Footprints inside a black heart

Kilnsea was the field trip the summer they were fourteen, when the tide came in faster across the flats than Mr Hollis had promised. He had lined them up in single file and told them to follow the person in front exactly. Gwen had stepped in Tom Ashby's prints the whole way out, heel to toe, because he was the only boy who never minded being followed. On the way back the sea had come sliding over the sand in two long curving strokes, and where they met, it had left a dark outline around the two prints they had made side by side at the edge, as if someone had drawn them a frame. Tom had taken a photograph with his cheap camera. It was probably still in a drawer somewhere, blurred at one corner.

He found her near the coat rail with two pints of lager he would not drink. He still had the same way of standing with his weight on one leg. He said he had driven past the flats last month and the groynes were bent over like old men. She said she had never been back and did not intend to start. They talked about children, mortgages, the chemistry teacher who had once set the fire alarm off on purpose. Then the hall doors opened and the cold came in.

Outside, the rain had left a shallow puddle on the flagstones. Gwen stepped into it first, then stood back so Tom could step in beside her. For a moment the two dark shapes their shoes made on the wet stone were the only marks anywhere, and neither of them moved to leave them.