Nell: A Professional Encounter with a Giant Crab

The tourist-information office contained four racks of leaflets, a basket of postcards and a man dressed as a crab.

The crab was not part of the permanent staff. He was promoting the harbour fun run, an event whose name made two claims I considered difficult to support. His foam claws prevented him from operating the leaflet stand, so he had recruited the woman behind the desk to assist.

Kit stopped in the doorway.

“Do we interview him?” she asked.

“Only if he has information about opening hours.”

We had come to verify the things everyone thought they knew about Marden. The outdoor cinema still ran twice a month, but the old poster outside the library showed the previous year's dates. The public toilets near the harbour had seasonal hours. The craft room above the charity shop was available for some community sessions, but only with advance agreement. Several good things existed in the town. The information about them appeared to have been distributed through a system of rumours and paper going pale in windows.

The woman behind the desk, whose badge said SUE, listened to our explanation and immediately gave us a folder thicker than the guide we intended to make.

“Some of that's old,” she said. “Not all of it says so.”

“Excellent,” I replied. “An archival adventure.”

Kit took a photograph of the opening-hours board with permission. I wrote down the names of the people we needed to contact. The crab turned towards us, his costume squeaking.

“You're the guide girls?” he asked.

I had not expected a professional identity to arrive so quickly or include the word girls in that particular way.

“We're making the youth guide,” I said.

“Henry said you'd be round.”

“Henry?”

At that moment, Henry Ellis came through the back door carrying a microphone and a paper cup. He was not dressed as a sea creature. This was one of several things I liked about him.

Henry volunteered at the community radio station, wrote confidently worded posts about local music and could ask a question without making it sound like a test. We had been in the same media project the previous term. I spent most of that project pretending my interest in his opinions was purely intellectual.

“Nell,” he said, smiling. “Kit. Perfect timing.”

Kit raised a hand in greeting. She knew Henry from the theatre's technical crew. Of course she did. One of the disadvantages of a small town was that people you regarded as belonging to separate parts of your life often borrowed ladders from one another.

“We're recording short pieces for Open Town Week,” Henry explained. “The fun run, the market, the new guide. Would you both say a few words?”

I looked at Kit. She looked at the microphone.

“Now?” she asked.

“Nothing elaborate. Why you're making it. What you want people to use it for.”

I had an answer ready because I had been thinking about it every day. Kit did not seem opposed, only wary of being asked to perform an opinion on demand.

“Could we have five minutes?” I said.

“Of course.” Henry moved aside. “Crab first, then.”

The crab tried to take the microphone and discovered the limitations of his claws. Sue held it for him. Kit watched with the expression she used when something was visually excellent and practically disastrous.

Outside, we stood beside the postcard display.

“What do you want to say?” I asked her.

She looked surprised by the question.

“About showing the parts that aren't in the brochure. The awkward route. The good bench. Things you can actually use.”

“Good. I'll do why the old guide wasn't working. You do what we're changing.”

“Both of us do what we're changing.”

“Yes. I meant—yes.”

She nodded. I wished every sentence between us did not require a small inspection for structural weaknesses, but we had earned the need for it.

Henry recorded us beside the harbour wall. I began too formally, heard myself saying accessible opportunities and stopped.

“Can I start again?”

“Please,” Kit said. “You were becoming a leaflet.”

Henry laughed. I laughed too, and the second version sounded like me.

“We wanted a guide for the days when you've got three hours, not much money and no idea where to go,” I said. “With a friend, with someone you'd like to know better, or by yourself. Not every good afternoon has to involve buying something.”

Kit talked about the photographs and practical notes. Henry asked a follow-up question that made both of us answer at once. We stopped, looked at each other and then, unfortunately, both said, “You go.”

The crab walked through the background during our third attempt.

“This is unusable,” I said.

“This is excellent radio,” Henry replied.

When we finished, he asked whether he could photograph us holding the draft plan. Kit agreed after checking where the image would be used. I held the clipboard. She stood beside me, close enough that the camera strap brushed my arm.

“Less hostage situation,” Henry said.

“This is our natural professional manner,” Kit told him.

I laughed. Henry took the picture at exactly that moment.

Later, while Kit checked a notice near the lifeboat house, Henry asked if I wanted to come to a music night he was helping organise.

“Not an interview,” he added. “Just come.”

My brain took an unhelpful amount of time to establish whether this was an invitation to a public event or a personal invitation attached to a public event.

“Who else is going?” I asked, a question I regretted immediately.

“A lot of people, hopefully. But I was asking you.”

“Oh.”

He smiled, not making the moment worse by pretending not to understand it.

“Saturday week. I can send the details.”

“Yes,” I said. “Do.”

Kit came back holding a photograph of the cinema notice on her phone.

“New dates,” she said. “Actual ones.”

“Brilliant.”

I sounded too pleased. She looked at me, then at Henry, then back at the notice.

We left with a folder of useful information and a leaflet for the fun run neither of us intended to enter. At the crossing, Kit asked whether Henry had invited me to the music night.

“Yes.”

“He's good company.”

“I know.”

The conversation stopped there. I told myself there was no reason it should continue. Then I spent the walk to the library thinking about the fact that Kit had said it so evenly.