Beyond the Sea (9 page)

‘
WHAT A SELFISH
bastard,' Marta spat out. ‘Long may his nightmares continue.'

Freya nodded, as if in agreement with her sister's sentiment. It was easier than contradicting Marta in her current mood. Besides, she felt her sister was only partly talking about Edward. The main thrust of her disdain seemed directed further afield, perhaps towards Pete, the married man, if that was indeed who he was. Freya longed to be told about the affair – whether Marta loved him, whether she wanted him to leave his wife or whether, as Freya suspected, she was actually relieved that he wouldn't. But as usual, whenever Freya pressed her, Marta refused to confide the details. Freya looked at her sister. It was a pattern that seemed to endlessly repeat. If a man wanted commitment from her, ultimately she fled in the opposite direction. She had more in common with Edward than perhaps she would care to admit.

Marta stood suddenly and walked to the gallery doors. The weather earlier had been beautiful: sunshine, endless blue sky, a light breeze. But now clouds hung dense and low, and the waves, ripped by a cold wind, were growing ever larger. Daylight was fading, and before long Freya knew fog and rain would move in and there would be no view to speak of.

‘I wish you'd woken me last night,' Marta grumbled, turning to look at Freya over her shoulder. ‘It must have been amazing to see the lamp, up here, at night, for the first time.'

So she was annoyed by being excluded from that. Freya shrugged, as if to signify that the whole experience had been underwhelming. But she still felt a tingle of excitement at the remembrance of it – the cloudless, star-filled night, the lamp ranging over a seemingly limitless ocean. She had considered waking her sister, but then had thought better of it, instead savouring the strange sensation of being cleansed with light, of being scrubbed clean. But she kept her silence on this now in case she too was declared a selfish bastard. Instead, all she said was, ‘Well, you can see it tonight.'

‘There won't be anything to see,' Marta whined. She stared out of the glass for a few more seconds, before turning abruptly and heading for the stairs. ‘I'm going to have a cup of tea. Do you want one?'

Freya forced a smile. ‘No, thanks. If you wait for a few more minutes, you'll see the lamp come on.'

But Marta shook her head obstinately and disappeared.

Freya sighed. Her sister could be so infuriating sometimes – worse than Sam on his most petulant days. She turned her attention back to the letter and read it again. But still she couldn't quite agree with Marta. She knew that Edward's betrayal was callous, his abandonment cruel. But Freya was also touched by the acuteness of his regret – and his profound misery at having made a mistake that he knew he might not be able to put right. Adrift on the sea, he was plagued by dark dreams, images of loss and death, and though he was surrounded by other men, he felt entirely alone. Freya felt a certain kinship with him.

The lamp suddenly sprang into life and the foghorn sounded. Low, dull, penetrating. Freya put the letters on the floor and moved to the gallery doors. The fog was rolling in, and even with the sweep of the light, her gaze couldn't penetrate far. One moment the swell of the sea was visible, the next it was obscured by thin wisps of white. After a moment she realised she was searching, waiting to catch sight of a boat containing the figures of a man and a boy. She remembered Torin's words. You must be careful of the past. What had he meant by that?

She closed her eyes and tried to suppress the thought. As she stood in the darkness, the sporadic flash of light visible from behind her eyelids, she heard a sudden plaintive cry. Her eyes snapped open. It was the same almost human sound she had heard before. She peered into the night, trying to make out the surface of the water. But it was pointless. The fog continued to roll in. Still she looked, trying to search out the movement of whales, porpoises or other marine life. But these were hard enough to spot in the daylight. Now it was more than hopeless. She waited, and a moment later the baleful noise came again. Something about it resonated with her. Freya narrowed her eyes and squinted. What was it? But the fog drew a pale white blanket over everything.

The telephone line crackled as Freya held the receiver to her ear. She had abandoned the lamp room and was now lying in bed, a mug of hot milk on the table beside her. It wasn't late but she felt exhausted. Marta had already gone sulkily to bed. The ringtone continued to sound, unanswered. Perhaps he wouldn't pick up after all. She was about to hang up when Torin's unmistakeable voice sounded on the other end of the line.

