The Silver Dark Sea

by Susan Fletcher

  I still don’t know his story. Or his name.

  Maggie can only call him Fishman. And perhaps he is, indeed, part-fish – and that somewhere on this beach he has hidden his rainbow tail. Between two rocks, or under weed.

  She walks back to Crest in the evening. As she passes her shed, Maggie smells tobacco; it makes her look up. A man is at her door. He is kneeling, with his back to her. But then he hears her footsteps, or perhaps he merely senses that he is being watched for he rises, and turns.

  Sam?

  There are three hydrangea blooms on her doorstep. They are a deep lobster-blue, wrapped in tinfoil. He glances at them, blushes. From our garden. I –

  Sam …

  I thought you might like –

  You don’t have to do this. You don’t.

  Want to.

  He looks at the hydrangeas, sniffs – and Maggie feels that she could touch his unhappiness. She could grasp his guilt.

  I thought you should know. The sly tide is coming. Eleven days.

  Eleven?

  A week on Friday. Just so you know. I know it’s superstition, but …

  Sam, I have never blamed –

  But he interrupts her, says they need to go in water. They’ve not had any water for an hour or so.

  No-one blames him any more. Once, perhaps: Emmeline had hissed her curses, wrapped herself in bitterness instead of letting out her grief; Ian had had to be restrained by Milton when, one day, he saw Sam passing by. But this did not last. Blame has no purpose here; it changes nothing. It does not lift Tom out of the water and pop him back on Pigeon; it does not bring his voice back to Maggie’s ear. She knows she could say we do not blame you over and over, for always, but it would still mean nothing to Sam. He brings dark-blue flowers out of guilt; he mutters your fault as he stands on the deck of the Morning Star.

  Maggie watches him go.

  She knows that Tom would have never wanted him like this. He’d have never wanted Sam to grow so heavy, so old. Her husband would have sought Sam, sat next to him and said stop this, now. Be kinder to yourself. Why feel guilt for what was not your fault? It was my choice – to dive in.

  He’d have winked. Nudged Sam’s shoulder with his own.

  I am fine – I am. Move on.

  * * *

  There are no secrets. All things are known – or if people do not know, they will suspect it. They use their eyes and ears: as fishermen are rumoured to have a natural sense about where the fish are passing or when the wind may turn, so Parlans have a natural sense for the feelings between people. If they have their suspicions, they tend to hand them on.

  Hester has Emmeline with her tonight. Sometimes her mother comes to eat with them. She steps into their cottage with a casserole, or vegetables that she herself has grown. It tends to be the four of them – Hester, her mother, her husband and her son. But tonight, Alfie is in bed. Alfie, who refused to eat his potatoes, wailed, and so George is upstairs with him – she can hear his low, reprimanding voice. Hester would change nothing about her son except that stubbornness. In time, it might have benefits. It might make him successful, when he’s grown. But for now, it frustrates her. Leads to wasted food.

  Emmeline pouts. She pushes back her plate. Well. I saw an interesting thing.

  Hester hopes this is not about Tabitha. So many of her mother’s sour expressions are made when she’s thinking of Aunt Tab. Oh?

  This … man. Who’s got his hands on Tavey.

  You make it sound like he’s throttling someone … Hester rises, walks to the sink.

  Does he sleep there now?

  Sleep there? I doubt it. She runs the tap. Why?

  Maggie came from there. This morning. It wasn’t yet seven and she was wearing this flimsy summer dress …

  Hester fills a glass, turns the tap off. She has no real wish to know what her neighbours feel or do. So? It’s not our business.

  Isn’t it?

  No. Not in any way.

  Tom –

  Was her husband. Was. Past tense.

  That man –

  Seems lovely, Mum! Have you talked to him? Spent time with him? He changed the school’s lightbulb – did I tell you that? He’s good for Leah, too. No memory doesn’t make him a bad man.

  Silence, from Emmeline. She runs her tongue over her gums, dissatisfied. I don’t like it.

