Make the most of every day, every moment
Seconds hung like hours. Please God, please let him be okay. Whatever shitty life he’d had so far, he deserved his second chance, his future. He deserved some happiness. Her face was wet with rain and tears. Bess was beating a steady track to and from the beach, via his clothes.
Suddenly, there was something there bobbing in the waves. A dark torso shape. It didn’t look good, tossed about, directionless. Ah, shit, shit, no. Her world felt like it was falling apart. No. Should she run to it, forget about the mobile signal? But then she looked closer. Bess wasn’t bothered by it, and Claire realized she was focusing on a log that must have been swept out, then brought back in on the rough seas.
The weather was dismal. Heavy drops of rain were coming down on her now. He must have got into trouble, must still be out there. Maybe it had been fine early this morning, and it just came in all of a sudden. She’d seen herself how the rain clouds could gather on the horizon, then sheet forward in a solid mass. You could see it advancing over the sea, an inky-grey shimmering wall. What if he wasn’t strong enough to keep afloat? What if, right now, the sea was pulling him down – too cold, too tired to fight any more.
‘Ed!’ his name bolted from her lips, shouted across the dunes, across the sea.
And still the rain, the wind, whipping up the waves.
A loud burr of an engine, the mechanical chopping of rotor blades, startled her. Right over her flew a yellow helicopter, stirring up the sands, shooting grit into her eyes, lifting her hair from its roots. Thank God. At least they were here, they were looking.
She waved frantically. She needed to let them know they were had the right place.
And then a voice, tinny on her phone, hardly audible for the whirr of the helicopter. It sounded like the man she had last spoken with. ‘The air–sea helicopter has located you, Claire. There’s also a lifeboat launched. They are searching thoroughly. Please stay on the line. Okay?’
‘Yes. Yes, will do.’ Find him. Go find him.
‘And Claire, you’re doing great, just try and stay calm. They’re doing everything they can.’
‘Thank you.’ That line of communication warmed her for a second; the thread to humanity, compassion. Then it went quiet once more.
She watched the helicopter move out to sea, then turn to fly parallel with the coast, first north, then south, back towards her. She thought she could make out a boat coming into view from the right side of the bay. Bess was back near her side, fretful after the roar of the helicopter, the poor dog pacing in figures of eight.
Even if they did find him, what would they find?
She stopped herself thinking that way, just stood, watching, every nerve taut in her body.
There were two figures on the beach now below her, drawn no doubt by the drama of the search. Something newsworthy happening.
Time seemed to stand still as the helicopter circled, then went up and down again, parallel with the shoreline. Then it seemed to hover, and almost pause. Something had been thrown down, a line? Had they found something? Had they found him?
‘Miss Maxwell … Claire?’ The chap was shouting down the phone like he’d been trying before.
Something was happening out at sea. Someone coming out from the helicopter, on a winch or something.
‘Yes … yes.’
‘They’ve located him, madam.’
‘Is he okay?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t have that information as yet. But they have definitely located a man at sea.’
‘Thank you.’ She noticed that she was shaking all over.
He had said ‘man’ not ‘body’, surely that was good. Wasn’t it?
‘You may now close the line.’
‘Uh, ah … wait … do you know where they’ll be taking him?’
‘The rescue helicopter usually goes to the RVI in Newcastle, madam. That’s the Royal Victoria Infirmary.’
‘Oh …’
‘It’s okay to hang up now, Claire.’
‘Oh, okay, thank you.’ She still felt stunned, dread paralysing her.
‘You’re welcome.’ And the gentleman closed the line himself.
So she could leave the dunes. She went to the wet pile of clothes, his clothes. Bundled them up.
‘Are you okay, pet? Can we help?’ The couple who’d been watching approached her.
‘Ah … it’s okay. They’ve found him … There was a man at sea … they’ve found him.’
‘You’re drenched, lass, and cold, no doubt. We have a car just across the dunes at the roadside. Can we take you somewhere?’
