You, Me & the Sea

by Elizabeth Haynes

  ‘Up you get,’ he says, offering a hand.

  Lefty looks up at the hand and ignores it, struggling to his feet. He tries to lift the shovel.

  ‘I’ve got it. You get yourself back to the lighthouse.’

  They walk back at the same time but not together. Fraser pushes the wheelbarrow with the tools in it, rattling over the bumps. Lefty is walking like a Glasgow drunk, sometimes veering to the side, leaning back, but somehow always remaining upright.

  At least he’s in no fit state to talk to Rachel, if she’s there. Fraser will tell him to get in the shower and then he will probably have a sandwich and get on his bed and fall asleep for a few hours. Then he’ll get up around dinnertime and Fraser might offer him dinner and he will refuse, will instead make himself something involving chips, and will eat it in his room. Then he’ll watch TV or play some stupid war game into the early hours. And tomorrow everything will start again.

  This has been their life for the past year.

  Rachel

  Rachel is back in the kitchen with her laptop open in front of her. She has been staring at her email inbox for the past ten minutes and her eyes have stopped focusing on Lucy’s latest email. Her intention had been to write to Marion, but now she’s here she can’t think of the words.

  There was something overwhelmingly awful about the cottages. It wasn’t just the condition of them, the damp and the smell of rotting wood and mould, the graffiti, the stale, cold air inside. It was the way the atmosphere had changed as they had gone down the hill, the fresh breeze becoming a rank chilliness, as if the ravine were a pit in which a miasma had settled. It felt like a trap, despite the rocky path that curved away, presumably towards the jetty. And the loch – that dark, still water in which nothing reflected but the black granite walls – it was horrible.

  She had thought it was her. That she’d brought it with her, carried it down the hill getting heavier with each step, her shame and humiliation and self-loathing; but it wasn’t her at all. Whatever it was, it had been waiting for her down there. When they came back up the hill, Fraser following, she could feel it draining away again with every step. She had been so pleased to be out of there that she had almost run up the hill, steep as it was.

  I can’t stay down there, she thinks.

  Aside from the fact that the cottages are derelict, there’s no way she would stay in them even if they were renovated. She can’t imagine how Marion will ever be able to market them as holiday cottages, given that there is no view of the sea, not to mention the hazard of that slippery slope, the danger posed by the loch.

  She closes her laptop. If Marion asks, she will give her honest opinion. But this isn’t her job; she is just here to take care of things until Julia can take over. Really it’s none of her business.

  In any case, she has to make the best of things. She is stuck here with Fraser and Lefty. She has been here for two nights. So far she hasn’t been murdered, or assaulted, or threatened. If they were going to do any of those things, probably there would have been some sign of it by now. The presence of a knife, general grumpiness and odd behaviour are not sufficient grounds for bailing out and running back to Norwich, are they?

  She is just going to have to stick at it.

  At four she heads out to the bird observatory. Ahead of her on the path she meets a curious procession: Lefty, trudging vaguely, head down so that he barely sees her and she has to stand aside; and then, when he catches sight of her out of the corner of his eye, he startles comically, staggers a bit.

  ‘You okay?’ she asks, alarmed, but he ignores her and carries on.

  A few paces behind him is Fraser, pushing a barrow, shaking his head.

  ‘What’s up with him?’ she asks him.

  ‘Overdone it a bit.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  He keeps walking without a further word. She watches him go.

  The birdwatchers should all still be out there somewhere, doing counting or ringing or taking photos with their long-lens cameras, or whatever it is they do each day.

  She takes the load of bedlinen that she washed yesterday out of the dryer, folds it, and takes it inside to put in the airing cupboard. By the time changeover day comes around she will have washed and dried a complete set of linen, so that the next load of happy campers can have fresh sheets instead of starchy ones straight out of the packet.

  The kitchen is a complete state.