  Doesn’t matter. Mum, it’s been four years – four. None of us could stay as we were … Be fair.

  Fair? Don’t talk to me of fairness.

  And anyway – all you saw was her walking. That doesn’t mean anything; it doesn’t mean a single thing except that Maggie can walk.

  Later, Hester gets ready for bed. She looks in the bathroom mirror, runs cotton wool over her face. Maggie had only been walking … But Hester is human, as they all are – and she wonders if there had, in fact, been more than that. If there had been …

  She looks down. Can she imagine it? The Fishman and Maggie? Yes – she finds she can. They are both mild-mannered, contained, softly spoken. They both gaze at the water. Have their own mysteries. Salt in their hair, on their skin.

  Maggie. If Hester hears that name and closes her eyes, there is one specific moment that she sees. It is not when she first met her. It is not Maggie’s wedding day.

  It was Hester who heard the news. Hester, who Ed called before anybody else. He rang her and whispered there’s been an incident – told her that search teams and helicopters were both on their way, that Tom was a strong swimmer and she should not fear the worst – not yet – and will you tell Maggie? Could you?

  It is the hardest thing that Hester’s ever done. She will never forget the expression – Maggie’s stumble, the frail sound she made and how she ran out of the house without speaking and charged through the fields to Lock-and-Key. She’d leapt down the wooden stairs; she’d raced, fully clothed, into the sea. And she had waded, and waded. Called out – Tom!

  It was Nathan who brought her back. He swam out after her, allowed Maggie to fight him – no, no. Let me go … As the light faded, he walked up the beach. He carried her in his arms as he would carry a child.

  And that’s it. That’s what Hester sees.

  She sees it now, in this bathroom. She stares at the sink but it’s Maggie that she sees – shouting out and tearful. Flailing in the dark.

  Hester joins her husband. She lifts the duvet, crawls across to find him. George says your feet are cold and kisses her head without taking his eyes off his book.

  The day after Tom’s disappearance, Ian had come to her. He’d taken her wrist and said you think there’s a God? Ask Him for an answer. Ask Him to give Tom back.

  It doesn’t work that way. But Hester asked, all the same. She lay down on a church pew as she used to as a little girl and whispered why have you done this? To him? Please, don’t … She’d trawled through the Bible and found nothing; she cried until strings of saliva led from her mouth to her fists. She was exhausted, and when Lorcan found her sleeping there he placed a blanket over her; he left a small electric heater near her, so that Hester would not wake up cold in the night.

  I think Maggie might be in love with the man from Sye. Or close to it.

  George puts down his book. What?

  I think. Not sure.

  And is he in love with her? Hest?

  I don’t know.

  He turns to her. He fingers her curls, pushes the curls aside so that he can see her eyes. How would you feel? If they were in love?

  I’d be happy. And she finds that she means it.

  * * *

  The Fishman finds Tabitha. She is in her dressing gown, sipping a glass of pink wine.

  I’m just going to Crest. I won’t be long.

  The nurse merely sips, smiles knowingly. She flexes her toes in their woollen socks.

  All day he has thought of Maggie. He has watched the fields, thinking come to me. Come. But she did not come.

  He walks up the lane, knocks twice on her door.

  Maggie lo
oks tired, pale-eyed. He says do you regret it? All day I’ve thought you might be regretting it.

  No. Have you?

  No …

  She is in her pyjamas. He sees this now, and she does. A grey-green tartan – and they both smile at this. Maggie blushes, reaches for a coat.

  Together, they walk into Crest’s garden. They settle on the bench, look south across the island at the bedroom lights, the church’s roof. The sea is dark and silver – both.

  He takes her hands, warms them. In Abigail’s book, it says the Fishman comes ashore for one person or many.

  I know.

  Whoever I am, and whatever this is, I know I came here for you.

  * * *

  Near them, at High Haven, Kitty waits.

  She sits in the chair she has been sitting in for hours, now. She has watched the kitchen clock. The cat, at times, has joined her – settled on her lap, purred so that she’s felt the vibration through her knees. But the cat is outside now.

