He has part of a memory: Eva standing by the cabin. He’d been at the tiller, wrestling with it, trying to keep the boat steady, waves washing over the side. She’s there before him, her chin raised. Sometimes she’s wearing a lifejacket. Sometimes she isn’t. Trying to find the images is like looking for a scattered jigsaw puzzle, the pieces buried in sand. He can only see fragments and he can’t make a whole picture with any of them.

  He knows without turning his head that Clara has left the bed. There will be a twist of sheet, an indentation in her pillow, a faint smell of her lingering on the cotton. On the mornings that she doesn’t go to the library, she gets up before him, goes straight out on one of her long dog walks, or disappears into the garden to weed and plant, kneeling on a piece of plastic, his mother’s old gardening hat on her head. Since Grace died, Clara has taken over the gardening; she says it’s all a bit haphazard, that she doesn’t really know what she’s doing, but to her surprise, she’s found that she likes delving about in the earth, watching seeds becoming plants.

  He misses his wife. He longs for Clara’s touch. She used to have a way of touching his face, removing the anxieties of the day as her fingers brushed across his forehead. He has a sudden memory of her underneath him, pressed hip to hip, her arms holding him tightly. He groans, moving his head from side to side, hearing it creak, the sinews in his neck tight as piano wires.

  At least she has agreed to put the house on the market. ‘Thank God,’ he says to the ceiling. ‘Thank God.’

  He plans to move the family to Cambridge. An old friend has an office there, has asked him to join them several times before. He must make the phone call, set up a meeting. Faith can have a different life. He hopes that the children there will be more understanding of his dreamy youngest child. He’s seen her walk past the village kids with her face set. He knows she doesn’t have any real friends here.

  Saturday. He sighs at the thought of the empty day stretching ahead. No more Olympics to distract him. It had been almost cathartic to watch those athletes, their struggle, their faith in themselves and the moment. He’d cried sometimes, watching them pass the finishing line, heads flung back. How he dreads the weekends. Work defines him now. It’s the only thing that he can do. He’s taken on too many clients, but he needs to be busy. No time to think about anything else. He and Eva used to sail at weekends. Sometimes they’d all go off as a family in the Cornish Shrimper, take a hamper and swimming things and drop anchor off the coast somewhere, all of them eating sandwiches and crisps on board, playing a game of cards. Eva leaping into the freezing water for a swim, persuading him and Clara to join her. This time of year he and Eva would be getting their last sails in before putting the boats away for the winter.

  He pulls on a dressing gown and stumbles down the corridor yawning, thinking that he’ll have a bath. Everything seems to ache. His back, shoulders and knees creak like an old man’s. He’s aware of the changes in his body since he stopped sailing. The muscles in his shoulders and arms have softened and weakened. His skin has lost colour, become dull and ashy. There is never enough air in his lungs. He feels tired all the time.

  As he gets to the bathroom, reaching out to push at the slightly open door, he hears music. The sound swells louder, familiar, haunting. It’s a pop song that Eva used to listen to. His heart beats faster. The door swings wide, releasing the song on a cloud of steamy heat. A girl emerges. She has wet hair lying in tangles over her shoulders like a mermaid. Tanned skin glistens; her breasts are covered in a green sheath that she holds around her.

  She laughs, apologising, wrapping the green a little tighter. She is holding a small transistor radio, the pop song muffled now by the folds of her towel. She presses the off button with a creased finger.

  ‘I forgot to lock the door,’ she smiles at him.

  ‘Sophie,’ he says. His heart slows. They are lucky to have her, he thinks, smiling an apology of his own. She’s a friendly girl, and a hard worker too.

  He shuts the door and leans over to turn the taps; there’s a squelch of soggy fabric between his toes. He looks down at the sopping bath mat and wonders why Sophie was using this bathroom. It’s supposed to belong to him and Clara. The other bathroom, the children’s bathroom at the end of the corridor, is for her use. And yet, what’s the point of silly rules? What does it matter which bathroom she uses? Perhaps she prefers the shower in this one. Eva used to complain that the one in their bathroom was always broken, only a dribble of water coming through.

  ‘How am I supposed to wash my hair?’ she’d complain. ‘Why have you got the best shower in the house? You don’t even have hair.’

  That wasn’t strictly true, of course. Max runs his hands across his scalp, combing through the roots of curls; he’s not sure if he’s imagining it, but his hair seems thinner; it feels brittle between his fingers. He drops his hands. Eva had tight curls that fell in ringlets around her face. Sophie has lovely hair too, a curtain of it. What colour would you call that particular gleaming brown? Chestnut, he thinks, like the ones that fall from the tree at the bottom of the garden, spiked cases spitting to let the gleam of nut push through.

