Endless Blue Seas

by Annie Dyer

  She shrugged and looked up and behind her. “Go give Gabe a lift with the drinks. I need to talk to my girls.”

  He shook his head and looked at me. “Which translates as she’s going to talk about you and doesn’t want me here.”

  “I’ll help. You keep an eye on the mini-missile.” Anya took four steps towards me. “I have no plans to spend any cosy girl time tonight. Too much like a fucking inquisition.” Her glare at Catrin contained shards of sharp metal.

  I couldn’t help it. Later on, when I was alone on my mattress at the top of my barn, my fucking barn, I’d crucify myself, because I shouldn’t. I put my arms around her narrow, too thin shoulders, her heat transferring straight into my bones.

  Something in my chest sang.

  I doused it in forced memories from that night, picturing the car afterwards, the mangled mess and my friend’s corpse. This woman wasn’t my salvation. Only I could be that.

  She didn’t push me away, instead she moved closer, talking about how she’d forgotten about how irritating Catrin could be and how it was the perfect night for everyone to be on the beach.

  And then as we queued for beers and punch, we talked about everything that didn’t matter. The beach, the island, the new café in Beaumaris, the dilapidated pub and what I’d do to renovate it. She told me about Baron Hill, the abandoned mansion on the island and how it had almost been made into apartments. And I told her about being on a boat before dawn and how the clouds puffed up over the reddened sky.

  Her friends kept their distance until later, when the crowds disappeared back to their lodges and summer houses, and the children left were older, preferring to gather away from the adults with glasses of spiked juice and low voices that they tried to keep away from the wind.

  We sat around the fire, marshmallows being toasted, some without success. Anders told stories from the last long trip out into the pacific where he’d been studying something scientific and totally out of my understanding. Catrin added in details, ending his sentences like they were an old married couple who had known each other longer than just a few intense months.

  The sky was a dark navy, wisps of white cloud meandering across it. The gulls were still calling, just overheard over the music, although they had quietened, getting ready for just before dawn when they would follow the boats out to sea for breakfast.

  Anya sat next to me, listening to the stories more than she spoke. I knew before February, she’d have talked as much as Catrin, almost as much as Catrin. Anders had only threatened to gag her once tonight, although her response was to remind him how that had gone wrong last time.

  No one asked for details.

  “Did you sit round like this as teenagers?” I spoke just to her, the conversation having moved on to riling someone about his lack of luck with women.

  She turned, our legs touching. This was just us now, alone in our bubble under a dark denim sky.

  “Yes. We had one summer before university when we were out here pretty much every night. Sometimes there were a dozen of us, sometimes just two. But we always knew where to find each other. No one went far. I was the only one who really left the island.” Her eyes stayed on mine.

  “Do you want to come back?”

  Her fingers played with the grains of sand. “Sometimes. Now I’m here I don’t want to leave. But then I think that’s because it’s safe and I don’t want to be the type of person who lives in fear. If I don’t go back, then I lose.”

  I wanted to touch her, to pull her into my chest like I had before and lend her whatever strength I didn’t have for myself. “You don’t lose. Whatever you choose, you don’t lose, Anya.”

  “How? I’ve left my class weeks early after all of them have undergone a trauma so huge it’s scarred their lives. I should be the one to look after them and I can’t, because as my head teacher put it, I’m in no fit state.” Anxiety was loaded in her words.

  “Sometimes you have to put yourself first. Get yourself in a place where you can be what others need. How are your pupils doing?” One of her hands rested on her knee and I wondered how it would feel held in mine.

  “Better than you’d think. We brought in counsellors and took advice on how to address it with them. He’s still missed, but they don’t fully understand what happened that night, and what they do understand varies from child to child. Kids are resilient. Especially at that age.”

  Someone had let a few fireworks off near to the cliffs, a crackle splitting the night, colour scattering across the sky. I waited until she’d stopped watching the show to carry on, wanting her to see a shard of beauty in the dark.

  “Who told them about the boy’s death?” I knew the answer.

  “Me. The head offered and she would’ve done it, but it needed to be me. They trust me. And they’re my class. Except now they’re not.” I heard sadness and saw her glow dim.

  “Who’s looking after them for you?”

  “Adele. She’s just come back off maternity leave. She’s great.” Her eyes focused on me again.

  I gave her a nod. “You’ve done what you needed to for them. Let them move on.”

  “Do I move on? Do I forget what happened?”

  Lights. A thud. Screams. The shriek of metal on metal and then an eternal circle.

  “No. But you learn to accept that it happened.”

  “Which is harder than it sounds.”

  “Isn’t it always?”

  We became lost in the fire, more beers passed around, the dregs of the punch and a joint. Our legs stayed pressed together and I ignored the raised eyebrows of Catrin, or the raised eyebrow as she was too wasted to raise both together.

  “Will you walk me home?” she said.

  The party had started to evaporate, the morning beginning to loom.

  “Sure.”

  We said little, the whispered kisses of the couples we were leaving on the beach simply part of the seagulls’ chorus. The tide was coming in, rippling over the cool sand. It never stopped.

