You, Me & the Sea

by Elizabeth Haynes

  Among the notes is a list of suggested evening meals. Jacket potatoes, spag bol, chilli; egg, chips and beans. There are recipes for the spag bol and the chilli. Nothing too complicated, but cooking for six is a bit more than she’s used to. Hopefully none of them are going to complain. At the bottom of the meals list someone has written, in a different handwriting, ‘BATCH COOKING IS YOUR FRIEND!!’

  The following page is about the internet and how to reset the router. Rachel pulls the phone from her back pocket and tries to connect to the bird observatory’s wifi, eventually finding the router in the cupboard and resetting it. Green lights come on. Her phone connects, and pings for a few minutes as emails and notifications come through. Mel, Lucy, Ian, various bits of spam. She puts the phone back in her pocket. It would be too easy to sit here and work through all that; she has things to do.

  There’s a weird smell in the bedrooms, and it takes a while to identify that it’s the mattresses, that smell of manmade fabric that has got damp and dried again very slowly. She opens the windows in each of the rooms, and the wind blasts in. Cold, salty, tangy – only marginally better. She goes back to the kitchen and begins a shopping list on the back of Craig’s note: Febreze. Some kind of air freshener. It would be hilarious if one of those ‘sea air’ scented candles turned up, she thinks, smelling nothing like the actual sea air, which in reality has heady notes of drying seaweed and fish.

  It is Rachel’s job to make the bird observatory a little more civilised. Those were the words Marion had used: make it look a bit more like an upmarket holiday let, and a bit less like a hostel. She had tried to sound enthusiastic on the phone; interior design is not really her thing. But it is Lucy’s, and the week before she came out here they spent a whole evening discussing fabrics and colours and ways to ‘zhoozh’ things up. Rachel has never really known what that means. Perhaps if she aims to make things look like Lucy’s house it will be a good start.

  In reality, though, she has limited tools to work with. And clearly a tiny budget, if there even is one at all. The bed linen is in one of the plastic crates, still in packets. There are the rest of the duvets and pillows too. It’s all cheap stuff, bulk-bought, the duvet covers and pillowcases a dull grey, all of them identical. Plain white fitted sheets, thread count not mentioned but certainly about as low as it gets. Two sets, one for each bed and one to be in the wash. She calculates how long it will take to wash and dry five sets of bedclothes. It’ll take at least three washes, probably four – and the washing machine in the generator shed is an ancient one with no ‘quick wash’ setting that she can fathom. Added to which, there is no dryer, and the weather is damp enough to make drying them in time highly unlikely. Not to mention the environmental cost of using all that water on sheets that are ostensibly clean.

  It strikes her for the first time – and probably not the last – that Marion has really not thought all this through.

  There’s so much to do, Rachel thinks. I don’t know if I can.

  She stands in the kitchen wondering whether it would cost the planet more to take the boat back to the mainland with all this gear and wash and dry everything in a launderette rather than doing it here. There are bales of towels, too, desperately in need of a first wash to make them at least slightly absorbent. In the end she shoves a load full of towels in the washing machine and sets it going. Adds ‘detergent etc’ to the shopping list because there is only one half-full box of washing powder and no fabric conditioner.

  There is an ancient wooden clothes horse in the generator shed, patches of mould on it that she can clean off. Once the towels are washed she will leave them on the clothes horse in the kitchen; hopefully they will dry overnight.

  She makes up all the beds with the brand-new bedding, which is frankly exhausting, and then takes a break. It’s half-past two, and she’s vaguely hungry, so she makes a cheese sandwich and sits to eat it. The sun is bright on the rug in the living room, and from every window she can see sea, sky and birds. It really is a birdwatcher’s paradise. In that isolated moment, she can see the appeal.

  The kitchen counters are loaded with the shopping. She opens the first cupboard and pulls out the ratty cardboard box. The bottom falls out of it and with it something from inside, something heavy, which explodes on the kitchen floor.

  Rachel shrieks and jumps back as clouds of flour envelop her.

  Bastard thing.

