as freshly washed as the sheep in the fields below. I’m walking home with Daisy, the pushchair laden with shopping and playgroup paraphernalia, as we’ve spent another morning making music in the hall. It’s lunchtime, so the road is empty, and she and I are both singing one of her favourite songs as we go:
‘You’ll take the high road
And I’ll take the low road . . .’
As we approach the pier, a third voice joins in, adding a tenor harmony to Daisy’s piping soprano and my slightly rough-around-the-edges alto.
Davy hails us. ‘Ahoy there!’ Only his head and shoulders are visible where he stands on the deck of the Bonnie Stuart, hoisting creels up on to the rough boards of the jetty.
When we reach him, Daisy strains to be released from the straps confining her and I let her out so she can toddle over to inspect the morning’s catch. Davy holds up a huge brown crab, its powerful-looking claws safely bound, and lets her touch the carapace, glossy as varnish. The boat bobs restlessly in the breeze, tugging at the mooring lines tethering it to the cleats on the jetty’s edge, bouncing gently against its fenders. With a satisfied nod, Daisy allows him to replace the crab in its bucket of seawater and potters over to pick up an oyster shell dropped on to the boards by some passing bird.
‘Everyone enjoyed hearing you sing the other night,’ he tells me. ‘You should make it a regular thing. We’d be pleased to have you do a set with the band if you wanted.’
His eyes meet mine, his gaze as clear as the waters surrounding us. I find it unsettling, as if he can see right into my soul, to the places I try to keep hidden from the world, those dark neglected corners where grief and guilt and pain lurk. I look away, pretending to be fascinated by a clump of seaweed that trails its knotted fingers in the ebbing tide.
‘Really,’ he insists. ‘Do you not miss it, Lexie – the singing? When it’s in your blood, surely you’re denying a big part of yourself if you’re not making music.’
‘I am making music,’ I say, gesticulating towards the bag of instruments hanging from the handles of the pushchair. It comes out a little sharper than I’d intended.
‘Yes, for others,’ he replies. ‘But what about the music you make for yourself? I know I couldn’t live without it. It’d be like cutting off a limb if I ever stopped playing and singing.’
A surge of annoyance rises in me, rearing its head like a wave nearing the shore. I’m fed up with everyone judging. I know he’s only trying to be encouraging, but it feels like criticism to me – of my choices and decisions, of how I’m trying to live my life.
I’m about to retort that I’m taking my time, that I may never want to sing publicly again, and how could he possibly know what I’m feeling?
The words are in my mouth. But the sound of a splash interrupts them.
In a panic, I look across to where Daisy should be busily posting pebbles through the gaps in the boards, and in the same moment Davy yells her name. There’s the sound of another splash and he disappears over the side of the boat.
For a split second I stand, frozen, alone on the jetty. And then Daisy’s name tears at my throat as I scream it over and over. I fall to my knees, frantically trying to hold the boat away from the wooden edging, desperately trying to keep it from crushing my baby or from pinning her beneath the water: from sealing the gap into which she’s tumbled, the salt water swallowing her whole.
A silence fills my head, the noises of the wind and the waves and the cries of the seagulls blanked out by sheer blind terror as I wait . . . and pray . . . and wait, not breathing . . . and it feels as if the bones in my arms will snap as I fight against the bulk of the boat and the force of the wind.
And then the world around me erupts in a flurry of movement. Davy bursts from the water on the far side of the boat, holding a lifeless bundle in his arms, shouting words I can’t seem to register. There’s the sound of running feet, pounding on the boards of the jetty, of voices calling, of someone issuing instructions .