by Liz Flanagan
I swam on my back, looking up. There was a plane slicing through the blue, leaving a vapour trail. A bird poured out its heart in tumbling notes, and sheep bleated on the high moor. I floated, letting my hair curl out around me.
Surely this was almost happy? Wasn’t it enough? It had been a very long time since happy, but surely this was close? I’d kept my promise. This was Eden’s summer. I’d been there for her. She would survive: today was proof.
I drifted, thinking. Weren’t we due some good luck? I was finally painting again. I was training for a long race. Sure, it would be school again next month, but I wasn’t looking too closely at that, even as it sped nearer. Maybe things were finally back to normal, whatever that was. But I still felt there was a cloud over my happiness. Not full sunshine. What was missing? What did I expect? Maybe that’s how it was now. Maybe that was the best I could hope for.
With my ears under the water I let the bass churn of the waterfall banish every other thought. When I got too cold, I clambered out, nicking my shin on a ledge of rock, teeth chattering. I exaggerated it, giving them warning I was getting near, ‘Brr, freezing!’ I rubbed myself warm again, hopping on the spot, and finally went over to the rug.
They were sitting now. I’d heard the phrase ‘joined at the hip’, but this was the first time I’d seen it. They were wedged so tightly together it seemed as though they’d grown into a new, combined creature. He had his arm around her tightly and she seemed smaller, wedged into his armpit. She had been crying – the only sign was a slight redness to her eyes, and their blue seemed greener.
Eden, crying?
‘You OK?’ I tried not to mind she was crying on Liam, not me. I had only seen tears once after Iona died, and that had not been good. But if she was crying now, maybe she was getting better, letting stuff out.
‘Crying on Liam Caffrey’s shoulder, who’d have thought it?’ Her smile was wide and wobbly.
He kissed the top of her head so gently. ‘You’re OK, Eden. You’re gonna be OK.’ But when he looked at me I saw something less certain in his eyes.
Chapter Twenty-One
3.30 p.m.
What a difference a month makes.
I hurry after Liam, down the narrow path. Ferns and nettles lean in, hiding the ground, and I slip and curse, getting stung. Everything turns dark. The clouds are thicker now, gathering close and low. I can’t even see Liam.
In the field to my right there’s a farmer on a quad bike, waving and yelling something. She turns the engine off and shouts, ‘And take your bloody rubbish with you this time!’
I flee from her fury, but when I get close to the waterfall I see what she means. The green field and mossy banks are strewn with crushed beer cans, chocolate wrappers and disposable barbecues. Scraps of plastic are tangled in the brambles.
I stare down at the pool, and spot a pale thing, turning slowly in the thundering white water.
My heart flips right over like a pancake in my chest.
It’s not a body.
It’s a plastic bag.
It’s not Eden’s top.
It’s not Eden.
I stand there, scanning the river, checking each bank, till I’m sure.
It can’t be Eden. My mind will not accept the possibility that Eden could be dead, now or ever. Stopped. The end. Nothing. No. My best friend is too alive. Too everything. She can’t just disappear. What happens to all her Eden-ness? What the hell happens to me, without her?
I stare into the leafy shadows, looking for a ghost.
‘Eden? Have you gone? Don’t leave me. I need you.’ I whisper it and my words are whipped into the turbulent air above the falls. I imagine my prayer rushing off downstream, past fields and through the woods and into town, under bridges, past the school and the railway … I pray it will reach Eden, wherever she is.
When I can move again, I stub my toe on something hard. There’s a metal plaque dug into the ground, etched with dark letters. It jogs a memory loose, one I’d forgotten.
It was years back, our Year Seven English project. We were excited to be out of school, the whole class clustered on this bank, shuffling close. Some of the lads were mucking about, swinging on branches and pretending to fall in.
‘Pass the photo round, class. Come on: time to focus!’ Barwell yelled at us to simmer down.
I peered at the photo. Black and white, it showed six young men lounging right here, with these bilberry bushes, solemn-faced in Sunday best, as real and as ordinary as me, just before they went off and got killed in a war.
