Panic rising quickly in my throat, I scanned the beach, looking for a small blonde girl with impossibly blue eyes. She’ll be here, I told myself. She was here. Right there. Right there by the harbour steps. Only a moment ago.
I’m calling her name, my angry voice. I try to make it sound happy, in case she feels scared. People stop me and ask if I am alright. I describe my daughter - aged three with long blonde hair and a yellow bathing suit and a blue sun hat. They begin to look too.
I run on to the sand. The sea is out a long way. She won’t have gone that far. I try to see past the fat kids with inflatables and couples with dogs to see if there is a lone child crying. Maybe she is not on her own. Maybe someone has found her.
I shout her name once more and the sound of my voice frightens me. Why does it sound so terrified? She has only been gone for a few minutes. Surely it’s only a few minutes. But time has stood still and I could have been staring at this beach for days. Someone has told the coast guard and a man comes up on a quad bike to get a description. He tells me not to worry and zooms off.
I wander along the beach. I can see other people, lots of people searching, but I am separated from them. From behind me I hear a helicopter. I turn and look. It is searching the shore line.
‘Oh my God,’ I think. ‘She’s dead.’ And the beach disappears in a haze of tears and I want to be sick.
There is a light touch on my shoulder and a middle aged woman is holding out her hand to me. I turn my head away, not wanting her sympathy and almost miss what she is saying.
‘We’ve found her.’
I look at her and she smiles and says it again. I brush away the tears and a noise escapes me that is half a laugh and half a choking sob. She points back towards the harbour wall and I see that people are pointing and waving to me. I begin to run screwing up my eyes to see her.
She’s lying still. Panic rises in my throat again as I run faster towards my girl. But people are smiling. I reach her and look down and see a mass of blonde hair fallen over her face, her blue sunhat fallen to one side. I brush it gently to one side and she stirs slightly in her sleep.