In Her Wake

by Amanda Jennings

  You’re Tori. You’re a journalist from London. You like sweet coffee and drink beer from a can.

  ‘Hi,’ he says. He draws to a halt closer than feels comfortable and I take a step backwards. In the morning light he is even more beautiful than I remember. His tanned skin is clear and weathered and I become conscious of my pallor, my unbrushed hair, yesterday’s clothes. He rests his board on the sand and shakes his head, sending surf off him like river water from a Labrador.

  ‘So you fancy it?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Surfing.’

  ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so,’ I say, stumbling over my words. ‘It’s not … me. But one day maybe.’ I sweep the hair from my face as the wind takes it.

  ‘You should give it a go. I’m an excellent teacher.’

  I don’t know what to say in reply and focus my eyes on my buried toes.

  ‘You slept OK?’

  I have a flash of me wide awake and staring at the bedroom’s cracked ceiling, tossing and turning, aching with exhaustion but unable to sleep, as images of Henry’s body lying above a sea of blackened blood battered me. ‘Fine, thank you. Is the room free … for a few more nights?’

  ‘Sure. I’ll need to check the diary to make sure. I’ve a phone in the office; I’ll give Fi a quick call and she can check. Best to get you booked in, the room will go quickly. How many nights?’

  ‘I … don’t know. Two? Maybe three.’ I pause. ‘You need more coffee, by the way. The stuff in reception’s gone hard.’

  He laughs as I flush with heat. ‘Look, let’s phone Fi now and find out about the room. I’ve a lesson starting at eight, a group of beginners, God help me.’

  As I follow him up the beach, I am stung by guilt. David would hate me being alone with this man. He has always been jealous. Sometimes his jealousy makes him moody. It doesn’t matter how often I tell him I’m not interested in anyone else, and that men aren’t interested in me anyway, he is never convinced.

  ‘You’re young, beautiful, of course men are going to want you. I did, didn’t I?’

  I suppose the guilt could also stem from the fact that I’m lying to Greg about who I am and why I’m here. It feels wrong, in a way, to allow him to believe I’m a glamorous journalist and not, in all likelihood, the girl from his town who went missing.

  When we reach what I assume is the office he mentioned – a small hut with a bright-orange roof at the top of the beach – he unzips his wetsuit and pulls it off his arms and down to his waist to reveal a torso so toned and muscled it reminds me of a sculpture.

  ‘Give me a sec while I find the phone,’ he says. ‘God knows where it is.’ He smiles at me again. I wish he would stop; it’s unnerving now we’re together in this enclosed space.

  ‘Are you going to talk to them today?’ he asks.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The Tremaynes. The family of the kid.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say, trying to keep my voice light. ‘Yes. Probably.’

  Greg turns his back to me, and starts rummaging amongst piles of paper on the tiny desk. I gasp. On his back is an incredible tattoo. A tiger prowls across the top half of his back and shoulders. The detail is breathtaking. I have never seen one like it, not that I’ve seen many, only the Chinese symbols, doves and butterflies that decorate the ankles and wrists of some of the students who come into the library. The animal stares right at me. His mouth gapes wide in a silent roar. Its teeth shine with saliva as it clenches its claws, each one as sharp as Henry’s knife. The fur is etched into Greg’s skin in a thousand fine lines that quiver as the tiger appears to breathe. I imagine myself climbing onto the creature’s back, scrunching my fingers into its softness and laying my cheek against it, allowing it to carry me wherever it’s going.

  Greg coughs and stands up and I am back in the hut with a jolt.

  ‘I like your tattoo,’ I say, somewhat childishly.

  ‘Had it done in Indonesia. By this local guy. A proper artist,’ he says as he continues to search for his phone. ‘It hurt like a bitch.’

  His fingers continue to root around the desk, papers falling unnoticed by him from their precarious piles until he finally finds the phone at the back of an overflowing in-tray. He dials. Then mouths to me, ‘Three more nights, yeah?’

