Last Seen

by Lucy Clarke

‘Are you seeing Samuel this week?’ Sarah asked, shouldering off her coat and hanging it on the hook behind the door that only she used.

  I shuffled into the kitchen behind her, watching her eyes skirt the piles of washing up beside the sink. She moved aside a tray of breakfast things and set down her basket.

  ‘It’s over.’

  She turned, surprise lifting her brows. ‘But … why?’

  ‘I don’t love him.’

  Sarah looked at me searchingly. After a moment she said, ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ I countered, a hand planted on my hip.

  ‘Don’t push him away, Isla. He’s a good man. He adores you.’

  I told myself I let him go. But I didn’t. I made him go. I forced him out. I wanted to be alone with my grief. I didn’t want to have to try and feel better. I wanted to lurk in its darkness. Crawl through rough-toothed places. I no longer had the heart for light, or love.

  I didn’t want Samuel. Or Sarah. Or anyone. All I wanted was the boy who had a comforter named Zib. I wanted the boy who unfurled his fingers to show me a shell in the palm of his hand. I wanted the boy who would laugh with delight when I tickled his ribs. I wanted the boy who looked through binoculars at the world, amazed by its detail.

  Sarah knew me well enough to sense she should drop the conversation. She turned to the freezer and began making space for the portions of cottage pie. Watching her neat blonde head bobbing around as she rearranged things, I felt the sparks of my anger snapping and flickering. Some days I could feel it building, expanding in me; it was loose and spiked and hot and unpredictable. A writhing ball of flames and fury. I could feel it edging deeper into my body, stiffening my limbs, making knots of my muscles.

  ‘What were you doing?’ I asked, my voice brittle.

  Sarah turned, one hand on the freezer drawer. ‘What am I doing? I’m just putting—’

  ‘No,’ I said hotly. ‘What were you doing?’

  Understanding arrived, a flush of pink rising in her cheeks.

  I knew I should pull back, but I felt as though I was standing on the edge of a cliff and, rather than step back, I jumped. ‘What were you doing when Marley drowned?’

  ‘I … I …’ Sarah brought her palm flat against her breastbone. ‘What do you mean?’

  The flames travelled through my throat, came licking out of my mouth. ‘Why weren’t you watching?’

  Sarah screwed her eyes shut, her whole face twisting and shrinking.

  ‘Look at me! Just fucking look at me!’

  Her eyes snapped open. I could read the guilt in her expression as she said, ‘I was cleaning. The hut windows. I was washing the salt from them.’

  It was so impossibly mundane. So unimportant – she was washing windows while my baby drowned! I knew there was no correct answer that would appease me – what possible response could account for Marley’s death? But that! That!

  I slammed my head backwards, hitting the base of my skull against the cupboard door, a deep crunch sounding into the kitchen. Pain expanded in my head like heat. I hit it again. And again. And again.

  ‘Stop! Please stop!’ Sarah’s hands were covering her mouth, her eyes welling with tears. ‘I’m sorry. I should have been watching.’

  And just like that, the fire in me went out. I found myself sliding on to the tiled floor, my head hanging forwards, cupped in my hands.

  Sarah didn’t hesitate; she gathered me in her arms and held me there, her tears streaming with my own.

  It wasn’t only Sarah who bore the brunt of my anger. I was furious about everything: that Jacob lived when Marley died; that, every day, I saw mothers who weren’t cherishing their children; that I once had all this love in me – but now it had turned brittle and frozen, like cracked ice.

  It felt impossible that Marley was lost. A swarm of questions buzzed constantly in my thoughts: Why didn’t the boys tell us they were swimming? Why did no one see what happened? Why did Isaac bring Jacob to shore before searching for Marley? Why can Neil no longer look me in the eye? Why was Robert the first to abandon the search? Why hasn’t Marley’s body been found?

  I distrusted everyone, certain that something was being kept from me. I believed that someone knew exactly what’d happened that day in the water – and was keeping the truth from me.

  And I was right.

  21. SARAH

  DAY FOUR, 9.30 P.M.

  The public showers on the sandbank smell of mildew and drains, and I keep my flip-flops on while I wash as quickly as possible. I’m vaguely aware that it’s the first shower I’ve had since Jacob’s disappearance; strange how the routines of normal life break apart with such ease, as if they were never anything more than a thin crust holding back bubbling molten mess.

