Salt water burns the back of my throat as I surface, coughing. My legs kick frantically, trying to propel me nearer the boat. The hull is close, whale-sized, solid. I lash out, white fingertips clawing at the side, but there’s nothing to grip and I go under again, mouth open, briny water shooting up my nose.
Suddenly there’s an iron hand around my arm, pulling, dragging me upwards. My kneecap smashes against the side of the boat as I’m hauled on board, a pool of water spilling from me. I blink salt water and tears from my eyes, staring into a face half hidden by a beard. A dark gaze meets mine; the man speaks quickly, asking questions, draping a blanket over my shoulders.
I say nothing. My whole body shakes beneath the stiff fabric.
I look down at my feet. They are pressed together, white, bloodless, impossibly pale. Beyond them, stacked in the centre of the boat, is a tower of briny, dark cages, where lobsters writhe, tails and claws snapping and clacking.
‘What happened?’ the man asks over and over, his voice sounding distant as if it’s an echo in my head.
I don’t answer – won’t take my eyes off the lobsters. They are not red as you see them in pictures, but black and shining, huge claws flecked with white. Can they breathe out of the sea, I wonder? Aren’t they drowning, right now, here in front of me? I want to throw them back into the water, watch them swim down to the sea bed. Their antennae quiver and flit as we motor towards the shallows.
There’s a sudden roar of a boat engine close by. My head snaps up in time to see a blur of orange flashing past: the lifeboat. For the first time I notice the small crowd gathered on the shoreline. My fingers dig into the blanket as I realize: they are looking for us.
Both of us.
I am shaking so hard my teeth clatter in my head. I look down at my hands, then slide them beneath my thighs. I know everything is different now. Everything has changed.
DAY ONE, 6.15 A.M.
In the distance I can hear the light wash of waves folding on to shore. I lie still, eyes closed, but I can sense the dawn light filtering into the beach hut, slipping beneath the blinds ready to pull me into the new day. But I’m not ready. An uneasy feeling slides through my stomach.
I reach out to find Nick’s side of the bed empty, the sheet cool. He’s in Bristol, I remember. He has his pitch this morning. He left last night with a slice of birthday cake pressed into his hand. At that point Jacob was still smiling about the presents he’d been given for his seventeenth birthday. Nick has no idea what happened later.
A low flutter of panic beats in my chest: Will Jacob tell him?
I push myself upright in bed, my thoughts snapping and firing now. I can still feel the vibrations of Jacob’s footsteps storming across the beach hut, then the gust of air as the door slammed behind him, his birthday cards gliding to the ground like falling birds. I’d picked them up, carefully replacing each of them, until I reached the last – a homemade card with a photo glued to the front. I’d gripped its edges, imagining the satisfying tear of paper beneath my fingertips. I had made myself return it to the shelf, rearranging the cards so it was placed at the back.
I listen for the sound of Jacob’s breathing, waiting to catch the light hum of a snore – but all I can hear are the waves at the door. I straighten, fully alert now. Did I hear him come in last night? It’s impossible to sneak into the beach hut quietly. The door has to be yanked open where the wooden frame has swollen with rain; the sofa bed has to be skirted around in the dark; the wooden ladder to the mezzanine, where Jacob sleeps, creaks as it is climbed; and then there’s the slide and shuffle of his knees when he crawls to the mattress in the eaves.
Pulling back the covers, I clamber from the bed. In the dim haze I scan the tidy square of the beach hut for clues of my son: there are no trainers kicked off by the door; no jumper tossed on the sofa; no empty glasses or plates left on the kitchen counter, nor dusting of crumbs. The hut is immaculate, neat, just as I left it.
I ignore the faint pulse of pain in my head as I cross the beach hut in three steps, climbing the base of the ladder. It’s dark in the mezzanine – I’d pulled the blind over the porthole window and made Jacob’s bed before going to sleep myself. Usually the distinctive fug of a teenage boy lingers up here, but this morning the heaped body of my son is absent, the duvet smooth.
I squeeze my eyes shut and swear under my breath. What did I expect?
I don’t know why I let it happen, not on his birthday. I shouldn’t have risen to his challenge. I went too far. We both did. Diffuse, not antagonise, Nick is fond of telling me. (Thank you, Nick. I’d never have thought of that myself.)
When Jacob was little, Nick would always ask my opinion on what Jacob needed, how best to dress a cut on his knee, or whether he could do with a nap, or what he might prefer to eat. But, in the last few years, my confidence in knowing what my son needs has slipped away. In his company, I often find myself at an utter loss as to what to say – asking too many questions, or not the right ones. On the odd occasion that Jacob does confide in me, I feel like a desert-walker who has come across a freshwater lake, thirsting for closeness.
Last night, as Jacob swung round to face me, I couldn’t think what to say, what to do. Maybe it was because seventeen is like a line in the sand; he’d just stepped over it into adulthood – but I wasn’t ready. Maybe that’s why I said the things I did, trying to pull him back to me.
I descend the ladder now, feeling the full weight of my headache kicking in. I’m sure Jacob will have stayed out with his friends – he’ll probably roll in at mid-morning, a hangover worsening his mood. Yet still, I feel the tentacles of panic reaching, feeling their way through my chest.
Coffee. That’s what I need. I pump water into the kettle, then light the hob, listening to the rush of gas. As I wait for the water to boil, I have a strange, uncomfortable sensation that this is going to be my life one day: just me, alone, making coffee for one. It makes sweat prickle underarm, dread loosening my insides.
I reach out and snap on the battery-powered radio. A song blares into the hut – Jacob and I are always having radio wars, he switching it from Radio 4 to a station he likes, knowing I’ve still not learnt how to use the Memory button, so I must manually retune it to find my station again. But this morning, I like the noise and the thrash of guitars. I’ll leave it on. That way, when he comes back it’ll be playing.
Once I’ve made myself a coffee, I use the rest of the hot water to wash my face. There’s a toilet block nearby, but the sinks are usually mapped with sand or the white trails of spat-toothpaste. Diane and Neil next door have installed a water tank beneath their hut, and rigged up a heater from their solar panels so they can have hot running water at the flick of the tap. Isla thinks it’s an extravagance – another sign of the beach huts becoming too gentrified – but I’d laughed and said I’d be adding that to Nick’s To Do list.
I pat my face dry, then move to the windows, pulling up the blinds. Sea, sky and morning light spill into the hut and my breathing immediately softens. The early sun lies low to the horizon, the glassy sea tamed beneath it.
