He laughed. ‘Only a cow.’ Jumping down from the rail he pressed his lips against mine, so that I felt the roughness of chapped skin, the point of his tongue. ‘If you’re going to be a farmer’s wife you can’t be soppy about animals.’

  Inside, his mother waited by a table laid with a blue cloth, a brown teapot and jug. There were scones and a Victoria sponge. His father came in wearing overalls, his hands pink from scrubbing.

  Philip lost his jaunty manner in their company, sat meekly with his eyes down, chewing on a scone, pale crumbs dropping into his lap.

  ‘So Eva,’ Mrs Green asked me, ‘where are your family from, originally?’

  I sipped the treacly tea, considering. ‘London.’ I said. ‘Before I was born.’

  ‘Not from round here, then,’ Mrs Green persisted.

  Philip and his father helped themselves to slices of cake, bit into the jammy middle, chewing noisily, their eyes glazed.

  ‘Well,’ I shot a glance at Philip, but he ignored me, ‘my granny is from here. Grace Gale. My dad grew up here.’

  Mrs Green nodded, but didn’t look impressed. She sniffed. ‘I know Grace Gale.’

  I knew there was an answer lacking, one I was expected to provide. Mrs Green was waiting for it. I thought about my mother talking about her father, the consulate, her childhood abroad. ‘My mum’s family lived in Egypt,’ I said eventually.

  ‘Egypt?’ Mrs Green raised her eyebrows and gave her husband a meaningful look. ‘I see,’ she said.

  The clock on the wall ticked. There was the sound of chewing. A tabby cat walked across the kitchen with her tail in the air.

  ‘More tea?’ There was something triumphant in her manner as she poured the arc of shining liquid into my cup. Mr Green wiped his mouth with his napkin, leaving it scrunched on the table. Pushing back his chair with a noisy scrape of wood against floor, he left the room.

  The next morning at school, when I went to find Philip at break, he moved away from me, setting his shoulders stiffly. He avoided looking at me, keeping his back turned, laughing loudly at something another boy said. I felt the cold draught of a door shutting in my face.

  I didn’t want to be like the cows–helpless, penned in–but that’s how it felt in our village. It was suffocating. I was trapped by the look in people’s eyes: the look that said I was different, that I didn’t fit in. Mum and Dad are so protective. They always have been. They’re like a double act, with Mum making me feel guilty every time she gets a migraine, and Dad trying to stop me growing up. Sometimes he’d actually hand me a tissue to wipe lipstick off my mouth. Stand with his hands on his hips waiting for me to do it.

  In Ipswich there are clubs where you can dance until morning. In the darkness, inside the music, there is space and time. Boys with hot mouths, their lips opening on mine, made me feel wanted. I liked it when they pressed their hips against me, so close that their belt buckles pinched. They asked me to go outside with them, begging me in thick, urgent tones above the music, their voices vibrating against my ear. But I never did.

  ‘Eva Gale, you make me laugh. What are you waiting for?’ Lucy asked. ‘Saving yourself for Prince Charming?’ She thought I was old-fashioned, a bit of a prude. But I wanted someone to look at me the way that Dad looked at Mum. Lucy’s parents were divorced. Her mum didn’t care what she did. Staying overnight with her gave me an alibi. We got the bus into the town centre without fail every Friday and Saturday night, our lips slick with gloss and our skirts hitched up.

  The man on the door stamped my hand. The dark, shabby interior was dense with cigarette smoke and expectation and bodies. Swaying to the music, a glass of rum and Coke in my hand, I was invisible and desirable all at the same time. Blurred faces appeared out of the gloom, asking me to dance, wanting to be close: village boys and townies, punks and the posh boys from the private school in town. None of them princes, only frogs. But then Marco walked into a gothic night at the club on the market hill, and everything changed.

  27

  Mum and Dad are angry with me.

  ‘You knew it was wrong…’ Dad’s voice broke, ‘stupid.’ He dropped his face into his hands. ‘You’ll spend the rest of the day in your room to think about it.’

  I’d wanted his attention for so long and now that I had it, he couldn’t even look at me. I saw that his shoulders were shaking. I’d made him remember Eva and the storm. Mum was pale and dark-eyed. She led me upstairs by the hand, and stood by the door.