  She turns on a light.

  She waits, and waits.

  When at last he comes, drink-smelling, he does not speak. He moves into the kitchen like a man who’s been defeated – by life, or himself, or by her. Does he expect her rage? For the wild, stormy Kitty to fling her words and arms at him? For passion? That was how she was, once. But it is too late for that – for the fire and challenges. They have not worked. And as Kitty returned from the mainland she knew that she’d grown sour and disappointed with the life she lives with him.

  Nathan rubs his eyes. He looks at her.

  She still loves the man she married; Kitty knows she does. But she can scarcely find him in this man – this man, here.

  In a simple voice she says I can’t do this any more.

  Nathan sits. He looks at the way her hair and her eyes are the same dark colour, how her silver earrings hide amongst that hair.

  I’m dying on this island … Dying in this house.

  The house?

  The house, the marriage … You barely speak to me. We hardly see each other and when we do, we fight. I can’t remember the last time you touched me willingly. Do you know that?

  He blinks. He wants to disagree with her, to list the times that he has taken her hand or kissed her unexpectedly, but he knows she is right. He can’t remember either. There are no times.

  Do you think I can live on nothing? I can’t live on nothing.

  She is not angry. She is just tired. She looks away from her husband, out of the window to where the lighthouse swings and she can smell the island’s smell – sheep, fish, salt, earth. I’ll catch tomorrow’s ferry. Go to the mainland. Stay with friends to begin with. Paint.

  Nathan looks at the floor. How long for?

  I don’t know. I’ll phone.

  What do I tell people?

  That we’re taking a break, because that’s the truth. And then Kitty smiles sadly, breathes out through her nose as she does so – a half-sigh, a wise sound. Let’s face it, Nathan. I don’t think they’ll be surprised.

  They make love that night for the first time in five months. He moves his hands over her, remembering her shapes and textures. She is responsive, and warm, and he hears her small, childish sounds. He likes them, remembers them.

  But the next morning, she packs her clothes and paints, tells him not to forget to water the pot-plant on the landing and he drives her down to the harbour. He is aware of her two bare knees beside him, the bracelets that clink on her arm. When she boards the ferry, she stumbles, and a tourist that Nathan does not know takes her arm, says steady …

  Kitty holds the railing, looks back. She gives a single, small wave to her husband, her fingers kept together.

  Nathan goes home. He switches on the kettle, sits at the kitchen table. There is a newspaper beside him, and he sees she has finished a crossword. On the windowsill, there is a broken geranium stem in a sherry glass, and lip balm, and he thinks she has held this spoon. Sat in this chair.

  In the bedroom, Kitty’s perfume is on everything.

  The Puffins and the Mother

  Long ago, when horses still worked in the island’s fields and when women still wore skirts to milk their cows, there was a war. The wireless told them so. A war that would be over by Christmas, they said, and several young Parlan boys went to the mainland to enlist for it. They waved from the Star, as it took them away. The islanders cheered, waved back.

  It was not over by Christmas.

  Two brothers – red-headed, thin-limbed, crooked smiles – died, in that long war. A letter came for their mother so that she buckled on the quayside. Not both, not both …

  Yes, both. She trawled the isle. She sought them, as if they had never left – in caves, on boats that rocked on their moorings. Where had they gone? What had they loved? Her boys, her two dear boys.

  In their short, teenage lives they had loved the puffins more than other Parlan things. When they were not carrying sheep on their backs, they would draw the puffins that nested on the north coast. They sketched them and coloured them – bill after cheerful bill. Her boys had loved those puffins, and so, in her grief, she began to hate them. She hated their waddle, their curious eyes. It hurt her to see them – for how could they be living when her boys were not, now? Where was the fairness? How could a puffin mean more than her sons?

  She took her dead husband’s air rifle and lay on her belly, above Bundy Head. She shot bird after bird through their feathery heart. Left their tiny bodies there.