‘Thank you, but I’m from the cottages just here. I’ll get back there now. Thank you.’
Bess followed her back to her house. The pile of Ed’s clothes were soaking, so she placed them in the kitchen sink. Then realized how wet she was herself. She stripped off her own robe and pyjamas and shivered her way upstairs. She needed to get herself down to the RVI hospital. She needed to find out how he was. Would they let her in, answer her questions? She wasn’t family. She wasn’t even a girlfriend. But the devil was going to have to stop her. She showered and towel-dried quickly, pulled on some underwear, jeans and a jumper, ran downstairs and grabbed her coat, her phone, her keys. Bess looked at her dolefully.
‘Come on then, girl – we’re in this together, aren’t we?’ She opened the passenger door for the dog, and she settled in the foot-well.
She queued impatiently for the car park, hunted for a space, paid a fortune to park in the narrowest space ever. When did it get so expensive to be ill, or to visit someone who was ill? She remembered to leave the window of the car ajar for Bess, and made a mental note to buy a bottle of water to give to her later. She found the main reception. She hadn’t a clue which ward he might have been taken to.
‘Hi.’ Claire tried her best smile. ‘Has there been a man brought in by the coastguard helicopter, about an hour or so ago? Ed.’
‘I’ll have to check. We have a lot of patients.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you a relative?’ The receptionist’s well-plucked eyebrow arched further up. Claire was never good at lying, the receptionist had probably got her measure. But Claire hadn’t driven all the way down here with a damp, distressed dog for nothing.
‘Yes,’ she lied. ‘Yes, I’m his sister.’
‘Okay, take a seat for a minute. I’ll see what I can find out for you.’
‘Thank you.’
The receptionist managed a polite yet sceptical smile.
Ten minutes later, Claire was given directions to the men’s general ward. Thank God! Surely they wouldn’t send her up to a ward if he hadn’t made it? He must be okay – at least alive – and anything else they would deal with. She nearly hugged the receptionist.
A kind-looking young nurse met her at the entrance doors. ‘You’re here for Edward Baxter?’
‘Yes … that’s it.’ She stalled for a second, realizing that she hadn’t even know his surname. She hoped there wasn’t more than one chap named Ed on the ward whose sister she was meant to be. This could be interesting.
She followed the nurse through to a cubicle, and she pushed the privacy curtain aside, announcing, ‘Edward, your sister’s here.’
He sat up, a quizzical look crossing his face, until Claire appeared at the nurse’s side with a hopeful smile.
‘Ah, yes … yes, of course. Hi, Claire.’ He maintained the pretence. His voice sounded slow, like it was hard to find words.
He looked shattered, his face grey.
‘How are you?’ She wanted to lean across, grasp him in her arms, never let go. To check that he really was all right. All that churning fear pent up inside her from waiting for him on the beach, for the search to get underway, suddenly surfaced in tears. She tried to swipe them away with the back of her hand, which was trembling.
She took a seat on the grey plastic chair beside the bed. ‘Oh, I was so worried. Thank God you’re okay. What happened, Ed?’
He looked so pale in that hospital bed – a washed-out version of himself.
She feared that he had wanted to do it. Went out in that rough sea on purpose. She reached for his hand, which lay limply above the white, crisp covers.
He took a slow breath. ‘How did you know? The helicopter … was it you that raised the alarm?’
She nodded, afraid it might have been the wrong thing for him. No, it could never have been the wrong thing, she reassured herself.
‘Yes, it was me. Well, I can’t take all the credit, to be fair. There’s a very damp, stressed-out dog in my car in the car park right now, bless her.’
‘Bess …’
‘Yep, she was going crazy, shut up in your house. Like a mad thing. Woke me up … I’m so glad she woke me up.’ And the tears were there, unstoppable this time. Relief at seeing him here, so close. Her eyes fogged up and she was sure there was snot coming out of her nose. She scrabbled for a tissue from the bedside table. ‘Thank God for Bess.’
‘And I nearly didn’t bring her this time.’ He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, muttering, ‘Ah, Bess.’
