The Coordinates of Loss

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘Oscar! Oscar!’ she screamed, crying now, her tears clogging her nose and the back of her throat, making shouting harder and blurring her vision. She ducked under, looking as far as she was able at the hull, and then came back for air; nothing. Her hair hung in a heavy, waterlogged curtain over her face; she dug at it with her fingers as she trod water, spinning this way and that, looking, hoping and crying, as her teeth chattered in her gums.

  She could hear her husband screaming louder than she had ever heard and in a way that was chilling, desperate. His lack of control and fear only fuelled her own.

  It was in that moment of realisation that Rachel Croft looked towards the horizon, weakened, weary and with the certain knowledge that her life had changed.

  It had changed forever.

  Someone had wrapped a grey wool blanket around her shoulders, but still she shook – every part of her, trembling and shaking. Her head jerked, her knees jumped and even her eyelids fluttered. She was, despite the warmth of the midday Bermudian sun and the thick blanket, cold. Colder than she had ever felt, as if the chill started in her gut and filled her right up.

  Rachel felt like the world was covered in gauze. Everything she looked at was hazy, every voice a little distorted. It was as if she were floating high above, scanning the sea around the boat, watching the coiled shape that was her.

  She kept repeating, ‘This is a dream. This is a dream.’ Followed by, ‘It’s okay. It’s okay.’ Worried that if she stopped saying this then she just might give in to the scream that sat at the base of her throat.

  At some level she wanted to scream, pull out her hair, smash something, and at the same time she wanted to hide. Rachel didn’t know what she wanted.

  She found it hard to think straight. Her mind jumped from minutiae like the fact that Mr Cardew, the garden man, was coming to cut the grass today and she wasn’t sure if Cee-Cee knew where the key was to the back storage shed, to wondering why James, sitting opposite, was crying, folded over on the narrow bench at the back of the police boat, rocking silently, but with thick lines of spit looped in a lacy bib of distress from his lip to his chest. And then she would remember why he was crying, why they were there, and in the nick of time lift the plastic orange bucket to her face and retch into it again. The pain in her stomach muscles reminded her that this was not the first time she had vomited.

  It was a significant moment and one Rachel would only ponder in the coming months. Ordinarily, to see her husband, the man she loved, so distressed would have pulled at every thread in her body and she would have leaped to offer comfort in any way she could. It would only be later, much, much later, that she would recognise that in this, his moment of need, she felt nothing. Nothing. It was as if she stared at a stranger.

  ‘So, Mrs Croft.’ The officer spoke in a way that told her it was a call to arms, he needed her to concentrate, participate. ‘You last saw Oscar at?’ he almost prompted, as if he knew the answer.

  She wiped her mouth on the damp sleeve of her dressing gown and held the bucket to her chest with both hands. Looking up at the policeman in his immaculately pressed, short-sleeved white shirt, she studied the thin, neat line of his moustache on his top lip. She read his name badge: ‘Mackenzie’.

  She kept thinking about the day before, throwing on her clothes, grateful for the early-morning hiatus from the heat and excited about their excursion on the boat. A couple of days of bliss to look forward to with the people she loved.

  With the large cooler that Cee-Cee had packed in tow, it was with happiness and without any sense of foreboding that she’d trod the open planks of the dock with her bare feet. Oscar’s hand sat snugly in her free palm as they skipped and hopped, navigating the gaps, stepping behind James, who walked with purpose, assuming, as he always did, the role of captain before they had even left the shore. He turned to speak over his shoulder. ‘Are you sure we’ve packed enough?’ He laughed, rolling his eyes at the large beach bag he had slung about his body and the stuffed knapsack in his hand.

  ‘I’ve actually pared it down! It’s only towels, dry clothes, suntan lotion, snacks; you’d be surprised how much stuff we need.’ She smiled at her man.

  ‘You’re right, I would!’ He laughed again.

