Page 17 of Pull Me Under

An old fisherman beside me – one I hadn’t noticed arriving – shrugs. ‘Make do with what we got.’

‘Didn’t the Hardings have another son? Older?’

The fisherman grins, showing more gaps than teeth. ‘New York City. Kit Harding’s off with that actress.’

My brain clicks random jigsaw-shaped pieces of information into place. ‘Isla Quinn?’

‘That’s the one. You know, the Marcus Vale business – was all over the news. She’s from here originally, or her grandmother was. Kit and her, been together since last autumn. He’s out there with her while she does some Broadway thing.’ He spits into the water, an old habit, I’m guessing and a disgusting one at that. Why do men have to spit? Ugh. ‘Six weeks, they reckon. Little brother holding the fort, as per bloody usual.’

So Jude’s not playing at responsibility. He’s actually carrying it. The business, the boats, Reuben, the lifeboat crew. All of it on those broad, scowling shoulders while his brother’s three thousand miles away.

The boat launches with well-practised efficiency despite the gaps in their ranks, and I watch it disappear into the morning haze that sits on the water like the sea’s keeping secret. The engine sound fades. The tension in the harbour doesn’t.

More people gather. Standing in small groups, not talking much, all watching the horizon. This is what they do. They wait. They watch. They count them out and count them back in and hope the numbers match.

‘How often?’ I ask the fisherman. ‘How often do the RNLI get called out here?’ I try and trawl through my memories, but they are sandy and hazy, faded like a photograph left in the sun.

‘Often enough.’ He’s watching the water with the flat, steady gaze of a man who’s seen it give and take in equal measure. ‘Tourists, mostly. Sometimes fishermen who should know better. Sometimes…’ He shrugs. ‘Lost our Peter to it, six months back. Same water. Same station. Kit Harding – the older lad – went out alone, got himself in trouble. Peter jumped in off the lifeboat to get the line on him.’ A pause. ‘Wave took him. Kit came back. Peter didn’t.’

He says it like weather. Like fact. No drama, no embellishment. Just the shape of what happened.

‘Peter,’ I say. ‘He was Nina’s⁠—?’

‘Her bloke, aye. Two years they had. Good man. Big fella, beard like a Viking, could fix anything with an engine. Everyone reckoned they would get married.’ He spits into the water. ‘Whole village felt that one. Still feeling it, truth be told. That woman in the café – she’s holding on, but the siren takes her back every time.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, and mean it.

The fisherman nods, like that’s all that needs saying. Then he wanders off along the wall, leaving me with the weight of it.

This is what I’ve come back to. A place held together by people who shouldn’t have to be, doing jobs that need doing because no one else will. A village where sirens trigger panic attacks and the lifeboat goes out short-handed and everyone just keeps going because what else is there?

The harbour feels different now – charged with waiting. More people drift in, drawn by the siren or maybe just the routine of disaster. They bring coffee in travel mugs, share quiet updates, check their phones for news that won’t come until the boat does.

An older woman appears at my elbow – hair in curlers under a headscarf, glasses on a chain, a woman who looks like she’s been ready for anything since 1987 and refuses to back down. She touches my arm with a hand that’s surprisingly warm.

‘You helped Nina?’

News in small places. Faster than broadband, twice as unreliable.

‘Not really. Just happened to be there.’

She studies me for a moment, head tilted, and her gaze narrows – not quite with recognition, but the ghost of it. Like she’s trying to place a tune she hasn’t heard in years.

‘Do I know you, love? You’ve got a familiar look about you.’

My mouth opens. Brynn Trelawney. You used to slip me sherbet lemons over the post office counter when Grandad came in for his stamps. The words are right there, fully formed, ready.

I swallow them.

Because if Dot Pendleton – and it is Dot, I’m almost sure, older and softer but the same sharp eyes behind those glasses – if Dot knows who I am, the whole village knows by teatime. And if the whole village knows, Reuben Harding knows. And I’m not ready for that. Not yet. Not until I’ve got my feet under me.

‘Just passing through,’ I say, and it tastes like a lie.

‘Well.’ She doesn’t look entirely convinced, but she lets it go. ‘That’s more than most tourists would do – staying with her like that.’ She presses a paper bag into my hands. ‘Pasty. Still warm. You look like you need feeding.’

I want to tell her I’m not a tourist. That I was born here. That I used to steal peanuts from The Ship and build sandcastles on the beach with a boy who grew up to scowl at me across a harbour.

But I don’t. I take the pasty and say thank you and let her think I’m nobody.