1
Cyrus
May 2020
Late spring. Morning cold. A small wooden boat emerges from the mist, sliding forward with each pull on the oars. The inner harbour is so mirror smooth it shows each ripple as it radiates outwards before stretching and breaking against the bow.
The rowing boat follows the grey rock wall, past the fishing trawlers and yachts, until it reaches a narrow shingle beach. The lone occupant jumps out and drags the boat higher up the stones where it cants drunkenly sideways, looking clumsy on land. Elegance lost.
The hood of an anorak is pushed back and hair explodes from inside. True red hair. Red as flame. Red as the daybreak. She takes a hairband from her wrist, looping the tresses into a single bundle that falls down the centre of her back.
My breath has fogged up the window of my room. Tugging my sleeve over my fist, I wipe the small square pane of glass to get a better view. She’s finally here. I have been waiting six days. I have walked the footpaths, visited the lighthouse, and exhausted the menu at O’Neill’s Bar & Restaurant. I have read the morning newspapers and three discounted novels and listened to the local drunks tell me their life stories. Fishermen mostly, with hands as gnarled as knobs of ginger and eyes that squint into brightness when there is no sun.
Leaning into the rowing boat, she pulls back a tarpaulin revealing plastic crates and cardboard boxes. This is her fortnightly shopping trip for supplies. With her hands full of boxes, she climbs the steps from the beach and crosses the cobblestones. My eyes follow her progress as she walks along the promenade, past shuttered kiosks and tourist shops towards a small supermarket with a light burning inside. Stepping over a bundle of newspapers, she knocks on the door. A middle-aged man, red-nosed and rosy-cheeked, raises a blind and nods in recognition. He turns the deadlock and ushers her inside, pausing to scan the street, looking for me perhaps. He knows I’ve been waiting.
Dressing quickly in jeans and a sweatshirt, I pull on my boots and descend the pub stairs to a side entrance. The air outside smells of drying seaweed and woodsmoke; and the distant hills are edged in orange where God has opened the furnace door and stoked the coals for a new day.
The bell jangles on a metal arm. The shopkeeper and the woman turn towards me. They’re each holding matching mugs of steam. She braces herself, as if ready to fight or flee, but holds her ground. She looks different from her photographs. Smaller. Her face is windburned and her hands are callused and her left thumbnail is blackened where she has jammed it between two hard objects.
‘Sacha Hopewell?’ I ask.
She reaches into the pocket of her anorak. For a moment, I imagine a weapon. A fishing knife or a can of mace.
‘My name is Cyrus Haven. I’m a psychologist. I wrote to you.’
‘That’s him,’ says the shopkeeper. ‘The one who’s been asking after you. Should I sic Roddy on to him?’
I don’t know if Roddy is a dog or a person.
Sacha pushes past me and begins collecting groceries from the shelves, loading a trolley, choosing sacks of rice and flour; tins of vegetables and stewed fruit. I follow her down the aisle. Strawberry jam. Long-life milk. Peanut butter.
‘Seven years ago, you found a child in a house in north London. She was hiding in a secret room.’
‘You have me mistaken for someone else,’ she says brusquely.
I pull a photograph from my jacket pocket. ‘This is you.’
She gives the image a cursory glance and continues collecting dry goods.
The picture shows a young special constable dressed in black leggings and a dark top. She’s carrying a filthy, feral child through the doors of a hospital. The young girl’s face is obscured by wild, matted hair, as she clings to Sacha like a koala to a tree.
I pull another photograph from my pocket.
‘This is what she looks like now.’
Sacha stops suddenly. She can’t help but look at the picture. She wants to know what became of that little girl: Angel Face. The girl in the box. A child then, a teenager now, the photograph shows her sitting on a concrete bench, wearing torn jeans and a baggy jumper with a hole in one elbow. Her hair is longer and dyed blonde. She scowls rather than smiles at the camera.
‘I have others,’ I say.
Sacha looks away, reaching past me and plucking a box of macaroni from the shelf.
‘Her name is Evie Cormac. She’s living in a secure children’s home.’
She grips the trolley and keeps moving.
‘I could go to prison for telling you any of this. There’s a Section 39 Order that forbids anybody from revealing her identity, or location, or taking pictures of her.’
I block her path. She steps around me. I match her movements. It’s like we’re dancing in the aisle.
‘Evie has never spoken about what happened to her in that house. That’s why I’m here. I want to hear your story.’
Sacha pushes past me. ‘Read the police reports.’
‘I need more.’
She has reached the cold section, where she slides open a chest freezer and begins rummaging inside.
‘How did you find me?’ she asks.
‘It wasn’t easy.’
‘Did my parents help you?’
‘They’re worried about you.’
‘You’ve put them in danger.’
‘How?’
Sacha doesn’t reply. She parks her trolley near the cash register and gets another. The red-nosed man is no longer at the counter, but I hear his footsteps on the floor above.
‘You can’t keep running,’ I say. ‘Who says I’m running?’
‘You’re hiding. I want to help.’
‘You can’t.’
‘Then let me help Evie. She’s different. Special.’
Boots on the stairs. Another man appears in the doorway at the rear of the supermarket. Younger. Stronger. Bare-chested. He’s wearing sweatpants that hang so low on his hips I can see the top of his pubic hair. This must be Roddy.
‘That’s him,’ says the red-nosed man. ‘He’s been snooping around the village all week.’
Roddy reaches beneath the counter and retrieves a speargun with a polyamide handle and a stainless-steel harpoon. My first reaction is to almost laugh because the weapon is so unnecessary and out-of-place.
Roddy scowls. ‘Is he bothering you, Sacha?’
‘I can handle this,’ she replies.
Roddy rests the speargun against his shoulder like a soldier on parade.
‘Is he your ex?’
‘No.’
‘Want me to dump him off the dock?’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
Roddy clearly has eyes for Sacha. Puppy love. She’s out of his league.
‘I’ll buy you breakfast,’ I say.
‘I can afford my own breakfast,’ she replies.
‘I know. I didn’t mean … Give me half an hour. Let me convince you.’
She takes toothpaste and mouthwash from the shelf. ‘If I tell you what happened, will you leave me alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘No phone calls. No letters. No visits. And you’ll let my family be.’
‘Agreed.’
Sacha leaves her shopping at the supermarket and tells the shopkeeper she won’t be long.
‘Want me to go with you?’ asks Roddy, scratching his navel.