by Karen Cole
When I wake up, I’m choking as if I really can’t breathe and I lie on the bed coughing and gasping.
‘You okay?’ Chris mumbles next to me, still half asleep.
‘No,’ I say. Tears are streaming down my cheeks, soaking into the pillow. I know I’m not okay, but for a moment I can’t remember why. Then it comes to me. Grace is gone. My daughter is missing.
The only thing keeping me sane is the hope. The tiny kernel of hope that she’ll have come back in the night and be there lying in her bed. It’s that hope that propels me out of bed and across the landing to her room. But she’s not there, of course. Her bed is unslept in, the apple core in the bin turning brown. It smells sweet and sickly. The smell of Grace is already fading, overpowered by rotting fruit.
Chris has gone back to sleep when I go back to our room to get dressed. I slump on the bed with my trousers round my ankles, suddenly lacking the will to pull them up, tears streaming down my face. How can he go back to sleep? Doesn’t he care at all?
But maybe it’s for the best, I reflect after a while. If he was awake, he might insist on taking Jack to school with me. There’s something that I need to do this morning, and I need to do it alone.
As quietly as possible, I check in the drawer in my bedside table, take out my passport and slip it into my handbag. Then I make Jack breakfast and sandwiches for his packed lunch and drive him to school.
‘I might ask Angelo’s mum to pick you up today. Would that be okay?’ I say casually as we stop on the drive-through ramp.
‘Sure,’ Jack shrugs listlessly. He would normally be excited about a play date with Angelo but since Grace has gone missing, he seems to have lost enthusiasm for everything. ‘See you later, Mum,’ he says, slamming the car door shut.
I watch him plod in through the school gate, weighed down by his Guardians of the Galaxy bag. I watch until he’s safely inside his classroom, then I check my phone and I look inside my bag. My passport is still in there. I haven’t got any Turkish liras in my purse, but it doesn’t matter; I’m sure if I need to pay for anything, they’ll accept euros. I sit in the car thinking and trying to build up my courage until the hooting from behind becomes deafening and I drive off a little and park in a layby. Then I take out my phone and call Angelo’s mother, Stella.
She speaks nineteen to the dozen as usual, not stopping to pause for breath. ‘Jo, how are you? I heard about Grace. Are you okay? Stupid question. Of course you’re not okay. You must be devastated . . . You know, if there’s anything I can do . . .’
‘Actually,’ I say, when I can get a word in, ‘I wanted to ask a favour.’
‘Of course, of course. Anything. I would have rung you earlier but—’
‘Could you pick up Jack from school today if I’m not there on time?’
There’s a short pause. I picture her pretty face frowning, looking at her watch and wondering if she can fit it all in between her yoga lesson and her PTA meeting.
‘Of course,’ she says. ‘That’s no problem at all. Angelo would love to have him. He can stay for a sleepover if you want.’
I consider this. It would probably be good for Jack to escape from the toxic atmosphere of grief and anger in our house but the thought of not seeing him for a whole night terrifies me.
‘Um, I don’t know . . . he doesn’t have his pyjamas or—’
‘It’s okay, he can borrow some. We’ve got a spare toothbrush. You don’t need to worry about anything.’
‘Thank you, but I’d rather he slept at home.’
‘Sure, sure. I understand. I’ll drop him back about seven this evening, okay? Don’t you worry about a thing.’
Thank God for Stella, I think as I drive back through town. I’ve spent the past few months trying to ward off her friendship – her well-meant attempts to get me involved in the life of the school. But I must admit that I’m grateful to her now.
I drive on, as if I’m heading towards home. But instead of taking the turning under the bridge to the village, I turn off onto the motorway, towards the village of Pyla and the crossing to Northern Cyprus. The land is empty here in the buffer zone. There’s nothing but scrubland, a few empty houses and unmanned UN guard posts. No one can agree about who the land belongs to. In fact, no one can agree who any of the land in Cyprus belongs to. The Greek Cypriots want the land they lost in 1974 returned to them and all the Turkish soldiers and settlers on the island to leave. But some of the Turkish settlers were born on Cyprus. It’s their home now – so where would they go? Both sides keep talking about reunification, about healing the wounds of the past, but sometimes old wounds run too deep, I guess. And the past here is still very much alive, unforgotten and unforgiven.