‘Right, listen up,’ Barwell said. ‘You know the plan. We’ll read the Ted Hughes poem now: you each have your line.’
It worked too. It was different reading it out here, with the page ruffled by the breeze. As I read my little section, I looked at the place it described. Everyone shut up, to hear their mates and to do their line:
… I know
That bilberried bank, that thick tree, that black wall,
Which are there yet and not changed. From where these sit
You hear the water of seven streams fall
To the roarer in the bottom, and through all
The leafy valley a rumouring of air go.
Pictured here, their expressions listen yet,
And still that valley has not changed its sound
Though their faces are four decades under the ground.
Eden got that last bit, the heart of it. The next lines were harder, describing the war and the deaths of those young men, the same lads in the photo, in their smart suits and polished shoes and those daft straw hats with ribbons around. And we knew, cos we’d looked at it, how each lad was different, but all were full of life and swagger as they sat there.
Here. Where we stood.
After the poem, we were quiet. The waterfall sounded very loud. You could hear the wind in the trees.
‘Well done,’ Barwell told us. ‘Now your words, please. What’s he saying, our Ted?’
Charlotte put her hand up. It looked strange – with the sparkling river, not a classroom, behind her. ‘It’s right here. I mean, he’s got it right, this exact spot with the trees and the water and stuff.’
Billy talked over her, not waiting for permission, ‘Nah, it’s about the soldiers more than anything, in’t it, sir? The ones in the picture, right before they got killed.’
Someone chipped in with explosive sound effects but Billy closed them down. ‘Shut up, idiot.’
Eden spoke next, her voice high and clear, ‘And it’s about how you can’t imagine being dead, when you’re right here, so alive. Those soldiers … they were as alive as we are now. But now they’re all gone. And the poet’s gone.’
Barwell was about to step in, but she wasn’t finished.
‘And we’ll all be dead one day too. And you just can’t get your head around it. That’s what he’s saying, isn’t he, sir?’
‘Exactly. Merit for that, Eden Holby,’ Barwell said softly. And we all stood there, letting it sink in, listening to the sound of the water flowing endlessly downhill.
‘She’s not here.’ Liam speaks from behind me and I nearly slip off the path into the pool.
‘Make me jump, why don’t you?’ I snap at him.
‘I thought you’d want to know.’ He stares at me expressionlessly. ‘I checked up and downriver. Clear.’
‘OK,’ I sigh, telling myself that this negative can still be a positive. We can tick something off our list. We’re one step closer to finding her. ‘So where do we go from here?’ I think aloud. ‘I guess we might as well use our position, do a sweep downstream.’ I know these hills well from all the different routes our running coach sets us. ‘If we do this whole valley, duck down into the crags and then we can go over the hill to the poet’s house. That’s where we went on residential.’
‘So?’ Liam’s staring past me, up the path we came down, like he’s checking no one is coming.
A shiver goes through me. For the first time, I wonder if he planned it t
his way. This was his idea. Did he bring me out here on my own for a reason? He was being strange about Eden’s diary too. Had she written something that would incriminate him?
I make my voice brisk and practical to sound stronger than I feel. ‘Stuff happened there. It’s worth a try.’
‘OK.’
‘Got any better ideas?’ I challenge him, keeping on with the brave face.
He shakes his head.
‘Well, that’s my plan anyway.’ I get a different feeling around him all of a sudden. It’s like a change in the weather. A cloud over the sun. We’re not a good team right now. Instead, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I react like a spooked horse, shying away from him.
‘Why don’t we split up?’ I call out, moving away, ‘We’ll cover more ground that way.’ I put more distance between us. ‘You choose a different route. Take another path, yeah?’ I walk over the little stone bridge. The water slides underneath me, smooth, deep and treacly brown, rushing to the falls.
Liam stands on the other bank, watching me. His face is in deep shadow and I can’t see his expression.
