🎧 323: When Garth . . .

WHEN GARTH turned thirty, May threw a birthday party for him on the beach. Guests arrived in a festive little flotilla, their boats decked out in bright bunting and paper streamers.

     Oh, it was a perfect day, just a perfect day, perfect. Clear and hot, with a light breeze, just enough to keep one from sweating unattractively. We swam, of course, and we played some ball game or other — baseball, I suppose — and we played badminton, and we played tag. That was quite a lot of fun, tag. Delicious, really. You see we’d been drinking all day, and so there was a lot of hugging and squeezing and — well — fondling involved, and people would chase one another into the water, and — well — romp. Frolic. Gambol. When it began to get dark, we built a gorgeous bonfire. We played charades in the firelight, and then we ate. Lorna and I had arranged a marvelous clambake. After dinner, there was a certain amount of — well — drifting off. Couples began wandering off into the dunes or just into the dark, and — well. You’ll have to turn this off, Peter, this recorder. I’ll tell you the rest, and you may put it in, but you may not quote me.

     May wandered away from the fire, alone. She wanted to stretch her legs, look at the stars and moon, think, clear her head a bit. She walked to the water’s edge, where the foam shone with phosphorescent whiteness in the moonlight. It was so pretty that she wanted to call the others to come down there with her, to see what she saw, but the people around the fire were loud and animated, and just now she wanted quiet and calm. She saw Herb, standing apart, looking out into the darkness. If he were to come down to the edge of the water with her, alone, that would be fine, but she didn’t want to go back and ask him, or anyone else, to come and walk in the glowing foam with her. She kicked off her shoes and walked in the shallow water, kicking at it, making the bright foam scatter in front of her. She turned back, saw with surprise how small and isolated the fire and the group around it appeared, how large the sky and sea. She didn’t see Herb anywhere. She struck out for the dunes above the beach, where she could sit alone and watch the sea roll in under the moonlight.
     Atop a dune, she sat with her arms around her legs, watching. A figure was walking along the water’s edge, as she had. It was a man. Herb? He was directly in front of her now, and he had stopped. He was turning this way and that. Had he followed her? Was he looking for her now? He lit a cigarette, and May saw that it was Herb. She felt a ripple of curiosity and excitement. “Up here,” she called softly. “Up here, in the dunes.”
     She watched him walk toward her. She could read his walk, could see that the appearance of ease, even lack of interest, was false. She knew that he had followed her. He stopped, not quite sure which way to go.
     “Here,” she called again. He corrected his course. At the foot of her dune, he still couldn’t be sure where she was. “Here,” she said, in little more than a whisper.
     He looked up, and now he could see her. “Hi, May,” he said. He scrambled up the dune and sat beside her.
     “Looking for some peace and quiet?” she asked.
     “No, not really,” said Herb. “I was looking for you.” She put her hand on his, and he kissed her cheek. She felt a flutter of excitement. She wondered what Herb had in mind. Herb had begun to wonder, too. When he had followed May — and he had followed May — he hadn’t thought about his motive. Perhaps he had avoided thinking about his motive. Now that he was at May’s side, alone in the moonlight, hidden in the dunes, her presence so palpable and inviting, he felt a guilty thrill, and he asked himself what on earth he was up to.

In Topical Guide 323, Mark Dorset considers Babbington Neighborhoods: “Over South” “The Beach” from this episode.

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