  After this, her grief moved on into the deep, slow sobs that feel so strong that they may break the ribs or stop the heart entirely. Every cell of her body ached for her boys. And in time, her grief moved on again – into quiet waters. She became regretful of the puffin deaths she’d caused; she saw the sadness of them, the waste and cruelty. Hadn’t her sons loved them? And then, surely, shouldn’t she? Slowly, she came to. She’d watch them, on her sons’ behalf; she’d hear their throaty call. And the hurried, low-down flight of these birds, their waddling gait or their moustaches of sand eels brought her closer, much closer, to her two red-headed boys. It was a way of feeling them. She could not see them, but they were with her – sitting on Bundy Head.

  It is not much of a bedtime tale, I know. Who wants war, death, and a grief that leads to other deaths? But like all stories, it has its worth. It means something to me.

  I know this: there is no sense to grief. There is no pattern or shape or texture, and there are no books or stories which can lessen the pain at losing a person you have loved, and will always love. There are no rules, with loss.

  Look at Parla. Look at how the grief rolled out, as gas does – darkly, and touching everything. Look how Nathan spun, drank, pressed his face into a duck-feather pillow and howled at long last so that no-one might hear him. Look how Emmeline took to brushing her hair very neatly before sitting on her dead son’s childhood bed. Hester would write be with us in the church’s prayer book – be with us, nothing more.

  Sam lifted weights. Or he lingered by my house as if awaiting orders.

  Leah refused to go to Lock-and-Key.

  * * *

  Maggie remembers hearing the tale of the puffins and the mother who was not a mother any more. She heard the story, and like most people on the island she did not understand it – she shot them? Why? It made no sense to her. She imagined it – this solid, dark-haired woman lying in the grass and muttering curses with one eye closed as she aimed. How could she have hated them? If her sons had loved them? Don’t we preserve what the ones we love have loved?

  That was then. That was before.

  But hate is part of grief, Maggie knows that now. It is as strong and defined, in grief, as shock is or that deep, unbearable space which opens up inside us, a cave we walk into with our arms apart and we shout where have you gone? Where have you gone? They who were so real – who were warm-bodied, noisy, brimming with life and memory and future plans. How could they be over? We do not understand it, and then the understanding starts to
take root and show itself and we realise that we will never see them again, never watch how they move or hear new words from their mouths. And then the anger comes in. How dare he be dead? How could he have left me?

  Maggie has had her anger. One evening, not long after her husband had been lost to the sea, she had sat in Pigeon off the north coast. She had been checking her pots – wearing the thick, waterproof gloves that she always does, and hauling on the weedy ropes so that the pots rose up into view. There were several buoys, back then – orange, faded from salt and sunlight. They were fibreglass so that when Maggie rapped them with her knuckles, they made a hollow sound. But there was one buoy that was different from the rest. Before she’d met Tom, when Tom Bundy was not a name that existed for her, one buoy had broken when he’d dropped it onto rocks. In need of another, he had improvised – three empty, plastic containers lashed together with blue baling twine. Three plastic oil drums, bobbing on the water like transparent balloons.

  That evening, Maggie came to this buoy.

  And without reason or warning, she hated it. Suddenly, she brimmed with hatred for these containers. This plastic shit … The buoy was garish and amateur to her. It seemed to have some joke in it which she did not want, or did not understand, and it shone with Tom’s resourcefulness and thrifty ways and uniqueness, and humour, and his handwriting was on the side of these containers so that she hated – passionately – the mere existence of them. How could they be here when the person who made them was not? It felt obscene. It felt like mockery and she hated it, hated it.

  She leant over the side, hauled the buoy in.

  Maggie, with her penknife, cut at the baling twine. Five years or more of surviving the seas and stormy weather but the twine undid like butter against her angry blade. She hissed as she did this. She spat, stupid things.

  She threw them – one by one – into the water.

  Maggie sat there for hours. She felt the rage pass over, and move away. She watched the three plastic oil drums part from each other and drift off on the currents, one of them trailing a length of baling twine.