Page 19 of Pull Me Under

Stop noticing when Jude Harding is pretending

Stop recognising myself in his exhaustion

Accept that this place is getting under my skin and it’s too late to stop it

The shed settles around me – Peter’s space becoming mine, or maybe always mine underneath, the way the carved initials on the workbench go all the way down to bedrock. bt. Lowercase. Uncertain. Five years old and already leaving a mark I’d spend twenty years trying to outrun.

Grandad’s voice in my head, clear as the harbour bell: You’ll go back one day, my bird.

I pick up his toolbox – his initials scratched into the lid, the weight of it familiar in my hands like a handshake – and start unpacking just as a solid shape brushes against my calf. I let out a scream that I wish didn’t come from inside me and glance down to find a black cat winding up for a second headbutt against my left leg.

‘Who the hell are you?’ I ask it. Unsurprisingly it doesn’t answer, just winds around my ankles again. That explains the cat bowl.

I can’t look after a cat. Whoever this Peter was he had more patience than me. I’ve never kept anything else alive in my life. I give it a gentle push with the heel of my boot. It just comes back for more. ‘Wrong person, buddy,’ I tell it. Another figure of eight around my ankles. I sigh. Loudly.

You’ll go back one day, my bird.

Another sigh.

One day is today. Apparently, it comes with a cat.

Chapter Six

JUDE

The Ship Inn after a call-out used to be loud. Peter would be at the bar, reenacting the rescue with wild hand gestures, making everyone sound more heroic than they were, making even the grim ones seem like victories. Big bloke filling the room with his voice and his laugh and that red-grey beard wagging while he talked. Now it’s all hushed conversation and careful silences, like we’re in a library or a funeral parlour, because even though it’s been months, having fun without him still feels guilty. Maybe it will pass, I guess eventually it does, right?

Tom’s nursing a pint he hasn’t touched, still in his waterproofs because he came straight from checking on the tourist we pulled out – hypothermic but alive, another idiot who thought March swimming was a grand idea. Tom’s a vet, not a doctor, but he’s the closest thing we’ve got at short notice, and hypothermia’s hypothermia whether you’ve got two legs or four. Frankie and Bill are at their usual table, playing cribbage without keeping score. The rest of the crew scattered to their corners, everyone present, but no one really here.

Dad’s glowering at his pint like it personally offended him. He gets worse after call-outs now, like every rescue reminds him of the one that went wrong. The one where Peter jumped in and the sea didn’t give him back. Or maybe he’s just angry that I’m here instead of Kit. Six weeks until his preferred son comes back, except coming back doesn’t change much. Kit’ll be here but somewhere else, same as always – his world shrunk to Isla and Maisie and the cottage they’re doing up, the business a thing he used to do rather than the thing that defines him. He stepped back. I stepped up. Nobody held a ceremony.

Six weeks until Kit returns and Dad can stop pretending I’m adequate.

‘Good work today, lads,’ Ayo tries from behind the bar, bright yellow jumper practically glowing in the pub’s dim light, earring catching the lamp as he polishes a glass that’s already clean. ‘Textbook rescue.’

‘Textbook if the book’s missing half its pages,’ Frankie mutters. ‘Need more crew.’

‘We’ve got applications—’ I start.

‘Applications from kids and pensioners,’ Dad cuts in. ‘Not proper crew.’

‘Peter wasn’t proper crew when he started,’ Tom says quietly, and the temperature drops another degree.

Dad turns that look on Tom – the one that could strip paint – and Tom holds it. Tom always holds it. It’s one of the things I’ve always liked about him.

‘At least we got a decent price on the turbot this week,’ I say, because someone has to redirect before this becomes a wake. ‘Eighteen per cent above asking. New supplier contract’s looking⁠—’

‘Anyone can negotiate fish prices, Jude.’ Dad doesn’t even look at me when he says it. Just waves a hand, like I’ve mentioned the weather. ‘Kit would’ve had that hydraulic system stripped and rebuilt by now. That’s what we need. Hands that can fix things.’

Right. My hands, which negotiated the contract that’s keeping the business solvent this quarter, which manage the accounts and the licences and the quota returns and every invisible thing that lets Harding and Sons continue to exist – those hands don’t count. Because they’re not Kit’s hands. Because they hold pens instead of spanners.

I take a drink and say nothing. Twenty-seven years of practice.

Tilly sweeps in from the back, bangles jangling, sun-worn freckles and flowing scarves, carrying a tray of pasties nobody ordered. She’s got that expression that means she’s about to manage us all whether we like it or not.

‘Eat,’ she commands, setting the tray down. ‘All of you. Especially you, Jude Harding. You look like a stiff wind would knock you over.’

‘I’m fine⁠—’