  She took my hand as we walked to the steps, saying nothing for a while. She wasn’t drunk. Her beers had turned to water and her pulls on the joint had been few.

  “Thank you.” She stopped at the base of the steps.

  “What the fuck for?” My words were slow and soft, the swear word there to emphasise the needlessness of her thanks.

  “For – I don’t know. Making tonight easier. Today – I hate people seeing me cry. I’m an ugly crier.”

  “You’re really not.”

  “Now I know you’re lying.”

  “Your lips go a little redder and your eyes get glassy, but I don’t think you could ever be ugly anything.” I had no idea where my game was coming from. I thought I’d lost it in the crash.

  Her laugh was loud, free. Young.

  “You’re so full of shit.”

  “I know. I really am. Look, I get where you’re coming from…”

  “I know. Cat said you couldn’t walk for a while. I didn’t see anything. I didn’t get hurt.” She looked at me with apprehension and I fucking hated it.

  “Don’t minimise what you went through.”

  “I know. But you were hurt. And you were there.”

  “And I’m so fucked up by it I don’t know which way is up half the time. But tonight, even today, something got righted. Don’t make me a hero, Anya, I’m anything but.”

  She stared at me as if she was seeing me for the first time. Then she stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against mine, holding on to my shoulders.

  For a second, I was numb. I had no idea what to do. Then heat rushed through me like it was me on fire and not the wood we’d lit and I grasped her waist and kissed her.

  Blood started to fill veins that had been dead for so long and I started to feel the texture of her clothing against my hands, her warmth against me, the pressure of her mouth on mine. It was as if lightning had struck and Frankenstein’s monster had been reborn.

  One of us moved away first, but I didn’t kno
w who. We looked at each other and I saw fear, shock across her face. I knew I mirrored it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “I’m not.”

  “Good. Because I wasn’t really.”

  I felt as if I’d just kissed a girl for the first time and I didn’t know what to say. Or do next. So I smiled and probably looked like an idiot.

  We both laughed.

  “Can I kiss you again?” The words spilled out.

  “Anytime.”

  This time it was slower. This time I led, cupped her face with one hand and explored her mouth, tasting rum punch and her. Her hands crept up my T-shirt and rested on my stomach.

  When the kiss ended, my cock was harder than it had been since before the crash and if it had been before, I’d have taken her back to her room and fucked her until the only words she knew were my name and ‘more’.

  But tonight wasn’t the night for that. Not yet.

  “It’s nearly dawn.” She looked up at the sky where the light was starting to peer through. “I feel like a teenager sneaking home.”

  “Good. That used to be a good feeling.” I pressed my forehead against hers. “I need to let you go home.”

  “You do.”

  We didn’t move, hands holding each other, the night dying.

  I watched her eventually climb the steps up to the guesthouse, waiting until she waved at me from the top and only then did I start the walk home, back to my barn.

  Feeling seventeen again.

  Feeling light.

  Anya

  The tones of my sister’s voice had never been described as dulcet. When Shakespeare described Cordelia’s voice as being ‘ever sweet, gentle and low’ he didn’t have any future idea of what Kim would be like.

  Light swirled in from the window, catching the flecks of dust that danced like small fairies. I put the time at close to midday and despite having a night later than I’d known for years, I felt more awake than normal.

  I thought about Gabe and his words, the way he’d kissed me. I’d expected to feel guilt this morning, something other than the excitement I felt grip my chest, as if I was sixteen again.

  My therapist had encouraged me to talk about moving on and how that looked. I’d talked about my job, where I wanted to progress to, where I wanted to live. It had felt so far away, an untouchable dream that lurked in the distance.

  Last night had felt like a film. The bonfire and the fireworks. How he’d held my hand and our legs had touched as we talked.

  Yet it was now morning and it hadn’t faded. Only my sister and her loud voice and annoyed words were spewing through the window.

  “Sometimes I think we should be getting references for guests before we allow them to stay. How someone behaves like that is beyond me!” I heard anger in her voice and hurt. There was no way I couldn’t check on her. As irritating as she could be, she was a good, well-meaning person and pregnant. Very, very pregnant and I didn’t feel competent to be delivering that child on a Saturday morning if we couldn’t get her to the hospital quick enough.

  I pulled on a dressing gown and headed outside, the sun cresting a perfect blue sky. Kim was standing with Phillip, her husband and my brother-in-law. Eventually they would take over the guesthouse from Nan, and Phillip would finish his job in banking. If Kim didn’t murder our guests before then.

  “What’s happened?”

  She eyed me and smiled. “You look better.”

  “It was the Caribbean punch.”

  She rolled her eyes. “As soon as this baby’s out I’m indulging. I feel like I haven’t had alcohol for years.”

  “And if you carry on like you are that baby might be out sooner than you expect. Maybe you could name it after whichever guest has pissed you off.”

  There was a chuckle from Phillip.

  Kim looked up and huffed. “This stupid couple from somewhere down south. I have no idea how much gin the woman consumed last night but she threw a huge tantrum about the room not having a shower over the bath, and how the towels were too fluffy so they didn’t absorb water. Then she went on and on about how things should be done. I have no idea how I didn’t throw something at her.”

