SIX
Late November often threw up foul weather, and this morning was no exception. The Solent was full and the prevailing south-westerly, gusting to gale force, was hurling the waves at Southsea’s sea walls, and a foaming tidal wave crashed over to wash across the promenade and even the road.
Jack had left this magically energetic and hypnotically intimidating wave action behind, as his morning walk followed the paved promenade eastwards, and now skirted the expansive and desolate beach at Eastney seafront. Sweeping tracts of shingle, interspersed with tufts of sward clinging desperately to some sort of purchase that enabled it to survive, symbolised the barrenness of this eastern Portsmouth coastal landscape. The grey, churning and turbulent sea was dramatically electrified by voluminous
