‘You’re always whinging about how much you hate teaching.’
I feel a bit hurt by this. I enjoy teaching and I care deeply about my pupils … but no, this was not my dream. I sort of fell into it, and once I realised that the hours suited family life it was a no-brainer. I could argue that Michael’s book shop is the same – not his dream, but a reasonable attempt at fulfilment that pays the bills and fits around our children’s lifestyles.
‘A holiday is one thing, living here is another,’ I say, and I remind him of the conversation we had with the tour operator about Central America. Got to be careful out there. Lots of dangers in the rainforest. Jaguars, snakes, pumas aplenty.
‘What do you think I’m here for?’ he says. ‘I’m your protector.’
I roll my eyes. ‘I’d like to see you try and walk away from your bookshop. Even if it is burnt to a crisp.’
The words are out before I’ve a chance to haul them back into my mouth and lock them into the box of unmentionable things. The bookshop. We’ve not spoken about it the whole time we’ve been on holiday. Not a single mention of the fire that gutted Michael’s beautiful bookshop which he has single-handedly built up from scratch to become one of the best independents in the region. A three-storey Mecca for bookworms, the jewel of our town, now in ruins: black, cooked. For one awful moment I’m wrenched back into that night when we saw the flames dancing high into the night sky.
The phone woke us in the middle of the night. It was Mr Dickinson who owned the pet store a few shops along. He’d spotted smoke from the street, then drove down to check his own shop. He said he was about to call the fire brigade, but he wanted to let us know, too. We raced down there, both of us betting on a manageable fire, one that we could tackle ourselves with a couple of fire extinguishers that Michael had tossed into the boot of the car. When we arrived, smoke was already curling out from beneath the front door, orange flames dancing in the first-floor windows. Michael started to unlock the front door but I grabbed his arm.
‘Don’t go in,’ I said. He ignored me and pushed open the door, determined to damp down the flames. I watched, helpless, as he ran inside with the fire extinguishers and took to the stairs. Thick black smoke was funnelling down the stairs and beating across the ground floor, and I could hear the crackling sounds of the fire upstairs destroying the new café, chewing up the beautiful sofas and coffee tables that had only recently been installed. Sirens of fire engines screamed in the distance. I covered my mouth with my hand and tried not to breathe in the smoke, but with every second that went by it seemed to grow thicker, and my lungs ached for fresh air. I couldn’t call out to Michael. He was still on the first floor, and to my horror I could see flames at the top of the stairs.
Just when I thought I would have to go up there to drag Michael out he appeared, an armful of books pressed to his chest, struggling to breathe. He stumbled down the stairs, dropping the books and falling into my arms.
The shop was destroyed, our livelihood annihilated. Some kind stranger set up a JustGiving fund and within a few weeks we had raised eleven thousand pounds. Possibly enough money to recoup some stock, pay some creditors. But there’s the mortgage, the loss of income … The insurance company are still determining the cause of the fire.
The mood has dipped. I try to think of something to say that will swing it back again to the blissed-out vibe we’d enjoyed here since our arrival. It strikes me why we’ve avoided talking about the fire out here: the contrast between this heavenly place and drab, icicled Northumberland make it feel as though we’ve stepped into another realm. There are no reminders here. But silence doesn’t lie. We both know we have to go back and face it all.
‘I should have installed CCTV,’ he says in a low voice. ‘Everyone said to do it and I got lazy.’
‘There’s no guarantee that cameras would have picked up anything,’ I say, recalling how we sat in shock at the fire station, covered head to toe in black soot like two Victorian chimney sweeps. The deputy station chief educated us brusquely about the many causes of accidental blazes: sunlight bouncing off a mirror and hitting newspaper reduced a sixteenth century Scottish castle to embers. Hair straighteners left too close to a notebook on a teenager’s dressing table took out a row of houses. Our fire could have been down to a faulty storage heater or a loose wire.
‘They’d have caught who started the fire,’ Michael cuts in, swinging his legs over the side of the hammock to sit upright. I reach forward and stroke his back.
I recall with a shudder the police calling both of us in for separate interviews. They asked whether someone had a grudge against us. If we had upset a customer or laid off an employee. Just weeks before I’d persuaded Michael to sack one of our part-timers, Matilda. She doesn’t do anything, I protested. You’re barely paying yourself a salary as it is. The bookshop isn’t a charity for lazy eighteen-year-olds who sit around all day reading Tolkien.