  She recalled looking him up and down, appreciating the look of him in his khaki cargo shorts with his hands on his hips and his feet inside his battered, tan deck shoes; his mirrored sunglasses hid his eyes, but his wide grin spoke volumes. He had the healthy glow of a man who slept well, ate right and woke every morning with very little to trouble him. A man who was on the right side of happy with all he could ever hope for and more. Lucky.

  Oscar broke free from her hand and ran. ‘Be careful, darling!’ she shouted after him.

  The little boy ignored his mum’s warning, trotting ahead without looking back.

  Fearless.

  After they had cleared the marina the boat picked up speed. Oscar wriggled back into the space next to her as the hull bumped on the waves and kicked up spray that peppered their skin with salt-filled droplets.

  ‘Woo-hoo!’ her son shouted with his arms in the air, as if he were on a rollercoaster.

  Hold on, please, Oscar, don’t fall from the seat, don’t go over the edge, stay close to Dad . . . She remembered having these thoughts. A premonition? Why didn’t she say anything?

  When the engine changed tone and the boat slowed, it was as if a cloak of peace and well-being enveloped them. Sitting at the mercy of the ocean, with only the faintest lick of breeze, was as quiet and calming as ever.

  She and James had looked back from where they had travelled; the beautiful wide stretch of beach was fringed with lush, green plants, spiked through with palm trees. Vast, colonial-style homes painted in shades of sugared almonds sat in grand manicured plots with decadently crafted water features that flowed into infinity pools.

  She loved seeing their beautiful island from this vantage point. It had promised to be a perfect trip.

  ‘Mrs Croft,’ Mackenzie said her name again, a little more forcefully, and she wondered how long it had been since he spoke; it could have been seconds or hours. ‘When did you last see your son?’

  ‘It was . . .’ She tried to focus. ‘It was when we put him to bed, about eight thirty last night. He usually goes a little bit earlier, but as we weren’t at home and there’s no school tomorrow . . .’ She let this trail.

  ‘You both put him to bed?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘James put him to bed and I called out “Love you” from the bathroom.’

  ‘So you didn’t see him in his bed?’

  ‘I know he was in his bedroom,’ she countered.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because James had put him to bed and he called out—’ She broke off, as a fresh batch of tears gathered. ‘He called out, “Night night, Mummy” and it came from his berth and I called back.’ She stopped and swallowed.

  ‘What did you call back?’ he asked with his pen poised.

  ‘Just “Love you . . .” That was it. “Love you.”’ She pictured holding her hair in one hand and spitting the blue/white foam into the minute corner basin, emptying her mouth to call out of the side, not heartfelt or sincere, but more a reflex, ‘Love you!’ Her mind had been on cleaning her teeth, wondering where her perfume was and thinking about her evening to come with James and a glass or two of something chilled . . . Why didn’t you say more? Did he hear you? Does he know how much you love him? Come back now, Oscar, come home to me, darling . . .

  She tried to gather herself. ‘You . . . you are still looking? He might be tired, he will be swimming or floating but, but we need to keep looking for him.’ She felt a wave of desperation at the idea that instead of sitting here, trapped in this police boat, she would be better off rowing, searching, or in a speedboat in which she could circle around and around, confident that no one would look as thoroughly as her.

  She began to shrug off the blanket. ‘Can I go now? Can I go and hel
p look for him? He might not answer to a stranger, but I know his voice and he knows mine and I know what his pyjamas look like and he might be listening out for me, listening to hear me call!’

  The man answered with a softened tone. ‘I promise you that there is an extensive search under way, Mrs Croft. The coast guard, my colleagues, volunteers; there is quite a party out there. You are best off here, helping us build a picture of what happened. And if he is . . .’

  She looked up at him now, daring him to speak further. He closed his mouth.

  ‘We need to get to him,’ she pressed. ‘He will be getting tired. And he might be scared.’ This thought sent a fresh bolt of pain through her chest and her shakes increased. She bent forward and let out a high-toned mewl that was visceral, wounded. The other policeman stepped forward and repositioned the blanket around her shoulders.

  Mackenzie nodded and waited for her to calm. ‘I know this is difficult, but just to clarify this one point, Mrs Croft: neither you nor your husband have actually seen Oscar since around eight thirty last night.’

