14: Swim naked in the sea at dawn It is the beginning of August and just getting light. Too early even for dog-walkers, or horse-riders, but time for the sun to be slowly rising, gold and shiny as a brand-new penny. The beach is ours, the only sound the car engine. I switch it off. Silence. If I listen hard, the faint roar of the sea. We all get out, Billy between the two of us, and walk towards the water, which rolls gently towards us now, a silver carpet, dappled with light. Over the shingle we crunch, then, taking our shoes off, barefoot over the mud flats. They’re cracked and bone-dry after a long, hot summer, except for the tiny purple flowers, pushing up towards the sun. We reach the sand; it’s firm and wet and stretches for miles, curving around us like a huge, sweeping cloak. I stop and drink it in. I fill my lungs with salty air. This is no picture postcard, I think, but it is paradise to me: wild and barren and raw and real. And now we are ready, our clothes are at our feet and we stand, the three of us, half blinded before the sun, like in Genesis, like the first-ever specimens of humankind.
