‘Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.’
Oscar Wilde
Summer 2000
Monstrous waves crash against the rocks, their white foam leaving a slow trail before retreating back into the murk of the sea.
Anne is standing just the right distance from the edge – close enough that she can see what’s happening below, but far enough away that the sea spray and the whipping wind can’t catch her and drag her over the cliff.
Her heart thumps hard and fast. She takes a deep breath. ‘George!’ she calls back over her shoulder. ‘Help me. Please! We can’t just leave him!’
Her voice is swallowed up by the cacophony. The wind, the waves, the gulls. And the other sounds too – the blood rushing to her head; the little voice inside, whimpering, telling her to help him . . . help him.
She blinks, trying to magic it all away.
He’s not real.
She takes another step back, closer to safety. She can no longer see the little ledge that juts out below. She can no longer see the old man’s hands gripping its edge, gnarly knuckles glowing white. Slipping. She can no longer hear his cries, desperate for help.
She feels herself drift away. Her mind floating off elsewhere, ignoring the horrors in front of her. Not happening. This is not happening.
She closes her eyes. Anne isn’t even her name . . . and George is not her friend’s name – her summer friend, just someone to while the time away with for the two boring weeks that she’s stuck here. Her grandparents are too old to do anything exciting these days, so it was lucky she’d met George on her second day, before it became unbearable.
It was George’s idea to give them both nicknames.
‘You be Anne,’ George had said that afternoon on the beach, when she was getting ready to head back to the cottage for another dreary dinner and another battle with the TV, trying to get reception while the wind howled outside and the windows rattled and shrieked their annoyance. The sun had been bright that day. A huge yellow beach ball, bouncing off the white sand, making the whole bay twinkle like diamonds. ‘And I’ll be George. Get it? Anne and George – from The Famous Five! We’ll be friends now and friends forever.’
She hadn’t read The Famous Five for years. Couldn’t even remember if the George character was a girl or a boy. She didn’t care anyway – she’d preferred Nancy Drew. But she’d agreed to this, deciding it was OK to do silly things with someone she’d never have to see again. Next year she would be telling her parents that she was not spending two weeks here on this godforsaken island, even if it did have water so blue it looked like something from a painting, and soft sandy beaches, and endless rocks to scramble over.
It’s so boring! At least it was. Until now.
She licks her lips, tasting salt. Opens her eyes and blinks, remembering where she is. Wishing she was anywhere but here right now. With George . . . and this man.
The old man should not be here.
He has no business on this island. His small boat wasn’t built for these deep, choppy seas. It’s no wonder it crashed and splintered against the rocks.
She’d been gathering twigs, snapping the ends and inspecting them for sap. She’d wanted to build a fire. George had seen him first, called out to her, warning her. ‘Anne! There’s someone . . . a man . . . behind you. He’s—’
She’d whirled round and found him there, looming over her. Hair blowing wild, a halo of gorse around his head. His beard thick and matted, coiled and dark like bladderwrack. His eyes red-rimmed, and his smell of the sea – rotted fish and wetness, and something old and terrifying bubbling under the surface. His face was scorched from the sun and the salt, his mouth had opened and he’d said something to her in a strange, guttural language . . . and she’d laughed.
She’d laughed, because she realised then that he wasn’t real. He wasn’t a man. He was a creature that she and George had cooked up in their imaginations, desperate for some excitement. Adventure.
Fun.
She’d laughed as she stood tall and walked towards him, thrust a hand against his chest and shouted into his ruined face – a face that she fully expected to crumble to dust in front of her eyes, maggots squirming from empty eye sockets, tiny, slithering snakes from what was left of his ears.
She’d pushed him, and for a moment she was shocked – because he didn’t turn to dust or air, or disappear in front of her eyes. His chest was solid. Unyielding. But his legs were weak, and he’d tried to gurgle something else, some other words of nonsense, before they buckled beneath him and he stumbled back . . . and back.
And then he disappeared.
George’s voice hits her as the wind changes direction – surging towards her, loud and clear. ‘Come back from the edge, Anne. We can’t help him.’
What?
Anne starts to shake, adrenaline coursing through her veins. He’d fallen right in front of her, down onto the ledge with a thump. Then over its edge with a throaty scream. And now he’s hanging there, dangling above the rocks and the sea and the remains of his broken boat.
But they can’t help him, can they? They are both too small. Too thin. Their arms are not strong enough to pull him back. Their skinny legs not fast enough to run down the hill to get help in time. He has no time. His fingers can’t hold his weight for much longer.
No one knows that they are up here. ‘It’s my secret place,’ George had told her.
No one knows that this man is here. This man from the sea, who has travelled from afar. Who has bloodied his hands and torn out his nails climbing up to a place of safety.
He doesn’t belong here. Who is going to miss him?
She closes her eyes as the wind picks up, howling around her. Waves, gulls, blood rushing. Broken nails scraping on jagged rocks. The incessant hum inside her head: Help him . . . help him . . .
. . . and George’s voice, flat. Determined. ‘Leave him.’
She swallows a lump of fear. Takes another step away from the edge.
‘Come on, you silly sausage,’ George says, putting an arm around her shoulder. Gripping on to her just a little bit too tight. ‘Let’s go back to mine for tea . . .’
Amelia
T - 24
Amelia avoids eye contact with the other passengers as she boards the small plane and slides into the window seat of the last remaining row. There are six of them. Three men, three women. And now her, unbalancing the group. Potentially unbalancing the plane.
She knows about these planes. She’s flown in them many times before, for work. Taking off and landing on runways that are nothing more than dirt tracks. Over parched soil, dense jungle, and everything in between. She’s landed on water. She’s had to parachute, more than once, when the plane hasn’t been able to land at all.
She’s worked in humanitarian aid programmes all across the world. She’s dealt with fragile egos, misplaced do-gooders, corrupt officials, and many, many genuinely good people who have made it their life’s work to help others. But none of the people on this plane look like aid workers, and as much as she’s tried to avoid staring at them, she’s felt their collective gaze on her, taking in her cotton khakis and bottle green T-shirt, her beige backpack that she’s stuffed under her seat.