Otters' Moon

I give up on sleep at the first signs that night is over.

There’s a watery light creeping through the curtains, and when I peer outside, the sun is hanging sort of pale and limp on the horizon. The sky looks washed out after last night’s storm. I know how it feels.

It’s still really cold, but I want to be out of the house before Mum gets up. I know I should stay – tell her I’m OK after last night. Make sure she’s all right, too. Like I always do since Dad walked out on that job.

I don’t.

I’m just like him.

I leave her a sandwich, and a note by the kettle saying not to worry; that I’ll see her this afternoon. Before I leave, I go back and add, ‘Love, Luke x’ at the bottom of the message.

I’ve got no idea where I’m going.

I end up on the cliff overlooking Meg’s place, even though I’ve no intention of calling by like I said I would. There’s no room in my head for her today. I don’t think she wants me around, anyway. Not really.

I sit down on the dew-damp grass. I pick at the cereal bar I grabbed for breakfast. It tastes of nothing. A big black-and-white bird swoops in from nowhere, red feet skidding in loose shale as he lands a few feet away from me. He begins a slow sideways approach, his narrow eyes on me, like I’ve stolen something that’s his. I throw him what’s left of the cereal bar. He’s welcome to it. I slide down the steep wet path to the beach.

When I get to the bottom I look up. The bird is balanced on the cliff edge, wings spread wide like a dark cape. It’s a show of strength. A warning.

Someone else that doesn’t want me around.

I walk away. Away from the bird and away from Meg’s house, down to the shoreline.

The sea looks as tired as the sky. Weak waves wander over crushed shells, bits of bone and slimy green weed: the spoils of last night’s battle. I stand there, try to think about nothing, let the water wind around my trainers. The blue trainers Dad bought me – the week before he left us. There’s a split in the right one somewhere, because my sock is getting wet and cold. Cheap gift, obviously.

The thinking about nothing doesn’t work.

All I can see in this empty space is Dad and his shiny new life. Dad with his shiny replacement wife. Dad with his shiny replacement child.

It’ll be a boy. I know it will.

I scoop up a handful of the debris on the sand and hurl it back at the sea.

A whole year since Dad left: over a month since he’s bothered to visit. And that was just a call-by. With my useless trainers. And another of his useless promises.

All agreed, he said. With work. With Jenny. A long weekend here on the island: the two of us, father and son. Like before, he said. And a chance for him to check on Mum.

Before the baby arrives.

How can he not be coming? He promised.

How can he leave me to look after Mum?

He’s an idiot. Who needs him?

I dig with the toe of my trainer, watch as the sand slides back into the holes I’ve made. In seconds it’s like they were never there at all.

I’m not sure how long it is before I turn back, but when I do, the door to Meg’s house is open. Her grandad is sitting outside, bent over something in his lap. I walk slowly, hoping to get back to the cliff path without being seen.

He knows I’m there.

‘Had breakfast, laddie?’ he says without looking up. ‘There’s herrings.’ His voice is different today, softer. There’s a smile in it.

‘It’s OK,’ I say, and keep walking. ‘No, thanks.’

Meg’s head appears round the boathouse door.

‘He caught them in the bay,’ she says, ‘while you were still snoring. Come on, city boy, bet you never had freshly caught fish in your life.’

She disappears back inside, and the old man signals me over. He brushes wood shavings from the rusted bench he’s sitting on, his eyes fixed on mine until I join him. Then he turns his attention to his work again, scraping with a tiny blade at what looks like the beginnings of a boat. His purple-brown hands are dusted white. I can see the small bones, like scaffolding under a sheet.

‘Herring boat,’ he says, holding up his work for me to see.

Meg brings a plate piled high with golden fried fish and buttered bread. She kneels in front of us, holds it out. ‘Still the best fisherman ever on the island, aren’t you, Grandad?’ she says.

There can’t be much competition, from what I’ve seen.

The fish smell good, but they’re still whole, with those filmy white eyes that follow you around from the fish counter in Sainsbury’s. The old man takes one, tips his head back, and eats it; reaches for another.

‘Better get in there quick,’ Meg says. She shoves the plate under my nose.

I pick up one small fish by the tail. It hangs there, shivering. I think of the silver sticklebacks Jez and I caught in other summers. How we threw them back because the water stank of old socks; argued all the way home about who caught the most, or the biggest.

I want to be there right now, pushing and shoving one another on the canal path; laughing about nothing. Being normal. Not stuck here with a bossy nature-mad girl and an old man who speaks in riddles.

I can’t eat this fish.

I notice that Meg isn’t touching the food. ‘Aren’t you having any?’ I say.

‘I’m vegetarian.’

‘Course you are.’ I shake my head, wonder if it’s too late to say the same.

The black bird is back. Great timing. He’s growing on me.

He dives low, flapping his wings; tries to separate us from the plate of herrings. This time, maybe we have got food that’s rightfully his.

‘He can have this one, anyway,’ I say, and throw down my fish.

He darts in, spears it with his thin beak, lifts back into the air.

‘Black guillemot,’ Meg says. ‘Cepphus grylle, to give it its proper name. There’re hundreds of them on the island. Over the far side – those cliffs edged in white? Kind of a bird city. And the white stuff, that’s bird poo. Centuries of it.’

‘Proper tourist attraction,’ I mumble.

‘The birds were here first,’ Meg’s grandad says.

‘Beautiful, aren’t they?’ Meg looks at me for agreement.

I give a half-hearted smile.