He still hadn’t said why on earth he was swimming in a rough sea in October.
‘Sorry.’ He was rattled with a cough, struggled to open his eyelids again. ‘They said I swallowed a load of water.’
Her hand was still over his. ‘So what happened?’ Her voice was gentle.
‘It seemed okay, the sea, at first. Went out just after dawn, like I usually do. I was just going to swim for fifteen minutes or so. The sea gets that bit colder at this time of year …’ He paused. ‘It changed, just like that. Wind blew up. Black clouds. It was so choppy out there. I wasn’t that far out really, but there was a current bloody pulling me the wrong way. It got harder and harder to swim against … I got so tired. Swimming all the time but never getting nearer to shore.’
‘Oh, Ed.’ She gave his hand a squeeze.
‘Then it was so cold, my legs froze up. Weren’t working properly. All I could do was tread water, and even that was hard enough.’
He lay back on his pillows for a while, as if it was tough remembering, putting himself back there.
‘It’s okay. Don’t talk too much … Just get some rest, my love.’ The term of endearment slipped out before she could stop herself, but it felt so natural. Their eyes locked for a second. She smiled softly. But then she felt awkward, wondered what she was really doing here.
‘Look, I just needed to see you were all right. I’d better go now. You might have some real family here in a minute.’ Ah, shit, she remembered his wife, his son – his real family – were gone. ‘Parents and that,’ she added hastily. Didn’t he mention a brother? ‘I ought to go check on Bess,’ she added. ‘Get her some water and food. Check she’s warm enough.’
‘Don’t go just yet … Stay a while. Please.’ He looked exhausted, fragile, lonely. Began to drift off to sleep.
So she stayed, sitting quietly whilst he slept. She listened to the sounds of the hospital around her – the squishy-squeak of nurses’ shoes, low chatter, a telephone ringing. Ed’s laboured breathing. She studied his face, his eyelashes, which were long and thick. His hair was curled, matted from the salt of the sea. She could smell the saltiness on him; a faint white crust had formed around his jawbone. To think he might have drowned out there. She wasn’t sure how her world would have been after that.
Claire began to feel tired too. The emotions of the day were catching up with her. She sat with her head in her hands, thinking for a while, her mind too busy to sleep. There was a swish of the curtain. The nurse from earlier popped her head in.
‘Is he okay?’ Claire spoke softly, not wanting to disturb him. ‘Is he going to be all right?’
‘Yes. We’re keeping him in for observation. He was hypothermic when he came in and had swallowed rather a lot of sea water. But yes, he should be fine.’
Maybe in body, after a good rest, but with everything else … Claire knew that he was still a broken man. She sighed to herself as she gave a friendly smile to the nurse, who had no idea of his past, of all he’d had to cope with. She reluctantly let go of Ed’s hand and scraped her chair back from the bed to let the nurse get on with her work. Ed came to as the lady lifted his arm to check his pulse. ‘You’re doing well, Ed. We’ll have you shipshape in no time.’ As she turned to leave, she added for Claire’s benefit, ‘He’s doing okay.’
‘Can I get you some water or anything?’ Claire asked him.
‘Yes, that would be good. Seeing as I’ve drunk half an ocean, I’m surprisingly dry.’ He gave a wry smile.
She poured him a flimsy plastic cupful from a jug of water set on the bedside table. He sipped through lips that looked dry, and were beginning to crack.
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘For coming down here … everything. And thanks for staying. Did I sleep?’
‘Yep, snoring and everything.’
‘Really?’
She shook her head, ‘no’, laughing.
He suddenly looked serious, ‘Thank you … for raising the alarm.’
‘Thank God I did. And thank God for Bess.’
‘It had started off as a normal swim.’ He was trying to explain once more. ‘Then, when I got into trouble, started getting dragged out, at first I thought it was maybe for the best. You know … Maybe that would be the easiest thing, just to let myself go. I could slide into oblivion. Join them.’
