by Emily Elgar
“I believe you.”
She smiles a brief flash of relief and gratitude before she asks again, “So, will you help me?”
“How?”
“It’s simple, Cara. The twins will be coming back to the caravan soon. They wouldn’t risk leaving me alone for too long. If I don’t get away they’ll kill me. I’m dangerous to them now because I know what Tony did to her and they won’t trust me now I’ve tried to get away. You can help me by letting me go. Right now. Let me have a chance at a normal life.”
“Gr—Zoe, please don’t ask me that. Let me call the police. They’ll protect you, I promise. You haven’t done anything wrong, they’ll see that. You can’t get away from the twins on your own. Everyone will know what she did to you, what Tony did to her. No one will blame you, everyone will want to help you.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, Grace shakes her head.
“I’ve spent my whole life being pitied and feeling different. I don’t want that again. I just want a normal life, Cara. If I stay here I’ll always be the girl this happened to. I’ll never escape my past, I’ll never escape her.”
Suddenly I realize how little she knows of the world. She thinks she can just escape, after everything that’s happened, leave everything behind and start a new life.
“I just want a chance to live my life the way I choose. That’s all. That’s all I want.” She makes it sound so simple, so reasonable.
She moves towards me, takes my hand in her own. Her skin is cold and the realness of her flesh almost makes me shout out. My instinct is to pull my hand away from this stranger but I don’t, because I need this connection to her, need to feel the softness of her, the pulse of her life in my hands. She squeezes my hand. My skin warms where we touch.
“Please, Cara, let me know what it’s like to be free.”
As the light comes back around again, I see tears have been rolling down her face and I see the sweet girl she once was, but I see so much more in her as well. She’s books and books of unwritten diaries, she’s undiscovered even to herself.
Suddenly, I hear raised voices. They sound like they’re coming from up on the cliff. Grace has heard them too; she’s turned towards the cliff, her eyes hard as she focuses on the sounds. She drops my hand like our touch is burning her. I can’t make out the words, but the voices are just loud enough for me to recognize him. Jon. His is the loudest voice; he sounds panicked. I don’t recognize the others but I’m sure it’s the twins. I reach out for Grace but she’s moved away from me.
“Just let me go, Cara, please,” she says, moving deeper into the shadows as though she too wants to be taken by the place that took her brother. I realize she’s giving me one more chance, one more chance to do what I never could—to help her, to really help her. And then I hear the unmistakable sound of rocks falling.
24
Jon
There’s laughter as I start to run. Robbie wants me to know we’ve switched positions, that he’s just behind me now, on higher ground. The light from the lighthouse passes over me again and again and again. It seems to know exactly where I’m going, following me. I don’t care about making noise or drawing attention anymore. Now the darkness is safer than the light. I start to run down the hill. Robbie’s laughter turns into a whoop, he’s just steps behind me. Tony is close by too, although I don’t know where exactly. The light swings round, I feel like an animal perfectly positioned in a rifle’s sights. I don’t have a plan, all I can do is run towards the sea. The brambles lash against my legs as though trying to claw me to the ground. The whooping gets louder as I run faster, faster downhill. There’s a rush as one of them comes close behind me, so close I hear his legs pumping through the undergrowth, his breath rhythmic, so much calmer than my own. It’s Robbie, and he makes a high-pitched chattering sound. He’s laughing at me, teasing me like an animal trapped and running desperate circles in a cage. My heart is a drum in my chest but my legs are elastic, they stretch onwards towards the sea. My right foot catches on a snare of bramble, twisting my ankle. I shout out as it sends me forward, but manage to catch myself in midair. I don’t fall, but it sets off a fresh round of laughter from Robbie. I keep running. In every wave of light from the lighthouse I see the edge of the cliff getting closer. Tony runs alongside his brother now. I wish he’d do something to stop Robbie, but his loyalty is with him, not with me. I have the feeling they aren’t even trying, they don’t need to, they know there’s nowhere I can go. I limp on, like a mouse half mauled to death by a cat. I know it’s pointless, but the instinct to keep moving is too strong. One on the left, one on the right, I can only keep going forward, flying down the hill until suddenly my feet feel lighter because, without warning, the brambles have disappeared, there’s nothing biting at my ankles with tiny razor teeth. I’m on the grass. The light glides round. I’m standing on the grassy clearing I passed just a few minutes earlier. I’m closer to the edge than I thought. My adrenaline and fear want me to keep running but I know if I do I’ll run off the edge. There will be rocks below, hard and cold, waiting for every soft part of my body. Those rocks will kill me for sure. I force my legs to stop. I’m so close to the edge the beach is directly below. In the next lick of light I see the twins come towards me. They’re panting, Robbie enjoying the end of his game, Tony a few paces behind. Black again. They disappear.