‘Is everything all right?' he said, dispensing with introductions. It was usually the way he answered the phone, as if he knew who it was before they spoke.

Freya smiled. ‘Yes, everything's fine. I'm not disturbing you, am I?'

‘Not at all. What is it?'

The haunting sound she had heard in the lamp room was still on her mind and Torin was the person she wanted to talk to about it. When she had explained why she was calling, he was unusually quick to respond.

‘Well, of course it could be whales.'

Freya nodded. She had thought the same thing.

‘But it's early for the migration. That's all I would say.'

It was exactly what had gone through her mind.

‘Did Marta hear it too?'

‘No. She was in the kitchen with the radio on.'

‘Hmm. Who knows what else it could be. Bird, animal … practically anything …' Torin's voice trailed away and Freya knew he was thinking of something else.

‘What is it?' she asked.

‘Oh. It reminds me of … But that's just myth.'

‘Tell me,' said Freya, rearranging her head on the pillows piled beneath it. Then she pulled the duvet over the length of her body. She had hoped that he might tell her a story. Perhaps it would even make her sleep.

‘Well, it's an old tale of the Scottish mermaid, the Ceasg. I mentioned them the other day when we spoke about the Flannan Islands' lighthouse. Some believed the Ceasg had spirited the keepers away. But you have to be of a certain … persuasion to believe that a possibility.'

Freya smiled. Torin could say what he liked, but she knew the things he did not believe in could be counted on one hand.

‘Little is known about these creatures, for the Ceasg is mysterious – dangerous, some say. They are the sisters of the sirens of ancient Greece, with the bodies of women and the tails of fish. It is said that they possess great beauty and that, like the sirens, they too have haunting, bewitching voices, using them to entice sailors to them for sex.'

Freya closed her eyes, hearing the lap of waves against the shore. If she listened hard enough, would she also hear the plaintive song of the Ceasg, a hypnotic sound imbued with sadness?

‘Sometimes the sailors might survive such an encounter,' Torin continued. ‘But they were the lucky ones. Death often followed in the wake of pleasure. So the mariners learned to force abstinence and life upon themselves by blocking up their ears with wax.'

Freya remembered the books of her childhood, with their pictures of men aboard ship, driven half mad by the tantalising song of the mermaid. Some were melting down candles but others succumbed to the sound, diving overboard to satisfy their lust before surrendering to the deep and drowning. Life and death, the endless merry-go-round.

‘It was said that if a person happened upon a Ceasg by chance and she was caught unawares, her wrath could be terrible. Death may indeed have followed swiftly. It was said that the best thing to do was leave quietly. Do not try to meet her eye and do not listen to her song. However, the lore has it that if the Ceasg came across a person who was blessed or otherwise captivated her, she may have granted them a wish.'

Freya saw herself, suddenly, swimming in a dark ocean, her white hair spread out around her, a presence somewhere in the blackness ahead of her. Was it the Ceasg and would it grant her a wish? Did it have the power to bring the dead back to life?

‘It has been said that some Ceasg have had affairs with men and have even adopted human form and attempted to live a life on land. Perhaps they have even married and had children. But the call of the sea was always too strong and this life never lasted. The Ceasg always return to the ocean.'

‘The sea took them,' Freya murmured, feeling the pull of sleep very close.

‘Aye, the power of the sea always prevails.' Torin paused for a few moments then he went on. ‘Which reminds me, you should hunker down. There's a storm coming.'

