Alana had put some coffee in a thermos and was now drinking from a little cup, staring out at the white sky as a curl of steam rose in front of her. The sun came out, catching the light on her new ring. G gripped the wheel, staring at their fiancée’s hand. An engagement. A promise. They wished they had not chosen an island for the holiday. Even they could admit that had been a form of arrogance. The sea was everywhere, and every time they saw Alana looking at it, they worried.
A sign appeared with one of those unpronounceable Icelandic names. G turned, parked the car on the gravel, shut off the music and looked at Alana, who was reading the guidebook. They held their hand out to her. “We’re here.”
“Check this out.” Alana showed G a page with a geological diagram. She started to read out loud, but G opened their car door.
“I’d rather go see it.”
Alana joined them by the boot as they took out a cap and a new bottle of water. She waited until they were done and then plucked out her puffy pink coat. G watched her salt and pepper hair fly around her as she tried to do up the zip, glancing at the outfit in distaste.
“No need to be so obvious. I know you don’t like it.”
“It’s just a bit loud, isn’t it?” G said. “Kind of in-your-face.”
Alana stuck her hands in the pockets and looked out towards the river. “Well, thanks.”
“Oh, don’t be like that. I’m just being honest. It was a bit of a waste of money, don’t you think? You have a black coat at home that does the trick perfectly. And it would have taken way less space in the luggage.”
“My money, my coat,” Alana said.
“Mmh,” G said. “Is it though? The only reason you could afford it is because I pay our rent.”
Alana’s jaw tensed. “So now I can’t buy myself something without running it by you first?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” G chuckled. “I just like to have a say, that’s all.”
“I know,” Alana said.
G walked up to the edge of the path, close to the river. Alana grabbed their arm, pulling them back. “Don’t!” Her words were covered up by the roar of the water. It burst through the rocky land, making its way down the pockmarked hill, fast and brutal, turning into a vertical fall some meters below. G took Alana’s hand and pulled her into a hug. Her scent was familiar, an inexplicable cold note that always lingered on her skin, something like the winter sea. “Sorry,” G said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
The two picnicked in the car, sheltered from the wind and the rain that came down in bursts. Alana asked about the book G had picked up in a local bookshop a few towns back.
“It’s the story of a farmer,” they said, “who gets caught out in a snowstorm and blocked from the mainland. It’s Icelandic winter, so it’s night all the time, and he’s stuck alone, without electricity, in the dark until the ice thaws in spring. The hardest thing is not going crazy.”
“How does he do it?”
“He sleeps among his sheep. They keep him warm. He says the animals are simpler. More real.”
Alana made a noise of assent.
When they started the car again, driving towards the coast, the sky had cleared a little, a great stripe of light blue bringing color to the otherwise almost monochrome landscape. The sea brought another blue, darker, more alive—unfathomable, unknowable, thought G, as they listened to Alana talk. Suddenly the surface of the water was broken by the tail of a whale, just visible through the droplets on the window. The sight of the animal, the beauty of it, whole in its own world. G panicked. They prayed Alana would not turn her head and see it.
The couple drove to the local Bonus, where they picked up spinach, bread, crisps, hummus, Icelandic chocolate bars, and Alana went to see about the fish. G and her were usually vegan, but Alana liked fish, and occasionally ate it if freshly caught—the stories of overcrowded, disease-ridden salmon farms horrified her. She came away from the fishmonger’s grinning and asked G if they would cook it Egyptian-style, so G added vegetables and a jalapeno pepper to the basket. It was expensive, and they complained to Alana. She said they were on holiday, so G sighed and put it all in the basket.
Alana’s long hair was damp when they got back in the car, and she shivered, turning on the heating. The weather app said it was hot back in England, too hot for September. G didn’t even feel sad to miss out, they agreed with Alana, since so much of the summer had already been torrid. “Anyway, this will be one of the coolest summers for the next hundred years,” said Alana. G expected her usual tirade about the state of the oceans, but she stared off into space instead, as if contemplating the future.
###
The local swimming pool’s changing room was empty when they arrived. After taking off their clothes, G untied their hair, watching Alana undo her necklace by the mirror, her wide face frozen in concentration. She took off her ring and placed it gently in her purse. It didn’t quite fit in with her clothes or necklace, which had accents of an aquatic kind of green, whereas the ring’s central diamond was flanked by two blue sapphires for faith and loyalty.
