You, Me & the Sea Read online

  The cottages, the ravine, always make him think of Lefty. There is always a chill here, even on the warmest days of summer. Usually it is still, the walls of the ravine providing shelter from the wind, apart from on those odd days when the wind is blowing directly from the southeast, when the ravine becomes a wind tunnel and emits a sour, hollow moan that can be heard all over the island.

  I’m going to kill him.

  He shouldn’t have said it. But the words were out before he had time to think – too much wine in his head and not enough self-control. He knows it’s damaged things with Rachel. When she opened the door to him last night he could see it in her eyes, a weird sort of wariness, as if she’s not sure she can trust him.

  But she still let him in. Still took him in her arms and touched him and kissed him, even though he knows he doesn’t deserve it.

  The fact that he regrets it is only slightly worse than the fact that he can’t, actually, take it back. It’s not that he was exaggerating, or making a point. He absolutely means it. It has been in his head for the past five years. He is going to kill Lefty. The only decision is how, and when, and the only thing playing on his mind is that he hasn’t done it yet, because he is a fucking coward and the longer he leaves it the more ashamed he is of himself.

  He might have died in those first few days, and then he wouldn’t still be here thinking about it.

  Even now he has no idea how Lefty survived it.

  Saturday, 7th April, 2018.

  It has been raining hard all night, the wind howling. Despite all the vodka he drank last night, Fraser has had little sleep. He has been lying fully awake since four, watching it get as light as it’s going to get, which owing to the weather is unnaturally dark for April. At six he gets up and dresses, makes coffee and thinks about what to do. He has more or less convinced himself that the wee scrote must have stowed away on the Island Princess, but when he checks his phone there is no message from Robert to say he’s been found hiding in one of the storage compartments.

  In the end he puts his jacket on, and then he opens the door and closes it again and goes to fetch the full storm gear, the heavy hi-vis and the waterproof trousers and the boots. And a torch, because it is barely light enough to see.

  Outside, the wind is roaring, and above it he can hear the sound of the waves thundering against the cliffs. The rain on his face is salt-heavy. Even if Robert hasn’t found the lad stowed away, even if he is still on the island, there’s no way the boat is coming back today. Fraser wonders at what point he should call the coastguard. Probably he should have done that yesterday. Probably Robert should have done it. He might still have done so, but Fraser thinks it must be unlikely as there has been no alert, no message from them to demand to know the status of the search on the island. The radio has been chattering to itself with various warnings and problems with the storm, all of it too far away to be any concern of his.

  As he trudges towards the bird observatory, the wind strong enough to make him stagger at the exposed parts of the cliff, he thinks that maybe at some point in the future when a body has been found there will be an enquiry. He will have to try to talk to Robert, get some sort of agreement. It doesn’t need to be complicated – Fraser can say he thought Robert would have done it; Robert would have thought the same about Fraser. Just a simple miscommunication. A tragic case. All down to the weather, really, because if it hadn’t been for that …

  He has reached the bird observatory. Knocks on the door, but he’s made enough racket crashing into the storm porch; they know he’s there. He stands on the mat inside, water streaming from his gear. Inside it’s warm from the woodburner, the air damp and thick with the smell of socks and burning driftwood and something else, sausages maybe. There are four of them, including Andy, the reserve manager from the Western Isles.

  ‘Just checking you’re all safe and well,’ Fraser says.

  They are. He doesn’t need to ask if they’ve taken in a stray overnight; there is no sign of anything unusual, other than the fact that it’s nearly ten in the morning and they’re all indoors. They are waiting out the storm, ready to go out there and count nests once it’s all over with. The Must birds are resilient, but there will be many casualties after a storm like this one.

