You, Me & the Sea Read online

  ‘Yes?’ she says, waiting. Suddenly it feels bad.

  He turns, points a soapy finger. ‘What happened to your baby?’

  Her world falls apart, right then. Like the floor falling away beneath her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where’s your baby, Rachel?’

  Anger is never really just anger tho

  is it?

  Fraser

  Where’s your baby, Rachel?

  Man, if he could have taken that back he would have done so in an instant. What on earth was he thinking? What was he playing at, so drunk he was swaying, saying something like that to her?

  He had hated himself all over again the second the words were out of his mouth, the smile dying on her face and a flush rising from her chest, shock in her wide eyes. He’d thought she’d run. He’d been counting on it; it was the only way his stupid pissed-up brain could think of to get her out of the kitchen, give himself time to think, to breathe. But she had stayed put, rooted. Staring at him.

  ‘How … what makes you think …’

  ‘Your phone. You got me scrolling through the bird pictures you’d taken. Then there’s a picture of you, pregnant. You, with a baby.’

  Her eyebrows had shot up. ‘Oh!’ And then, ‘When were you scrolling through my bird pictures?’

  ‘On the beach. When you were picking litter.’

  She had looked at him, confused. ‘But that was weeks ago.’

  ‘It was, aye.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ask me about it at the time?’

  He’d had no real answer for that. ‘It’s none of my business,’ he’d said, after a moment.

  ‘No. Not really.’

  He was drunk, tired with the anger. Her horrified face … he’d felt sick, hating himself for that. Then she’d left, and he hasn’t seen her since.

  She’s busy today. The new lot of visitors are due at five this evening, the professor and the two women, and she’s doing whatever she’s doing at the bird observatory. Cooking. Cleaning. Keeping out of his way. Avoiding him at all costs.

  He can’t blame her, of course, not after last night. His birthday is well and truly over for another year, passed unrecorded, unremarked. If she ever talks to him again he’ll consider himself fucking lucky.

  He can see what she’s trying to do – keep the peace, have everyone playing at happy bunnies – but she has no fucking clue what she’s walked into. He told Lefty to keep out of her way. He told her to keep out of Lefty’s way. And now suddenly they are best pals, chatting and getting on and who knows what else? He’s seen Lefty going in to the bird observatory when he’s been told to do something – cutting the grass, beach-cleaning, tidying the workshop, cleaning the hen house; he’s stood and watched him going inside.

  It’s crossed his mind that maybe they’re fucking. Although he can’t believe it, can’t believe Rachel could be that desperate. Also he can’t quite believe that if Lefty has got involved with Rachel to that extent he wouldn’t know about it. For all the extra washing and the liberal application of Lynx, Lefty is not giving off signs of having got some action.

  Fraser is used to the anger, the feel of it rising and falling inside him. It’s always there, waiting, ready, swallowed down by his need to remain civilised, choking him sometimes, then pushed up by something much farther down inside, something darker. Shame or hatred or just sheer apathy. Last night it was there, seething: the sight of Lefty’s wet hair combed down flat, his pale grubby neck because of course he missed that bit when he got in the shower, the ugly fucking tattoos that someone did for him with a needle when he was off his face on something, back in the day.

  Lefty had got out of the kitchen at just the right time. He pushes Fraser’s buttons on a daily basis. He knows exactly where they are.

  Now Fraser is standing on the east cliff, binoculars in hand, watching for terns. Lefty has been sent to the north beach to clean, but it’s not long before he turns up again, swinging the jute bag against his legs, half-full.

  ‘That it?’

  ‘Aye. It’s clean.’

  ‘Fucking doubt it.’

  ‘It is!’ Lefty’s already turned to go.

  ‘Where the fuck are you going now?’

  The lad stands stock-still, waiting. He’s turned in the direction of the bird observatory.

  ‘You leave her alone,’ Fraser says, his voice low. It doesn’t matter. Lefty can hear him well enough.