It was strange coming out in their bikinis into the rain. Droplets bounced off the bright blue pool water and steam rose from the two hot tubs at the side. They headed for one, down a few steps and onto a bench, so that they were in delicious heat up to their chests, with a cold drizzle around their shoulders and heads.
G grinned. They remembered proposing to Alana with a feeling of triumph, a bubbly sensation at how perfectly the ring fit, how she’d looked just right with her manicure. “It’ll be easy,” G had said. “I’ll make it all happen. I’ll take you along.” Just like when we met, just like when I took your skin, G added, but not out loud, because they never spoke of it out loud.
“Hi!” A middle-aged man came down the steps, smiling at them. “We have visitors!”
They made conversation with him, and soon were listening to him talk of his childhood in this very town.
“I left when I was nineteen,” he said, “I went to Denmark, and then to Holland, and then to America. But in the end, I knew I had to come back. My heart was still here, you see?”
Alana nodded. G watched her. She seemed moved, her body leaning towards him, her eyes moist. G felt their throat tighten. They put a hand on her knee and squeezed, and only managed to breathe again when she turned to look at them.
###
The day G met Alana, she’d been lying naked on her stomach, alone on an empty, wild beach. G had emerged from the path and awkwardly said hello, taking in her grey hair, her freckles, her curves and rolls, and the absence of anything around her but a dark slumped mass that must be a towel.
“I’m sorry!” they said.
“Why?”
“Oh, is this a nudist beach?”
Alana shrugged. She stared at G with obvious curiosity, but she didn’t try to make conversation. G noticed her hair was wet.
“Have you been swimming?”
Alana nodded, grinning.
“How’s the water?”
“Lovely,” said Alana.
“Really? Isn’t it cold at this time of year? I couldn’t go in.”
“It’s okay,” said Alana, “I’m insulated.” She looked back at her curves. G looked too, and then their eyes met, both blushing.
G had brought a picnic and they shared it with her. Alana was delighted at the taste of hummus and pita; her eyes gleamed when she bit into a cherry tomato. G promised her on the spot that they would make her their dad’s famous Koshari recipe. Back then Alana couldn’t read. She was amazed at G using maps on their phone to find them a restaurant, and she cried with desperate anger when she learnt about climate change. She was excited about everything, asking a million questions, starting conversations with every stranger she met. After taking her back to their hostel every night of the week, G asked if she wanted to come back home with them. When Alana said yes, they took the seal skin, folded it as gently as they could, and put it in the back of the car; later they transferred it to a safe and hid away the keys.
###
After the swimming pool they drove further west, to a set of cabins on the coast. When they stepped inside, Alana carried their luggage in, and G thumbed through some pamphlets for local attractions. They crumpled up the ones about seal watching and threw them in the bin, before heading to the tiny kitchen space with the grocery bags. Alana put on some pop music. G sliced the cod, placed it in the baking tray with cumin, salt, and pepper, and squeezed lemon over it. They looked around for something to pound the spices with and ended up laying the jalapeno, celery leaves, coriander and garlic on the chopping board and pressing the heavy pan over everything to form a paste. It was messy but it smelled good.
Alana opened her laptop. G heard the sound of emails being sent; the screen glowed in the kitchen window as she worked. G peered in, trying to see outside, but it was so dark they could only see their reflection, the curly hair framing their face and a slight frown. They sighed.
“You know I don’t like when you work out of hours, love,” G said.
“Mmh,” Alana said, “you do it too.”
“But I have to. You don’t.”
“Hm. I just don’t want to miss an event or an opportunity. Anyway, I’ll stop.”
G wiped their hands on a paper towel and walked over to Alana. “Thank you, my love,” they said in a low voice, snaking their hands on her shoulders. “I’d rather you be focused on us…” G kissed Alana on the cheek. “I hope you’re going to appreciate this meal I’m cooking.”
The sound of another email arriving punctuated their words. The Blue Marine Foundation let Alana know how helpful her donation had been in their latest campaign to establish more highly protected marine areas in the UK and beyond. Alana scanned it, taking in as many words as possible as she closed the computer.