Tears were in her eyes. There was a mistiness in his too. ‘I couldn’t, Claire. I just wanted to live … I so wanted to live … Battling every fucking wave. There have been nights, so many nights, when I would have settled for that. For that oblivion. And then when I was faced with it, I wasn’t ready. What a fucker of a way to go. Sod’s law that when you really don’t want that any more, it should happen.’ He seemed tired again. His voice softer. ‘I needed to live.’
Claire moved towards him and put her arms around his shoulders. Her head resting lightly against his chest, she held him like she’d been wanting to hold him for weeks, relief and love flooding her core.
He took a long, slow sigh, which she felt through his chest, then brushed her head with the lightest of kisses.
‘Survival. That’s the instinct to survive, Ed,’ she said. She knew that all too well.
‘I don’t want to just survive any more.’ He shifted up a bit in the bed so she had to raise her head to look at him. ‘I want to live, Claire. Really live.’
It was how she had felt, facing cancer, seeing it all about to be taken away from her. You wanted to make the most of every day, every moment.
‘To live, yes.’ She understood.
They held each other, arms wrapped tight, until his breathing began to soften and he dozed off once more. He seemed peaceful. Claire pulled gently away and placed a tender kiss on his brow.
He looked like he was going to sleep for a while, so she popped out to the car to check on Bess, who seemed a little shivery but okay. She quickly nipped to the town centre to find a pet shop, to get a lead, two bowls – one for water (she’d had trouble trying to get the dog to lick from the tiny plastic cup she’d sneaked from the ward), the other for food, which she bought, and a dog blanket. She tucked Bess in after giving her a bit of a walk, a snack and a drink, and left her with a bowl of water. ‘He’s okay, Bess. You’ll see him soon, promise.’ She received a wag of the tail, which flicked the blanket loose. She tucked it back round. ‘Got to go. Hopefully I won’t be too long.’
Back on the ward, Claire couldn’t bring herself to leave Ed, to drive away, until she knew he was really all right. And then he’d need a lift, wouldn’t he? No one seemed in a hurry to push her out, though she realized visiting time had officially finished, so she kept a low profile, chatting quietly when he woke and letting him sleep in between times. He needed to regain his strength.
She went out to the car to check Bess once more, and came back to find that the doctors had been round and given him the all clear. Ed was trying to dress himself in chino trousers that were too short, a huge T-shirt and a well-worn grey fleece. He looked like a practising tramp.
‘Ed, what’s going on?’
‘Great news. I can go.’
‘Well, great, but … the clothes. Really?’
‘From lost property. I can’t go out as I came in.’
She screwed up her face, trying to understand.
‘Naked as the day I was born,’ he explained.
Oh God, yes – the naked bloody swimming. ‘I knew all that nude swimming couldn’t be good for you.’
‘You’ve seen me?’
‘Ah-hum.’ A cheeky grin fluttered across her lips.
‘How often?’ He furrowed his brows.
‘Quite often. I used to quite look forward to it.’
‘Jeez, you peeping Tom, you.’
‘Good view from the upper balcony,’ she quipped. After all the tension, it was good to joke.
‘Well it won’t happen again. I can assure you.’
‘Spoilsport.’
‘Oh Christ, I hope the news hasn’t got hold of it. Can you imagine the headlines? “Naked Man Rescued at Sea”.’
‘Hmm, might just have to make a call to the Herald office.’
‘You dare!’
It was wonderful seeing him smile again.
‘Well, come on. If you really do have to go out dressed like that, we’d better get you into the car as quickly as possible. And I know someone who’s going to be very pleased to see you.’
They thanked the nurses on the ward and set off. Ed walking slowly, as though finding his feet on solid ground.
Bess went mad in the car as he approached, so excited to be reunited with her beloved master and friend, and plastered him with big greedy licks as soon as the door was opened.
‘Okay, time to settle down, girl.’ He patted her to calm her. ‘So let’s hit the road, Claire. I’m ready for home.’
And by ‘home’ she knew he meant the little cottages by the sea.