WHEN SHE WOKE
later, the first thing Freya heard was the rain lashing against the windows. She lay still for a few moments, listening, and then came the sound of the waves, heavy rollers pummelling the beach. She turned over, wondering if she would be able to go back to sleep. The small voice of experience inside her told her that would be unlikely. She turned on the lamp and looked at the clock. It was 11.30 p.m. Rising, she made her way to the sitting room. In spite of the rain flooding down the large windowpane, it still afforded a good view out over the ocean. The fog from earlier that evening had cleared and she could see, with every flash of the lamp, that the sea was broiling. It pounded against the shore and further out the waves cut across each other furiously. As she watched, she heard thunder sound in the distance, and a few seconds later lightning fractured the sky. A storm was in full swing. Torin had been right.

For a while, Freya sat on the sofa, watching. Sam had loved storms. He had always sat quietly, gazing out of the window, mesmerised by the onslaught of nature. Now, she wondered whether he had ever watched a storm from the top of the lighthouse. She doubted it. That he would have gone up alone in such circumstances. But she didn't know. Impulsively she rose and made her way to the door of the tower. She turned the handle, stepped forwards and instantly felt adrenalin pulse through her. The staircase was alive with noise. The wind howled as it circled around the tower and the rain drummed, amplified as it lashed the walls. As she put a foot on the stairs, Freya thought she felt them shake. She had heard of this before from keepers. How those stationed on rock lighthouses in the middle of the ocean tried to ignore the movement of the tower in heavy wind and simply prayed that the foundations had been laid well enough to withstand the weather. The wind must be gale force or thereabouts, she thought, feeling the reverberations of the building with each step she took.

By the time she reached the lamp room, the storm was almost overhead. Rain pounded against the glass doors of the gallery, the boom of thunder was louder and lightning forked ever closer. Dense black cloud hung low over a dark churning sea, both illuminated intermittently by the sweep of the lamp. Freya watched mesmerised, her eyes roving over the sky, the ocean and the land below her in succession. After a few moments, her gaze caught on something out at sea. She stared at it disbelieving. Then she looked down at her bare feet for a while before looking up again. Was it a boat? She really couldn't be certain that she wasn't simply imagining it. But looking out again, her eye stumbled upon the same object. She moved closer to the gallery doors. It was a boat, with a light upon its mast, she was sure of it. A boat not dissimilar from her own, perhaps bigger and sturdier. But, regardless of that, in this ocean it was in difficulty.

Freya's heart pounded. She ran to the tower staircase and yelled for Marta as loudly as she could, over and over. Then she moved back to the gallery doors and looked for the boat once more. She found it, lurching, tossed upwards, then pressed downwards by huge waves, heaved sideways by others. She watched the torrid rise and fall. It was in trouble, there was no doubt of that, and it was heading closer and closer towards her. Could that be right? She blinked hard, unsure. But the boat was moving, propelled by the turbulent sea, in the direction of the island. Before long it would hit the beach.

The realisation forced her gaze from the window and had her running down the stairs. The noise of the storm swirled around her in the tower as she descended. When she reached the bottom, she yelled to Marta again as she headed for the sitting-room window. She could now make out the boat from here, its light intermittently visible. Still she waited for the sweep of the lamp to be sure. She counted down the seconds and then followed its path. One, two, three. The boat was illuminated in the darkness. No doubt about it, it was heading this way.

‘What is it? Is everything okay?' Marta stood behind her, eyes wide, worried.

‘A boat. In trouble,' was all she said, pointing to the window.

As Marta looked, Freya picked up the phone. Then she put it down again, thinking better of it. The boat would have contacted the coastguard the moment it ran into trouble so they were no doubt already on their way. ‘Get dressed. Quickly,' she said.

Moments later they were heading down the path to the beach, torches in hand. The boat was much closer now. For a moment Freya wondered whether it would be possible for it to moor alongside her boat. But then she caught sight of the
Valkyrie
, its rise and fall, and knew it was unlikely. The swell was simply too great.

She turned to Marta and pointed to her boat. ‘Grab a life ring. Then meet me at the beach.'

Marta nodded and began to run.