“Who the fuck are you?” Robbie, left or right, I don’t know.
“I, I, I . . .” I stammer, making him laugh again. The light moves round. They’re getting closer, creeping slowly like predators, keeping to the longer grass. They’re still a few feet away, eyes fixed on me.
“Perhaps now is the time you tell me why you’ve been following me, Mr. Jon?” He knows my name. I remember Mandy from the haulage company called me Mr. Jon just a few hours ago. She must have told him I was looking for him, that she sent me to the pub, and roused his suspicion. He saw me just before he left the pub, knew I’d been watching him.
The black, when it comes again, feels darker because of the brief light.
“I thought I’d lost you on the path on the way up. But you were hiding, waiting for us, weren’t you?”
“Rob, you don’t have to—”
“Shut up, Tone.”
I have to try to reason with them. They need to believe I can help them. I feel every cell of my body, light with fear. I see Jakey waiting for me outside New Barn Cottage. I could lie, pretend I didn’t hear them talking outside the caravan, pretend I don’t know that Grace has something over Tony, that he’s scared of her, that I don’t think Tony’s capable of murder. But it would serve no purpose. I have to let them know I heard everything, I have to take the risk. My breath is still ragged from the running, forcing me to talk in rapid, short bursts.
“I heard you talking. Tony, I heard what you said: the lies Grace would tell the police, that if she did, you’d go back to prison. I know she’s involved with her mum’s murder. If you tell me the truth, maybe I can help.”
I hear one of them shuffle and Tony asks, “How can you help?”
I swallow. At last my breath is becoming more regular.
“I can act as a witness. I can tell the police everything I heard, tell them Grace was blackmailing you. I’m a journalist, I’ll help you prove your story. But you have to tell me the truth about what happened to Meg and Grace. That’s the only way.”
“You must think we’re fucking idiots.” Robbie’s voice is a growl out of the darkness before the light flashes round again. Tony has moved closer to his brother, he looks like he’s ready to hold him back if he needs to. Robbie’s eyes are fixed on me; his cheeks are red and his lips wet. I’m surprised he hasn’t moved forward, closer to me.
“You think we’re going to believe a fucking journalist? You’ve been buzzing around like a fly on shit. You’re not here to help Grace, you’re not here to help my brother—”
“He might be serious, Rob,” but Tony’s drowned out by the sound of rubble falling, hitting the roc
ks below, a cruel, strangely hollow sound.
That’s when I realize why they won’t come any closer. They don’t need to. The ground starts to crumble beneath my feet; my stomach rises to my throat. I think I hear Robbie laugh as I look at Tony, his face frozen in horror. More rocks fall, in a trickle this time. I close my eyes, hear Tony call out something that isn’t even a word, but it’s too late, there’s nothing he can do, nothing anyone can do. I’m glad my eyes are closed, it makes it easier to see Jakey clearly; smiling, healthy, and happy as the earth falls away beneath me.
25
Cara
Grace starts moving away from me. I try to go after her.
