A stiff sporadic wind blew sand against Joe’s bare chest and whipped the crests of the breaking waves into a froth. Some of the sand caught in the thick hairs that covered his chest and shoulders, most of which were black, but a few of which, particularly in the bright August sunshine, had a silver sheen. Joe brushed the sand away, felt it scratch against his skin as it resisted the movement of his hand. It seemed strange to him, when he thought about it, that all sand had once been rocks, as big as boulders, or as big as the cliffs that guarded this eroding stretch of coastline, or as big as anything, and all these rocks had been worn down and worn down until they could not be worn down any more and all that was left was these minute grains; millions and billions of them.

When he was a child, Joe’s father had once told him that there were more stars in the universe than there were grains of sand on all the beaches in the world. Joe had looked out across the yellow-grey expanse and thought that on any beach alone there must be millions of grains of sand. That had been forty or so miles up the coast, near Scarborough, where Joe had spent his childhood summer holidays, and nearly the same number of years ago. He rarely went up there now, having little cause to, but knew the town had changed with the years that had passed. Time changed stars and sand too: stars burned out and all sand would eventually be pushed deeper and deeper underground until it was again pressed back into rock.

Joe’s reverie was broken when he saw a girl, perhaps fourteen, maybe younger, wading into the chocolate-coloured waves. A full bust, that belied her apparent age, protruded awkwardly from her chest, covered by a dark-coloured vest-top. Joe watched her, thought she was pretty, thought she was the type of girl he would once have stared at with a beating heart across the classroom, but not the type of girl he had married.

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