The tide had turned.
She swallowed back sticky-sweet bile and turned to Cassie with a renewed sense of urgency. “We should split up.”
Cassie nodded, but she seemed lost in her distress.
Dora turned to Sam instead. “You guys check round by the rock pools. Steven and I will go back up the beach and see if anyone has seen him. Let’s meet back at the car park in twenty minutes. Okay?” Then louder. “Okay?”
Sam and Cassie nodded again and then turned, walking quickly toward the rocky outcrop.
Dora wrung her hands.
“It’ll be okay,” Steven tried to reassure her. “You’ll see. He’s probably making mischief up at the beach shop. Or queuing up for more ice cream as we speak.”
“I hope so,” Dora agreed. “I really do.” She felt Steven take her hand and give it a reassuring squeeze. Under other circumstances, she realized, she’d be delirious with happiness to be holding hands with Steven Page. Under other circumstances…
They looked at the beach spread before them. It suddenly seemed huge.
“Should we split up?” Dora asked, uncertain where to begin.
“Let’s walk in parallel with each other, one down by the shoreline, one farther up the beach. That way we can sweep the width of it together and one of us should spot him.”
Dora nodded, grateful for his calm logic.
“I guess I should ask what he’s wearing? Can you remember?”
Dora gave a little sob, half laugh, half cry. “Oh, I can remember. He’s wearing a Superman costume.”
Steven smiled. “Well, that’s certainly original. Shouldn’t be too many Supermen on the beach today. I reckon he’ll be pretty easy to spot.”
“Yeah,” agreed Dora, suddenly more optimistic. “You’re right.”
They started off toward the car park. Steven opted for the harder route, taking the higher path along the shore across the baking pebbles while Dora retraced her steps for the second time that day along the shingle near the water. Her eyes scanned the water’s edge for signs of a little boy, and every so often she would turn in vain to the ground, looking for some sort of imprint of her brother’s little footsteps on the ever-shifting stones. As she got closer to the car park she scanned the camps of families set up on the beach for a flash of red and blue, asking every so often if anyone had seen a little boy in a Superman costume. Every time she was met with an indulgent smile and the shake of a head. And once in a while she’d turn her gaze to the water. The waves were slapping onto the shore with increasing violence. She saw a little girl on an inflatable raft, her father beside her in the water, suddenly flip with the force of a wave and disappear under the wash of foam. She appeared, seconds later, all tangled hair and limbs, her shock turning to hilarity when she saw her father reach for her and she realized she was safe. They chased the raft out of the water onto the beach in front of her. Dora couldn’t look anymore. She turned her glance back to the bodies strewn across the seashore and tried desperately to banish the thoughts that had suddenly flooded into her head. Alfie couldn’t swim without his armbands.
Steven met her at the seawall. He shook his head as he walked toward her and Dora felt another nugget of hope disintegrate.
“Sorry, no one’s seen him.”
Dora bit at her nails. “What should we do?”
They decided to split up again, Steven heading into the shop while Dora walked back to the ice cream van and wandered around the benches by the seawall. There was a smiley old couple sitting on one of the benches gazing out in silence toward the horizon, a sunburned family squabbling over who would carry what back up to the campsite, and a harassed-looking father laden with fish-and-chips. None of them had seen her brother.
Minutes later Cassie and Sam appeared, red-faced and sweating from their walk back up the beach. Dora peered at them, willing the figure of a small blond boy to appear mirage-like beside them. But they were on their own. As they drew closer Dora saw that Cassie’s knee was grazed and bleeding and she held something in her arms. Cassie spotted them and ran over.
“Is he here?” she asked with a gasp.
Dora shook her head.
“Oh, Dora,” she gasped, holding out a wet tangle of material. “It’s his Superman cape. Sam found it on the rocks by one of the pools. It’s soaking wet.”
Dora swallowed. “Are you sure? I mean, is it definitely his?”
Cassie didn’t answer. She just gave her a look that made her stomach churn and her eyes sting with tears.
