Chapter 28 #2
‘If I find nothing else, I’ve always got this,’ he said, putting the can in his rucksack. He pulled on his gloves and scanned the foreshore. ‘Are you ever disappointed when you come out here?’
‘Never,’ Gemma replied. ‘You’ll always find something, even if it’s just that wonderful feeling of being in nature. It’s never the same. The river, the mud, the clouds, the sky, the finds … they’re always different.’
He nodded and immediately started mudlarking – or what Gemma believed he thought was mudlarking – except he wasn’t doing it right.
‘Hang on,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘You’re moving your head too quickly. You might be missing your metal detector, but your head isn’t one.’
‘Okay.’ Nick laughed.
‘And you need to let your mind roam free. Don’t force yourself to find something in particular. Put aside your desires and ego. Observe slowly and be inquisitive. It’s all here and what the tide wants you to discover today, you will.’
‘Hey, that sounded good.’
‘It’s really about believing in the importance of the past. You either love unearthing history, or you don’t. Like some people enjoy extreme ironing and some don’t.’
‘Extreme ironing?’
‘I saw it on YouTube once.’
‘When I got Dad’s detector, I watched a YouTube video on how it’s done. You gotta go low and slow, the guy said.’ Nick extended his right arm and moved it left and right, like it was a detector.
Without warning, he started beeping as if he were a cardiac machine in A&E. Or R2D2 having a meltdown. How good it felt to have a laugh.
‘Okay, let’s do it.’ Nick immediately dropped to the ground. Anyone watching would have thought a hand grenade had been thrown. He looked up at her. ‘Please join me. I feel silly down here on my own. I promise not to make any more loud noises.’
As the late afternoon sun hit the water, making the surface of the river resemble thousands of tiny pearls, Gemma lowered her head and began to mudlark.
Nick, as promised, became her shadow. She could feel him watching her and sensed, despite the silence, that he still wanted to chat.
But for the moment, she was enjoying not having to.
The plip-plop of the water lapping the shore and the friction of her knees against the stones were the only sounds she wanted to hear.
Very soon she entered a dreamlike state that was addictively hypnotic.
‘Have you ever found anything gruesome?’ Nick suddenly started up again.
Gemma took a moment to come back to the present. She thought for a minute. ‘A bone from part of a finger.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yeah, I had to hand it into the police.’
‘So, you never found out anything about it?’
She shook her head. ‘It could have been two hundred years old or only two months. From a sailor or an aristocrat. You can conjure up all sorts of scenarios if you let your imagination go wild.’
‘I bet. That’s what I love about being a journo. I get to find out all sorts of weird and wacky stuff about people, although it’s even more fun making it up. I’m writing a novel, did I tell you?’
‘No?’
‘It’s a madcap romp that crosses multiple genres with a plot that’s going off in all sorts of out-of-control directions. There are numerous story threads that go nowhere and there’s no ending. Can you tell it’s going to fly off the bookshelves?’
‘You never know.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘I want it to be about a bunch of people who go on a quest. I’ve been trying out different experiences so I can write about them.
I went caving a couple of months ago in the longest cave system in the UK.
I’ve also done a beginner’s scuba diving lesson and I really want to go in a helicopter.
But that’s expensive. Somehow, I need to concoct a story that involves helicopters so I can wrangle a ride. ’ Nick rubbed his chin.
‘Please don’t tell me you started mudlarking so you could use it in your novel?’
‘No,’ he said emphatically. ‘I don’t plagiarise everything.’
‘Okay, good.’
‘What about you? Any pipe dreams?’
Gemma shrugged. She didn’t wish to divulge how all her dreams had evaporated when Adam left. Now she couldn’t think of any she was keen to pursue.
Nick continued. ‘My other dream is to one day get a scoop. A really big scoop where every media outlet comes knocking at my door.’ He shook his head at how glorious that would be. ‘Anyway, you’re a cancer nurse. That’s far more honourable.’
‘It doesn’t feel honourable when treatments fail. But, unfortunately, that’s part of the job.’
‘That’s so tough.’ He nodded.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to get so serious. On a positive note, things with Laila are going well.’
‘Oh, yeah, I was going to ask you how it was going. Is she being a good housemate?’
‘I can’t fault her. She’s cooked some meals and even encouraged me to apply for my social services file.’
‘Great kid. I don’t think I’d have been so thoughtful at her age.’
‘I know. There’s more to her than meets the eye. I think she’s just feeling lost, to be honest.’
‘Aren’t we all,’ Nick said.
For another hour, they pottered at the water’s edge. Nick’s chatter petered out as he, too, succumbed to the contemplative nature of mudlarking.
Soon, they took a break and found two dry rocks to sit on. Nick looked across the river to the buildings on the other side. He seemed calmer now.
‘Isn’t it amazing how mudlarking makes it feel as if time has stopped?’ she said.
‘So true.’ He nodded.
‘I like to think that, here, you can control time – or at least, pause it for a bit – so that nothing else matters other than the little spot of riverbed you’re looking at.’
‘It’s exactly what I needed today.’