Turtle Diary

37 William G

When I woke up and saw the bright sunlight the night before seemed far away and small. I was stiff and sore all over. Neaera wasn’t there. I opened the doors and saw her leaning against the concrete wall of the car-park. I thought about the turtles and I couldn’t believe they’d got out to sea against that heavy tide. Surely they’d been beaten back against the breakwater or swept into the harbour through a gap where the boats go in and out. They were probably in the harbour now, they’d probably been picked up by fishermen.

We slowly made our way through tourists and their children to the public lavatory. I hadn’t brought a toothbrush or shaving things or anything. I brushed my teeth with my finger, washed and let it go at that. Slowly and blinking in the sunlight we went to a teashop where we had sausages and eggs. It was while we were eating that I most felt the awkwardness of this morning after. Afternoon actually, worse than a morning. Sometimes I’ve felt that way after sleeping with the wrong person, and the intimacy of sex is nothing compared with the intimacy of driving two hundred and fifty miles at night and putting turtles into the sea. But it wasn’t that, it wasn’t that she was the wrong person for the turtles. I didn’t know what it was. There seemed to be little for us to say to each other. Nothing in fact.

We walked to the harbour. The tide was out when we got there, the boats were standing on their legs or sitting on the mud. The little beach beyond the breakwater displayed broken glass and contraceptives. There were some fishermen sitting on the quay and I asked them when high water had been. Seven in the morning, they said. No one said anything about turtles and there were none in sight. They must have got out to sea all right. We walked back to the car-park, got into the van and drove back to London.