Sea Change

by Jeremy Page

  Judy looks down at the water, calmly, working this out.

  ‘Good,’ she says. ‘That’s good.’

  Yes, Marta thinks, it was.

  ‘Judy,’ she asks, ‘what do you think happened?’

  Judy waits a moment before she answers. ‘I have an image of him in a European city square, sitting at a café table, in the sunshine, eating a pastry.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No, not really. I think he’s drowned. The dinghy was missing.’

  ‘But there’s a chance?’

  ‘There’s always a chance.’

  Almost immediately after Judy’s car has reversed away from the quay, Banjo leaps on to the deck of the boat and wanders into the wheelhouse. He jumps on to the padded bench seat and lies down next to Marta, looking up at her expectantly. She roughs his hair up.

  ‘Don’t worry, boy,’ she says, affectionately. ‘Vertu sterkur,’ she adds, in Icelandic.

  Across the water, a flock of starlings is beginning to collect in the sky. She watches them for a while as the flock thickens and stretches and pulls apart. This boat. His boat. It’s all she can think.

  She opens Guy’s notebook and sees page after page of his handwriting, knowing that this must be a new diary, a new life that he had imagined in the days before he disappeared. Writing gave him a future, that’s what he’d told her.

  She thinks about Guy, how he went to sea to search for his daughter. She hopes he found her. She hopes that he realized, in the end, that Freya was with him all along. Then she reads:

  Although it’s dark, there is the familiar scent of mud and river, of saltmarsh plants, of the sea, then the sounds of oystercatchers and redshanks calling in the beds, in the creeks, the sounds too, close by, of the other boats settling in their moorings, of the nudge the wooden gangway always gives as the engine is finally cut, then the smooth cast-iron bollards where the mooring ropes have worn their own groove in the metal, the hollow sound of the timber planking of the jetty, the slight bend to the wood as each knot is checked, the sheer familiarity of it all, the curve of the gunwale and deck, back home, the patiently empty quayside, the dampness, the smell of wood smoke, he returns to all this, all that he knows, and it seems he’s returning to another man’s life.

  In the mirror he sees a changed face - more rugged, tanned from a sea wind, a look in the eyes he doesn’t recognize as belonging here. Back in the berth where the Flood has been for the last five years, but he doesn’t feel the same man’s returned. Away from the sounds of his engine and the ceaseless movement of the waves, all is too still, too fixed.

  Going on to the deck, he looks out over the cold dark width of the Blackwater estuary, in a breeze which is airy and fresh and ever so slightly fishy as it mixes with the unmistakable smell of wet ropes and diesel, of fuel oil, grease and turps, of seaweed and mud.

  On the far bank is the dull fringe where the trees come down to the shore, and the orangey smudges of the villages, a brighter white light on the yacht marina over there, which shines across the water in a spear shape, touching the backs of the ripples to show which way the tide is flowing.

  The estuary is full - its banks are flooded with a mile of inky flat water, and he loves the feeling, he loves the proximity of all this bulging mass of sea and river, lying there.

  It literally makes him feel brimful.

  It’s past eleven. Rude to call so late. But he finds her number on his mobile and before he has a chance to reconsider, he dials. Sometimes, you must grasp that nettle.

  ‘Hello?’ a voice says.

  ‘Marta?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Guy here - I’m sorry I’m calling so late.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You remember me?’

  ‘Of course. Hi.’ She sounds cautious. ‘How are you?’

  There’s a coolness in her voice he must get beyond.

  ‘Marta, I’ve been wanting to call, you know - I feel bad for leaving like I did, without saying goodbye. I behaved like a fool, I suppose.’

  ‘Is that why you’re calling?’

  ‘Because I was rude?’

  ‘To tell me you’re a fool.’

  Was that half a joke? He can’t tell. It’s his turn to consider. Just why is he calling? ‘Not really,’ he says, flatly.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you, too,’ she says.

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Yes. It’s quite late. I don’t really want to talk.’

  ‘Right - I understand.’

  But he has the feeling that she’s glad to hear his voice.

