Taking His Own

by Jessica Wildblood

  Step four, of course, is the same as it always has been. Nothing’s ever been clearer.

  Take Zara back. Take her on all fours, take her on her back, take her with her long legs over her head, take her in every position my hungry cock cares to name. Take her back to London. Take her heart and use it to fill the empty hole that’s left where she tore mine out of my chest. Take her up to the altar and make her my bride.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Zara

  It’s a beautiful board. It’s a custom-made Oz Carlson, its flat bottom and short length exactly right for the mushy waves on the north coast of Sarawak. Its hand-shaped wooden surface shines a deep and glossy redwood brown. It’s perfect. Top of the line. Over ten times as expensive as the best I’ve ever had before.

  Too bad I can never use it.

  The board’s still propped up, pristine and completely dry, against my bedroom wall. I haven’t surfed since the accident. My leg’s fine – a nasty scar, but I can’t help thinking it looks sort of cool. I tell the customers who catch sight of it at work that I got bitten by a shark.

  “You should’ve seen the other guy,” I wink. That always gets me an extra tip.

  No, I can never use the surfboard of my wildest dreams, because Chance Madison is the one who sent it to me. And the minute I find out how good it feels under my feet is the minute I let him crawl an inch further back into my heart.

  What I’m going to do is sell it. Or burn it. Chuck it away. Donate it to charity. Just as soon as possible – whenever I get round to it.

  For now, it’s still sitting in my room. Mocking me. It’s been there for almost two months. I don’t know why the hell I haven’t gotten rid of it already and to be honest, I don’t want to examine my own motives too deeply. I just try not to look at it too much. And I try not to regret the crusty old board I’ll have to buy from the surf school down the beach instead.

  For some reason, today, I’ve dug my old A Level textbooks out from under my bed. They’ve sat there for ten years completely untouched. I’d like to tell myself I’m doing spring-cleaning, but I know that would be a lie.

  I blow dust from the cover of the biology textbook, labelled in the careful handwriting of someone who took care of her things. This is the property of Zara Jacobs. I gave up the correspondence course three months after coming to the island. Seems like I left all my dreams behind in Mayhew.

  No. That’s not true. I’ve been living my dream. I outgrew whatever it was I wanted at that age, that’s all.

  I tip the pile of textbooks into the bin. It’s long past time they were thrown away.

  I wait for a pinch of sadness, but nothing happens. I don’t regret throwing the books away. Perhaps when I give away the surfboard, it’ll be the same.

  I need a glass of juice.

  I limp downstairs into the kitchen. My leg’s not really sore anymore, but I’m careful on it anyway. I don’t really live at my parents’ house – Mariam and I spend most of our days living out of the small attic rooms above the Shack – but since my accident Mum’s wanted me close by, and I haven’t had the strength to argue about it.

  That’s me. Going with the flow. Happy when everyone else is happy.

  There’s the same jug of fresh-squeezed orange juice in the fridge that Mum’s prepared every morning since we arrived in Sarawak. A new family tradition. Back in the UK it would’ve come out of a carton. I pour myself a cold glass. Outside, in the hall, the phone starts ringing. I hear Mum’s footsteps pattering along to answer it.

  I think about my childish textbooks, sitting in the bin. It’s not as if I’m ever going to start up that correspondence course again. What do I need qualifications for, anyway? I’m a waitress, for crying out loud.

  Still.

  I rub my hand over the funny-feeling patch of scar tissue on my thigh. “Oh, for god’s sake,” I snap. I don’t know whether I’m angry with myself, amused, or what. Turns out I can’t even make this one tiny decision. The past is harder to throw in the bin than I thought.

  I’m limping back down the hallway, squeezing my way past Mum as she nods into the phone, when the expression on her face stops me in my tracks.

  She looks terrified.

  There are tears standing in her eyes. Those eyes, blue like the sky, that are ever so much like my own.

  I stop and hold out my arms towards her. Mum grips my hand with hers and keeps talking, her voice calm, but her whole body shaking as if she’s been caught in a storm. “That’s very kind of you. Thank you for calling me. Yes, we’ll see what we can do. It’s so difficult under the circumstances… Well, thank you. Goodbye.”