  Not only is it an old bag of flour, but when she eventually finds a dustpan and brush and begins to sweep up the mess she realises with a bolt of shock that it’s moving of its own accord. And she looks closer and sees the flour is crawling with insects.

  She squeaks again and shrinks back against the cupboards. The bag of flour has been chewed through at the bottom, and mixed in with the mess are what she thinks at first must be wild rice, small grains of black. When she looks closer, she realises it’s droppings. Mouse droppings?

  She scrambles to her feet. She doesn’t mind mice, or insects, particularly; she just doesn’t want them here, now, when she’s too tired to deal with this on top of everything else. When the first guests are arriving tomorrow and the place is filthy, and damp, and probably a health hazard.

  She is not going to cry. Rubs at her eyes, her face feeling gritty under her floury hands. The sudden realisation that the little insects are probably in her hair sends her into a sudden panic and she rushes for the bathroom, for the only mirror in the place, leaving floury footprints all through the main room and the corridor to the bedroom.

  Her shocked little face looks back at her, white and grubby and smeared with eye make-up and flour. There is flour in her hair but she can’t see anything moving; combs her fingers through it over the sink, shaking her head vigorously and muttering fuck this shit under her breath because it somehow helps, a little.

  Fuck this place, fuck this shit, fuck it all.

  She washes her hands, and her face, and as she stands straight again there is a shadow, suddenly, and then it’s gone again. She looks up at the frosted glass window. It was as if someone just walked past.

  But Fraser’s at the lighthouse, isn’t he?

  She holds her breath for a moment, her heart thumping, drying her hands on the back of her jeans – which are covered in flour. God, what a complete mess.

  It was just a cloud, she thinks. The sun going behind a cloud.

  But when she goes back into the main room it’s not sunny any more. In fact, through the main window she can see heavy, black clouds over the sea.

  She gets out her phone and sends a WhatsApp to Mel.

  A message comes back straight away.

  It’s always there, in the background. The panic. The fear. She can hear the voices in the back of her mind already: Why are you doing this? You’re doing it wrong. Nobody likes you.

  She pushes the voices back down, reaches for the dustpan and brush.

  All she has to do is get through this. She might not even need to be here very long – just until Julia can take over. You can live with anything for a few weeks, can’t you? Just a few weeks. One minute at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time. Every day will get easier.

  Won’t it?

  2

  The Bird Observatory

  Rachel

  Four positive things about today, Rachel thinks, vigorously wiping down the inside of the cupboard. There seems to be bird shit and various feathers inside, as though something tried to nest in here.

  Come on. You can do this.

  Number one. I didn’t throw up on the boat. That was definitely a win.

  Number two. I have clean sheets and a new duvet and my bed is already made, I can get straight in it when I get back to the lighthouse if I want to.

  Number three …

  She thinks for what seems an age, loses track, finds herself again in that dreamlike state where she’s been standing at the kitchen counter with a dishcloth in her hand, staring at the window for an unidentifiable period of time.

  Number three. The isl
and’s nice. It has cottages.

  She disallows that one. She can’t express an opinion on the island when she’s barely seen half of it, and, actually, is it nice? It’s rocky and bare and muddy. It would be nicer if it had a few trees, she thinks. Did it ever have trees? Were they all cut down by some ancient inhabitants? Wasn’t Scotland once all forests … or was that just the mainland? And as for the mythical cottages – she will have to reserve judgment on those until she’s seen them.

  Number three. I made it here and I can’t go back.

  She doesn’t even bother to think of number four. She has nobody here to answer to, after all. Three will do for now. She thinks of Mel telling her off. She will call Mel later, or perhaps just send another WhatsApp, or email. If she calls, she will end up getting emotional and that will be counterproductive for both of them.

  Not that Mel will care, or be surprised. It’s how they met, after all.

  Melanie Loakes, meet Rachel Long. Rachel, meet Mel. Norwich. Summer, two years ago. Tuesday morning. Twenty to eleven.

