‘And that happens when?’
‘Varies. Depends on the birds. But September, October. That’s when your bird observatory will be fully booked.’
‘Julia will be here by then,’ she says.
‘Aye. Probably.’
‘Hopefully it will all be fully booked for her for the rest of the year,’ she says.
‘I’d be surprised if it is, for all they fancy duvets and home-cooked meals,’ he says. ‘Sorry to disappoint.’
‘You don’t think people will come?’
‘We’re too far out for tourists. People can go to May if they want seabirds and pretty skies – why come an extra hour on a boat in the rain to see a smaller island with fewer birds?’
‘But people won’t just come for the birds, surely – they’ll come for the solitude and the peace.’
‘You can get solitude and peace on the mainland, along with tourist shops and pubs and places to visit if you get bored. You get bored out here, you’re stuck. You can’t just call for a taxi and head off.’
‘I did think that. But when I spoke to Marion—’
‘Oh, Marion’s full of it,’ he says, then bites his tongue. He should be careful. Not that he cares one bit what Marion thinks of him, but he still doesn’t want Rachel to think he’s talking about someone behind their back. And he’d far rather have the enjoyment of telling Marion off to her face.
‘She seemed all right on the phone,’ Rachel says solemnly.
‘She’s got no clue about the practicalities. You know she’s never even been here?’
Rachel raises a startled eyebrow.
‘Oh, aye. I met her at the offices in Edinburgh a few times, but she’s never come all the way out here. All her schemes are based on what she’s seen in photographs.’
Rachel shakes her head. ‘I did wonder. About those cottages – they’re going to take a lot of work.’
‘Not gonnae happen.’
‘I can’t imagine staying there. I can’t see the appeal. There isn’t even a view. But she’s expecting me to sort them out, somehow, isn’t she? Or Julia, when she gets here.’
‘I wouldnae worry about it. You’ve got enough to do with your bird observatory, and if you get bored you can help me with ringing and counting. And,’ he says, almost as an afterthought, although it’s something he’s been thinking about a lot since she arrived, ‘they’re always on at me to start doing a fancy blog about the island, like they do for May and the others. I’ve managed to dodge that so far, but, if you fancy doing a bit of it, that would be grand.’
He wonders if he’s overstepped it, asking her to do his work for him, but Rachel smiles.
‘It’d make me feel a bit better about eating all your delicious food.’
‘You good at all that stuff, then? Blogging and suchlike?’
‘I’m probably better than you.’
‘Well, that wouldn’t be difficult, to be fair.’
‘What sort of things do they want you to blog about?’
‘Have a look at May’s website,’ he says. ‘That kind of thing. I mean, don’t just blatantly copy them, no? But it should give you some ideas.’
She leans back in her chair, sighs. ‘I’ll go and get my laptop.’
Rachel
She twists the laptop round so he can see it, but they’re both craning. ‘Come and sit this side,’ she says.
He does, and his presence is suddenly huge, and close. He’s really enormous, she thinks. A great wall of a man.
She searches for ‘isle of may blog’ and finds it quickly. It’s good. Lots of pictures, regular entries – every couple of days, even this early in the season.
‘That’s what you want me to do?’
‘Aye, well,’ he says, sitting back in the chair, ‘you probably won’t find quite so much to write about as they’ve got.’
‘But you want me to take pictures? How will I know what to say?’
‘Well, I could tell you. You know. Interesting things. The helicopter’s supposed to be coming tomorrow.’
‘The helicopter?’
‘To pick up the tanks. And drop off the gravel for the tern terraces.’
‘The guys were talking about the tern terraces in the observatory earlier. And Lefty said he was making boxes. So what’s the terrace?’
‘It’s a big nesting site we’re creating for the terns, past the observatory. May has one. You’ll see their blog entry. They built it ready for the season last year.’
‘Oh,’ she says. She’s thinking about following him around every day, waiting for something interesting to happen. It would take her mind off things.
‘You got a camera?’
‘Only on my phone.’
‘Aye, well, that’s what they use on May, just their phones, I think.’
‘So I’ll just take random pictures of birds, and scenery, and show you – and you can tell me interesting things to write about? In the evenings.’
‘I’m going to need more alcohol,’ he says drily.
For a moment she feels a catch of something in her chest, as though he’s taking the piss, and she tries to catch his eye to see if he’s having a go at her.
‘You don’t want to be worrying about them down there in the bird observatory,’ he says.
‘I wasn’t, actually.’
‘No?’
‘No. Not right this second, anyway.’
‘You not worrying about what they think?’
‘No. Well … It’s not that so much as wanting to do a good job. Performance pressure. You know? I don’t want to let anyone down.’ She is about to add, I have a tendency to make a habit of it.
He laughs, just a snort, but stops. He’s not laughing at her. ‘You’re here right enough, aren’t you?’
‘But Marion has – expectations. Doesn’t she?’
‘Aye, she may well have, but she’s gonnae have to get used to disappointment. And none of that will be your fault.’
‘Look, I’m actually trying to be professional about it,’ she says, suddenly fed up with feeling like an imminent failure. At some objective level she knows it’s not her fault, but she’s got used to blaming herself for everything – why stop now? But she can do without him noticing.
