Susan Fletcher - The Silver Dark Sea

And it’s never had this: a man, half-naked. He is lying on his front, his face against the shingle. He is dead-looking – still, white-skinned.

I know some wonderful stories – but this is the beginning of the best of all.

He stumbles down to the beach. A steep path through gorse leads him there. He jumps onto the stones and the noise is sudden – the crunch of his heels, the clatter of rock against rock. He staggers, and then falls. Sam lands on all fours. The stones are powdery and the dark cracks between them are darker with old weed. He stares for a moment. Then he rights himself.

On, towards the shoreline. Over brownish wrack.

Oh God , he says. Oh …

It is not plastic, or sacking.

It is a human body. It lies at the water’s edge. Its upper half is out of the water; its legs are still being lapped at by the tide. It lies on its front and the head is turned so that the man’s right cheek (it is definitely a man) is pressed into the stones, and his right arm is raised above his head. He wears a white vest, or part of one. Sodden, dark-grey shorts.

Black hair. A black beard.

Shit …

Sam looks away. He breathes heavily through pursed lips. He tries to steady himself, puts his hand on his chest. Could he turn, go? No-one need know. No-one has seen me coming here. And wouldn’t the sea come back and take it? Carry it out? Sam shakes. His hands are shaking and he thinks, a dead body … He has not seen one before.

But he cannot turn and go. He must stay; he knows he must.

He looks back. The man’s skin is white. It is perfectly white, like fish meat. The arms are thick, muscled. His back, too, is strong-looking – there is a deep groove where his spine is.

He is tall. Was. Was tall.

Oh … His stomach clenches. He half-bends, as if he will vomit, and he expects this – he braces, locks his jaw. But nothing comes.

The body lies ahead of Sam. He tries to calm himself for he knows what he must do. He knows what needs to be done, right now, and so he lifts his left foot and steps towards it. He brings his right foot to join his left.

No smell. Would there not be a smell?

And flies , he thinks. There are no flies.

Carefully, Sam comes in. He draws level with the body and starts to lower down. He is tentative, scared of falling or getting too close. The stones shift, as his weight does, and he thinks and what about the eyes? He has found dead sheep before. They lose their eyes to gulls – the soft, jellied flesh is the first part to be eaten – and Sam feels nauseous again. His tongue tightens. But he has no choice: he has to see the face. He knows this but he does not want to and he is shaking as he crouches down. His breath is fast and his heart is thumping against his ribs so that they hurt and he does not want the eyes to have been pecked away or sucked out by fish. He does not want the mouth to be open, as if still fighting for breath.

Oh God oh God …

Sam puts his palms down on the stones. He brings his face alongside the dead man’s face. Nose to nose.

The man opens his eyes. Not fully, not wide – but his eyelids flicker and there are two black crescent moons of eye.

Sam yells. Falls.

He scrambles backwards, crab-like, shouting holy fuck oh my God , and as he tries to stand his left foot slips and the stones give way so he turns onto his front and crawls frantically on his hands and knees, and then he finally clambers up the beach and turns around.

There is the sea, and a gull’s screaming, and there is a sound which is coming from Sam – a whimpering, a half-sob. His grips his hair with both his hands. Not dead is what he thinks. Not dead not dead, oh Jesus. He looks at the skin, the beard, the mouth which is moving now as if trying to speak or trying to clear itself of salt or sand or pebbles and the eyelids still flicker, and the right hand flinches. The fingers find a stone and try to close upon it.

Shit. Listen. I’m going to get help , Sam tells him. I am. I’ll come back.

He sees a whorl in the man’s beard, as if a thumb has been pressed there – familiar, in its way. A shell, or a rose.

Sam stumbles through the grass. His feet snag on roots and old wire; the sheep lift up from their resting places and bleat at him, and move. His breathing is loud as he runs towards the lane. He knows the house with the striped socks on the line is to his left and that a woman will be inside it, but he cannot go to her. Not her, of all people. He does not look across.

Down the hill. Past the ragwort, and the rusting tractor.

Past the sheet of corrugated iron that is half-lost in grass.

He turns right at the sign that says Wind Rising . He runs up the drive and the dog barks as she sees him, and the rooster stretches up and flaps his wings. Sam bangs on the back door which swings open on its own so he hurries inside saying Ian? Ian? The kitchen smells of casserole and coffee and dog hair and Ian is standing there, very still, with the kettle in his hand.

* * *

A man?

A man.

Dead?

No. I thought he was, but he’s alive. He opened his eyes.

Washed up? Are you sure he’s not just … Ian shrugs. I don’t know … Lying there? Sunbathing, or …

No, he’s washed up. Sam’s hands grip the back of a chair.

Is he hurt?

Don’t know. Probably. He is pale, Ian – properly white. I really thought he was dead. Oh God …

Ian sighs, holds up a hand to stop the boy talking. OK. Fine. I’ll get Jonny. And Nathan’s in the barn. He’s big, you say?

Looks it. And heavy. Arms like … He holds his hands apart, showing him.

Ian takes a sip of coffee. He holds it in his mouth for a moment before swallowing. He takes a second sip, puts the mug down. Then he pulls on a jumper and walks towards the door, talking under his breath, but as he reaches it he turns to see Sam’s still standing there, holding the chair. Coming?

Ian, listen …

The older man pauses.

He’s dark-haired. There’s a mark in his beard – like a whorl. I didn’t look too closely –

Ian’s eyes are hard. Let’s just get there. OK?

* * *

Four men make their way across the fields as the sun starts to dip. They move quickly, without talking. The sheep move away from them, find a safe place and then glance back.

The Lovegrove boy leads the way. His shirt is darker under the arms; his forehead is lined for his age. He looks over his shoulder once or twice to check he is still being followed. The farmer from Wind Rising is next – greying at the temples, breathing through his mouth. He is Ian Bundy and he has the family build – stocky, short-legged. His son, too, has it. And they both have the family colouring – brown eyes, sallow skin, hair that is almost black. Jonny chews as he jogs – gum, which he snaps in his mouth with his tongue until his father says get rid of that. The younger man scowls, throws the gum into grass. The fourth man sees him do it. He is Nathan Bundy. He, too, is dark-eyed, but the summer has lightened his hair and it is long so that it brushes his collar and curls by his ears. He’s the tallest of them. He has marks on his arms from barbed wire; he hasn’t shaven for days. Nathan says nothing as they make their way to the cove called Sye.

Brush-brush – their legs through the grass.

They all have their thoughts, their worries.

A ewe watches them. The men crest the hill so that they are, briefly, four dark shapes against the sky, four silhouettes – and the ewe sees this. She shakes her ears, lowers her head. She tears, steadily, at the grass.