  Rachel is in the waiting room at the doctor’s surgery. Outside it’s raining, and Rachel is dressed in pyjama bottoms, a grey T-shirt that she’s been wearing for three days and four nights, a pink hoodie that used to belong to Lucy over the top of it. She only got out of bed three minutes before her appointment time, thinking she was going to just leave it, and then talking herself into going. It doesn’t matter that she’s late. The doctor is about an hour behind schedule. She has flicked through a magazine the way she flicks through TV channels, unable to commit. Now she is staring vacantly at the elderly woman directly opposite her, who is talking to another, younger woman.

  ‘Course I think marriage is a sacred thing, you know? A man and a woman. In a church.’

  Rachel hasn’t been listening but suddenly she is. Maybe it’s the way the younger woman is sitting, upright, staring ahead, her jaw set. She’s barely into her twenties, wearing a black denim jacket with a small rainbow pin on the lapel.

  Rachel glances around the waiting room and catches the eye of the only other occupant.

  There is a strange sort of kinship in that first glance. The unwashed hair, the way her knee is jumping, the bitten nails. But behind the dark eyes is a quiet fury, trained on the older woman who has carried on, oblivious to the silence around her.

  ‘You can’t just be marrying people of the same sex, ’tisn’t natural. Not what God intended for us, is it? And I know these people aren’t believers, but they still shouldn’t be ramming it down our throats. I mean, it’s everywhere now, isn’t it? It’s taking over. On the telly. I even saw an ad on the telly the other night – an advert! Of all things! Two women kissing, in a car!’

  Abruptly the dark-haired girl gets up and comes to sit next to Rachel. There is a brief, startled moment where they lock eyes. Rachel feels as if she’s being challenged. In normal circumstances she shrinks from challenges, but this feels different. She is torn between the desire to say something, to speak out, to tell the old woman that she’s homophobic and wrong, and panic at saying anything at all.

  But she’s not on her own any longer. Her new friend takes her hand, raises it to her lips and kisses it. Then both of them turn towards the old woman and stare. Rachel feels, bizarrely, triumphant.

  ‘Wonderful, I call it,’ the dark-haired girl says. ‘Love is love.’

  The girl opposite them blinks, wide-eyed, mouths something that might be thank you.

  ‘Well, really,’ the old lady says.

  The nurse comes. ‘Gemma Hoskins?’

  The rainbow pin girl gets up and follows her, and then it’s just the three of them. They are still holding hands, with the old lady across from them, looking everywhere except at them, lips furiously pursed.

  The dark-haired girl mutters, ‘Cat’s bum face,’ and Rachel loses it, properly loses it: laughs as she hasn’t laughed for what feels like years, airless, breathless, shoulders shaking, until she gets a stitch.

  The old woman is called in next. They listen to her walking stick tapping up the corridor. ‘I’m Mel,’ the dark-haired girl says, letting go of Rachel and holding out her hand instead for her to shake.

  It’s lunchtime when Rachel finally gets out of the surgery, clutching a prescription. She hasn’t quite decided if she’s going to take it to the pharmacy. Mel is waiting for her outside. They go for a coffee, as if they’re properly dressed and normal.

  Mel has been depressed all her life, off and on. At the moment she’s not too bad. She has been on tablets since she was seventeen.

  Rachel is experiencing this for the first time, officially. Her life has been a rollercoaster of highs and lows, but this is the first time she’s not been able to handle it, not been able to make herself feel better. She has been spending the days in bed, the nights with the TV on. She is about to be chucked out of the house share she’s in, which means she will have to go back and live with her parents, which is about the worst thing she can imagine, which is why she has finally dragged herself to the doctor’s.

  Three weeks after this first meeting, Rachel moves into Mel’s spare room.

  Five weeks after this meeting, Rachel gets a job temping at Evans Pharma.

  At that point, she is just four months away from the next big fuck-up.

