You, Me & the Sea

by Elizabeth Haynes

  The next morning Rachel is driven home by Cheryl and Louise. She pretends to sleep in the back of the car the whole way home. She listens to them talking about Amarjit, about what happened on Friday night. Cheryl says that he was just okay, she wouldn’t bother again. She says that his wife knows that he shags around, that she doesn’t care. Cheryl says, ‘You know that if they were happy with their wives they wouldn’t be fucking other women, would they?’ There is a long pause and then Louise asks if Amarjit said that and Cheryl does not reply.

  A while later Cheryl turns in her seat to check on her. Rachel’s eyes are closed. She has been dozing, but now she is fully awake. She listens while Cheryl and Louise talk about her quietly. They use words like unstable and unreliable. Louise says it’s a shame. Cheryl says that she feels sorry for her and everyone makes mistakes, don’t they?

  Rachel takes Monday as a sick day. She has a phone call from the HR manager asking her to come in at five p.m. on the Tuesday, to stay home until then. She sounds sympathetic on the phone. When she gets to the office her pass doesn’t work. She has to wait in reception to be called up to the sales director’s office. Carrie, the HR manager, collects her. Amarjit is in there, unsmiling, not meeting her eyes. Louise is in there too, Rachel isn’t sure why. She has had half a bottle of gin over the course of the day to prepare for this, and, as a result, afterwards her memories of it are patchy.

  She remembers breaking down in tears. She remembers them not moving, watching her from their chairs. She remembers Carrie saying it might be best to do this another time. Then herself shouting, screaming at Amarjit, begging him to stand up for her and knowing he won’t, he can’t, and then the fat security guard who’d always smiled at her coming to escort her from the building.

  In the end, once her temporary contract was terminated, there wasn’t much to it from Evans Pharma’s point of view. Someone emptied all the personal crap out of her desk and left it on Mel’s doorstep in a cardboard box. There was a note from Cheryl in there.

  Hope you’re ok babe. Call me if you feel up to it xx

  Meanwhile Amarjit had carried on as normal, and Rachel had fallen apart. It had taken three weeks before he emailed her from a Hotmail account, asking if she wanted to come over to the flat. He wanted to check she was okay. He wanted to show her he had no hard feelings. Rachel had not replied, and an hour and a half later he had turned up at her doorstep, drunkish, having driven there from Cambridge. She hadn’t wanted him to drive home again in case he had an accident. The sex wasn’t very good and she had hated herself afterwards, cried a lot. After that he had messaged her, emailed her, almost every day.

  She hadn’t replied to any of them, and eventually he’d given up.

  She had felt as if her world was ending. She had genuinely thought that she would never get over the humiliation of it.

  And then the conversation with her sister, with Lucy, had happened when she was at her lowest moment, and she had lurched off into another, completely different disaster.

  The best that could be said about it was that it had taken her mind off Amarjit. It had taken away the sting of the humiliation.

  For a while, at least.

  Fraser

  Thursday.

  Fraser manages to avoid Rachel for most of the day. He comes back to the lighthouse at two, having seen her heading for the bird observatory an hour earlier, but unexpectedly she’s sitting in the kitchen.

  ‘Oh, hey,’ she says brightly, looking at her laptop.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Sixty views. I’m writing another one.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Lefty with you?’

  Why she’s so fucking concerned with Lefty, he has no idea.

  ‘He’s up at the north end. Strimming the path.’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  ‘You want a sandwich?’

  She’s eaten already so he makes himself one, eats it leaning back against the sink, watching her as she types, moves the mouse, clicks.

  ‘What have you been up to this morning?’ she asks, without looking up.

  ‘Counting shorebirds.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ She’s not really listening. ‘You going back out?’

  ‘Aye, in a minute.’

  He finishes eating. Thinks about making a coffee, about sitting down opposite her. Or not sitting down at all. Maybe he could just walk over there and stand next to her and she might stand up and while he’s thinking this he says, ‘Want to come? It’s sunny out there now. Get more pictures for your blog, or whatever.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Her face breaks into a huge smile and it cuts through him like a blade, the relief in it. He’s not exactly in the mood for company, he never is, but her sudden enthusiasm for a walk to the beach with him lifts his spirits.

  Ten minutes later they’re on the jetty, and she hasn’t stopped talking, and he’s on the verge of changing his mind and suggesting they go back. But then she’s here, next to him, and something about that is making him feel good.

  ‘What’s that one?’ she asks, in a hushed whisper that’s still pretty loud.

  ‘That’s a turnstone.’

  ‘But it looks different from the other one.’

  ‘That’s because it’s getting summer plumage,’ he says. ‘They’re greyer in the winter.’

  ‘I know how they feel.’

  Yet again he has passed her his binoculars, and he’s watching her with some amusement as she struggles to focus on this bird and that bird. He could do this job in half the time on his own, and if he had to do this all the time no doubt it would be frustrating, but for now he’s managing. Actually, it’s almost entertaining: perhaps because the sun is shining and the water is calm, and on this side of the island, sheltered from the prevailing wind, it feels warm. He can smell summer.