  I nod and wait while he talks to the girl back at the hostel. I imagine her surly face, kohl-rimmed eyes narrowing as she checks the diary.

  ‘Great,’ says Greg. ‘Yup, book it as taken. Cheers, Fi.’ He throws the phone back on to the desk. ‘All done.’

  ‘I’ll sort the money out sometime this afternoon if that’s OK?’

  ‘Whenever. So, I hope your interview goes well. And to warn you, when I knew her, the sister, well, she’s strange. A mate egged her door once and she lost the plot, which was quite funny. But that was years ago.’

  ‘Egged her door?’

  He grins. ‘It’s when you chuck eggs at a door for a laugh.’

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘Kids’ stuff,’ he says, as if this helps explain why someone would throw eggs at a door.

  ‘Was it Sinai Road?’

  ‘Don’t know, but maybe that rings a bell. Sinai Road is about ten minutes up the hill at the back of town. Head that way,’ he says, pointing. ‘Then ask at the Co-op. It’s near there.’

  He pushes his arms back into his wetsuit and zips it up, hiding the tiger, the palpable tension in the cramped hut lessening as he does so. ‘And if you want a drink later, give me a shout. A few of us are going to the Queen’s Head tonight.’

  I feel my face redden with heat.

  ‘It’s just a drink,’ he says with a laugh.

  He walks out of the hut and picks up his board. ‘Unless you get lucky.’ He raises his eyebrows at me then jogs back down towards the water.

  I walk back across the sand, pausing at the rock where I’d remembered the woman in the green-and-white dress. Was it Alice Tremayne? Will she recognise me when she opens the door? Will she burst into tears of joy or back away in shock?

  I start to walk, drawn not in the direction Greg pointed or back to the hostel, but across the beach towards a path that climbs up to the cliff top. At the base of the rocks, I tuck my socks into the pocket of my jeans, push my sandy feet into my trainers and start to scramble up it. The wind is strong when I reach the top and I am buffeted left and right as it billows around me. I breathe in and am immediately invigorated by the pulsing vibrancy of the wind and the sea. The kernel of belonging, the feeling – perhaps even concrete knowledge – that I’d been on the beach before mushrooms inside me. I walk onwards, away from St Ives and along the coastal path. I stride out, lift my face into the wind as the beauty of this place fills me up – the incessant sea below, the expansive sky above, the sea birds gliding on invisible thermals, so at home in the vastness of it all.

  To my left are clouds of yellow gorse and green fern that unfurl away from me in a thick carpet with wild flowers in purple, blue and pink exploding like fireworks across it. An outcrop of rock looms ahead, coarse tufts of grass at its base, its grey patched white with salt-loving lichen. I stop for a moment or two and stand facing the sea. Out on the horizon the sky is darkening. Towers of distant rain smudge it from cloud to sea. I step off the path and move towards the cliff edge, which falls away with such severity it makes my head spin.

  What would it feel like to jump?

  People do it, I think. When they are too lost to find their way back.

  Or too alone to care.

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper. ‘That too.’

  Before I found Henry Campbell I hadn’t given much thought to suicide, but since discovering his body it occupies my thoughts more often than it should. I think I understand a little better now about turmoil and devastation. About despair. And hope.

  Or the absence of it.

  I stare down at the sea and imagine launching myself from the cliff, sinking like a stone into the roiling water that muffles the sounds above it. I would shut my eyes, o
pen my mouth and breathe in deeply, sucking the silken water into my lungs. People say drowning is peaceful. I have no idea how they know, but looking down at the sea right now, it seems a far less brutal way to go than taking a knife to your wrists.

  I turn myself away from the heaving swell. I’ve been walking for hours, but I still don’t want to turn back. Each stride feels forceful and strong, and I drive myself onwards. The path eventually turns away from the open sea. It passes a sheltered cove that reaches into the land with turquoise water and gentle waves rolling over time-blackened rocks. The track grows muddier underfoot and I come to a small stone stile with a lane beyond. There are two paths to choose from, one heads over the stile and up a tarmac lane, the other continues back to the coastal path. I choose the lane and climb the stile, and walk past a white house on my right. The noise of children happily playing in the garden behind the house carries on the salted air.

