I spy the rake he’s holding in his right hand and let out a squeak of excitement.
‘Just let me put on my shoes!’
We head in the opposite direction of Chapel Porth, taking the coast path towards Trevellas Cove. The air carries a chill and the wind is whipping my hair all over the place as we hug the rugged coastline. A bank of low clouds flirts with the horizon, but the sky overhead is pale blue and far-reaching. Tom has checked the tide times and we should arrive as it’s almost fully out.
‘How’s your hangover?’ Tom asks as the narrow track we’ve been treading widens, the ruins of the old Blue Hills tin mine coming into view.
‘It’s not too bad, actually,’ I reply.
The bracing wind and fresh air have cleared my head. If anything, I feel invigorated.
We don’t speak much, but it’s a comfortable silence as we make our way down into the valley. Gravelly tracks and patches of naked stone have been scored out of the weathered hills on the other side of the cove, making me think of the marks I sometimes make in clay. The heather is not yet in bloom.
‘Pretend I’m not here,’ I say to Tom as we approach the beach, looking for a ledge to perch on while he heads to the middle of the empty expanse.
He glances over at me as I sit down, his eyes resting on mine for a few seconds before he returns his attention to the sand.
It makes my heart sing, watching him work. The beach is his canvas and the rake is his pencil. Working with a smooth stretch of sand about eight by twelve metres, he begins to draw. A picture forms of a gnarly tree in the foreground with branches leaning off to one side, its shape elongated as though caught in a relentlessly blowing gale. Behind it, he drawsmountains climbing into the distance, and to its left, a drystone wall.
He sets the rake aside and uses his hands to sketch out a curvy shape at the base of the wobbly trunk. I laugh as a sheep emerges.
He looks over at me as he straightens up, grinning. Cocking his head to one side, he lifts his broad shoulders in a half shrug.
He’s finished.
I stand up and climb the rocks towards him. He comes over and holds his hand out to help me down the last section and the heat of our palms connecting spreads halfway up my arm.
‘I love it,’ I say, reluctantly letting go of his hand and going to take a closer look. ‘Where is it?’ I ask over my shoulder.
‘Snowdonia,’ he replies, and the light in his eyes seems to dim.
‘How did you get into sand art?’ I ask on our return home.
‘Remember how I said that I used to draw all the time when I was younger, but my parents didn’t encourage it?’
I nod.
‘They tolerated me doing GCSE art, but vetoed it at A level. To be fair, I needed maths and physics for my aviation degree, so I didn’t resent them for steering me away from creative subjects, but I no longer felt comfortable sketching around them at home. We lived in Norfolk, near a beach, so I used to go for walks on my own and sometimes I’d find myself drawing on the sand. It relaxed me, but I only ever did it when no one else was around. It felt like a dirty secret.’
‘That’s sad.’
‘It doesn’t feel like that any more,’ he says with a sideways glance at me.
‘Good. Art shouldn’t ever feel sordid. So why trees?’
He thinks for a moment before answering. ‘You know when you see a pattern or an image of something in an unexpected place? Like a shape in the clouds or a face in the rock?’
‘Yes.’
‘I used to see lots of shapes in nature. My grandad was the same. We’d lie on grassy hilltops and watch the clouds roll by and point out shapes that reminded us of things. So when I got here in the early hours of Friday morning and saw the stream running out to sea, carving its way through the sand … it made me think of the old apple tree we used to have at the bottom of our garden. And I couldn’t stop myself from trying to recreate it.’
‘Were you picturing it in winter.’
‘No, in its last stages of life. My parents had our apple tree cut down years ago. I used to climb it when I was a boy, so I was gutted.’
‘What about the Italian cypress?’
‘My grandad had one in his garden. They always make me think of him.’