  ‘B408,’ she says.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘That one. The grey thing.’

  ‘The turnstone?’

  ‘The first one, the one you said wasn’t summer plumage.’

  He notes it down. Actually he recognises that bird anyway: it has a slight twist to its bill where it had some long-healed injury. It’s been here every year for the past three years.

  ‘And this one is rare?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Common?’ She looks round at him in surprise. ‘But it looks really weird. I’ve never seen one.’

  ‘It’s common around the coast. Worldwide, in fact. Slightly different variations on the species, I guess. But it’s not threatened.’

  ‘Why are you counting it, if it’s common?’

  ‘I count bloody everything, along with everyone else. That’s how we know if they become threatened.’

  ‘B442,’ she says, back at the binoculars. ‘That one that’s brownish. It’s got the same bill.’

  ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘Hello again, B442.’

  ‘You know that one?’

  ‘I ringed it, last year.’

  ‘So it lives here?’

  ‘It’s been to the north of Finland since I ringed it. And it’s been here all winter, and now it’s just about to head back to Finland, I expect.’

  ‘How do you know it’s been to Finland?’

  ‘Because it was spotted on a nature reserve by someone like you with a pair of binoculars, who looked up the number and reported back.’

  There is a pause. From here he can see, even without binoculars, several knots and a few purple sandpipers as well as at least fifteen turnstones in various states of plumage. He could probably rattle off the ring numbers of at least half of them. But let her have her fun.

  ‘I could write a blog about B442,’ she says.

  ‘Aye, that would be a nice one.’

  She hands him the binoculars. ‘I’ll try and get a picture.’

  She skips down on to the beach, crouches, points her phone and swipes with two fingers to zoom in, frames the shot, takes several. He watches B442 doing its thing, sta
lking the shoreline in the sunshine, looking for crabs and molluscs, nudging at pebbles with its beak.

  ‘Does it have chicks here?’ she asks, looking back at him.

  ‘They’ll breed after migration,’ he says. ‘Probably in Finland, this lot. Some of them go south to the Antarctic, but from here they usually go to northern Europe, as far as Russia, sometimes.’

  ‘Does it just lay one egg?’

  ‘Up to five. That’s why it’s not threatened. It’s usually the ones that only manage one egg that are struggling.’

  She comes to stand next to him. ‘What do you think?’

  She holds her phone out to him and shows him the pictures she’s just taken, swiping between them. He looks and can’t see properly, because the bright sky is reflecting off the screen.

  ‘You do it,’ she says, handing over her phone. ‘There’s other ones I took this morning.’

  She goes back to the beach and peels a carrier bag out of the wet sand, regarding it with a wrinkled nose as he swipes inexpertly between what feels like three hundred identical pictures of various sea- and shorebirds. Some of the pictures look okay; some of them the bird has turned away and all she’s got is its snooty wee backside.

  He looks up from the screen for a moment to see her walking the tide mark, picking up scraps of plastic.

  ‘Look at this!’ she calls. ‘Another bloody toothbrush. How do they end up here, for God’s sake?’

  Fraser scrolls on. She has captured a nice shot of a fulmar in flight, a shaft of sunlight catching it, looking apparently straight at her camera. Some more fulmars, on the cliff, already on their nests. Two razorbills, displaying.

  He flicks through. More razorbills. A couple of guillemots. Herring gulls, hanging in the air, barely visible against the roiling waves below them. Then, suddenly, after all the birds and sea and sky, he’s got to a picture of two women. He’s gone too far.

  The breath catches in his throat. He doesn’t want to see, but it’s too late. He’s taken in everything, all at once. It’s a picture of Rachel and another woman, whose outstretched arm indicates that she’s taking the photo. There is enough of a similarity in their faces for him to realise they must be related, although the other woman is dark-haired, shorter, curvy – they have the same eyes, the same smile. Rachel is wearing a short blue dress and leggings, and she looks pale, and thinner.

  Apart from the round bump swelling the front of her dress.

  He has not much idea about pregnancy, has never been around a pregnant woman apart from Kelly and that was only briefly, and seven years ago. But even he knows that there’s no doubting it – this isn’t just a wee bump.

  Fraser looks up. She is away at the other end of the beach, the carrier bag hanging from a finger, now heavy with items she’s picked up. Her back to him, hips swaying, she’s absorbed in it, looking into the sand.

  He swipes left, again, and then there’s the next picture and there’s no doubt at all.

  Rachel, eyes bright, ghost-pale, tendrils of hair sticking to her forehead, looking up at the camera. Bare shoulders, light freckles on the creamy skin. On her chest is a wee scrap of pink baby, nestling in towels.

  And he looks up at her again, and thinks, where’s her baby? And his breath catches in his throat. Because she’s here, and her baby isn’t – so something has happened.

  Something terrible.

  7

  Emily

  Rachel

  Rachel is cleaning the kitchen in the bird observatory when she hears the door go.

  She knows, without looking, that it’s Lefty.

  ‘You want a squash?’ she asks, but she has already got the pint glass out of the cupboard and is pouring thick blackcurrant cordial into the bottom of it.