I turn and go up the rugged tussocky path on the far side of the valley. My heart is beating fast now, from the exertion and something else. I glance over my shoulder.
Liam moves fast too, throwing himself at the hill to catch me.
It’s fine, I can outrun him over distance. All I need is a head start. So I push myself, stumbling on the dry churned-up turf.
Behind me, Liam speeds up.
Chapter Twenty-Two
3.42 p.m.
‘Jess, wait!’
I don’t wait. I keep my head down and lengthen my stride. I reach the top of the slope and fling myself down the main path. That’s when I trip and go flying. I land hard in the sun-dried dirt.
‘Didn’t you hear me, Jess? I said, wait!’ Liam’s there. He puts one hand under my elbow and starts helping me up.
‘What are you doing?’ I shake him off with more force than it needs. His touch is toxic today. It burns me. My palms are on fire too, scraped white skin. Blood takes a moment longer to seep through. My legs are trembling from the adrenalin surge.
‘Me?’ He looks angry. ‘You’re the one who started sprinting off like a frightened rabbit!’
‘Look, we haven’t got time to stand here bickering. We need to cover some distance. We need to search properly.’ I dust myself off – there’s little bullets of dried sheep poo clinging to my leggings – and turn away, ready to run again. ‘We’re wasting time!’
‘Oh, and that’s my fault?’ Liam’s standing in an old gateway between dry stone walls, only there’s no gate, just rusty metal hinges holding thin air. Behind him the dusty track slopes off into the distance, to where hills curve in a dark wooded V with paler green horizon behind.
I don’t answer. I don’t want to be with him any more. I can’t think straight near him. He pulls my thoughts off course, like a magnet: attracting, repelling.
‘You think that, don’t you?’ He takes my silence for an answer. ‘You’re blaming me, just like the others!’ The sun’s in his eyes, and his face is all scrunched up.
A switch flicks inside me, and I lose it with him. ‘Well, you saw her last; you tell me! Something must’ve happened!’
We’re facing off against each other now.
‘Yeah, Sherlock,’ he snaps back. ‘Something happened – where’ve you been all summer? And you know full well, with that girl, anything could happen. You know what Eden’s like. Up and down like a flippin’ yo-yo. She’s not exactly stable, your mate.’
‘Oh, so she’s just my mate now, is she? See how quick you want rid of her.’ And I hate him suddenly for being able to shrug her off like that. He’s known her ten minutes compared to me. She’s my best friend, for life. However long that is. ‘Don’t you dare talk about Eden like that!’ I’m shouting in his face, so close I see a fleck of my spit land on his cheek.
‘Oh, it starts here, does it? Just cos she’s missing, she’s perfect suddenly? You and me know that’s so not true.’
‘Shut your mouth!’ I shriek at him.
‘And if she’s dead, let’s make her a saint, like they did with her psycho sister?’
I slap him.
He grabs my hand and hoists me up towards him, hissing in my face. ‘These your true colours, Jess Mayfield?’ His mouth twists in a sour smirk. ‘What? So violence is only wrong when it’s directed against you? When you get to play the little victim?’
I gasp and try to struggle away.
‘But you get to lash out any time you like?’
My heart’s hammering. The white sky spins above us. Liam’s face looms into mine, like a nightmare version of last Saturday night. His blue eyes narrow, sparking pain.
‘What if I’d done that to you, and you’d run to the police? What do you think, Jess? You think I’d get sympathy? You girls! All your banging on about fair this, equal that. You’ve got no clue. Fair works both ways and you’re not playing fair.’
I’m lost. My vision’s breaking up in a snowstorm of silver dots. His words reach me distantly through the sea of panic.
‘I don’t do violence – not before Clarkson, and never again. But you do, apparently. Good job I’ve found out now, before I got in any deeper. I thought you were the sane one, Jess.’
He throws my hand away and I fall back against the grass at the edge of the track. I rub my wrist, hot and sore where he held it, and listen to his footsteps pounding away into the distance.
The worst thing is, he’s right about Eden, and it looks like he’s right about me too.
