman. You’re concentrating on the job. You need sensitive support and peace to get on with the demands being made of your body and mind. Sod the doctors! I mean, the well-being officers.”
Since Dinah became a doula, she sees everything in terms of childbirth and occasionally slips into “labor” pep talks. Which are actually quite instructive.
“So, what are you up to?” she demands now. “I heard you went to the seaside.”
“Trying to be restful. And healthy.” I look at my shopping bag of crisps and cake. “Let’s say it’s a work in progress.”
“You’ll get there,” says Dinah firmly. “You’re stronger than you realize. You have to believe it. How’s the old libido doing?”
Dinah knows full well about my missing libido, and she even once gave me a leaflet, “Getting Back into Sex,” for postnatal women, which had lots of advice about sore nipples. (So not that helpful.)
“Still can’t get excited about it,” I admit. “It’s like looking at a plate of chicken drumsticks when you’re not hungry.”
“Chicken drumsticks!” Dinah collapses into laughter, and I can’t help sniggering myself. “Well, if you’re burned out, it’s no surprise. You’ve got sexual burnout, that’s what it is. So, no holiday romance, then?”
“There is a guy here,” I admit. “Quite hot-looking. But probably wouldn’t want to hook up with a woman who’s repelled by the idea of sex.”
“Probably not ideal,” agrees Dinah.
“Also, he’s awful. He was mean to a toddler.”
“No!” exclaims Dinah in outrage. “OK. Well, leave him out of it. And don’t despair, it’ll all come back. You can do miracles with that body of yours, Sasha. Your body is designed to succeed, you know that? Designed to succeed.”
“Dinah, I’m not giving birth,” I remind her, laughing.
“Well, maybe you should!” she answers promptly. “Give birth to a whole new Sasha.”
We chat on about this and that—but for the rest of our conversation, that phrase keeps coming back to me. Give birth to a whole new Sasha. Maybe I could. Maybe I will.
As I ring off half an hour later, I feel transformed. Just one easy, gossipy conversation with a friend has done wonders for me. I feel light. Energized. Confident. Strong. I need to find some grit, I find myself thinking. Grit.
On impulse, I walk into the small empty car park next to the supermarket, put my shopping bag on the floor, and jut out my chin, remembering Dinah’s advice. You’re stronger than you realize. You can do miracles with that body of yours. Your body is designed to succeed.
I’m feeling a doggedness I haven’t had before. Mind over matter. I can be strong. I won’t be defeated by this. If the setting for my transformation isn’t a glorious beach but instead a grotty car park, then so be it. We can’t all have picturesque epiphanies. Sometimes we just have epiphanies. And my epiphany is that I’m going to do this bloody hundred-squat challenge. Right here, right now.
I take a deep breath and start doing squats. Come on, Sasha, come on. I do ten. I pause. I do another ten. I have a longer pause—then do ten more. After fifty I have a motivational snack and let my muscles have a short rest—then I resume. I’m panting and my legs are burning, but I’ve never felt better. It wasn’t that my thighs couldn’t do squats—it was that my head couldn’t.
It takes me an embarrassingly long time to reach a hundred, a few at a time with lots of breaks. But at last, puffing and hot in the face, I get there. I did it! I did the squat challenge!
I sink onto the ground and just pant for a bit, trying to avoid the curious gaze of a delivery driver.
Then, on trembling legs, I head out of the car park and wander down to the beach. Talking about Club biscuits earlier filled me with nostalgia. I want to check out the Surf Shack again.
As I see the wooden structure, my heart skips a beat. There was always a party feel around the Surf Shack. It was the center of the beach, the place to be. It was where you met friends and hung out. And Terry was the king.
Every day, groups of kids would eagerly line up on the sand, ready to learn. I can still remember the warm-up routine: the running on the spot, the lunges, the arm whirls. Experienced surfers—all old pupils of Terry’s—would often join in the warm-up routine, laughing and bantering with Terry while he pretended to get cross and called them “freeloaders.”
The grown-up surfers were always a chill bunch, endlessly generous to the kids. They’d applaud a success or commiserate after a disastrous wipeout. Dad never surfed, but he watched and applauded us too. And he always had a chat with Terry. They got on well, Dad and Terry. Maybe that’s another reason I remember this place so fondly.
As I draw near, though, I realize it’s not the same building. It’s a similar wooden structure but more sturdy, with different signage. Well, what was I expecting? I guess whoever bought the business from Terry rebuilt it. There’s a sign on the door: Closed. For surfboard hire, call number below. And then a mobile number.
Instinctively, I turn to check the swell. The sea’s pretty flat this afternoon. Maybe when it rises, the new owner will come along and open up shop. But for now it’s just a silent, lifeless building on an empty beach.
Except …
Oh, great. The beach isn’t empty. Finn is approaching over the sand in his padded jacket and shades. And he’s seen me notice him now, so I can’t turn away; it would seem too weird. Maybe he’ll walk straight past.
But he doesn’t. He comes to a halt about a meter away from me, pushes his shades up, and stares at the building for a few silent seconds. Just like I did a moment ago.
“Sorry to disturb your solitude yet again,” he says at last, with an exaggerated politeness that makes my hackles rise. “I used to have surf lessons here when I was a kid. Just wanted to have a look.”
“Really?” I say before I can stop myself. “Me too.”
“You had surf lessons with Terry?” He sounds skeptical, and I prickle at his tone. What’s he implying? That he’s surprised I’ve had surf lessons at all, or that he’s surprised I had surf lessons with Terry?
“Well, I didn’t have them with Pete Huston,” I say tartly, and get a small, appreciative smile out of him.
“Glad to hear it. Or else we could never have spoken again.”
I want to retort, That wouldn’t exactly be a hardship, or something equally snippy, but something stops me. He had surf lessons with Terry. He’s Team Terry. Which means I can’t help softening toward him, just a smidgen.
Now he’s surveying me as though for the first time. “I don’t recognize you,” he says at last, flatly. “Were you a regular?”
“Yes!” I reply, stiffening at the implied insult. “And I don’t recognize you either.”
“I’m thirty-six.” He peers at me as though trying to gauge my age from my freckles. “I’m guessing you’re, what, thirty?”
“I’m thirty-three.”
“Did you come here every year?”
“We stopped coming when I was thirteen. But every year before then. We probably just stayed here on different weeks.”
“Must have done.” He shifts his gaze back to the Surf Shack. “Terry Connolly,” he says at last. “What a man. Pretty much everything I’ve learned in life, I learned from Terry.”
“I know what you mean,” I say, slightly stunned that we’re in agreement about something. “I asked if Terry still does surf lessons, but apparently he’s retired. He sold this place to someone else.”
“I know. And they told me at the hotel that Sandra died three years ago.” He grimaces. “Wasn’t expecting to hear that.”
“Everything moves on, I suppose. Pete’s place doesn’t even exist anymore.” I look at where the Surftime shack used to be, five meters away.
“He left after there was an accident,” says Finn. “There was a problem with a dodgy kayak. A boy nearly drowned and they found out Pete was to blame.”