  She stands in the doorway, folded bedclothes in her arms, and looks with horror at the mess. There are plates and cups all over the table, crumbs and bits of toast on the floor, a spoon with what looks like jam on it on the rug. There is mud on the rug, and footprints all the way through to the bedroom where someone has casually forgotten to take their boots off. The sink is piled high with dishes, and a pan which might, this morning, have been used to make porridge has been left on the hot stove to form a gluey baked-on crust. There are eggshells in a pile, egg white trailed all over the work surface, crumbs, jam, spilled tomato soup in blobs all over the top of the hob, mingled with splattered bacon grease. The kitchen bin is overflowing, a juice carton left on the floor next to it, on its side, orange juice leaking from it.

  If someone told her that it had been a week since she was last in here, she would not be surprised.

  Shock gives way to dismay which leads to pain, and tiredness, and horror at it. She has no choice – she will have to clean it all. She can’t start cooking anyway, can she? Most of the pans have been used.

  She takes the sheets through to the airing cupboard and glances in at the bedrooms on the way. They are similarly bad: duvets on the floor, muddy footprints. One of them – the double – is surprisingly neat and she wonders which of them is sleeping in there, and how on earth the rest of them manage to exist as fully grown adult males when they’re out in the normal world.

  The bathroom is a mess too. One of the taps has been left dripping, wasting the precious water from the well. She will have to do a dip to make sure there is enough – if they have to ration showers the birdwatchers might complain. The towels – the ones she went to the effort of washing and drying – have been left in piles on the wet floor. She picks them up and takes them straight out to the washing machine, loads it and turns it on, two minutes later thinking that actually she should just have stuck them in the dryer and not bothered to wash them again.

  Clearing up the kitchen and the main room takes three-quarters of an hour, time she had planned to spend cooking and then getting the hell out of there. While she is putting the vacuum away in the storage cupboard, she hears the door opening and three of them pour in. Her mind has gone blank: the tall one? Roger? She is too distracted, too upset. The one with the beard walks straight through the lounge and sits on the sofa to unlace his boots. Fresh mud marks the floor she has just cleaned.

  ‘Ah, it’s you,’ Roger says. ‘What’s cooking?’

  Had the greeting been different, she might not have said anything. If it had been nice. If he had apparently remembered her name.

  ‘Nothing, yet,’ she says tartly. ‘I’ve just spent the last half-hour clearing up.’

  ‘She’s talking to you, Eugene,’ Roger says.

  Eugene looks up from the sofa and actually rolls his eyes.

  ‘Would it be possible to take your boots off by the door?’ she asks politely, using the dustpan and brush to get the mud off.

  The young one, who hasn’t spoken to her at all yet, loiters by the door looking alarmed.

  Eugene gives a dramatic sigh and carries his boots over to where the others have left them. He is a grown man, she thinks, possibly in his fifties, and he’s behaving like a toddler. Roger heads for the bedrooms and Eugene returns to the sofa, where he’s joined by the younger one.

  Rachel starts on dinner.

  A few minutes later the door opens again and the remaining two come in. Before they’re over the threshold Roger says, ‘Boots off, boys. We’ve been told off.’

  Hugh and Steve – she remembers
their names all right – come in, sans boots, looking from Eugene to her as if they’ve missed something interesting. She smiles at them, not wishing to make everything worse, and goes back to peeling potatoes. Eugene says, pointedly, ‘Remind me what it is we’re paying for again?’

  Something is muttered in reply, but she can’t hear it. Someone laughs.

  Rachel bites her tongue, holds her breath, tries hard to keep calm. But her hands are shaking. She hates confrontation, hates herself for being so pathetic, wishes she could stand up for herself. Are they all like this? she wonders. Would it be better if they had regular holidaymakers, couples, and families? Then she would just clean at changeover, wouldn’t have to see them every day. Somehow this sounds more appealing. But, for now, she’s stuck with this lot.

  ‘Isn’t the food ready?’ Hugh says, to nobody in particular. ‘I thought we were supposed to eat at six. We could have stayed out.’