“Grace, no, please don’t—” but I stop talking because from across the beach I hear another steady trickle of stones falling before they smash hard against the sharp rocks below. It’s the sound I was always taught to fear as a child. A scream—Jon—comes just seconds later, followed by more falling stones. I cry out. Time slows down, seems to move in frames as I run a few paces towards where I think he fell before my head catches up and I realize I’m leaving Grace, letting her get away. I stop. Everything is quiet, except for the sound of the sea sighing with its endless work, moving tiny stones back and forth, and the blood pounding in my ears. I can’t hear either Jon or Grace anymore. Jon might be dead. If he is, I should stay with Grace and call Upton. That’s the best way I can help her. She might not think she needs us, but she does. But what if Jon’s not dead, just badly injured, dying? I can’t help them both. I’m stuck, the scales perfectly balanced, and with every ragged breath I take I know Grace is getting away and Jon’s life could be fading. I look towards where Jon fell and then I look back to where I was talking to Grace. The scales tip and I start to run up the beach, towards the path and the foot of the cliff. Even though there’s a risk of landslide and falling rocks hitting me it feels safer here, my body pressed against the side of the cliff where they won’t be able to see me. I hear the twins, still up on the cliff above as the wind catches their voices. I’m too far away to make out the words but I’m close enough to hear that one of them is upset. The other is trying to calm his brother, keep him from getting too close to the edge, to the place where Jon fell. I hear the word “accident.” I force myself to wait. There’s no sound or movement from the rocks where he fell, no sign whether Jon survived the fall. The voices above have died but I force myself to stay, my cheek pressed up against the chalky cold foot of the cliff. I wait for my breath to slow enough for me to breathe in time with the waves. Even though I can’t hear them, the twins could still be up there and I know they’d kill me if they found me. Suddenly a tiny light—a flashlight—on the headland catches my eye. It’s moving, like someone is running. My breath catches with relief as I realize they’re not coming down the path, they’re heading back towards town. They must think that’s where Grace will be heading. It makes sense. It’s where most people would go. But Grace isn’t most people.
My voice is small as I call quietly into the darkness.
“Jon?”
The silence is so loud the emptiness is almost like a reply.
“Jon?”
The beam from the lighthouse is approaching. I’m terrified of what it might reveal, terrified of it showing me Jon bloodied and unmoving, his eyes open, forever gripped by the shock of his death. The light tracks across sharp black rocks, their surfaces pockmarked with barnacles and drenched in seaweed. I see the sand around him first, splattered red with blood from where he fell. The human bulk of him in this hard place makes me cry out, a sound I haven’t heard before, and I run towards him. I kneel in the wet sand but I can’t touch him. Not yet. He’s as still as the hard rocks underneath him. One of his legs is bent at the knee, kicking up towards his hip at the front, the wrong way. His arms look like they’ve been stretched away from his body and then flung back; they sag around him, making his clothes look empty. I can’t see where the blood is coming from. His eyes are closed, thank God, but his face is strangely empty, as though he’s already left his body. My hand shakes as I stroke it against the cold skin on the back of his hand.
“Jon,” I whisper again and again, as though trying to call him back from wherever he’s gone. My tears fall and wet his face. Without warning his cheek twitches as one of my tears splashes just below his eye. But it’s dark so I can’t be sure. Another falls and again he seems to wince, as though my tear is adding to his pain. He makes a low gargling sound, like the breath itself is trying to decide whether it should stay with him or move on. Blood trickles from the side of his mouth as the gargle becomes a word.
“Grace,” he says. His eyelids ripple, he tries to cough against the blood in his mouth. “It was Grace.”
I wipe my own tears from his face, say his name again, but Jon doesn’t respond.
26
Jon
Six months later
The trees tracing the edge of the football pitch glow orange in the winter sun and the ref’s whistle blows as Ruth helps me out of the car.
“It’s started!” I say, wanting her to hurry, but she’s fussing with my laces. I wish she wouldn’t. It’s not like I notice whether they’re done up or not. Ruth senses my impatience.
“Don’t rush me!” she says. Without looking up she taps my knee and I smile down at her blond head. It’s good, this gentle teasing, it feels like a milestone. Ruth was the first person I saw when I came out of my coma; she barely left my side for two weeks. Whenever I tried to talk about us, apologize for being a twat, she’d kiss my forehead and tell me to shush.
