Chapter 35 – Tide

After I got back to the village, I had a light meal (a crab sandwich with plenty of crisps), and as I was eating I thought about the problem I'd fallen into. Did Ruth Ellingham know that Edith had been one of my patients? How could she? Not possible. Edith, vain as she was, would never give a hint to anyone that she was in therapy. And besides, how could Ruth know Edith? Different medical circles, and Ruth did not strike me as the sort of person would have Edith as a friend, or even bear her as an acquaintance. And for that matter she'd not have thrown me at her nephew if she knew of my connection to his former lover.

I rinsed my dishes, stacked them for later, and decided to go on a ride. I was pulling my bike from the garden when Colin drove past and stopped to talk.

"Hello," he said.

"Oh, uhm, hi."

He stared at me for a moment and then looked away. "I want to apologize… the other night… uhm… I was forward."

As he said it I could feel the brush of his hand on mine. "It's fine. Don't worry about it."

He scratched his head. "I don't want you to get the wrong idea… about me."

I beamed at him. "As I said, no problem, with you, uhm, it."

He blew air slowly from his nose. "Sure."

"I mean it."

He nodded. "Going for a ride?"

"Obviously. Thought I might head over to the beach. Maybe. Just need some air."

"Hard day, then?"

My turn to sigh. "Sort of."

"Well, you be careful, if you go down to the beach. Them rock steps can be slick when they get wet with spray and keep a weather eye on the wind and the tide."

"Thanks, but I was there before - the beach. It was fine."

Colin looked at me dubiously. "Like I said…" A car pulled up behind his and blew on the hooter. "Bugger," he muttered, so engaged the clutch and drove away.

On my bike it was a little further to the coast, partly because the road took a dogleg, unless I pushed my bike across the field to the footpath. But in less than fifteen minutes I was traipsing down the rough steps from the footpath to the sandy beach below. The surf was up, splashing higher around the fallen rocks which littered the shore. The sea was higher than when I was on the beach before. But it felt good in some way to experience it, seeing the ocean rise inches by inches, the spray and foam rising higher on the shore. I retreated towards the weather-beaten cliff face, and started to poke around in the rock pools there.

My neighbor told me that there had been a tin mine back in the cliff, and I could make out, amidst shattered boulders, some ancient timbers, and fragments of iron rails. He'd explained that after a small excavation over a few months the seam of ore had played out and the works were abandoned. For a time, he told me, or legend said, that the tunnel had been a spot known to smugglers and lovers. But time had eaten away and the roof had finally fallen in. Such are the works of man, I mused, and of lovers. Even solid rock can give way, let alone tender feelings and professions of love, to the ravages of time.

I sat cross-legged on top of a large flat boulder to think things over. Edith – Martin – Louisa – Ruth; they each went round and round in my head for a while. Edith the prickly and testy doctor, who had little regard for her patients, although she was a fertility specialist. Martin, the former star surgeon, laid low by haemophobia and anxiety attacks, as well as his severe upbringing. And Louisa the pretty, yet not perfect, GP's wife and head teacher, who tended to flee when things got tricky. And finally, there was Ruth – my friend – who had called out to me to help her only nephew.

It was a strange Venn diagram, one of those math things of sets which showed relations by overlapping areas. One circle represented Edith, another was Martin, and then there was me. Overlap them a little and it would show the teeniest sliver of connections. Oops, I missed Louisa. She overlapped Martin, and Edith, and me, plus Ruth, who was another circle. So, I was wrong. There were large areas of each circle overlapping others – all those circles together. And I was smack in the middle of the messy picture.

What was I to do? Abandon Martin and Louisa's therapy? Confront Ruth over the issue? Or muddle through? Or… was there anything that Edith told me which would turn me against Martin and his actions?