  Fraser

  Rachel is late getting back from the bird observatory. He’s almost at the point of going to look for her on the quad, wondering if she’s actually expecting a lift and whether she’s waiting for him there; and then he starts thinking about whether she has her torch, or if she’s wandering about outside in the dark, getting too close to the cliff edge.

  And then he hears the door, and a few moments later she’s in the kitchen with him. Socked feet, pink cheeks, eyes too bright.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.

  ‘Nothing. I’m okay.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you fell over again,’ he says, stirring the gravy. Proper gravy, made with the meat juices in the roasting pan.

  ‘That lot,’ she says. ‘They’re a complete load of arseholes. Sorry.’

  He smirks at the novelty of her swearing and at her apologising for it. ‘What did they do?’

  She bites her lip at him, as if she’s still not sure whether she can trust him with her opinions of things. He takes the plates over. Roast beef, rump, done pink. Yorkshire puds like mountains. Carrots, parsnips, peas from the veg patch last year, frozen, but tastier than shop ones.

  ‘God,’ she says. ‘You did a roast.’

  He watches her eat. She’s picking at it, though, her head down. Something’s wrong with it. Maybe she likes meat well done? Some people are really fussy about that kind of thing. Then she comes to a complete stop, lowers her knife and fork.

  ‘Something wrong?’ he asks, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. He’s been cooking for hours. He’s given up most of his Sunday afternoon.

  ‘No. I’m just a bit … you know.’

  ‘What the fuck did they say to you?’

  She looks up. He can see her pale face and the pink spots under her eyes.

  ‘It’s not that. It’s Sunday, isn’t it? You did a roast. I should have done them a roast. That’s probably why—’

  ‘Did you have a joint of meat in your provisions?’

  She frowns. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I don’t think so either. So, nobody’s expecting you to do a roast. Especially not on your first bloody weekend. So that’s not it, is it? What’s really wrong?’

  ‘The place was a complete mess,’ she says miserably. ‘Crap everywhere. Towels on the floor. Taps not turned off properly. Dirty plates and crumbs and piles of washing-up.’

  ‘Is that right?’ he says, concentrating.

  ‘Mud all over the floor. And then they came back when I was still cleaning up after them, and they were just—’ She searches for the right word, looking off towards Bess, who’s sitting in her bed, head on paws, listening to every word. ‘Rude,’ she says. ‘Just really rude.’

  ‘Did you tell them off?’

  ‘No! Of course not. I asked one of them politely to take his boots off by the door, and he muttered something about what are they paying us for? They were laughing, and not in a nice way. I thought it was rude.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I just got on with their bloody bangers and mash.’

  He watches her, chewing. Then adds, ‘Did you spit in it?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  He laughs at her.

  ‘No, of course I didn’t,’ she adds.

  Now she’s looking at him, right at him. He thinks she looks … brittle. ‘This food is amazing,’ she says. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Nae trouble.’

  ‘When I get the next load of shopping, I’ll ask them to get us a couple of nice bottles of wine.’

  ‘Aye,’ he says. ‘I don’t bother usually. Too easy to drink the whole thing.’

  ‘We can keep an eye on each other’s drinking,’ she says, then stops, as if she’s worried that she’s said the wrong thing.

  ‘Do you need me to have a word with them?’ he asks, calmly.

  ‘No!’ she says sharply, clattering her fork down. ‘Can you imagine? They’d think that was hilarious.’

  ‘I can assure you they wouldn’t.’

  She sniffs and picks up her fork again. ‘Well, maybe, but they certainly wouldn’t have any respect at all for me after that, would they?’

  ‘They’ll be gone on Friday,’ he says. ‘You won’t have to see them again.’

  ‘Please tell me all birders aren’t like that.’

  ‘Mostly they’re fine.’

  ‘Shit.’

  Fraser finds all this amusing, although he does feel a bit sorry for her.