‘To be fair,’ he continues, ‘she’s got used to me refusing her requests, so her expectations of this island are really quite low.’
The thought of Fraser continually and deliberately dis appointing Marion in her office in Edinburgh makes her smile, and then laugh, and he does too.
‘I could do some social media generally,’ she says.
‘Like Facebook?’ He says it like he’s never even seen Facebook, never mind set up an account.
‘Probably better to do Insta, and Twitter. Better for pictures.’
‘Right. If you say so.’
‘I’ll give you the passwords,’ she says.
He laughs hollowly.
Fraser
The next day Fraser is heading out to check on the west cliff just as Rachel is going for a walk.
She has her phone in her hand, which he thought was one of those city things, the security blanket, until she stops for the third time to take a picture. ‘What’s that?’
‘A cormorant.’
‘Are there lots of them?’
‘Aye, it’s pretty common. They don’t usually breed here, though.’
‘And this?’
‘That’s a herring gull.’
‘And this?’
‘A shag.’
She gives a little snort. ‘Seriously?’
‘Aye.’
A little pause. She is behind him, so he can’t tell if she’s laughing or if she’s looking for something else to photograph.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she says then.
‘I think so.’
‘So stylish. Like – couture.’
‘You gonnae put that in the blog?’
‘Maybe. I’ve got to differentiate it from the Isle of May’s blog, haven’t I? Otherwise,
as you said, they’ll think I’m copying. Besides, there’s probably a degree of interest for a … what’s the word? … a laywoman’s approach.’
He doesn’t answer, wondering if he’s going to live to regret asking her to put her thoughts – and her pictures – on public display.
‘It looks like … have you ever seen How to Train Your Dragon?’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a film, an animation. Well, more importantly it’s a series of books by Cressida Cowell, but what I’m talking about right now is the film.’
‘No, I haven’t seen it.’
‘Well, there’s a dragon in it – actually there are lots of dragons, but this one in particular is called Toothless, and—’
‘A toothless dragon?’
‘He’s still really fierce and dangerous; he’s a Night Fury. That’s the type of dragon he is. Anyway, he’s black and has black scales, and he looks a bit like that … shag.’
He stops, looks at her. ‘You should really get to know all these birds, right?’
‘I know. I mean, I can recognise some of them. You need to give me a list, or something.’
‘You need to do anything down there?’ he asks, nodding towards the observatory.
‘Not really,’ she says. ‘Not until later. I was just going to give it a quick tidy.’
‘Right,’ he says. ‘Come with me, then. Let’s go and look at some birds.’
Rachel
Rachel spends most of the morning with a notebook, writing down bird names and descriptions as Fraser stands on the clifftop with a pair of binoculars, showing her as many different birds as he can find. ‘Razorbills, there, look – black backs, white bellies. Thin white line over the beak and eye.’
‘Oh, I’ve seen those. They look so cool, don’t they? Like – I don’t know – like master criminals in disguise.’
She knows this probably sounds ridiculous, but she’s cheered up a lot being out in the fresh air, and it’s amusing her writing things like ‘razorbill = master criminals!!’ in her notebook with a very rough drawing of one.
‘They’re auks. Same family as guillemots, and puffins.’
‘Orcs? Like in Lord of the Rings?’
He looks baffled for a moment, then says sourly, ‘Different spelling.’
There is a long pause. Fraser is looking out to sea, or looking at the cliff, and then, with his head perfectly still, he’ll whip the binoculars up to his eyes in a swift, precise movement that shows he does this pretty much every day of his life. It reminds her of something – a predator, a kestrel hovering over a roadside, head utterly fixed and wings beating. Fraser hands the binoculars to her to show her something, getting close enough to loop the neoprene strap around her neck (because clearly he doesn’t trust her not to drop his binoculars over the cliff) and it takes her ages wobbling around to find what he’s pointed out to her, then focus the lenses, and by that time mostly she’s missed whatever it was he wanted her to see. But she likes the feel of them, unexpectedly heavy considering how small they are, warm where his hands have held them; she likes the sudden crystal clarity of the view, the movement of the birds and how suddenly they are close enough for her to touch, feathers bright, eyes bright, beaks and feet tucked under them in flight, so many of them, so many. Clouds of bright whites and greys and blacks, all of them getting on with their lives and doing their thing.
‘What’s Lefty up to this morning?’
He acts like he hasn’t heard, and she is about to repeat the question when he replies, ‘Up at the tern terrace, I hope.’
‘You’re pretty hard on him, you know.’
She’s not setting out to piss him off, but it feels sometimes as if she can’t help herself. She watches his shoulders stiffen.
‘Kittiwakes on the cliff,’ he says, some minutes later. ‘They have nests on the ledges – razorbills and guillemots just incubate their eggs on the rock; they don’t have actual nests as such. Shags construct nests, but they tend to use bits of plastic and other rubbish as nesting material. That’s partly why we do such a lot of beach cleaning.’
‘Sorry. Those ones – the kittiwakes? – they just look like normal seagulls to me.’
