Ballycastle

Ballycastle is the seaside destination of a remembered early date between Stella and Gerry, where landscape and small acts of attention turn a coastal outing into a decisive moment in their courtship. Recalled while Stella waits in Amsterdam, the visit gathers meaning through its contrasts: polished tennis courts and freely collected stones, a bridge that seems to lead nowhere at low tide yet serves a purpose at high tide, and a kiss that begins with hesitation before she chooses to return it.

The Coastal Journey

Stella’s memory of Ballycastle begins with Gerry sweeping her away in his car, a rare possession in those days, and driving north along the twisting east coast road. They pass Waterfoot, Cushendall, and Cushendun before reaching the seaside town. Stella is shy at first. She smokes Benson & Hedges to keep Gerry company, though she is not much of a smoker and blows most of the smoke down her nose; the day is fine enough for the car windows to remain open.

The drive gives the couple room to explore one another’s backgrounds. Stella tells Gerry about growing up one of six children in a small house in a large village, without running water or an indoor toilet. Each morning she carried an enamel pail from the street pump, a task she did not then regard as hardship because her family lived close to the pump. Gerry, an only child, tells her that he collected stamps as a way of travelling without going anywhere.

Her account of the family’s hope for a council house gives their conversation a sharper political edge. Her parents and children prayed a novena of Masses for a four-bedroom house with a bathroom, two lavatories, and a garden where Stella’s father could grow vegetables. Her mother even threw a miraculous medal onto the building site at night. The house went instead to a Protestant policeman, a widower with one teenage son. Gerry responds angrily to the Unionist control of Northern Ireland and the unfairness of its electoral system. Stella tries to quieten him by returning to the beauty of the day. They stop for ice cream in Cushendall, where Gerry parks by the golf course to eat before it melts.

Courts, Shore, and Stones

Walking along Ballycastle’s seafront, Stella notices the emerald-green grass tennis courts, their nets taut and their surfaces carefully kept for the summer and the arrival of Scots tourists. Most courts are occupied by players dressed in white. The sounds of play—the ball’s repeated impacts and the players’ polite cries after missed shots—make the scene feel orderly, but Stella finds it intimidating. She senses that tennis has its own rules of conduct and feels she does not know how to follow them.

The couple leave the courts for the beach. Under intermittent cloud and sunshine, shadows move across Fair Head. Stella lets soft sand spill from hand to hand while Gerry smokes. Later, because the dry sand is difficult to walk on, they move closer to the water, where the retreating tide has firmed the ground and left delicate fringes along the shore.

Stella searches for stones, stooping only for white, perfect ones. She shows each find to Gerry with a small flourish. Wet, the stones seem special; once dry, some may reveal yellow or grey. She likes their simple, full-moon shapes and the fact that nobody is selling them. She imagines keeping the best in a glass bowl on her table. The scene’s intimacy is made of unpriced things and gestures freely offered, rather than possessions exchanged.

The Walkway and the First Kiss

At the far end of the beach, the couple reach a footbridge and walkway. With the tide out, the structure looks absurd, like a bridge to nowhere. Gerry first jokes that it is an unfinished bridge to Scotland, then explains that it is used by people fishing from the rocks: when the tide is high, the walkway is needed to reach the best fishing spots. The joke gives way to a practical explanation, as the apparently useless structure changes meaning with the tide.

From the walkway, they faintly hear music and the cries of people on amusement rides in town. Stella leans on the parapet and looks out to sea. A lighthouse on Rathlin Island flashes once; after waiting, she sees it flash again. Scotland lies pale blue on the horizon. When she turns toward Gerry to ask a question, he kisses her. She rests her forehead on his shoulder, but when he moves to kiss her again she places a finger against his lips. Her pause makes him uncertain; after a moment, she removes her finger and returns the kiss. The scene makes the change in their intimacy visible as a choice, not an assumption.

Memory and Lasting Significance

Ballycastle remains vivid in Stella’s recollection not only as a place but as the setting of a transition in how she sees Gerry. Against the landscape, he appears thoughtful and energetic, speaking about art and architecture with an enthusiasm that holds her attention. His knowledge makes subjects she had barely considered seem newly interesting. The coast thus becomes associated with the beginnings of both affection and curiosity: she offers him stones, while he offers her ways of seeing buildings and places.

The memory carries a physical trace beyond the day itself. For a long time afterward, whenever Stella wears the coat she had on, her fingers find grains of sand in its pockets, and the discovery brings her a kind of joy. In the Amsterdam passage where the recollection returns, the remembered coast stands against Stella’s present solitude. Ballycastle’s lasting significance lies in this double presence: it preserves an early moment of mutual attraction, while the sand makes that moment persist as something tactile and unexpectedly durable.