‘Feisty, though, especially in nesting season.’

‘Aye, lass.’ The old man nods his head. ‘Feisty, right enough. Folk say those white cliffs ran red back in the day.’

‘What? Why?’ I say. My bad feeling about this bird is getting stronger by the minute. I hope it’s not still hungry.

‘First settlers plundered their nests and put the young ’uns in their cooking pots. Birds would’nae stand for it. Picked ’em off, one by one, till they learned better than to come back.’

‘So the red . . .?’ I say, keeping a close eye on the bird. It looks like it might have some sort of inbuilt grudge going on.

‘Blood, laddie.’ The old man’s eyes are on me. ‘Birds won the day. New ones all born with those red feet.’ He scans the sky for our intruder. ‘So folk don’t forget.’

I look at Meg, who only raises her eyebrows in reply.

‘Do people go there now?’ I say. ‘To the bird city?’

‘Not since the herring fleet went,’ Meg says. ‘It’s just the birds and the occasional skinny seal over there now. Not much else.’

‘So the guillemots got their way?’ I say, thinking that the ones I’ve seen still don’t look too pleased. Seriously, is there anything to like about this island?

‘Not really.’ Meg shakes her head. ‘They struggled for years. Their main food supply was pretty decimated.’

‘Which was?’

‘Herrings.’

I glance at the now-cold fish platter.

‘Takers. It’s folk like that as started it all.’ Meg’s grandad leans towards me, whispering. ‘That’s why it comes, so they say.’

‘What started?’ I say. ‘What comes?’

‘The Otters’ Moon,’ he whispers, and squeezes his eyes shut. Like there’s something he can’t bear to see.

‘What’s he on about, Meg?’

She takes a piece of bread and butter and waves it dismissively in the air.

‘This place is big on stories. Island folklore. It’s what you get when you’re surrounded by sea.’ She pulls a faux-terrified grimace. ‘Monsters from the deep, ghost ships, selkies. We’ve got legends coming out of our ears.’

Her grandad turns, his eyes open again – but faded; older. And worried. Definitely worried.

‘Catherine,’ he says, peering at Meg.

‘Grandad, tell Luke about the selkies.’ Meg leans over and pats his arm encouragingly.

Catherine? I look from Meg to her grandfather. Both of them ignore me. Here we go again.

The old man is scanning the bay, one hand shading his eyes. He’s trembling. He turns to Meg. His mouth hangs open for a few seconds, like he’s waiting for his next words to arrive. Or afraid to form them. ‘David’s no’ taken the lassie out there today? No’ out tae Puffin Bay?’

No smile in his voice now.

Meg shoots me a glance. She looks like she’s struggling with what to say too. She gestures me out of the way, sits down next to her grandad; stills his hands between her own.

‘It’s OK, Grandad. We’re having breakfast. Herrings, remember? Telling Luke about the selkies?’ She nods her head in my direction, but the old man is looking the other way. He points towards the dunes.

A silver gull sails over them and swings towards us, screeching, as if we’re sitting on his personal landing strip.

This place breeds feathered psychopaths.

It lands a few feet away and drops what looks like a tiny chick under one foot. It squawks pointedly in our direction, then spears the lifeless chick with its long beak.

Seconds later, a puffin falls from the sky like a broken kite. It scuffles to its feet; freezes: a small statue on the sand, all funny face and bright party clothes.

A clown at a funeral.

The child snatcher doesn’t even look up from his meal.

‘Unusual birds, puffins,’ Meg says. ‘They pair up for life and share the rearing of their chicks till they’re ready to fledge. But they only lay one egg each year.’

I’m about to tell her to shut up when I see that she is crying.

‘She’ll forget,’ I say. ‘By the morning she won’t even remember she had a chick.’

Meg doesn’t reply. She walks over and kneels beside the mother bird, who doesn’t seem to notice that she is there.

The old man gets up and totters towards me.

‘Remember, laddie,’ he says, pointing a bony finger towards the sky. ‘Remember the Otters’ Moon.’ He turns and stumbles back inside the house, his back more bent than ever. But I’m rooted to the spot, staring at the duo on the sand. They sit there, heads bowed, for what feels like hours. It’s like they’re locked together. In something that can’t be disturbed.

My stomach starts to rumble. The hard bench I’m sitting on gets harder by the minute. I shift position slightly, and the puffin comes to life. She glances behind; looks up at Meg and heaves herself into the air with a bewilderment of wings and ruffled feathers.

Meg watches her go. After a minute or two, she leans forward, digs with her hands in the soft sand. She scoops up the remains of the chick and buries it. She reaches for some pebbles, presses them one by one around the edge of the small, sad mound she’s made. Then she turns and walks away, down towards the sea.

I stretch out my stiff legs, and head slowly back to the cottage. As I walk, I decide that Meg is as seriously weird as her grandad. But then I remember about her parents. And I think how, when Dad left for good, Mum cried for my nan as well as for him, even though it was six years since she’d died.

Maybe that’s the way it works when you lose people you love. Like when Mum sweeps the leaves off the lawn, and they just blow back in with every new cold wind.

My eyes sting. This time, neither the sand nor the salt air is to blame.

I’m at the cottage gate before I remember the old man’s warnings.

Where, I wonder, is ‘Puffin Bay’?

And what on earth is an ‘Otters’ Moon’?

Maybe they’re just creations of a muddled mind. But, thinking back, I get the definite impression that Meg didn’t want her grandad to talk about either of them.

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