  Something is muttered back.

  ‘What did you say?’

  He covers the ground between them in two strides. For a change, Lefty is standing his ground.

  ‘I said, she’s no’ yours.’

  Fraser wants to grab him by the neck and shake him like a rat, like prey, but he’s here in full view of the observatory and it isn’t only that stopping him. It’s a weariness, the end of it … this is never going to get better unless he stops.

  ‘She’s no’ yours either right enough, ya wee shite.’

  Lefty, who has been braced for some sort of assault, breathes out and relaxes ever so slightly. Turns to face him. There’s no defiance in his eyes, just a sort of quiet resignation. ‘She’s just doing her best. She’s a good person.’

  ‘Which is why I want you to stay the fuck away from her. She doesn’t need to be hanging out with the likes of you.’

  ‘She’s kind. She’s just being kind.’

  There is a pause, then Lefty reaches into his pocket, opens his fist to show Fraser what’s inside. Nestled in his palm are two pieces of glass, worn smooth by the waves and the sand.

  ‘What the fuck have you got there?’

  ‘She likes them.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She likes the sea glass. I’ve been collecting it for her.’

  Fraser stares, wanting to summon up the rage now because if there’s something to make him angry it’s here: the sight of this pathetic wee gift in the grubby hand of this idiot, the person he hates more than anyone or anything; the fact that this little shit has established enough of a relationship with Rachel that he’s bringing her presents like a stray cat bringing a mouse.

  And the fact that Lefty has suddenly grown a pair. All the time he’s been here, over a year of cowering and running and doing what he’s told, and suddenly he’s standing up for himself. And instead of roaring in Lefty’s face as he should be – instead of taking him by the throat and reminding him that here, on this island, in this place, he is lower than a rat in the pecking order, scarcely fit to clear up birdshit and not fit to be heard, that he has no voice, no say, no rights, no right to even be alive because of who he is and what he’s done – there’s nothing. No rage. Just a sudden urge to weep.

  Fraser takes a stumbling step back, dizzy.

  ‘I’m going tae take them,’ Lefty says.

  This time, Fraser doesn’t stop him. He has a strong sense of fighting the tide, and he’s tired. Just for a change, he wants to try swimming the other way.

  He thinks of Rachel with the sea glass, pale, silky blue jewels, almost but not quite the colour of her eyes, the nuggets of glass trickling through her long fingers like water. He wishes he had something like that. Something to give. Something to apologise with.

  Rachel

  Fraser brings the quad at seven.

  He usually comes to collect her when it’s raining, and it’s blowing a gale out there, heavy rain and wind enough to tip her over the cliff if she’s not paying attention, but even so when he fills the porch she’s suffused with a weird mixture of relief and trepidation. She hasn’t spoken to him since the where’s your baby, Rachel? No whisky last night. No porridge waiting for her this morning, either. He had arrived on the jetty with the quad just in time to help make the boat fast, had ignored her completely then, loading the luggage and the shopping into the trailer and speeding noisily off up the hill. By the time she had walked to the bird observatory with her new guests in tow, the luggage was in the porch and the shopping in the kitchen, and the quad had gone.


  Thankfully at five when they’d got here, it hadn’t been raining.

  Now Fraser looks even more enormous than usual, and the reason for this becomes clear as he peels off his dripping coat and reveals a second hi-vis jacket underneath, which he also removes and holds out to her.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asks.

  ‘You’ll need something better than that,’ he says, pointing vaguely at her waterproof jacket, hanging up in the porch.

  In the main room the professor – whose name is Brian – stands to greet Fraser.

  The two women are chatting on the sofa with bottles of beer. Rachel hasn’t quite worked out what their relationship is, because Brian simply introduced them as Carol and Jane. One of them is younger. She thinks maybe Carol is his wife and Jane is their daughter, but the level of affection between Professor Brian and Jane appears to be rather more than just paternal.