  She struggles to put the phone back in the cradle. I take it for her and hang it up.

  “What’s happened?” I ask. Mum drops her face into her hands. She shudders for a moment, then lifts her head. She’s got her brave face on.

  “That was the hospital. Your Grandma’s had a fall. She…she was on her own for some time. The neighbours found her, but it had been a whole day.”

  “Oh my god!” I haven’t seen Grandma Christine outside of a computer screen for years – she doesn’t do air travel, and we can’t afford to visit her often. Suddenly, I can hardly remember what it’s like to hold her tiny, frail body in my arms. “How far did she fall? Did she break anything? Is she going to be alright?”

  “It’s her arm,” my mother says, her voice shaking as though she’s trying to reassure herself more than me. “Just her arm, nothing more serious than that. The dehydration is the worst part of it. They’re saying they won’t let her out until she has someone to look after her at home, but I don’t know…”

  “I’ll go,” I say at once. Mum shakes her head.

  “Zara, it’s not that I don’t think you could look after your grandmother – we just don’t have the money for a plane ticket, darling. We’ll have to call on her neighbours, and see if they –”

  “I have a surfboard,” I say. “An Oz Carlson, handmade. I’ll sell that. This town’s full of rich surfers. Someone will want to pick it up – even if it’s less than half of what it should go for, I should be able to afford a ticket home.”

  Home. I haven’t used that word in a long time. I realise with a guilty thump that despite all my mother’s efforts, despite the freshly-squeezed orange juice every morning, despite having my family all around me, Moon Beach has never been my home.

  Mum’s eyes are wide and brimming with tears. I wonder if I’m being selfish. I’m letting my own need to get out of Moon Beach get in the way of her need to go home to her sick mother.

  “You can have the plane ticket, Mum,” I say, and I smile although every word feels like a stab in my heart. “Grandma would want you rather than me, I’m sure of it.”

  “I can’t leave your father now,” Mum says, lowering her voice to a whisper even though we’re the only two people in the house. “Zara, we haven’t told you all that’s been going on with the sanctuary, but… there’s been so much fuss and trouble over the poachers and the security breaches. I’m the only one who can persuade your father to come home and eat dinner every night. If I go back to England, we’ll have two sick people in the family. No, you should go. Are you sure you can bear to sell your surfboard?”

  “You know where that thing came from,’ I say darkly. ‘I’ll be glad to see the back of it. If we get a good deal there’ll be enough money for two tickets, Mum.”

  “Good. Then we’ll send Mariam up to visit as well.”

  That’s not what I meant. I wanted to give her the opportunity to come and see Grandma Christine – Mariam was never close to Grandma. Why does Mum want her out of the country? Mentioning the orangutan sanctuary lit a strange, fearful light behind Mum’s eyes that I’d never seen before. But within moments she’s hustling me upstairs, telling me to start packing, and ringing across to the Snack Shack to tell Mariam to find a buyer for my state of the art surfboard.

  When I sit across from my Dad at dinner that evening, I examine his face for signs of
stress and I’m shocked by what I see. His craggy brows loom over eyes which are tired and worn. His movements, usually so strong and certain, are blurred with exhaustion. I can’t stop myself from reaching out over the table to squeeze his arm. He gives me a look of surprise and gratitude.

  “I guess you’re going to miss us, then?”

  “Of course, Dad.” I clear my throat, glancing nervously at Mum. “How are things at work?” I can’t believe I haven’t asked him this more often.

  “Things are tough, sweetheart. Things are always tough. The world is hard on the people who do things right.” Dad spears his noodles as though his chopsticks are a weapon. “But don’t worry about me. We’ll get ahead of Martin King and his poaching bastards one way or another.”

  “Why are there poachers after your orangutans? I ask, confused. “I don’t understand –”

  “Your father’s tired,” says Mum, giving me a meaningful look. I get up and help her clear away the dishes.

