Local

 

Was she a local?

Damn right she was a local.

Allow me to explain how local she was.

One evening, just before sunset, she told me to don my thickest scarf and come out for a walk with her. It wasn’t that cold, but she rarely wasted words, so I fetched my scarf and followed her down the stairs from our little flat and out onto the street.

She led me down a lane which turned into a slender path between old blocks of flats, onto and across the beach road, through the park, round the back of the yacht club. There was a party on at the yacht club. She saw my eyes light up, shook her head, took my hand and guided me out onto the pier.

The scarf suddenly made sense. It was cold out there.

We wandered to the end of the pier, as far as I’d gone before, but she led me around the back of the kiosk and onto the marina wall. We climbed down onto the large rocks that held the waves of the bay at bay, sat down and looked out at the water.

She produced a sneaky joint from a denim jacket inside pocket. We smoked and snuggled.

As the sun set our eyes adjusted to the dark. I saw a small movement on the rocks below us, she squeezed my hand and held a finger to her lips. We sat in glorious silence as two tiny penguins hopped and fumbled their way up the rocks. They passed right beside her. She could have reached out and touched them.

After we’d scrambled back up to the top of the wall, started walking back down the pier, I thanked her, a hundred times, for such an experience. I remarked on how close they came to her, still amazed.

“They know me”, she said.

That’s how local she was.

For Jacqueline Elizabeth Scanlon

Parkstreet

Ko-fi