  He heads north, although now he’s looking for a body rather than someone sheltering. There is no shelter here, and it’s exposed enough for the wind to make him feel vulnerable. He bends low against it, gets as far as the ruins, and then turns back. He reaches the lighthouse after another half-hour, the wind behind him now blowing him almost into a trot. Thinks about going inside, drying off, having a rest for a while, then coming out again. In the shelter of the workshop he checks his phone again for messages from Robert, but the signal has gone. He lets the chickens out of their coop but keeps them inside the workshop. They won’t like it much, but if he let them outside they would disappear. As it is they sit in the doorway and stare at him.

  He eventually finds the lad just before eleven.

  He’s in the second cottage, where he had searched yesterday. He must have been hiding somewhere else then. Fraser sees that the door is ajar, forces it open and something makes him check the room at the back, shining his torch around the bare, damp walls. In the corner of the room is an old bedstead, a rotten mattress on it. The boy is crouched on it, his back to the wall. A bone-white face looking back at him. He is wet through and shaking. Fraser roars at him, swears, calls him every name he can think of, while the boy cowers. Whatever swagger he had brought with him is long gone.

  He leaves the cottage and shuts the door firmly behind him. The door is rotten and warped and takes some effort to open and close. He doesn’t lock it because there is no key, but later Lefty will tell him that he tried the door and couldn’t open it, thought himself locked in.

  Fraser is sick with fury. He will not have the boy in the lighthouse. He does not want him on the island at all, but here he is and the boat’s not coming, so there is no choice. Back at the lighthouse he fills a bottle with tap water, fetches the old blanket that Bess sleeps on sometimes, a bag of crisps and an apple. Takes it back out in the rain, heaves open the door and launches his way inside.

  The boy is waiting for him. Standing there with a big fuck-off hunting knife, pointed at him. The fact that he is so cold and weak that he can barely stand up does not seem to occur to him. He thrusts the knife vaguely in Fraser’s direction. Fraser has never been threatened with a knife before, though he’s had occasional encounters with bullies and idiots at school and work since, and he has not learned the lesson that a knife, even wielded by someone who is lacking in strength, adds a new layer of danger to the mix. He doesn’t think about that. Within a few seconds he has disarmed the boy and stripped him of the soaked jacket he’s wearing. Now that Fraser has the knife the boy is crying, scoots back over to the bed and cowers beneath it like a scalded cat. In the pockets of the jacket Fraser finds a bag of weed and a bag containing three tablets, a pack of fags and a lighter. A wallet with five pounds and various bits of paper. Three phones. He confiscates all of that and throws the jacket towards the bed. At the door, he leaves the carrier bag with the water and the food and the blanket.

  ‘As soon as the boat comes, you’re fucking leaving,’ he growls. ‘Until then, you can stay in here.’

  Rachel

  Rachel can hear sounds in the kitchen, but when she gets in there it’s Lefty, making toast.

  ‘Fraser’s gone out,’ he says, a tone of surprise.

  ‘Oh. Did he say where he was going?’

  ‘No. He’s gone wi’out me. I’ll do the chickens in a minute.’

  Lefty eats his toast without a plate, lifting it straight from the toaster, buttering it, and eating it while leaning against the counter. A blob of butter slides from it and on to the front of his ragged T-shirt, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  There is some porridge left; Rachel spoons it into a bowl and sits at the table. ‘You going to sit with me?’ she asks him. />
  He obliges, although he’s finished his toast. He sits with his chin in his cupped hands and watches her.

  ‘At least you get a morning without being shouted at,’ she says.

  ‘Aye. But I don’t mind it so much any more.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s no’ the shouting. That’s no’ so bad. It’s when he goes quiet that you’ve to worry.’

  Rachel looks at him with concern. ‘When he goes quiet?’

  ‘Aye. He goes all sorta – calm. Like he’s just all so casual, right? And if you push it then he just – well. Just don’t push it.’

  There is a long pause while Rachel digests this information.

  ‘Has he ever hurt you, Lefty? I mean – really hurt you?’

  Lefty thinks about this for a long time.

  She adds, ‘I know you’ve got this weird sort of loyalty thing going on, despite the way he treats you. But you know I’m not going to take sides.’