Michael pointed out that she was Arnold’s daughter, and Arnold had been the first to help him out when he set up the shop, but I won in the end. Matilda was sketchy about her whereabouts at the time of the fire – her parents confirmed she’d been out of the house, and it turned out she’d been with a boy. But for a horrible few days it seemed that perhaps Matilda could have been responsible for the blaze.
‘We never ruled out arson,’ Michael says when I remind him that Matilda was found to be innocent. ‘Until the investigation closes, every possibility is on the table.’
‘Maybe it was a group of kids messing around,’ I say to his back. I desperately want him to lie back down with me, to recapture the idyllic mood.
‘We both know kids didn’t start that fire, Helen,’ Michael snaps, getting out of the hammock.
‘Michael?’
I’m taken aback by the sharpness of his tone. As I watch him head back into the hut I sense he’s exhausted, worn thin by worry. But I wish we could discuss this. Every time we start to talk about something that cuts deep he just walks away.
3
Michael
28th August 2017
We’ve got a mutiny on our hands right now.
‘Pleeease can we stay here, Dad?’ Saskia howls in the kitchen as I make breakfast. This morning our butler (yes, an actual butler – I feel like a Kardashian) dropped off our food parcel, containing waffles (round, so we can tell Reuben they’re pizzas), maple syrup, coconuts, dragon fruit, freshly baked bread, eggs, salad, blueberry pancakes, pineapple, the most mouth-watering bacon I’ve ever tasted in my entire life, and a bottle of wine.
‘I’m sorry, my love,’ I say, hugging Sas to my side as I heat the waffles on the hob. She smells of sunlight and the ocean. ‘I’m afraid we can’t change our flight. We’ve got today and tomorrow and then we have to head off to Mexico City to fly home.’
‘But Daa-aad, I don’t want to go home. Jack-Jack doesn’t want to go, either.’
‘Hmmm,’ I say, tipping waffles on to a plate. ‘So, nobody wants to go home? What do you suggest we do then?’
She does the same thing as Helen when she thinks. Screws up her nose like there’s a bad smell. Face just her like mother’s, too. Same twinkling blue eyes that show every emotion and absorb every last detail. Same dimple in her left cheek and buttery curls to her shoulders.
‘Can’t we just buy a house here?’
‘You’d miss everyone, I think. So would Jack-Jack.’
She gives a dramatic sigh, seven going on seventeen. ‘Like who, exactly?’
‘Well, Amber and Holly would miss you. And I bet Oreo can’t wait to see you …’
‘But they could come here …’
‘What about your ballet recital?’ I ask. She has no answer to that and I know she’s excited for it. I set her plate of waffles on the coffee table and squat down to face as her as she begins to do a couple of ballet moves.
‘To tell you the truth, my love, I don’t want to go home either.’
She widens her eyes. ‘You don’t?’
I press my lips together, shake my head. ‘But don’t tell Mummy.’
‘Is it because you don’t like flying?’
‘Nope.’
‘Is it because you love this house and the sea and you’d like to live here?’
‘Exactly. I like spending my days on the beach instead of having to go to work. I’d like to do it for ever. Wouldn’t you?’
She nods eagerly, her face all lit up with hope. I wish I could give her everything. I wish I could make the world as perfect as she deserves it to be.
‘Here, come and help me put all this food away.’
She does a little ballet twirl across the floor, arms crooked like she’s holding an invisible beach ball between them, and looks into the box of food that I’m unloading.
‘Bacon?’ she says, holding up the packet like it’s a dead rat.
‘Not for you, love. Reuben and I will enjoy that.’
‘Bacon isn’t even nice, Daddy,’ Saskia says. She’s decided to become vegetarian, like Helen, so all I’ve heard about for the last three months is how meat is Satan. ‘I tried some once and it tasted not very nice. Plus, it’s from pigs and they’re more smarter than dogs and you wouldn’t eat our dog, would you?’
‘Hmmm. You know, if he tasted like bacon, I’d consider it.’
‘Daddy!’
I lean over and give her a kiss. She still kisses me on the lips, a quick peck with a big ‘mwah’ at the end, just as she did as a baby. When the day comes that she tells me she’s too old to kiss me anymore I think my heart will break.
