Fiction

Fidelity

I am almost sure that it was my idea to come here. A grey sky looms behind the distorted glass of the cottage window, and if I stand on my toes I can just about see the crags below jutting their chins into the sea. A bird's dark body flickers in and out of existence in the rippled glass. A large seagull, perhaps, gorged on the slippery silver hauls of the tired fishing boats along the coast.
The kitchen is an utter mess. A measuring jug still lies on its side where Leanne knocked it over in a rush to save the pancakes I was burning. The batter has spilled onto the table, and has now dried and congealed; the surface has cracked to reveal a glistening wetness underneath. As she struggled into her coat, Leanne had hissed that there might as well be batter on the ceiling, for all the good I was at making breakfast. We should have just bought something at the village shop.
I fetch the mop and sweep it over the sticky floor. I want the evidence of my uselessness to be gone before she gets back. Whilst looking down it's quite easy to ignore the charred mess slopped over the Aga, and the gleaming china plates still waiting on the kitchen table.

One evening, Leanne had exploded into our flat clutching a letter, and announced that she had a job offer from Florida.
The groan of London traffic drifted through our front door — which she had left open — and dulled my shock. She seemed to expect me to be ecstatic about this, so I gave her a tight hug and murmured congratulations in her ear. But when I put the kettle on, my thoughts seethed and spat along with its boiling water. She must have forgotten, then, that we couldn't move to America. We wouldn't get a spouse's Green Card.
By the time I added the milk, our tea was cold, with a sheen like oil clouding over the surface. In the bated silence of the flat — Leanne must have finally shut the door — it occurred to me that she might not be thinking of taking me along at all. Maybe she was thinking long-distance, or a bitch of a commute, or something.
From then on the letter planted itself at the top of our dining table like a stuck-up, uninvited guest. Often I caught Leanne twitching it this way and that to keep the thick, water-marked sheet perfectly aligned. Whenever I came home and saw it, or ate my lunch alone, I wondered whether Leanne's lab partners had already moved out to America, with Visas, and clip-lock boxes full of all their sentimental crap. At some point I stopped turning on Radio Four to keep me company while I ate, and took to staring at the letter instead, daring myself to actually read it.
When Leanne was home to have dinner with me, I found myself sweaty and flustered, with my stomach too knotted to eat anything. Perhaps this is how I would have behaved, had Leanne's parents been alive to look down their nose at me, to scrutinise and ignore me by turns; to ask me whether I had settled into London yet, to tell me that the lifestyle wasn't for everyone.
When I accidentally knocked my orange juice over one morning, the stain crept across the letter like a siege upon a frontier. Leanne had yelled at me and snatched the letter away as I tried to blot at it with kitchen paper. I muttered an apology but couldn't stop staring. It felt like I'd broken some kind of stalemate.
‘Are you going to move to Florida?’ I blurted as Leanne dabbed at the letter.
She shrugged. Maybe. The ceiling seemed to be pressing me hard into my chair.
‘Let's go away together,’ I said.
‘What?’ Leanne asked, exasperated.
‘Somewhere we haven't been before,’ I invented desperately. ‘Rent a cottage for a weekend. We could go on long walks, and get some space, some fresh air.’
Leanne laughed despite herself. ‘Like in nursery? Playing at being Wife and Wife?’
I shrugged, trying to seem calm.
‘Yeh, why not.’
‘Fine, whatever,’ said Leanne, turning back to the letter. She gingerly picked it up and clipped it to the notice board to dry before disappearing to the bathroom.
A tiny bloom of adrenalin had pulsed through me as I thought of a cottage in Cornwall, surrounded by the vast blue of oceans and wheeling birds. We could wake up each morning like we used to, before Leanne got her early morning start at the lab, with her reaching for me before she was even half awake, folding me back into the sleepy warmth of the duvet.

