Sea Change (34 page)

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?’

‘Maybe.’ 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.

The Scottish darkness grows increasingly around them, pricked only now and again by the small precise glow of windows in isolated houses. The weather becomes dreary, then foul, the road bends unexpectedly, flurries of rain hit the windscreen, there are drifts of fog on the moor, the eyes of cattle shine back at them at each unexpected corner, bewildered.

‘The times I’ve driven this road,’ Marta says, her face lit unsympathetically by the reflected light of the headlamps. She looks so tired, or possibly it’s a growing preparedness too, that she’s bringing a new man to a special place. ‘We’re nearly there, though,’ she says, kindly.

‘I’m OK,’ Guy replies, ‘don’t worry about me.’ I’ve been travelling a long time now, he thinks to himself, it’s the journey that looks after me.

‘We had a picnic here, once,’ Marta says, as they pass a small parking area surrounded by trees. It looks a pretty inhospitable place, tonight. ‘There’s a small tarn through those bushes, with stepping stones that go out to an island. There were highland cattle standing in the water. It’s a cute spot, except the midges spoiled it.’ Guy smiles at Marta. The memory is relaxing her. ‘We cracked boiled eggs on the rocks and dipped them in salt I’d wrapped in tin foil.’

The valley descends into an area of tall dense conifers with long mossy threads hanging from the branches. Guy winds the window down, and smells the wet forest and dark peaty earth. He hears the sounds of dripping, everywhere, and the further sound of fast water rushing through the rocks.

‘Hear that?’ he says to Marta.

‘Shall I stop?’ she replies.

He shakes his head. ‘Let’s get there, we’re both tired,’ he says, thinking of his mother, always stopping the car to listen to the sounds of a wood or forest.

A few minutes later he sees the lights of buildings scattered through the trees, and the valley opens into a small bay between the hills. For the first time he spots the sea, cloudy grey, with the lighter bands of surf rolling in smooth curves to the shore.

‘Ah,’ Marta sighs, ‘this is it.’

They turn into a village of small stone houses, most of them unlit, and turn again into an alleyway. Marta switches the engine off, and leans exhausted over the wheel, gathering herself, before facing Guy and smiling happily. ‘We made it,’ she says, sounding a little nervous.

‘Thanks,’ he says. On the back seat, Banjo wakes, blearily, looking back at him with glossy dark eyes.

They get out and carry their bags to a small terraced cottage, while Banjo scampers up and down the street. It’s a tiny place, built of granite, with two windows and a door to the front, opening directly on to the street.

‘Look,’ Marta says, pointing to the bone vertebrae set into the stone, below the gutter. ‘Several houses round here have that. It reminds me of home - in Reykjavik they found a Viking ironing board made from a whalebone plank.’

She turns the key and gives the door a hefty shove to open it. Inside, the house smells damp and is extremely cold. Guy stands in the front room, unsure where to go, while Marta moves about swiftly, flicking the switches on the fusebox and wall heaters. He watches her hold her hand above the metal vents, making sure the warmth will come, then sees how she looks quickly round the room, taking in its details. It suddenly hits him that she’s not been here since her husband died - how could he not have thought of that before? It’s awful for her. But Marta is waiting for the warmth to rise and she’s busying herself with the jobs to do. It’s as good a way to cope as any. Guy takes his shoes off - a habit from living on a houseboat surrounded by mud - and puts his bag down near the door, the natural place of a visitor, while Marta disappears into a back room.

The front room is full of shadows, with a dark fireplace and, like the
Flood
, has too many chairs. Shelves either side of the chimney brace are rammed with books. He reads some of the spines: highland geology, coarse fishing, archaeology, local history. Howard must have been a man of ideas, then, of placing himself only after he knew the knowledge of the area. Some people are like that - they seek connection. There’s a man’s presence throughout this room - fishing rods leaning in the corner, some sticks of driftwood that seem to have been carved by a penknife, and he sees with a touch of panic a whole wall devoted to a photo gallery. He hadn’t anticipated that. That’s the fellow, the dead man, standing on the rocks near the sea, with a fishing rod. He was large and stocky, quite fat really, with a beard. Guy decides he’ll look more closely at that at some point.

Nearby he sees more photos, of Marta and Howard raising dark pints of oatmeal stout, a picture of a big dinner laid out on a small table - roast goose by the look of it, a sunset over the bay, a highland cow standing in the shallows of a tarn. And there’s Rhona - it’s odd to see her here, she doesn’t seem a natural fit in this place. She’s younger in the picture, with punky hair, standing with her arm round a slim young man in jeans with a trendy haircut. That man, whoever he is, is also in the other picture, sitting at the dinner table with his eye on the roast goose. He looks a type, Guy thinks. Posh. Maybe it’s the fool, Mark. He wants to study more, but realizes Marta has returned, leaning in the doorframe, watching him.

‘It has a lot of memories, this place,’ she states.

‘Are you all right?’ Guy asks.

‘I’m OK. A bit spooked.’

‘Yeah.’ Guy expects her mood will flatten now, her arms are hanging limply, like the breath’s gone out of her. He should probably give her a hug, but he wants to be polite, he wants her to get used to him physically being in this place.

‘Can I do anything?’ he asks.

