She gets up from the table and heads for the back hall and the staircase leading to the lamp room. From the top she might be able to see where he is – there’s a view of the whole island, after all. But she’s halfway up the stairs when, above the roaring of the wind, she hears the whirring and clicking of the light, which is still illuminated. She can’t get up there until it switches itself off. She hears Lefty go back to his room and shut the door.
Halfway up the stairs, she stops at the window. It gives her a vertical letterbox view of a tiny bit of green and sky – but now it’s just dark grey with low cloud and rain. Like being in a washing machine, she thinks. The view from the top will be the same. She won’t see anything at all, much less a wee black speck of a dog and a man dressed in dark green waterproofs.
In that moment an enormous crash comes from the kitchen. Rachel jumps to her feet from her place on the stone steps and races down the spiral, through the hallway and into the kitchen. She’s expecting the door to have blown in, not thinking that, actually, the wind could only blow it shut, because it opens outwards.
By the time she gets there, the door is closed. Fraser is standing there, soaked to the skin despite his enormous bulky jacket, which he has opened to reveal Bess, cowering in his arms.
Fraser
‘Thank God,’ she says, and throws her arms around his middle, even though she’s warm and dry and he’s freezing and wet. ‘I was so worried about you!’
‘I’m fine,’ he replies, his voice hoarse, although he isn’t. He is far from fine. But what else can he say?
I thought about dying …
and then I chickened out of that, too.
Bess has shaken herself all over the kitchen tiles, but right now he doesn’t care. In the cupboard that houses the coats, which has a radiator inside it, is the old towel he uses occasionally for drying the dog; he retrieves it once Rachel has let him go, wraps Bess in it and rubs at her fur. She’s shaking. Or perhaps he is. It’s hard to tell.
He wants to be alone, and at the same time he thinks that being on his own might be a bad idea.
He is aware that he has somehow been at the edge of something. That he could have jumped, and for some reason he chose to turn back. At the moment he feels … nothing. Numb.
‘Where were you?’
‘Got caught in the storm.’
‘But where? You’ve been gone hours. Were you at the bird observatory?’
‘The ruins,’ he says.
‘The ruins? But there’s no shelter there.’
He can’t answer any more. He’s weary, bone-tired; all he wants to do is get in the shower and then go back to bed, to sleep forever. If he doesn’t wake up, it won’t even matter.
‘Fraser? Are you okay?’
‘Sure,’ he says.
‘Why don’t you go and get dried off? I’ll make some porridge, shall I? Or soup – it’s nearly lunchtime.’
‘I don’t want anything,’ he says.
He turns away because he doesn’t want to see the way she’s looking at him any more, the way she’s studying his face, her brows knitted in a frown. As if she’s waiting for him to say something, or do something. Nothing makes sense. He has no idea where to begin.
Rachel
Rachel is dozing in her room, a book abandoned on the floor next to the bed, and she wakes, startled by a loud alarm. She gropes for her phone, but it’s not that that’s making the noise. Then she hears the thundering footsteps of Fraser emerging from his bedroom, thumping his way downstairs, and Lefty in the hallway.
‘What is it? Is it a boat?’
She follows Fraser down the stairs. Finds him in the living room. Eventually the noise shuts off.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he says, and reaches for his phone.
‘Signal’s dead,’ she says.
‘Of course it is.’ He makes for the radio. ‘It’s the coastguard,’ he says to her. ‘They page us if something’s happening nearby.’
‘Is it a boat?’ Lefty says again, fidgeting with excitement.
Fraser ignores him and rubs a hand over his scalp, over his forehead. He’s been asleep for hours, with the wind raging outside. The storm is still fierce, and the sky is dark, even though it’s only just after six.
The radio connects.
‘Anstruther Coastguard,’ Fraser says, ‘this is the Isle of Must. We had a page, over.’
