The Last Tide

Granda told me, when I was very small, that the sea was a clock. "Twice a day she winds herself up," he had said, "and twice a day she runs herself down. Set your watch to her and you will never be late for anything that matters."

I had not understood him then. I understood him now.

I sat on the harbour wall, my legs dangling over the side, and watched the boats lean. The tide was going out for the very last time before the new sea-wall was built; tomorrow the engineers would close the gates and the harbour would be turned, slowly and forever, into a quiet lake. There would be no more mud, no more drying seaweed, no more cracking limpets. The sea would still arrive, but it would arrive politely, behind glass.

Granda was not there to see it. He had died in the spring, when the daffodils were still trying. I had brought his old fishing cap with me, folded once and tucked into my pocket, because it felt wrong to come down to the harbour without him.

A small boat called the Curlew was the last to leave. Her engine coughed twice, then settled into a steady, slow chug. The fisherman raised one hand to me as he passed, and I raised mine back. He could not have known why I was crying.

I waited until the boat was a green dot at the mouth of the harbour. Then I took the cap out of my pocket, smoothed it twice, and held it up to the wind, just for a moment, so that the last tide could see it.