Iona appeared beside her waving a bottle of tequila. ‘Come on.’
She jumped down onto the sand and strode towards the water.
‘Did you just lift that from the pub?’ Surtsey said, wiping the sand from her bum and following.
‘They won’t miss it.’
‘They will.’
Iona broke the seal on the bottle. ‘So what?’
They walked alongside the old groyne, barnacles on the wrinkled wood, pools of water where the support struts disappeared into the sand. Surtsey saw a crab scuttling into the shadows, and wondered what other life lurked down there.
The tide was halfway in, the end of the groyne underwater. They stopped at the edge of the dry sand and plonked themselves down. Iona had already taken a couple of swigs from the bottle. She wiped the top on her sleeve and passed it to Surtsey who drank, screwed her eyes shut as the burn spread from her chest like she’d been struck by lightning.
‘Christ,’ she said. ‘That’s the good stuff. They’re definitely going to miss that.’
She passed it back.
Out at sea the rowers were struggling into a headwind while the swimmers had rounded the buoy and were heading west to the next marker.
‘Why did you get the call?’ Iona said.
‘What?’
‘Why did the hospice phone you?’
‘I’m the emergency contact.’
‘Who decided that?’
‘Mum.’
‘That sounds about right.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You know.’ Iona gulped tequila like water.
‘Come on, don’t do this now.’
Iona passed the bottle. ‘Don’t do what?’
Surtsey took it and drank. ‘Please.’
Iona sighed. The wind threw a skim of grains scurrying over the surface of the sand. Two oystercatchers were snooping about the little craters left by razor clams under the surface. Further along, a toddler in just a nappy was challenging the incoming waves, slapping forward over the wet sand as the tide receded, giggling and running back to her mum as the water came rushing in again. Chase me, chase me.
Surtsey tried to remember being that age. She must’ve done the same thing as a wee kid but she couldn’t remember. She’d seen plenty of pictures, beach photos of the three of them having a picnic or barbecue, building terrible sandcastles that fell apart, palming a beach ball to each other. She wondered if she remembered these things or if she had constructed memories from the photographs.
The toddler fell to her knees, got straight up, unconcerned about her sandy legs. Time compressed to nothing in Surtsey’s mind, in the blink of an eye from a kid playing in the sand to a woman with no mother.
Iona took the bottle from her and drank.
‘What was the last thing you said to her?’ she said.
Surtsey blew out air, felt heartburn from the tequila.
‘I can’t remember.’
‘Try harder,’ Iona said.
‘Why does it matter?’
‘It’s important.’
Surtsey shook her head. ‘You want some profound sign-off, an epiphany, is that it?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘It’s bullshit,’ Surtsey said. ‘Arguing about whether a window should be open or not, or the strength of the tea in a café, that’s life. That’s just as important as last words, or life advice or whatever you think you need.’
‘So you don’t remember?’
Surtsey sighed. ‘Probably just “goodbye” or “sleep well” or “see you tomorrow”.’
The last words stuck in her throat as she took the bottle.
Iona closed her eyes and touched her forehead. ‘I called her a bitch.’
‘What?’
She shook her head. ‘She was having a go at me about the pub job. Wanted me to fulfil my potential.’ Her voice made quote marks around the phrase.
‘She’s got a point.’
‘She was using her illness, guilt-tripping me. I told her to shut the fuck up.’
Surtsey handed the bottle back. They sat in silence for a moment. ‘That’s my point. It doesn’t matter what we said or what she said. She was our mum, she loved us, we loved her. That’s it.’
The rowing club were almost out of sight to the east, just a blip on the water. Closer by, the swimmers were trudging out of the shallows like monsters from the deep, walking heavily. The toddler had found a stick and was tracing shapes in the sand, a slice of apple in her other hand. Her mum was watching closely.
Surtsey looked at her sister. ‘How the hell did you end up fucking that Bastian guy?’
Iona shrugged. ‘How does anyone end up fucking anyone? He came into the pub, we got talking, he was nice.’
‘He’s in his forties.’
Iona laughed. ‘Hello? Tom?’
Surtsey sighed. ‘He’s bad news.’
‘How do you mean?’
Surtsey thought about the Inch, all the people connected with it in some way.
‘I’m not sure, he just is.’
‘Sur, he’s just a fucking guy,’ Iona said. ‘They’re ten a penny. It doesn’t mean anything.’
She took a hit of tequila and winced.
‘Do you think Mum knew?’ she said.
‘What?’
‘When you saw her yesterday. How was she?’
Surtsey considered the question for a long moment. Pictured Louise on the Inch letting the sand run through her fingers. ‘She was on good form. Happy to be out on the water, even happier on the island.’
‘Was it her idea to go out?’
Surtsey tried to remember. ‘Yeah.’
‘Maybe she knew she was going to die.’
‘We all knew she was going to die. She had cancer.’
‘You know what I mean,’ Iona said. ‘In the night.’
‘I don’t know.’
Iona passed the bottle back. It was half empty already. At some point they would have to stop and sober up.
Surtsey swigged and smacked her lips, getting a taste for it. ‘She seemed so lively yesterday. More energy.’
‘She knew.’
‘You weren’t there.’
Iona stared at her, took the bottle. ‘Rub it in, why don’t you?’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s typical you would have a great last day with her out on the ocean, mother and daughter sharing a final moment while I was serving lager to pot-bellied arseholes, doing the shit job she wanted me to quit.’
She waved the bottle over her shoulder at the pub back on the prom. A spurt of tequila left the bottle and made