She watches his face, trying to determine what’s happening. The voice coming out of the radio is loud, but heavily accented and indistinct. Wherever they are, the wind is blowing wild too.
‘Coastguard, roger that,’ he says. ‘Stand by.’
They wait for a moment and then Rachel goes to the kitchen to make some coffee. Fraser looks as if he needs it. She can hear voices: the radio and Fraser’s reply. By the time she goes back in with a mug he is ending the call.
‘A yacht’s in trouble,’ he says. ‘Last location was halfway between May and here. The wind will likely blow her towards us. The lifeboat is searching, but we’re going to look too. It’s hard to see boats when the waves are high; the more eyes, the better.’
He takes the mug and downs the coffee, grimacing.
‘Right,’ Rachel says, her heart thudding. ‘Do we split up?’
He looks at her. ‘You don’t have to come out,’ he says. ‘You can stay with the radio. Lefty and I can do it.’
‘Stuff that,’ she says. ‘You literally just said the more eyes the better.’
He stares at her for a moment, as if he’s readying himself to tell her in no uncertain terms that she’s staying put, but then he seems to give up. ‘Right,’ he says. ‘Whatever.’
He takes her to a cupboard in the hallway, pulling out thick waterproof jackets and trousers. They are all miles too big for her but he finds the hi-vis waterproof that he made her wear on the quad that time and hands it across to her. When she and Lefty are all kitted up, they stand in the hallway waiting for Fraser.
‘Lefty, you go down to the south end. Stay away from the cliff, look for lights. Radio me if you see anything. I’ll stay near the western shore. Rachel, you head for the north.’
He hands her a heavy-duty torch, and a smaller, hand-held walkie-talkie. ‘We can’t use these to contact the coastguard, only each other. You press this button to talk, and then release it to listen. If you see anything, contact me and I’ll relay to the main radio to contact the coastguard. Right?’
‘What if we don’t see anything?’ Lefty asks.
‘Stick it out as long as you can. Come and find me, or radio if you need to. Is that clear?’
Fraser
The storm has abated considerably over the course of the day, something Fraser is glad about. His memories of the early morning spent in the screaming wind and the drenching rain have taken on a vague, surreal quality, not helped by having spent most of the day asleep. It feels as if, if it happened at all, it happened years ago.
Nevertheless, he thinks, as he walks unsteadily over the lesser-used paths to the west of the island, he is still here and he is glad of it, now. He came close this morning, closer than he’s been for a long time, probably since Maggie’s death, when all he’d wanted to do was follow her into the darkness. And now he’s left with a headache and a sense of shame, his old companion, the wind no longer screaming at him but now just moaning, a vibrant sort of complaint that he’s still standing.
The island has tried to claim him, has chewed him up a bit and spat him back out.
He looks up to see the bright neon bundle through the gloom, heading towards the bird observatory. She is being buffeted by the wind so she’s actually walking at a diagonal, trying to keep her face to it so it doesn’t knock her off her feet.
Then he looks back at the sea. The waves are monstrous.
He’s seen it like this before, swirling grey and white, the foam and the surging waves crashing up the side of the cliffs, the roiling seas beyond. He can see no yacht, nothing but the waves rising and falling, white birds dotting the t
ops and hanging in the wind above them. The cliffs below him are full of nests, plenty of them already with eggs. Many of these will be gone by the time the storm passes, either blown off the side of the cliff or washed off by a wave. With luck, some of the birds will rebuild and start again – but many of them will not.
He looks to his left, along the ragged black coastline past the lighthouse to the southern tip of the island. He can see a glimpse of a hi-vis jacket there, too – Lefty. He is, for perhaps the first time, glad he is here. Who would have thought that the lad would be capable of so much? That he could want to risk his own comfort and safety for the good of others? That he would do it not just when asked, but willingly?
