by Emma Timpany
After the funeral was over and friends had melted back into their own lives, Meghan began to see Sarah everywhere she went. So for weeks she stopped going out. But Sarah filled the cottage and Meghan couldn’t bring herself to throw out her clothes and possessions. She was caught between the desire to move on and the delusion that one day Sarah might come back and would be mad as hell if she found her stuff gone.
She’d refused antidepressants, but after the first year, had given in to her doctor’s pressure to have grief counselling. She went once, hating to hear her own words as they were reflected back to her, hating to admit that Sarah was gone, hating to reveal her own hopelessness. She’d tried alcohol, once swallowing half a leftover bottle of Sarah’s Jack Daniel’s, but it had only made her sick. And so she slept. For months, until the sick notes ran out and the anniversary of Sarah’s death loomed for a second time. In desperation, she’d gone back to the counsellor who’d suggested she did something positive, significant, to mark the anniversary.
On one of their many dives at Porthallow Cove, they’d found what might have been the signs of a shipwreck. There was precious little of it left, just a few large, very ancient timbers that may have once supported the rigging. There was also a curved beam wedged into a gully. They knew from the growth on the timbers and their condition that it had been there a very long time. On one of their subsequent visits to the site, they’d found a stout, beige, glazed pottery bottle, chipped, but not broken. The bottle had helped them date what they soon convinced themselves was an uncharted, undiscovered wreck – their wreck. Whatever the truth, it didn’t really matter to them; for Sarah and Meghan, it was their find, their secret. Many an evening was spent spinning tales of the life of their wreck, who’d sailed her, where she’d been, how she was lost.
They never told a soul about the site and when the counsellor suggested Meghan marked the anniversary by doing something significant, she knew exactly what she would do. She would go there. Alone.
Once the thought had taken root in her mind, it would not go away. Some nights it woke her cold with sweat from fear of what she would have to face. She’d never dived alone. Sarah had been her strength. Goading, encouraging. The fear and desire to run away was overpowering at times, but one thing drove her on. Sarah would be so proud, she told herself. Sarah would be amazed. She wouldn’t believe it when Meghan told her. But you can’t tell her, a voice said. It’s pointless, Sarah will never know. But I’ll know, Meghan had told herself, I’ll know. And anyway, who knows what Sarah can see, who knows. Maybe she’s gone and that’s that, but maybe, who knows … No one really knows.
Breaking out of her lethargy, she kicked down, moving her body upward through the water, allowing the air in her buoyancy jacket to expand with the relief of pressure. Checking her compass, she turned back toward the path that should navigate to her destination.
She moved faster through the water now, trading the risk of running out of air against the risk of running out of time before slack water ended and the powerful outgoing tide took over. Ahead of her she saw the edge of a deep channel, its shape seeming distinctive and familiar. She remembered she had to pass a gully to access a narrower channel, and then she would see a line of stones in the seabed, the Seven Sisters they’d named them. The gully was choked with kelp and the camera and torch kept catching. There was no sign of the stones. She was stupid to think nothing would have changed here. Stupid to trust her own memory. She felt the panic start to rise and concentrated on slowing her breath. Switching on her torch, she moved as slowly as she dared, sweeping the light from side to side. There were no stones. She was at the point of no return. She could go back to the boat and safety or continue to search with the remaining minutes of her air in the hope she would find what she was looking for. She went on.
Using her compass, she followed an imaginary line, then turned left into a wide opening with tall rocks at the entrance. Her heart quickened. She thought she recognised the shapes of those rocks, then pushing through the kelp she saw the first of the stones lying on the seabed. Then others. Seven in total. She knew that a few more metres in was their wreck. As she entered the final channel, she saw it, just on the edge of visibility, the place where the timbers stood proud amongst the kelp, the tops of which were being sucked gently offshore as they felt the first turnings of the current. She unclipped her torch to better see her way.
As she finned towards her goal, she became immersed in memories. Her throat ached as a collage of their visits to the place began to unfold. She remembered the times when visibility was so poor they had swum straight into it or past before seeing it. And the time they found it guarded by a very large and very fierce-looking crab they’d named Herman, for no reason at all. And the time they stayed so long searching for more pieces of wreck they had almost run out of air. All these memories and more came back to her until at last the familiar shape loomed out of the kelp and relief flooded through her. It was still there. She raised her torch and the light danced along the beams. And that’s when she saw it. Carved into the timbers, into their wreck:
KEVIN
WAS
HERE
She stared in disbelief at the words now scarring the wood, unblinking, until a bitter realisation stung her. Nothing, nothing was sacred. Anything could be taken away. And then it came at her, fast and from nowhere, with its huge black mouth and its rows of relentless, razor-sharp teeth. She howled, letting loose a sound that seemed barely human. She thrashed as hard as she could until the world kaleidoscoped into a thousand bloody, desperate pieces and she span violently upward.
The fisherman stared at the anglerfish lying lifeless on the deck by his feet, a large dive knife sticking out of its spine. He could barely suppress his delight. One of the ugliest creatures in local waters, the anglerfish was better known as monkfish on the menus of the elegant restaurants and gastropubs now lining the Cornish coasts and coves. He knew it would fetch him at least £20 a fillet.
