Secrets of the Tides

by Hannah Richell

  As Helen watched from the beach, Richard raced out of the waves, his skin pink from the cold. He held a long strand of seaweed above his head and chased first after Dora and then Cassie, making them scream with delight as he flapped the slimy green kelp at them. Helen smiled and reached for the camera lying beside her. It took her a moment to focus the lens and the three of them were almost upon her when the shutter finally snapped; a single image captured for ever. Cassie loomed in the foreground with her blond hair wind-whipped across her face and serious eyes staring straight down the lens, Dora a little behind, all rosy cheeks and wide laughing mouth, and Richard furthest away, grinning from ear to ear as he shook the water from his hair like a dog. It was an innocent moment captured and bottled for posterity like a fine wine and as Helen watched them she realised with a sudden start that this, after all, was happiness. It might not be quite the life she had imagined for herself, but it wasn’t half bad.

  As she sat on the pebbles, her arms wrapped around her knees, watching her husband and daughters dart about the beach with carefree laughter, Helen smiled to herself. The saying was true: when all was said and done, it was family that mattered most of all.

  DORA

  Present Day

  The rain falls steadily on London all week, until Saturday dawns with a tentative new light. Dora draws the curtains to see the sun blooming like a pale yellow daffodil in the sky. It glints off the surrounding Hackney rooftops and transforms the steel grey landscape into something brighter and cleaner.

  ‘It’s a sign,’ says Dan, giving her shoulder a little squeeze as he passes her at the kitchen table, coffee mug in hand.

  Dora hopes he’s right. She’s been a mess all week, distracted at work during the day and disturbed by a head full of crazy dreams at night. She can’t even remember what it’s like to feel normal any more, and now that the day has arrived for her trip to Dorset, she’s feeling physically sick. She’s spent the week replaying the awkward telephone conversation she conducted with her mother and the unspoken question that had hung heavily between them: why now?

  ‘I still wish you were coming with me.’ She knows Dan has to work, but secretly she’s been hoping that he will change his mind.

  ‘Sorry, babe, you know I would if I could but I really need to crack on now. Besides, it’s probably better that I’m not there, don’t you think – a chance for a bit of mother–daughter bonding?’

  Dora bites her lip.

  ‘Anyway,’ he continues, ‘your news might be exactly what you both need to bring you closer again, you know, a time for celebration . . . hugs and tears of joy. I’m no expert but isn’t that what mums and daughters are supposed to be good at?’

  Dora doesn’t say anything. The Tides have proved, over the years, to be very good at tears, although they aren’t often the joyful kind. ‘It’s not my news, it’s our news,’ is all she says, eventually.

  Dan reaches for her hand. He seizes her fingers and strokes each one in turn. The gesture makes her want to cry. ‘I know it’s scary going back after all this time, but it’ll be OK, you’ll see. Helen will be pleased to see you,’ he says, pulling her closer still and kissing the tip of her nose. ‘Nothing bad is going to happen. Trust me.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Dora, ‘you’re right,’ but she holds him extra tight and breathes in his scent, committing it to memory, just in case.

  She leaves after breakfast, hoping to avoid the weekend crush, but it’s a good hour and a half before her little car squeezes its way through the city’s clogged arteries and filters out onto the M3. Just as her foot is beginning to protest against the constant rise and fall on the clutch, space begins to open up between the cars and it’s a relief when she is finally able to put her foot to the floor. She loses her favourite London station and retunes the radio, settling on a channel with an inane DJ chattering about how ‘large’ he had it the previous night. Thankfully he runs out of steam and begins to play a string of soundalike dance anthems, which distract Dora from the knot of tension building in her gut.

  Eventually she leaves the motorway and follows a convoluted series of A-roads, which soon give way to more familiar lanes and landmarks, and although she hasn’t yet seen the sea she rolls down her window and takes in great gulps of fresh air. The gear stick crunches audibly as she revs the engine up the steep incline of a hill and then finally, as she crests the top, she sees the little sleepy seaside town laid out before her like a patchwork blanket. After the monochrome tones of London the jewel-like colours are shocking in their intensity. She feels the beauty of the landscape like an ache in her soul.

