Fault Lines

by Doug Johnstone

  Louise smiled. ‘Are you going to deny a dying woman her last request?’

  Surtsey snorted. ‘Don’t pull that “last request” crap, you’ll be around for a while yet.’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  Surtsey felt her heart tighten. ‘Have they said something?’

  ‘Nothing like that.’

  Surtsey narrowed her eyes. ‘I can’t get you into the boat on my own and you can’t manage yourself, so how would we do it?’

  ‘Iona could help, maybe.’

  Surtsey sighed. ‘When was the last time she came to see you?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  Surtsey frowned. ‘Really? She never mentioned it to me.’

  ‘Your sister doesn’t need to tell you everything.’

  ‘What was she doing here?’

  Louise looked at her. ‘What a strange question, she came to see me of course.’

  ‘She can’t help anyway, she’s working.’

  Something came over Louise’s face and she pressed the red button on her bed for assistance.

  A few moments later there was a knock on the door and Donna came in.

  ‘Not eating?’ she said.

  Louise shook her head. ‘You know how it is.’

  ‘You can manage a wee bit, surely?’

  Louise pursed her lips. ‘Donna, when do you finish your shift?’

  Donna looked at her watch. ‘Just under an hour. Why?’

  ‘How would you like a boat trip?’

  23

  The wine had worn off and Surtsey’s head felt tight, but once they got a few knots up the spray in her face and the wind skimming off the water slapped her awake. Louise sat in the prow, blankets already wet, the bulk of a lifejacket making her look more solid than she had in a long time. Surtsey was on the tiller, steering the boat into the brown-grey swells, not much in the way of waves today but it didn’t take a lot to make them buck and bounce, the mass of water like brick under the hull, a shudder with every hit.

  They were pointing northeast, the boat aiming for Berwick Law but really just getting distance from shore into the wide-open space.

  Donna sat to Surtsey’s right, gripping the rubber handles on the edge of the boat, feet wide apart.

  ‘You OK?’ Surtsey said.

  ‘Fine.’

  Louise looked more alive than Surtsey had seen her in ages. She regretted not having brought her out in the boat recently. Her mum loved the open water, loved islands, loved the remoteness and isolation and freedom. Why hadn’t Surtsey taken her out here every bloody day? Because she was already used to the idea of Louise dying, she had already put her in a coffin and lowered her into the ground in her mind. It was a terrible thing to admit to herself.

  ‘She seems happy,’ Donna said, nodding at Louise.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What about you?’ She was shouting over the buzz of the engine.

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  It was the standard answer. The word you never had to think about, let alone mean. Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. When really you were terrified, miserable, confused, angry, hopeless.

  Louise turned back to them. Her eyes were so bright Surtsey wondered if she’d taken something. Louise pointed west. Surtsey had been waiting for it, knowing all along what her mum wanted to do.

  The Inch.

  Without speaking Surtsey aimed the boat westwards in a loop.

  Of course this was crazy. They didn’t have permission to land, it wasn’t an officially sanctioned boat, and it was still a crime scene.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Donna said, eyes narrow as the boat bounced over the wash.

  Surtsey pointed. ‘The Inch. Mum wants to see it.’

  ‘We’re not landing though?’

  Surtsey shrugged. ‘Have you been up close before?’

  Donna shook her head and gripped tighter as the boat’s nose flipped up then landed in a splash.

  It always surprised Surtsey that other people weren’t as obsessed with the island as she was. It was virgin territory, a brand new land, why wouldn’t you want to explore it? And yet people walked along that beach every day and never gave it a second thought. Maybe folk took it for granted because it had been there for over two decades now, part of the scenery.

