The Gift

by Louise Jensen

  ‘I thought she was in Spain. With Owen,’ Amanda says.

  ‘Perhaps we should call the police? If she’s in trouble?’ I say.

  ‘We don’t know she’s in trouble and we can hardly tell the police you’ve had a dream Sophie is at a caravan park that has been shut for years. They won’t take us seriously. We need to find her ourselves.’

  ‘We will,’ I say with far more confidence than I feel.

  Amanda looks at me, a worried expression on her face. ‘You must see a doctor, Jenna. You look terrible.’

  ‘I’m OK,’ I lie. I must see this through.

  ‘I can’t be responsible for you too. I’ll phone an ambulance. You can’t take any chances with Callie’s heart.’

  Before I can answer Tom bursts into the room, talking loudly on his mobile phone: ‘I know, I know. It sounds mad. But we have to at least look though. I’ll call you as soon as I know more.’

  He puts his phone into his pocket and hands Amanda her shoes. ‘Just filling Joe in,’ he explains. ‘Let’s go then.’

  I take a step but Amanda places a hand on my arm. ‘Tom, I don’t think Jenna should come, she’s sick.’

  Tom glances at me. ‘You don’t have to come.’

  ‘I want to,’ I say firmly.

  ‘She wants to,’ echoes Tom. ‘Come on, no time to waste arguing about it. Sophie is our priority.’

  In the back of Tom’s car, I press my hands against my chest. My heart beats out Sophie-Sophie-Sophie and I whisper to Callie that we’ll help her sister, but I don’t know how much longer I can hold on.

  It’s just a cold.

  Except it’s not, is it? All the lies I’ve told and, even now, I’m lying to myself.

  My phone beeps. Nathan’s name illuminates the screen: ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Going to get Sophie’, I reply. ‘I’m sorry.’

  I shudder when I think I could have killed him, and I wonder if I’ll ever be the same after this. If there’s to be an after this for me?

  Housing estates are replaced by dark, country roads and the wheels on the car spin faster and faster. We hare through the village of Woodhaven. Icy fingers of fear reach out and squeeze me as I think about the journey Callie made through here six months ago and how it ended for her.

  I’m growing weaker, and weaker.

  The weather is foul. Rain torrents from the invisible night clouds and the windscreen wipers swish-swish-swish and it’s hypnotic.

  I try and try but I just can’t keep my eyes open any more.

  66

  Up until last weekend Sophie had thought she was safe; she had gradually stopped looking over her shoulder all the time. These past few months Sophie had tried to build a new life moving from town to town, staying in hostels. She had picked up cash-in-hand work as a barmaid in pubs as putrid and soulless as the Prince of Wales.

  Sophie will never forget the nerves that had gripped her belly the first time Owen took her to his local for lunch.

  ‘Are you sure I look OK?’ she had asked, hanging back as they reached the front door. Sophie had spent longer than usual lining her eyes with thick black kohl and gluing on fake lashes, desperate to try and look older than her seventeen years. She wanted to impress Owen’s friends.

  ‘You look great, babe.’ Owen’s eyes had roamed her body and she had felt the delicious thrill of anticipation. ‘Just a tweak.’ He undid another button on her blouse and Sophie felt heat prickle her chest as she realised the black lacy bra he had bought her last week was now on show. ‘Stop worrying. You’re my girl now and I’ll take care of you. Besides I’m mates with Steve, the landlord.’ Owen had kissed her hard before linking his fingers through hers.

  They sauntered into the pub and the stale smell of beer and sweat pervaded her nostrils, eradicating the scent of hospitals that seemed to have penetrated her very being.

  ‘This is my business partner, Neil.’ Owen introduced her to a man who stared so hard at her cleavage Sophie instinctively crossed her arms, blocking his view.

  ‘Business partner?’

  In the two weeks since she had met Owen she had done most of the talking, pouring out her fears about her dad dying. Telling him how, late at night, she heard the sound of her mum’s muffled sobbing drifting through the paper-thin walls. The unpaid bills that were stacked on top of the microwave. How she’d overheard her mum on the phone telling her friend that without the income from the business they might lose their house. Where would they go? Sophie couldn’t imagine. Worry after worry had tripped off her tongue. Sophie had felt a burst of shame as she had realised she hadn’t given Owen a chance to talk. She didn’t know much about him other than the way her insides softened as his warm tongue snaked into her mouth, and how the feel of his hand running up her bare leg momentarily tugged her away from all her problems. ‘What do you do?’ Sophie asked Neil.