  As she drives the final roads Dora takes in the candy-coloured houses, the weather-beaten stiles leading off to cliff-top walking tracks, the hawthorn hedgerows and pretty cottage gardens. It is ten years on and yet it all feels so familiar, so unchanged. She indicates right, gives a little wave to a group of ramblers shuffling in front of the car, and then accelerates up through the wrought-iron gates and into the driveway. As she does she looks up and drinks in the view of Clifftops.

  Ever since she was a little girl, the house has seemed magical to Dora, picturesque in its position and enchanting in its design. As she approaches now its white stone walls glow a dusky pink in the afternoon sunshine and she is surprised to feel a tiny thrill leap through her. It isn’t the gloomy place she has been remembering in her dreams. It is beautiful. She heads up the drive and the house darts in and out of view behind sycamore trees and hedgerows. She can almost hear her father’s delighted cry: ‘Your palace awaits!’ She almost expects to see her grandparents standing on the doorstep with their warm smiles and arms thrown wide, welcoming her back. Those childhood days are long gone, however, and she shakes her head to clear the memories.

  All too soon, the car comes to a crunching halt on the gravel outside the house. Dora sits for a moment, listening to the gentle tick of the engine as it settles in its resting place. She stays where she is. The knot in her gut has grown to the size of a bowling ball. Ignoring it she reaches across for her mobile phone and punches out a quick text to Dan. Made it! x. She presses send and turns the phone over and over in her hand, turning her gaze towards the arched stone entrance. All she has to do is get out of the car, walk across the gravel driveway and knock upon the worn oak door, but now that she’s here, those few final feet seem insurmountable, like a sheer and slippery rock face she must somehow clamber over. She shudders at the thought.

  It’s not too late to turn back. She could turn the car around and drive away before Helen has even realised she’s arrived. She could be home before it’s dark, cradled in the familiar bustle of London and in the comfort of Dan’s arms. Her life isn’t so bad. On paper she is a success – a flourishing career, a dilapidated home, a loving boyfriend – her life in London is something to be proud of, to be envied, even. If she can just keep skating across the surface, if she can just avoid those jagged cracks that have started to appear, and the terrible feeling that she is about to fall into the abyss below, if she can just bury the nightmares and quell the panic attacks she knows she will be fine. Why dredge through the murky waters of the past? What does she really hope to achieve? She doesn’t need to do this. She’s been mad to come. The past is the past; it should remain buried.

  As she plans her escape, Dora feels the beat of her heart slow. She reaches for the keys in the ignition, but as her fingers brush the cold metal her mobile lets off a shrill bleep. She glances down: it’s a text from Dan. Be brave! x

  She swallows.

  Dan.

  The baby.

  Suddenly it is clear: there is no retreat. There is life growing inside her. She remembers Dan sitting opposite her, only a week ago, holding out the antenatal vitamins on the palm of his hand with hope and expectation burning in his eyes. It is enough to make thoughts of her hasty flight back down the motorway disappear. She can’t run away now; she must confront whatever waits for her inside. She owes it to Dan, and to their future, whatever it might hold.

>   With a deep breath and trembling hands, Dora removes the keys from the ignition and opens the car door. ‘Time to face the past,’ she whispers, and steps up to the entrance to the house.

  CASSIE

  Fifteen Years Earlier

  Cassie stood at the edge of the breakers and looked out towards the horizon. The sea stretched before her, peculiarly flat, like a sheet of metal pressed smooth by the heavy grey sky. Only a thin shard of winter sun pierced the cloud, illuminating a strip of water directly in front of her so that it shone like a mirror. It was this patch of silver water that Cassie focused on. She was skimming pebbles, flicking each one artfully beyond the messy surf and watching them skip and bounce across the shimmering surface until they lost momentum and sank from sight. Her best was six bounces. She bent down to pick up another stone, rubbed at its cold, wet surface with her fingers, before turning to skim it out across the water. She held her breath as it bounced – bounced – bounced and then fell below the waves.