  The lane snakes up a shallow hill. On one side it’s flanked by hedgerows and moorland beyond, and cows in lush fields chewing languorously on the other. I arrive in a small hamlet with a pub, a few terraced cottages and a church. The houses are immaculate, with clean, white walls and window boxes stuffed full of colourful flowers. Though cars are parked bumper to bumper either side of the narrow road, there isn’t a soul in sight. I pause at the bottom of the three granite steps that lead up to the church.

  Despite Elaine’s best efforts, I never felt much religious conviction. I’m not an atheist as such – that feels too absolute – but I certainly seem to be more sceptical than not. I like churches though. I love the architecture and the reverence they inspire, their pomp and grandeur, the still calmness they all seem to offer. So, without thinking too much, I open the wrought-iron gate at the top of the steps and follow the gravelled path through the gravestones. Some of the stones are neatly tended while others are overgrown, with sad jars of dead flowers in murky water sitting at their bases; others are so weathered by time the names of those lying rotted beneath are long since lost. The wind blows noisily through the trees and I shiver slightly as I walk through the graves.

  The door to the church is old and dark, with fleur de lis hinges. A sign crudely covered in cling film welcomes me in four different languages, and another beside it reminds me to close the door to stop the birds getting in. The door is heavy and I have to push my shoulder hard against it to open it. Inside is cool and dank with that aged smell you find in all churches, yet perhaps even more concentrated, as if the air is as old as the blocks of granite that contain it. I wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness then walk across the stone floor to a back pew. I sit and clasp my hands. It is deathly quiet, no wind, no gulls, no people. I lean my forehead against the pew in front like the old people I stared at as a bored child. I breathe deeply. Try to relax every muscle in my body. Open myself up. This would be a good time for God to find me.

  But He doesn’t come – or if He does I don’t recognise Him – and I sit back with a small sigh.

  I get up to explore the church. There’s a table with printouts on its history but I don’t pick one up because my attention is captured by an area to the right-hand side. Despite a stained-glass window high up on the wall, this part of the church is even more shadowed than the rest. In the centre of it is a small wooden pew about a quarter of the size of the others, maybe smaller, and despite the gloom I can see it’s a solid, substantial piece of furniture made of highly polished wood. As I get closer I am struck by a magnificent carving that adorns the side of it, a woman, no, a mermaid, with a rounded belly above a fish tail slung low on her ample hips. From nowhere I feel David’s hand on my own stomach, his voice muffled against my neck as he voices his hopes that this month will be different.

  I kneel beside the pew so I can study the carving. The mermaid’s breasts are unclothed and full, bereft of nipples, naked and chaste simultaneously. Her arms are bent upwards at the elbow and she holds an oversized comb in one hand; in the other is a spherical object I assume is a mirror. Her braided hair reaches her waist and frames her face. Her features are somewhat indistinct, worn down, I imagine, by the gentle caresses of ten thousand fingertips. She is serene and graceful and for the first time in days my anxiety ebbs.

  ‘It was you who drew me here, wasn’t it?’ I whisper. My voice echoes against the stillness in the church.

  I rest my hand over her. The glossiness of the wood feels wet, as if she’s swum straight from the ocean only moments before. I circle my finger around her roundness, touch her cheek, her hair, her tail, and as I do shocks of current ripple though my body from my fingertip. My head becomes clearer. The sediment swirling around my mind settles as her tranquillity fills me.

  Not God, but this mermaid.

  I sit back on my haunches, my hands resting on my thighs, and as I do I think of the address written on the notepaper in the back pocket of my jeans.

  I can feel it. Pulsing. Burning me through the denim.

  You should go to them.

  Was it my voice or hers?

