Derry Cottage

Part 2

At five o’clock, when the sun rose, Mary got up. She hadn’t planned to get up so early, but couldn’t sleep. In fact, she could never sleep when she’d drunk the night before, although not got drunk, she never got drunk, not anymore. She would wake as early as two sometimes and struggle to drift off again. Instead lying in bed like a horizontal sentry, guarding the hours, waiting for dawn.

She walked downstairs to the kitchen. The windowless staircase, as black as the dirt beneath fingernails, so black she clutched the wall for support. It felt cold and strong, guiding her to the carpeted living room floor like she was a blind, mad woman coming down from the attic, dishevelled hair and bleary black rings around her eyes. Each step creaked beneath her bare feet, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t worried about waking Mike, nothing woke Mike. He slept so heavily she sometimes thought he might be dead, his breathing so shallow it was impossible to hear.

Golden light had crept silently into the living room in the early morning. It lay in square pools on the carpeted floor.  Silent, absolutely silently and through the kitchen window too, it fell into the kitchen in a great pool that she could have dived into.

Outside the muddy banks sparkled, reflecting the sunrise, which glowed an angry red, the same colour as the inside of her head - too bright and a burning blood red when she shut her eyes. It made her head hurt.

In the pub last night she was surprised how busy it had been, that there were so many people living in this village and that some of them were so young. What do they do here? She had thought, sitting at a table opposite Mike and they weren’t talking, although he kept trying, talking about cliffs and gulls and secret hidden beaches. There are no jobs in this village, surely there were no jobs here, she had been saying, but still people sat and drank and it wasn’t even cheap here, this pub, as expensive as London and she thought they must be on benefits, these people, but she kept that form Mike, he wouldn’t have agreed, he wouldn’t think like that.

People were laughing, talking, sharing their perfume, their masked scents, the grease from their fingers on the polished surface of the bar. Mike said he hoped the weather wouldn’t change, it had been glorious for at least two weeks so it might change, it’s changeable at this time of the year. He asked the barmaid, but she knew less than he did of course and no music played, just the sound of voices, a clatter of sound, happy like a playground and the ruddy cheeked locals smiled as they ordered form the barmaid. She was a clucking girl with hair the colour of caramel, but it hung limply about her shoulders, greasy and ragged like a floor cloth. She had neatly clipped nails though and smooth white skin on the palms of her hands.

‘Mike, we have to get up to the top of the hill tomorrow. I need to get reception on my phone. At least then I can give my number to the office and they can get hold of me on the – shit, that phone in the cottage does work, doesn’t it?’

‘Oh come on, Mary, just relax.’ He looked disappointed, he wanted her to enjoy it here as much as he did, he had said as much before they had set off. But the look on his face, almost comical with his sad drooping eyebrows and she thought for a second that he looked like a little boy, the same little boy from earlier who wouldn’t let her look at the brochure, a boy who’s just been told he can’t go to the beach, can’t have an ice-cream.

Mary suppressed a smile, that would be too mean. Mike swallowed and afterwards couldn’t help his mouth from staying open. After a minute he said ‘Try and enjoy it here. You’re on holiday.’ And then, like he was reciting a list from a pamphlet on how to enjoy yourself, told her to put her phone away, or at least turn it to silent and just forget about work for a week. Then he finished by saying ‘It’ll do you good. I promise you, it’ll do you the world of good.’

He smiled and gulped greedily from his glass as if the effort of speech had rendered him as thirsty as a man stranded for fifty days at sea. He wiped the beer from his wet lips, ‘you’ll love it here when you look around, just wait, just wait until we go up onto the cliffs tomorrow, just wait until you see the sea and the colour, My God, Mary, you’re really not going to believe - you won’t believe the colour here.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, stuffing her phone deep into her bag, right to the bottom so it was out of reach because she felt mean, mean at being so negative at everything  when he was being so positive. She felt that she needed to make an effort, at least for him, ‘look,’ she said, diplomatic like a mother, ‘let’s go to the top of the hill tomorrow in the morning. In fact, I can go on my own first thing, that way you can have a lie-in. I’ll go on my own and I can get some signal on my phone and I can touch base with the office. They’ll be happy then, especially if I do it first thing, and I can put them off until the end of the week, tell them I’ll get things sorted next week. Let’s have another drink.’

She finished the last of her wine glass in one mouthful, which must have surprised Mike because he gave a noiseless laugh and adjusted himself in his chair, downed his pint and called to the barmaid.