  ‘Dad is right, Faith. You must think about what you’ve done.’ She wrinkled the skin on her forehead. ‘And when you are ready, we’ll go to apologise to those poor children,’ she sighed. ‘And Sandra.’

  An ambulance came to the quay to take Fred and Joe away. Medics wrapped them in blankets. A crowd gathered to watch. The mist had gone, the sun breaking up in dazzling brilliance on the morning river. Among the strangers, I caught a glimpse of Ellie Dawkins’ smirking face. I looked away from people staring, pointing, the whispers starting.

  Fred seemed to be trying to smile at me before they shut the doors, but his teeth were chattering too much for his mouth to work properly. Joe’s eyes were closed and he was a funny colour. His dark skin had gone grey, as if he’d smeared ashes over his face.

  The whole of my class will hear about it. I count on my fingers. I only have days left until the end of the holidays, just days between now and the moment I have to walk into the classroom again. Fred and Joe are my friends. I can’t think about the fact that they might have been killed because of me. Drowned. I only wanted to get to the island. I hadn’t thought of anything else. Perhaps they won’t like me anymore. I put the edge of my hand in my mouth and bite hard. Pain leaps to the surface, a sharpness that connects my skin and my teeth. It makes me feel better. When I let go I have a set of indentations in my skin, a crooked red pattern.

  I can hear Mum and Dad murmuring downstairs. I expect they are discussing me. I lie on the floor, pressing my ear against the carpet and listen hard, trying to make out words. But nothing is clear. Lying on the carpet, I start to sing: it was only a paper moon, hanging over a cardboard sky– there is a crash below me as if something has been dropped–but it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me.

  Granny and Jack holding each other, hand against hand, his arm around her waist. They bob and dip and spin away from me. I want to follow them. I want to run after Granny and explain what happened, and she will tell me that I am right to try and find a way back to the island. She’ll lean close, so that I see the web of lines around her mouth as she whispers your sister is alive and she’s depending on you.

  Lying here I can look under my bed. There is a thick layer of dust. Clumps of it gather, charcoal grey, fusty, sticking in the corners. It doesn’t look as if Sophie ever cleans under the beds, even though I heard Mum asking her to. I reach under to slide out my box of treasures, dipping my hand inside to pull out a bone. It is pockmarked and stained with green. I think it’s the fibula of a sheep or a deer. It’s about the length of my forearm and I can circle it with my thumb and first finger. It’s not weird to collect bones. I like thinking about how things work, especially living things. How complicated and clever bodies are. Bones are beautiful. I found this one buried in mud on the banks of the stream.

  I wonder if your sister’s skeleton is floating around… Joanna’s voice is in my head and it won’t go away. I start to hum, but I can still hear her… or if it’s broken apart… Shut up. Shut up. The bone feels cold. I drop it back in the box.

  I get up and go to the window to look at the island, putting my hand flat on the glass in greeting. ‘Eva,’ I whisper, ‘are you there?’

  There is movement below. A shape leaning against the house, two heads together. I stare as the heads pull apart, and I see that it’s Sophie and Robert Smith. He’s laughing, his hand reaching out to touch her, fumbling under her shirt. She wriggles closer. Suddenly he tilts his face up and I catch the shine of his eyes.

  Holding my breath, I step away from the window, out of sight.

  28

  It is one of those last, lingering summer days that burn with the intensity of a bonfire. On the mainland the farmers will be harvesting. I imagine dust rising behind combine harvesters, the corn cut and baled. A landscape should change with the seasons, shifting into autumn. Here it’s the same day after day: speckled pebbles, the stubborn green of gorse, brown waves churning relentlessly. Only the sky changes, making colours soften into dullness or brighten in sunlight.

  Billy and I are eating raw carrots and beans in the pagoda. Lunch. I long for bread, for slices of brown bread and butter, the chewy crust giving way to the airy inside, a nutty flavour, yeasty and satisfying. I bite down on earth, crunching on it, bits of grit sticking to my tongue. The string from the bean pod catches in my teeth.

  The thick concrete walls of the pagoda are always cold to touch, making it cool inside whatever the weather. There are no windows to let in the light, just the gaps at the roof, giving glimpses of blue.

  ‘I’d never been in one of these places before,’ I tell Billy, my tongue fishing for scraps of carrot.