  Surtsey could remember countless drunken conversations in pubs, usually with boys trying to get into her pants, where she tried to explain the attraction. Why she studied it, how it brought her closer to something elemental, a feeling she belonged. Of course no one belonged on the Inch except the birds who nested on the cliffs, the insects who made it their home, the grasses and mosses, the fragile ecosystem that had developed in two decades. They were the future of the Inch, the future of the planet. Surtsey thought of humanity as a blip, a tiny ecological anomaly that would soon be wiped away, leaving the earth to get back its equilibrium. Fanciful crap of course, humankind was fucking up the planet as best it could, but she wouldn’t be sorry if they destroyed themselves before they destroyed the world.

  They approached the southeastern cliffs where she’d collected samples the other day. Heaving grey slabs of land rooted in the sea. The cliffs contained tons of basaltic glass, formed when the magma from the original eruption cooled instantly, from twelve hundred degrees to zero as it hit the water. Steam explosions launched clouds and debris miles into the atmosphere. That the planet could so easily take on new forms, that’s why she studied geology. On the one hand you looked at periods of time stretching for aeons, on the other, things could be created or destroyed in a moment.

  Louise turned from the front of the boat and beamed at Surtsey and Donna. She looked so much younger, the years fallen from her face.

  Surtsey slowed the engine and angled the boat to skim round the south cliffs where cormorants and terns were sunning themselves. She saw puffins nestling in crevices, and this year the first gannets had arrived from the Bass Rock colony downriver. They turned up the west coast, the vents visible from this side, two natural amphitheatres, black bowls of rock, one bigger than the other like a protective older sister. They reached the cove in the shadow of the peaks where Tom was found. Surtsey rubbed her eyes.

  Louise was engrossed in the view, leaning forward and peering at the landscape, eyes wide, soaking it in.

  Surtsey shot a glance at Donna. She wanted her to understand the power of this place, the effect it could have on you. That was the reason her and Tom had sneaked out here in the first place. It wasn’t about the sex, though they had plenty of that. It was about inspiration, feeling insignificant in the face of it yet also part of something bigger. Surtsey never articulated this to Tom or anyone else. Right now she felt it again. It sounded hippyish, too much like her mum’s Gaia earth mother routine. But it was true, she felt in touch with the universe here like nowhere else.

  They were round the cove now and Surtsey saw the jetty.

  Louise called back. ‘Can we land?’

  Surtsey looked at Donna.

  ‘We’re not allowed, right?’ Donna said.

  ‘Come on,’ Louise said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Surtsey said.

  Her mum looked at her, the tip of her tongue jammed between her teeth. ‘Do I need to play the dying mum card?’

  ‘Louise,’ Donna said, shocked.

  ‘Well, I’m dying, aren’t I?’

  ‘Don’t,’ Surtsey said.

  ‘Don’t die? I wish I had the choice.’ She turned to Surtsey. Her shoulders were straighter than they’d been in months. ‘I want to land.’

  Surtsey thought about Tom, the police, the messages on her phone. She looked around.

  ‘If you’re sure,’ she said.

  Louise smiled then turned towards the island.

  Donna frowned.

  Surtsey gunned the engine and poked the boat towards the jetty. She lined up alongside, cut the engine then threw the towrope over the post and pulled the boat in.

  Donna got off fir
st to help Louise out. She and Surtsey each held one of Louise’s hands and lifted her onto the jetty. Surtsey stepped out after, Donna giving her a hand.

  Louise took a few hesitant steps along the planks, the girls hovering at either side.

  ‘I can walk, for Christ’s sake,’ she said, shuffling forwards.

  She held a post and stepped onto the black sand. She crouched in slow motion, using the post to help her. Surtsey watched. Her mum moved like someone twice her age. Louise touched the sand, scooped a handful and straightened up. She lifted the sand to her face and breathed in, a few grains falling from her fingers.

  ‘I’ve missed this place,’ she said.

  Donna stood behind, ready to catch her if she stumbled. Surtsey wondered about Donna’s relationship with Louise. Surtsey had looked after her as long as she could at home until it was too much. She loved that closeness, even in adversity. But she didn’t believe that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Whatever doesn’t kill you could still make you as weak as a newborn, it could destroy you in other ways, negate all the good in your life, leave you with nothing.

