We went to the beach Friday morning, the sun was shining and Marcus had certainly warmed up. The last few days his mood had radically improved, possibly due to the fact he managed to see the Arsenal, Real Madrid match after all. Tamara had gone with him to a pub in Tel Aviv with a wide screen TV, and a hysterical crowd of fanatical Arsenal supporters.
She really hated the whole idea, and failed to understand why most of the guys in the bar had such small vocabularies.
‘How come they only know one adjective?’ she tried to ask Marcus as Thierry Henri, was threading his way through a cluster of Spanish players.
He missed the final shot.
‘That was ffing close! shit he is good tonight’ was Marcus’s response, he had clearly not heard a word she had said.
The noise level was incredibly high, the floor was awash with spilt beer, and the sweating, painted bodies of the massed fans just too much. Tamara decided to make an exit and find something else to do. The pub was situated on the seafront, and the pleasant evening made the idea of a walk rather attractive. She eased her way through the sweating mass of screaming fans, and began to stroll down the tree lined promenade.
Marcus did not notice her absence, till at half time, without taking his attention from the screen, as the commentators began assessing the match. He put his arm round the nearest person, thinking it was Tamara, and asked how she was enjoying the exciting match.
‘Lovely thanks’ said a balding middle aged man, ‘and I didn’t know you cared?’
‘Oops, sorry thought you were my wife’ stuttered Marcus, highly embarrassed and a bright pink colour.
He looked around and seeing she was absent, ran out of the pub, there were a few people sitting at round tables outside.
‘Have any of you seen a woman leaving, blue jeans, white top, long curly gingery hair?’
A young couple pointed down the promenade, ‘ Yes about ten minutes ago, that way’ they said.
Marcus ran along the beachfront looking for her, she always walked rather slowly. About 500 metres on he saw someone sitting on a plastic beach lounger, with her arms circling her curled up knees, a typical Tamara posture.
Her head was resting on her arms, and she was sitting about ten feet from the gently lapping waves.
It is hard to understand how the human mind works, and in any event Marcus’s mind should not be judged under the usual parameters.
He suspected her eyes were closed, and walked past her chair, then after removing his shoes entered the sea. He walked out till the water was up to his knees, took out their car keys, lit the tiny torch attached to the ring, shone it behind his head and began walking through the water till he stood opposite her.
Then in a loud voice, as deep as he could, called to her,
‘Tamara,’ he paused, ‘Tamara, Tamara I am here, here walking on the water, can you hear me?’
She looked up totally startled, saw the backlit head of someone she could not recognise, jumped up and ran, sorry, sprinted back across the sand, onto the pavement, and with incredible, incredible speed back towards the pub.
‘Shit, that was not supposed to happen’ Marcus said aloud. He too ran out the sea, gathered up his shoes, sprinted across the sand and back to the pub.
He entered from a side entrance, and saw Tamara anxiously looking around for him. Pretending to do up his flies, he called to her,
‘Here I am dear, where have you been? I’ve been to the loo’
Tamara looked him up and down, noticed his soaking trousers,
‘You seemed to have missed badly’ she looked him in the eyes, ‘I’ve just had a vision’
‘Really dear how interesting’ he glanced away from her up at the screen, the match was about to restart.
She raised her foot and stamped heavily on his right foot.
‘Ow! shit, what was that for?’
‘Oh just checking if you were mortal’ she said.
