Memory of Love (9781101603024) Read Online Free

could not be sure, but I was reasonably hopeful. He was getting older: it had been almost a year since we first met. I had estimated that he was about six years old then. He still had his baby teeth. We stumbled on each other down on the beach. Or rather I stumbled on him. And where else? It was on the beach that our lives were enacted, whether tragedies or comedies. I found him lying face down in the sand with his feet touching the edge of the surf. It wasn’t as if he had been brought ashore on it. No, I could see his footprints in the sand and knew he had deliberately placed himself there. His arms were outstretched and his hands dug into the sand. He looked like a stranded starfish, but for a split second I had a vision of the slim little body being crucified. The sea kept lapping at his feet. He didn’t move, though I was sure he had sensed my presence. Had anticipated it, even. There was something about him that made it clear he was certainly alive. He just wasn’t capable of playing dead, if that was what he was doing. So, after the initial instinctive ocular check, I just stood and waited.
    He can only hold this pose for so long, I thought.
    I underestimated his perseverance. Yet he underestimated my patience even more. I was willing to wait for as long as it would take. So there he lay, and there I stood. I looked at the sky and asked if he was hungry. There was no response. The seagulls above were shrieking over the thunder of the waves. The tide was on its way out and each wave stopped a little further from the tips of his toes.
    â€˜Are you hungry?’ I repeated to his immobile back. Still no answer. He didn’t stir. The only sign of life was the rhythmic slight lift as his ribcage expanded and contracted with each breath.
    We waited.
    Eventually he slowly rolled over onto his back. His face was covered in sand and he kept his eyes closed. I stood looking down at him. I was sure I had never seen him before. Never at the clinic, which was odd. If he lived anywhere near, I probably should have. Then without a word he sprang to his feet and ran into the water. When he returned he was rinsed of the sand and his shorts and T-shirt clung to his body. He was painfully thin. I noted that he didn’t seem to have many teeth, and those he had were baby teeth.
    â€˜Are you hungry?’ I asked again.
    He didn’t look at me, said nothing, just dug his toes into the sand, half turned away from me. I turned and slowly began to walk away and I sensed that he was following. He made little detours to pick up a stone and throw it into the sea, to chase a bird. If I slowed down, he did too. When I stopped, so did he. When I started walking again he followed. Weaving up and down the dunes on either side.
    It was a Thursday, the first one.
    I could never be certain that he would come, but he came most Thursdays. He never explained his absences and I never asked. He never appeared on another day of the week.
    He had become a source of information for me, though he didn’t speak much. But for someone like me, even minute snippets of information about what went on outside my sphere were valuable. I often thought of myself as naïve. There had always been matters that other people seemed to consider normal and natural that I hadn’t been able to understand. On the other hand, I had always felt there were matters that were familiar to me that would seem strange to others. Perhaps naïve was not the right word but I couldn’t think of a better one.
    He was also a source of profound wisdom. I worried that this capacity of his would pass. That he would grow out of it. I hoped not, but I could not be sure. As he was, he was an extraordinary human being. Non-judgemental. Curious. Funny sometimes, though I never knew if it was intentional. I couldn’t believe he would ever lose those qualities, but I knew it was likely to happen. Time would rob him of them, or life would teach him how to suppress