  ‘I’ve thought about you, Guy,’ she continues, ‘not because you left like you did, but because I spent three weeks travelling with Rhona and when I look back, I don’t think of her, I think of you. That upsets me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, really.’

  ‘And because I messed things up.’

  ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘Nice of you to say, but I did.’ She waits. ‘I guess you touched a nerve.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says, not really in reply, but because he’s agreeing with her. This woman touched a nerve in him, too. That’s why he’s calling. He listens to the static on the length of the line - he still thinks in terms of telephone wires stretching across dark fields, that for a brief moment he and this other woman actually own a line, and its tension, as it reaches between them. ‘May I come and see you?’ he says.

  ‘I live in Cambridge,’ she says, humorously.

  He tries a joke. ‘I like driving.’

  ‘I thought you might.’

  ‘I could be there tomorrow?’

  She laughs. ‘You’re very persistent.’

  Does he need to convince her? He’s not sure. It’s difficult to read the silence. Eventually she speaks:

  ‘OK, what the hell.’

  Guy mouths a silent thanks into the phone.

  ‘You’re quite something,’ Marta says.

  He laughs. ‘There’s one thing - do you mind if I bring my dog?’

  ‘Your dog?’

  ‘A scruffy one.’

  ‘Then yes, yes you can bring your dog too.’

  ‘Thanks, Marta.’ He really means it. It’s beginning to hit him, quite simply, how long overdue it was to make this call, how important it is not to miss the chances in life.

  ‘I’ll prepare the way with Ro,’ she says, ‘I’m afraid her opinion of you since you left is not so bright.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘In fact she thinks you’re a rat.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘But you’re not a rat, are you, Guy? I’m not inviting a rat to come and see me, am I?’

  ‘No. No, you’re not. Not this time.’

  In the rear-view mirror, Guy watches the sea recede as he drives away from the estuary. In the morning sunlight, all he can see is a thin strip of water between the trees, a glint of shining light in the corner of the mirror, and then it is gone, behind him. The smells of dry soil and farmland take over from the salt, and he thinks of his father, all those years before, driving away from the life he never wanted to be part of, driving into one he could believe in. One eye on the mirror, the other on the open road. Departure and destination in the same view.

  Banjo has been over-excited about Guy’s return. He’s jumping over the seats and sticking his head out of the passenger window. He’s had a muddy few weeks, and as the car drives along he’s letting the wind blow his hair and his eyes are weeping with pleasure. Guy tells his dog about the sea, about the waves that came out of the dark, about the storm and the ridiculous sea anchor, and Banjo wags his tail with delight.

  Marta lives in a large brick Victorian house with overhanging eaves and tall windows, on a leafy street which smells of wet autumn trees. There are conkers on the pavement and across the drive as Guy turns in, the wheels of his car crunching on the gravel. He notices the clean shine of the windows, the curtains inside held back with broad velvet ties, the ordered pruning of the summer’s flowers and shrubs
, organized in formal beds according to height, English respectability in every detail.

  It still has the plaque of the dead husband by the front door. Dr Howard Sheridan, Osteopath. It halts Guy, right at the moment where he feels most convinced to be there. He doesn’t ring the bell. Someone is already walking towards the door on the other side of the frosted glass - her silhouette growing more definite, more real, as she approaches. A hand goes up to brush hair to one side, there’s a pause - perhaps an expression is being checked in a wall mirror - perhaps she’s looking at how long it’s been since the henna started growing out.

  Marta’s wearing the complicated green cardigan he remembers from before. She smiles warmly, her mouth pulling to one side in a slightly coy fashion.

  ‘I should’ve let you ring the bell.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To prove I wasn’t waiting.’

  He smiles. ‘I could ring it now?’