You gonnae kill me, big man? Here I am …
For a brief moment, the rain pauses, then starts again. He looks again to his right. He can just about see Rachel, a small, bright dot. She is past the ruins, nearly at the top end of the island. He is glad he can still see her. It’s getting dark, difficult to pick out the rise and fall of the waves, only the contrast of the white as a wave breaks.
He concentrates on the horizon. He can see the line of light from the mainland. He can just see the dark, humped shape of the Isle of May. A moving light distracts him for a moment but he can tell from the beams that it’s the lifeboat, a searchlight sweeping the waves. It appears, and disappears, rising and falling in the rough seas. He is glad his feet are on the springy turf of the island and not on the rollercoaster deck of the boat. And definitely not on the deck of the missing yacht, wherever it is.
They have probably made it to port somewhere.
In his experience as a veteran of coastguard searches, missing people usually turn up having a cup of tea in someone’s kitchen, oblivious to the men and women who were out scouring land and sea in the dark and foul weather, their lives at risk. But no one minds, because that isn’t always the case. None of the lifeboat crew he’s met have ever felt anything but relief when a missing person turns up safe and well.
The weather is definitely easing. The seas are still furious, but the wetness on his face is the salty spray rising from the cliffs now, and not rain. He looks to his left, where Lefty, slightly closer, is still near the cliff edge. To his right, he cannot see Rachel at all. She is much further away.
It’s a second before he sees it that he thinks: something’s wrong. He is already making his way north, breaking into a perilous run on the uneven ground, when he hears the crackle of the walkie-talkie in his pocket, and sees the light of Rachel’s torch, frantically waving to him in great wobbly circles.
Rachel
It appears from nowhere.
For a long time all she can see is the surf crashing over the black rocks, surging towards her. She has never seen the water come this high over the long, rocky beach before, and for a little while she thinks that maybe it will keep rising and will come to meet her, to snatch her away.
After half an hour this is beginning to feel like a distinct possibility, and so she scrambles up the slope a little to where there is a low cliff, the start of the hill that will rise around the west coast of the island and eventually get to the place where Fraser’s standing.
The light is on in the lamp room and the beams sweep the grey sea, churning and roaring. Huge waves. No boat.
But up here, higher up, it feels at least possible that she’ll see something, if it’s out there.
And then, unexpectedly, as a wave falls, there it is.
The yacht has a dark hull, but she can see the white deck and the broken mast, snapped and dragging in the water. The yacht is listing badly, the waves breaking over the deck, because it is side-on to the waves and completely helpless. It’s close, unexpectedly close, and each wave is driving it closer to the rocks.
She gasps in shock. On the deck is a person, clinging on to the broken mast.
‘Oh, my God,’ she says, and then, to the person, her hands cupped around her mouth, ‘Hold on!’
Then she switches on the torch, the powerful beam searing through the darkness, and turns it in what she hopes is Fraser’s direction, and waves, and waves, tears choking her because suddenly this has become very serious, potentially horrific.
‘Fraser!’ she screams into the walkie-talkie, pressing the button and hoping for the best. ‘It’s here, it’s on the rocks!’
The wind snatches her words away. She thinks, now, that shouting ‘hold on’ in the direction of the yacht is really silly; instead she yells, ‘We’re coming to help! Don’t worry! We’ll get you!’ which of course is also silly. She can promise nothing of the kind.
But Fraser is coming, and he will know what to do. She can see the beam of his torch bouncing in her direction.
He is coming.
He is running, fast.
Fraser
He can see her hi-vis jacket. She has stopped waving the torch around and instead is pointing it at the waves, near the shore; and he sees it as soon as he gets closer, breathless and on legs made wobbly by the rough yomp across the island.
He has already shouted into the walkie-talkie, instructing Lefty to go back to the lighthouse and call the coastguard. Lefty knows how to use the radio, even if he’s never used it in a real emergency. With luck nobody will bother to ask who he is.
‘Stop!’
