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The paramedics arrived shortly after, and the man, despite seeming okay, was taken away in an ambulance, I presume for precautionary measures. Almost as soon as it pulled away, those of us who had walked up to the parking lot –bound by our concern – were suddenly strangers again, left in a different kind of silence. Our own lives were already starting to pull us apart, back to our blankets and chairs, which had been fastidiously arranged to keep us at a safe distance from one another. Standing there in our bathing suits and tans, our feet still wet, we were suddenly aware that our lives were waiting for us back at the beach. The victim’s friend, who hadn’t gone along in the ambulance, began to walk in the other direction, up the long road that led towards town. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and paint-splattered boots, carrying two lunchboxes, one in each hand. I watched him as he walked away, past the vast greens of the private club’s golf course and up over the hill.