  He looks up, then, looks at her directly for the first time. She’s noticed that Lefty has a hard time holding eye contact. He glances at her sometimes and catches her eye briefly, then immediately looks away. But now he looks right at her, holds her attention. ‘You are, though,’ he says. ‘I know there’s stuff going on.’

  Rachel feels her cheeks flushing.

  ‘It don’t matter to me. See, I used to think he needed someone to shout at. Get all o’ that anger out, no? So I thought, well, if that’s what he needs, let him shout. I deserve it. But he’s been shoutin’ all this time and he’s no’ feelin’ any better. Then you turn up and now I’m wondering if that isn’t what he needed after all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He thinks about it, watching her. ‘When his wee sister died he lost the only person he had to care about. And he cared about her a lot. So maybe that’s what he needs.’

  ‘Look,’ she says, ‘I’m only here for a few weeks, you know? This – it’s not serious.’

  ‘That’s up to you, an’ him. Just, you know, don’t be saying about no’ takin’ sides. I know what would happen to me if it came to it. I know what you think of me.’

  ‘Lefty—’

  But he gets to his feet. At the doorway he turns and adds, ‘It don’t matter. You’d be right, anyway. I am all of those things you think. All of the things he accuses me of.’

  It takes her an hour to find Fraser. He’s not in the workshop, and the quad is inside. The fog that she woke up to this morning is clearing, and, while she can’t see the whole of the island from the top of the hill, she can see all the way to the bird observatory, and down to the harbour. There’s no sign of him, no bulky shape in his dark waxed coat. From somewhere behind her she can hear a tinny clinking, like someone chiselling at rock.

  She takes the steep path down to the cottages, hearing the noise getting louder. The fog is lingering in the ravine, and out of nowhere Bess scampers up the path to meet her, fur damp and cold, tail wagging.

  Fraser is in the second cottage.

  She already knows what he’s doing.

  ‘Fraser?’

  He comes out to meet her, wiping his hands on a rag. Something about his movements tells her he’s not pleased to see her.

  ‘Just clearing up a bit,’ he says.

  ‘You’re chiselling it out? Really?’

  His eyes widen but he doesn’t reply. She goes past him into the cottage, into the back room where on that first visit she’d noticed the old iron bedstead, the rotten, stinking mattress. That day she’d been thinking of somewhere to move to, some way of getting out of staying in the lighthouse with a man she didn’t know. She had looked at the room and been overwhelmed with the misery of it, even before she’d taken a step closer to the back wall and seen the graffiti etched into the grimy remains of the whitewash that covered the interior.

  fuck dis shit

  let me out

  Ima gonna die here

  And, underneath it, a single word, a name.

  Mags

  She hadn’t said anything at the time. In fairness she hadn’t even thought about it. It’s only in the last few days, with Marion coming, that she has remembered and wondered who the hell has put graffiti in the island’s derelict cottages. The birders? No. Previous inhabitants? Of course not. The cottages haven’t been occupied for years, have they? And then she realised that they must have been.

  Fraser comes up behind her.

  The wall where the graffiti had been is a mess of chiselled plaster. There is no sign of the words any more.

  ‘Well,’ she says. ‘You made a right mess of that.’

  ‘I couldn’t just leave it, could I?’ he says.

  ‘Better to have scrubbed it off?’

  ‘It was deeper than it looked.’

  Rachel glances at the floor, which is littered with bits of broken glass and the odd rusty screw. She goes to the wall, rubs at the bare plaster and the slimy, mould-speckled wall next to it. ‘We could just rub some muck into it. It’ll be dark enough in here. We could push the bed over to this wall?’

  ‘What are you talking about, “we”? You don’t have to do anything,’ he says. ‘Go back to the lighthouse.’

  ‘Give me the bucket,’ she says. ‘I’ll go and collect some grass, find some mud.’

