‘What are you lazing about for? Half the day’s gone already.’
Ed jumped and slammed down the lid on his laptop. He shoved the chicken in the oven and dumped spuds in the sink for peeling. He felt his father behind him. He peeled the potatoes in silence.
The old man grabbed his arm, hard fingers digging in, pulling him around. He was close enough for Ed to clearly see the veins and black pores on his nose and smell his breath, oddly sweet.
‘You think you’re better than me with your pictures and your bloody birds, don’t you? Think you can get away from the island just like your mother wanted to.’
He stripped his lips back, showing his strong yellow teeth, with the gap where a cow had struck him with her head. Despite the effects of the weather and the drink, he had somehow aged well. Ed’s mother had always said that he was much older than he looked. Birthdays were not celebrated, not since Ed was small, and he had no idea what age his father was.
‘She didn’t go anywhere and you’re not going to either.’
His right hand swung around and struck Ed a hard blow across the cheek, catching his eye, rocking his head. The old man pulled back his hand, this time making a fist. Ed shoved his own hand forward and the old man paused and looked down.
The potato knife was pressed to his stomach.
‘Back off,’ Ed said, in a voice that sounded like a stranger’s. Older, deeper.
The old man was still for a second, his bloodshot eyes flickering. Then he laughed. He turned and walked out of the kitchen, not knowing how close the laughter had brought his son to driving the knife into his gut. Not the slap or the threatened fist, but the laugh.
Ed took a breath and let it out with a hiss. He stared at the untidy kitchen and heard the television come on in the sitting room. He turned around to the sink, and with visions of birds’ wings and chestnut hair filling his mind’s eye against a backdrop of pulsing red anger, he blindly went on peeling.
Three
Are the days of winter sunshine just as sad for you, too? When it is misty, in the evenings, and I am out walking by myself, it seems to me that the rain is falling through my heart and causing it to crumble into ruins.
Gustave Flaubert, November, 1842
After dinner, Lia pulled on her jacket and went out under the robin. She had been used to being alone in the city, with both parents working. She knew how to keep herself safe. Here, although there seemed to be nothing to be afraid of, it was all entirely new. The sun was gone but the sky still bore the last traces of a moody, rusty colour. Darkness was sweeping in.
She went back inside and stuck her head into the lounge where Harry was now pulling a pint.
‘I’m going to take a little walk down to the harbour, Harry, OK?’
He looked up and seemed to hesitate. ‘Fine.’ He paused. ‘But don’t wander off anywhere else – and don’t be too long, d’you hear? It’s getting dark.’
‘OK.’
Outside, she rolled her eyes. She might as well be back with her mother in New York. Harry had slipped into the parental role like he was born to it.
She turned towards the harbour, walking slowly, taking in the sound of the fishing-boat engines rumbling and the shouts of fishermen returning to their safe haven. Four boats had come home and there was good-natured ribbing going on between the crews. She couldn’t make out everything they were saying as their accents were thicker than either Harry’s or Rose’s. She leaned on the harbour wall and watched as they secured the trawlers. The heavy clouds brought night closer and one fat drop of rain struck her hand. She thought she would have to run for cover, but after two or three more drops, the clouds held on to their heavy cargo.
Most of the men glanced at Lia as they passed. She nodded hello to them, smiling. They were surprisingly shy, dipping their heads as they passed her, whether old or young.
‘What do you think?’
Lia jumped.
Ed was leaning on the wall a few feet away.
‘That’s twice today you scared me.’
‘Sorry.’
‘I’m not normally jumpy, you know, when people don’t sneak up on me.’
‘Last time, I promise. Probably.’
‘Probably?’
‘You concentrate when you’re looking at stuff. It’s not really my fault if you don’t notice me sneaking up on you.’
Lia laughed and he smiled at her.
She turned around and leaned her back against the wall.
‘So what happens around here after dark?’
There was a small silence. Lia bit her lip. She hadn’t meant it in any weird way.
‘People go home, or to the pub, or visit their neighbours.’
Lia felt herself relax. He could have picked up on what she said and embarrassed her about it, but he had chosen to be kind. She liked him for it.
‘We could go for a walk if you like,’ he said. ‘There’s a path with lights along the cliffs. I mean, I could show you where to go, if you wanted.’
Lia hesitated. ‘Is it far?’
‘No, it’s just a bit beyond the village.’ He pointed in the opposite direction to the pub. ‘There’s a bench with a nice view of the Chimneys during the day.’
She nodded.
‘Look, it’s no problem if you need some space.’
‘No, it’s fine,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’
Rose blew Frank a kiss and shut the door. Frank settled down with his new book, a juicy crime novel. When it hadn’t gripped him after the first few pages, he put it on the arm of the chair and just sat for a moment. He didn’t fancy watching TV. He thought about a cup of tea, but Rose had forgotten to buy biscuits. He clasped his hands together and closed his eyes. Maybe forty winks would be nice.
