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Magnús had read that there were two types of people in the world: those who run towards trouble thinking they should help and those who stand back out of fear they’ll make matters worse, or maybe it’s a primal terror they could endanger themselves. Magnús found out that morning he was a helper.
He bounded across the shore, stumbling awkwardly on the slippery pebbles – they were much bigger up close – the wind beating in his face, pushing against him with a force that took his breath away.
‘Anybody aboard?’ one of the lads called out. No sound came from the hull.
Making long strides, Magnús almost overtook the one that had stumbled and together they reached the prow of the cruiser just as the big black figure emerged from the cabin with a loud ‘Ugh!’
They were uninjured enough to be cross. Magnús thought that was a good sign.
‘Let us help you,’ one of the men told the figure, reaching his hands up to help lift them down.
Magnús couldn’t speak at all.
He was too busy gaping at the woman. She pushed back the black hood on her great oiled waterproof and a mass of wet, white-blonde hair billowed up in the wind. She was scowling fiercely and terribly, deathly pale.
‘Are you hurt?’ one of the men shouted.
The woman was trying to manoeuvre herself out of the tipped cabin, but she seemed to have lost her strength.
‘I’m Monty, this is my brother Tom. What’s your name?’ the same man shouted, and Magnús took a second to register that the two men looked near identical.
Still the woman didn’t answer, only grunting and heaving, trying to right herself.
‘She doesn’t understand,’ Tom told his brother, his day’s fishing now completely forgotten, impossible in this squall anyway.
Magnús found his voice, if not his sense, and stepped right up to the cabin, his hand stretched out to the woman. ‘Talar þú íslensku?’ he heard himself shout over the winds.
The woman blinked into his face.
‘What?’ She continued with her struggle, only now her hand was in his. He steadied her.
‘I thought you might be Icelandic,’ he shouted back, feeling stupid and not sure why. She was so fair and so tall and somehow familiar. He’d simply assumed.
‘Pull me up,’ she said, her voice salty and dry and followed by a coughing fit that made the Bickleigh brothers exchange worried looks.
‘She’s sick,’ they both said.
Someone was now behind Magnús holding out blankets.
‘Call for Morrison,’ Monty shouted with all his lungs to Finan who stood on the wall outside his pub with hands cupped over his ears. The landlord caught the words and dashed inside.
With one heaving movement Magnús helped the woman out of the boat.
The fall was not at all dignified, but very much in keeping with the morning’s messy scramble.
‘Uft!’ As the woman fell down on him, all the air was forced from Magnús’s lungs. The back of his skull knocked against the pebbles but he’d tensed his body to catch her safely and he was surprised to find it only hurt a little.
She’d screamed as she fell, and the sound had penetrated his core, making his empty stomach somehow throb. The weight of her upon him set his heart beating again after his bloodless race over the shore thinking someone was drowned. They both breathed heavily as the woman pulled herself off his body, blinking wildly.
Mermaid, he thought, somewhere dimly at the back of his head.She’s a mermaid. Then the notion disappeared as Mrs Crocombe came into focus, throwing a blanket around the woman’s shoulders.
‘Stop!’ Magnús called, as the woman shakily clutched at the blankets. ‘Take that off first,’ he pointed to her great coat. ‘Get out of the wet things, right away.’
The sodden woman nodded, her whole body now trembling, and her face even paler than before, all the pink from the fall now washed from her cheeks.
‘Let me?’ he said in a quieter voice, now up on his feet and leaning closer to her, instinctively knowing she didn’t want any more shouting and yelling.
Passively, she nodded, looking like she might shrink away entirely. Her eyes darted around the beach at all the faces and then up at the crowd on the sea wall. She seemed afraid.