  ‘Not bad,’ said her father, crunching his way across the beach towards her.

  Cassie shrugged. It was a far cry from her grandfather’s record of nine.

  ‘It’s getting cold.’ Richard shivered and pulled his coat collar tighter around his neck. ‘We should head back to the house. Your mum and sister will think we’ve fallen in.’

  She couldn’t muster a smile. Instead, Cassie flung her last stone out towards the horizon and turned towards the track leading up from the beach. She could just make out the winking lights of Clifftops high up above them.

  ‘Are you OK, Cass?’ Richard asked, putting one arm around her shoulders as they walked unevenly across the pebbles. ‘It’s been quite a day. You know, it’s perfectly normal to feel sad . . . or angry . . . or both. Grief can be pretty bewildering.’

  Cassie gave a little nod. She didn’t really know how she felt. Her grandparents had only been dead a matter of days and their bodies lowered into their earthy tombs just a few hours ago. It still didn’t feel quite real.

  ‘I’m OK.’ She paused, thinking for a moment. ‘How about you, Dad? Are you OK?’

  He seemed startled by the question. ‘Yes, love, I’m OK,’ he said a little sadly, and reached for her hand. ‘It just seems like such a waste, doesn’t it? One minute they’re here, and then the next, they’re gone. It’s hard to take in.’

  Cassie nodded and pretended she couldn’t see the tears glistening in his eyes. The sight of them made the hard-to-swallow ache return to the back of her throat, like a cold marble sticking somewhere around her tonsils.

  ‘They would have liked the service today though,’ Richard added.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Cassie. He was right. Daphne would have been thrilled with the standing-room-only turnout at the local church, and Alfred would have approved of the sombre hymns and the Tennyson poem Richard had read in a brave, unfaltering voice. The funeral had been long, slow and serious and Cassie personally would have preferred to remember her grandfather digging in the flower beds at Clifftops and her grandmother bustling around the kitchen than the image she now had stuck in her head of two dark wooden coffins being lowered side by side into the cold, damp earth. The sound of the first clods of earth striking the wooden boxes had made her feel sick. But at least she had been there. She had been part of the serious, adult world of loss and grief. Just for once they hadn’t treated her like a little kid.

  ‘Do you believe in Heaven?’ she asked suddenly, concentrating on the steady stomp of her feet across the beach rather than meeting her father’s gaze.

  It was a question she’d been preoccupied with ever since that midnight phone call had woken them a week ago with the news that her grandparents were dead, killed in a car accident on an icy country lane as they’d returned from a show in Bridport.

  Cassie had tiptoed out onto the landing, curious. She’d peered between the banisters and seen her father, far below, standing in the hallway cradling the phone in the crook of his neck. Next to him, on the bottom step, sat her mother, her long silk nightdress pooling like water around her feet. Even though she couldn’t hear what was being said at the other end of the telephone, everything about her father’s appearance told her it was serious. He reminded her of one of Dora’s puppets, when the strings got all tangled and the tension left its limbs. He looked broken.

  He had hung up and Cassie watched as Helen had patted and shushed him until, eventually, Richard straightened his shoulders and wiped his eyes on a sleeve. Then he’d turned to look at his wife, for once seemingly unsure.

  ‘What do you suppose happens now?’

  Cassie hadn’t waited to hear her mother’s answer. The sight of her father’s tears had been enough to tell her she shouldn’t be spying. Instead she’d stood and tiptoed back to her room, knowing full well that whatever did come next, it wouldn’t be good.