His mind started whispering about money and bills. The summer had been OK, and they had enough fuel for the winter, if it wasn’t too long or hard. Life was much softer now that he was off the boat, but the household bills were still there, hanging over them. Like everyone, coming into the winter meant buying food and fuel in bulk in case they were cut off from the mainland.
He opened his eyes, sighing, then stood up and looked out the window. The village was bright with the lights from the houses and the big sodium lights around the dock. He stared at the fishing boats and felt the longing that had never left him, the longing for the sea.
Turning away, Frank looked around the tidy sitting room. Rose was a great cook and housekeeper. He did his best not to make the place too untidy. After he sold the boat, he had tried to help out around the house, but Rose would have none of it. She shooed him away, saying that she had kept house through years of being married to a fisherman and raising three children and she didn’t want him under her feet now. She had smiled as she shooed him though.
Becky was their only child still on the island. This was Rose’s night to visit her, even though they had seen each other every day since Becky announced her pregnancy. He didn’t mind. The women could talk about whatever women talked about when men weren’t around. Becky’s Matt was away on one of the big trawlers that stayed at sea for weeks on end. Otherwise, he and his son-in-law might have gone for a pint.
He glanced at the clock above the mantelpiece. Not too late. Rose wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours. Maybe a pint and a game of darts in the Rest. He fetched his jacket and tied his shoes carefully, leaving his slippers by the fire.
He scrawled a note on the whiteboard in the kitchen below Call Declan on Wednesday. Their youngest had his final exam to qualify as an accountant on Wednesday. Frank wrote Gone to pub back soon. He thought for a moment before adding two kisses.
Outside, there was a moon behind the fog, lighting the grey in a strange way, like a shifting veil. It gave Frank a shiver. He remembered too many nights on the boat, when everyone was tired and it seemed like the sea beneath the boat was alive, not just with fish, but alive in itself, a sentient beast carrying the boat on its back, but a beast which at any moment might turn and swallow th
em whole.
Shut up thinking, Frank.
The voice was familiar. It was the quiet voice that spoke to him during silences and storms, the one which knew better than he did.
‘OK,’ he said aloud and turned from his contemplation of the eerie moon-fog.
No one else was out. Frank wondered if he had eaten something funny, because he had an unsettled feeling in his stomach. He heard a seagull fluttering its wings to his right. Something moved in the small garden of the house to his left. He found himself glancing about with unease.
He listened for the voice which would tell him if anything was wrong. The voice was absent but instead he felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. He stopped in a circle of light and pushed up his sleeve. His skin had roughened with huge goose bumps. A cold breeze slid over him, even though the goose bumps had come first.
The path was covered in crunchy gravel and led, as Ed had said, to a black wrought-iron bench sheltering under some gnarled, scrawny trees. They sat down on opposite ends of the seat.
‘The Chimneys are out there. Look. You can see them clearly on a bright night.’
She could see their shadowy looming shapes.
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
Startled, she looked at him. ‘What question?’
‘I asked you what you thought, when you were looking at the harbour and the lads coming in.’
‘Oh. It’s all great. So different to what I’m used to. I like it.’
He nodded.
‘It’s probably pretty wild later in the winter though, I guess,’ she said.
‘We’ve usually had a couple of storms by now. It’s been a funny few months.’
‘You sound like you miss the storms.’
‘It’s not that. It’s just … the weather has been a bit weird. The island has felt strange or something.’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m just rambling. Are you cold?’
‘A bit.’
‘Do you want to go back?’
She looked out over the water. ‘Not yet.’
She turned slightly towards him. His eyes were shadowed, but she knew he was looking at her. She’d had a couple of boyfriends in New York, each for a few months only, before she skipped a year. Her mother had checked each boy out over a scary dinner. It had all been perfectly innocent, mostly just kissing. She thought that Ed wanted to kiss her, even though she couldn’t see his face properly.
Then he stood up, looking past her into the dark. He stared for a moment, before grabbing her hand and pulling her up, close to him. She felt the tension in his body and followed his gaze. She could see nothing outside of the pool of light, but she suddenly felt vulnerable in the bright circle with the night pressing in on them.
Ed gripped her hand tighter. He took two steps backward before turning them both and heading back towards the village. Lia wanted to ask what he had seen, but she was aware of darkness behind her and she was afraid to speak, in case her words broke the precious glow of light around them.
They were nearly off the path when Lia looked over her shoulder. The lights and the bench seemed to mark the boundary of the places where people walked. Ed tugged her hand but before she turned back she saw a wisp of white, like a floating edge of lace, as though the light had caught the tail of a dress.
Frank had been walking on into the fog, trying to shake the eerie feeling off. Still his skin crawled and the feeling that there was someone or something behind him grew. He spun about, hurting his bad knee, but there was nothing to see except the silent village. Up the slight hill and around the corner, the Robin’s Rest was waiting, like landfall after a bad night at sea. Between him and it (safety, between him and safety) lay a no man’s land, a deep pool of black night. Putting a foot into that dark sink would be like stepping off the boat into the cold sea. He thought about turning back and going up the hill to his daughter’s house. I said I’d just call in for a cup of tea. They wouldn’t mind this once.