  ‘This and that,’ he said. ‘Drink?’ He pulled a wad of notes from his pocket and peeled off a twenty.

  Sophie hesitated. She wanted to appear sophisticated but she had been so ill after that night drinking whisky in the park the thought of alcohol made her stomach roil. ‘A Coke, please.’

  Neil raised an enquiring eyebrow.

  ‘I have to visit my dad in hospital later,’ Sophie had explained. ‘He’s really sick and I don’t want him to smell the alcohol on my breath.’ At the thought of her big, strong, dad lying in the hospital bed, his face as white as his pillow, tears sprang to her eyes and she sniffed, conscious if she cried her make-up would run in rivulets down her cheeks.

  ‘I can’t imagine how hard it must be for you.’ Neil placed his hand on hers.

  It had felt as heavy as the arm Owen had slung around her shoulders but as he looked into her eyes she had felt a sense of belonging and it didn’t seem to matter so much that Mum and Uncle Joe were always at the hospital and she was largely ignored. That Callie had Nathan to comfort her. She had friends now of her own, didn’t she? Someone to love her.

  ‘Do you want something to take the edge off?’ Neil had asked.

  ‘What sort of something?’

  ‘It will help relax you and won’t leave a smell. Your dad will never know.’

  ‘I don’t think…’

  ‘Leave her alone, she’s just a kid,’ Steve the landlord had said as he shot her an amused look and started to pour flat Coke from a bottle.

  Sophie straightened her spine. ‘I’m not, it’s just…’

  ‘It’s fine, Soph.’ Owen cupped her bottom with his hand and squeezed. ‘It’s there if you need it. You know, if your dad dies and you can’t cope. It’ll get you through the funeral at least.’

  It was as though a huge weight had slammed into Sophie’s chest. Her dad couldn’t die. He just couldn’t. But she pictured the machines, the wires, the beep-beep-beep that stayed in her head long after she had left the ward and she raised her tear-glazed eyes to Owen’s.

  ‘OK. What have you got?’

  67

  My head jerks upright, and I wipe a trail of drool from my chin. I must have nodded off. I squint into the blackness trying to work out where we are. There are no landmarks, but outside, in the darkness, the ocean roars. I crack the window open and I can taste salt on my tongue.

  ‘They’ve blocked off the lane leading to the main car park,’ Tom says, as the car slows and stops. ‘We’ll have to drive around the other side and park in the beach car park. The engine throbs as he pushes the car into first and we are moving once more.

  ‘I wonder where this leads?’ Tom swings hard left onto a track and my already pounding head bangs against the window.

  Grass grows where the road once was and, as the car lurches in and out of potholes, I grasp the door handle to steady myself. And there it is. Tom’s headlights illuminate the owl, wings spread wide, beak open in a silent screech. Owl Lodge. Newley-on-Sea.

  We’re here.

  68

  It is freezing here at night. Sophie draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms
around her shins. The seat she is sitting on smells of damp, and apricot foam pokes through holes where insects have burrowed. She remembers folding this seat out into the bed that her and Callie used to share on holiday, snuggled down in their matching pyjamas. In the morning, they would shower in the communal bathroom, standing in cool, sandy water that had pooled in the shower tray from the person before. Callie would help Sophie wash her hair, never letting the frothy bubbles sting her eyes. Callie always helped her, and Sophie feels so many shades of regret as she thinks that if Callie hadn’t helped her that night she would still be alive today.

  It had been a foul night. Rain flung itself at the windows like handfuls of tiny gravel, but inside Owen’s house they were warm and cosy, the radiators belting out heat.

  ‘Come on, baby. You know what it does to you.’ Owen offered her the rolled-up note.

  ‘I don’t do that any more. I thought you understood when we got back together? I’m staying clean.’

  ‘And I respect you for that. I really do. One last hit though. For old times’ sake?’