  I snap the shower off and dry myself swiftly. I pull my underwear from the hook on the back of the door, cursing as my jeans tumble on to the wet floor. My skin’s damp as I wriggle into my knickers, then battle to tug on my jeans, the denim wet and stiff against my thighs.

  Leaving the humid warmth of the shower block, I step on to the dark, fresh beach, my wash bag dangling from my fingers. The night air chills my damp scalp, the collar of my cardigan absorbing the moisture from my hair.

  Sand cakes my wet flip-flops, making them uncomfortably gritty against the soles of my feet. The sandbank is quiet now, the day-trippers long gone, candlelight flickering in a few hut windows. I see a couple sharing a sofa, books propped in their laps, and I envy the evening that lies ahead for them – the simple pleasure of losing oneself in a book, letting the mind wander, roam, escape.

  I can’t help but think about the mother I’d read about on a missing persons’ website, whose son had disappeared twenty years ago. Has she ever had a good night’s sleep since? Has she ever woken and not thought first of him? Has she ever enjoyed a book, a film, a meal, as she once had?

  I walk on, my mood low, anxiety beating thickly in my chest. As I pass Isaac’s hut, I keep my gaze lowered out of habit. He’ll be away on the oil rig, I remind myself, but still, I’m careful not to pause.

  My mind must be agitated as I find myself imagining him sitting in his darkened hut, his long fingers linked together, watching. Always watching.

  Does he know something? a voice inside me whispers.

  I shake my head sharply and continue on. I’ve almost reached our hut when I notice a cluster of people ahead, their chairs pulled close to a small fire burning in the belly of a barbecue. As I approach, I can hear the first notes of conversation drifting on the breeze. ‘Brings it all back, doesn’t it? What Isla went through …’

  It’s Joe’s voice. I can make him out, sitting beside Binks, drinks in hand. Diane and Neil are opposite them, and there are a couple of other people with their backs to me. On another evening, a lifetime ago, Nick and I would’ve joined them, dragging over sun-chairs, opening a bottle of wine, throwing blankets over our knees – but tonight I find myself hovering in the shadows, listening.

  Neil’s voice is low, almost whispered, a light slur to his words. ‘I can’t shake the image of Isla standing on the shoreline. She looked … broken. Hopeless. It was like … like you could see the life draining out of her.’

  Beside him, Diane says firmly, ‘You did everything you could, Neil.’

  I watch Neil reach down for the wine bottle by his chair. He refills his glass almost to the brim. Diane looks away.

  Binks says, ‘I always thought it was a shame Isla never had any more children. She was such a wonderful mother.’

  Behind the group, I’m aware of the looming shadow of Isla’s hut. Shuttered, empty, almost accusing in the darkness. What if the candles were lit, the doors thrown open, Marley still here, tucked up in bed? A bat dips low overhead. I can feel the vibration of its wings through the night, the air thrumming against my face.

  ‘Too torn up,’ Joe says. ‘You remember how she was. Fixated, wasn’t she? All her theories. All her doubts. You can understand it, course you can.’

 
Out there, beyond the fire, beyond the beach, the sea sprawls towards the horizon, dark and knowing.

  ‘Theories?’ another voice asks – and I realize it is Lorrain, who sits with her back to me.

  ‘About what happened to Marley,’ Binks explains. ‘The sea never brought him back. She didn’t get to see his little body. Impossible for a mother, that. For anyone. She still asks us to talk her through it sometimes, what we saw, what happened. Heart-breaking,’ Binks says softly, turning her head towards the water.

  ‘Isla didn’t believe he’d drowned?’ Lorrain asks.

  I can feel the shift in atmosphere at her directness.

  ‘She had … questions,’ Binks responds. ‘Marley was a terrific little swimmer. She had some doubts about the search. Cast a few names around.’

  ‘Like Isaac’s,’ a booming voice offers.

  Robert! I hadn’t noticed him before, but now I can make out his broad frame, seated beside Lorrain. He would never usually join our group for a fire – particularly not if it meant being in Neil’s company – but from the proximity of his and Lorrain’s chairs, I can guess what’s drawn him to our end of the beach.

