You, Me & the Sea

by Elizabeth Haynes

  He is a dead weight but he is not dead.

  Fraser shouts at him and yells and looks into the chalk-white, wet face, the dark tattoos like Sharpie on white paper, the shaved scalp dripping. He tries to get him to stand. The eyes flicker but do not open. Fraser roars at him in frustration, swears, calls him names that will stick.

  Eventually he bends and hauls the body over his shoulder, stands, staggers, looks up at the hill and begins the ascent.

  He doesn’t remember the climb. He doesn’t remember stopping or resting because he probably doesn’t stop once. He doesn’t remember slipping, losing his footing as the wind gusts and swirls. He doesn’t remember the pain of carrying an adult male on his shoulder up a slope that he struggles with on a warm, still day in summer. He just remembers the body sliding from his shoulder to the floor of the lighthouse kitchen, the numb shaking of his hands as he peels off his waterproofs and leaves them where they fall. He remembers fetching towels and heating soup and stripping off the boy’s clothes – designer jeans that he’s probably stolen from somewhere and a T-shirt from a supermarket, no underwear – his skinny tattooed body horribly like a child’s, bones visible through white skin, ribs and hips and shoulderblades, a weird little distended belly and old scars that he doesn’t want to know about, livid red marks on his chest and his back and arms that even now he can see, burned on his memory. Small circular dots on his back, bright red, as if someone’s dabbed him with a bingo marker. Huge bruises on his back and side, yellowing, as if someone gave him a bad kicking several days ago. Seems like he’s not the only person who wants the little shite dead.

  He finds a T-shirt and a hoodie and a pair of joggers that only just stay up, two pairs of thick socks, dresses him like a doll. Now the boy has started shaking, fear or cold, one or the other. Shaking too hard to be able to speak. Eyes wide. Can’t hold the cup of soup so Fraser gives him water, holds it to his mouth and he spills it everywhere but takes a bit at a time.

  This is all wrong, all wrong. He should have left him. What’s he supposed to do with him now?

  He knows he should have called the coastguard. The logical course of events would be that they would have sent the all-weather lifeboat. With great difficulty, expense and risk to life they would have stretchered him off and taken him to hospital, and he would have been fine, and maybe Fraser would have never seen him again.

  But Fraser did not call the coastguard. It would have put lives at risk in rough seas, with no guarantee that the lifeboat’s RIB would have been able to get to the jetty. In the pit of his belly the whole time was a raging fury that this idiot who had already caused such immeasurable damage might potentially end up being responsible for good people putting themselves in danger, and he was not going to let that happen. Let the fucker die; it was his own fault. And, besides that, he’d turned up here and made Fraser responsible for him, and the wee shite had now ruined his life all over again. Although he has a chance to do something about that. He has the object of his hatred here in his kitchen, barely alive, at his mercy. It’s entirely his decision what he does next.

  The lad sitting in his kitchen, eyes now wide and then closing slowly as though he’s too exhausted to keep them open, shaking as if he’s having some sort of fit. He wants to punch him in the face over and over again until he’s a bloody mess.

  Instead he makes toast.

  That’s devoured so quickly the lad chokes on it. And then eventually he manages soup, and more toast with cheese on it, and he says, ‘Got ketchup?’

  Fraser makes up a bed on the sofa where he can keep an eye on him, check he’s still breathing, although he still thinks it would be so much better and easier if he weren’t. He’s past the point of caring what happens to him – he almost relishes the idea of being interviewed by the police. Yes, officer. I killed him. I’m glad I did it. I’d do it again.

  But he doesn’t kill him. Instead he checks on him every twenty minutes. Makes him more toast and soup and then, later on, a full dinner of shepherd’s pie with fresh vegetables and gravy. And fucking ketchup.

  He wants to kill him. But what he does instead is keep him alive.

  Rachel

  Rachel makes her cheese scones and a coffee and walnut loaf cake, and cleans the kitchen. She takes the cake and half of the scones down to the bird observatory for tomorrow and checks that everything is still spotless. Later she writes a half-hearted blog entry about the weather, and deletes it again. She emails Lucy and Mel. Lefty stays in his room playing loud music.

