It was the sea itself. It is along the strands of the world that the privilege of possessing children is most blatantly seen. What torment for the spinster and the childless man, to see the various sizes of little demons and angels ranged along the tide line. Like some species of migratory animal. The human animal began as a mere wriggling thing in the ancient seas, struggling out onto land with many regrets. That is what brings us so full of longing to the sea. I am not an entirely childless person. That story also belongs to the sea, or the strand anyway. My child. My child went to Nazareth, that's what they told me. Or, that is what I heard them say. But I was not hearing anything very well, very properly, in that time. They might as well have said Wyoming. Strandhill's beach is narrow, heaped, endangered, and the hill of sand itself seems to have drawn up its enormous knees to escape the goings on below. There is a long rough promenade where gigs, carts, sidecars, high traps and motorcars used to be parked, the occupants spilling out I am sure always with the same level of human anticipation, the kids barrelling away ahead, the fathers laughing, cursing, the mothers admonishing, panicking – all the to-do and turmoil of normal happiness.
