Shedding
Published by Pree, Issue 6
The old campsite was yards from the beach and almost completely covered from view by a thick growth of naupaka on its seaside, and rows of palms along the roadside.
The road itself slid like a river down the mountain that jutted over the bay, crisscrossing the ghuts with dips and bridges before spilling into the flat, splitting the salt ponds on the left and the expanse of sand and water on the right. In this season, gold sargassum snaked its way into the island’s many bays and coves. Here in Brewer’s Bay it rolled up the coral banks in thick clumps and lay there until it rotted into a ruddy rust.
Before, Greta would take selfies outside of the bar, her locks draped down one side of her neck, the sun over her and the radiant beach. When the sargassum first started to appear in the water, Greta thought it made a gorgeous sight. A vista full of greens, whites, blues, and browns crowned with the gold of the fresh bloom. If she liked how the photos came out she might post them, or send them to her mother. The smell was a different story. Like someone left thousands of cartons of spoilt eggs in the sun to ripen. Islanders complained bitterly that the government couldn’t be bothered to clean it up.
As she lived just a short way away in the village, she often got to the bar early. She would walk up the road in the morning, between the crumbling ruins of the distillery and the massive sandbox tree that had grown up within it, past the campsite, until she got to a single-story concrete building at the western end of the beach. The simple red sign outside advertised the opening time as eleven but most days by half past ten she’d already pulled up the heavy wooden shutters and fixed them to their metal hooks, raked away the brown clumps of seaweed on the sand in front, and laid out the plastic beach chairs.
In the winter, buses would come from the cruise pier in town full of pale visitors and leave hours later full of red ones. They’d keep to her end of the beach, near the bar, and business would be so good, her Aunt Aveline would hire somebody to help out. But in these summer months, there might be one or two rental cars with faded paint jobs and nicks and scratches on their bumpers parked by the roadside—the more carefree couples island hopping and saving on hurricane season hotel prices. For the frugal, adventurous types, there was still the old campsite at the other end with its wall of naupaka and heavy canopy of palms overhead to protect the tents from the sun and the rain.
As the season wore on, the bays became so clogged with sargassum that when it was calm, the seabirds could stand on the water’s surface and feed freely on the many small creatures that swam in and amongst the clusters. The smell of sulphur choked the nose and the bay alike.
Here and there, something that belonged in the water was deposited on the shore. Usually it was a fish or two and the birds would circle above until the hungriest one approached in small hops to investigate. Soon, a handful would begin to peck at the dead thing in between squabbling with each other. It was so normal that she thought nothing of the spectacle of half dozen or so gulls down the beach, quarrelling amidst the sargassum on the shore.
No one had come in yet for the morning, so she could sit at the empty bar and gaze at the boring horizon ahead of her. Because of how slow the seasons had become, more recently Aunt Aveline had taken to spending her summers in the States with her children and grandchildren, leaving Greta to run the place as she pleased. And she did. She had no inclination to open up late to try to attract the local crowd or to hire DJs and have happy hour promotions like the bars in Cane Garden. That required much more work than she was willing to do, and more money than Aveline was willing to spend.
Now and then the policeman stationed in neighbouring Cane Garden Bay would come by on his rounds. Officer Williams wasn’t particularly handsome, but he had this way of making her, and others she assumed, comfortable. He had the kind of eyes that made everything he said seem deeply sincere and caring when those traits seemed to be less and less common. She’d thought sometimes of them having something, but neither of them seemed ready to exchange anything more than a warm hello and island politics.
So she sat in front of the rolling sea with rows of bottles on the shelves behind her, a sort of standing battalion of booze. Here and there, in the scene in front of her, a flash of white dipped across the blue plain. A yacht sailing away. She wondered if they were day charters, or if the owners were having their boats moved south to safety from hurricanes. She was lost in this imagined world for a while, until shouts interrupted her.
Back towards the campsite, the seagulls were scattering into flight, and a group of children were gesticulating wildly at something in the sand. Their voices came over the Atlantic’s wind in scattered syllables Greta could barely make them out in the day’s glare, their clothes and bodies blurring into daubs of colour.One child broke from their number and came tearing up the strand toward the bar.
A girl no more than twelve clattered up the four planked stairs that brought patrons from the beach to the level of the bar floor. Sweat darkened her yellow vest and beaded her forehead trickling down her temples. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and wiped it on her blue jean shorts. She paused, her hand still pressed against the front of her pants. Her large brown eyes were darting everywhere but Greta’s face. Greta was sure she didn’t know her, but she could tell by the slope of her nose, the roundness of her face, and her complexion exactly which village family she belonged to. The Hinchleys. Theirs was a rich history, once full of upstanding churchgoing folks, boat captains, and tradespeople. These days though, it seemed like the Hinchleys had fallen on harder times and the young people in the family had taken to riding aimlessly around on scooters, smoking weed on the beach, and getting into minor troubles with the police. Greta was about to ask about her parentage, but the child spoke first.
“Miss Greta, come. It have something on the beach…” The girl did not wait on Greta’s response,instead she turned, leapt down the stairs and bounded away back towards the group, little explosions of sand chasing her heels.
*