###
After eating, Alana did the dishes, and she convinced G to go outside to look at the stars. She put on her big pink coat and held G’s arm. They craned their necks as they walked along the dirt road to the end of the little cabins. The sky was full of stars, clear and sharp.
“G,” Alana said when they were in bed. “If you could go back — pick me up on that beach again— would you do it all the same?”
G turned to her and kissed her. “I would.” They cupped her face. “I love you.”
Alana pouted. “That’s what I thought.”
G laughed, and went to turn the light off.
“Me too,” Alana’s voice filled the darkness. “I’ve done my best to love you.”
G felt a pull in their chest, and they went to hug Alana closer. She kissed them, almost out of breath, and moved on top, her hands in G’s hair, her tongue in their mouth. Some strange feeling animated her, made her touch feel heavy.
###
G woke up feeling cold. They went down the narrow stairs hoping to find Alana with breakfast, but she was out. They made a coffee but didn’t eat. They stepped out to find her, or at least get some fresh air. The sky was grey and hanging low. Trickles of fog hovered on the fields above, sliding off the hill. The shore of the fjord on the other side was yellow, moss green, and then black, a long band of dark sand.
They followed a path down to the shore, suddenly aware of the silence, the morning stillness. Three sheep at the end of the field turned as one to stare at them. They crossed a barbed wire fence and followed sheep’s tracks in the high grass. Down by the shore the air was fresh. Sound stretched into the distance; far away cries, perhaps ducks, and a lone raspy sheep that almost sounded like a human scream. The rolling fog had come down, hiding the road above. Gulls peppered the coastline. G’s eyes fell on a mass on the ground, a translucent diamond with dark orange curls at its center. It looked like a precious stone but their shoe reached it and it wobbled. It was a dead jellyfish.
Even though Alana was still out, G felt relieved when they came back to the rental and turned on the lights, hung up their coat, and put the water to boil once again. Normal human things to chase away the knot in their stomach. They prepared some bread and juice for Alana, got out the butter and the salt which she liked on her toast. She’d be back soon.
They waited an hour, worried because it was still foggy outside; when it started to clear up, they headed out again, calling her name. She was nowhere nearby, so G started the car and drove to the nearest seal watching spot with their mouth dry. The sun was coming out again, illuminating the dark beach and the red seaweed. There was a little hut for watching and they prayed she was inside. They stood on the step, their eyes adjusting to the darkness, and their stomach dropped. There was a pile of clothes there, with a pink coat strewn on top.
G knelt and picked the clothes up. Something clinked on the floor. The ring lay almost hidden among the rough wooden slats. They stared out at the water through the window, searching for grey hair, for pink skin, for her hands and her face in the water. There were only seals. G ran outside, to the edge of the water, and shouted her name, taking in all the seals dotted around: some lying on a rock further out, some swimming closer by, their heads bobbing out, still others playing— laughing, it seemed – dipping brightly in and out of the surface.
“Alana!” G called. Her clothes were there, she must be as well. They walked along, scrutinizing the water, and came back again. All they could see were the animals with their fathomless black eyes. Was she one of them now? Had she somehow found the key to the safe, smuggled her skin in the car, and put it back on this morning? Had she slipped back into a life of wild hunting and playing? Was she one of the huge ones on the rock, lying unbothered in the sun, occasionally grunting, supremely unconcerned by G’s presence?
G took off their shoes and trousers feverishly. The water was cold, and suddenly they were knee deep with their skin burning and their breath short. They swore. They waded a little further and stayed in as long as they could, still calling her name, until it started to rain again.
G turned around. They picked up the damp coat and got back in the car and swore again when they arrived at the cabin and it was still empty. They waited out the remaining days of the holiday, tensing at every noise, picturing her about to walk in, but she did not reappear. They drove alone toward Stykkisholmur. They still expected her to be there when they opened the door back home in England. The house was quiet. Nothing was out of place. The key to the safe was where G had left it, in an empty drawer in the desk of their work-from-home set up. They picked it up and walked to the safe. G could almost feel the soft dry fur, having touched it often for reassurance over the years, but this time, there was only cool metal.
Photo by Piotr Musioł on Unsplash