  Sophie hesitated. Longing for the rush. ‘This is the very last time.’ She bent over the coffee table and sniffed hard before wiping the white residue from underneath her nostrils and curling up on Owen’s lap. She kissed him deeply as euphoria flooded her body. She was just sliding her hand inside his boxers when somebody banged on the front door.

  ‘Ignore it,’ muttered Owen as she froze, and he had put his hand on hers, urging her to carry on.

  The thumping came again, louder this time.

  ‘They’ll go away.’ Owen pinched her nipple hard and she had groaned.

  The letter box rattled open. ‘I know you’re in there,’ screamed a voice. Callie’s voice, and Sophie had scrambled to her feet, straightening her top. ‘I just want to talk,’ Callie yelled.

  ‘She won’t go away until you answer,’ Sophie had said, and Owen muttered furiously as he zipped up his fly and swaggered down the hallway.

  Callie strode into the lounge, dripping hair plastered to her skull, eyes blazing.

  She grasped Sophie’s arm. ‘We’re going.’

  ‘No!’ Sophie stood firm.

  ‘She’s not going anywhere.’ Owen stood in the doorway. ‘We were in the middle of something until you rudely interrupted.’ He grabbed his crotch and smirked.

  ‘What the fuck do you see in this loser, Soph?’

  ‘I love him.’ Sophie wished Callie would give Owen a chance and get to know him properly.

  ‘This. Isn’t. Love.’ Callie slapped her palm against her forehead in despair. Her diamond engagement ring glinted in the light, and all of a sudden, Sophie was sick of her perfect sister with her perfect boyfriend and perfect life. She grabbed Callie by the shoulders and shook her hard. ‘Leave me alone. You’re always trying to ruin things for me. I don’t need you!’ The words felt hot to Sophie as they spilled out of her mouth.

  ‘You heard her.’ Owen stepped to the side and gestured to the hallway with his hand. ‘See yourself out. We’ve things to do.’ Owen’s hand moved towards the zip on his trousers, and Callie sprang at him, pushing him backwards.

  ‘You fucking, fucking bastard.’

  ‘Get off, you mad bitch.’

  Owen shoved Callie hard, and she fell. There was a sickening thump as she hit her head on the coffee table and lay motionless on the stained carpet. For a split second Sophie thought she was dead and the pain was so physical she thought she might be sick. Sobs ripped through Sophie but Callie pushed herself up and Sophie rushed to her with relief. The side of Callie’s face was red and puffy and her eye was almost shut; blood trickled from the corner of her mouth and Sophie wiped it away with her thumb.

  ‘Oh God. Callie. This was an accident. Right, Owen? You didn’t mean it, did you?’

  ‘’Course not,’ Owen said.

  ‘Soph. Please come with me.’

  Sophie swallowed hard. She couldn’t look her sister in the eye. ‘Mum and Dad are happy me and Owen are back together. Why can’t you be too?’

  ‘Mum and Dad don’t know about this shit, that’s why.’ Callie picked up a white plastic bag of powder from the table, and Owen laughed. But it was a cold, hollow laugh.

  ‘I’ll tell you a story about “this shit” shall I?’ Owen yanked Callie to her feet and she whimpered and tried to pull her arm free, but Owen wouldn’t let go.

  Sophie could see Callie’s skin indenting, could almost feel how hard he was pressing. Sophie was scared. Really scared about what might happen next and she knew she had to get Callie away from here. She picked up a bronze figurine of an intertwined couple she had bought Owen for their first-year anniversary and brought it crashing down as hard as she could on the back of his head.

  69

  The site is pitch-black. If it weren’t for the moon it would be impossible to see anything.

  ‘Where is she?’ Amanda wails. She has wound the car window down as though that might make it easier to see. It doesn’t. Tom stops the car and pulls out the key. The headlights grow dark and the engine tick-tick-ticks as it begins to cool.

  ‘We’re better off on foot,’ Tom says, and he pulls a torch out of his glove compartment and hands it to Amanda before we step out of the car.

  The roar of the ocean is deafening and cold, salt air stings my lips.