“Well what now?” Dora asked. She realized she could hardly breathe.
Blessedly, Sam took charge.
“Dora, you should go home. Go see if Alfie has somehow made his way back there. If he’s not there you should call your parents. Tell them what’s happened. The three of us will carry on searching here. I think we need to talk to the lifeguard and maybe even get some more people looking with us.”
Cassie moaned. “Oh, Alfie. Oh God, where is he? We are going to be in so much trouble.”
Dora’s mind was whirring. Images of Alfie flooded her brain. Alfie standing on the edge of a rock pool as a giant wave washed in. Alfie being led away from the beach by shadowy strangers. Alfie wandering the lethal roads of Summertown as a huge caravan bore down on him. Alfie wading into the breakers, his little boots filling quickly with water. Alfie standing precariously on a cliff edge, his cloak flapping wildly in the breeze. The images crowded her mind and kept her frozen to the spot. She didn’t want to leave the beach. Not without Alfie.
“Dora!” Steven shook her by the shoulder. “Dora, go now. Hurry.”
She took one last look at the three of them standing there in the parking lot, and then she ran.
Chapter 10
Helen
Present Day
Helen is sitting in the conservatory lost in thought when the slam of the back door signals Dora’s return. She doesn’t know how long it has been since her daughter broke the news of her pregnancy, but the early-evening sun is just starting to brush the tops of the trees and its warmth slants down onto the conservatory, making the old wooden joists click and creak like arthritic joints. Helen knows she has handled things badly, even for her. It’s time to make amends. She stands stiffly and tidies their plates and cups, placing the china back onto the tray and carrying it into the kitchen. Then, wearily, she climbs the staircase.
She finds Dora in Alfie’s room. She’s sitting in the old rocking chair by the window, her face turned to the garden, her legs—now mud-splattered—tucked beneath her. Unobserved, Helen stands in the doorway and takes in her daughter’s profile: her elegant neck taut with tension; her pale skin and seaweed eyes; her nose, thin and straight; a smear of early freckles on her skin; her unruly dark hair scraped back carelessly into a ponytail. Although now a young woman, Dora doesn’t look all that different from the girl Helen remembers racing around the house just a few years ago, twirling a giggling Alfie in her arms, or curled up in Richard’s lap as they pored over some book or puzzle. How have they arrived at this? Two damaged women unable to communicate with each other in anything but brutal jabs and sharp thrusts of confrontation and pain.
It’s obvious Dora doesn’t know how attractive she is, and it occurs to Helen now that perhaps it’s her fault. She tries to remember the last time she complimented either of her daughters and can’t, and allows herself a fleeting moment of regret. She knows she hasn’t been a very good mother. She has neglected each of her children at crucial moments in their lives and now she is paying the price. Is it too late to change? Dora sighs and shifts in the chair. Yes, Dora is beautiful, beautiful but troubled.
As Helen watches her daughter, it occurs to her that she sits in the very same chair she herself occupied thirteen or so years ago, nursing Alfie day and night and rocking him gently to sleep. She remembers the sweet, talcum powder smell of him, the impossibly soft skin, and the rhythmic suck and pull of his mouth at her breast; mother and baby connected in the nocturnal hours to a unive
rsal force as natural and insistent as the ebb and flow of the waves down on the shoreline. And now, in some strange twist of fate, here is Dora, seated before her, pregnant and distraught.
She’s known this day would come. She’s imagined it in her head a million times, one of her daughters sharing the news that she is to become a mother. She and Richard even talked about it in the early days when the girls were little more than babies, imagining the glorious days of wedding celebrations and the births of their grandchildren. They’d lived with such innocence then, made so many naive assumptions; she’d only ever imagined those moments to be filled with joy. And she is happy for Dora. Of course she is. But what she hadn’t banked on was the indescribable feeling of jealousy that had surged through her body at Dora’s announcement. It had been physical, a violent force that stole the breath from her lungs and left her speechless and shaking with the sheer ugliness of its existence. How could she?
