Clare at the Beach
This is a story Nigel told me, but of course it is embellished here into a much more interesting memoir, with no more than tangential adjacency to 'the truth' - whatever that is. - AC.
It's the summer of 1978. Clare and I have been married for six months, and we're still in that first bloom. I'm busy working, teaching computer programming - my days are filled with code and students.
Clare is less busy, so one hot afternoon she takes herself off on the train to the seaside north of Liverpool. I say I’ll collect her later. She’ll be wearing that new swimsuit I bought her: ideal for those baking sands.
Later in the day, I finish work, drive north along the Dock Road to the resort promenade. I park up and stroll across the beach to where I see her, wet and dripping, just emerged from the water.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” she replies, basking in the sun and rapidly drying off in that rather small and decorative costume that was my present to her.
“Have you heard of a wet T-shirt competition?” I ask in a neutral tone.
She glares at me.
“It’s something women tend to do, and men tend to appreciate—though of course, we’ve no idea why.”
She glares again, then tilts her head and says suspiciously, “Why are you talking about that?”
I rub my chin thoughtfully.
“You know that costume I bought you? It’s really designed for sunbathing. Not exactly for swimming and getting wet in...”
She looks at me in apparent confusion. “Why?”
I smile. “Well, I could explain here, with all these people watching... or we could go instead back to my Mini. I think my explanation would be a lot more effective there.”
It looks like she hasn’t the faintest idea what I’m talking about; but maybe that’s because she just hasn’t looked at herself. I take her hand and we stroll across the beach towards the promenade. I help her into the back of the Mini (not an easy process in that small two-door car), and we drive a little way to somewhere more secluded.
"Now," I say, "you can see just how unsuitable that outfit is for swimming. A dutiful wife would hand it back to her husband and say that it really doesn't fit the bill.”
“Okay,” she says.
“Such a wife would also say to her husband that it’s rather cold back here - now that she’s given away her costume - and a dutiful husband would, at the very least, climb in back and try to keep her warm.”
“Okay,” she says.
There are moments I regret buying a Mini...
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