‘Stay here, Margaret,’ I said. I don’t know why I said it.
‘But, why?’
‘Just stay here, that’s all — ‘
I walked slowly down the sand to where the life-guard stood. He looked at me.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
The life-guard kept looking at me for a long time and he couldn’t speak. He put the grey sack down on the sand, and water whispered wet up around it and went back.
‘What is it?’ I insisted.
‘She’s dead,’ said the life-guard, quietly.
I waited.
‘Funny,’ he said, softly. ‘Funniest thing I ever saw. She’s been dead. A long time.’
I repeated his words.
He nodded. ‘Ten years, I’d say. There haven’t been any children drowned here this year. There were twelve children drowned here since 1933, but we recovered all of them before a few hours had passed. All except one, I remember. This body here, why it must be ten years in the water. It’s not — pleasant.’
I stared at the grey sack in his arms. ‘Open it,’ I said. I don’t know why I said it. The wind was louder.
He fumbled with the sack. ‘The way I know it’s a little girl, is because she’s still wearing a locket. There’s nothing much else to tell by — ‘
‘Hurry, man, open it!’ I cried.
‘I better not do that,’ he said. Then perhaps he saw the way my face must have looked. ‘She was such a little girl — ‘
He opened it only part way. That was enough.
The beach was deserted. There was only the sky and the wind and the water and the autumn coming on lonely. I looked down at her there.
I said something over and over. A name. The life-guard looked at me. ‘Where did you find her?’ I asked.
‘Down the beach, that way, in the shallow water. It’s a long long time for her, ain’t it?’
I shook my head.
‘Yes, it is. Oh God, yes it is.’
I thought: people grow. I have grown. But she has not changed. She is still small. She is still young. Death does not permit growth or change. She still has golden hair. She will be forever young and I will love her forever, oh God, I will love her forever.
The life-guard tied up the sack again.
Down the beach, a few moments later, I walked by myself. I stopped, and looked down at something. This is where the lifeguard found her, I said to myself.
There, at the water’s edge, lay a sandcastle, only half-built. Just like Tally and I used to build them. She half and I half.
I looked at it, I knelt beside the sandcastle and saw the little prints of feet coming in from the lake and going back out to the lake again and not ever returning.
Then — I knew.
‘I’ll help you to finish it,’ I said.
I did. I built the rest of it up very slowly, then I arose and turned away and walked off, so as not to watch it crumble in the waves, as all things crumble.
I walked back up the beach to where a strange woman named Margaret was waiting for me, smiling. . .
The end
