Phones will be ringing. Hands will reach for other hands.
Emmeline … Will she rage? Grapple? Most likely.
And Sam thinks of Maggie. Who will tell her? And how will she be, when she’s told? He imagines her face. He sees the lines by her eyes, how she holds her fingers up to her mouth as she listens. How broken she can look.
Nearly four years.
He glances down at Sea Fairy. Her green tarpaulin is streaked with gull droppings. She bobs in the corner – old, unloved.
* * *
The sun is high and white. The grass is shining. Laundry is pegged on washing lines.
All the colours seem bright, as Nathan drives. He squints at the school’s roof, at the glossy tail of the rooster at Wind Rising, at the ragwort sprouting in the lane. Even the lighthouse’s paintwork seems brighter to him so that he reaches up for the car’s visor and tilts it down. Has there been a hotter day than this, this year? He doesn’t think so. He drives slowly, with his window down. His right forearm rests on the door and he can hear the long grass brushing the underside of his car. Once he’d have loved this weather. He’d have taken beers into the fields or left them in a rock-pool to cool, as he swam. Or he’d have taken a rug up to the lighthouse and the northern coast and spent the afternoon there – him, and Kitty.
A ewe treads in front of him.
One of mine. Nathan knows this. He knows his own, amongst Ian’s; they are Texel, firm-bodied with blue tags in their ears. They are trickier to shear in that they’re strong beasts, and two weeks ago he’d had to kneel hard on their ribs and tie their hind legs as he’d sheared them. Shearing … It’s in the Bundy blood. Ian, Hester and Nathan could all handle shears before they learnt to ride bikes or to add and subtract. They knew how to catch a sheep, drag it back and grip it tightly between their thighs before they knew how to spell Cantalay or Merme. Tom was the exception. He’d shear, but he’d have one eye on the water. Nathan grew strong from hauling sheep and mending fences; Tom’s arms thickened from lobstering, from pulling on the cord to start the outboard motor, from rowing into hidden coves.
Are you sure he’s one of ours? Their father said this, once. We’re land folk, not sea.
Nathan glances to his right.
Crest is coming into view. He sees its yellow guttering, its matching yellow door. This is the island’s highest point – the whole coastline can be seen from its driveway, from Litty in the south, round to Bundy Head. The house had been derelict, once. Once, it had been four stone walls with a leaking roof and the brown streaks of sheep urine on the skirting boards. But it was always the best position to live – the height, the views. Nathan remembers ducking through it as a child and feeling how a king in his castle must have felt – alive, amazed, buffeted by wind. Tom, also, felt that. When he was twenty-four he’d said, do you know what I’m going to do? For six summers he worked on that house. He’d hammered, hauled and rung friends on the mainland; he’d buy beers for his brothers before saying, you couldn’t help me with …? He made Crest a home again. And what a home – with bookshelves made of driftwood, curtains hung on lengths of rope, a septic tank, a compost heap, a chair forged out of wooden crates, a single solar panel as dark as a burnished eye. There was the chalky knot of whalebone Tom used to prop open the door. And the kitchen table had been part of a fishing boat, once; her name, Coralee, still hangs on the staircase. Nathan has seen it.
Tomato plants, too. Those were Maggie’s addition. The porch is south-facing and she’s filled it with them so that Nathan knows how the porch will smell today, when he enters it – the sharp fruit, the trapped heat.
He turns right, along its driveway.
Crest. He loves it and it saddens him – both.
He turns off the engine. There is a sudden hush, and he wonders what he will tell her, what words he will use and if they will be the right ones.
She appears. She steps out of an outbuilding, into the light. She holds a tin of yellow paint which is dripping down its side. Yellow paint on her arms and hands. Maggie looks up.
She smiles: hey.
Nathan shuts the car door. He comes so close that he can see she has yellow paint everywhere – on her cheeks, her nose, her collarbone. Her hair is tied back but one strand is loose and is blowing across her face so that it makes her blink, and the tip of it is yellow. There is the smell of sheep and fresh paint and Maggie’s washing powder and as a cloud’s shadow passes over them he thinks, briefly, how beautiful it is – to be standing here.
