Rex couldn't go through with it. He had gone in up to his waist, the worst bit really, when the cold forces the breath out of you. Then felt the sun on his neck and thought “I've paid for breakfast.” He was ruined of course, nothing would change that. The house, the car, gone. He'd hook the kids out of school at the end of term, try and get them into the local comprehensive.
Collected his clothes as he walked up the beach, hopped gracelessly into his boxers, grit on his sea-shrunk balls. Nevermind, he'd shower and dress again before popping down to the dining room. Appear respectable. For that breakfast he'd already paid for. He shook his shirt in a whisper of April wind then pulled it over his shoulders. Coward's way out, really. Limited liability. Better to drown in debt than to just drown.
The sun was above the hotel now. It was a beautiful spot, the broad bay with a fort at either end, uninterrupted views, the Atlantic, nothing between here and Newfoundland. Shame about that road, but you have to get here somehow. Late-Victorian it was, the hotel, he guessed. Queen Anne revival. Chintz. Built on a bend.
He picked up his shoes. From the East he heard the growing noise of a helicopter. He watched it fly overhead, still moving, and his bare feet registered the change from sand to tarmac. He never saw the van which threw him, broken, back onto the beach.
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