  ‘And you can stop laughing, it’s not funny.’

  He raises his eyes to her and knits his brows in a frown. He’s not used to being challenged, not in his kitchen, not by a wee ginger who’s barely unpacked. He expects her to see his face and back down – most people do. He only has to look at people and they realise that he’s not someone to mess with.

  To his surprise, her stormy face breaks into a wide smile. ‘Okay. Maybe it is. A bit funny, at least. I shouldn’t be saying this, it’s unprofessional.’

  ‘You know I don’t actually have any contact with Marion or any of them,’ he says. ‘I only speak to them at the Trust when I actually have to.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says. And then a little pause before she adds, ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘Who, Marion? Have you not met her?’

  ‘No. She interviewed me over the phone.’

  ‘Ah, well, you’ve a treat in store, then.’

  ‘I might never meet her – I mean, Julia will take over and I’ll just go back, I guess.’

  There is another little pause. He’s going to say it, then he stops himself, because it’s not something he has ever said before, never even thought it, never mind said it. And then he thinks, fuck it.

  ‘You can talk to me about anything,’ he says. Casual as fuck. ‘Not like there’s anyone I can tell, in any case.’

  Rachel looks at him, not in the least bit startled. It’s something women say to each other all the time, of course, isn’t it? Inviting confidences. Waiting for gossip.

  She has finished eating, leans back in her chair.

  ‘What about Lefty?’ she asks.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘You could tell him. If I told you anything, I mean.’

  ‘You can see for yourself,’ he says, pointing his knife in the direction of the door, ‘we don’t exactly talk.’

  ‘And Robert?’

  ‘I only see him for five minutes twice a week. Usually got more important things to discuss.’

  ‘He’s a friend, though?’

  ‘He’s about the closest thing I’ve got to a friend, aye. I guess he is.’

  ‘What about on the mainland?’

  He gets up, goes to the cupboard, retrieves the bottle of whisky and the two glasses. Uncorks it – this is a proper whisky with a cork; none of that screw-top rubbish here. He thinks about buying two or three bottles of the same stuff. Thinks about answering her question. Thinks about what she’s really asking.

  ‘Why do you think I’m out here?’

  ‘I don’t know. Don’t you like people?’

  ‘Not really.’r />
  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Are you interrogating me?’ he asks, looking at her over the rim of his glass, one eyebrow raised. He can feel the warmth of the fiery liquid sinking down to meet the rising fire from his belly.

  ‘You’re the one who said I could tell you anything.’

  ‘Tell me anything. Tell. You seem to be asking.’

  ‘Well – same thing.’

  ‘Not the same thing at all.’

  ‘So I can tell you anything, but not ask anything?’

  He shrugs, the first two mouthfuls of the whisky making him care just a tiny bit less.

  She finishes off her glass. ‘How about I tell you things, and you tell me things. Like a conversation, you know. You ask me something, I’ll ask you something.’

  ‘You’re assuming that I actually want a conversation.’ He’s getting antsy about it now. He wants to get up and walk away but he’s made the mistake of bringing out the whisky – in essence it was to give himself something to do, to give himself time to think – but now that it’s here, between them, the suggestion is that he wants to sit and talk to her. As he did last night.

  ‘I’m not much good at chit-chat,’ he says. An attempt to shut her down.

  She watches him, half-smiling, then the smile slips and her eyes drop to the table. ‘Fine, whatever. Whatever you like.’

  She pushes her seat back and stands, collecting his plate and hers and taking them both to the sink. He listens to the activity behind him, running water, the clanking of cutlery and crockery, while he rolls the base of his glass on the table in slow circles, the light running through the last of his drink and making kaleidoscope patterns on the pale wood. After three minutes he can’t stand it any more, swills the last of his drink down, grimacing at the bite of it, and goes to help. He takes up the tea towel and starts to dry the dishes, putting them away.

  ‘You can have one more question,’ he says, ‘and then I’m done.’