SEEING THE SEA

They were both going to climb the chimney. That was what they had agreed. They wanted to know if you could see the sea from up there, beyond the dunes.

In the end, only John climbs up. Con watches him fall to his death and runs off. Hours later, when he’s told that his friend is dead, he pretends to be shocked, as if he knows nothing about it. Years later, looking back on that traumatic event from his youth, the time has come to tell the story. I stood below and watched while John climbed the chimney, singing as he went. When he got to the top, he waved triumphantly. He shouted something that I couldn’t quite understand – ‘I saw the sea!’, could that have been it? – and then he fell and I ran home: nothing happened, nothing happened.