  At a little after six Fraser comes through the door. He pulls off his boots and his jacket wearily and carefully.

  ‘You okay?’ she asks.

  ‘I need a shower.’ He walks past her, doesn’t even look.

  Half an hour later he comes downstairs again, starts getting things out of cupboards, as if she isn’t there.

  ‘Anything I can do to help?’

  ‘I’ve got it,’ he says.

  She watches him for a while, and then something about the way he is holding himself, the hardness of his back turned towards her – she wants to put her hand there, the small of his back. Imagines it. Pictures herself doing it.

  She’s on her feet and there, next to him, and it’s only later that she thinks really this was probably quite stupid given that he was holding a kitchen knife at the time. He might have reacted suddenly. He might have turned, with the knife, not realising she was there, and caught her with it. He might have pushed her away, hard. He might not even have moved.

  This is what happens.

  Rachel finds herself next to him. Her hand on his back. She can feel the tension in him, all his muscles hard. She moves her hand a little bit higher, leans into him, rests her forehead very gently against his bicep.

  The knife clatters into the sink.

  ‘I wanted to kiss you back,’ he says. ‘That night. When we were talking about Maggie.’

  She can’t say anything, at first. Why he has brought this up now, after all this time?

  Then, ‘Well, why didn’t you?’

  ‘Took me by surprise, is all.’

  He turns towards her and she catches sight of his right hand. The knuckles are swollen, red, a cut across the middle one. She takes a sharp breath in and reaches for his hand just as he pulls it away, goes back to the chopping board.

  ‘What have you done?’ she asks.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he says.

  He hasn’t punched Lefty, and there are no birders here he could have got into a fight with, even supposing he would do something like that. And his hands were fine earlier. So down there, in the cottages, probably, in the intervening hours, he has punched a door or a wall hard enough to break the skin.

  He’s not going to let her look; there’s no point in her asking, or making a fuss. Instead she goes to the freezer and finds a half-full bag of sweetcorn, wraps it in a clean tea towel. She doesn’t ask. She just stands really close to him until he goes still. Takes his hand gently, places the makeshift ice pack against it. Holds his hand in both of hers. He lets her do it, although she feels him wince.

  ‘You might have broken something,’ she says, very quietly, looking sadly at the tea towel. It has a selection of lifeboats on it. She thinks there is one the same in her parents’ kitchen.

  She feels the fingers of his left hand skimming her cheek. She doesn’t want to look up because she thinks she might cry if she sees his eyes. Doesn’t want him to see that.

  ‘Can I kiss you now?’ he asks.

  ‘Will it make you feel better?’

  ‘Worth a try.’

  Fraser

  Later he asks her if she will spend the night with him. He wants to be clear, because he knows he has behaved badly today. She has every right to be scared of him, the way he spoke to her at the cottages, the way he came back in with his hand in a mess. Like a teenager, with too much emotion and not enough self-control.

  In answer to him she says, ‘Of course,’ although to his mind there is no ‘of course�
� about it. Every time they do this it’s as though she’s giving him a gift. He can’t get used to it. He can’t take any of this for granted.

  In the darkness of his bedroom she holds his hand and kisses it gently, although he would prefer it if she just left it the hell alone. He doesn’t want to be reminded.

  Down there in the ravine, the dank air had seemed poisoned, making him feel worse and worse. He’d sorted the wall out quick enough and moved the bedstead, and then he’d noticed that the floor had scrape marks through the algae, showing that it had been moved – so he had scuffed at the ground with the soles of his boots, and the longer he’d spent in there the less it had looked unoccupied for decades and the more it’d looked as if someone had been in here fucking about with things for no apparent reason, and in his head he was going round and round with the conversations he’d inevitably be having with Marion tomorrow. With what he’d say if Lefty put in an appearance. With what Robert might say to her on the way over.