‘Do the thing,’ she says when I plop one of the blueberry pancakes into a pan on the stove. ‘Do the flip, Dad. Do it!’
I wait until the pan is nice and hot before planting my feet wide, gripping the pan handle tightly and tossing the pancake as high as I can. It flips into the air, smacks the ceiling, then lands splat in the pan.
‘You did it, Dad!’ she squeals, high-fiving me. ‘Five points for Gryffindor!’
Reuben comes in through the front door, his dark hair and shorts dripping wet. I’m careful to be calm around him. No eye contact. I’m still in his bad books. He dumps a plastic bucket on the floor.
‘We can’t go home,’ he announces flatly.
‘Daddy pancaked the ceiling,’ Saskia says.
‘Five points for Gryffindor,’ Reuben says, deadpan. ‘Look what I found.’
Saskia peers into his bucket and squeals. I tell her to shush, she’ll upset Reuben, but his focus is on the baby turtle, its head no bigger than the tip of my thumb, its shell covered in zigzag patterns. It sweeps its flippers back and forth as though it wants to swim.
‘We should take it back to the water,’ I say as Saskia plucks it out of the bucket and cuddles it to her chest. ‘His mum must be looking for him.’
‘Like Finding Nemo?’ Saskia says.
‘That was a clown fish,’ Reuben replies.
‘Dude,’ I say, imitating the turtles in Finding Nemo. ‘What up, squirt?’
Reuben falls silent, and I freeze, expecting one of two reactions: he’ll either storm out of the room or he’ll slug me across the face. Reuben isn’t often violent but when he is it’s ugly, given that he has the strength and height of an adult. He looks like he’s thinking really hard about something. Maybe he’s trying to control his anger.
‘Righteous!’ he says suddenly, a big grin lighting up his face.
‘Curl away, my son,’ I say, suddenly glad that I watched Finding Nemo ten million times.
I raise my eyebrows at Helen who is standing there with her eyes like saucers and her jaw on the ground, stunned that Reuben has actually spoken to me. He’s deeply forgiving, full of love, but I could hardly expect him to react any other way after what happened at Josh’s birthday party.
I was only trying to protect him. That’s my job. My whole reason for existing.
I wake to find Helen sitting at the end of the bed wrapped in a yellow towel. She’s on the other side of the mosquito curtain but I can make out her gold hair, braided down her back, the web of the Celtic tattoo on her shoulder just visible in the dim light. I sit up quickly, amazed that I actually slept, and she tells me to relax, it’s OK, but I’m covered in sweat and my heart is racing. I was dreaming. Bright images pitch and mulch in my head like a soup. When Helen comes into focus I see her face is filled with worry.
‘Are you alright?’ she says. ‘Bad dreams again?’
I push my fingertips into my eyes, trying to blot out the disturbing images in my head. For years, the same dream. A door made of fire. I’m standing in front of it with the knowledge that I have to open it, because on the other side is paradise, a land of pure, endless happiness. Sometimes I’m alone. Sometimes I’m with Helen and the kids, and I have to take them through the door, but I worry about them getting hurt. I always wake in a sweat. Sleeping pills washed it away and now it’s back, as vivid as ever.
‘I went for a swim,’ she whispers. I take her hand, wondering what’s wrong. She looks shaken.
‘You OK?’
‘I saw something weird. It was probably nothing. I don’t know.’
‘You saw something weird where? Out in the water?’
She nods and holds a finger to her lips, urging me to keep my voice down. ‘In the beach hut next to ours. They had a telescope just like the one we have in the living room.’
A telescope? Ah yes, I remember. The scope on the tripod we moved into a corner so the kids wouldn’t knock it over. We presumed it was for spotting sharks and rays in the water outside.
‘And?’
‘It was pointed at our hut.’
‘What was?’
‘The telescope.’ She gives a shudder. ‘It was creepy …’
‘But … didn’t the butler say all the other huts were empty as of yesterday?’
She bites her lip. ‘That’s the other thing. When I looked in the window of one of the rooms the bed was unmade. There were clothes on the floor. It looked like someone was staying there.’
‘Maybe one of the groups stayed on? Or a late booking?’
‘But why would they point the telescope at our beach hut?’ She looks on the verge of tears now, terrified. ‘It felt like someone was watching us.’
