Ardmore Shore

‘Where did I put my binoculars?’ moaned Stanley as he looked around them.

     ‘Hist!’ said Anna, looking through the viewpoint in the hide.

     ‘But what is the point of our being here, I mean, if we can’t see them?’ She made a flapping motion with her hand. Blonde hair wisped from beneath her woolly hat. A former champion cyclist, she was still the fitter of the two. She shaded her eyes with her hand and continued to peer out in the falling rain. She appeared to have acquired an inscrutability to the midges, which he envied. Stanley produced a thermos, and unscrewed the cap. ‘Glad you’ve got the compass,’ he said. ‘I could get lost in a cupboard.’ He poured out a cup of tea and proceeded to drink it, looking gloomily at Anna and the view from beyond the hide. She seemed enraptured, like a small child. He almost expected her to jump up and down and clap her hands. ‘Glad it gets your seal of approval,’ he said. She did not respond.

     He whistled a few bars of ‘I Shall Take a Trip to Tobermory’, then got up to join her at the viewpoint. The rain still appeared horizontal. ‘Fish bones,’ she said quietly.

     ‘What?’

     ‘It’s in their diet, their way of marking territory. See the spraint, there.’

     ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ he said, finishing the tea.

     ‘I thought you wanted to come,’ she said, without turning.  He shrugged.

     ‘How else could I get your attention? It’s not as if I move on wheels.’

     ‘You were a feature writer. You wanted my attention back then,’ she said.

     ‘The whole world did. Most of sporting Europe, anyway.’ He refilled the cup. He leaned forward and, impatient, she pushed him to the side. The tea spilled onto his trousers. He looked at her with disgust. ‘Thanks.’

     ‘Any time.’

     ‘Anna, if you only dragged me up here to make fun of me-‘

     ‘Quiet!’

     ‘When have I been anything else?’

     ‘They’re coming.’

     ‘Who?’

     ‘The ones we came to see. Now, shut up.’

     Stanley made an abortive attempt to dry his trousers. Seeing her still engrossed, he crept up behind her, and did his best to look past her. The route down to the beach overlooked a sheltered bay, yet there was little shelter outside from the rain. Part of the bracken seemed to be moving. She turned to look at him, her face lit up with the ardour of a true believer. ‘It’s happening! My first otter!’