  Rachel

  It’s a quarter-past four. This time tomorrow the boat will be on its way with the first lot of guests. The thought makes Rachel lurch into action again. She is going to have to be methodical about this. She works her way through the building, checking everything works: all the light switches, all the radiators, taps, plug sockets, curtains, cupboards and drawers. The light is out in the bathroom. There are no bulbs in the kitchen, or in the big storage cupboard by the front door which contains cleaning products, a mop and a bucket. She will have to ask Fraser; she adds it to her mental list.

  Finally she drags the vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard and cleans the entire place from top to bottom. Not a single cobweb in a corner, not a tiny mote of dust, not a speck of flour anywhere.

  After that she looks at her watch again. Five to five. She opens Mel’s email. Sent before the WhatsApp.

  Date: Friday 5 April 2019

  From: Melanie Loakes

  To: Rachel Long

  Subject: Well???

  Hey mate

  How are you doing? Did you make it okay? What’s the island like? What’s the lighthouse bloke like? I’m guessing ancient and bearded?

  Seriously babe I’m missing you already. I hope that sea air is better than anything you’ve breathed in your life. I hope that being on your own is good for you. I hope that you find your happiness again my darling, because you deserve it, you really do.

  Julia texted me earlier asking if you’d been in touch. Her mum’s gone in for the op today and she’s just hanging around waiting, getting herself into a state about everything. I think she’d be made up if you sent her an email if you get a spare minute. She’s really worried that you’re hating it already.

  Write back and tell me how you’re doing babes. I’m worried, and I’ll stay worried until I hear you’re okay.

  Peace out,

  Mel xx

  She’s here because of Mel, and Julia – all that had happened just a week ago. A week! It feels like a lifetime.

  Norwich city centre. The Birdcage, on Pottergate. Thursday. Late afternoon.

  Mel calls her out of the blue, asking if she’s free for a drink.

  Rachel is always free for a drink, unless she’s in bed, and even then she has been known to drag her hair into a plait and go out anyway, especially for Mel.

  Rachel has a horrible feeling that Mel’s going to tell her that she has decided to move in with Darius, her builder boyfriend. Meanwhile Rachel has been psyching herself up to asking Mel if she can move back into her spare room, the one she lived in last year for a while, before her most recent fuck-up. At the moment Rachel is living in one of Lucy and Ian’s rental properties free of charge. Hints have
been dropped and those hints are becoming more frequent and less subtle; she’s going to need to find somewhere else to live, and staying at Mel’s is just about the only thing she’d be able to cope with. Unless she’s giving up the house to move in with Darius. They’ve been together for over a year now.

  But it turns out their meeting is not about Mel’s relationship status at all. And Mel is about to change her life forever.

  ‘So,’ Mel says. ‘I had a brainwave.’

  ‘Oh?’ And Rachel thinks that she sounds a bit high. She’s nervy and breathless, and smiling, and her cheeks are flushed with it.

  ‘It’s the “you can do anything” thing. You know? Like we were saying, yesterday.’

  ‘You can,’ Rachel says. ‘Whatever you want.’

  ‘Not me,’ Mel says, leaning forward. ‘You. My friend called. Julia. You know, the ecologist?’

  Rachel looks blank.

  ‘She’s writing her thesis on lichens. She got a job working on this island off the coast of Scotland. Maybe I didn’t tell you? Anyway. She got this job, only something’s happened.’

  There is a pause and Rachel immediately thinks this Julia is probably pregnant. She can’t help herself. She has a nose for it. Pregnancy. Babies.

  ‘No, not that,’ Mel says, seeing Rachel’s face. ‘Her mum’s been on the waiting list for a kidney transplant forever, and they’ve found a match, a live donor, and Julia was holding off because there are so many blood tests you have to do, you know, there’s always a chance that it won’t go ahead … but anyway, it’s all systems go, and they’re hoping to do the operation on Friday. So Julia can’t start the new job because she needs to stay with her mum for the first few weeks or months or whatever after the operation. And the island people are having this massive crisis because they need someone quickly, like, next week, and they can’t recruit someone else because they really want to keep the job open for Julia and besides, they didn’t like any of the other candidates, or something. They need someone really flexible, temporary. And then I remembered what you said yesterday. About getting away.’