It makes me think of the distance between me and Grace that has grown since she was a teenager. Our very own no man’s land, with Grace on one side and me on the other. If I’m brutally honest with myself, the truth is, our relationship was falling apart long before Tom ever appeared on the scene. I suppose it’s a necessary part of growing up. When kids are young, they think their parents are perfect and they absorb your opinions as if they’re gospel. But as they grow up, they swing to the opposite extreme. It’s as if when they find out that you are fallible, they can’t forgive you for tricking them into believing in you and they start to think everything you do and say is wrong.
People say that a mother’s love is unconditional. But I don’t think that’s completely true. Love remains, of course, like a stubborn rock in a fast-flowing river, but it gets worn down by constant neglect; and there have been times, recently, I have to admit, when I haven’t much liked my daughter. But right now, all that is forgotten – with Grace in danger, my love is as fierce and urgent as it ever was.
There’s just one car ahead of me when I reach the border crossing. I park and hand my passport to a bored-looking Turkish official in a booth. She flicks through it, sipping her iced coffee in a plastic cup and tapping long, manicured nails on her keyboard. She hands my passport back without a word. She doesn’t seem like the most helpful person in the world, but I show her the photo of Grace on my phone anyway.
‘Have you seen this girl?’ I ask.
It’s a long shot, I know. Grace almost certainly wouldn’t have come this way. She can’t drive for a start. She would more likely have crossed by foot in Nicosia at Ledra Street and then got a bus or taxi to Kyrenia. That is, if I’m right about where she went on Sunday. But I must be right. Where else would she have gone? To my knowledge, there’s no one else she knows in the North. She can only have come here to find her father.
The border guard glances at the photo.
‘Sorry,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘Pretty girl.’
I climb back in the car and I drive through the villages, slightly poorer and shabbier in the North than in the South – the result of long-established sanctions. Building work has gone crazy on this side of the border and there are concrete buildings sprouting up everywhere alongside the old crumbling pre-war Greek houses, which they can’t knock down in case one day there’s a settlement and their Greek owners reclaim them.
How did Grace know where to find Hakan? I wonder as I head out onto the empty highway. I didn’t tell her where he lived. But, of course, it was all there, in his book. His semi-autobiographical novel If Life Gives You Lemons. He left quite a bit out and changed a lot, but he didn’t bother to change the name of the hotel. There can’t be too many places called Paradise Beach Bungalows in Kyrenia.
Did I make a mistake, showing her Hakan’s book? Did it create expectations that couldn’t be met? All I can say is that at the time it felt like the right thing to do.
She was about ten years old when I told her, and she had just started asking lots of questions about her ‘real’ dad.
‘What does he look like?’ she asked, one day after school. In answer I went to the bookcase and took down the book, hidden from Chri
s behind the others. Chris knew all about Hakan, of course. But as far as he was concerned, Hakan was in the past – long forgotten. He wouldn’t have understood why I needed to buy his book and he might have been hurt if he knew how well thumbed it was – how naturally the book fell open at the photo in the middle of Hakan.
‘There. That’s him. That’s your father,’ I said, tapping the picture on the back cover, looking older, but still handsome, along with some blurb about his life.
Hakan Guney was born in the East End in 1963, the son of Turkish Cypriot parents. He graduated from the London School of Economics and worked for a while as a lawyer before giving it all up to start up a hotel in Northern Cyprus. This book is about his experiences. He now lives in Kyrenia, Cyprus, with his wife, Helen, and their two children.
Grace stared at me in disbelief for a second, then snatched the book from me. She read the book in one evening then replaced it on the bookshelf the next morning without a word.
‘He doesn’t mention you or me at all,’ she said over breakfast.
‘No, I know.’ Trust me, I scoured the book for hints, anything to suggest that I was on his mind when he wrote it, but there was nothing, just a single reference to Five Finger Mountain and no mention of a picnic near the old ruined monastery.