As she approached the water's edge, Freya waved her torch, trying to signal her presence to whoever was on board and mark the edge of the beach. She could see the boat listing dangerously in the water, lurching nearer and nearer. Was it a man at the helm? She couldn't be sure. She tried to call out, but the howling gale swallowed up her voice entirely. Freya was conscious, for the first time in a long while, of her own insignificance in the face of nature.

She wasn't sure how much later it was, whether seconds or minutes, before there was a crunching sound, as the underside of the boat collided with something. As Marta joined her on the beach, there was a churning noise, as if air was escaping rapidly into water, and the boat began to overturn. It was now no more than thirty feet from where they stood. Freya frantically aimed her torch at the boat's captain – a man, she was now sure – and then downwards into the sea. She repeated the movement several times, trying to indicate to him what he should do. After a few moments, she saw a dark figure jump and she followed him with the beam of light.

Marta threw the ring towards the man and shouted out several times. Her voice was whipped away unheard. But the man seemed alert enough still to know what she had done. Freya illuminated the ring and she saw him try to catch hold of it. But the waves were strong and it eluded him. She took a couple of steps forwards into the water, wondering whether she could make it out to him. But Marta pulled her back, shaking her head. The waves were too forceful. Freya continued to shine the torch back and forth between the man and the life ring. She was just beginning to think that the struggle would prove too much for him when he made a final lunge and grabbed hold of it. She and Marta took up the slack on the rope and began to pull him, slowly and erratically, towards the shore.

‘Are you all right?' Freya yelled when she was finally close enough to be heard. The cold water around her legs was making her breathless.

‘Yes, I think so,' the man shouted back, as he moved in and out of the torchlight. She could see his ashen face and blood streaming down over one eye from a deep gash on his forehead.

The women pulled on the rope again and Freya gauged that he was almost near enough for them to reach him. Then Marta took another step forward and grabbed for him, catching hold of his body. ‘Can you stand?' she asked.

The man nodded, getting shakily to his feet.

‘Is there anyone else aboard?'

‘No,' he said, shaking his head, his blood dripping into the seawater.

Marta pulled him closer and both women took hold of him. His body was freezing. Moments later, stumbling, they made it onto the beach.

‘Not much further,' yelled Freya. ‘Put an arm over each of our shoulders. It's just up that hill. Come on, you can do it.'

The man looked at her and nodded. But she could see that his eyes were unfocused. He looked exhausted. Somehow they staggered back to the cottage. When they got inside and finally let go of him, he collapsed on the sofa and passed out.

For a second both women stared at him, bewildered. Then they sprang into action.

‘You get towels and blankets from the bathroom cupboard,' Freya said to Marta. ‘I'll get the first-aid kit.'

For several minutes there was a frenzy of movement and activity. Freya took the man's temperature. He was over 95 degrees Fahrenheit, so not hypothermic yet. But he needed to be warmed up. Marta returned and they stripped him of his sodden clothes. His body was icy and wet so they towelled him dry. Then they covered him tightly with blankets. While Marta boiled the kettle, Freya cleaned the wound on his head, bandaged it and then pulled a woollen hat on over the top. When Marta had prepared hot-water bottles, they placed them along his body – to avoid the shock of heating his extremities first. Then, finally, the women stood back.

‘Jesus Christ,' said Marta, a small quiver in her voice.

‘Yeah. Well done.' Freya hugged her sister and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Now let's get out of these wet clothes.'

Outside the storm showed no sign of abating. Rain thrashed the cottage and lightning ruptured the sky. Freya took the man's temperature again. Higher this time. Exhausted, the sisters sat beside him, watching his breathing, still shallow, but not dangerous now. They looked at the man's face, watched the blue tinge of his lips slowly fade. Only when they were sure he was out of danger did they go to bed.

The following morning the weather had changed dramatic-ally. The storm had blown itself out, the air was crisp and still and the sun was shining. Freya had risen early and had already been down to the beach to survey the damage by the time the man began to stir.