‘They’re smaller than a herring gull. Prettier. And they have black legs, black wingtips. You’ll get to see the difference soon enough.’
‘How do they stop the eggs falling off the edge, if they don’t have nests?’
‘The eggs are more pointed than hen’s eggs. So if they roll, they roll round in a circle.’
‘That’s so clever!’
The sun has come out and at one point she thinks about taking her jacket off, but the wind is keen and she doesn’t want to get cold.
They move in stages along the cliffs. From the chaos of whirling birds Rachel now realises there are colonies, groups of black birds and white birds and other ones lower down. Rachel can see a couple of the birdwatchers in the distance, apparently doing the same thing as they are – looking down at the cliff face, writing things down. Birds wheel and soar everywhere. The side of the cliff is absolutely teeming with birds, all of them moving. It feels like chaos, but apparently this is all perfectly normal.
At lunchtime they go back to the lighthouse. Fraser heats soup for them both while Rachel butters the last couple of cheese scones. She has only eaten one but the twelve she made yesterday have been depleted, suggesting Lefty has been helping himself. The bowl of soup is huge, chunky vegetables like jewels in a clear broth, small pearls of barley, chopped chives, bright green, floating on the top. Every meal makes her think, I can’t possibly eat all that, and then she eats it, hungrily.
The helicopter is due at two, and, by a quarter to, everyone’s out on the clifftop, trying to find the best place to watch the action. Rachel stays near the lighthouse; the bird observatory’s residents are all grouped on the clifftop one hill further off, cameras on tripods. Fraser is down below, near the tanks, waiting. There is no sign of Lefty. She gets some pictures of the helicopter coming towards the island, films a short video of the winchman dropping out of the side of it. He lands on the top above the harbour, not that far away from her. The noise is deafening and the downdraft from the chopper is blowing her hair all over the place – she ties it firmly into a tight bun, sitting cross-legged on the grass. Bright sunshine, noise, wind. Something utterly thrilling about it.
Fraser, who has been sheltering from the downdraft halfway up the track from the harbour, approaches and shakes hands with the winchman, engages in a bit of discussion that involves shouting in each other’s ears, waving and gesturing towards the clifftop. Then Fraser starts up towards her. Before he notices, she takes another picture, and another. Something to send to Mel, later.
‘You okay up here?’ he shouts. It’s still noisy.
‘Sure. I’ve got a good view. Have you been sent away?’
‘Aye. Best let them get on with it.’
He stands next to her for a while, the solid bulk of his legs next to her head, and then eventually, because there’s clearly nothing he can do, he sits down, knees up, leaning back on his hands. The line has emerged from the helicopter again and the winchman is guiding it towards the tank, preparing to attach it to the top.
‘Where’s Lefty?’ she asks.
He looks at her, cups his ear. She leans closer and repeats it.
‘Staying inside.’
‘Can’t he come out to watch? Surely this is a bit of an exciting event?’
Fraser doesn’t respond. Fair enough, she thinks. None of her business.
‘They don’t need you to help?’
‘Don’t want anyone anywhere near,’ he shouts. ‘Health and safety.’ Eventually, though, he points across to the clifftop. ‘They’ve all got their cameras out. So have you.’
‘And?’
‘Lefty’s camera-shy. Right?’
‘Oh. Right.’
What he means is, of course, that he doesn’t want to risk Lefty appearing on some blog – theirs, or a bird
watcher’s.
The first tank lifts up into the air and the breeze brings with it a gust of raw sewage that makes her gag. The helicopter flies off towards the mainland, the tank hanging beneath it, and the winchman heads up the path towards them.
‘First lot,’ the winchman shouts, as he gets closer.
Fraser scrambles to his feet. ‘Tea?’
‘Oh, aye, that’d be grand.’
‘This is Rachel,’ Fraser says, waving vaguely at her.
Rachel gets to her feet and holds out her hand to the winchman, who’s dressed in a bright orange boiler suit and various harnesses that look uncomfortable. Beneath the helmet is a tanned, wrinkled face, a broad smile. ‘James,’ he says, pulling off a glove and shaking her hand. ‘Nice to meet you.’
She follows them to the lighthouse for something to do – clearly the helicopter’s going to be a while.
In the kitchen Fraser is actually boiling the kettle – James clearly isn’t favoured enough for Fraser’s precious coffee – and they are talking about rugby. After a few minutes of standing there feeling like a spare part, Rachel goes out into the hallway, closing the kitchen door behind her. She crosses to Lefty’s room. The door’s shut; from behind she can hear the sounds of drum ’n’ bass playing unexpectedly quietly. She knocks.
There’s no reply, but the music shuts off abruptly.
She knocks again. ‘Lefty?’ she calls quietly. ‘It’s me, Rachel.’
The door opens a crack. A pale blue eye, a slice of pale face. This close, she can see a scar across his eyebrow where there was probably once a piercing.
‘Just thought I’d see how you’re doing, cooped up in here.’
‘I’m okay.’
‘You need anything?’
‘Nah.’ He’s not shut the door, though.
‘Can I come in?’ she asks.
His eyebrow squats into a frown, but then the door opens wider, and he steps back to let her in.
You, Me & the Sea Page 14