Page 70 of Pull Me Under

Bill materialises at my shoulder. ‘Not bad, Trelawney.’

From Bill, this is practically a standing ovation.

‘Thanks, Bill.’

‘Most newcomers take weeks to settle in. You fit like you’ve been here all along.’ He pauses, and his weathered face softens. ‘Peter would’ve been impressed. He liked people who could work.’

My throat tightens. ‘So I’ve heard.’

‘Friday night. The Ship. Crew tradition – well, village tradition, honestly. Tilly does fish and chips. Best in Cornwall, though don’t tell anyone in Padstow I said so.’ He claps my shoulder. ‘You should come.’

‘Maybe.’

‘That’s a yes, then.’ He ambles off towards the car park.

I’m left standing in the rain, thinking about belonging.

I’ve never stayed anywhere longer than eighteen months. Not because I chose to go – because staying was never an option. The work dried up. The rent increased. The lease wasn’t renewed. You move when the ground shifts under you. You stop unpacking properly. You keep your tools in the Land Rover because tools are the one thing you can’t afford to lose when the notice comes.

I came here expecting hostility and found … this. Bill buying me a pint. Dot giving me a bed. Nina keeping a seat. The only person who’s actively hostile is Reuben, and even that feels less like cruelty and more like a man defending the only story he has left.

But I went to Nina’s when she needed someone. And I’m considering going to the pub on Friday. And there’s a cat sleeping in my shed that I’ve started thinking of as mine.

And there’s Monday. Every Monday. For five weeks.

The cottage is dark when I get back from training. I let myself in, hang my wet jacket on the hook I installed last week, and stand in the kitchen listening to the quiet. The space heater ticks. The silence is the particular kind that comes from being alone in a house that’s too big for one person.

I could text him. I won’t. But I could. I have his number now – crew contact list, purely professional – and his name sits in my phone like a dare.

Colleagues don’t text at 9 pm.

I make tea instead. Stand at the kitchen window in the dark, watching the harbour lights reflect off the water.

Colleagues.

The boat is in worse shape than I admitted.

I discover it Wednesday morning – or rather, I stop ignoring what I’ve known since I bought her. The hull damage isn’t just cosmetic. The planking near the stern is soft, waterlogged, ready to give way. The engine, which I’ve been coaxing back to life piece by piece, has corrosion in places I didn’t expect. The fuel system I’ve been carefully rebuilding is connected to tanks that might be compromised.

She’s a money pit. A beautiful, hopeless money pit that I can’t afford to fix properly.

I sit on the shed floor, legs stretched out, back against the trawler’s hull, and do the maths for the hundredth time. What’s left of the inheritance money: nothing. What I had before I came here: £437 from eight years of garage work and boatyard labour and never quite earning enough to save. What I’ve got now: less than nothing, if you count the roof tile sealant I bought from Dot on credit.

Smart move, Brynn. Really excellent life choices all around.

‘You look like someone stole your biscuit.’

I look up. Nina’s in the shed doorway, travel mug in hand.

‘Just contemplating my financial ruin.’

‘Ah.’ She sits beside me on the concrete floor, close enough that our shoulders almost touch. ‘The cottage or the boat?’

‘Both. Either. Does it matter?’

‘Probably not.’ She offers me the travel mug. ‘Coffee. The good stuff, not that instant atrocity you’ve been drinking.’

I take it gratefully. ‘How do you know what I’ve been drinking?’