  ‘Come in,’ she says. They go down a thickly carpeted hall to a large kitchen built at the back. He sits at a solid oak dining table, in a farmhouse chair; immediately he wonders whether he should have sat at a different place - it’s clearly a man’s seat. But she doesn’t seem to notice. She stands by the range, leaning against the worktop. The floor beneath her feet looks like it’s marked from many years of someone standing in the same place. She puts a kettle on the ring, asks him about the journey, and both of them are grateful for the dog’s presence in the room, trotting round and sniffing the corners, a natural disturbance to counter the oddness, the sheer unfamiliarity of their meeting. It gives them something to look at. She gazes at the dog, rather than him, and Guy notices the way she stoops slightly when she asks a question, the way she only looks at him after she’s spoken, the way she’s conscious of her hands, not knowing quite what to do with them, how she clasps a mug, even though she’s not made the tea yet.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she says, directly. ‘But it’s a big house full of big spaces and I’m not used to guests - so forgive me if I’m nervous.’

  ‘I’m nervous too,’ he says, helpfully, ‘I feel like a teenager, meeting a girlfriend, and out of depth and tongue-tied and not at all sure why I’m here. Except that I’d rather not be anywhere else.’ It’s developed into a clumsy speech, but he doesn’t mind. She encourages this emptying of his thoughts - he noticed that before. ‘I’m afraid of breaking your crockery or saying something out of turn or the dog making a mess.’

  ‘Well then, in advance, I forgive you. And I forgive you sailing off in your Dutch boat without saying goodbye, too.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Anyway, I like dogs.’

  She’s made him a casserole, which they eat at the kitchen table - her place is surrounded by various letters and notes and lists of jobs to do. He sees his own name, half-way down one of the lists, next to a note which he thinks says ‘buy flowers’. She has larger handwriting than his own - his handwriting turned out curiously neat from an early age. He notices a bunch of fresh lilies in a vase on the side.

  She tells him the Falls of Lora is up for auction, and that the library of books it contained are boxed up in the next room. She refers to it as the consultation room. He doesn’t pursue it. There are clearly areas of the house sealed off, and maybe areas in her, too, equally hard to intrude upon. They steer clear of mentioning her husband directly, colluding subtly with each other not to spoil the fragility of the evening, there are too many ghosts surrounding them always and, as a result, they grow liberated, free to talk at will about other things, they grow friendly and content and this lasts until the moment Rhona turns her key in the front door, coming down the hall like a rush of autumn leaves, her jacket smelling of smoke and leather and coldness.

  ‘Ro?’ Marta says, sounding confused. ‘I thought you were at Mark’s tonight.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Meaning you’ve been there, or you’re meant to be there?’

  ‘Both. Hello, Guy.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Marta asks.

  ‘No. Actually, far from,’ she says, theatrically. ‘It’s a mess.’ With that she abruptly leaves the kitchen, scuffing a chair loudly on the tiles as she does so, making Banjo spring up.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Marta says. ‘They have a tempestuous relationship.’

  ‘I can see.’

  ‘I thought it was all ironed out, but . . .’

  ‘. . . Maybe you should go up and be with her.’

  Marta looks at him kindly. ‘Would you mind?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  She kisses him, on the cheek, gratefully, and goes upstairs. Guy looks at Banjo, who comes over to lean against his leg. What is it about this woman? Why does he feel he’s known her for years and years? The way the strands of hair fall to the right of her face, the line of her chin which again has a sadness to it regardless of her expression, the softness of her pale eyes, one eye a little quicker in expression than the other - these things seem overly familiar.

  He looks at the rows of ornaments and objects on the shelves, postcards tucked between mugs and champagne corks and fresh conkers from this year mixing with dried ones from last year, pictures of the Lora, a plan of the back garden, more drawings that must have been done by Rhona, a picture of Marta he recognizes from the sketchbook Rhona showed to him. It takes years to build up shelves like that.

  Marta is with her daughter for over an hour. He hears partial sounds of their conversation coming down the stairs and along the hall. Long murmurings as whatever is being talked about is brought into a more reasonable light. Guy drinks the rest of the wine he brought and realizes it’s making him tired.

  ‘You’re not the rat any more,’ Marta says, returning at last. ‘Mark is. Mark’s the new rat.’

  ‘Oh, well, I’m glad, I suppose.’