She seems undecided. ‘Maybe. Maybe get some firewood in?’ she says. ‘There’s a little store in the yard.’

He’s pleased to help. Passing her in the doorway, he holds her elbow.

‘Thanks,’ he says, ‘for bringing me here.’ She nods, obediently, and looks down. ‘This must be hard for you,’ he adds, ‘I’m grateful.’

She nods again, unable to speak, and gives him a little smile. ‘Go and get that wood,’ she whispers.

The second room turns out to be a kitchen, very small, very cluttered, with a worn brown Formica table in the centre. Cookbooks overcrowd the shelves and mugs hang loosely from a Welsh dresser. He sees the back door is already ajar and, outside, there’s a small cobbled yard.

He’s about to step out when Marta says helpfully, ‘There’s a pair of shoes, by the door. Don’t get your feet wet.’ He looks down and sees a pair of ancient leather brogues, without their laces, clearly used for the purpose of bringing in firewood. Howard’s. Slipping his feet in, in the dead man’s shoes, his heels hang out over the back. He doesn’t turn to see if Marta is looking, or not. He thinks she is.

An hour later, sitting by a small fire in the hearth, the front room looks more cosy. Banjo’s stretched out in front of the fire, snoring like an old man. Marta has put on several sidelamps, and there are little orangey pools of light in the corners. She’s drained a couple of glasses of wine, too quickly, and is curled into one of the chairs, with a rug over her lap. She has a shadowed look beneath her eyes that the wine hasn’t managed to shift.

They’ve not spoken for a few minutes now, both of them have been listening to the fire hissing in the logs.

‘I think it’s time to turn in,’ she says, quietly. ‘I can’t keep my eyes open.’

Guy’s a little shy to look at her - it’s not entirely established where each of them will sleep. He realizes he hasn’t even been upstairs. It must be a tiny place, just how many bedrooms are there? Rhona and the posh boy, they must have slept somewhere which wasn’t Howard and Marta’s room.

‘I want you to sleep with me, in my bed,’ Marta says, quietly.

Guy was unprepared for that, but relieved by her frankness. That’s typical of her, to be so clear.

‘You know,’ he begins, ‘I can stay down here, if you want, I’m fine about . . .’

‘. . . I’ll take that as a rejection, shall I?’ she says, coyly.

‘No.’

‘We’re not kids.’

‘No. We’re not kids.’

‘Then - that’s agreed?’

‘Yes. You and I, we’re going to sleep in the same bed.’

‘All night.’

‘All night long.’

She looks at him, with a level, decided gaze. Her eyes have darkened as the night’s grown late, like Judy’s used to. Then she looks at the fire. Her profile, with that high foreheaded shape that Rhona has so strongly. A woman in profile is amazing, he thinks, especially at a moment like this, which is full of awareness, about what has gone before, what might be to come.

‘Come here then,’ she says.

Guy’s up early in the morning. Spending the night with Marta has earned him the right to Howard’s dressing-gown, which he wears without discomfort as he goes into the kitchen. Banjo’s been up hours, it seems. He’s full of a naturally overflowing excitement that’s reminiscent of how he himself must have been, as a child on holiday. Get out, explore, Banjo wants many things right now. Guy bends to rough the dog up, push him down on to the rug and pull his ears affectionately, then he opens the front door and Banjo skids off the rug and charges into the street, slowing down into a confident trot to sniff along the walls of the other houses. He stops for a long thunderous slash against a post, shakes his back leg out, and trots off happily. What great characters they are in our lives. A man’s not complete without one, Guy really believes that.

The air is cool and sunny and there’s a lightness to it which is synonymous with Scotland. Ingredients of moss and water and cold chiselled rock, mixing with the sea’s fluid abundance of ions and ozone. Intoxicating. He breathes deeply, filling those parts of his lungs that rarely get used, the lazy wedge around the sides, where the stale air is no doubt trapped, part suffocating us always.

He leaves the door open and goes to the kitchen, finds the kettle, finds a pan, begins to break eggs into a bowl and whisk them with a fork. Get some of this magical air into the mix, he thinks, fill us with it. There are jars of pebbles and shells on the windowsill, and in the yard outside he sees a palm tree - which he hadn’t noticed last night - growing in the corner. It’s a strangely incongruous sight. On the shelves there are pens and damp matches and candles half-burned and bending in the sunlight. He loves it all. Loves to be here, alone with Marta, cooking her a simple breakfast of eggs. The butter sizzles, releasing its odours of the dairy, then he slides it round the pan, watching the foam beginning to bubble. He pours in the rich yellow eggs, still fluffed up with the air, and grinds in black pepper and adds some damp salt he found on a little dish. He licks his finger to taste the raw egg and the salt, then folds the mix over, lifting the pan above the ring which is now glowing too hot.

Nothing better in the world than cooking eggs. Banjo trots in from the street and he hears Marta making her way to the bathroom upstairs, the ceiling bending slightly above him.

He tips out the scrambled eggs on to a warm plate and puts two rolls next to it. He cuts a slab of butter and puts that on a cold plate. He pours the coffee he’s been brewing in the cafetière, and realizes he doesn’t know whether Marta takes sugar or not. Probably, he thinks, women usually do.