Julian Barnes

East Wind

The previous November, a row of wooden beach huts, their paintwork lifted and flaked by the hard east wind, had burned to the ground. The fire brigade came from twelve miles away, and had nothing to do by the time it arrived. “YOBS ON RAMPAGE,” the local paper decided, though no culprit was ever found. An architect from a more fashionable part of the coastline told the regional TV news that the huts had been part of the town’s social heritage and must be rebuilt. The council announced that it would consider all options, but since then had done nothing.

Vernon had moved to the town only a few months before, and had no feelings about the beach huts. If anything, their disappearance improved the view from the Right Plaice, where he sometimes had lunch. From a window table, he now looked out across a strip of concrete to damp shingle, a bored sky, and a lifeless sea. That was the east coast: for months on end you got bits of bad weather and lots of no weather. This was fine by him: he’d moved here to have no weather in his life.

“You are done?”

He didn’t look up at the waitress. “All the way from the Urals,” he said, still gazing at the long, flat sea.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing between here and the Urals. That’s where the wind comes from. Nothing to stop it. Straight across all those countries.” Cold enough to freeze your knob off, he might have added in other circumstances.

“Oorals,” she repeated. As he caught the accent, he looked up at her. A broad face, streaked hair, chunky body, and not doing any waitressy number in hope of a bigger tip. Must be one of those Eastern Europeans who were all over the country nowadays. Building trade, pubs and restaurants, fruit picking. Came over here in vans and coaches, lived in rabbit warrens, made themselves a bit of money. Some stayed; some went home. Vernon didn’t mind one way or the other. That’s what he found more often than not these days: he didn’t mind one way or the other.

“Are you from one of them?”

“One of what?”

“One of those countries. Between here and the Urals.”

“Oorals. Yes, perhaps.”

That was an odd answer, he thought. Or maybe her sense of geography wasn’t so strong.

“Fancy a swim?”

“A swim?”

“Yes, you know. Swim. Splash splash, front crawl, breaststroke.”

“No swim.”

“Fine,” he said. He hadn’t meant it, anyway. “Bill, please.”

As he waited, he looked back across the damp concrete to the shingle. A beach hut had recently sold for twenty grand. Or was it thirty? Somewhere down on the south coast. Spiralling house prices, the market going mad: that’s what the papers said. Not that it touched this part of the country, or the property he dealt in. The market had bottomed out here long ago, the graph as horizontal as the sea. Old people died, and you sold their flats and houses to people who would get old in them in their turn, and then die. That was a lot of his trade. The town wasn’t fashionable, never had been. Londoners carried on up the A12 to somewhere pricier. Fine by him. He’d lived in London all his life until the divorce. Now he had a quiet job, a rented flat, and saw the kids every other weekend. When they got older, they’d probably be bored with this place and start acting the little snobs. But for the moment they liked the sea, throwing pebbles into it, eating chips.

When she brought the bill, he said, “We could run away together and live in a beach hut.”

“I do not think,” she replied, shaking her head, as if she believed he meant it. Oh, well, the old English sense of humor — takes a while for people to get used to it.

He had a few rentals to attend to — changes of tenancy, redecoration, damp problems — and then a sale up the coast, so he didn’t return to the Right Plaice for a few weeks. He ate his haddock and mushies, and read the paper. There was some town in Lincolnshire that was suddenly half Polish, there’d been so many immigrants. Nowadays, more Catholics went to church on Sundays than Anglicans, they were saying, what with all these Eastern Europeans. He didn’t mind one way or the other. Actually, he liked the Poles he’d met — brickies, plasterers, electricians. Good workers, well trained, did what they said they would, trustworthy. It was time the good old British building trade had a kick up the arse, Vernon thought.

The sun was out that day, slanting low across the sea, annoying his eyes. Late March, and bits of spring were getting even to this part of the coast.

“How about that swim, then?” he asked as she brought the bill.

“Oh, no. No swim.”

“I’m guessing you might be Polish.”

“My name is Andrea,” she replied.

“Not that I mind whether you’re Polish or not.”

“I do not also.”