I tried to replay what Edith had said about him, and there was much that I already knew about him from speaking directly to the man; his awkwardness, his repressed emotions, and so on. But there was something else she had telegraphed quite clearly; that Martin had chosen to stay with the mother of his child. He impressed me as someone who when he knew a proper course of action, he would stick to it, despite any and all criticisms. So that alone gave me some measure of confidence that he was a person of courage and strength. Why else would he have stayed with a pregnant Louisa, without benefit of marriage, not only before but also after the baby's birth? Oh, dear how the tongues would have wagged in the village over them.

I had a notion that three persons in a small village would be held in highest regard; the teacher, the preacher, and the doctor. The teacher and doctor had done the deed, and made a baby, long before appearing before the altar, and everyone knew it. Louisa said the teen girls laughed when they saw her in the street as her baby grew inside her. Likely the girls were quite glad that they weren't preggers themselves but seeing an authority figure pregnant and out of wedlock would feed their sense of bullying. And Martin would try to ignore such things, yet it might hurt him deeply.

My hand stole down to rest below the waistband of my trousers. "That might have been me," I mused, but in London I'd have been a mum among many. Ben's face flashed in my mind. "And where are you at this moment?" I whispered. "Has Gloria got you where she wants you?" I shook my head. "And where are you, dear Rachel? Moaning over your past when you ought to be thinking about what to do with your patients? The depressed fisherman is one thing – he's easy to sort – but the teacher and the GP?" I laughed. "Oh, good Lord, what a mess."

I had taken a jacket with me, so I spread it behind me on the rough rock and laid down looking straight up at the sky, which was just darkening with sunset. I'd told Louisa that she had tried to run away from her problems. "Isn't that what I did?" I sighed to myself. "Fled off to the hinterlands?" My hand went back to my flat stomach. "I had to do something, for my sanity."

I don't know how long I laid there, and perhaps I dozed, for when I looked, the sun had dropped below the horizon. I roused myself to watch the stars and bright planets start to come out, one by one, in the twilight. I knew that orange one up there was the planet Mars, where her two tiny moons, spun madly across her sky. I'd done a report about the planet while in school. Phobos and Deimos, were her moons, and in Greek mythology were companions to Ares the God of War, their names meaning panic / fear and terror / dread.

"Rachel, get a move on girl," I told myself, "Best be off home." Sitting up, I jumped down to the sand, and discovered in shock that I was in water over my trainers. "Damn! The tide's come in!" The entire beach was awash, so slogging along I headed towards the stair which led down the cliff.

I tripped over some rocks which tried to drive my toes back into my foot. "Bollocks!" Next, I fell into a deep spot or two and got wet through, soaking my mobile in my pocket. Damn! I staggered to my feet, and now was pushed hard against the cliff, as I tried to find the shallowest depth to wade. Now waves foamed up my thighs, with a harsh one or two splashing my face and chest. It had now gone really dark, no moon overhead, but the Milky Way showed clearly in the sky. The land was almost gone from sight and I was still in icy water.

The swells surged higher, and I actually had to swim for it in deep spots, while waves tried to bash me again against the cliff. Panic, the companion to terror, was just behind me all the way. Colin had warned me! Why didn't I have a care about the time? Stupid Rachel! Stupid Townie!

Somehow, I managed to half-wade and half-swim to the huge rock which hid the stone steps up the cliff. I was nearly spent as I circled it. In relief I saw the iron chain railing gleaming in the dimness, just as a monster wave grabbed me and swept me backwards. I came up spluttering and I yelled. But who would hear me way out here? No one around for miles. But I called out anyway. "Help! Help me!"

The steps were right there, almost in reach, but another wave got me. As I went under water, I thought I could hear someone shouting my name. "Here!" I screamed when I got my mouth clear. "I'm down here!" I gazed up the steps and a million miles away I caught the tiny wink of a torch. Again, I heard my name.

"Rachel! Hold on!" the faint voice said as the light came closer. "I'm coming!"

I grabbed onto the rough rock, and held out my other hand, while the tide did its best to take me to sea. My legs were shaking with cold and exhaustion, and I nearly sank again just as a strong hand grabbed mine.

"Rachel? Oh my God!" Colin yelled over the roar of the waves. "I got you girl!"