Sea Glass – Part 1: The Tidal Beach

The tide went out at six, leaving a strip of wet sand and shingle that glittered like a broken mirror. Tamsin had been coming to this beach since she was a child, when her grandmother had taught her to look for the frosted green and blue shards tumbled smooth by the waves.

The storm had passed in the night. The sky was pale and clean, and the sea was still churning, grey and foaming at the edges.

She was crouched over a patch of pebbles, pulling out a rare red piece, when she saw the boots.

They were big, muddy, very expensive walking boots, and they belonged to a man who was standing a little too close to the best stretch of shingle.

"That's my patch," said Tamsin, without looking up.

"It's the beach," said a deep voice. "It doesn't belong to anyone."

"It belongs to the people who get up at six."

"Then I'm very early," said the man, and crouched down beside her, a canvas bag over his shoulder and a bright red glass bead in his palm. "I'm Rowan. I'm a surveyor. I came for the coast, and I've been finding nothing but seaweed."

"You're on the wrong beach for the good stuff."

"Am I?" He looked at the red glass in his hand, then at her. "Then show me."

She sighed, and sat back on her heels. He was broad-shouldered and sunburnt, with a dark beard and eyes the colour of the sea after rain.

"The good stuff is round, not sharp," said Tamsin. "Sharp means it's new. Round means the sea has been working on it for fifty years. And the green ones are from old bottles, the blue ones from medicine, and the white ones are almost always from cups."

"That's very specific."

"I've been doing this my whole life."

Rowan turned the red bead slowly in the light. "Do you sell them?"

"In the shop in the village. Two pounds a piece for the good ones. Nobody buys the seaweed."

"I'd buy the seaweed," said Rowan, grinning, "if you'd teach me to tell the difference."

They worked the shingle side by side as the tide turned. He was clumsy at first, missing things she pointed out, but he was fast, and patient, and he never once complained when the cold water soaked his boots. By nine they had filled two bags, and his cheeks were pink with cold and something like pleasure.

"Can I ask you something?" said Tamsin, sitting on a rock to pour cold tea from a flask.

"Yes."

"Why are you really here? Surveyors don't usually spend their mornings on the shingle."

Rowan took the cup she offered, his fingers brushing hers.

"Because I've been surveying other people's houses for ten years," he said. "And I wanted to see something that didn't need measuring. Something the sea makes and then gives away."

Tamsin's throat tightened. "Then you've found it," she said quietly.

"Have I?" asked Rowan, and his voice was soft. "Can I ask you something back?"

"Yes."

"Would you let me buy you breakfast, at the café by the harbour, and then show me how you sort the glass into colours? And maybe let me keep the red one, if I'm very good?"

Tamsin laughed, short and surprised. "Yes," she said. "But only if you let me choose the table, and you tell me what you're really afraid of."

"Deal," said Rowan. "Green?"

"Green," said Tamsin, and picked up her bag. "Very green. Come on, Rowan. The tide's turning, and I'm starving."