  There is a bit of casual discussion between Brian and Fraser about guillemots while Rachel finishes putting the casserole in the slow cooker for tomorrow night’s dinner. When she’s ready, Fraser holds out the huge waterproof for her to slide her arms into. Does it up for her, since the sleeves drape down over her hands. It’s like climbing inside a warm padded tent. She feels alarmingly helpless, especially when he lifts the hood for her and it falls over her eyes.

  Outside, the wind blows her sideways. He helps her on to the quad and she fastens her arms around his waist as tightly as she can, pressing her face into his wet back.

  Lefty is in his room, the thud-thud-thud of his music drowning everything else out. The kitchen smells of oven chips, and yeast.

  Fraser has made pizza, from scratch. Rachel goes for a shower while he finishes things off, peels off her wet, cold jeans. Thinks about getting into her pyjamas and decides instead to get dressed again. Leggings and her purple shirt, open over a dark green vest. Twists her hair into a bun. It’ll do.

  ‘Here’s the thing,’ she says, when she’s had three gulps of wine. White, cold, goes well with the pizza. ‘I don’t think you can ask me about personal stuff – like those photos you saw – if you don’t like me asking you about personal stuff.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he says.

  She eats the pizza, drinks the wine. Several minutes go past.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me anything,’ he says, eventually.

  ‘Talking about things makes them easier,’ she says. ‘Didn’t you feel better, after you told me about Maggie?’

  He raises an eyebrow. ‘I guess.’

  ‘Until I made it all awkward by kissing you on the cheek, that is,’ she says, and laughs, a bit, to make sure he knows that it didn’t mean anything.

  He says something that she doesn’t quite catch.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Wasn’t on the cheek,’ he says, looking at her, raising his glass and swigging from it. ‘Just saying.’

  ‘It bloody was. You saying I took advantage?’

  ‘Not saying anything of the kind.’

  She thinks she is being teased, a bit. Hopes that’s the case, because if he’s serious then it would be awful. And of course it’s her fault for bringing it up again. She had been hoping that he had forgotten all about it.

  ‘Anyway,’ he says calmly, ‘we’re talking about you now, not me.’

  He’s finished eating, pushes his plate away. Leans back in his chair, long legs stretched out, wine glass cradled against his chest. Just so relaxed.

  Where to even start? She takes a deep breath. Get it out there. Do it, Rachel.

  ‘I had a baby. Emily. For my sister, and her husband. I was their surrogate.’

  He sits up again. Raises one eyebrow. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes. Lucy can’t have children. They were looking into surrogacy and on the spur of the moment I offered to do it for them.’

  ‘Wow. Okay. On the spur of the moment?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  Putting it so baldly, describing it in such basic terms – as if it were something that happened to someone else … it’s actually easier than she thought it would be. And it’s out there now; she can’t take it back.

  ‘So there you go,’ she says. ‘I got pregnant. I had Emily. I handed her over. Now I’m here.’

  Her voice had gone, just a little, on the handed her over. The wrong phrase, perhaps. She should have left that out completely. She has a sense of having given something away, in more ways than one. And now she can’t look at him any more.

  He refills her glass. ‘When was she born?’

  Of all the questions. ‘January fourteenth.’

  ‘That’s only four months ago.’

  ‘Yes. I know that.’

  He sits back in his chair and she risks looking up at him. The way he’s looking at her, curiosity, something else.

  ‘That’s why you’re here?’ His voice is gentler than she’s ever heard it.

  ‘Don’t be kind to me,’ she says.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘If we keep talking about this I’m probably going to start crying. Hormones, right? Just to give you fair warning.’

  ‘Aye, well, I’m not bothered by it. Just – you don’t have to keep running off. You can cry on my shoulder, if you want. You’ve got reason enough, besides the hormones.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that. It was my decision.’

  ‘If you say so. But it hurt you, though,’ he says, looking right at her. ‘Didn’t it? Or, if not that, something did.’

