The Firebird

It looked much like the other pub – plain and pale-walled, standing square at the edge of the dark road with space for a few cars to park at the front, its windows spilling warmly yellow light across the pavement at the water’s edge.

I’d nearly reached it when I saw a boat slip boldly through the breakwater that stood against the sea. About the same size as the fishing boats, this one was dark on the bottom but painted bright orange above and marked with the distinctive emblem of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute. More gulls had come in with it, fighting the wind as they cried their displeasure at not being fed, but the crewman who stood by the rail in the bow took no notice. Wearing his bright-yellow kit with a full life jacket harness strapped round it, he was readying the mooring rope, it looked like, as the lifeboat started turning to reverse into its berth along the harbour’s far side.

I stopped walking. The wind blew my hair briefly into my eyes and then whipped it away again, stinging, but I didn’t move.

The crewman stopped, too, with his back to me. Angled his head very slightly, as though he’d just heard someone calling his name. And then he looked straight back and over his shoulder, directly at me.

‘Hi,’ he said. He didn’t say the word out loud – there wasn’t any way I would have heard him at that distance – but his voice still resonated clearly in my mind as though he’d spoken. It’s a hard thing to explain to anyone who’s never carried on a conversation that way, but for me it came as naturally as breathing. It was how my grandfather had realised I’d inherited his ‘gift’, when at the age of three I’d answered him at table, ‘When I’m sleeping,’ and my mother, glancing up, had smiled and asked me what I meant by that, to which I had replied, ‘Granddad asked me if I ever would stop talking.’ I could still see their exchange of glances; still recall the silence that had followed.

Now I met Rob’s gaze across the harbour. Hi.

I’ve got to finish up here. Can you wait?

Yes.

He sent me an image of warmly lit comfort, a cosy room with pale-green walls and polished dark-wood tables. Upstairs, he told me.

I nodded. I’ll get us a table.

Thanks. Turning away with the rope in his hand he went back to the business of bringing the lifeboat in, and I uprooted myself from the pavement and walked the few steps to the door of the Contented Sole.

Inside, I had to climb a flight of stairs to reach the dining lounge, but I didn’t need to see the pale-green walls or dark-wood furniture to know that I was in the right place. This room already felt familiar, from the glimpse of it he’d given me. I knew there’d be a tartan carpet woven in deep blues and greens, and flowers on the tables, and a deep-set window looking out towards the harbour, flanked by high-backed benches that formed cosy-looking alcoves in the corners.

I sat in the nearest alcove, drawing a few curious glances from the people eating at the other tables – a middle-aged couple, three elderly men, and a young mother keeping her eye on two toddlers.

The waitress came over and shot me a friendly smile, setting two menus down. ‘Heyah. You’ve just come from the police, then, have you?’ The curious glances intensified as she went on, without needing an answer, ‘The lifeboat’s just come in, he’ll not be long. He always comes in for his supper Fridays. Can I get you a wee drink while you’re waiting?’

A drink suddenly sounded like a very good idea. ‘Can I have a dry white wine, please?’

The wine helped. It went straight to my head and relaxed me, so that I was feeling remarkably calm by the time I heard the footsteps coming up the stairs.

I’d rehearsed this scene, with variations, all the way from Edinburgh, perfecting my dialogue based on the things I felt sure he would ask me, but all of that went out the window the minute he took the seat opposite, leaning back easily into the bench as though these past two years hadn’t happened. In that heartbeat as I looked across at him, I could have made myself believe they hadn’t.

He looked just the same, with his almost too perfect face. When I’d first met him I’d thought he looked French from his bone structure – straight nose and boldly drawn eyebrows and deep-set blue eyes, and that sensual mouth that could suddenly change from its serious line to a quick boyish smile more in keeping with the black unruly hair that always flopped onto his forehead. At the moment his hair was damp, trying to curl at the ends. In a gesture I remembered well he pushed it back and nodded at my drink. ‘You want another one of those?’

‘Please.’

‘Right.’

He didn’t need to call the waitress over. She had seen him coming in and was beside us in an instant. ‘So you’ve found each other, then.’

‘We have, aye. Sheena, this is Nicola.’

She gave a nod of greeting and assured him we’d already met. ‘George sent her from the police station. I’d just heard it on the radio that you were on your way back in. Everyone all right, then?’

‘Aye. It was fairly straightforward, a couple of fishermen taking on water. We gave them a tow back to Burnmouth.’

‘Better than Tuesday’s shout,’ Sheena agreed. Then, to keep me included, she told me, ‘A couple of tourists capsized off St Abbs, Tuesday morning. The woman was nearly done in when the lifeboat arrived, and she’d have likely drowned if not for Keenan, here. He’d seen it already, up here,’ she said, tapping her temple, ‘and he’d telt the coxswain who did a phone round so the crew were all kitted up and on their way in the lifeboat afore the call even came in.’ She winked at me. ‘He likely kent that you were coming, too. That’s why he’s dressed so nice.’