I tell her I’ll check it out myself. But if I’m honest this has me worried. The fire at the bookshop was no accident, I know that, but I can’t say too much about it to Helen. We were being watched at home, before we left. I saw a guy watching the shop right before the fire. Same car outside every day for a week, and then he followed me home. Couldn’t say anything about this to the police, of course. They’d ask questions. Why would someone be watching you? It was the reason I pushed for us to go abroad for an extended holiday, to buy some time to think.
I can’t change what happened to Luke. I can’t stop them from hunting our family. But I can definitely work out a way to protect us.
I don’t go back to sleep. Nothing unusual about that, though tonight I’m wired, all my senses on high alert. I’ve learned to manage on about four hours a night, with the occasional catnap during the day to keep me going. Four nights a week I’ll set my alarm for 3am and get up to work out. Arms and abs on Mondays and Thursdays, a ten-mile run on Tuesdays and Fridays. Then I read, answer work emails, maybe tidy the house or go for a walk. We live near a beautiful tow path in England and at sunrise you see all kinds of wildlife: otters, foxes, hedgehogs. I’ve tried to persuade the kids to come out with me but they’re not morning people.
Here, though, the wildlife is something else. We’re about a mile from the rainforest but even so, I spot a monkey in one of the trees at the side of our hut. He helps himself to the coconuts, then spies a half-empty packet of crisps left out by one of the kids on the decking. I film it all on my mobile. He’s right in front of me, so close I can touch him. Completely unafraid. I set down my can of Coke to reach out and stroke him. Amazingly, he lets me, then reaches out and snatches my Coke before running off. Little git.
I put my hands in my pockets and take a walk up the bank to the road that links all the beach huts. The family from Alabama are gone, and good riddance. Too many questions about where we were from, why we were here. One of the kids screwed up her face at Reuben and said loudly, ‘Why are you so weird?’ Yeah, so she’s only a kid but the parents didn’t correct her, didn’t tell her gently not to be rude. They just laughed.
The road is clear of cars, meaning that there aren’t any guests in the huts. So why would Helen have seen clothes in one of the bedrooms? There’s nothing but rainforest for about twenty miles. Someone could have been dropped off at one of the huts, or the guests could have gone out for the day. Holiday season’s virtually over, though. That’s what Kyle said.
I walk on the sand, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. The moon is bright tonight, a long causeway of silver light tossed over a slate of ocean. I walk carefully around the hut and when I glance into the living room window I make out the shape of the telescope pointed not at the sea but towards our hut, just like Helen said. It could just be pointed at the north end of the bay, though. Hard to tell. The dolphins like that end of the bay so it’s feasible that they were watching the pod … The other windows are at the back of the hut, too dark to make out what’s inside. No lights on. The palm trees sway in the breeze and the sea sweeps forward and back, exhaling. No movement, no sign of anyone around.
After ten minutes or so I turn back.
The butler comes just after dawn. Helen and the kids are still sound asleep, so I press a finger to my lips as he passes over the food box for today.
‘I found pizza,’ he whispers. ‘For your son. I can’t promise that it won’t taste different but at least it’s the next best thing.’
‘That’s kind of you.’ I find a $10 note in my pocket and slip it to him. ‘Reuben will be thrilled.’
He grins, pockets the cash, then turns to leave, but I set down the box quickly and skip after him.
‘I don’t suppose you can tell me if someone has checked into that hut?’ I say, nodding at the one next to ours.
He thinks, shakes his head. ‘Just you and one other family staying for now.’
‘Another family? Which hut are they staying at?’
He turns and points down the bay. ‘The very last hut, right on the edge of the strand. Has there been some trouble?’
‘No, no. No trouble. Thanks anyway.’
Around eight I find Helen in the bathroom plaiting her hair and present her with breakfast on a tray and a kiss. Then I wake the kids. ‘Get dressed,’ I tell them. ‘It’s our sea safari today.’
‘Sea safari?’ Sas asks, her hair sticking out like she’s rammed her finger in a socket. She leaps out of bed and pulls off her nightie. ‘You’ll need to bring your poncho,’ I tell her.
‘Is it going to rain?’
‘No, but the dolphins might splash water over the boat. You know, when they jump through the water?’
She gives a squeal and wraps her arms around my waist.
‘Sooo excited, Daddy!’