  ‘Why Isaac?’ Lorrain asks, an unmistakable note of interest in her tone.

  There’s a long pause and I find myself holding my breath.

  Eventually it’s Joe who answers. ‘I think,’ he says in a slow, considered way, ‘that Isaac is an easy person to be curious about. He keeps himself to himself. You’ll never see any family or friends at his hut. He likes his boat and his fish – but that’s no crime. He was the one who brought Jacob back to shore, after all. I wouldn’t like to believe that anything amiss went on that day.’

  Neil lifts his wine, gulping back half of it.

  ‘Hard to imagine that Marley would have been seventeen this year,’ Binks says. ‘Such an angel. Joe, remember the summer he and Jacob made that beautiful driftwood mobile on the beach, just here? They collected shells and stones and feathers and all sorts – then hung them from the wood.’

  I remember. Nick had to borrow a drill to make holes in the shells so that the boys could thread string through a trail of them. Why am I lurking here in the shadows; these are my friends, aren’t they? I should join them. I’m about to step forward when I hear Lorrain say, ‘Must’ve been hard on Jacob, losing his best friend like that.’

  Diane is the one who answers. ‘It was difficult that first summer, wasn’t it? He didn’t talk much. Barely came out of the hut, I seem to remember. He wouldn’t go near the sea – although you wouldn’t know it now. He’s rarely out of the water.’

  ‘What do you make of Jacob’s disappearance?’ Lorrain asks, her voice a beat quieter than before – but I catch it, the hint of gossip wrapped up as concern.

  I stay exactly where I am, frozen to the spot. A mosquito buzzes nearby, a high-pitched drone vibrating close to my ear. I don’t move. I am barely breathing. I feel the hot prick of its bite on my wrist bone.

  ‘Strikes me as a little odd that it happened on Marley’s anniversary,’ Robert says, something provocative in his delivery.

  ‘Why?’ Neil asks sharply. ‘What’s the anniversary got to do with anything?’

  I hold my breath, aware of a strange tension crackling in the air.

  When Robert doesn’t answer, Neil rises from his seat, reaching for a piece of wood. He throws it to the fire, sending sparks into the night.

  Lorrain says, ‘It’s just worrying. It’s been what, four days? No one’s seen him, not even a glimpse. His trainers even had his socks balled up inside them – like he took them off to swim.’ She pauses for a moment. ‘But why swim alone, at night, like Jacob did?’ Lorrain poses. ‘Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Wonder what?’ Neil presses.

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ Lorrain says, uncertain now. ‘Sarah told me the police are questioning whether … well, whether Jacob swam out there on purpose. Whether he didn’t want to make it back to shore.’

  ‘They think Jacob killed himself?’ Neil asks. ‘On the anniversary?’

  ‘How dare you!’ I cry, kicking up sheets of sand as I rush forward. ‘How fucking dare you! All of you!’

  There’s the sharp intake of breath as everyone turns. Chairs are pushed back. People rise to their feet.

  ‘Sarah! I’m so sorry,’ Lorrain rushes. ‘That must have sounded incredibly insensitive—’

  ‘You think Jacob killed himself, do you?’ I hiss from the edge of their circle, my wash bag swinging from my fingers. ‘You think that Jacob’s life was so shitty – that Nick and I had made such a hash of things – that he’d want to kill himself?’

  ‘No, I was—’

  ‘Because you have no fucking clue about who Jacob is or how he thinks! And you!’ I say, swinging round to Robert. ‘Don’t you dare pass comment on my son, when Caz—’

  ‘Let’s calm down,’ Diane is saying.

  ‘Calm? My son has been missing for four days – and my friends would rather sit around gossiping about whether he’s topped himself than actually doing anything productive like helping search for him. I know you told the police that Jacob and I were arguing the night he disappeared. Did you enjoy your moment in the limelight, Diane?’

  ‘I’m sorry – but they asked if I’d heard anything. I didn’t want to lie …’

  There’s a warm hand on my arm. ‘Sarah, love, it’s all of our faults. We shouldn’t have been talking about Jacob, full stop. We know the strain you’re under. No one meant any harm, I promise you.’ Reasonable, rational, kind-hearted Joe.

