“The ocean wind was strong. Grains of sand stung her arms and face. Her dress fluttered. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps they were not in step.”
I once read someone bemoaning their fortunes in one of the big short story prizes: ‘How it works, basically, is everyone enters and Sarah Hall wins.’ Beneath the cynicism, there was also a grudging respect, acknowledgement that such success was deserved. I often tell my students that the best short story writers are Irish, or American, or African. Canadian. Rarely British. Hall being one of the few exceptions, her deep understanding and execution of the form almost unrivalled.
A quiet story, this, until, as with all the great ones, it isn’t. A couple holidaying on the coast of an unnamed African country, their relationship collapsing, take a break from hostilities and each other, the female narrator fleeing along the beach. A stray dog approaches her, threat and menace palpable. What follows might peter out in mere mortals’ hands, but of course Hall sustains the tension right up to the shocking finish, which is all the more impactful when we realise what has occurred off-stage.
First published in Granta 117, October 2011, and available to read here; collected in The Beautiful Indifference, Faber and Faber, 2012