  ‘This is where they developed Britain’s first atomic weapon,’ he says, leaning against the wall. ‘Blue Danube it was called. Tested it here too.’

  ‘You know a lot about it,’ I venture cautiously.

  ‘My grandfather told me things. See the way it’s built?’ He gestures to the lofty roof with the pillars holding it up. ‘Built for containment you see. Prepped for high-yield blow-outs. The roof is designed to fall inwards if there’s an explosion.’

  I look at the space above and think that this is a good place for containing other things, with no way out except the door that he keeps padlocked.

  ‘Where is your grandfather?’ I ask.

  He frowns. ‘Gone. Like the rest of them.’

  ‘You mean dead? Your parents too?’

  He lets his hands fall to his sides. ‘Good as dead anyhow.’

  He squints through the dim air. We listen to the birds crying, the sound of the sea breathing in the distance. ‘We should get out of here, go over to the ocean,’ he says, ‘get a bit of sun.’

  Wordlessly, I hold out my hands for him. He pauses for a moment, as if considering, before he takes a length of rope and binds my wrists, wrapping the rope a couple of times, finishing with a skilful knot.

  The sea crashes onto the shore, swollen waves and white foam. I take a quick look up the beach. It’s my hope that someone might do what Faith and I used to and steal over to visit the place for an illicit swim, sail across to trespass for the thrill of it. But the long line of shingle is empty. Light shimmers across the baking pebbles.

  Billy stops and bends to pick something up. He holds it out to show me; a small egg sits in his palm. He stoops and closes his fingers around another speckled shell. ‘We can have them for supper.’

  Far above us a black-and-white bird circles. I look up, lowering my lashes against the glare. ‘It’s a tern,’ I say. ‘They nest in the shingle.’ The bird drops and skims past Billy’s head with an angry scream.

  ‘Too late now,’ he laughs into the sky triumphantly. ‘Shouldn’t leave ’em lying around.’

  He tucks the eggs into his pocket. We’ll eat them later, hardboiled in seawater and peeled while they are still too hot to touch, hunger clenching in our bellies. I remember the morning I found the chick in the egg. I made such a fuss. It’s hard to believe I’m the same person as that teenager in her school uniform living her comfortable, protected life.

  We sit on a ridge of warm stones, looking out towards the horizon. Billy rolls a skinny cigarette and puts it between his lips, ducks to light it.

  ‘You must have been with people all the time in the army. Teamwork and stuff.’ I hunch my shoulders, my bound wrists resting in front of me. ‘Aren’t you lonely here?’

  ‘Why would I be?’ He takes a deep drag and lets the smoke drift out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Loneliness is in the mind. It’s a weakness.’

  ‘People need people,’ I say. ‘It’s the way we’re made.’

  He shakes his head. Greasy tendrils slide over his shoulders. ‘People hurt people. It’s safer alone. Safer not to trust anyone.’

  ‘What about me?’ I turn my head, squinting into the light, the edges of him flickering and blurring. ‘Do you trust me?’

  ‘No.’ He sits up straighter, hugging his knees. ‘You don’t understand. Not yet.’

  I swallow. ‘You’re right. I don’t.’ I push away my anger. I need to go for a swim, take out my frustration on the force of water. I nod at the waves. ‘Can I go in?’

  He glances at the sea and then at me.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I tell him, ‘I can’t get very far. Not with the current.’

  He undoes the knot slowly and I rub my wrists. We are close. He kneels before me, the rope spilling from his hands. I stare at him in silence and he looks back, unblinking. I’d never noticed before that his eyes have flecks of yellow around the pupil like sunrays. I look away first. ‘Right,’ I stand up, ‘I’m going in.’

  I know he’s sitting behind me, cross-legged and impassive. He’ll be staring as I struggle out of my jeans and shirt. I am aware of my old, dirty underwear, my exposed skin. I limp down the slope, pebbles sliding under me, the pinch of them under my soles. The water is cold, even in this weather, and I gasp for a moment on the edge, before throwing myself into an oncoming wave.

  The sea closes over my head, swirling and grainy. Opening my eyes under water, I look up towards the surface; afternoon light filters through in shafts of brilliance, turning the sea transparent and green. I remember how I swam here while Faith waited on the beach. As I break the surface, I see her there, pale face and pale hair, anxiously watching for me, drawing her knees under her chin.

