Питер Мэй - I'll Keep You Safe

She got stiffly to her feet and made her way back outside, to be met by a blast of cold air, and the roar of the sea breaking over rocks far below. She fought to shut and latch the door, then push the boulder back against it, before setting off on the narrow path that led along the broken exterior of the cliff face before turning down in a steeply zigzagging natural stairway to the hidden beach at the foot of it.

The sand was wet and firm, and strewn with shells. The force of the sea against the cliff behind it had hollowed out a space that might one day, eons from now, become a cave. Niamh kicked off her wellies and rolled her jeans up to the knee, to walk barefoot across the sand, feeling it fill all the spaces between her toes. And then clamber carefully over slabs of gneiss worn smooth by time and water. She found a favourite perch and sat there, dangling her feet in the crystal-clear water of a rock pool. It was icy cold, and she could only hold her feet in it for a short time before pain forced her to withdraw. Still, it felt good. Cleansing, somehow.

The sea broke against shell-crusted outcrops of rock just feet away, to send rivulets of foaming salt water among all the crevices. She felt the spray of it on her face in the wind.

It was hard to believe now that she and Ruairidh could ever have made love here. And yet on a fine summer’s day this little hidden beach would bask for hours in sunshine, and in the evening, sheltered from the westerlies by the cliffs, the sand would still be warm, and the water almost tempting. But within half an hour, she knew, the tide being swept in by a heavy swell from the Minch would break across these rocks and swamp the beach.

She sat for as long as she dared, holding on to every elusive memory, with the very real fear that they might all soon be swept away by time and false recollection, and lost in the incoming tide of an uncertain future.

By the time the first waves were breaking over her feet, the light was starting to fade, and would quickly be gone. She had left it too late to climb back to the top in daylight, and it was panic that propelled her across the beach to retrieve her wellies, and clamber upwards over the rocks.

Twilight was the worst of all lights. Car headlamps seemed to make little impression in it, and the human eye coped almost better with illuminated darkness. She was only halfway up when she found herself having to peer carefully through the gloom to find her next footing. She fumbled in a pocket for her phone. She had a torch app that would light her way. But the beam of light it cast was not much better than the little natural light that remained, and she picked her way carefully along the ledge that overhung the beach and the rocks now thirty or forty feet below.

The wind had increased in strength, and whistled around her as she eased her way towards the scree slope that would allow her to scramble upwards to the safety of the bothy and the cliff tops beyond. She felt it tugging at her jacket, and then a noise immediately above caused her to look up, startled. The shadow of a figure silhouetted against the sky seemed to extend a helping hand. She reached up and felt the hand make contact with hers, before it grabbed her collar and pushed her violently away from the cliff face.

It was with a dreadful sense of disbelief that she found herself falling, all sense of orientation lost, her phone and the light it cast whipped away in the wind. And realization dawned that she was going to die. Her shoulder struck some protruding rock where a tiny patch of grass grew and seabirds nested. The pain of it jarred through her body, and she felt herself propelled out into the void, dropping helplessly into the breaking spray of incoming water.

She closed her eyes tight shut and braced herself for impact. She surely would die quickly on the rocks. But it was water she struck, hard and cold, expelling all breath from her body as it sucked her down and pulled her out into the Minch.

It felt as if her whole being were in the grip of a giant hand that she was powerless to fight against, dragging her under, spinning and twisting her amidst a turmoil of conflicting currents. All she could think was, ‘Don’t breathe! Don’t even try to draw breath. Or it will be your last.’ Lungs filled with water, darkness drowning consciousness. Life slipping hopelessly through fingers incapable of retaining their hold on it.

She opened her eyes and sought the light. Only to find darkness. She had no idea which way to the surface. Except that her wellies had filled with water and were pulling her down. Bubbles of spent air escaping her lips and nostrils were going up. She fought to divest herself of her wellies, and the leaden weight of her sodden parka, and kicked hard with her feet, thanking God now for the swimming lessons her parents had forced her to attend in Stornoway.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, she broke the surface and saw light in the sky above her. For the first time she understood the absolute dread that Anndra must have felt as he was sucked under for the last time and gave up the unequal fight to stop water rushing into his lungs. She sucked air into her own lungs now, desperate for oxygen, before a wave broke over her and she found herself thrown towards the rocks.

The cliffs rose up black and formidable, tilting overhead, and she braced herself for impact on all those jagged outcrops and their razor-sharp crusting of shells.

But the expected pain of impact never came. Instead she felt something soft and warm. Another body in the water. Hands grasping her and suddenly, unexpectedly, lifting her up over the rocks.

The next impact was hard, but giving, and she found herself sprawling on the little patch of silver sand, her footsteps still visible and filling with water. Only there was another set of footprints now. Bigger. The treads of stout walking boots pressed into the softness. Coughing the water from her lungs, half choking, and shivering with the cold, she had only the vaguest impression of her rescuer leaning over her, before a heavy warm jacket seemed somehow to wrap itself around her, and the shadow of whoever had pulled her from the water was gone.

Niamh managed to haul herself to her knees and looked up. But caught only the fleeting glimpse of movement above her on the rocks. Whoever it was had vanished, leaving her their jacket. But she was still barefoot, and knew that somehow she had to get back to the house before hypothermia took her.

The climb back up the cliff without footwear was treacherous, and she was thankful for all the years of running barefoot along the shore as a child. Still, she moved carefully. Some of these rocks were sharp-edged and could slice open the tender soles of her feet with a single slip. Obversely and unexpectedly, bare feet and flexible toes gave her a better grip. She was more sure-footed. And it was, finally, with great relief that she pulled herself up on to the soft bog grass along the top of the cliff.

She lay on her back breathing hard for several minutes, her rescuer’s thermal jacket wrapped around her. Her feet ached, from the cold and the pain of the climb, and above her she saw twilight wash itself darker across the sky, the first stars twinkling faintly beyond fast-moving broken cloud.

Eventually she summoned the strength to pull herself back to her feet and went hobbling off across the moor towards the house, where lights on a timer lit up its interior against the night. All the way, peaty black mud oozed between her toes, and she fought to understand what had just happened.

Someone had climbed down to push her off the cliff. Someone intent on killing her. Only the fortuitous collision with a grassy outcrop had sent her spinning beyond the reach of the rocks below, and certain death. But, then, the sea too had been set to claim her, to drag her down and drown her, or smash her against the rocks. Before strong hands had plucked her free of it and dumped her unceremoniously on the beach. Leaving no trace, except for footprints in the sand, and this weatherproof jacket that she wrapped tightly around her now.