She was sitting in the armchair beside him when he opened his eyes and pushed himself up on his elbows. He looked around him, perplexed, without recognition, but when he caught sight of Freya, he seemed to remember and the tension went out of his body. ‘Good morning,' he said, manoeuvring himself upright on the sofa. The blanket that Freya had covered him with the night before slid down, exposing his bare chest.

‘Good morning,' she said and smiled.

‘Good morning,' Marta called from the kitchen where she was making breakfast.

The man turned towards her but then winced and his hand moved to his head. He pulled off the woollen hat and touched the bandage on his forehead.

‘Nasty wound. I dressed it,' Freya said. ‘Other than that you're in pretty good shape. No hypothermia, you'll be glad to know. Just a few bumps and bruises. We had to take a look. I hope you don't mind.' She indicated his clothes on a chair next to the sofa.

The man seemed to notice his shirtless torso for the first time, but made no effort to pull the blanket up over himself. ‘No, I don't mind,' he said. His clear blue eyes, as they flicked towards her, were flat, unreadable, but there seemed an absence of gratitude to his tone that made Freya wonder whether in fact he did. She felt a sudden flash of annoyance. Perhaps he would have preferred to be unexamined and die of internal bleeding or some other cause.

She assessed him for a moment: the dark, almost black, tousled hair, the pale skin, with stubble now sticking to the chin, the haunting eyes. He looked like he had been through the mill. But still.

‘Yep – you had a lucky escape.' Marta made her way towards them with a pot of coffee. She paused on the threshold and smiled.

The man looked at her and nodded. In the movement, Freya thought again that she detected a hint of impatience, of resentment, perhaps, that he had to be thankful to them. He paused, and let out a quiet sigh. ‘I might not have been so lucky but for you two.' And then, eventually, as if an afterthought, ‘Thank you.' He paused again. ‘I'm Daniel by the way. Sorry, I should have said that earlier. I'm not thinking straight and things are coming out in the wrong order.'

‘I'm Freya.'

‘And I'm Marta. Her sister. I'd offer you my hand but I feel we're beyond that somewhat.' She laughed. ‘Strange to meet you.'

Daniel looked at her and smiled faintly. ‘Yeah, you too.'

‘Do you want some coffee?'

‘Please.'

Marta put down the cafetiere and went back to the kitchen. Daniel's eyes followed her for a moment and then moved around the cottage.

‘So do you two live out here?'

‘I do. My sister's just visiting.'

Marta returned with mugs, milk and sugar. Then she poured them all a cup of coffee and moved back, leaning against the sitting-room wall. ‘Help yourself.'

‘Thanks.' As Daniel reached to pick up the milk jug, Freya noticed his hand was shaking slightly.

‘Are you sure you're okay?' she asked.

‘Yes, I'm fine.' He looked at her properly then for the first time, and in that moment there seemed to be a familiarity about him. At first Freya thought it was the eyes, their icy blueness, their hardness, so similar to Jack's. But it wasn't that. It was something else.

‘So are you going to tell me what you were doing out in a storm like that? You don't look like a novice.'

Daniel smiled, but still it didn't touch his eyes. ‘Thanks … I think. To be honest, I don't really know what happened. I'd been out in the boat all day and it kind of caught me unawares. I know that sounds ridiculous. I've been sailing here for years so I should have known better.'

‘It came out of nowhere, I'll give you that. But didn't you follow the weather updates?'

He shrugged his shoulders but didn't answer.

‘Or radio the coastguard?'

Again Daniel shrugged. Then he smiled almost apologetically. ‘I thought I'd be okay.'

‘I see,' Freya said. ‘So what do you do around here when you're not being shipwrecked?' she asked. Her eyes flicked over to Marta, still leaning against the wall watching Daniel, and she wondered what her sister thought of him.

‘I'm an archaeologist. I've lived on Barra on and off for the last ten years or so. But I'm not from there. I've been working with Sheffield University – finding and protecting sites, that sort of thing.'

Freya nodded. ‘So where are you from originally?'

‘Yorkshire,' Marta interjected. ‘You still have the accent.'