  ‘Joe’s right,’ Diane explains. ‘Jacob is on all of our minds. We’re just worried.’

  ‘Really? Nick and I have seen you, Diane, standing on your deck ear-wigging into our conversations. Is it you who’s been keeping the police abreast of your little theories about Marley’s anniversary?’

  ‘I never mentioned it!’ Diane protests, turning to look at Neil.

  ‘That was me.’ Binks pushes herself awkwardly to her feet, the blanket covering her knees pooling on to the sand.

  The admission wrong-foots me. I stare wordlessly at Binks.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Sarah. I didn’t realize it was a …’ Binks halts as if she’s rethinking her choice of words. ‘Well, that you and Nick hadn’t mentioned it.’

  ‘We didn’t think it was relevant,’ I say, losing steam.

  In the silence that follows, I no longer know what I’m doing out here, arguing with these people. Suddenly I just want my bed. I want to lay my head on the soft pillow, pull the duvet up to my chin, and sleep. I can feel my throat closing, tears threatening. I turn from the group, hurrying towards the beach hut. Their eyes are on my back as I clamber on to my deck, yank open the hut door and disappear inside.

  22. ISLA

  In the days and weeks after losing Marley, my name and his blew from hut to hut like the salt wind. I felt as if my every movement was watched, speculated on. Although people were kind, concerned, I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to do my unravelling in public. So I began to close myself off, person by person, piece by piece. The only family I could bear to be around was Sarah’s. They understood my grief because they shared it. Their company, their memories of Marley, became my refuge.

  And that was the problem.

  Summer 2011

  I sat cross-legged on the sand-dusted floor, holding up a small sky-blue T-shirt with a picture of a whale embroidered on the front. I gathered the cotton in my fingers and pressed it to my nose, breathing in. A fragment of memory loosened: Marley picking his way over the rocks, barefoot, arms outstretched for balance. He crouches down on all fours searching for something, his flyaway blond hair falling over his face. Suddenly he is springing to his feet, waving his arms and jumping up and down to get Jacob’s attention.

  I tried to recall what happened after that. Did I go down to the rocks to see what had caught his attention, made his eyes brighten like that?

  ‘Auntie Isla?’

  I turned
. Jacob was standing in the doorway of the hut.

  ‘Hello, baby. Come in,’ I told him, setting down Marley’s T-shirt.

  He stayed in the doorway, watchful, his dark eyes worried. ‘Mummy asked if you’d like to come over for lunch.’

  ‘Lunch,’ I said absently, unsure when I’d last eaten. ‘Yes. Thank you. I’ll come.’

  Jacob hovered a moment longer. I thought he was going to leave, but instead he crossed the hut and plonked himself down beside me. He didn’t say anything, just gazed at the memory book that was open on the floor. I worried about Jacob, sensing that his grief was something dark and unchannelled that he didn’t yet understand. He seemed like a tiny soul, adrift without the anchor of his best friend.

  ‘I’m writing down some special memories about Marley,’ I told Jacob, passing him the book. ‘You might be able to help me. I’m trying to remember a day when you and Marley were playing down by the rocks. I think you were building a tower out of pebbles and Marley was excited as he’d seen something, or found something, near the rocks. I couldn’t remember what.’

  ‘An adder,’ Jacob said without hesitation. ‘This long.’ He measured with his hands.

  My face split into a wide smile. ‘That’s right!’ Marley had seen strange tracks on the sand earlier in the day and had been following them wondering what they were, but none of us could decide. Occasionally we spotted adders on the headland, basking in the sun, but we’d never seen one on the sand before.

  ‘We made snake catchers out of old fishing nets,’ Jacob went on, his voice growing brighter, ‘so we could return the snake to the headland. Marley drew a snake tattoo on the inside of my wrist, and I did the same for him, and we were the Snake Catchers’ Club.’

  I laughed as it all came back to me. ‘I had to redraw Marley’s tattoo as he was convinced you’d made it look like a worm.’

  Jacob grinned, a mischievous little smile I hadn’t seen in months. ‘I had!’

  Sharing the memory was a balm, a shimmer of gold in the darkness, and I knew later that I’d write it down, secure every detail of it into the memory book.