‘Well, he left a lot out,’ I said. ‘I suppose he didn’t want to upset his family – his other family, I mean.’
After that, Grace seemed to forget all about Hakan. And over the next five years I could count on one hand the number of times she mentioned him.
But then, about nine months ago, shortly after we arrived in Cyprus, we were sitting at Dhekelia beach on sun loungers, watching the sun set over the power station and talking about books in general, when she said out of the blue, ‘Do you think he still lives in the same place?’
‘Who?’ I said, even though I could guess who she was talking about.
‘My father. I mean, Hakan Guney.’
‘As far as I know,’ I said, curling my legs up, hugging them to my chest and staring out at the horizon. ‘I could try and arrange a meeting if you like,’ I said. ‘We could meet in secret. His wife need never know.’
Grace sighed and turned over onto her front, pulling down her bikini bottoms over a red, raw patch where she’d forgotten to put sun cream. ‘What would be the point?’ she said. ‘He plainly has no interest in meeting me. He’s had fifteen years to get in touch if he wanted.’
I was surprised by the bitterness in her voice. Though I shouldn’t have been. I suppose it was inevitable that she should feel rejected. Just one more thing for me to feel guilty about.
‘I’m sure he wanted to meet you,’ I lied. ‘But I suppose he was worried about his family finding out he’d had an affair.’
She propped her head up in her hands and squinted at me. ‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘As far as I’m concerned, Chris is my dad and always will be. I don’t need any other.’
‘It was just an idea.’
‘Well, it’s an idea I’m not interested in,’ she said firmly. And at the time I was sure she meant it.
So why the sudden change of heart now?
It’s only when I’m halfway to Kyrenia that I remember Chris. I need to ring and tell him where I am, in case he gets back home before me and wonders where I am. He’ll be worried about Jack too. I stop in a layby and take out my phone, but I’ve forgotten that our mobiles don’t work in the North because Greek phone companies and Turkish companies won’t make contracts with each other. Damn it, I think.
I carry on driving and I’m soon at the straight, flat road through, nothing but stubbly yellow grass and billboards advertising everything from casinos to universities. After about half an hour the road starts climbing through green forested hills and then I catch sight of Five Finger Mountain.
Chapter 14
2000
‘Why’s it called Five Finger Mountain?’
It’s an idyllic day in December. Not too hot, not too cold. Fluffy white clouds are floating above our heads in the bright blue sky. We’re lying on the grass. After the recent rain the hillside is newly green and the sound of goats’ bells drifts from the valley below. There’s nothing and nobody about, no traffic noise, just me and Hakan. It’s easy to imagine we’re the only people in the world.
Hakan turns so he’s lying on his front with his chin resting on his hands, giving me a smile that makes my heart swell. ‘There’s a legend about a giant,’ he frowns, as if trying to remember. ‘He was running away from another giant, I think. And when he crossed the sea to Cyprus, he put his hand out and grabbed the mountain and made that imprint like five fingers, see?’
‘Why was he running away from the other giant?’ I ask, snapping off a blade of grass and twining it around my fingers.
‘I don’t know,’ he shrugs. ‘Does it matter? Maybe it was a female giant and the other giant was trying to have his wicked way with her.’ He rolls over and pulls me down on top of him, giggling. And then he kisses my lips and slowly unzips my dress.
I can’t be a hundred per cent sure, of course, but I like to think that that was when Grace was conceived. There, on that mountain, in the bright winter sunshine under the blue dome of the Cyprus sky.
Chapter 15
My car struggles up the steep mountain range until I reach the top. When I get there, I can see the untidy sprawl of Kyrenia spread out below and the blue sea glittering on the horizon.
It’s almost unrecognisable. So much has changed in the past sixteen years that I find it difficult to navigate through the tangled, snarled-up streets. But eventually, I make my way to the coast road, past the Turkish army barracks and the Lemar supermarket. Amazingly, the block of concrete shops is still here, half built, still unfinished, no nearer completion than when I was here seventeen years ago. And the sign still remains too, a little faded now. Paradise Beach Bungalows written in large blue letters, with a silhouette of a palm tree and a setting sun underneath. I turn in off the main road and drive down the smaller road towards the sea and then turn again into a dirt track shadowed by jacaranda trees.