Something clicked behind him, like metal on a damp cobblestone. This time he didn’t turn around but every muscle in his body tightened for flight. He tasted rust in his mouth as though he had clamped his teeth on his tongue. If I smile now, my teeth will be red.
Once when he was a boy, he had been searching for mushrooms in the small fields behind the village. He already had a bag half full when he sensed a presence behind him. Old Tom’s billy goat was staring at him, its horned head slightly lowered. The beast was uphill of him and he suddenly felt very small. Its yellow eyes were the wrong shape and chunky strings of its coat hung loose from its bony shoulders and hips. They stood silently, the goat waiting for some signal to come for him, and Frank trying to hold in his pee. The beast suddenly reared on its hind legs and then threw itself down the slope at Frank, its head lowered for impact. Frank remembered the sound of his own scream and the warmth of the pee running down his leg, but he could no longer remember the name of the man who had hauled him sideways out of the path of the goat.
He remembered someone tall fending off the billy goat with a walking stick. There was no one left to ask about the man, but he often appeared in Frank’s dreams, even now.
Suddenly, with his muscles tense again and the pressure of urine in his bladder, Frank realised that the voice he heard in times of trouble, when the wind was in the wrong direction, or some other calamity loomed, was the voice of the man who had saved him from the goat.
And there, on the edge of the dark, he both smelt the goat again and heard the voice of the man. He was screaming something at Frank but he couldn’t make out what he was saying. Everything was far away. Picturing the Robin’s Rest as his goal, he stepped forward into the darkness because he couldn’t go back.
He walked into deep cold shadows and felt the darkness swarm up his legs. His bladder let go and he felt the warmth of urine down his leg once more before cold sank into his bones. Like being swept underwater, he didn’t know which way was up. He turned twice but felt blind and encased. Then the moment from the past came again. He had been waiting for it to arrive all his life since the day of the goat. The beast fell upon him.
Rose set the cup on the coffee table in front of her daughter. Becky’s discomfort was growing along with her bump. Rose sat beside her, giving her hand a pat.
‘Let the tea cool a minute, love. Are you feeling any better?’
Becky shook her head. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s like I have pregnant-woman vapours or something.’ She looked at the uncurtained window and put her hands on her belly.
‘You’re just nervous because Matt’s away. He’ll be back in plenty of time and me and your dad are here if you need anything.’
Becky nodded slowly but her mouth stayed turned down at the corners.
‘Did you feel like this when you were pregnant with us? With me?’ she asked.
‘Every woman feels nervous, especially the first time.’ Rose took her daughter’s hand.
This was not the time to remind her that she had loved being pregnant, that it had made her feel content and warm and somehow perfect. She knew that not everyone felt that way. Poor Becky’s feet and ankles were swollen and she was still feeling sick most days. Normally a cheery girl, the pregnancy had set her emotions swirling. Rose and Matt had had their bad moments, but she had to admit he was perfect for her daughter. He wasn’t from the island, but he was of the sea, so he understood the island. Plus, his solid bulk seemed to settle Becky’s nerves and Rose wished he could be here. He was working extra hard so that he could afford to be off for a few weeks after the birth. If they had known it was going to be so hard on Becky to be without him at this stage, they might have made a different choice. But, after all, Rose was on hand to take care of her.
‘And count your blessings. Your father was thrilled when you were born, but men didn’t have much to do with the whole thing in those days. Matt can’t wait to do everything for you and the baby. Even if he is like a bull in a china shop.’
Becky laug
hed and covered her mouth. ‘Stop it, you’re terrible,’ she said.
Rose smiled, glad to have got her to laugh. Matt had broken two of her nice cups the first time he came for tea, when he and Becky had started going out. He was built for the dangerous life of a deep-sea fisherman, not for the kitchen of a small cottage, neither hers nor her daughter’s.
‘He’s doing a good job on the house though,’ Rose said. ‘It’s really coming together and I’ll have your curtains and cushions ready by the weekend.’
Becky looked again towards the featureless dark at the window and Rose mentally berated herself for bringing her attention back to it. The dark pressing against the window felt like the malevolent gaze of something unseen. Even if the rest of the curtains weren’t ready before the weekend, she vowed to bring the one for that window tomorrow. At least the windows to the side of the house showed the lights of the pub, just visible beyond a fold in the hill. None of the windows were huge. The island storms were too wild to have big windows and this cottage had to bear the brunt of the gales. It was one of the reasons it had been going for a song. The American daughter of an island woman who had emigrated to the States years back had come ‘home’ to find her roots and built it. In love with the impressive view over the island, which included the Hall, against all advice she had built it on family land to the windward side of one of the small hills that sheltered the village and harbour. The rest of the island was open to the Atlantic gales, resulting in sparse bushes and trees, all leaning away from the wind, looking like they were seeking the safety of the harbour, in flight from a pursuant peril. The islanders had shaken their heads and let her go ahead. She was half-islander, after all, and entitled to build on family land. She had endured a single winter in the cottage, put it up for sale in the spring and left.
Daughter of the Storm Page 4