  Fraser

  They go to the living room with the bottle of wine, which is nearly empty anyway, and another that he’s already opened. Rachel takes her usual position in the armchair.

  Where’s your baby, Rachel? Well, now he knows. And he’s upset her again, and he feels bad about it.

  He has a sudden memory of Kelly telling him she was clean, and then a few moments later adding that the reason she was clean was that she was pregnant. Seven years ago, more or less.

  Kelly was not his girlfriend. He has never had a girlfriend, not that he will admit to, but Kelly is probably the closest thing he’s had to one. He has known her for nearly fifteen years, seen her through good times and bad times. In the past four years, Kelly is the only woman he has had sex with. Even that has been sporadic.

  ‘So,’ Kelly had said, ‘yeah. I’m pregnant.’

  The baby wasn’t his. He had not seen her for five months and she was barely three weeks gone. She was telling him because she needed money, and he would only give her money if he thought she wasn’t going to spend it on drugs. Other times she had told him she was clean but her landlord wanted to sell the flat, or she had the promise of a job in Aberdeen and needed to move, or her friend needed money for a sick dog’s operation; he’d heard all of them. She’d never told him she was pregnant before, but there was something about the way she said it that told him she was telling the truth.

  ‘How did that happen?’ he’d asked. ‘You get careless?’

  It had been a combination of erratic pill-taking and a split condom, apparently.

  ‘Do you know who the father is?’

  She must have had an idea, of course, but she wasn’t about to tell him. She had lied to him in the past but that was always the smack talking, not Kelly, and on the rare occasions when she did manage to get help and was clean she was a different person. Truthful.

  Kelly asked him, sometimes, that very question that he’d imagined Rachel asking. ‘Why aren’t you married?’ she’d ask, teasing. ‘Great big lovely man that you are. Why has no woman snapped you up?’

  He’d never answer.

  ‘Someone hurt you, big man?’ she’d asked, once. He’d caught her eye by accident and looked away immediately, but she’d seen it. ‘Aye, that’s it, right enough. Some bitch broke your heart and now you can’t trust anyone.’

  ‘Fuck off with your pocket psychology,’ he’d said, nudging her knee. She knew nothing about Maggie. He’d never told her.

  ‘There are lots of good women out there, Fraser Suther
land. You’d make one of them very happy.’

  ‘Then I wouldn’t be able to come and see you,’ he’d said.

  ‘I’d survive – just.’

  There had been other conversations like that one, but they’d always ended the same way. He’d thought once or twice about marrying her, just for the convenience of it, to get her out of trouble and to see her right. Sort of a penance, if you would – a life saved for a life lost. When the boy was born he’d thought about it seriously. He had seen her a lot through her pregnancy, because he couldn’t imagine how hard it must be, to go through such a life-changing thing all on your own. She was staying off the gear but struggling, despite the help of Social Services and the NHS and any charity that would offer her counselling, support, money, things to keep her busy. She had stopped seeing punters and Fraser had given her as much money as he could afford. Helped her find a flat she wasn’t going to get thrown out of. Helped her furnish it. Helped her write a CV.

  Eventually Kelly had got back in touch with her family and, troublesome as that had been in the past, now she was apparently doing so well they’d agreed to see her, and the boy, and Fraser had taken a step back with some degree of relief. It had started to get to him. He had started to care.

  He knows that feeling well enough, has started to think it might be happening again.

  The most dangerous thing of all, this is. Starting to care about someone else.

  Rachel

  Norwich. 29th April. Just over a year ago.

  Mel has arrived back from a fortnight in Tenerife where she had been with her aunt, was dropped off at home in the early hours. At eleven on Sunday morning, Mel is at the kitchen table with Rachel, telling her all about the hotel and this guy from Stockport who jumped in the pool with no trunks on, presumably because the lads he was with dared him to do it.

  Mel has brought back vodka, Spanish chewy sweets and some olive oil. Halfway through their discussion Rachel has to go to the bathroom to be sick.