I heldthe shell as I walked back along the beach, climbing over the dark rocky outcrop over to the next small beach. The sand turned into soil as I left the sea behind me, walking through the scattered trees and shrubs to the house that I knew how to fix, but couldn’t. Not right now. How could something so insanely broken fix anything?
The barn was dark, a quiet rustle suggesting that some other fucker was living in my space. I left it be, mouse or rat or hedgehog. Instead I switched on the dim lamp and took out my phone, flicking through the photos of Anya.
She wasn’t what I thought. But I wasn’t sure what I thought when I’d first seen her staring at me. Two years ago, I was used to that reaction from women. I worked out, ran, had a profession that was considered catnip and looked a lot tidier than I did now.
And was rarely splattered in paint.
My girlfriend didn’t model, but could have. Instead she worked in finance. My family was happy, settled. Proud. And then I ended up on my back in hospital, the subject of several operations, none which I wanted and with no desire to live. Because I’d survived.
I pulled off my jeans, remembering they were still wet and yanked off my T-shirt. There were a pair of grey sweats flung over the back of a chair which I pulled on, thin ones that were already splattered with paint. The lights flickered on, one button giving me the brightness I needed in the barn to be able to put colour on canvas.
Usually, I’d stick on some music, but tonight I didn’t need noise. I had enough in my head. I mixed my palette and pulled out an oversized canvas, adjusting one of the easels.
Usually, I’d use pencil to outline, apply some degree of control to what I was creating, but right now, I didn’t want that. Brush dipped into ochre and then smeared across the white, mimicking sunshine, mimicking the dying day. Then rust and amber and then her. A black shadow against the sky from which poured out the light.
I lost myself in the place where I knew I was hiding. The colours, the sounds of brush on canvas. It became my peace. By the time I fell onto the unmade mattress, a slice of my soul had returned and my breath came easier.
My eyes closed to a slideshow of images I’d collected throughout the day. The sea and the wood, the axe on the floor and in my hand. Her frightened eyes and the hunger I’d seen or hoped I’d seen. The sand and shell and her against the sky.
Her.
I could never lether see the painting.
Anya
It was still night when I woke. This was my new normal, waking up around three because of nothing in particular, just the sound of nothing and an emptiness that didn’t have to be there. I sat up in bed, the duvet kicked off and blankets pooling around my body instead, an untidy tangle. I remembered when I’d split with my long-term boyfriend. We’d lived together for a couple of years, but even though we were inhabiting the same few rooms we’d become distant. He’d moved out, amicably, no third parties involved, but there had been a grief that I hadn’t predicted.
I felt more than that now. Marcy wasn’t here. The room next door to me was too quiet and too dark. Months of therapy had taught me to embrace what I felt rather than boxing it away, so I got out of bed, throwing on a pair of harem pants and a T-shirt that would just about be enough in the cool night air.
The fishermen would already be up, but if any of them saw me, I wouldn’t register in their reality. Their days were predictable in their routine, as rhythmic as the tide. A sea fret had clamoured in overnight, making the air damp and thick. As much as I had never been a morning person, this time was one of my favourites; I could watch the world without having to partake, see the boats as they left the dock and went out into the sea, towards the strait.
I’d been out a few times as a kid, sitting on Tim’s boat with Michael, watching the sun rise from the water. Today I meandered down the steps onto the sand, still damp from the outgoing tide and headed towards the pier.
The sounds were muted, voices rare and low when they spoke. It was too early for any conversation, instead muscle memory and habit said it all. I saw hard bodies passing out equipment, the occasional glow from a cigarette, the rush of a seagull above.
The tied up hair was unmistakable; a messy, sun bleached man bun on top of a face that was striking. He was smiling, talking to one of the fishermen as he passed something over and I wondered who he was, other than Gabe. Just Gabe.
I hadn’t asked about him. I knew my Nan would get excited if she thought I was any way interested in a man, given my break up and then this year, what had happened. And right now, I was too broken to take on anyone else’s expectations. I had to learn to manage myself. Baby steps. Small, significant, baby steps.
He had been on the beach last night when I’d gone down to the sand to feel the water on my skin. I’d felt his eyes watching me, saw him take a photo. He had no right to, but in that moment, that pause in time, I hadn’t felt the need to argue.
A familiar boat was anchored out into the sea. The emblem on the side one I’d grown up with and managed to stay away from. Not that it was a fate worse than death, but staying local and going to Bangor University just hadn’t been in my plan.
It had, however, been Catrin’s, my oldest friend, who had never left the university. She’d been an undergrad, then a master’s student, then taking a doctorate. Now she was a lecturer or research fellow or something I half listened to while she told me about sea life and levels and other shit that just didn’t register.
I knew she’d been out at sea for around ten days, so I’d no doubt she’d spent the night in some poor bloke’s bed, fucking like a rabid rabbit. She was the closest thing to a nymphomaniac I’d ever met and completely at ease with that. She didn’t scream for attention or tout herself like a piece of meat. Instead, she selected discreetly and took what she needed.
I’d wanted to be like her; unafraid, unconstructed, but I learned that I wasn’t free to be like that. She however, was.
“Howdy, partner.”
I knew it was her, even before she’d spoken. Sometimes I’d start thinking about her and she’d appear, as if the whispers of my thoughts had summoned her like a genie.
“The faux Texan accent only gets worse.” I leaned into her embrace, warm and tight. “I’m assuming you’ve been riding a cowboy?”
Catrin laughed. “A Swedish biomed professor who’s here for the summer. We couldn’t fuck on the boat. Or rather, we could fuck on the boat, just not loudly. So that doesn’t count as fucking.”
I shook my head, fake disparagement. “You look well.” Even through the sea fret I could see the glow she had, her blonde hair, so untypically Welsh.