  Her stern glances can’t quell the shiver of fear in my chest when I look back at my Dad’s slumping shoulders. He doesn’t look like a man who’s ready for a fight. He looks on the brink of defeat.

  Perhaps it’s best that I’m flying away soon. They don’t need me and my overactive imagination prying into Dad’s business, making things worse.

  In the end there’s enough interest in the board that my parents advance me the money for a last minute ticket out of next month’s bills. Mariam stays behind to negotiate a good deal, rather than rushing it through and losing out on a chunk of the profit.

  That’s one good thing that came of knowing Chance Madison, I suppose.

  I touch down in London Heathrow on a cold and clammy Wednesday morning. I’d forgotten the colour of the sky in this part of the world: a solid grey from horizon to horizon.

  I get the tube to Paddington station, then stick my suitcase in the baggage deposit and head straight to the hospital. Thank god I’ve always been able to fall asleep on any kind of public transport, because even with the eight hour nap I had on the plane my head is swimming with jetlag. In Malaysia right now it’s approaching bedtime, and I almost bump into a nurse on my way through the hospital doors.

  The walls here are painted a bleach-friendly pale green. Not unpleasant, necessarily, but it sends out all those “hospital” signals to my brain and makes me deeply uncomfortable. There was a time I used to get excited at the thought of working in a place like this. Doing some good. Caring for people. Now the sight of patients being wheeled by in hospital gowns just makes me feel sick.

  I stop off in the little shop to pick Grandma up some flowers. There’s not a great selection available – I get her the least wilted bunch of gerberas. At least they’re brightly coloured.

  The receptionist smiles at me politely as I garble my way through asking for Christine Jacobs. I wonder if I look as tired as I feel.

  “You’re her granddaughter? There’s a note on the system. Yes, she’s in the Geriatrics Ward. That’s Ward Eight – follow the signs down to the end of corridor.”

  Geriatrics. Ha. Bet she hates that. Grandma’s never thought of herself as old. I wander through the busy corridors, trying my best not to bumble into anyone else, while electric lights blink at me. I’m swallowing down tiredness and a whole bundle of nerves. I have no idea what state Grandma will be in. Something about the air in hospitals – the stagnant scent of chlorine cleaning fluid and sterilised sickness – makes me instantly nervous.

  I hit the buzzer at the door to Ward Eight and a busy-looking nurse shows me through to a bed ringed with curtains. That instantly sets off alarm bells – Grandma would want to be out in the open, to see what was going on. She’d hate being shut off like this.

  One look at her lying in that bed and I can clearly see why they’ve shut her away.

  This isn’t the Grandma I remember. It’s not even the Grandma who smiled and waved at us over the webcam on Christmas day. This is a shrunken skeleton, almost eaten alive by the fluffy pillows around her. Her hair sticks out, a shocking grey mess, at odd angles all around her face. Her cheeks are hollow and sunken. Her eyes are closed, and her breath rasps through her tiny frame.

  I don’t remember her being this small. I don’t remember her being this breakable.

  “Grandma Christine,” I whisper. “Are you awake?”

  Her eyelids flutter. “Ah…” Her voice is a painful croak. “There’s my precious girl.”

  I reach for her hand. It’s cold under my fingers, and I’ve just come in from the London wind. “How are you feeling?”

  “Not up to much,” she admits. There’s another stab in my heart. Grandma’s never once in her life admitted to feeling ill before.

  A nurse bustles in with a bag of fluids and starts fussing with the complicated tubes that run into Grandma’s arm. I sit there frozen, watching her work. To think I used to dream of doing something that looks so alien, almost dangerous. She might be pumping anything into Grandma’s veins. I resist the urge to jump up and push the nurse away. I’d give anything to take Grandma home, out of this awful place with its beeping machines and its scummy grey curtains. She’ll never get better if she stays here.

  Grandma lies there passively – no, worse than passive: she’s fallen asleep again. Her chest rises fitfully as if each breath hurts her. Her right arm, in its heavy plaster, is propped up on the edge of the bed. It looks too heavy for her to lift. How is she going to manage when she gets home?