  ‘Has it spoiled the evening?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Will you stay?’

  ‘Should I?’

  They’re talking in whispers. Allies, it seems, brought closer by Rhona’s distress - oddly, it’s the best thing that could have happened.

  ‘You’re in the spare room on the first floor,’ she says, quite flatly, then immediately follows it with a rash promise. ‘Guy, do you want to do something crazy with me? Do you want to go away for a few days?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow. Shall we? We can go to the bothy.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Howard was Scottish, we had to have a cottage in Scotland - we’ve had it for years, it’s in Argyll. It’s so lovely up there, Guy, let’s go. What do you think? Let’s go in the morning.’

  ‘Well, it does sound crazy. Just you and me?’

  ‘Plus your smelly dog.’

  His bedroom is on the landing at the back of the house. It has a small single bunk in it and a computer set up on a desk and an exercise bike in the corner. He believes Marta’s room is one flight up, under those big eaves of the house, but he’s on the first floor, where, two doors along, Rhona is too. Coming back from the bathroom he looks in on her - she’d left the door open, seemingly as an invitation.

  Inside, he sees a room that’s clearly a mix of Rhona’s recent years. Candles set into wine bottles, a tasselled lampshade that gives the room a red boudoir glow, a poster on the wall of a chiselled-jawed man, emerging from the surf, he has an impossibly toned body with dark small nipples and an expression of sheer delight to be who he is, out of all leagues. There are souvenirs from foreign holidays on the shelves, a Mexican tile he can’t imagine is her taste. And prominently on the bedside table, the mobile phone - hot, it seems, from the last few hours. She’s very aware of the phone’s presence, as he comes into the room, as if it’s saying they’re not alone in there.

  ‘You OK?’ Guy asks.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Sorry you’ve had a tough evening.’

  ‘Me too,’ she says, a touch hostile. ‘I’ll see it coming next time, yeah?’

  ‘M
aybe.’ He sits at the foot of the bed. She’s sitting up on top of her pillows, leaning against the wall. She has her arms wrapped round her legs and is looking at him with her chin resting on her knees. The red glow of the room gives her a sultry, poised expression. Her pupils are drawn wide, giving her a dark-eyed look, directed at him.

  He thinks he should leave. ‘If you can’t sleep, I don’t mind you moaning to me, if you need to offload.’

  She lightens. ‘Cheers.’ Her mouth curls up into the slightest of smiles, at one side. Mark’s a bloody fool, he thinks.

  ‘I’m in the guest room.’

  ‘I know.’

  Guy gets up, hoping he wasn’t sounding too suggestive saying that. The man on the poster looks at him smugly, a man who’s never known awkwardness in front of women. He’s the rat, if ever there was one.

  ‘Guy,’ Rhona says, ‘Mum might seem the most level-headed person in the world right now, but she’s only just holding it together, right?’ There’s an accusation in her voice - a remnant no doubt of all the bitter rancour she’s spilled out this evening.

  ‘I’m aware of that,’ he replies.

  ‘Are you? Are you, really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s just, she can do without you, you know.’

  ‘I know. But maybe she can do with me, as well.’

  She looks at him, trying to outstare him with her intimidating looks and clumsy pout.

  ‘Night, Rhona. I hope you sleep.’

  He leaves, shutting the door quietly behind him, the click it gives suddenly taking him back to shutting Freya’s door, each night, after a kiss to her warm forehead. A smell of cotton and books and the taste of her skin still on his lips, forever. Is this room, with its boudoir glow and its ridiculous poster - is this how her room, too, would have become?

  He goes to his single bunk in the characterless spare room. Banjo is lying on the duvet, wagging his tail. Guy sits down and strokes his dog for a long time.

  They drive all day, a crisp autumn day, crossing the Pennines and skirting the Lake District and driving into the forest and the rolling lowlands of Scotland, then further, to Glasgow, to Loch Lomond, to Oban, then down the Argyll coast, the road getting smaller, more narrowed, each mile more enveloped by a wildness of moor and rock as the night eventually falls.