Nathan?
He doesn’t want to tell her. Just passing.
She eyes him. Liar, she says.
Maggie feels afraid. No-one is ever just passing – and not Nathan, of all people. Nathan, who tends to leave her be.
A strand of hair is fluttering, but she does not reach for it. Tell me.
A man’s been found. Washed up.
Washed up? From the sea?
He nods.
Alive?
Yes. He’s at Tabitha’s.
Is it –?
No. No, it’s not.
She tries to put the paint tin down, but it tilts, and spills, and he comes forward saying careful. I’ve got it. Here – give it to me.
* * *
Nathan leads her inside. He knows her house, and he knows to duck slightly as he steps into the kitchen, under the doorframe and the hanging copper pans. She walks with her hands held in front of her, as if walking in the dark.
Sit down.
It’s not Tom?
No.
Maggie hears the small hesitation, looks up.
For one small moment, I … Nathan shrugs. He looks a bit like him.
Dark?
Yes. And the beard. And he’s big – tall, broad …
But not Tom?
Not Tom.
You’re sure? Her eyes are round. They are like the stones that come ashore, the stones that have been rolled and rolled through the years, thrown against other stones. They are grey, with a navy edge.
Mags, I promise. This man is not him.
They sit side by side, at the table that used to be Coralee. Maggie runs her fingers over her lips. Who is he, then?
We don’t know yet. He’s still sleeping.
Where was he found?
Sye. He was lying on the stones. Sam found him. He came to Wind Rising for help and we carried him.
To –?
Lowfield.
She considers this. She takes a deep breath, releases it slowly. OK. Well … Tom never liked it – Sye. Said it was dank, hard to walk on. If he was going to wash up, he wouldn’t wash up there.
It is a half-joke; they are nervous words.
Is he hurt?
No. Doesn’t seem it.
Does Emmeline know?
Yes.
He watches Maggie. She says nothing for a while. There is a single crumb on the table, and Nathan watches her as she places her forefinger on it, rolls the crumb from side to side. Left and right. You came here because you knew people would talk. It is not a question.
You know how it is here.
She says yes I know.
He cannot think of anything to say. There is nothing to say to her that he has not said before, or tried to say, and so he sits, scans the room that they are sitting in – the spotted oven gloves, the chopping board with an apple core on it, the ferry times on the noticeboard. There are shells everywhere – cockles, whelks, a purple-tipped sea urchin on the windowsill. Beside it there is a vase of feathers with sand still on them, feathers whose blades have torn or split. Maggie the forager. She is always looking – but aren’t they all? His eyes settle on a photograph. It is held to the fridge with magnets and it is of Nathan’s younger brother and Maggie; they are wearing anoraks, with their faces pressed together, cheek to cheek. Tom’s arm is in the foreground, leading to the camera – he was taking the photo himself. A bright, blustery day.
Where was that taken?
She follows his gaze. Bundy Head. Then she lifts he
r finger off the table, brushes the crumb away with the thumb of the same hand – a short, rough sound. Nathan, are you still hopeful?
Maggie is like no-one else. Tom had said so, too. Nathan remembers the moment when Tom stepped down from the Morning Star six years ago, walked up to his brother and said, I’ve found her. Just three words, but Nathan knew what he’d meant. He himself had found Kitty not too long before, or she had found him, and he and Tom had gone back to Wind Rising that night and opened the rum, toasted these women who weren’t like the rest. Tom described Maggie to him – a wary, slender, blonde-haired woman collecting pint glasses outside The Bounty Inn, a tea-towel stuck through her apron which was longer than her black skirt.
Hopeful? He thinks the years … The years which have been split into months and the months which have been split into weeks and the weeks into days and the days into hours and hours have been split into a breath in and a breath out, and Tom has been missing from all of them. Hope becomes tired. It fades, regardless of how much you wish it not to.
That he’s still alive somewhere? Didn’t drown?