  What had followed had been a week’s worth of high emotion, tension and grief, her parents oscillating wildly between affectionate embraces and ferocious arguments. Things were particularly heated when it came to the funeral. Richard had worried it was inappropriate for Cassie and Dora to attend; he worried it would be too much for them, too distressing. It was Helen, however, who had insisted. ‘We can’t shield them from real life for ever, Richard,’ she had argued. ‘They’re not babies any more.’ And Cassie had been secretly pleased. She didn’t want to be protected from anything and she certainly didn’t want to be excluded from the most serious thing that had ever happened to their family. She wanted to be treated like the grown-up she nearly was. After all, she was almost thirteen.

  ‘I . . . I’m not sure,’ stammered Richard, his words pulling her back to the present and the windswept beach. ‘That’s a pretty big question, Cassie. There are lots of different theories about life and death, and what comes after.’

  Cassie regarded him with surprise. Usually he could answer any question she threw at him. It was disconcerting to see him so uncertain.

  They reached the stile at the far end of the beach. Richard clambered over and then held out a hand to Cassie before they both began to climb the walking track leading up towards the house. It was hard going and their breath fogged in the cold winter air.

  ‘But what do you believe?’ she asked, glancing up at her father.

  ‘Do you know, I’m not really sure. I suppose I’d like to think that there is something after this life. I don’t know if I like the idea of reincarnation, though. What if I came back as a pig?’

  ‘Or a rat?’ she offered.

  ‘Or a slug?’

  Cassie giggled.

  ‘Heaven seems like a pretty sensible idea,’ said Richard eventually. ‘I’d like to think of Mum and Dad up there somewhere, watching over us. I think that’s what I believe in.’

  ‘So you believe in God?’

  Richard paused. ‘Yes, I suppose I do.’ They walked for a moment more. ‘What about you, Cassie, do you believe in God?’

  Cassie shrugged and sucked on a strand of hair. She hadn’t really thought about it before. She sang those boring hymns at school and joined in with the prayer at the end of each assembly, but that was only because the teachers made them; they got detention otherwise. It wasn’t as if she went to church, or said prayers, other than the generic please-don’t-let-me-get-caught sort of ones. And if she really thought about it, it seemed a little silly to think of some invisible, grey-haired man sitting up there in the sky watching over them all. Where was he, after all, when her grandparents drove off the road the other night? Why wasn’t he watching out for them? They were good people; she didn’t suppose either of her grandparents had done anything really bad in their lives, not like her, stealing sweets from the corner shop and teasing Charlotte Crumb on the school bus until the silly scarlet-faced girl had cried huge, snotty tears. It didn’t make any sense. Maybe people just came and went. Maybe once you were dead you just disappeared, sinking without trace, like the pebbles she had flung into the sea only moments ago.

  ‘I don’t think I
do believe in God,’ she said finally. ‘Too many bad things happen.’ She bit her lip. ‘And anyway, if there is a God, why does he stay invisible? Why doesn’t he prove he’s out there once and for all, instead of keeping us all guessing? He would solve a lot of problems if he just showed up one day and said, “Ta dah! Here I am!” ’

  Richard gave a small, sad smile. ‘It’s good to question things in life, Cassie. You’re really growing up, aren’t you?’

  Cassie nodded. She certainly didn’t feel like the same girl who had woken earlier that morning.

  Dora and Helen were seated at the kitchen table as Cassie and Richard let themselves in through the back door.

  ‘Here you are,’ said Helen. ‘I was just about to send out the search party. Did you have a nice walk?’

  ‘It was all right.’ Cassie wriggled out of her coat and boots, grateful for the warmth radiating from the Aga. She held her frozen hands out towards the stove, rubbing them briskly before shuffling off towards the hall.

  ‘Not so fast, young lady,’ called Helen. ‘Your father and I would like to talk to you.’ Helen indicated an empty chair at the table and Cassie reluctantly plonked herself into it. Richard came and sat beside her. He suddenly looked nervous.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Dora. She looked from her mother to her father and then at Cassie. Cassie shrugged her shoulders; she had no idea.