  ‘I said go back. This is my problem, not yours.’

  There’s an edge to his voice she has not heard before. She thinks of what Lefty said, about that dangerous calmness. She thinks he is not like that now. What she senses instead is something else. Sadness, maybe. Guilt. Unbearable pain.

  ‘Will you just go?’

  Fraser

  Fraser scrapes up the plaster he’s chiselled, scoops it into the bucket. She’s right, of course. When he goes outside a few minutes later he can see her, nearly at the top of the hill.

  ‘Rachel!’ he shouts.

  She doesn’t turn round. He thinks she must have heard.

  He collects handfuls of grass, moss, dark mud from beside the loch. Inside he rubs it into the exposed plaster, a child’s finger painting that looks anything but natural. He hadn’t meant to bodge it. His intention had been to just chip over the words, make it so that they were just random scratches in the wall, but, once he started, the memories of those three days came hurtling back and his blows became more forceful and by the time he heard her say his name outside there was a massive shapeless hole in the wall.

  You made a right mess of that.

  If only she knew the truth of it.

  For three days the storm rages outside. He sits up listening to the radio traffic, waiting for a call from the coastguard or a message from Robert. His mind skims through all the possibilities. More than once he pulls on his jacket and is about to go down there with the knife. To finish it. To be done. Something stops him each time.

  When he’d got back from the cottage he had flushed the pills down the toilet, smoked the lad’s weed and slept for a day, then spent the following night in a paranoid frenzy thinking that the police would be on the next boat. All the while the rain and the wind and the darkness outside, and the boy down there in the cottage with no light or heating or food.

  He should have just done it, got it over with. Put the body in the loch and left it. They could have denied all knowledge, him and Robert. They could have said the lad went back on the boat and got off at Anstruther and disappeared into the night. If anyone had asked.

  The longer he leaves it, the worse it gets – the paranoia, the self-loathing, carried along by memories of Maggie in the hospital bed; Maggie phoning him up thirteen times in a single day to ask him for money, a different excuse every time. She had no money for food. Her purse had been stolen. She’d had to pay a debt, had nothing left until the crisis loan was approved. Had been short-changed in the corner shop. Had left her last twenty quid at a mate’s house. Maggie crying on his doorstep when he wouldn’t let her in because she’d broken in the day before and stolen fifty pounds out of his wallet. His mum swearing at him on the phon
e and then bursting into tears because she expected every time the phone rang that someone would be telling her Maggie was dead from an overdose. If the boy hadn’t killed her with his car, he would have killed her some other way, eventually.

  On the third day, the weather still wild, his curiosity drives him mad enough to go down there and look.

  The door to the cottage is open.

  The fury rises in a wave and chokes him: he has done a runner again. He is probably cosy in the bird observatory, feet up, telling them all about it.

  But, as it turns out, he hasn’t gone far. Fraser finds him a few minutes later, hiding next to the loch, crouched behind a metal container. Fraser thinks at first that it’s just an old tarp that’s blown in from somewhere and snagged, but the shape of it is wrong and then he sees the white trainers and he knows.

  Afterwards, when he tells himself this story in his head, he thinks he hesitated, stared for a moment and thought about going back up the hill, pretending he hadn’t seen. In his fantasy version of these events he builds in time to think about what he’s doing, allows himself that. He remembers that the dark water beside him is choppy and there is a smell coming off it, rotting seaweed, rotting something else, carried on the wind that down here is less strong but still swirling in gusts fierce enough to make you stagger.

  Afterwards, he remembers thinking that it would take a second and a little nudge to tip the boy into the water. He was barely conscious anyway, might have easily fallen in on his own. He’s always thought of the loch as an accident waiting to happen. It felt as though minutes passed, while he constructed the story he’d tell, the way he’d absolve himself of responsibility. Maybe he’d get away with it, maybe not.

  In reality, there is no time at all between realising what he’s looking at, and grabbing at the lad’s jacket, hauling him up.