He’s yelling at Rachel now, because she’s clambering over the rocks towards the boat. There’s a sickening crunch as the keel hits a rock and shears off. The yacht stops moving abruptly, throwing the figure on the boat to the deck. Then a wave comes and crashes into it from the side, it rises and falls and lands with a horrible tearing sound that rises above the roar of the sea, rammed between two razor-sharp granite rocks.
It’s wedged.
He has a moment to think, thank fuck for that. Then another wave crashes, and turns it on to its side. The hull splinters. Another two waves, maybe three, and it will be in pieces.
Maybe Rachel hasn’t heard him, or maybe she’s just not listening. What the fuck is she doing?
‘Rachel! Fucking stop, will you! Get out of the water!’
His words are snatched on the wind. He keeps his torch trained on her back, following her as best he can, thinking that if he loses sight of the hi-vis he has no idea what to do. The surf surges forward over the smaller rocks as a wave breaks again against the boat. The water rushes up to Rachel’s knees and he sees her stumble.
Fucking hell. She’s still going. It’s still a good ten metres, fifteen, between her and the yacht. It will get deep very quickly, and then the water will take her.
‘Rachel!’
He thinks about running back to the bird observatory, where there’s rope in the outhouse. But there’s no point doing that unless she stops and waits.
He sees her pause. She’s waiting for a break in the waves. As one surges back, she runs forward, slipping on the rocks, her arms wheeling to keep her balance. She’s going to fall in.
please God, no
‘Rachel! Stop!’
He’s followed her up to his knees, hoping to clutch her back, but she’s ahead of him still, the water surging around her waist, her arms outstretched, her red hair whipping wildly in the wind over her jacket.
Now he can see a person wearing black or navy waterproofs, clambering down from what’s left of the boat on to the rocks towards Rachel. Below, the waters churn.
‘No!’ Fraser roars. ‘Stay where you are!’
Then everything happens at once. A huge wave, the biggest he’s ever seen, comes crashing, booming over the rocks. The wave is bigger than the yacht; it’s going to swamp it, and it does. For a terrible few seconds everything disappears – the yacht, the casualty, Rachel.
They’re just … gone.
The water surges towards him, nothing but white foam picked out in the light of his torch. It hits him up to his chest and snatches his breath from his lungs. And something knocks into him under the water, and he reaches down and grabs it, and finds it’s the sailor’s life-vest, with him still inside it. Fra
ser heaves him upright, grasps him tightly, hauls him up the beach towards the turf. The man is a dead weight but mercifully still alive, stumbling, coughing.
where is Rachel where is she?
The yachtsman looks round and Fraser does too, and Rachel is there, Rachel is just a few feet away as the water subsides again, on her hands and knees in the water, a wee hi-vis drowned rat, gasping and choking, hair trailing. He throws the torch up the beach and strides towards her, grabs at the back of her jacket, numb fingers clenching down like a vice, heaving her along.
Rachel manages to get to her feet too, staggering back to the shore.
‘Are you okay?’ he yells, and repeats it. ‘Rachel, are you okay? Talk to me.’
‘Fine,’ she gasps, choking hoarsely, retching.
‘Did you swallow any water?’
‘No,’ she says.
Fraser drags them both further up out of reach of the waves. He thinks it’s still not safe here with the water so high but suddenly he can’t go any further; he has to look and see. He lets go of the man’s lifejacket first and he tumbles face down on to the grass, groaning.
Then a light brighter than his torch picks them out and it takes a second for him to realise that it’s coming from the sea. Rachel has managed to get to her feet and she’s waving with both arms, her hair long, dark rat’s tails stuck to the hi-vis.
‘How many casualties?’ comes a voice over a loudhailer.
‘Two,’ Fraser roars back.
‘I’m not a casualty,’ Rachel says indignantly, her teeth chattering like bones.
‘Stay where you are,’ the loudhailer calls.
From overhead, above the wind, they can hear a deeper thudding – a helicopter.
You, Me & the Sea Page 35