  It doesn’t matter. I am finally ready.

  TWENTY

  I sit rigid in the taxi, knees together, hands on my lap, answering the chirpy driver’s questions with monosyllabic directness, hoping he will soon stop talking.

  Am I on holiday?

  No.

  What brings me to Cornwall then?

  Work.

  Have I been to St Ives before?

  No.

  Do I know the area used to be famous for tin?

  No.

  ‘This is the road,’ he says at last, and my stomach immediately seizes. ‘What number?’

  ‘Here’s fine,’ I say.

  ‘Well,’ he says, as I hand him his fare, ‘been nice talking to you. Have a good rest of your trip; you look like you could do with the break.’

  As the red-sky warning had predicted that morning, the weather has begun to close in on St Ives and I stand on the corner of Sinai Road, ominous clouds, glutted to the point of rupture, swiftly driving through the deep-grey sky above me. The cries of the gulls sound sharper now, as if calling a mass-retreat to their cliffy overhangs. I’ve memorised every digit and letter scrawled onto Henry’s sheet of paper, but I pull it from my pocket and stare at it anyway. My nerves shiver. I try to keep my mind off the clammy sweat that creeps over me and concentrate on my breathing, steady and deep, in and out, as I count my steps.

  One, two, three, four.

  I pull my jacket tightly together, cross my arms and bow my head. It isn’t only the weather that is unnerving me. It’s the area. I am annoyed with myself for feeling anxious, but I can’t help it. I am no more than a mile from the quaint harbour in St Ives but I could not feel further from its fudgy smell and postcard-pretty streets.

  One, two, three, four.

  I am in the midst of a run-down estate with front yards like dumps and windows rimmed with cracking PVC. A dog barks from inside one of the houses to my right. There’s an abandoned red Ford, patches of rust around its wheel-less wheel arches, perched on piles of bricks, its rear window smashed and crudely repaired with a black bin bag and blue tape that flutters in the wind, small squares of shattered glass, vestiges of the broken window, in the road beside it. I try to convince myself there’s nothing to worry about, that my fear is irrational, merely the consequence of Elaine’s phobias. Even as a teenager, whenever we stepped outside the walls of The Old Vicarage, she would grip my hand so hard that it crushed the bones in my fingers. Grief stings the back of my throat as I remember how I was back then, trotting after her like a faithful puppy, my hand aching, head ducked low to avoid the monsters, just like she told me to do over and over and over.

  ‘Danger is everywhere and everyone’s a threat,’ she’d say. ‘The only place you’re safe, my darling, is at home with me. You understand? Outside the house live monsters. Monsters wherever you look.’

  Figures are walking towards me.

  One, two, three, four.

  They are young, I think.
Three boys. Their low-slung jeans and tribal tops with hoods pulled over their heads make my heart thump. I keep my eyes on the pavement as they approach.

  One, two, three, four.

  My hands clench. I ready myself to run. They are a few metres from me. Their footsteps are as loud as thunder.

  ‘Please don’t hurt me,’ I whisper. ‘Please don’t hurt me.’

  They pass me by without casting me a look, but in my mind they change their minds and turn to follow me. I hear them breathing, inches from me. They wield hammers and murderous snarls. What if they find the stack of twenties buttoned inside my shirt? Do I hand it over? Or do I run? I glance over my shoulder, but they are nowhere near me. They have continued to walk in the opposite direction. One of them laughs. Pats his friend on the back.

  They are kids. Just nice kids hurrying back home before the rain starts.

  I hate her then. I hate her for my fear. Elaine and her ivy-clad prison. Who were we hiding from, Elaine?

  Who were the monsters?

  You.

  We were hiding from you. You were the monster. You were the evil outside our gates, the child thief, the reason you kept me locked away. You knew empirically that the monsters were everywhere, walking the streets, masquerading as normal people, because you were a monster.

  The first drops of rain hit my face. I turn my head upwards and let the droplets fall on me.