The Noticeboard

Roscoe asked to meet by the public noticeboard, then added that Veda could choose somewhere else if it felt too pointed.

She chose the noticeboard.

It was Thursday evening. She had spent the morning comparing the cold store’s written offer with her possible fishing days, and the afternoon pretending not to watch the time. When she reached the quay, Roscoe stood with his hands in his jacket pockets, looking thinner only because she had been remembering him with her arms around him.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello.”

She wanted to touch his face. Instead she looked at the new sheet behind the glass.

It was a correction issued under the campaign’s name, with Roscoe identified as the person who had approved the original leaflet. It said the claim about straightforward alternative work was unsupported. It described relocation and shore employment as possibilities with real costs and uncertain availability. It did not promise compensation or claim the fishing proposal had become wrong.

Veda read it twice.

The line that stopped her was halfway down: We should not have described alternative employment as straightforward without evidence of available work, adequate earnings and the costs of transition.

He had not softened it into an apology for upsetting somebody. Nor had he named her as the woman who taught him better. She read his name at the bottom and remembered the leaflet between the glasses on his kitchen table. The same man had put his name to both. What mattered now was that other people could see the difference too.

“It’s online too,” he said. “Sent to the mailing list. We asked the library and the shops with leaflets to display it.”

“Asked?”

“Yes. I can’t promise they’ve all done it.”

She nodded. It mattered that he didn’t give her a tidier result than he possessed.

“Did you write it?”

“Yes. The coordinator agreed we needed a correction. We disagreed about what it should say.”

“Tell me.”

They moved away from the board so other people could read it. On the quay wall, the stone still held the day’s warmth.

“She wanted to say the sentence had been interpreted too broadly. I said it had been written too broadly. That was the first disagreement.”

“And the second?”

“She wanted me to give the next public talk and explain that the alternatives were achievable with support. I asked what support we could actually point to.”

Veda looked at him.

“We have recommendations,” he said. “We don’t have funded jobs to offer people. I wouldn’t say it as though we did.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not giving the talk. I’ve stepped out of the spokesperson role.”

He said it without reaching for her approval, but she could see what it had cost. He had liked being useful in that way. He had a voice people listened to, a manner that made a difficult argument seem possible to hear. Giving that up did not make him a martyr. It made a space in his life he had not wanted empty.

“Did she ask you to leave the group?”

“No. I’m still helping with the habitat information sessions and the ordinary jobs. I still support the recovery area.”

“I know.”

“The coordinator’s an old friend. She thinks I’ve made our work harder because I’m with you.”

“Have you?”

He looked towards the water before answering.

“I’ve made some things harder. Being with you made me pay attention to something I should have noticed without it. That doesn’t make the correction less necessary.”

Veda rested her hands beside her on the wall. She could offer him the easy answer, tell him he had been right and his friend would come round. She had no authority to promise either person’s future.

“I’m sorry about the friendship.”

“So am I. It isn’t over. It isn’t comfortable either.”

They sat with that. A pair of walkers passed; one recognised Roscoe and nodded, then glanced at Veda without stopping. Their life was not private in the way it had been during Sunday lunch inland. It could still contain privacy.

“Did you tell them about my interview?” she asked.

“No.”

“Or Arden?”

“No. I talked about the claim and why we couldn’t support it. Your private figures aren’t evidence I can borrow.”

She let that settle. He had corrected the public harm without spending more of her life to do it.

“Thank you.”

He looked at her then. “I didn’t do it to make you let me back in.”

“I know. I needed to hear it because of what it tells me about letting you back in.”

His shoulders lowered a little. He had not expected the conversation to be easy; she could see that he was trying not to rush towards the part he wanted.

“Would you like to walk?” she asked.

“Yes.”

They took the path above the water. At first their hands remained separate. Veda noticed every near meeting of them, every adjustment in their pace. After ten minutes, she stopped beside the railing.

“I’m still angry about the leaflet.”

“I know.”

“But not in the same place.”

He waited.

“I thought you might want me only if I could keep your idea of yourself intact. You haven’t done that.”

“No.” His smile was tired. “I’m less pleasant company for myself than I was a fortnight ago.”

“Don’t become too fascinated by it.”

He laughed, and the sound released something in her chest.

“I missed you,” he said.

“I know. I missed you too.”

She held out her hand. He took it as though it were an offer he understood, without assuming the rest.

They walked to the old slipway and back. She told him about the job: sixteen paid hours over two days, subject to a trial and references, at a rate she could put in a budget. She did not give him the budget. He asked what part she thought she would enjoy, and she said organising things that stayed where she put them.

“That seems a drastic career change.”

“The sea has had years to improve.”

He squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.

At the corner where their routes separated, she faced him.

“I don’t want to come to your house tonight.”

“All right.”

“I do want to kiss you.”

He stepped nearer. “I’d like that.”

She put her hand against his cheek and kissed him slowly. There was desire in it, and sadness, and the strange new pleasure of not having to decide that one cancelled the others. He held her without drawing her closer than she came herself.

When she stepped back, his eyes were bright. He smiled, a small, unguarded smile that made her want another kiss at once.

“The launch is running again,” she said. “I checked. Weather permitting, next Saturday.”

“Are you asking?”

“Yes. And before it, if you’d like, you can come aboard Morrow while we’re securely alongside. After work. No machinery running, no performance, no guest fishing expedition.”

“I’d like to see her.”

“I want you to. Not so you’ll change your speech.”

“I don’t have a speech.”

She laughed, then saw the loss in his face and touched his arm.

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes. I do.”

They agreed a time, with the weather and work allowed to change it. She went home alone, as she had intended. On the way she stopped at the bakery and bought something for her supper because she was hungry, because the day was still going on, because there would be another Saturday in which she could want something without having to defend it first.