  “Because you’re a professional?” Kim was good at her job. She loved the guesthouse and its history. “What did her husband or partner say?” I knew who she was referring to. I’d seen them after breakfast yesterday, a couple in their fifties. She’d bobbed outside a couple of times for a cigarette.

  “He was too pissed. Then this morning they both sauntered down as if nothing had happened, all smiles and thank yous.”

  This was nothing we hadn’t had before. When I spoke to Kim during the week she’d give me stories of the guests they had, telling me the things she’d noticed or that she’d discovered. But right now she was hormonal and tired and cranky and really should be sitting with her feet up somewhere.

  “Okay, Kimbo, let’s get some decaffeinated coffee and a nice healthy breakfast and we can go through some of Marcy’s things.” I needed to tell her about Gabe, to see what she thought. She’d only been nice about him when she’d spoken about him yesterday and I knew she’d be excited that out of nowhere I’d had even one night of something that verged on being happy.

  “I need to check on the monster. He’s got a party this afternoon.” She looked slightly less murderous.

  “I’ll take him. You need to cut back on what you’re doing. Take some time out. And we have Annalise starting on Monday.” Phillip put his hand on her shoulder. He was undemonstrative and I’d never quite worked out the dynamic between them as my sister was over the top with her affections and as tactile as any person could be without receiving multiple restraining orders. But they worked and had done since he’d stayed here as a guest for his parents’ wedding anniversary when he was twenty-five and Kim twenty-two, fresh out of studying for a degree.

  “Let’s get coffee and then I want to show you something.”

  “You’d best get changed first.” She eyed what I was wearing. “Don’t want the guests to think we’re that sort of place.”

  We sat down in Marcy’s old room half an hour later, my face makeup free and my hair tied up damp from the quick shower I’d had. I’d brought the letters that I’d found and opened up another box, this one containing photos of people I’d never met.

  Kim read through the first section and looked curiously at the photos. “What’s written on the backs? Are there any of Donald and Julia?”

  “There’s one here with D & J written on it.” I passed her an old, faded black and white picture of a handsome man and a woman who looked ten years older than him, her dress severe and Victorian, even though it must’ve been a good couple of decades after Queen Victoria had died.

  “Probably them. Here, read the next part while I look through.” She passed me the journal and rearranged herself again. Being comfortable was something passing for her.

  I started to read, imagining my spinster aunt working here as a young woman, seeing this couple who were possibly real instead of a figment of her imagination.

  Dear Alice,

  The mystery surrounding Don and Julia Stretton continues to deepen. This morning there was only Julia’s husband at the table, the place set for her was untouched, the napkin still daintily folded as my mother had taught me. It took me ages to do all the napkins last night; I keep thinking that each day I’ll get a little quicker but it doesn’t seem to happen! I stayed away from the table, leaving Jennifer to attend to Mr Stretton. His visit had been publicised so much that I felt nervous speaking to him still and his manner this morning was glum and preoccupied, which was a shame because it was beautiful outside, all blue skies and a calm sea.

  He was hunched over a bundle of papers, intently studying them whilst drinking the coffee Jennifer had made specially. Every so often his hand would rise up and run through his hair, his fingers gripping tightly as if what he was reading wasn’t pleasing him.

  Jennifer told me off for staring at hi
m. I told her she’d been hovering round him like a fly and then mother told us both off.

  At that point I thought it was good sense to take the breakfasts for table twelve over to a pair of children who had managed to spoil perfectly good wallpaper in their room by drawing on it. The children pestered me for a while, asking questions about the animals that lived nearby and if Jim the farmer would let him ride his horses. I doubt he would, given that my father had told the whole village the previous night about the newly coloured room thus ensuring that most people would keep the boy and girl at arm’s length, less they damage any further property.

  I heard a voice when I walked back to the kitchen and turned to see Mr Stretton looking at me, his eyes finally detached from the papers. Looking at me! Oh, Alice, if you saw him, you’d be staring too! He is such an attractive man! He could be in a movie.

  I asked him what I could do and he said he wanted some advice. I nodded even though I had no idea what he could possibly want me to advise him on and approached the table, aware that Jennifer was watching my every move from the corner of her eye. “I’ll help if I can,” I told him. I found any nerves I had dropping away as his eyes met mine. Rather than containing the stiff, staunch look of his father – who I met when I took your last letter to the post office – they were filled with a life I hadn’t expected to see. Plus, he looked so much younger!

  “My wife is not well – hence she has not joined me for breakfast – and I wondered if it would be possible for a doctor to make her a visit,” he said, the frown on his face deepening the lines on his forehead. I realised that he was not as old as I had thought and that Julia must actually be older than him.

  “Certainly, Mr Stretton. The doctor is a friend of my father’s. I imagine he will come over as soon as his morning surgery is over,” I told him, dying to ask what was ailing Julia.

  “How far is the surgery from here?” When he took off his glasses to clean them I noticed how very blue his eyes were.

  “It’s the next village along – around fifteen miles away, maybe a little more,” I said.