  ‘I was first here twenty-four years ago,’ Louise said. ‘It was only a year old. You should’ve seen it back then. So full of energy, elemental.’

  She was talking like the island was an old lover.

  Surtsey had a flash of fucking Tom on the eastern lava flow, behind the research hut, the sky violet at sunset, a lemon moon emerging over the vents.

  Louise touched the sand to her mouth and kissed it. Grains stuck to her dry lips.

  ‘It was settling down,’ she said. ‘Maybe it still is. Maybe there will be more eruptions, more earthquakes. That’s why I love this place.’

  She looked around. The low sunshine was a warm bath of light, long shadows from the vents turning the rocks purple. It felt like the land was breathing, a heartbeat under the surface.

  She brushed the sand from her fingers.

  ‘It always surprises you. This place can do anything.’

  24

  ‘You have a beautiful home.’

  Surtsey turned from pouring the wine. ‘Thanks.’

  She took the glasses over to the kitchen table where Donna was fidgeting with a bangle on her wrist.

  They touched glasses. Surtsey took a couple of gulps as Donna had a sip.

  ‘I don’t actually drink very much,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re missing.’

  ‘It tastes nice,’ Donna said, placing the glass on a coaster. ‘But I don’t like to get drunk.’

  Surtsey snorted and took another drink. ‘Christ, that’s the best thing about it.’

  They’d dropped Louise back at the hospice, exhausted but smiling. Maybe it hadn’t been physically good for her, using up her reserves of energy, but Surtsey was sure it had helped her mental state, seeing her mum’s face on the Inch made that clear.

  Once they got her settled at the hospice, Donna and Surtsey left, then shared an awkward silence on the prom. Surtsey didn’t want to be alone. Iona was working, Brendan was gone and she didn’t know where Halima was. So she asked Donna back to the house, partly to say thanks for helping with Mum, partly for company. And partly because she felt she owed her something. The fact they hadn’t really known each other at school seemed a missed opportunity now. She was easy to talk to, a good listener, and she was the only person in Surtsey’s life at the moment who didn’t know about her relationship with Tom. If she could keep a small pocket of her life insulated from that, all the better.

  Surtsey pulled up the chair opposite Donna and sat down.

  ‘I’ve walked past this house a hundred times on the way to work and never realised it was yours,’ Donna said.

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Across the other side of Milton Drive.’

  Newer estates, red brick, no character. The houses were the same size as this place, bigger gardens, but worth about half the money. It was amazing how much people paid for a sea view. Louise had got in on the ground floor before anyone had heard of a property boom around here.

  ‘The view of the Forth must be amazing,’ Donna said, as if reading Surtsey’s mind.

  Out the kitchen window now, all they could see was a small scrap of grass and cobbles, the boatshed where they’d stowed the RIB.

  ‘So tell me something I don’t know about Donna Jones,’ Surtsey said.

  Donna looked down at the table and shrugged. ‘There’s not much to know.’

  ‘There must be something, everyone has a story. What’s yours?’

  Donna shook her head. ‘I used to be pretty good at ballet before I got big.’

  ‘You’re not big.’

  ‘Too big for ballet.’ Donna took a sip of her wine, licked her lips.

  Surtsey tried to imagine Donna in a leotard. ‘What else?’

  ‘I can play drums,’ Donna said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Learned as a kid.’

  ‘Are you in a band?’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s difficult getting the right people together. Plus it’s hard to rehearse when you work shifts.’

  Surtsey drank more wine. ‘Do you want to work at St Columba’s forever?’

  Donna looked up, her mouth small. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Doesn’t it get depressing?’

  ‘I like being able to help people in their moment of need.’

  Surtsey thought about that. ‘You’re a better person than me, Donna.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I’m sorry that I never knew you at school.’

  ‘I always thought you were the coolest.’

  Surtsey had her wine at her lips and spluttered. ‘I think you have me confused with someone else.’

