Gently in the Sun

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Even at this hour in the morning, when the dew still clung heavily to the rough, wiry blades of the marram, one could tell that by early afternoon the temperature would be nearing ninety. The sky stretched arching from the sea horizon like pale porcelain. The fawn sand, moist on the surface, kicked up underfoot as though it were parched brown sugar. Inland, beyond the red-brick cluster of the village, a field of beet looked bluish between straw-coloured acres; the field oaks were stringy and slanted by the wind; they made dark, heavy patches of unrelieved colour. In Hiverton itself there were no trees. One saw them only on rising ground to the south. There the Bel-Air guest house peered blandly at the North Sea, its numerous windows a-sparkle in the sunlight.

Another burning day was in prospect, turning the beach into a gridiron, the village into an oven! Already the sun was becoming spiteful and shortening its track on the steel-blue sea. Grasshoppers had begun to buzz too early, the larks were tired of their morning song. Soon one would see the visitors come straggling across the marrams, their brightly coloured towels slung over their shoulders. The tide which had brought in the longshore boats was ebbing away to make sport for the bathers.

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