Surely she is a monster, to feel such burning jealousy for her daughter who has been given a fresh start, a new life, while all Helen has left are her mistakes, her regrets, and her overwhelming grief? There are no second chances for her. She has had her time and she has squandered it.
But she has, for the time being, swallowed down her jealousy. It is under control and buried now, smothered beneath the more pressing need to make amends with Dora. She wants to go to her, to draw her into her arms and reassure her daughter that everything will be all right, but she can’t. It is as if she is anchored to the spot, pinned down by fear and regret and the aching desire not to make things even worse, and so she just stands there, right where she is, barely breathing until Dora turns suddenly, startled to see her mother watching her from the doorway.
“I didn’t hear you come up.” Her daughter’s voice is flat, and she turns her tearstained face back toward the window. She is still angry.
“No,” says Helen. She is unsure what to say. She doesn’t know how to start the conversation but she forces herself to enter the room and sits herself down on the bed in the corner, smoothing the blue comforter beneath her.
“I’m sorry.” Helen pauses but Dora doesn’t interrupt. She knows this is Helen’s stage now. “I didn’t expect…I didn’t know what you wanted me to say earlier…downstairs.” She draws a breath and carries on. “How are you feeling? With the pregnancy?”
Dora’s gaze remains fixed on the blossoms outside. “Sick most mornings, and so tired by the evening. I’m tired like I’ve never been before, as if it’s burrowed deep in my bones.”
“I was the same with Cassie,” Helen remembers with a small smile. “It should pass in a few weeks.” Another pause, then, “Was it an accident?”
She sees her daughter flinch. It is the wrong question. She tries again. “What I mean is, you seemed so upset earlier. It threw me. I thought perhaps this was something you weren’t pleased about.” Helen wonders privately if Dan is giving Dora a hard time. He seems like a nice chap, but you can never be too sure.
Dora sighs and finally turns to her mother. “I’m scared.”
Helen takes a moment to form her response. “Well, that’s completely natural, most first-time mums are. Your body is going through an enormous transformation. All those hormones rushing around—”
“No. It’s more than that,” she interrupts. “I’m scared of the past. Of what happened. I’m scared it could happen again. I already feel like I’ve lost one family. Starting another is too much responsibility…it’s too much to lose all over again. I can’t do it. It would break me.”
There. It has been said. Helen closes her eyes momentarily, trying to find words of comfort. “What happened was terrible…tragic. But it’s done now. It’s in the past.”
“How can you know that, Mum? I mean, honestly, none of us would have thought, you know…none of us would have imagined what happened…the impact it had.” Dora’s words trail off again. She seems unable to continue, but then she finds the words in a rush. “I don’t think I can handle the responsibility of becoming a mother. You know, I still wonder whether things might be different if I had acted differently that day, if I had been different. I mean, how can I possibly be ready to be a parent when I still feel like a child inside, the same child that I was on the beach that day?”
“But that’s exactly it, Dora. You were just a child, a girl.” Helen puts her fingers to the crease between her brows and tries to smooth away the headache she can feel building. “I think we’d all do things differently a second time round,” she finally admits. She wonders if now is the time to admit her own guilt, to air her own shameful secret. But Dora is speaking again.
“I can’t let it go. I think about it every day.”
“We all do, darling. But at some point, you have to. You have to say to yourself, This was not my fault.”
“Wasn’t it?” Dora looks at her mother searchingly. “Do you really believe that?”
Helen swallows. She knows what Dora needs to hear. She knows Dora needs to be absolved of her guilt. And she could say it out loud now. Helen could say the words she has rehearsed in her head over and over since that day. Say it. Say it, she wills herself. But again, a stifling fear prevents her, and seconds later she sees the hope that flared in Dora’s eyes die as quickly as it arose. She burns with shame for her cowardice and tries another approach. “Some days, I wake up and just being here, in this house, well, it brings me great comfort. Other days it’s different. I know before I even open my eyes that I can barely muster the strength to get out of bed, because to do so means facing another dark day, another day when we all face our future, and our lives, stuck in this horrid black hole.” Helen pauses, looks at her daughter pointedly, and adds, “Without him…without each other.”
