Kit: Forty-Three Steps

Nell arrived for the harbour walk carrying a clipboard.

I had expected a notebook, perhaps two notebooks, but the clipboard was a development. It made her look as though she intended to inspect the sea and issue a written warning if it failed to cooperate.

“Don't,” she said when she saw my face.

“I haven't spoken.”

“Your eyebrows have.”

I put the camera strap over my shoulder. “What are they saying?”

“Something unkind about professional equipment.”

“Then they're wrong. I respect the clipboard.”

She narrowed her eyes. I smiled. It was easier when we were making jokes. We had always been good at that, even during the years when the jokes were the only part of the friendship we let survive.

The harbour route began beside the old lifeboat house and followed the wall towards the steps. We checked the posted information, the surface of the path, the benches and the places where a person could turn back without having to retrace the whole route. Nell wrote things down. I took photographs, trying to show the narrow sections honestly instead of moving the camera until they disappeared.

A man painting a gate asked whether we were from the council.

“No,” Nell said.

“Good. They said they'd fix that drain.”

“We can mention it in the guide.”

“That won't fix it.”

“No,” she admitted. “It won't.”

I liked her more for not producing a clever answer.

At the steps, we counted separately. I reached forty-three. Nell reached forty-one and then stood on the two at the top without looking at me.

“Are those not steps?” I asked.

“They're more like a transition.”

“Using your feet.”

“Yes, Kit. Forty-three.”

I took a photograph of her holding up four fingers on one hand and three on the other. She objected that the image could be misinterpreted as thirty-four, depending on which hand you read first. I told her the guide was not intended as a basic numeracy resource.

From the top, the town spread behind us in layers: roofs, the pale square of the library, the road curving towards the station, the ridge of houses farther inland. Out towards the water, the late afternoon light caught the boats and made the ordinary harbour look briefly expensive.

Nell put the clipboard down.

“This part's good,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Even if you have to negotiate with the steps.”

“We need an alternative view.”

“I know. But this part is still good.”

She looked out at the water. Without the clipboard in her hands, she seemed younger and less armoured. A strand of hair had escaped from the clip at the back of her head. The wind kept moving it against her cheek, and she kept pushing it away with increasing irritation.

I nearly offered her the spare hair tie on my wrist. It was an ordinary thing to offer. The fact that I thought about it for so long made it stop being ordinary.

We ate sandwiches on a bench. Nell had brought a thermos of tea and two cups. She handed me one without ceremony, as though sharing tea had not been one of the small habits we lost.

“Do you still hate cucumber?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. I remembered.”

The sandwich did not contain cucumber. I looked at it longer than the filling required.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

She gave me a look that said she recognised the word and distrusted it. Fair enough.

We talked about the guide's voice. Nell wanted short, specific descriptions rather than pretending every place was wonderful. I wanted space for images that did more than prove we had attended. We agreed to include a small box on each outing: what it costs, what could get in the way, what kind of day it suits.

“And who to bring,” Nell said.

“Or whether to come alone.”

“Yes.”

She wrote on the clipboard. For a while, only the wind and the sound of her pen filled the space between us.

Then she said, “I read your notes about the school map.”

I went still.

“What notes?”

“The line about checking before cropping. I know why you wrote it.”

The sandwich suddenly felt difficult to swallow.

“Do you?”

“The newsletter cut your credit.”

“Yes.”

“I didn't ask them to.”

“I know you didn't ask them to cut it.”

Nell looked at me. “Then—”

“You didn't ask them to put it back either.”

The wind pushed a loose corner of the paper bag against my knee. I held it down with one hand. It was useful to have something small that required attention.

“I thought we could deal with it afterwards,” she said.

“We didn't.”

“I tried to talk to you.”

“After assembly. After the newsletter. After you sent the certificate to your grandparents.”

Her face changed. I had not meant to list the details. Once begun, they arrived with the unpleasant clarity of things rehearsed privately for too long.

“I was fourteen,” she said.

“So was I.”

We sat in silence. The view remained good, which felt tactless.

“I should have said something in assembly,” Nell said eventually.

“Yes.”

“I know that now.”

I looked at her. The sentence was not everything I had wanted three years earlier. It was more than the explanations she used to give me.

“All right,” I said.

“Does that mean—”

“It means I heard you. It doesn't mean I know what to do with it yet.”

She nodded, slowly. I appreciated that she did not try to make the apology complete a transaction.

We finished the route by the longer, flatter path behind the harbour. It had its own problems: an uneven section, a narrow gate, a bench that looked available until you reached it and discovered a missing slat. We wrote those down. Near the end, Nell asked if I wanted the last of the tea.

“Yes,” I said.

She poured carefully, holding the cup against the wind so it would not tip. I took a photograph of her hands and the thermos, then lowered the camera.

“Can I use that one?” I asked.

She looked at the screen. Only her hands were visible.

“Yes.”

“Caption?”

She thought for a moment.

“Bring something warm. The view doesn't do that part for you.”

I wrote it down exactly.