The ride out to sea takes an hour on a twenty-foot sailing boat. I tell Reuben and Saskia to stay in the cabin downstairs where they can sit comfortably and eat snacks, though I have to promise that I’ll shout the second I spot anything with a fin.
After half an hour Helen comes out to join me. She rubs my back and lays her head against my shoulder.
‘You were up again all night, weren’t you?’ she says with a sigh.
‘No.’
‘Don’t lie …’
‘I just thought I heard something, that’s all.’
She leans back, maps my face with a look of concern. ‘You don’t have to worry about us, you know. I shouldn’t have said anything about the telescope. I was probably just being paranoid after …’
She trails off.
‘After what?’
She looks down. When she meets my gaze again there’s hardness in her eyes. And something else. Frustration.
‘I need to ask something,’ she says, folding her arms. ‘And I need you for once not to avoid the question.’
‘OK.’
She takes a deep breath, readies herself. ‘The day you attacked Josh’s dad …’
‘I didn’t attack him,’ I start to say. ‘It was a disagreement …’
She raises a hand, signalling that I’m to shut up. ‘When you attacked him, you said you were looking out for Reuben. I still don’t know what you meant by that.’
I don’t want to talk about this. I look around, searching for an exit, a distraction. Unless I’m prepared to swim back to land there’s nowhere for me to go. We’re at least fifteen miles from land and even I’m not that strong.
‘I was protecting him,’ I say at last.
‘Protecting him from what, exactly?’
‘Look, the birthday party wasn’t at a climbing centre,’ I say, anxious to close this up once and for all. ‘Josh’s dad was taking the boys climbing up the Simonside Hills …’
‘And?’
I’m starting to feel angry. What has this got to do with what happened at the birthday party? ‘And I could see Reuben was nervous about it. Look, I told you. It was wrong of Josh’s father to …’
‘To what?’
I look up, catch her eyes. She’s challenging me.
‘To … to put Reuben in a position where he had to choose between his friend and feeling safe.’
She screws up her face. ‘But why …’
‘… and trust me, I did everything to stop it from becoming a scene. You weren’t there. Reuben was freaking out, I could see it in his eyes. And the guy kept talking over him. Even made him start to gear up.’
I see her wince.
‘Josh’s dad wasn’t taking no for an answer. OK, so maybe slugging him was a bit over the mark but I did what I had to …’
She lifts her eyes to mine, an eyebrow cocked. ‘A little over the mark? You knocked him unconscious.’
‘It was an unlucky punch,’ I say, and I can feel a hot ripple of fire in my stomach. I try to swallow it down but it’s insistent. ‘I’ve said I’m sorry. What more do you want?’
She looks hurt, which wasn’t my intention, so I reach out and put my hand on hers.
We stand together in mutually wounded silence. We want the same thing, but we go about it in completely different ways. I’m the head of the home, the bad cop. Helen’s still pissed off because it’s meant Reuben losing his one and only friend, Josh. Nice lad. Like Reuben, Josh is autistic. We’ve waited years for Reuben to make friends. Years without a single birthday party invitation or play date. Finally, he goes out and gets a pal and I wreck it all by busting his dad’s face.
But I did what I had to do. And everything has a price, doesn’t it?
And then, there they are, about ten feet from the boat. Whales, as long as buses. Helen spots them and runs to the cabin to alert the kids. By the time they emerge the captain has cut the engine. Sas squeals and jumps up and down at the sight of them while Reuben claps his hands and shouts ‘Magic!’ The captain tells me in concerned tones that humpbacks out here, especially at this time of year, is a bad sign. They could be sick or dying. Of course I don’t mention any of this to the kids. We are close enough to see the barnacles studding their backs, long white lines etched along their bellies, their mouths scissoring the water. A way out to sea another whale bursts out of the water, landing with a huge splash and the peace sign of his tail as he dives below.
‘Look how happy they are, Dad!’ Saskia shouts, and I agree with her, because sometimes love means telling lies.
‘Michael. Michael! Wake up!’
‘What? What’s wrong?’
I sit upright, my head buzzing. I can’t believe I fell asleep. The window squares off a lapis lazuli sky speckled with a million stars and a silvery moon. Helen is out of bed, bending over me as I pull back the sheet.
‘I think someone’s outside,’ she says. ‘I heard footsteps in the back garden and when I went to …’