  That place is bad for him, the cottages: the air seethes with it, making his thoughts spiral into paranoia and self-loathing.

  The feel of her soft warmth under his hands brings him back to the present, her kisses getting harder and fiercer and he wants to be gentle, needs to be, fears hurting her if he loses control and he feels as if that might actually happen tonight. Everything he has felt today is still there, just under the surface, all the pain of what he’s done and what he’s failed to do.

  it’s just sex

  If she were gentle too it might have reminded him, might have been easier to hold back. Instead she grips his polo shirt with so much force he’s surprised it doesn’t rip. As he uses his body weight to hold her up against the door, she pushes his jeans down over his arse with her socked foot, grips him hard. Her mouth crashes against his and his teeth graze her lip and he can taste blood and it stops everything in its tracks.

  ‘Fuck,’ he gasps, ‘you’re bleeding.’

  She doesn’t answer but turns to the bed, pulling off the rest of her clothes as she goes, and he watches her rooting around in his bedside drawer for the condoms and by the time he has pulled off his jeans she is there at the edge of the bed and after that it’s very quick.

  The room feels airless. For a moment he can’t catch his breath; lying next to her, it’s as though he’s forgotten how. He turns on to his side to face her, watching her breasts rise and fall. Her eyes, closed, so he can look without worrying that she’ll think he’s perving. Strokes his hand down her body, over her thigh, curving in to touch her. She opens her legs, a little. She is wet and his fingers slide easily inside. Did she come? He likes to think he’d be able to tell. He doesn’t want to ask. And then he goes down on her because if he doesn’t keep his tongue occupied he’s going to say something stupid and ruin everything. She parts her thighs and he can hear her breathing quicken again, her hand brushing his hair. He knows how this goes. He knows every woman likes it a bit different, knows to pay attention to the signs, fast or slow, up and down or circles, varying it, letting her edge, letting her escape and breathe and then coming back just a tiny bit harder, a tiny bit faster.

  He thinks she is nearly there, thinks about slowing down again because he’s not ready to stop doing this yet. The feel of her, the taste of her, the little sounds she’s making, all of it is making him hard again and if he’s going to fuck her again he wants it to be slow this time, wants it to last a bit longer than five minutes.

  Then she pushes him away.

  ‘Stop for a minute,’ she says.

  He lifts his head, his fingers still buried. Keeps them still.

  ‘Come here,’ she says.

  He moves up the bed, into her arms. She kisses him.

  ‘Your beard’s a bit damp,’ she says.

  ‘Funny that.’

  ‘You taste of me.’

  ‘Best taste ever.’

  Her hand reaches down for him. ‘Wow,’ she says.

  ‘Yeah, well. That’s gonnae happen.’

  He lets her play. ‘You haven’t come yet,’ he says. ‘With me.’

  ‘No.’

  Her head is nuzzled into his shoulder. He looks down and kisses her hair, dark red; it smells like something. Mango.

  ‘Will you show me how to make you come?’ he asks.

  ‘It’s not that you’re doing it wrong. I get really close.’

  ‘But you can come when you’re on your own?’

  There is a little pause. He senses that this is making her embarrassed.

  ‘Sure,’ she says.

  ‘What about with other men?’

  The pause this time stretches. Her fingers around him move more slowly.

  ‘Never happened,’ she says eventually.

  ‘You’re fucking kidding me.’

  ‘Look, it’s not a problem. This is … it’s really good. I mean, really good.’

  She sits up and looks down at him; her breasts swing and he cups one of them, the skin so soft, feeling the weight. She reaches for the condoms. ‘May I?’

  ‘Be my guest,’ he says.

  She straddles him, and holds him so that she can sink down slowly. He watches her face, the concentration of her finding her rhythm, the heat of her. His hands on her hips, the right one such a fucking mess but it only hurts when he looks at it. When his fingers were inside her a few minutes ago he never felt a thing.

  Her fingers stray to her sex. Then she stops. Her hand moves away.

  ‘Why d’you stop?’

  She’s out of breath now, the exertion of it, and that in itself is so fucking sexy that he struggles to contain himself.