I imagine it, Nathan says. Sometimes.
She nods. Yes. I imagine it. I still imagine him walking up the drive. But is that the same as being hopeful? I don’t think so.
This man isn’t Tom.
I know.
No, she’s like no-one else. She’s smart, and hard, and vulnerable, and she still uses Tom’s boat, still lifts and lowers his lobster pots when most other widows would have left the island entirely perhaps or at least left the sea well alone. She wears his oilskins even though they’re too big. Only once has Nathan seen her cry. Can I do anything? He knows there is nothing that anyone can do.
And for a moment Maggie is silent. She looks at the table as if she has not heard him, as if there is something on the table that Nathan cannot see. Then she flinches, turns to him. Help me with the doorframe? I’ve got more paint on myself than … She turns her wrists over, showing him. A small, sad smile.
She was Tom’s. He will always help her if he can.
* * *
The red car skids on gravel. Its door is thrown open. Emmeline appears, hurries to the front door of Lowfield and she bangs – twice, bang-bang – on its glass. Tabitha!
She waits, briefly. Bangs again.
Her sister’s face appears behind the glass and then the door opens. She glares, her forefinger raised to her lips. Hush! He’s sleeping!
So it’s true? There’s a man?
Keep your voice down.
Is there?
She nods. Ian told you?
Nathan. Weren’t you going to?
Tabitha flinches. Don’t be snapping at me, Emmeline.
They study each other, shifting their jaws.
I suppose you’d better come in.
Tabitha leads her sister into the kitchen, shuts the door. She sees her cereal bowl in the sink, waiting to be washed; a used tea bag sits on the draining board with the teaspoon still attached to it. The floor needs mopping – Tabitha can hear the soles of her slippers sticking to it as she walks and she hopes Emmeline can’t hear that. She notices these things, when Emmeline’s here.
He came ashore at Sye. Sam found him.
I heard that.
He went to Wind Rising, got your boys. Jonny, too.
Is it Tom?
The nurse expected this – but not so soon, or so bluntly. No, it’s not. Did Nathan say he was?
He said he looks like him.
He does – a little. Same colouring.
So it could be. And he came out of the water, so –
I know he did. And yes, he has dark hair, and a beard, and there’s a likeness of sorts. But Em, it’s not him. Do you hear?
How do you know?
Because there are differences! Big ones! He’s too tall to be Tom. Too broad. The nose isn’t right and the teeth aren’t the same, and those aren’t his hands, and …
Teeth change! He could have changed them. He could have grown …
Em …
I want to see him. A statement, of course.
He’s sleeping. No.
I won’t leave till I see him.
That stubborn streak. Tabitha narrows her eyes, thinks that’s Emmeline. The petulant child who grew into a fierce, resolute grown-up who rarely laughs or takes no for an answer. But then, so much has happened. And Emmeline’s had to be tough, she supposes: Jack as a husband, that farm and four children. Four to begin with.
The grandfather clock ticks.
Fine, Tabitha says. You can see him. But – she holds up a finger – no waking him, Em – whoever he is, he needs to rest. And she leads her sister down the hallway to a door with frosted glass.
* * *
He sleeps, this sea creature. This man from the waves. This tired Poseidon.
Firstly, Emmeline sees his size. He is as broad as a boat, and as long as one. Then she sees the long lashes, the tiny lines by his eyes. His nose is perfectly straight. The beard is black – not a deep brown with a reddish hue, and with no grey flecked in it: it is as black as night is. His eyebrows are of the same blackness. The tip of his left ear is creased. The backs of his hands are veined and sore-looking – huge, capable hands.
Has he spoken?
Not much.
The man breathes like the sea.
Emmeline is in the mending room for a minute, no longer. It is enough.
She walks out into the sunlight. She cannot name it, or describe it – what she is feeling now. Disappointment is not enough of a word – not nearly. She had known, deep down, it wasn’t him. In her heart she’d known that he could not be Tom – it can’t be, it can’t be, not after so long – but she had hoped, all the same; she had snatched at the faintest of chances because she is his mother, and she must, and so she had stumbled and demanded and banged on her sister’s door and now Emmeline feels unsteady, foolish. Unspeakably sad.
