‘I’ll be fine – get lost already.’

She smiles and I kiss her powdery cheek as she bends over.

‘Have a good day,’ we say together.

And it’s funny, because usually I watch her go and imagine the day she’ll be having. Walking down our tree-lined street and hopscotching her way to the school staffroom to hold entire wild conversations about the terrible coffee and how awful teenagers are. But today I’m not wishing I was there.

I open my laptop. Today I have my own Living to do.

Connecting to Rowan …

16

Rowan

And now I am strapped to the chest of my new streamer, who’s looking out on to the most perfect thing in the world, and I ruin the wonder of it all by screaming.

‘Oh my days!’

‘You swear like an old person.’

I tut at him, but it doesn’t matter, because we’re on the beach. And stretched ahead of us are miles and miles of the most beautiful sea – so calm that it could just be a puddle in the footprint of a giant. In the distance, a man on a stand-up paddleboard pushes himself lazily along towards the pier, which reflects flashes of morning sunlight like a disco ball into the water.

I can almost feel the stones under my own feet. I can smell the salt in the air and feel the spring sun, warm on my face. I want to take off my shoes and socks and paddle into the waves, walking to the part where the water turns from grey-blue to dark blue. I want to leave footprints on the seabed. I want to tangle myself up in the weeds. I want to swim over to the man on the paddleboard and ask him how his day is shaping up.

It’s a bit of a shit way

to start ‘living’.

A seagull is picking at a nappy

someone’s left in the bin.

And all around are sirens and

kids crying and

my boss, Sue,

hacking up a lung.

He crosses his arms over a brown picket fence in front of him and leans into the wood.

‘It’s just how I remember it,’ I whisper.

And somewhere there are dusty pictures of Dad and me taking out an inflatable dinghy on this very beach, trying to paddle our way round the pier. At some point, though, I’d miss swimming and Dad would get bored of rowing, and we’d both end up splashing into the water to run races and compete to see who could hold their breath the longest.

‘Are we going to go in?’ I say hopefully.

‘Don’t be crazy – I’ll freeze my balls off.

And anyway,

I’m at work.’

‘Oh!’ I say, and the picture of Rowan I had in my head jumbles into Wesley, making my chest pang. ‘But I thought you went to school. How old are you?’