Page 13 of Pull Me Under

Whatever happened between our families – whatever made the Trelawneys leave, whatever it is that makes Dad spit at the mention of their name – it’s got nothing to do with us. Not really. We were kids. She was seven, I was nine, and now we’re … what? Two people who happen to share history and a harbour?

I take a step towards her. Not aggressive, just … closing distance. Because maybe if we could just talk, like adults, like people who aren’t carrying twenty years of their parents’ grudges⁠—

She turns.

No hesitation, no backward glance. Just turns and walks straight to the old Trelawney shed. Her shed. The one that’s been hers all along, whatever we told ourselves while we filled it with our gear.

The door opens. She disappears inside. It closes with a sound that carries across the water.

‘Fine,’ I say to the empty space where she was. ‘Be like that.’

But I’m still standing here, holding a spanner I don’t know how to use properly, watching that closed door like she might come back out. Like she might give me a chance to … what? Apologise for something I didn’t do? Welcome her home to a place that clearly doesn’t want her? Ask her if she still builds sandcastles?

The door stays closed.

The wind picks up, sending the manual pages flapping despite the weight holding them down. I look back at the engine, at the mess I’ve made trying to fix something I don’t understand.

Maybe Tom’s right. Maybe I am playing with fire.

But standing here, oil-stained and frustrated, watching that closed door and remembering the challenge in those dark eyes, I can’t help thinking that getting burned might be worth it.

Just to feel warm.

The Ship Inn at seven on a Wednesday is depressing as fuck.

The pub sits at the top of the harbour lane, hunched and low-beamed, looking like it’s been serving pints since before the Armada and hasn’t redecorated since roughly the same era. Carpet sticky enough to remove shoes. A dartboard nobody’s sober enough to use past nine o’clock. The smell of old beer and woodsmoke and something fried that Ayo claims is a speciality but is really just whatever didn’t sell at lunch. The walls are covered in photographs – boats, catches, crew shots going back decades – and a chalkboard behind the bar still has Peter’s name on the quiz league roster because nobody’s had the heart to wipe it off.

Frankie’s holding court at the bar, telling the same story about the seventy-pound bass that definitely existed, definitely got away, definitely wasn’t a floating log. Bill’s nursing his third pint and his fifteenth year of divorce. Ayo’s behind the bar, polishing glasses that are already clean, while Tilly does the crossword with aggressive pencil strokes.

‘Jude!’ Frankie waves me over. ‘Tell Bill about that time with the nets, you know, when Peter⁠—’

‘Not tonight, Frankie.’

I order a whisky. Then another. The pub feels emptier without Kit taking the piss, without Maisie sneaking crisps when she thinks no one’s looking, without Isla mediating our worst arguments with her actress ability to redirect attention.

‘You all right, love?’ Tilly asks, not looking up from her crossword. ‘Seven letters, means solitary?’

‘Isolated?’ I offer.

‘That’s eight.’

‘Recluse, then.’

‘Must be.’ She fills it in, pencil scratching. ‘So. I hear a Trelawney’s turned up in the harbour.’

News travels in Sea Salt Bay at the speed of gossip, which is to say faster than light and twice as distorted.

‘Her name’s Brynn.’

‘I know what her name is. I was at her christening.’ Tilly looks up then, sharp blue eyes in a face lined by decades of sea wind and crossword puzzles. ‘Question is, what’s she doing back?’

Good question. One Dad definitely knows the answer to but won’t tell. One that sits between the Hardings and the Trelawneys like an unexploded mine, ticking quietly, waiting for someone to step on it.

‘Why is she back?’

Tilly takes a long drink of wine before answering. ‘Maybe she had nowhere else to go?’

It’s a question to a question that doesn’t help me answer anything. But I get this feeling, this sense, of what it might be like to not know where you are supposed to be. Of not knowing the place that made you, even if it broke you too. The tide always returns to the same shore, even after storms.