  ‘You were different from the others. It didn’t feel like you had to conform. You didn’t give a shit about what anyone else thought.’

  Surtsey raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m not sure that trait has got me very far.’

  Donna sipped. ‘I remember you in the toilets at the end-of-year school disco once. I was with some other girls, Heather and her gang, they were all drunk on cider. They were talking about which boys they wanted to get off with, hassling me because I wasn’t interested in that, saying I was a lezzer, all that rubbish. I was just shy and sober. You came out of a cubicle and just went off on one, going on about how nobody needed a boy to define them, how there was nothing wrong with being a lesbian anyway, how they were all narrow-minded idiots. You started going on about how you were going to get out of this shithole and do something with your life, unlike them. They all just stared like you were from another planet.’

  ‘God, I spent the whole of school drunk, it seems. I don’t remember that at all.’

  ‘It was so cool, honestly.’

  Surtsey smiled. ‘Well I never got out of this shithole, did I?’

  ‘Oh come on, you’re doing a PhD, you’ll be set for life in academia.’

  Surtsey shook her head. ‘I don’t even know if that’s what I want.’

  ‘What else would you do?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  Silence sat over them for a while but it didn’t feel awkward, just as if they were old friends.

  ‘Your mum talks about you all the time,’ Donna said eventually.

  ‘All bad, I presume.’

  ‘She’s so proud of you.’

  ‘What do your parents think of your job?’

  ‘They’re both dead.’

  ‘Oh shit, Donna, I’m sorry. I never knew.’

  ‘There’s no reason why you would know.’

  Silence again.

  ‘You want to know but you don’t want to ask,’ Donna said.

  Surtsey put her hand out over the table. ‘I don’t want to upset you.’

  Donna waved that away. ‘It’s fine, honestly. Mum drank a lot. I mean, a lot. I don’t think she was ever happy at home with Dad, though she kept it away from me. They warned her but she kept drinking. Liver fai
lure in the end, didn’t take long.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Dad got a new lease of life after she died, to be honest. Feels horrible to say, but he’d been shackled to her drinking for so long. It was amazing, he joined clubs and became sociable again, took up golf and Pilates. Then six months after Mum died I found him in bed one morning. Heart attack.’

  Surtsey’s hand was on Donna’s now. ‘I don’t even know what to say.’

  She wondered about her own mum dying, how she would cope. Would she keep on plugging away or spiral out of control?

  ‘Hey, babes.’

  Halima was leaning against the kitchen doorway as if she’d been there for a while. Her eyes went to Surtsey’s hand on Donna’s. Surtsey eased back in her chair, slid her hand away. She caught a flicker of a look in Donna’s eye.

  ‘Hey,’ Surtsey said, between glugs of wine. ‘This is Donna. Donna, this is Halima.’

  ‘Hey,’ Halima said.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hal is doing a PhD too.’ Surtsey turned to Halima. ‘Donna works at the hospice up the road, looking after Mum.’

  ‘And some other folk, I hope,’ Halima said.

  ‘We went to school together,’ Surtsey said.

  ‘Well, I was the year below,’ Donna said.

  Halima got a wine glass down from a cupboard and poured.

  Donna scraped her chair as she stood up. ‘Can I use your bathroom?’

  ‘Upstairs, first on the left,’ Surtsey said.

  Halima watched as she left the room, her wine glass to her lips. She waited until Donna was upstairs then turned to Surtsey.

  ‘Bringing new friends home now?’

  ‘What’s got into you?’

  ‘She seems nice.’

  Surtsey drank. ‘She is. She’s been a lot of help with Mum.’

  ‘How come I’ve never met her before?’

  ‘Because you’ve hardly ever been to St Columba’s.’

  ‘And how does Nurse Ratched feel about that?’

  ‘Don’t call her that. What’s got into you?’

  Halima folded her arms. ‘Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting company, it’s been a fucker of a day.’

  Surtsey looked out the window. ‘Tell me about it.’