The thing was, he’d never been much good at flirting — never quite said the right thing. And since the divorce he’d got worse at it, if that was possible, because his heart wasn’t in it. Where was his heart? Question for another day. Today’s subject: flirting. He knew all too well the look in a woman’s eye when you didn’t get it right. Where’s he coming from, the look said. Anyway, it took two to flirt. And maybe he was getting too old for it. Thirty-seven, father of two, Gary, eight, and Melanie, five. That’s how the papers would put it if he was washed up on the coast some morning.

“I’m an estate agent,” he said. That was another line that often hampered flirting.

“What is this?”

“I buy and sell houses. And flats. And we do rentals. Rooms, flats, houses.”

“Is it interesting?”

“It’s a living.”

“We all need living.”

He suddenly thought, No, you can’t flirt, either. Maybe you can flirt in your own language, but you can’t do it in English, so we’re even. He also thought, She looks sturdy. Maybe I need someone sturdy. She might be my age, for all I know. Not that he minded one way or the other. He wasn’t going to ask her out.

He asked her out. There was little enough choice of “out” in this town. One cinema, a few pubs, and the couple of restaurants where she didn’t work. Apart from that, there was bingo for the old people whose flats he would sell when they were dead, and a club where some halfhearted Goths loitered. Kids drove into Colchester on a Friday night and bought enough drugs to see them through the weekend. No wonder they’d burned down the beach huts.

He liked her at first for what she wasn’t. She wasn’t flirty; she wasn’t gabby; she wasn’t pushy. She didn’t mind that he was an estate agent, or that he was divorced with two kids. Other women had taken a quick look and said no. He reckoned women were more attracted to men who were still in their marriages, however fucked up those marriages were, than to ones who were picking up the pieces afterward. Not surprising, really. But Andrea didn’t mind all that. Didn’t ask questions much. Didn’t answer them, either, for that matter. The first time they kissed, he thought of asking if she was really Polish, but then he forgot.

He suggested coming back with him, but she refused. She said she’d come the next time. He spent an anxious few days wondering what it would be like to go to bed with someone new after so long. He drove fifteen miles up the coast to buy condoms where no one knew him. Not that he was ashamed or embarrassed; just didn’t want anyone knowing, or guessing, his business.

“This is a nice apartment.”

“Well, if an estate agent can’t find himself a decent flat, what’s the world coming to?”

She had an overnight bag with her; she took off her clothes in the bathroom and came back in a nightdress. They climbed into bed and he turned out the light. She felt very tense to him. He felt very tense to himself.

“We could just cuddle,” he suggested.

“What is cuddle?”

He demonstrated.

“So cuddle is not fucking?”

“No, cuddle is not fucking.”

“O.K., cuddle.”

After that they relaxed, and she soon fell asleep.

The next time, after some kissing, he reacquainted himself with the lubricated struggle of the condom. He knew he was meant to unroll it, but found himself trying to tug it on like a sock, pulling at the rim in a haphazard way. Doing it in the dark didn’t help, either. But she didn’t say anything, or cough discouragingly, and eventually he turned toward her. She pulled up her nightie and he climbed on top of her. His mind was half filled with lust and fucking, and half empty, as if wondering what he was up to. He didn’t think about her very much that first time. It was a question of looking out for yourself. Later you could look out for the other person.

“Was that O.K.?” he said after a while.

“Yes, was O.K.”

Vernon laughed in the dark.

“Are you laughing at me? Was not O.K. for you?”

“Andrea,” he said, “everything’s O.K. Nobody’s laughing at you. I won’t let anyone laugh at you.” As she slept, he thought, We’re starting again, both of us. I don’t know what she’s had in her past, but maybe we’re both starting again from the same sort of low point, and that’s O.K. Everything’s O.K.

The next night, she was more relaxed, and gripped him hard with her legs. He couldn’t tell whether she came or not.

“Gosh, you’re strong,” he said afterward.

“Is strong bad?”

“No, no. Not at all. Strong’s good.”

But the time after he noticed that she didn’t grip him so hard. She didn’t much like him playing with her breasts, either. No, that was unfair. She didn’t seem to mind if he did or didn’t. Or, rather, if he wanted to, that was fine, but it was for him, not for her. That’s what he understood, anyway. And who said you had to talk about everything right away?