S Bolton - Sacrifice

Death from exposure was still on the cards, though, and I had to get moving. I pulled myself to my feet and looked around. Ahead of me was a cliff: not massively high but a cliff nonetheless. The beach was very narrow, hardly more than a strip of sand, and behind a very thin causeway there was a small lake. Two streams fed it, running down from the cliff-top above, and I realized they offered my best route up.

I started upwards. The stream I was following had cut out numerous little ledges and gullies over the years, and climbing wasn't difficult. The biggest danger was that I would get careless and slip. Before I reached the top I saw a car drive past, not thirty yards away from me, but the driver was staring straight ahead. I kept on going and collapsed at the roadside.

The rain was striking my face like a whip with a thousand tiny lashes and if a patient had arrived in A &E shivering as violently as I was doing, I'd have been seriously concerned. Yet I found I had enough strength left to start worrying about Duncan. Would it really be worth surviving only to find that he hadn't? He was a better swimmer than I, but what if he'd been hit by the mast? I found I had enough energy left to cry.

By twelve-fifteen I hadn't seen another car and had no choice but to start walking. I was barefoot. Shortly after the accident my sailing boots had filled with water. I'd kicked them off but I'd have been glad of them – of anything – now. The roadside verges were made of coarse grass, mud, shingle and more stones. After ten minutes my feet were bleeding.

I walked along the road until I came to Gutcher, from where the Yell-Unst ferry leaves, and stumbled into the green-painted, wooden-built cafe just by the pier.

'Dat in traath!' said the woman behind the counter at the sight of me. There were two other people in the cafe, a boy of about ten and a woman whom I took for his mother. They said nothing, just stared.

'Do you have a phone I could use?' I managed. 'I've been in a sailing accident,' I added, although I'm sure it was hardly necessary.

'Yan!' yelled the woman, her head half turned towards a door at the back of the cafe, her eyes fixed on me. 'Da lassie is haff drunned.'

They brought me a phone but I couldn't dial the number. I couldn't even remember it, but I managed to tell them who I was and they put the call through. It seemed to take a long time and all the while I was bracing myself for the news that Duncan hadn't made it back. I think I retreated to somewhere inside my head, only vaguely aware of movement and sound around me. I was given hot tea that I couldn't even hold and someone put a car blanket around me. I became the object of the gentle curiosity and unconditional kindness that you only find in small communities. And I waited to be told the news of my husband's death.

DUNCAN WAS NOT DEAD. Duncan came racing into the café an hour later, a little whiter in the face than normal but otherwise perfectly OK. Later, I learned the dinghy hadn't capsized, just broached violently and then righted itself. Duncan had managed to cling to the tiller and remain on board, but with the mast gone and the sails ripped, it was pretty much uncontrollable, and heading for the cliffs. He'd inflated his life jacket – working perfectly, thank you – and prepared to bail. Then he'd had the good fortune to be spotted by a passing boat. Rob Craigie, owner of one of the largest salmon farms on Unst, had been returning from an early-morning check of his offshore cages. He'd rescued Duncan and the two of them had spent the next hour looking for me. In the face of a steadily worsening storm, Duncan had eventually been persuaded to return to Unst and call out the coastguard. By the time the phone call from the Yell cafe reached the Guthrie home, I had been missing for nearly four hours.

I don't remember much about the journey back to Westing. Just that Richard drove and I sat in the back, huddled close to Duncan. No one spoke much. It took longer than it should have because the bad weather was delaying the ferries, but eventually, around mid afternoon, we arrived back. Elspeth had built a huge fire in our room and put extra quilts on the bed. Duncan helped me take a hot bath and then dressed me in a pair of Richard's flannel pyjamas. Richard checked me for concussion, gave me painkillers for my headache and Temazepam to help me sleep. I didn't argue, although I doubted I really needed it. Sleep was the only thing I felt I could handle just then.

Voices woke me. I was still drowsy. I wanted to go back to sleep. I closed my eyes and snuggled down.

Duncan was shouting. I'd never heard raised voices in that house before. I opened my eyes again. The curtains were drawn and a soft lamp glowed in the corner of the room. I turned to look at the clock. It was a little past seven in the evening. I sat up and felt OK, so I climbed out of bed.

The door was slightly ajar. I could hear Richard now. He wasn't shouting – I doubted him capable of doing so – but he was arguing. I moved out into the corridor and hovered uncertainly at the top of the stairs.

The door to Richard's study was open and Duncan appeared in the doorway. He stopped and turned, looking back into the room.

'I've had enough,' he said firmly. 'I want out. I'm getting out!'

Then he was gone: along the corridor, through the kitchen and out of the back door. I had the weirdest feeling that he was gone for good; that I was never going to see Duncan again. I moved down the steps. Four steps down, I realized that Richard wasn't alone in his study. Elspeth was with him. They were arguing too, but very quietly. Another step down and I realized she was pleading with him.

'It's unthinkable,' said Richard.

'He's in love,' said Elspeth.

'He can't do it. He can't just walk away from everything he has here.'

I froze, one hand gripping the banister; then, forcing myself to move, I backed up on legs that were suddenly shaky again, one step… two… three. At the top I ran along the corridor, back into the guest room and climbed back into bed. The sheets had cooled in my absence and I started to shiver. I pulled the quilts up over my head and waited for the trembling to slow down.

Duncan was going to leave me? Of course, I knew things hadn't exactly been great between us for some time; even before we moved to Shetland he'd changed: laughing less, talking less, being away more. I'd put it down to the stress of an impending move and our difficulties in starting a family. Now, it seemed it was so much more. What I'd seen as a bad patch, he'd recognized as the end. He'd found a lifeline and was bailing.

Was there any other explanation for what I'd just heard? Try as I might, I couldn't find one. Duncan was going to leave me. Duncan was in love with someone else. Someone he'd met on one of his trips away? Someone on the islands?

What the hell was I going to do? I had a job here. I couldn't just up and leave after six months. I could wave goodbye to any future consultant's post if I did that, even supposing I'd be allowed to leave the islands given everything that was going on. I'd only come to this godforsaken place to be with Duncan. How was I ever going to have a baby now?

My tears, when they came, were hot and stinging and I had to bite hard on my arm to keep from howling out loud. My headache was back with a vengeance. I couldn't face going downstairs to find Richard so I got up to see what I could find in the bathroom. There was nothing in the cabinet, nor in the toilet bag that Duncan had packed for me. Duncan's bag lay next to mine on the window ledge.

I started sobbing again at that point, but my headache was getting worse. I pulled down his bag and looked inside. A soggy blue flannel, razor, toothbrush, ibuprofen – thank God – and another packet of pills. I picked them up without really thinking about it and read the label: Desogestrel. Inside were three rows of small white pills, pressed into foil. Desogestrel. The name meant something but I couldn't place it. I hadn't been aware of Duncan having any condition that required a daily pill, but then again, I was learning quite a lot about Duncan that evening.