He watched as Meghan dropped her weight belt to the deck. The seawater, draining from her suit and pooling around her feet, was stained with the blood from the bite the anglerfish had inflicted on her hand. She looked different somehow: less fragile, despite her encounter, and he was aware how glad he was she was okay.
‘Did you get what you came for?’ he asked.
She hesitated, glancing back at the water.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think so.’
I TURN ON MY OWN AXIS
FELICITY NOTLEY
I LAY on my bunk and saw the silhouette of him in the doorway, black against the orange evening sky. Banging of boots on the doorstep. Presently he would come in, but already the anticipation of his smell pervaded the house.
Every night I would awaken just before his return. I could not help but watch as he removed his hair, the flaxen wig that always curled so strangely. I would see how he took a candle and poured liquid into a shallow dish, how he mixed the fluid with a drop of molten wax and painted it on his head.
When he came near, he spoke to me in that gentlemanlike way he had, but the smell of him was like goose fat which had been kept too long, like taffy which had become singed at the edges, like a morsel of food which you raise to your mouth on a fork and have no wish to swallow. You remember how he was; he was much the same on the other side of the world.
One night in early January he took out a letter from his father. Didn’t read it, but had it all in his head. He told me of the flooding at the mine and a hundred miners dead. Thought it would be a diversion for me, not the very stopping of my heart. Put the letter down and crossed to the privy.
Only a gentle sigh from him; he cared so little. And in that moment I thought, since I have crossed half a world to come to this new country, which not one of my grandmothers would ever have thought possible, can I not cross half a world to return? Back to the place where the mines lie open, where the snow even now might be clinging to the surface, melting around its curves, dripping into its hollows. Back to whe
re I knew you to be.
The hardest part was waiting, staying indoors day after day, biding my time. I had no expectations, may I just say that? I know you always thought I hoped for too much. Certainly, I had a memory. Everyone has a memory, do they not? Of a night more perfect than most. Grey light, like unpolished silver, right across the moors and a snowfall, soft and even.
On the tenth of February I took my chance. In Oregon they cut down trees, shave their branches, pack them lean and clean like sticks of candy, ship them around the world. There was a vessel sailing for the Spanish coast, docking, I heard, in Falmouth. And although I heard it only once, that was enough. I took my jewellery, for jewels are currency everywhere, and walked out to the harbour.
I have made a discovery in life that most anything is possible if you try it and try it well. I know it was madness, but I took my bundle and walked straight past all those men on the quay in my long skirts and onto the ship. I walked like I was meant to be there and God knew that I was. And once I was on board I made myself invisible.
It’s a trick I learned as a child. For if you imagine yourself to be so insignificant, so uninteresting that no one would even want to look at you, you can blend in with your surroundings. You can be a white mouse in a sack of flour.
When we were far out from land, though, I became ill and you almost lost me. I lay in a drench of sweat and could think of nothing but the luxury of a roll over the side of the ship. I longed to fall and be lost in the pit of a wave forever. I hadn’t the strength to move. Then my fever left me and my hunger abated and – a curious thing – I found that I could move about the deck freely and no one paid me any mind. I saw that we were in sight of land and in this way I came into Falmouth.
From Falmouth, I walked as my grandmother had done, fifty years before me. My feet did not tire and I had no fear. For three whole days I walked to come back and find you.
And as I walked, what I remembered was this: our last day together. You held a piece of granite in your hand and tapped at the wall by my window. I stepped outside and we walked together, marking a straight line out across the moors. The machinery for once was resting and it was silent in the snow.
You wrapped me in my own coat and you said, ‘We will get lost, do you know that? If we walk out into that mist we will lose our way and never return.’
I knew what you meant. That once we were out there, we would not be able to refrain from speaking the truth. We walked together – so sure of the land and so unsure. A gentle slope of white could be the hill we climbed up every day or the opening to a mineshaft long forgotten. The ice we trod on could be the lid of a shallow puddle or it could go on down forever. You told me what you’d heard, how my husband had bought two passages to America. I said I would not travel with him; I wished I did not have to.
The snow covered our tracks, just as you said it would. We ducked into a gentle hollow, held each other closely, slept little. When the mist cleared, the cold was penetrating. I crawled out onto the cusp of a hill and stumbled. I have never seen stars so sharp, so violent in the sky.
I look down now to check the colour where I place my feet. Where it is dazzling white, the snow is firm. Where it holds a hint of shadow, my foot will sink in and come out cooler.
I had expected a grand vista, a worthy homecoming, but instead I am entirely enclosed by mist. I shuffle step after step, not daring to leave the path of footprints, trusting in the tracks of people I don’t even know. Just ahead of me is a woman made of snow. Her mouth is twisted and on her head is a bundle of twigs.
I remember the sound of your cough. You coughed always to the same rhythm. You would come to me in the early evenings with your shirt soaked above the level of your nipples. That had been in the last days, when the mines were being failed, when the pumps were too costly to run.
