Clare Mackintosh - I Let You Go

I had to take a breath before answering, knowing he found me strange for locking the door at all. ‘All the same,’ I said to him, ‘I’d feel better if it were fixed.’

Once again Iestyn promised to come up to the cottage to sort it out, but when I left at lunchtime there had been no sign of him, and it took me a full ten minutes to force the door shut.

The road continues to narrow, and I can see the swell of the ocean at the end of the lane. The water is grey and unforgiving, white spray bursting into the air from the wrestling waves. The gulls sweep in dizzying circles, buffeted by the winds that wrap themselves around the bay. Finally I realise where Patrick is taking me.

‘The lifeboat station! Can we go in?’

‘That’s the idea,’ he says. ‘You’ve seen the vet’s surgery; I thought you might like to see this place – I seem to spend almost as much time here.’

Port Ellis Lifeboat Station is an odd, squat building, which could be mistaken for industrial premises, were it not for the lookout tower perched on top; its four glass windows reminding me of an aircraft control tower.

We walk past a huge pair of blue sliding doors at the front of the building, and Patrick presses an entry-code into a grey box next to a smaller door to one side.

‘Come on, I’ll show you around.’

Inside, the station smells of sweat and the sea; of the sharp tang of salt that lingers on clothing. The boathouse is dominated by what Patrick tells me is called ‘the Craft’; a bright orange rigid inflatable boat.

‘We’re clipped on,’ he says, ‘but when the weather’s bad, sometimes it’s all you can do to stay in the boat.’

I wander around the boathouse, taking in the notices pinned to the door, the equipment lists carefully ticked off with each daily check. On the wall is a plaque, commemorating three volunteers who lost their lives in 1916.

‘Coxswain P. Grant and Crew Members Harry Ellis and Glyn Barry,’ I read aloud. ‘How awful.’

‘They were responding to a steamship in distress off the Gower peninsula,’ Patrick says, joining me and putting an arm around my shoulder. He must see my face, because he adds, ‘It was very different then – they didn’t have half the kit we have now.’

He takes my hand and leads me out of the boathouse into a small room where a man in a blue fleece is making coffee. His face has the leathery complexion of someone who has spent a lifetime outside.

‘All right, David?’ Patrick says. ‘This is Jenna.’

‘Showing you the ropes, is he?’ David winks at me, and I smile at what is clearly a well-worn joke.

‘I never gave much thought to lifeboats before,’ I say. ‘I just took for granted the fact they were there.’

‘They won’t be here for much longer if we don’t keep fighting for them,’ David says, stirring a heaped spoon of sugar into syrupy coffee. ‘Our running costs are paid by the RNLI, not the government, so we’re forever trying to raise money, not to mention looking for volunteers.’

‘David is our operations manager,’ says Patrick. ‘He runs the station – keeps us all in check.’

David laughs. ‘He’s not far wrong.’

A telephone rings, the sound shrill in the empty crewroom, and David excuses himself. Seconds later he is back, unzipping his fleece and running into the boat room.

‘Canoe capsized off Rhossili Bay,’ he shouts to Patrick. ‘Father and son missing. Helen’s called Gary and Aled.’

Patrick opens a locker and pulls out a tangle of yellow rubber, a red life vest and a dark blue oilskin. ‘I’m sorry, Jenna, I have to go.’ He tugs the waterproofs over his jeans and sweatshirt. ‘Take the keys and wait at my house. I’ll be back before you know it.’ He moves quickly and before I can reply he runs into the boat room, just as two men rush in through the sliding door, pulled wide open in readiness. Within minutes, the four men are dragging the craft down to the water, leaping effortlessly aboard. One of the crew – I can’t tell which – pulls the cord to start the outboard motor, and the boat shoots away from the beach, bouncing over the choppy waves.

I stand there, watching the speck of orange get smaller, until it is swallowed up by grey.

‘Fast, aren’t they?’

I turn to see a woman leaning against the door to the crewroom. She is well into her fifties, with streaks of grey through her dark hair, and she wears a patterned blouse with an RNLI badge pinned to one side.

‘I’m Helen,’ she says. ‘I answer the phone, show visitors around, that sort of thing. You must be Patrick’s girl.’

I redden at the familiarity. ‘I’m Jenna. My head’s spinning: that can’t have taken more than fifteen minutes from start to finish.’

‘Twelve minutes, thirty-five seconds,’ Helen says. She smiles at my obvious surprise. ‘We have to keep a record of all shouts and our response times. All our volunteers live just a few minutes away. Gary’s up the road, and Aled has the butcher’s in the high street.’

‘What happens to the shop when he’s called out?’

‘He hangs a sign in the door. The locals are used to it – he’s been doing it for twenty years.’

I turn back to watch the water, empty of boats now, save for a huge vessel far out to sea. Heavy clouds have sunk so low the horizon has disappeared, the sky and the ocean a single mass of swirling grey.

‘They’ll be okay,’ Helen says, softly. ‘You never quite stop worrying, but you get used to it.’

I look at her, curious.

‘David’s my husband,’ Helen explains. ‘After he retired he was spending more time at the station than at home, so eventually I thought: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. I hated it the first time I saw him head off on a shout. It was one thing waving him off at home, but to actually see them get in the boat … and when the weather’s like this – well…’ She gives a shiver. ‘But they come back. They always come back.’

She puts a hand on my arm, and I am grateful for the older woman’s understanding.

‘It makes you realise, doesn’t it?’ I say. ‘How much…’ I stop, unable to admit it, even to myself.

‘How much you need them to come home?’ Helen says quietly.

I nod. ‘Yes.’

‘Do you want me to show you around the rest of the station?’

‘No, thank you,’ I say. ‘I think I’ll go back to Patrick’s house and wait for him there.’

‘He’s a good man.’

I wonder if she’s right. I wonder how she knows. I walk up the hill, turning every few paces in the hope of seeing the orange boat again. But I can’t see anything, and my stomach is gripped with anxiety. Something bad is going to happen, I just know it.

It feels strange to be at Patrick’s house without him, and I resist the temptation to go upstairs and look around. For want of anything to do, I tune the radio to a local station, and do the washing-up, which is piled high in the sink.

‘A man and his teenage son are missing, after their canoe capsized a mile from Rhossili Bay.’

The radio crackles with static and I fiddle with the tuning button in an attempt to find a better signal.

‘Port Ellis lifeboat was launched after locals raised the alarm, but so far they have been unable to recover the two missing men. We’ll have more on this story later.’

The wind is battering the trees until they are almost bent double. I can’t see the sea from the house, and I’m not sure if I’m glad of this fact, or if I should give in to the pull I feel to walk down to the lifeboat station and watch for that tiny orange speck.

I finish the washing-up and dry my hands with a tea-towel as I walk around the kitchen. The dresser is piled high with papers and I find its haphazardness curiously comforting. I put my hand on the cupboard handle, hearing Patrick’s words in my head.