Salt and Starlings

They said the sea air would do us good, as if grief could be bleached like sheets strung on a line. So I brought El to the coast I grew up on, the town with the peeling amusements and the gulls that laughed at everything. February light lay thin on the water. El kept her hands in her pockets and her eyes on her shoes.

We rented a small terraced house with a view of the harbour if you leaned out the top window. The landlady had put a bowl of clementines on the table, the skins bright as warning buoys. I made tea, because that’s what you do when you can’t do anything else.

El didn’t drink hers. She drifted from chair to window to sofa, a satellite looking for the right orbit. “Mum would have liked the wallpaper,” she said at last, tracing the faded roses with one finger. Her voice was careful, as if it might break the room.

We walked the promenade at dusk. The chip shop was open, steam clinging to its windows. I bought a portion to share, vinegar sharp enough to sting. El ate one, then tucked the rest into the paper. A boy ran past with a kite shaped like a dragon, its tail skittering over the wet sand. The sky was the colour of a bruise. I told El about the starlings, how they gathered by the pier at sundown, folding and opening like a lung.

“I don’t want to see birds,” she said. “I want to see Mum.”