  ‘Can’t concentrate with you watching,’ she says.

  ‘Close your eyes, then,’ he says, ‘because I’m sure as hell not closing mine.’

  It’s just sex, he thinks, again.

  A while later he sees it in her face, feels it in the force that grips him and pushes at him. Yeah, he thinks. That’s better. About bloody time. Next time he’ll get her there and she won’t have to help.

  Rachel

  Mixed in with the familiar yelling of the seabirds outside, Rachel can hear something else that doesn’t fit. A low droning, coming from a long way off. Getting louder.

  ‘Fuck. Fuck!’

  The bed suddenly lurches and she opens her eyes to see Fraser hopping across the bedroom, pulling up his jeans.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The fucking boat’s here.’

  ‘Shit!’

  It takes her less than five minutes to dress, tie up her hair and race down to the jetty, panicking the whole time. Fraser has made it before her, thankfully. He’s doing his best intimidating stance, full height, head up, arms crossed. A woman is there who can only be Marion, plus three men of varying ages. Bess is sniffing Marion’s crotch, and only moves when a manicured hand swipes at her head. After that she moves away and watches suspiciously.

  ‘Hi,’ Rachel says brightly, drawing level with them.

  ‘Ah – Rachel?’

  Everyone is introduced. A builder called John and his son Damian. Someone else called Phil who she expects should be an architect but his job description was more long-winded than that and involved the word ‘advisor’. Rachel’s mind is clouded with the stress of waking up so suddenly.

  Marion is shorter than Rachel had imagined her to be, but with a voice loud and forceful enough to dominate everything. It makes the whole island feel different, suddenly, having her on it. The three men, who’ve had a two-hour boat crossing with her, seem subdued by comparison.

  ‘I thought maybe you’d like to see the bird observatory first?’ Rachel says, thinking about the cheese scones. It’s barely nine, but the thought of skipping breakfast entirely is making her feel light-headed.

  ‘Later,’ says Marion. ‘Let’s get the important stuff out of the way first.’

  Fraser leads them up the slope from the harbour, taking huge, effortless strides and ending up at the top before everyone else. Rachel’s pleased to see she has g
ot fitter in the last few weeks, because she manages the climb without getting out of breath.

  The path at the top divides into three – to the right, the path that leads along the side of the cliff to the bird observatory. Straight on would take them to the lighthouse. But Fraser wordlessly takes the left path, sloping downwards almost immediately through a rocky outcrop.

  ‘Watch for birds,’ he says.

  The puffins are everywhere, complaining about the interruption, grunting and moaning and sounding like so many doors creaking open. Over their heads terns circle, screaming at them. John the builder stumbles on the overgrown path but manages to keep to his feet. Marion had gone quiet on the climb, but now she is making up for it.

  ‘Well, this will have to be cut back – really no good at all – can you even imagine? Why’s it not in better condition, really?’

  ‘Don’t use this path much,’ Fraser says. ‘No reason to. Best to leave it to the birds.’

  ‘Well, really, but even so … oh.’

  At the bottom they have rounded the corner and got their first sight of the cottages.

  Rachel wonders why Marion didn’t ever just email Fraser and ask him to send her some photos. Maybe she did. Maybe he just ignored her.

  ‘Good heavens. John?’

  All three men have been standing at the bottom of the slope looking at the sorry state of the buildings in front of them, but at the sound of Marion’s bark they scoot into action. She watches them go. Rachel comes to stand next to Fraser. He’s perfectly still, perfectly silent, but the tension is palpable. She hopes she’s imagining it, or, if she isn’t, that Marion isn’t overly intuitive.

  ‘I mean,’ Rachel says, filling a silence, ‘clearly they are going to take a prohibitive amount of work to get into a reasonable condition—’

  ‘Prohibitive?’ Marion says, turning sharply. ‘I don’t think that’s your place to say, is it?’

  ‘Rachel’s right,’ Fraser says. And, under his breath, ‘And you should fucking wind your neck in.’