I'm trying to shove the cupboard door shut on the flailing mop when Leanne starts rattling her keys in the door. She brings a gust of sea-salted drizzle and a white plastic bag into the cottage with her. I help unknot her various hoods from her scarf whilst she grumbles about the bloody Cornish summer. Without her coat Leanne hunches her shoulders over, as if it's chilly in the cottage. She skates a glance over the floor, and when she doesn't find any pancake mess, she mutters a thanks and turns away. I just shrug, but I don't think she sees.
‘Pain-au-chocolat,’ says Leanne, spilling brown paper bags onto the table. They are covered in grease blots. We sit opposite each other, which feels odd and formal, but the pastries are butterslick and sweet. Leanne is industriously retrieving each scattered flake by licking the tip of her finger and sticking the food to the glistening saliva. I can see smears of spit and fat on the table, illuminated in the glare of the overhead lights.
‘Shall we go for a walk in the village today?’ I suggest when Leanne is finished licking. We finished driving so late last night that I haven't been outside yet.
‘Sure,’ says Leanne. ‘It's still traditional, not all touristy. You'll like it.’
‘You did just go to the village though,’ I point out.
‘Do you mind?’
‘I can get us there, then.’ says Leanne as she screws our rubbish into a ball and stuffs it in the bin.
She is the first to escape the confines of the cottage and venture back out into the spitting rain. My fingers scrabble at the wall next to the door, automatically seeking the alarm box of our London flat. I snatch my hand from the wall, but Leanne is staring through next-door's windows and doesn't notice. Annoyed and guilty, I yank the key from my bag and slam the door. Right now I don't want anything to remind Leanne of London, or the letter, or going back home. I can feel that my face is flushed — the wind has an extra bite when it hits my skin — but if Leanne notices she doesn't say anything.
It's not too far to the village. I stretch to take Leanne's hand before realising that she's shoved them deep in her pockets. On impulse I do the same, and hope that she doesn't think my jerky movements are defensive. I joke that Leanne should have packed the gloves I gave her last Christmas.
‘What?’ she snaps back.
The walk is claustrophobic, and I try to come up with ludicrous reasons as to why the Cornish build such high and close walls in which to trap their roads. It's for the smuggling trade, so that laden carts could move unseen. It's because there weren't any other jobs going, after the tin mines collapsed. It's because once, the winds were so strong that a child was blown clean off a cliff, and their body was never found.
‘Could you even imagine swimming in that sea?’ asks Leanne. I peer through the hedge, where she's looking. There are sprays of colour dotted on top of the waves.
‘Surfers. They're bloody mad,’ she says. The waves are rearing back, bunching up, getting ready to crash back down onto the beach.
‘You like swimming, Leanne,’ I say, irritated by her bad mood. ‘It's a beautiful view, though.’
‘Not beautiful,’ Leanne disagrees, ‘brutal. How many people do you think die every year off the coast?’ The chequered flags of the lifeguards do seem dwarfed by the broiling waves.
‘But this view is just ours,’ I say. ‘No one else has ever seen the ocean quite like this.’
Leanne tilts her head, considering. ‘Still brutal, though. And deadly,’ she adds. ‘Just because it's far away, doesn't make it pretty.’
I wonder if she will miss me when she goes to Florida, and for one wild moment I think I am going to cry, right here in the middle of the lane. But Leanne's bored now, and she marches off without me. It's raining a little harder, so I don't entirely blame her. Anyway, my toes are numb from the water seeping through my trainers.