  Instead of my sister, Billy narrows his eyes. I am sick of him, sick of the tangle of his hair, his unblinking scrutiny of me.

  I face the sea, feeling the urge to swim away from the shore, to keep going into the restless mass of ocean. I imagine the colder depths, the startled shoals of fish parting for me, floating jellyfish brushing my skin and Faith’s creatures–mermaids and selkies and The Wild Man himself–turning their gaze towards my thrashing limbs. I think of myself out there, treading dark water, as an ocean liner bears down on me, my waving hand invisible to the sailors on deck.

  Startled by the sound of breathing, I turn sharply to find Billy standing up to his waist in water behind me. He’s taken off his shirt and his chest is ferociously white. The curve of each rib is a hooped line; his collarbone juts out like a shelf from his shoulders. He looks like a prisoner rather than a jailer. He clamps the stub of cigarette between yellowing teeth, puts his hands into the water, bending with a shiver to splash his chest. He hasn’t taken his trousers off. Their dark shapes billow through grey-brown strands.

  He’s watching a sailing boat. I consider trying to attract their attention, but he’s right behind me and it’s too far away to see us. Billy’s fingers close around my arm. ‘Time to get out.’ His breathing sounds odd, fast and jerky, as if he’s been running. ‘Now.’ He tugs me sharply.

  We stagger out of the sea up the shingle incline; he’s holding me close to him, gripping my arm. I taste salt in my mouth. He stoops, gathering my clothes and his shirt in one quick movement, bundling them under his other arm. ‘Hurry.’ He marches me away from the exposure of the beach, heading inland.

  ‘There’s no one…’ I gasp.

  Despite his emaciated frame, I feel the strength of his muscles, the sinewy force of him. He looks behind us. ‘They’re coming.’

  ‘No,’ I protest, ‘the boat’s far away.’

  He shakes his head impatiently. My feet are bare and I wince at sharp stones and thorns under the gorse bushes. He holds my wrist tightly and pulls me with him, his long strides covering the ground quickly. My ankle hurts. He doesn’t slow down, even though I’m limping properly, gasping in pain and dragging behind him. We step over trailing razor wire, the sea at our backs. Keeping to the old concrete road, he hurries me past the empty huts with their broken windows and clustering shadows, glancing over his shoulder as he tugs me on towards the pagoda.

  Billy has locked us in. Before he got the padlock out, he’d spent about twenty minutes crouching by the door, peering around the corner. He’d still been breathing strangely, swearing under his breath, muttering to himself. Now he’s in his corner, reading the book. I can feel his frustration. He curls his beard around his finger, pulling at it, repeating words. He’s nodding his head, rocking himself, the low intonation of his voice reminding me of prayers rising in an empty church.

  I shiver, tucking myself into the blanket. The sea has left my skin chilled, crusted with salt. My hipbones stick up, pointy as sticks under my fingers. It’s as if I’m melting away, losing myself. And I want my body back. The curves and fullness of me. I want to be held, to be loved. I want Marco to be here, lying above me. I try to imagine his warm breath in my mouth, his hands on my face. ‘I love you,’ I whisper into the air. But he isn’t there. I can’t find him.

  There were things I felt about Marco that I couldn’t tell anyone–not Faith or Mum or even Lucy–feelings I had when Marco and I were alone together, and how, on his bed, he’d fumbled through my clothes to lick my nipples, raising his head to look at me with half-closed eyes. ‘Is this all right?’ And me nodding, yes, more please, because I’d never felt anything like it before. He’d slipped his fingers inside my knickers, pushing into the tight inside of me, setting up a rhythm until the rising pressure made me call his name. I’d clung to him, feeling embarrassed and grateful and surprised. ‘God, I want to sleep with you, Eva,’ he’d gasped into my hair. ‘You’re driving me mad.’

  Billy has stopped humming. Memories drain away and I’m alert, because Billy has got his tin of letters on his lap. He’s leafing through them. I hold my breath. He’s taken one of them out, unfolding it and holding it up to the light. It’s the one with the rip. He fingers the torn edges and I can see his shoulders stiffen. Quietly I push myself backwards, muscles tensing as I angle my body away.