  ‘Let’s try the van we always rented.’ Tom grabs Amanda’s hand and strides forward. I lag behind, shining the torch of my mobile to light my path, but it’s hard to keep up and my feet keep sinking into the soft earth. My limbs feel like they are made of marble. I am so, so tired but adrenaline keeps me moving forward. We squeeze between a gap in the metal barriers put up in a half-hearted attempt to keep out trespassers, and ignore the ‘Warning Guard Dogs’ sign. This site has been derelict for years, looking at it, and anything worth stealing is probably long gone.

  We wend our way through the abandoned fairground. A Ferris wheel rises out of the darkness, carriages creaking in the wind.

  Crash.

  We collectively freeze. Turn. A hotdog sign hangs forlornly from one chain, banging against the side of the wooden kiosk.

  My feet crunch over the broken glass of a hundred fairy lights that once twisted around the outside of a rotting waltzer ride but now trail in the dirt.

  The fairground is only small, although I imagine it felt enormous to the small children who holidayed here. In the distance, there are rows of static caravans looming out of the shadows.

  ‘Wait.’ I hold on to the rotting wooden frame of the crazy golf hut. Splinters pierce my skin. ‘One second.’

  ‘You OK?’ Tom edges forward, desperate to get going again and I let the sea-salt air flood my lungs. Steel myself to carry on. ‘It’s not far now.’

  I can do this.

  It’s just a cold.

  70

  Light spears through the filthy plastic window and in the distance Sophie can hear the throb of an engine before it is once more dark. Silent.

  Nathan must be here.

  Thank fuck for that, Sophie thinks and she begins to stuff her things into her rucksack, and as she thrusts a shirt into the bottom of the bag her hand connects with something cold and metal. Owen’s gun. It was one of the few things she had packed when she left. Sophie had been horrified when Owen swaggered into the house one day and showed it to her.

  ‘Why have you got that?’ Sophie had shrunk away from Owen as he aimed the gun towards his reflection in the mirror and mimicked pulling the trigger.

  ‘Protection, babe. Want to hold it?’

  ‘No. I am never touching it.’ She had shuddered at the time, but now she pulls it out of her bag and the weight of it in her hand is reassuring. She won’t use it, of course, but she’ll keep it with her, just in case. Sophie takes a last look around the van where she spent so many happy childhood times with her sister. Fizzy pop and chocolate buttons. Games of Snap!

  ‘Bye, Callie,’ she whispers.

  Sophie hefts her bag onto her shou
lder, but before she’s crossed the van, the door swings open and she lets out a cry as the gun is wrenched from her hand.

  71

  All the caravans look the same to me but Tom and Amanda seem to know where they are heading as they turn left, right; stopping outside a large van.

  ‘This is the one.’ The pale-yellow beam of the torch shines on the mould clinging to the plastic windows.

  Tom pushes the door. It swings open easily.

  ‘Sophie!’ He steps inside. ‘She’s not here.’

  Disappointment sours his voice, and I am beginning to think I’ve got it wrong, I really am going mad, when Amanda rushes forward with more energy than I’ve ever seen her expel and drops to her knees. ‘Look!’

  She pulls a checked shirt out of a rucksack and waves it like a flag. ‘It’s Sophie’s. Callie bought her it for her last birthday. They went shopping together. I remember.’ She presses it to her face as though the smell will lead her to her daughter.

  ‘She was here then? Where is she now?’ says Tom.

  And then there’s a scream.

  72

  ‘Faster.’

  Sophie can’t take her eyes off the gun in his hand as they cross the old crazy golf course where her and Callie spent hours tapping golf balls into the mouths of dinosaurs and under bridges. Sophie trips and lands on something sharp that slices into her palm. Her screams are whipped away by the crashing waves.

  He yanks her upright.

  ‘Please,’ she begs holding onto his hand with both of hers, trying to prise his fingers apart. The wind forces its way inside of her mouth and she shouts to make herself heard. ‘I’m sorry. Can’t we just stop and talk about everything?’

  On the beach, her feet sink into the soft sand.

  She can’t see the ocean but the spray lands on her cheeks and she knows the tide is in.

  ‘Please.’ She’s begging now. ‘I’m scared of water.’

  ‘I know,’ he says. ‘Shhhh. We’re almost there. Hurry.’

  Sophie shivers and although it’s freezing she knows it is fear that is making her teeth rattle together like castanets.