Surtsey took her hand and held it. It felt like her mum was barely there, her limbs twigs, her skin just dried leaves. There was no weight to her at all. Surtsey remembered Tom’s weight upon her, the solidity of him as they lay naked on that stupid island a month ago, fucking in the open air, sand scrubbing at her back as she came in time with his final thrusts. She’d yelled out to the wind, believing there was no one for miles.
‘I’m sorry you had to go through that,’ Louise said.
Surtsey laughed despite herself. ‘There are worse things going on.’
‘It’s not good for you, all this death.’
Surtsey sighed. ‘I don’t mind, I like coming to see you.’
‘I meant Tom.’
Surtsey examined her mum, the deep crevices in her face, the yellow of her skin. The smell she gave off, ammonia and earth, like she was returning to the elements.
‘He was a good man,’ Louise said. ‘Always tried to do the right thing.’
Surtsey wondered about that.
‘How has Alice taken it?’ Louise said.
Surtsey felt a tightness across her forehead and shoulders. She stretched her neck like a diver ready to jump.
‘I don’t know,’ Surtsey said. ‘We only just got back ourselves.’
‘Poor woman,’ Louise said. ‘Having to tell the girls, too, I can’t think of anything worse.’
Surtsey thought about the cameras on the prom. Had anyone seen her take the boat out or bring it back? What about satellite imaging or cameras on the firth? What about the imaginary blind date that she fed Halima?
She looked at Louise, at their hands together. Louise was staring out the window, east to the bump of Berwick Law. Her eyes were wet, maybe tears, but then her eyes were always wet, as if the last of her body fluids were desperate to escape. Louise was in a nappy the staff changed every few hours. Surtsey had to do that before Louise came here. Louise had been disgusted by the whole situation but the truth was that Surtsey didn’t mind, didn’t feel it dehumanised her mum. Just the opposite, it felt like a chance to repay her for bringing her up, a chance to demonstrate love. That seemed ridiculous and she never said it to Louise or Iona, but part of her was glad she’d been able to show how much Louise meant to her before she was gone.
Louise removed her hand from Surtsey’s and wiped at her own cheek. Definitely tears. Surtsey closed her eyes and felt the warm flush to her face as her own tears came.
14
She walked home along the prom, flapping at her face with her hands to get the blood in her cheeks to calm down and clear the puffiness from her eyes. She walked past mums pushing buggies, kids on scooters, teenagers laughing and mucking about, cyclists zipping past on the commute home, all of it a blur. She usually found all this reassuring, it made her feel part of something. But right now she felt isolated, a membrane between her and the world.
‘Hey, Sur, you OK?’
She hadn’t even noticed Donna pushing an old lady in a wheelchair towards her.
‘Hi.’ She felt unable to carry out a normal conversation. Drunk and stoned, sad and angry, guilty. The day was too bright, the sun too warm on her skin, and she squinted.
Donna gave her a look of kindness, no trace of pity. Usually, when someone knew her mum was dying they acted all weird and distant. But Donna was different, a natural carer, none of the hang-ups. It had been a good choice for her to go into nursing, especially palliative care. She was strong, could handle the death and sadness.
The woman in the wheelchair was in her eighties, asleep with a tartan rug over her knees despite the buzzing evening heat.
‘Jesse loves the sea air,’ Donna smiled. ‘But it sends her right over.’
Jesse was wearing a headscarf that made her look like a South American revolutionary. Maybe she had been. She was old enough to have done all sorts of things with her life. It was so easy to write her off as an old lady waiting for death, when she could’ve made love to Che Guevara in the jungles of Guatemala or argued over communism with Castro in the Cuban mountains.
Surtsey felt dizzy and closed her eyes.
‘Maybe you should sit down,’ Donna said.
Surtsey felt a hand at her elbow and let herself be led to the low seawall flanking the prom. She felt the grit of the sand under her hands as she placed them on the concrete and sat down. She opened her eyes. Yellow sand, not like the stuff on the island. How could two places so close be so different? But Surtsey knew the answer, she’d studied it for years, the reason behind rock types and formations, the rhythm of the planet she was standing on, trying not to float away.
They sat in silence. That was something else about Donna: she didn’t feel the need to fill the void with blether, she knew when to just sit. It felt like people had been talking at Surtsey continuously lately, giving her no time to think, to gather herself and work out what to do.
A thin sliver of drool stretched from Jesse’s mouth as she sat there. Donna reached out with a hankie and dabbed at it.
‘How long have you worked at St Columba’s?’ Surtsey said.
‘Over two years.’
‘I couldn’t do what you do.’
Donna smiled. ‘Different folk are good at different things. I couldn’t do what you do either.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘I love it.’
‘Why?’
Donna considered for a moment. ‘It’s good to feel you’re helping others.’
‘But all the sadness,’ Surtsey said. ‘All the death in that place.’
‘I like looking after people.’
‘That’s so admirable.’
‘It is what it is.’
‘But don’t you wish you got more appreciation for what you do?’
‘You don’t do it for that. Helping people is its own reward.’
Surtsey shook her head. ‘Do you believe in God?’
Donna laughed. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I wondered if it made