  “How has she been?” I ask the nurse, keeping my voice low.

  “She had a nasty time of it,” the nurse tells me. There’s an undercurrent of judgement in her voice that I immediately take offence to – not least because I can’t help feeling I deserve it. Me and the rest of my family. How can we have abandoned Grandma Christine to get into this state? “But she ought to be herself again with a few days’ rest and rehydration. She’s eating, but small amounts. What she needs is company and good social care.”

  “I’ll ring home,” I decide, without further thought. “I’ll tell my parents I’m staying with her until she’s better.”

  The nurse gives me a funny look. “Mrs Jacobs is an old woman,” she says. “She needs someone around the house. Someone to chat to. Someone to make sure she gets her meals. To check she gets out of bed in the mornings without taking another fall. Do you know what I mean? You won’t manage just by yourself.”

  “I’ll have to,” I say. I mean it, too. I hate the nurse at that moment for implying there’s anything I wouldn’t do for my Grandma. But she’s still shaking her head.

  “Listen. It’s easy enough for me and the girls here – we can go home at the end of the day and have some time off. Don’t sign yourself up to be a full time carer without thinking it through. You’ll need a lot of family support around you. Have you got that?”

  I hesitate. “I have a great family.” I don’t tell her they’re on the other side of the world.

  The nurse smiles. “That sounds lovely. Mrs Jacobs is lucky to have you.”

  I sit and hold Grandma’s hand for an hour, but she doesn’t wake up again. My tears leave silent splodges on the bedsheets. I wipe them from my face whenever the nurses come by.

  I’m sure I’m only crying because of the jetlag. Everything will look brighter and better once I’ve had a rest – that’s the type of thing Grandma always says.

  When visiting time is over I leave. There’d be no point in staying, anyway – Grandma’s started snoring. At least the sound is normal, human…stronger than the sick rasp of her breath when I came in. I kid myself that my presence has given her strength, and leave the sad flowers in a vase a nurse brings for me.

  Then it’s a long train journey home to Mayhew.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Zara

  It’s half past three when I get off the train at a station that’s at once familiar and brand new. My body thinks it’s after midnight, and is craving sleep. I shuffle my heavy rucksack over my shoulders and start the trek u
p the hill towards my old house before my brain kicks in and I remind myself that’s not where I’m going. Grandma lives downhill.

  She’s got a sweet, cramped little cottage, with the keys to the front door under the third flowerpot on the right. There’s an avalanche of post in the hallway and a stale smell of old biscuits in the air.

  I open the fridge. Sour milk, neatly stacked leftovers that I don’t want to risk heating up, and a drawer full of wilted vegetables. No microwave meals, nothing frozen. Grandma’s got healthy habits. Crap.

  All I want to do is collapse on the sofa and try to peel my eyes open until it’s a reasonable bedtime – that’s the best way to combat jetlag – but I need food. The supermarket’s just round the corner. I can manage that.

  I don’t have a British bank card anymore, but Grandma keeps change in an old tin teapot by the front door and I grab a handful of that. All I need is bread and cheese. Maybe some milk. A cup of English tea. Only been back half a day and already I’m regressing to my childhood habits.

  As I walk down the street, shivering, I thrust my hands into my pockets. I should’ve brought gloves. I don’t even own gloves these days. The sky’s still that awful misty white colour. Nothing but cloud as far as the eye can see.

  Every time I close my eyes I see Grandma’s shrunken face, engulfed by those bleached white pillows.

  God, I feel awful. I keep my eyes pinned on that cloudy sky and walk as briskly as I can to ward off the cold.

  The supermarket bewilders me. Who knew there were so many different types of cheese? And almost no fresh fruit? I try to remember what English money looks like as I count up how much change I picked up. Damn. What I thought were 50 pences are only 20s.

  I’m standing in the cheese aisle, blinking in the fluorescent lights, staring at my handful of change and trying not to cry, when a warm and motherly voice that I know I should recognise but can’t quite place calls my name. A rush of relief wafts through me at the sound.