Stonemouth

‘I can life-save,’ Ryan blurts, holding up one hand, then immediately looking like he’s regretting it. Ellie just smiles tightly at him. He looks round at the rest of us. ‘El taught me,’ he says, voice dropping away.

‘Right, be good,’ El says, addressing all of us, and — with a last smile to me — turns to the sea.

She walks, then jogs away across the sands: poised, elegant, gazelle-graceful, the whites of her soles pale flashes against the sand and the honey tone of her calves and thighs. She splashes into the first shallow pools, pads across a sandbank, negotiates a deeper pool — bending to scoop and splash the water over her — then crosses another long hummock of sand into the line of breaking surf, raising splashes and continuing to rub water over her upper arms and shoulders as she keeps on striding forward, wading in to mid-thigh before suddenly arcing forward in a neat dive, disappearing.

I find myself letting out a breath. Around me, people are talking away, and have been for the past half-minute or so.

I hadn’t noticed.

Jel just grins and shakes her head at me. Ryan is still staring at the waves.

I sit down with everybody else, folding the towels and El’s jacket into a neat pile.

Ferg is sitting with a cigarette in his mouth, patting the side pockets of his jacket. ‘Where’s my—’

‘Try the breast pocket,’ I suggest.

‘Ah.’

I saunter over to Phelpie, sit by him for a bit. ‘How you doing, Phelpie? How’s life anyway?’

Phelpie grins at me, rotates his shoulders inside his tee and fleece, and nods. ‘Oh, fine.’ He glances — briefly, but definitely — at Jel as he answers. That was kind of all I wanted to know. ‘Funny old day, eh?’

I nod. ‘Funerals are, sometimes, I suppose.’

‘Heard there might have been a wee contretemps between you and Frase earlier, in the Mearnside. That right, aye?’

I waggle a hand. ‘Minor misunderstanding. Only just merited the term confrontation.’

‘Still, best be careful with Frase, eh?’ Phelpie sounds sincere and his big, open-looking face regards me with an expression of genuine concern.

‘Have been,’ I tell him. ‘Will be.’

He drinks from his can. ‘And Murdo,’ he says, thoughtfully. ‘And Norrie. And Mr M, too, of course.’

‘Of course.’

He glances at me, smiles. ‘Not to mention those two lassies.’

I smile back. ‘Not to mention the lassies.’

The two wolfhounds reappear suddenly, coming tearing past us in great, long, lolloping strides, pink tongues flopping from the sides of their mouths, their breath loud and rasping as they turn, filling the air in front of us with arcs of sand. They pile off towards a small flock of seagulls on a sandbar across a shallow inlet. The dogs are still twenty metres away when the birds rise as one, wheeling through the air as the wolfhounds run and bounce beneath, barking distantly.

‘Ferg, you’re upwind again,’ Jel says, waving a hand in front of her face.

‘Sorry,’ Ferg says, sighing.

He’s been pacing restlessly around, hands stuffed into jacket pockets, shoulders hunched, fag stuck into the corner of his mouth, occasionally wandering into a position where his smoke wafts over us. Jel complains each time. He spits the butt out and pushes it into the sand with his shoe, burying it.

Ellie’s been in the sea for about eight minutes. I keep scanning the water, staring into the ephemeral chaos of the waves, trying to see the yellow bathing cap. Ellie used to wear a dark-blue cap until about seven years ago when she was nearly run over by a jet skier, just about where she’s swimming now. She switched to the more visible colour. It should be easier to spot, but even though I’ve stood up a couple of times, I can’t see it.

I’m aware of people looking at me when I stand, and so I stretch and flex my back, pointing my elbows behind me and rolling my head around, trying to make it look like I’m just relieving some stiffness or something and that’s why I’m standing, though I strongly suspect I’m fooling nobody.

‘Is that somebody’s phone?’ Phelpie says, while I’m standing, easing a fictitious tension in my neck.

‘What?’ Jel says, then listens.

‘Thought I heard that a minute ago,’ Ryan says. ‘Wasn’t sure.’

I think I can hear something too: a ringtone like an old-fashioned landline. It’s hard to tell over the roar of the waves on the wind. The noise, if it’s there at all, ceases. I sit down again.

‘Not mine,’ Jel says. ‘Left it in the house.’

Ferg is checking his phone. ‘Me neither,’ he says.

‘Thought yours went “Answer the phone, ya fud”,’ I say.

‘Just for weekends,’ Ferg says, looking at something on the screen. ‘I have a more businesslike selection of tones based on who’s calling for when I’m at work. Thought maybe I’d reset it automatically this morning cos it’s Monday. But no; not me.’

‘That it again?’ Phelpie says.