The Refuge

Charis Buckingham

Grey.

It maps out this island with iron-clad certainty. I stand, hand wrapped around the cold railings as the wind buffets my hair and convinces my scarf to strangle me. It’s not the welcome I was anticipating; Dad hadn’t spoken about this place often, but when he had, he’d never failed to mention its beauty. I don’t see any beauty here. Instead, there’s a wildness to the moonscape, the kind that urges me to rip aside my inhibitions and tear naked into the ocean, or wander amongst the hills with no raincoat. It wants me to declare my love to a random man, and dance on the pavement.

But I want to do none of those things, and so, as the ferry approaches, I step away from the deck, away from the fumbling wind, and down to where my car awaits me.

My father’s house is a mere five minutes’ drive from the largest town on this island – which, for the record, is not large. It’s a scattered handful of houses and a couple of overpriced corner shops. I drive through it until my GPS coldly informs me I’m going the wrong way. For a small place, it sure is confusing.

Memories rise as I finally pull down the small driveway. Not many memories; I don’t remember the place, just the feel of brine on my cheek, and the sound of someone laughing. They’re more like fragments, worn like the edges of an old photograph, and they desert me by the time I’ve stepped from the car.

The house isn’t large. The walls are pebbledash, with a small porch, two windows jutting from the roof like eyes, and twin chimneys like an owl’s tufted ears. I hate everything about it. My throat tightens. My eyes sting. My stomach, usually so compliant, threatens to reject the meal I ate on the ferry.

I blink away the tears and unlock the front door. It’s not a home, it’s a refuge; the last thing granted by my dad before his passing. Once the news of my divorce has passed through the papers, and once the obscurity I crave surrounds me again, I can leave and never come back.  

As predicted, the house is small and crammed with all kinds of rubbish. They rot against an equally rotting carpet. It’s a dull blue, the kind that covers a multitude of sins, but time is a sin nothing can hide.

The kitchen hasn’t fared much better. Crockery piles in the sink, melded together to become one big lump of uselessness, and the mottled paint across the walls has bubbled. I know if I slick my fingers across it, the paint will crumble and leave a smear of damp. Compulsively, I rub my hands across my jeans.

The stairs are narrow and creak alarmingly. Upstairs has two bedrooms and, to my surprise, a bathroom. The sea, grey and choppy, is visible through the windows. I pause in the master bedroom and lean close to the glass. The wind hurtles itself at the window and a faint breeze lifts my hair. The view is uninspiring, but it’s what Grandma Susan saw every day, and she loved it. I wish I could figure out why.

I thread my fingers through my hair, tugging hard enough to hurt, before heading back outside. The car is crammed with luggage; bits of my life, packaged and boxed up, labels stuck clumsily on the side.

“Excuse me.” The voice is unmistakably Scottish, that thick, almost lisping twang to it reminding me so much of my dad that my throat tightens. “We heard you would be moving back in to…” His voice trails away as he gets a good look at me. I return the blatant curiosity in his look with one of my own. He’s a man perhaps ten years my senior, clad in wellies, jeans and a Tweed jacket. The beginning of greying stubble rasps his chin, and his face, while not handsome, is pleasantly open. “Are you Lola Baker?”

If he knows who I am, that means he’s seen the papers. The ones with every detail of my husband’s sordid affairs plastered all over them. Journalists making sensationalist assumptions about my life and everything that had happened between closed doors.

“I’m sorry,” he says when he sees my face. “I guess you were hoping I didn’t recognise you.”

Yes. “I really came here for some peace and quiet.”

“Well, you came to the right place.”

Quiet, perhaps, but I’m struggling to see what peace can come from this soggy island.

“I’m Martin.” He offers me a weather-beaten hand and I eye it for a moment before shaking. “I live in that white house just over there. Saw you come in and thought I’d be friendly. Do you need any help with your bags?”

Being friendly isn’t something I’m used to, and my first instinct is to say no. Still, there’s something honest about his expression, like I can see every thought that passes behind his grey eyes. Grey like the sea and the sky and everything else on this godforsaken lump of rock.

“Thanks.” I grab a box labelled ‘kitchen’ and take him through into the house. After examining the damp linoleum on the kitchen floor, he places his boxes on the table.

“It’s not looking so good, huh?”

“No one’s been here in about twenty years,” I tell him, though I doubt this fact has escaped anyone in the area. “And even then, we only came for the funeral.”

“Aye, I was sorry to hear about Susan’s death.”

I hum assent and switch my attention pointedly to the boxes. Dad had brought me back here for the funeral even though Mum had argued against it. Their arguments still haunt me, the screaming and the crying and the smashing. Whether it was feelings or vases or trust, something always got smashed.

Maybe that’s why Dad stopped coming back here. I’d never thought to ask. All these years, and I never thought to ask.

“It’ll need a little tidying up,” Martin says, eyeing the mess with what appears to be a practised eye. “Couple of rooms will need gutting to deal with the mould, but I can help with that, if you need.”

“Thank you.” I place my hands on my hips, squeezing the bones with my fingers. It’s a habit I got into when I lived with my ex. The feel of it grounds me, especially when I dig my nails into the skin. Squeeze. Grind. Push.

Too fat by half. You can’t even see your hip bones. Look at that.

Well, you can see my hip bones now, Mum.

When Martin leaves, I eye the surrounding devastation encased by a forgotten house. Even the memories are hidden, lost under years of neglect and damp. After I’d got the news, as everything broke in the newspapers and the media dived on me, this place had seemed like a miracle. A refuge. A place I could connect with Dad’s memory. Or so I’d thought.

I unlock the back door, the wood so warped I can barely force it open. Beyond, past a decrepit fence with wires curling wildly between rotting posts, lies the sea. Out here, brine stings my cheeks, and that wind slides cold fingers around my neck. A glimmer of sunlight catches a wave. Sparkles dance.

“He’s dead,” I tell the sea, or perhaps I’m telling myself. Waves curl and nod in agreement. “He’s dead and he’s not coming back.”

Maybe I should have cried, but it doesn’t occur to me to cry. New beginnings aren’t about grieving, they’re about moving forward. This isn’t my home, but it’s a place to start.