We stumble into the village shop in a flurry of wet coats. The ceiling is low, throwing gloom into every corner, and a mint-green, speckled lino doesn't quite disguise the grime at the feet of the aisles. Our footprints leave a dirty trail as we meander around the shop.
‘What did we come in here for anyway?’ she asks, without actually looking at me.
‘A rustic and traditional Cornwall,’ I mutter.
Leanne scowls and grabs a couple of bargain Pringle tubes from the shelf before stalking to the till. When she hands over a twenty, the shop lady is obviously disgruntled. She pinches it with disgust and spends a long time examining the watermarks. Eventually Leanne coughs and the lady bangs the cash register open. She counts change into Leanne's waiting hand with a pointed lack of speed, until there is a small mountain of coins that's threatening to avalanche.
‘Old bag,’ Leanne says as she turns away. The lady steps back a little, as if she has been slapped. I hurry forwards and move Leanne out of the way, my hands on her waist. The lady narrows her eyes.
‘May I have some stamps, please?’ I ask, laying it on thick. She shrugs but totters away to the post office till. Her dishwater-green bib reminds me of the dinner-ladies at school, and I feel guilty, like I am trying to scam an extra dessert.
‘What do you want stamps for?’ Leanne asks. She is closer to me than I thought and I start a little, stubbing my toe into the counter.
‘I thought I'd write to my parents,’ I say, reaching to squeeze Leanne's hand. ‘You know, to let them know what it's like in sunny Cornwall.’
‘What, an intel report?’ Leanne flinches away from my hand and glares at me. ‘You never talk to them. So are you just going to lie outright, or did you think that you would go for the most depressing postcard ever?’
I think of the pancake disaster, and the near- silent drive down from London. All I can see are the coloured speckles on the floor. Perhaps I can find a repeating pattern.
‘They're probably hoping this trip will end it,’ Leanne mutters.
‘Family holiday, is it?’ interrupts a quivering, snooty voice. I turn to stare at the dinner lady. She is flicking her clouding eyes between me and Leanne, looking for a resemblance.
‘Oh no, we're not sisters,’ I say firmly before Leanne can speak. ‘Just friends. Thought we'd get away from the London chaos for a while. You know, come and see your beautiful beaches and blue skies.’
‘Excuse me?’ Leanne hisses behind me. I ignore her. The dinner lady nods and hands me some stamps.
‘That's four pounds ninety, please.’
I grab for my purse as Leanne stalks past me and wrenches open the shop door. After throwing a fiver onto the counter, I rush out after her, not waiting for the change. It's only when the shop is swallowed by the slimed mist that I realise I have forgotten to buy a postcard.
I follow Leanne to the nearest pub — it's either that or the church. Inside it's empty and dim. Leanne ignores me when I suggest a table near the bar, and heads back outside. Each pub is the same as the first — it seems that's all there is in this stupid village — and each time I suggest we sit and talk, Leanne is off again, storming through the village with me traipsing after her.
Eventually she stops. A figure in an old Macintosh is hunched in the doorway of the town hall like a gargoyle. They gesture for us to come inside and Leanne disappears through the door. The town hall is mostly empty, and the lingering dust of stagnant decades makes me cough. Huddled in the corner is a drab display of coastal-themed photographs; bright little price tags stuck optimistically on the frames.
‘Look Martha,’ Leanne says, pointing to a photo- graph. ‘Isn't this one just lovely? It's so realistic and vivid. Just lovely.’
I cross the empty hall, footsteps echoing. It's a picture of three fish. One lies beheaded, its body blunted except for a protruding fragment of translucent spine. Another had had its belly slit open, and its intestines are slumped against the edge of the frame, reeking.
‘God Leanne, now I feel sick.’ My eyes are hooked on the spilled bowels.
‘So do I Martha,’ says Leanne, her voice hard. ‘Look, I'm sorry, but I didn't see you standing up to her.’
‘It was an honest question. There was nothing to stand up to!’
Leanne is leaning in front of me, the table swaying, her hair falling onto photographs of dead fish. I want to yell at her. What was I supposed to say? Our life is none of her business! But Leanne gets there first, and asks a different question.
‘Are you embarrassed because of us?’
My glare wilts. I don't have to say it. She backs away and heads for the door.
‘It'll be even worse if you move to Florida,’ I say.
‘Maybe,’ Leanne concedes, pulling the hood of her coat back up. ‘But then, maybe there won't be a problem at all.’
She walks out of the town hall. This time I don't follow — I feel like if I catch up with her she might spin and smack me. Instead, I crawl around the village in the rain, trying to find some pub in which to hide until the dampness of my clothes seizes my joints in place.
When I step through the front door, Leanne is waiting at the kitchen table. Her presence makes the rooms seem smaller, like the high Cornish walls are still bearing down upon me. I try to take off my drenched coat with as few movements as possible, as we skirt around each other. She's heated some soup in the pan for us, but it has turned to a sludge with a skin shrinking from the edges of the pan. She must have been waiting a while for me to come back.
‘I was getting worried,’ she whispers, not moving from her chair. I mutter an apology for ruining the soup. She says that it's fine, and that she isn't that hungry anyway. We look at each other for a moment, tasting each other's mood like a snake flicking its tongue.
I head straight to bed, and curl up under the covers still fully dressed. When I wake in the middle of the night, there is still a vast and empty space beside me.