  She shook her head and wiped her eyes, trying to catch her breath. ‘No, but if he’d left his cabin while we were on deck, we’d have seen him.’

  ‘We would,’ James interjected, his voice raw. ‘We were in the seating at the stern, which faces the stairs, almost opposite his cabin, and he’d have to pass through to get to the upper deck.’

  Why didn’t I check on you, baby? Why didn’t I lock the hatch? Why did I not get up the moment I woke up? Where were you then?

  She couldn’t help the questions that rolled in her mind.

  ‘Mrs Croft?’

  ‘What?’ She was again unaware that he had been speaking.

  ‘I asked if you heard anything in the night, any unusual noises, any sounds of movement or another boat?’

  She exchanged a look with James, who sat up at this suggestion. ‘You think another boat came? Do you think . . . do you think someone came and took him?’ Her chest heaved and she closed her eyes, hardly able to process one more piece of information and all the possibilities associated with it.

  ‘I think at this stage we really don’t know and so it’s good to keep all options open.’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything.’ She shook her head. ‘I had had . . . a drink and the cabin was very warm. I slept heavily.’

  She watched Mackenzie and his colleague glance at each other and then back to her.

  ‘Why would someone take him?’ she asked quizzically, and then a thought occurred. ‘It might have been a . . . a school friend, erm, lots of the parents have boats, they . . . they might have come and got him for a trip or so that the kids could play, they might have forgotten to leave a note, can you’ – she swallowed – ‘can you check with the school or . . . or with the coast guard, they might know about other boats.’ She felt the first glimmer of hope. This could be possible. Her son could right now be playing with a friend or bumping along on an inflatable, or he could be on the beach!

  Mackenzie nodded and she saw the flicker of something that looked a lot like pity in his eyes. ‘We are doing exactly that, Mrs Croft. Don’t worry; we are doing everything we can. And just to get back to the questions, this morning you woke at?’

  She shook her head, trying to clear the fog. ‘I suppose it must have been about six or quarter past.’

  ‘And you got up and’ – he checked his notepad – ‘put the kettle on and that was when you noticed your son was not in his bed?’

  She could hardly bear to look at her husband, who answered on her behalf. ‘We made love and we lay in bed for a little while after. We both got up at around a quarter to seven, sevenish.’

  The policeman didn’t flinch, but she felt the flame of mortification lick at her throat. It wasn’t the fact that they were talking about sex, it was the admission of how they had been so very distracted, pleasure-seeking while their boy . . . Again she bent her head inside the grubby walls of the orange bucket.

  Rachel spat and straightened, and wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she looked through the window across the water. Some twenty feet away, she could see officers climbing all over Liberté. She thought the boat looked small. No longer the shiny, grand vessel over which James had beamed as he enthusiastically described her proportions, her speed, her electronic wizardry. Their boat had been photographed in a thousand different lights and angles, on a thousand days out, each picture posed, edited, glossed and sent back to friends and family in grey, cold Blighty. Look what we’ve got! Look at the life we lead! It wasn’t intended to taunt, but rather make them proud; proof that she had made the right choices. She pictured the photograph of the three of them on board, tanned and smiling, pinned to her parents’ kitchen wall.

  She remembered the first time she trod on her shifting deck, a girl who grew up in a suburb of Bristol, a girl who thought a brisk walk around the Downs and a hot chocolate drunk on the terrace of the Avon Gorge Hotel with a grand view of the Clifton Suspension Bridge as the sun dipped, was living the life!

  And it had been. A lovely life, until she met James. Clever James. Handsome James. James who had a well-paid job working in reinsurance, an industry she had never even heard of.

  Do you mean insurance? she had giggled, coyly.

  No! I mean reinsurance . . .

  James who was heading for the very top. James who wanted to take her with him.