It’s been raining a lot recently. The parking lot and sports field are slick with mud. I feel Ruth’s arms strain behind my chair. I try to help by pushing my wheels forward but it’s not very effective. Mud sprays behind us, Ruth sounds out of breath, and we’ve barely moved. I picture Jakey pausing in his game to scan the people watching on the sidelines, trying to find our faces, masking his disappointment so his teammates don’t tease him later.
Ruth groans, but my chair doesn’t move an inch. This is pointless.
“Shit. Look, you go on, Ruth, we’re already late, shout extra loud for me. I can get myself back to the car,” I say, leaning down hard on my right wheel to turn around.
“No, no, come on, I can get you there, I just need to . . .” She pushes the sleeves of her jacket up, tries to get purchase on the slippery ground. I move about an inch. “Ruth, please, just stop. Look, what matters is that one of us is there, OK? You can come and find me at halftime. I’ll listen to the radio, have a snooze, I’ll be fine.”
She comes round in front of my chair. She’s frowning, her lips twisting around the words she’s stopping herself from saying. We’ve talked a few times about accepting things are going to be different, limited. I got Alex, my physical therapist, to have a quiet word with her, explain that sometimes it feels better to accept my limitations rather than constantly battle them. He told me later what her response was: “Are you sure you’ve met Jon?”
But this Saturday afternoon she listens to me. She nods, kisses my chilly cheek with her warm lips. Gives me the car keys and heads towards the shouts and calls from Jakey’s game.
I start to haul myself back to the car. Alex reckons in a couple of months I’ll be walking with a cane, but Alex is paid to be optimistic. The docs said I was lucky to keep my leg. As well as the leg, I broke three ribs, my pelvis, both arms, my cheekbone, and my collarbone. And that’s just what was broken, not counting the bits that were punctured and perforated. Perhaps it sounds trite, but almost dying saved me. I know what matters now. Listening matters, family meals matter, being there for my son matters.
“Jon, mate?”
A tall man strides in front of me. He’s wearing a blue hat with a yellow pom-pom, and inside his navy puffer I catch a glimpse of a wool sweater with a reindeer stitched on the front, even though it’s only December 2. He’s in his midforties, grinning like he’s got the funniest joke in the world on a loop in his head. He bends towards m
e, resting his hands on his thighs like he’s greeting a small dog. I can’t remember his name but I think I met him at the last match.
“Hi,” I say, nodding at him. He points at his chest.
“Tim,” he says. More grinning. “You heading to the game, mate?”
“Actually, I’m just going back to the car.”
“Uh-oh, St. Bethell’s losing again, are they?”
I wonder if he gets cold teeth from all that smiling.
“No, it’s just, it’s a bit muddy, with the chair, getting over there was a bit much, so I’m going to just wait in the car,” I say clumsily.
Tim looks down at me and towards the pitch and then back again to me. His smile falls for just a moment before he says, “The hell you are, mate. I’ll get you over there.”
“No, no, really, I don’t think . . .” but Tim has already disappeared behind me, grabbed the handles. He slips a bit at first, but I can feel his strength through my chair.
“We’ll be there in no time,” he says. Even though I can’t see him, I’m sure he’s grinning again. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, perhaps building up courage before he says what I knew was coming.
“I hope you don’t mind my asking, mate, but I’m curious. You were involved in the Nichols mess over the summer, weren’t you? That Grace girl, or whoever she was?” He was more eager than I thought. The wheelchair jerks through the mud, my head bouncing, jolting me in my seat. I could tell him he’s got the wrong bloke, but he knows my name, knows Jakey, he’ll know I’m lying. So I decide to say nothing. He doesn’t seem to notice or mind that I’m not keen to talk.
“What’s your theory, then, on what happened to her after she got away?”
I clench my jaw but remind myself what Alex says about being mindful about where I hold tension. With effort, I relax it. Tim leans over the back of the wheelchair so he can catch my answers.