Dora nods. She understands. They’ve been ripped apart and scattered on the wind, each locked away in a private purgatory. “Do you ever wonder if the police got it wrong?”
Helen gazes out at the garden. “No,” she lies.
“I do, all the time.”
Helen thinks of all the possible scenarios she has churned over night after night and winces in pain.
“Sorry, is this too hard for you?” Dora asks.
“No, it’s good to talk about him. We’ve never…” She breaks off.
Dora nods. “Dan says this is our opportunity. He thinks that we should grab it with both hands. He thinks this baby is a chance for me to start over, but he doesn’t understand. There’s no such thing as a fresh start, is there? Our lives just carry on. And yet, I had to come here. I can’t let go of this feeling…it’s the not knowing.” She stops and rubs her belly unconsciously. “I have dreams.”
“What sort of dreams?”
“Dreams of falling. Dreams of drowning. I have this one dream where I lose something really important. It can be anything, but I am haunted by it. It’s such a terrible feeling that overwhelms me when I realize that it’s gone…forever. I keep dreaming it, over and over. Then the other week, on the tube, there was this crush. It was rush hour and I got caught up in it. It was terrifying, like being caught in a rip…I panicked. That feeling…of floundering, suffocating…it tore me apart.”
Helen closes her eyes again.
“Sorry, Mum, I know this must be painful. But don’t you ever wonder if one day we will find out what happened?”
“Would it really make such a difference now, after all this time? Dan’s right. You should grab this opportunity with both hands.”
“And I want to,” insists Dora. “I really do. I don’t want to push Dan away. I just don’t know if I can move forward when I feel as though I’m standing on such a precarious ledge. How can you just accept that this is it? Don’t you want answers?”
“There are no answers, Dora. Don’t you think we searched for them? We searched and searched but there weren’t any. I’ve had to accept that. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I did it.”
“But there are still so many unanswered questions…” Helen sees her daughter close her
eyes and rub at her temples, a gesture so reminiscent of Richard it almost takes her breath away. “I just don’t believe…I can’t believe it until—”
“Dora,” urges Helen, desperate to stop the words tumbling from her daughter’s mouth, “you have to let go. It’s time.”
Dora shakes her head. “No,” she states flatly. “I can’t. Not yet.” She turns back to the window.
It seems their conversation is over.
Helen sighs. The opportunity has passed her by, again. She is ashamed of herself for not speaking out, for not at least trying to ease her daughter’s burden. But whatever she says, whatever her own private guilt, she knows she can’t fix what has been broken.
Dora stays the night. Helen makes up the bed in her old room and once Dora has showered and changed the two women sit in the kitchen and eat supper together. It is an uncomfortable meal. Both are awkward, embarrassed by the half conversations they have shared, but no mention is made of the day again, or of Dora’s pregnancy, and by nine thirty Dora cries tiredness and takes herself off to bed.
Helen sits up awhile longer in front of the television set as it fuzzes and drones in the living room. She pays it no attention. Instead she pictures Dora lying upstairs, in the same brass bed that she slept in on her first visit to Clifftops. She was pregnant then too, with Cassie. It is like some bad joke; history is repeating itself and despite the reassurances she has tried to offer Dora that afternoon, there is no escaping the fact that it plain terrifies her. She can’t comfort Dora or promise that her fears are unfounded because deep down she doesn’t know that they are. Helen has learned the hard way that life can throw its absolute worst at you, and if they were having the conversation all over again, with the raw, brutal honesty she hadn’t been able to express earlier that afternoon, she would tell her daughter to run, as fast as she can, away from the tears and the grief and the terrible pain life is about to bestow on her.
The House of Tides Page 15
