A fish out of water
We dropped Murphy off at Emma’s parents on the way — his favourite holiday home, complete with garden hose and meat leftovers. He’d always hurled himself into the sea, muddy bogs, and any standing puddle deep enough to reflect his own grin. Now four years old, he was still an unrepentant swamp creature, which is why today’s excursion was for humans only.
The heat was already building by ten. The tide was full, the bay slack as a mirror, and the surf-hut kiosk leaned like a lazy dog against the sea wall. A hand-painted sign read:
SUP HIRE · CASH OR CARD · BE NICE TO THE PADDLES.
Behind the counter stood Kai, whose hair suggested it was always just shy of being dry. Local, tanned, and so relaxed he seemed to be operating on island time despite having never left the county.
“You guys ever paddleboarded before?” he asked, sorting ankle leashes.
Emma answered first. “I did it once, years ago. But I’m keen.”
I hesitated. “Is it still called paddleboarding if most of the time you’re falling off?”
Kai smiled, handed over two boards. “Just don’t fight the wobbles, man. Let them happen.”
We waded out through a line of children dunking shrimp nets. The boards bucked slightly underfoot, long and blindingly white. Emma knelt, then rose to standing in one smooth motion like a yogi on stilts.
She always looked younger when the sun hit her like that — blonde hair pinned up in a careless bun, freckles just visible above her sunglasses. Tall, lithe, making a plain black swimsuit the final word on elegance. I’d always admired the ease she carried herself with, unbothered by scrutiny, never fussing or checking her reflection in passing windows the way so many others do. The kind of woman who eats whatever she wants, never exercises, and somehow still fits the same jeans she did ten years ago — the kind of woman you’d believe on sight if she told you she was under thirty.
I, meanwhile, clambered aboard with all the grace of a man trying to exit a canoe inside a wardrobe. First stand took roughly four seconds before I sat back down with a splash and an accidental swear.
Emma grinned over her shoulder. “Breathe. Bend your knees.”
“I’m trying not to lock them in fear.”
Eventually I managed a crouching stance, paddle dipping tentatively into the water as if afraid of waking it. We pushed further from shore, the shouts of toddlers and hiss of the espresso machine from the café softening behind us. Out here, the sea widened, uncreased.
A hen party in full sequinned costume paddled past on kayaks — five glittering mermaids with flower crowns and tinsel tails. They glided like swans on sugar. One of them raised a cocktail shaker and cheered. I waved back with my paddle and immediately listed sideways, narrowly saving myself with a foot-dunk and a heartfelt curse.
Emma paddled closer, now smugly upright and barely rippling the surface.
“It’s not a competition,” I muttered.
“Says the man racing a hen party.”
She drifted ahead, her bun catching the light. From behind, she looked entirely at home — quiet, self-assured, and gleaming with the sort of joy that comes from doing something pointless on purpose.
I finally stood again, legs spread for balance, and paddled in short, choppy strokes until I reached open water. Beneath us, the sea turned bottle-green and endless. I let the paddle trail, board bobbing. The only sounds were gulls and the lazy slap of swell.
I let myself fall gently to my knees, then lay flat on my back — arms out, eyes squinting up at the sky. The blue was blank and huge, broken only by the occasional contrail and the flicker of swallows high overhead. I heard Emma somewhere to my right, humming absently.
I thought about nothing, then about everything: how rare this kind of moment was, unscored by obligation or noise. No fintech briefs, no unread emails, no half-drunk mugs cooling on my desk. Just this: warm fibreglass, the sea’s idle pulse, and the sun pressing its signature into my t-shirt.
Eventually Emma glided closer and sat cross-legged on her board. “Feeling spiritual yet?”
“Maybe just sunburnt,” I said.
She looked at me, head tilted, amused. “You don’t look bad out here, actually. Very… rock star turned low-impact outdoorsman.”
I chuckled. “That’s just a polite way of saying: skinny former indie kid clinging to his twenties.”
She smiled and shrugged. “Works for me.”
We turned slowly, the tide carrying us back. She was still beaming, her smugness softened now into something kinder. “You did better than I thought.”
“High praise.”
“Still not getting a tandem board next time.”
We beached the boards near the slipway, feet squelching through sun-warmed sand. Kai was helping a child with an inflatable kayak and gave us a lazy thumbs up.
“See?” Emma said, ruffling her towel through her hair. “I told you mindfulness came in paddle form.”
“Mindfulness is overrated,” I replied, wiping salt from my neck. “What I want is a sandwich and a nap.”
She linked arms. “Exactly. And you’ve earned both.”