And then, suddenly, here I am. I park in the small gravelled area and look about. It catches in my heart. It’s all so familiar, as if I were here only yesterday. Nothing has changed. The old cat feeding station is still here even, and a large ginger tomcat is reclining on the steps.
Chapter 16
2000
I wake up, thinking I’m still at home, but the bed is in the wrong place and there’s something scrabbling around on the ceiling. I turn on the bedside lamp and see that the culprit is a gecko clinging to the wall, frozen in the light, its little beady eye watching me suspiciously. You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.
I climb out of bed and open the heavy wooden shutters, letting sunlight flood in. Through a curtain of pink flowers, I can see a small square of sparkling blue sea. I breathe the salty air into my lungs and think, This is it. I’ve done it. I’m finally in Cyprus and I’m free. There are two thousand miles between me and Mum and Dave and all their crap.
Once I’ve dressed, I head over to the main building, where reception and the restaurant are, and I find Helen trying to get Adam to put his shoes and socks on. ‘Joanna, welcome,’ she says abstractedly, as Adam slips out of her grasp and runs away, chuckling to himself like a loon.
Helen chases after him and scoops him up in her arms, where he wriggles and screams. ‘Did you sleep all right?’ she asks.
‘Like a baby.’
And she laughs but it’s not really a happy laugh, more of a hysterical laugh, like someone on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
‘You wouldn’t say “like a baby” if you knew how Adam sleeps,’
she says darkly. ‘I don’t think I’ve slept properly in weeks.’
Now I think about it, she does look exhausted. There are dark circles under her eyes, her hair isn’t
brushed and there are splodges of yoghurt on her top. She still looks beautiful, but she seems very different from the graceful, slightly aloof woman I met in London. This woman seems like she might be about to lose the plot. I should know. I’ve seen all the signs of mental breakdown before.
‘Would you like me to take him for a while?’ I say. I haven’t had my breakfast yet but there’s no harm in making a good first impression.
‘Well . . .’ Helen hesitates. She looks like she can’t believe her luck. ‘Okay, if you’re sure, that would be great. I’ve got some errands to run in town.’
And before I can change my mind, she picks up Adam and plonks him in my arms. ‘All his stuff is in this bag. Suncream, sunhat, snacks, nappies . . . Please make sure he wears a sunhat if you go out. Hakan is in reception if you need anything and you’ve got my phone number, haven’t you?’
And so, just like that, I end up looking after Adam all morning. It’s not exactly how I envisaged my first day in Cyprus. I thought I’d have some time to adjust before I started working, maybe spend the day at the beach, get a bit of a tan. But I’ll do that anyway and I don’t really mind Adam tagging along with me. I smother him with suncream and we go exploring hand in hand around the hotel grounds. He doesn’t seem fazed by being left alone with someone he barely knows, and after some initial shyness, chatters away happily, showing me all his favourite spots – the jetty, the fish pond and a hidey hole under a mimosa bush.
Eventually, we find a small private beach for hotel guests, which is nearly empty. There’s just one young German couple sunning themselves at the far end and so I claim a sunbed and sit under the shade of an umbrella watching Adam paddling in the shallow water. But I don’t get to sit still for long. I soon find out that there’s no relaxation to be had with a three-year-old at the beach. Adam needs constant entertainment and I find myself building a sandcastle and then digging a moat around it. I try to build a bridge over the moat, but it keeps crumbling. And then Adam decides to jump on the castle and destroy it. He’s not as sweet as I remembered and he’s beginning to get on my nerves, especially when he keeps taking his hat off and throwing it on the sand. In the end he gets so mad with me forcing him to wear it, he takes it off and flings it into the water. So then of course it’s too wet and sandy for him to wear. So, I give up and leave it on the sunbed to dry.