Ahead of me, a granite slab I almost remember. And a lake beyond, so deep the dead could hide – that’s what you used to say. The first time we were alone together, you traced your hands over the freckles of my arm. When I remember that, I also remember how silent the cottage was. How the other miners had gone away and it had been just the two of us. I’d turned the key in the lock.
But of course there was no lock. There was no key. It didn’t happen like that at all and each time I turn a few degrees on the granite slab, the view shifts and I am more uncertain. It was foolish of me to leave the path, I know, but that’s what I’ve always done. As I turn on my own axis, the view in every direction is exactly the same.
You might have taken me across the surface of the lake. There on the ice you might have lain right beside me. Perhaps I can even remember how it felt: the hardness changing, becoming soft and wet under the back of my head, melting into my hair.
‘The surface is an inch thick and hard as iron,’ you’d said. ‘It won’t give.’
But I’d not trusted it and when you rolled onto your side and tried to kiss me, I’d pushed you away. ‘We must keep on walking.’
That’s what we did. We walked into the rabbit’s fur mist.
Snow shoe, snow shoe, snow shoe, my footsteps said, following yours. I am following you still.
THE KISS
PHILIPA ALDOUS
IT WOULDN’T be the first time. She had been kissed before twice. Once by the cousin of a friend. He was fourteen – two years older than her. She hadn’t wanted to kiss him. She hadn’t even liked him. He had caught her by surprise and held her arms down by her sides as he pressed his mouth briefly against hers. It felt dry … like sand against her lips. A barren kiss. She hated it. She knew she should feel something. She did feel something – that was the worst part – a curling, tender excitement deep inside her, but not for him. She despised him for making her feel something that wasn’t his, something he had no right to.
The second kiss was a half kiss. It was just a few weeks after the first, but she was already wiser and better able to take care of herself. The boy lived on her street. This time she had seen it coming and pulled away just as his wet, red lips brushed against hers. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. She was tougher now. It didn’t touch her.
She knew what kisses had been so far, but she also knew that they could be something different. If Jake kissed her, she knew she would not pull away. If Jake kissed her, she knew the kiss would belong to her.
It was an Indian summer. Everyone said so. She enjoyed the sound of the words. In her mind they conjured a burning orange sky over parched hillsides and the weary tread of footsteps on a dusty track. In fact the sky was the fragile blue of a blackbird’s egg and the air was clear and cool over shining dunes. It was mid-September and the holidays had ended. She had been back at school for two weeks, but today was Saturday. The summer visitors were gone. The town was quiet and the empty beach spread out before her under the endless, eggshell sky. She had come down to the shore to scramble over limpet-covered rocks and watch transparent creatures dart in shallow pools.
Each year at this time the beach belonged to her. In this brief snatch of jewel days between the oily, splashing chaos of summer and the weary, drizzle-stained winter, this place was hers. The sand stretched, smooth and unmarked, along the three-mile curve of the bay, waiting for her footprints to disturb it. The sea was quiet and whitely seething, a creature half sleeping, dangerous and drowsy. She walked the wet sand on the very edge of the tide. The tan on her feet was fading after two weeks imprisoned in shoes. The sand gave softly under her weight and the shallow water, warmer than the air, licked around her toes and instep. The smell – of foam and seaweed and the dark odour of tar – was familiar, but always exotic and strange, always with a hint of otherness, a memory of far away.
A hundred yards ahead, a flock of gulls stood motionless at the tide’s edge, each with its own reflection in the wet sand. They rose noisily into the air as she approached and she paused to watch them land again, further along the beach. Apart from the gulls, there was no living thing in sight. She was alone. On her left, the sea curled and foam
ed beneath the perfect sky and there was only blue. The colour of heaven, she thought, the colour of gentleness and sleep. On her right, the cliff rose, steep and black, the sand at its base littered with fallen rocks and flotsam and pitted with crevices and caves. Sometimes she entered and explored the caves, but not today. Today the sea was all-enticing. Today the feel of the sand under her feet and the touch of warm salt water was all she wanted.
‘Eve!’
She spun around and he was running along the line of the tide to catch up with her. His hair flopped in rhythm with his running feet. She waited, watching his easy, pleasant grace. When he was within fifty feet of her, he slowed down to a walk. She could see his face, flushed from running. She could hear his panting breaths and her own breathing quickened to match his. It was Jake.
‘What are you up to?’
‘Nothing. Just messing around.’
‘Me too,’ he said, as he drew level with her. ‘I might as well come with you.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Might as well … if you like.’
For a while they walked in silence, while he caught his breath. She waited for him to speak first. He never talked much. He was a quiet boy. He wasn’t comfortable with words. She could tell. He lived his life without needing words. His thoughts were structured differently. She didn’t want to frighten him away.
‘Where are you heading to?’ he said, at last.
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Nowhere. Just walking. Where do you want to go?’
He didn’t answer. Instead, he picked a piece of driftwood off the sand and flung it out into the sea. She watched it spinning, white against the egg-blue sky.
‘Did you see the seal?’ he asked after a moment. He pointed back towards the cliffs.
‘No.’ She was curious. She hadn’t seen a seal on this beach before. ‘Where is it?’