Chapter Twenty-Three
4.16 p.m.
I jog down the valley on the same path as Liam took, past the quiet National Trust car park. I’ve wiped my grazes on my tunic. Maybe that’s why I get weird looks from the weekday dog walkers. I’m trying not to think about what Liam said. I tell myself I’m on autopilot, searching as I fly.
I get to the gateway of the National Trust estate. There’s a four-by-four police car parked where the ice-cream van usually is, two officers in high-vis jackets waiting by the roadside. They wave down a passing car, and a young male officer leans in to talk to the driver.
I make myself move, on feet that feel like stone. Closer, closer, I strain to hear his words.
‘Excuse me, sir, I wonder if … missing teenager … Fifteen years old, blonde … last seen …’ He shows the man a photo.
‘Did you notice … unusual … last night … this morning?’
The driver’s a bald man, middle-aged, in a tweed jacket, with two black spaniels filling the passenger seat. ‘No. Not seen nothing.’ He presses a button to close the window and drives away before the questions are done.
‘Thank you for your time, sir,’ the officer finishes sarcastically as the car accelerates around the corner away from him.
Is that how little Eden matters, if you don’t know her? Is she an inconvenience? A delay in your routine, like a traffic jam? Or is he escaping because he does know something? Blink once: he’s a nutter, he’s got Eden tied up in his barn. Blink twice: he’s an ordinary bloke, in a hurry to get home.
‘Yes?’ The young policeman sees me approaching. I don’t get politeness, just the tail end of his frustration.
‘What is it? Have you heard anything? I’m her friend. I talked to the police this morning. Your colleagues …’ I manage to name one of the women I spoke to.
‘Nothing to worry about, just following up leads,’ he says dismissively.
‘Leads? What do you mean, leads? Has someone seen her?’ Hope flutters its wings in my ribcage.
The young police officer looks down at me. His eyes are light brown. I can see a nick in the black stubble on his cheek where he cut himself shaving. Not much older than me, he treats me like a kid. ‘We’re gathering information as part of the wider investigation.’ There he goes with the official words, words like locked gates that don’t let me in.
‘Yeah, but h
ave you heard anything?’ My voice is shrill.
He turns his back as another car approaches.
‘Hey! I’m talking to you. What leads?’
His female colleague pats my arm. ‘Listen, love, I know it’s hard, but you have to leave us to do our job. We’re doing all we can.’
I spin and face her. She’s got a more open face: warm brown skin, laughter lines around eyes that actually see me. She says, ‘So, you’re her friend? Did you have anything new to tell us?’
I shake my head and look at my dusty trainers.
‘Shouldn’t you be getting back home then? Do you want me to ring someone for you?’
Another headshake, and I lie, ‘It’s OK, it’s just over there.’ I wave my hand vaguely towards the southern hillside, where a few cottages huddle on the far side of the river.
‘All right, love. Keep an eye on our social media, local radio and TV. You’ll hear when we find her. Take care till then, OK?’ Her brow is creased with worry.
I walk away with my shoulders back and my head high, trying to look purposeful. I feel her watching me, but I don’t look round.
When I know the police officers can’t see me any more, I break into a jog, pacing myself. I don’t know how many miles of this marathon are left. Dodging rocks and roots, I go up the hill, through the woods and over into the next valley, down the steep lane to the writers’ centre where we came on the residential. The sun comes out again: heavy amber bars, slanting through the trees. Huge beeches, like giants guarding the entrance gates to the poet’s house. Oh, the stuff they’ve seen: over hundreds of years, in all weathers.
‘Have you seen Eden? Where did she go?’ I ask the trees, as I slip past. I know I shouldn’t be here. The staff will be busy with another group. It’s someone else’s home this week, not mine. But I can’t help feeling – because of what happened here – a little bit of it will always belong to me.
After Iona’s funeral, I didn’t see Eden for weeks. Radio silence. I wondered what was happening up at their house, the three of them where there had been four. A missing limb.