In the morning, the sun dredges a blue sky up from the depths of the ocean. I stay in bed for a while, exhaustion and the clinging damp of my clothes making me feel sick. As long as I don't roll over I can pretend like everything is normal. I can't remember the last time we didn't sleep together. I feel twitchy but calm, as if I know that a tsunami is about to hit and am observing the seething, rolling mass from the fragile shoreline.
When I do eventually creep downstairs, I find Leanne asleep on the arm of the sofa, her head pillowed on a book. I wrap a rug around my shoulders and ghost through the kitchen making some coffee. Slick as anything, I accidentally drop the coffee jar on the work surface with a heart- stopping smash — exploding glass and coffee granules everywhere.
‘Shit, Martha!’ Leanne has started awake and is rubbing her cheek. I stare at the mess, unable to believe I can screw even this up. The kettle clicks off. Its roar of boiling water subsides. Leanne just looks at me, then coughs up a small laugh and smiles. Relieved, I fetch the dust pan and brush from the cupboard again. I've cleaned this place more than I do our flat.
We sit at the table, sipping coffee and staring out of the window. I've a crick in my neck from having to turn to see it, but I don't think I can look at Leanne, so I rest my chin in my palm and wait it out.
‘Maybe we can go swimming today,’ Leanne suggests.
‘It won't be too cold for you?’
‘Maybe,’ says Leanne. I remember her swearing at the surfers yesterday. ‘But I've got to at least try it.’
I shrug and push my mug onto the side.
‘I'll go and get changed then,’ I say as I head towards the stairs.
Leanne shouts that the wetsuits are in the red case. This irritates me. I know this. I was the one who bought and packed them when I realised my old suit would definitely not fit either of us.
When we're both ready we slip through the gate at the bottom of the cottage's miniature garden and wade through a field of tangled grass to get to the coastal path. We ignore the rusting and crooked sign that specifies a recommended safe distance from the cliff edge. I've never once had an accident. Even my parents used to think they were overcautious.
It is only a short scramble down the sharp rocks, until we are pressed against a damp and seeping wall with the roiling ocean at our feet. With each wave the water floods onto our rocky platform. Icy tendrils are creeping up my wetsuit legs from my drenched neoprene boots. We watch the water battering the smoothed rocks. Neither one of us seems to want to go in first.
I squint at the murky horizon. There are no birds in the sky today.
‘It feels like there is no one else in the world,’ says Leanne, sounding awed. ‘And it doesn't look so bad, when it's not raining.’ A particularly vicious wave breaks over our shins.
‘We're going back to London tomorrow morning,’ I remind her. Leanne narrows her eyes at me.
‘Yeh,’ she says, and takes a running leap at the broiling water. As soon as she goes under, it feels as though the tension has snapped. I enjoy breathing the brisk, salt-laden air into my lungs until Leanne surfaces again, her arms and legs frenzied and thrashing against the waves.
‘No one here to see us drown,’ yells Leanne over the sea's roar. ‘I'm completely trusting you to save me.’
She's grinning, and trying to keep her bobbing head out of the water. When it floods her mouth, she spits and paddles her frenetic limbs harder like a ridiculous, spasming puppet on top of the water. She is panting, and snot has dribbled out of her nose as the salt water streams from her. For a moment she is pounded down by an incoming wave, and I can see her dark outline spiral in the ceaseless rolling grip of the water. She comes up spluttering. I don't move to help her, but imagine instead that this fragment of ocean already writhing between us is the entire Atlantic.
I am not worried. She is a strong swimmer, and looking down on her affords me a savage pleasure more exhilarating than a brutal sea. When Leanne realises that I am not going to jump in as well, she catches a wave and sails onto the rocks with ease. She shivers all of the way back; we forgot to bring towels. I wonder if she will ask why I didn't want to swim. When she doesn't, though, I am not surprised.

Leanne is in the shower when I pick up the book she was using as a pillow last night. A piece of folded paper pokes out the ends — a makeshift bookmark —  and I know it's going to be her letter, even before I open it.
Congratulations, you have been successful in your application to Meryl-Jones Laboratories.
Not a job offer, then. She applied. I pace around the kitchen, furious. The thought that she doesn't want me keeps lurching up my swollen throat like a tide. I want the hurl the letter into the ocean —  get rid of it. So I do the next best thing, and throw it in the sink.
The paper collapses in soft, sodden folds under the gush of the faucet. It becomes blushed with water stains. The ink begins to run. I take the scrubbing brush and swipe it gently over the paper's surface. As the wet fibres roll into little bobbles, its words mush together and disappear. I leave the logo at the top of the page. I want her to find it, and know it was me. That, in the end, it was my choice.

Leanne finds me shivering on the beach. I am bundled into a woolly hat and jumpers, but my jeans are soaked from paddling. I shrink away from her, but she stops just out of arm's reach and gazes at me.
‘That was pathetic, Martha.’ Her voice is soft, caught up on the wind. She is calm as she explains that she already answered the letter. That she'll be gone within the month.
She begins to walk away, following the shoreline, but turns after a few steps.
‘I'll get the train back to London. You can take the car.’
I stare after her until she is merely a dark body picking its way over rocks, toothpick arms waving for balance. Her footsteps are like a seam, stitching the sand to the waves. Even standing under this hollow sky, I can't seem to imagine enough space between us.

Catriona McLean