  ‘Aye, ta.’

  It’s sunny outside, almost warm, and Lefty has been doing his usual Friday afternoon task of gathering driftwood for the woodburner. They are all settling into a routine now, Rachel included.

  It’s been five weeks. She has seen five lots of birdwatchers come and go; the latest group left an hour ago. They were nice. In fact, the groups of birdwatchers have all been very different – the rude ones at the start were the worst of all, and ever since then she has had friendlier ones, some who’ve tidied up after themselves and invited her to eat with them (which she declines), or offered her a beer while she’s cooking (which she usually gratefully accepts). The second week there were four of them, then there was a full house including two married couples and two teenage girls. The couples were Dec and Susie, and Cristina and Enrique; the first time she’d seen women since leaving the mainland. The fourth week it was just three older men, who barely spoke. The most recent lot, the ones she saw off today, were a family group of three lads ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-one, plus their dad. The dad had been a bit flirty. Not unpleasantly so. Bizarrely, it had made Fraser twitchy.

  Anyway – this lot have even managed to strip the beds and wash up their breakfast dishes, so she has raced through the cleaning in record time. The washing machine is rumbling away in the outbuilding and sunlight is flooding the main room.

  Yesterday there was an email from Julia.

  Hey Rachel!

  How’s the island? I’ve been keeping track of the weather up there and it seems like you’ve had a good spell, I hope it continues! I’ve been really enjoying the blog and all the pictures you’ve posted. I hope I can keep it up to your standards when I get there and not lose too many followers.

  My mum is doing well, we had a check-up yesterday and her kidney is functioning brilliantly. You know she was so much better from the minute she came round from the op, it was just amazing to see. She had been so poorly for so long. It’s just a case of waiting to see how she recovers from the operation itself – she had a little infection last week which has set things back a bit, but she’s getting over that. As soon as she can get about more easily I should be good to go. She’s not allowed to drive yet but she has friends locally who will take her out, get shopping etc. I think if I wasn’t going so far away, to a place that’s so cut off, I could probably come sooner – but I don’t want to leave her and then have to come back again. I hope you understand.

  I must admit I’m quite looking forward to getting away – all that fresh air! Although it must be a real shock to the system when you first start. I don’t think I’ve said this to you but I am SO SO grateful for you taking the job on temporarily and at such short notice. It feels like I’ll get there with you having done all the hard work to start things off – I don’t want you to think I’m not really appreciative of that.

  Anyway – hopefully I might get to meet you at some sort of handover point and I can thank you properly. I’ll keep you updated so at least you have a bit of warning as to when I’ll be able to start.

  Best wishes,

  Julia xx

  Rachel had noticed it wasn’t copied to Fraser or Marion, which might have been an oversight, although it feels a bit more personal than the previous emails she’s seen. She had given little thought to Julia, other than as an abstract person who’s going to come here and take over, but when she read the email she realised that coming from a situation as stressful as caring for her mum following a life-changing operation might be actually quite difficult for her.

  A real shock to the system when you first start.

  Rachel had almost forgotten what it was like, but it was only five weeks ago. She recalled that constant, low-level panic she had felt about getting things wrong. The wind and the rain and the mud and the birds, the sense of being a million miles away from everything she knew and understood. It makes her realise how far she’s come. She noticed something else, too – the fact that Julia was expressing gratitude for her taking on the job temporarily, as if maybe she was worried about feet being under the table and Rachel being reluctant to leave.

  She had sent an immediate, cheerful, reassuring reply. Everything on the island is fine, the sun’s shining, don’t worry about it, it’s not
hing.

  So much else she could have said, but didn’t. Watch out for the grumpy bastard you’re going to be living with. By the way, there’s a semi-feral fugitive on the island, you’ll feel a bit better when you get to know him, he’s really not that bad. Fraser has a massive knife hidden somewhere but I’ve stopped worrying about that. Here’s a recipe for chicken curry, they all seem to like it. Get yourself a proper jacket.

  I like it here but I’m not staying.

  Lefty finishes stacking the driftwood in the wood store next to the burner, perches at the breakfast bar on one of the two bar stools, takes the pint glass and gulps the squash down. He fishes in his pocket and finds something, slaps it on to the kitchen counter and slides it, under his palm, across to her.

  She meets his eyes.

  This is the new Lefty. The one who brings her presents. They are, in a manner of speaking, friends. He watches for her reaction, his hand still firmly over whatever it is.

  ‘What have you brought me?’ she asks.

  He grins. ‘Close your eyes.’

  Here we go, she thinks, but she obliges him.

  ‘Right, now you can open them.’

  He’s found her a good one today, dark green, perfectly smooth, an almost-triangle, large enough for the curve of the bottle it came from to still be evident. She picks it up and turns it over in her hands, assessing it. The curve of it hugs her middle finger. European lager, she thinks. Maybe a Stella. Judging by the gentle slope, more probably a Kronenbourg.

  ‘Wow,’ she says. ‘That’s nice. Has a nice feel to it.’