  She remembered the first time she had set foot on the boat. Oscar had waved from the deck; he’d only been three and had looked too cute in his tiny life vest. James held his hand. She had quickly learned where to plant her feet. It had been a sunny day with the lightest of breezes, not long after the America’s Cup had been held on the island, everyone was boat-mad and she wondered if this were just a phase in which James would lose interest. She pictured the scuba equipment in the cellar and the chassis of the Jaguar E-Type, sitting under a tarpaulin in his parents’ barn in Sussex. ‘I’ll restore it and we shall take it to Le Mans! God, it will be bloody brilliant!’ He had leaped around the rusting carcass, hands on hips, smiling, doing what he did best: painting her a picture that would make her fall in love with his idea. ‘We can camp! We can stop the car somewhere pretty en route, a bend in a river! And we’ll eat good bread and cheese, washed down with a fine red, and we’ll lie on a tartan blanket and wear leather goggles! Vintage style! We should get you a fancy silk scarf and some of those flick-up-at-the-side sunglasses!’

  She had smiled, bitten by the bug, drawn into his daydream, committed. He stared at the car as if he could actually see it whizzing around the track with the glorious racing-green paint restored and shiny. But the leap between the adventure in his mind and the project in front of him was time-consuming and demanding. James certainly had energy for anything new, but always fiercely underestimated the level of time and commitment required to make it come to life. Far from holding his flights of fancy against him, Rachel loved the fact that her man had this impetuous, spontaneous lust for adventure. It was as infectious as it was thrilling. She often thought of her dad in Bristol, popping pennies in a jar and waiting for the day his life might start – ‘When the kids get older,’ ‘When the weather clears up,’ ‘When I retire.’ As far as she could tell the last time she saw him, over two years ago now, he was still waiting.

  As for James’s E-Type, it had been mothballed and still sat in darkness, waiting for discovery and its promised trip to Le Mans. As she gripped the handrail on that first trip and felt the slight pull of the vessel, she wondered how one mothballed a boat.

  ‘One hand for you, Rach, and one for the boat. Always, always hold on to something,’ he had called. James was instantly at ease on the water, as was his way; naturally adept, competent in everything. He had laughed at her concerns. ‘Oscar lives on a tiny island! He practically lives in the ocean! Sailing will be second nature to him, he will love it, our water baby . . .’ Determined not to let him down, she had learned to bob with the boat, bending her knees and taking it slowly. Gradually
she had quashed the leap of fear in her gut, until spending time on the sleek boat that dipped and rose at the will of the ocean became almost second nature to her.

  Quite unexpectedly and very quickly, Rachel had fallen in love with her, finding it hard to describe the sense of freedom she felt when heading towards the horizon with the sun and droplets of sea peppering her skin. Nor could she relay the sense of perfect isolation when the only sound was waves lapping the hull, when, with the salt spray dried in wavy lines all across her limbs, she, James and Oscar would lie under duvets on the foredeck, looking at the dazzling array of stars in the purple-tinged, Bermudian sky. Just the two of them and their water baby.

  Now, though, as she looked at the shiny boat being picked over by men in heavy boots and peaked caps in the way scavengers might go after bones, she saw none of the glamour and there was no joy. If anything, she felt a flicker of hatred for Liberté, a foul vessel that had brought harm and heartache to her family. To her son! She shot her husband a misplaced look, laden with dislike.

  Why did you get this fucking boat? Why did I listen to you? How come you got to put him to bed? Did you tuck him in properly? Did he have Mr Bob with him? He can’t sleep properly unless Mr Bob is on his pillow . . .

  ‘Where are you, Oscar? Where are you, darling? Come back now. Come back to me.’ She only realised she had spoken the words out loud when her husband sobbed in response. She looked at him, quite unable to help him in his moment of distress. Although they sat on either side of the narrow boat, the distance between them was a million miles. She looked back at Liberté and saw a policeman stuff Oscar’s duvet into a plastic bin bag.

  And once again, she lowered her head and retched into the orange bucket.

  ‘We need to think about heading back.’ She heard Mackenzie speak to his deputy. His words were like lava chasing her, and as her heart raced she looked left to right in the confined space, wondering how she could outrun them.