Tom had a scar on his nose from a childhood fall; his lips were thinner, equal-sized. She’d know her boy in the dark, even now. She’d know him in a crowded room or by smell alone or handwriting.
Tabitha comes by her. I’m sorry.
Oh, I’m sure you are.
Emmeline leaves, and as she goes she feels, too, the swell of anger – as if someone, somewhere, is laughing. As if a trick has been played.
* * *
Who else? Who else cannot know what to think or say? They are all like fish on land now – blank-eyed, open-mouthed.
What a day … Ed Lovegrove stands with his hands in his pockets; he looks out to sea. Boy oh boy, what a day … Eighteen years as a harbourmaster, thirty-nine years as a harbourmaster’s son before that, and Edward can’t remember a man being washed ashore like this. Bodies, yes. He’s had his deaths to deal with – Jack’s, a birdspotter’s, that man from Utta who caught his foot in the line as he was throwing out pots so that they found his boat going round and round and when they hauled in the line he was already half-plucked at by fish. Ed fears the watery deaths. It is the watery deaths that he feels he can prevent by watching the weather, noting down each boat that docks here, keeping an eye on the weather station that lives at the back of his house. He has a rain gauge; there is a small anemometer to measure wind speed and wind direction. He tends to it, like a man at prayer.
But a person who has appeared? That the sea has given?
Tabitha rang earlier. She’d given the details – the beard, the injured hands – and Ed had not known the words or the way forwards. He’d said it isn’t a death, is it? So …? A man washed ashore is the stuff of books; it is not what happens in the twenty-first century to an island that relies on tourism and migrant birds and the sinking price of lamb. An island with a coloured line of jetsam – plastics, netting, nylon rope – on every beach like a scar.
We wait until he wakes. We do nothing till he’s woken.
I should call the coastguard in case …
OK, said Tabitha. But not the police. Not yet.
Fine.
Not yet, Ed agreed. The police, he knows, would bring trouble of their own.
So Ed had settled in the office of the harbourmaster’s house and made the call. Mac had answered. He was eating something. With a half-full mouth he’d said, really? Jesus. Need an air ambulance?
Tab says not. Any boats down?
There had been the distant click of computer keys, and when the clicking stopped he’d heard Mac swallow, clear his throat. Nope, no boats, Ed. Well, there was a dinghy capsized about twenty miles north of you, but both men were picked up. He’s not one of yours? A guest, or some such?
I’m sure he is. Just checking, you know.
Or some half-fish creature? A part-whale? Haven’t you guys got a tale about that sort of thing? A hard, single laugh.
Mac – who Ed has never warmed to. Thanks, he’d said, hung up.
* * *
The day fades. The sky pinkens.
It is low tide. The beaches are glassy. The wading birds are reflected in the sand and sometimes they make their short, skimming flight to a different stretch of sand and land with their legs stretched out.
Curlews. Nathan hears them.
He turns off the engine but he sits, for a while. He stares at the steering wheel. Nathan has no thoughts at this moment: he is empty, worn-out.
Kitty watches him. She wears a floral apron, and as she’d been picking bits of eggshell out of a bowl of yolks she’d heard his car, looked up.
Her husband is staring at something – the dashboard?
Then he climbs out. The car door shuts and there is the crunch of the gravel, and from an upstairs bed the cat jumps down with a muffled thud as Nathan comes into the hallway, kicks off his boots.
She wipes her hands, goes to him. He tastes of salt. So?
They sit at the kitchen table, facing each other. His wife has a sweep of navy-blue powder on her eyelids, and Nathan sees that some of this powder is also on her cheekbones as if it has dusted down through the course of the day. She smells as she always does – lotion, Miss Dior, a touch of turpentine. Kitty Bundy. At first, she’d called it a dancing name.
The Silver Dark Sea Page 6