  Disappointingly, his bath water is lukewarm. The hot water has run out. The empty tank groans above his head, clanking in the attic among the cobwebs and spiders. He lies in the white oblong and thinks that it fits him like a grave, narrow and straight. He soaps himself half-heartedly under his arms, swishing the cloth around his body. His limbs feel numb, dead. It’s been so long since he felt the pull of the jib in his hands, braced his legs against the curved side of a boat, felt the strength of the wind against him.

  There is a quiet knock at the door and Max starts, water slopping sideways.

  ‘Would you like coffee, Max?’ a muffled voice asks. ‘I’m making some now.’

  At first he mistakes it for Clara. Then he recognises the softness of the accent, the polite tones. It’s the first time Sophie has used his Christian name; she wouldn’t do it before, although he kept asking her to.

  He moves his hands over his groin as an instinct. It seems wrong to be naked with only the width of a plank of wood between him and her. He imagines her cheek resting against the grain of it. ‘Yes please,’ he answers, clearing his throat, ‘be down soon.’

  He thinks he hears the door handle turning and scrabbles out of the bath in a panic, almost slipping in the puddle of water on the floor. When he opens the door, a towel knotted around his waist, there is no one there.

  33

  Mum has already gone off for a walk. I saw her through my bedroom window this morning heading towards the sea with Silver running in circles around her. Dad is in bed. He sleeps in at the weekends. He never used to. He used to be the first one up in the morning whatever day it was.

  A boy from the local estate agents came yesterday and banged in a For Sale notice on a wooden post by the garden gate. He had floppy hair falling into his eyes and he was wearing a suit that looked as though it belonged to someone older and bigger than him. When he caught me watching him out of the window, he pushed up his sleeves and grinned, holding the hammer over his shoulder.

  At least if we sell the house I can move to a different school. Going back was just as bad as I thought it would be. I’d sat on my own at break while Joanna and Ellie whispered about me with their friends. The thought of Monday morning scoops out a hollow in my tummy. Sophie is in the kitchen spooning coffee into the cafetière. Her wet hair drips like a slimy tail down her back, making a spreading damp patch in the red of her dressing gown. As she pads around the kitchen the silk clings and opens around her legs. She ignores me, peeling an orange as she waits for the kettle to boil. The sharpness of the orange makes me feel hungry. Strips of peel fall in spirals from her neat fingers. She puts a whole segment into her mouth, chewing. Her tongue slips out, catching a dribble of juice, and she dabs at her lips with a napkin.

  ‘Can I have some toast?’ I ask.

  She shakes her head. ‘You can make it yourself, no?’

  She pours two cups of coffee and leaves the room, a cup in each hand.

  The caravan site is half-empty. There are patches of yellowed grass and ruts of earth where caravans and cars used to stand. An abandoned deckchair is on its side and there’s a deflated beach ball sagging in the grass. Bins overflow with rubbish. The lady with the Alsatian is still here. She nods at me as I walk past and her dog pulls towards me on his chain, wagging his tail. ‘He hasn’t forgotten you,’ she calls, tapping her cigarette onto the ground. I wonder if she knows about Joe being in hospital and it being my fault.

  Sandra opens the door.

  ‘Is Fred here?’ I ask, looking down at her pale pink legwarmers and her fluffy slippers with hearts all over them. ‘Can he come and play?’ Behind her I can see Carol shrieking and banging her beaker on her highchair.

  Sandra scrunches up her forehead. ‘No, sorry pet.’ She raises her hands and lets them fall. ‘He’s still got a nasty cough.’

  Carol’s beaker lands on the floor, the top spinning off. A mess of purple liquid splatters across the floor spreading in puddles and drops. Sandra lets out a sigh of annoyance. ‘She’s playing up big-time today.’

  ‘Please.’ I stand, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, hoping she’ll change her mind.

  ‘I’m not promising anything.’ She raises thin shoulders under her pink housecoat. ‘Maybe another day, before we leave. I’ll think about it.’ Then she shuts the door in my face.

  As I walk away I hear a rattling noise and turn to see Fred’s face behind the caravan window. He squashes his nose, spreading it flat against the glass. Inside the misty circle of his breath, his nostrils are two black holes. Stepping back, he gives me a thumbs-up. Then he’s gone. I watch the square of smeared glass for a moment but he doesn’t reappear.

  I drag my feet, walking without thinking. I don’t know where to go. I’ve got no plans–nothing to do. I can hear the sound of children’s voices coming from the rec. I hurry in the opposite direction, away from their shrieking and laughter, past the castle and down to the river. On the sea wall, the wind has got up, blowing cooler air in from the ocean. There are only a couple of boats with their sails up. Most are moored, masts clanking in the breeze.

  The island sits out of reach, bleak and empty. I stare at it, my eyes watering in the wind. However hard I strain to focus, it’s too far away to see anything properly. I have a sudden doubt: what if Eva isn’t there after all? What if I’m wrong? I push the thought away, staring harder at the island. From here, the empty buildings aren’t visible, just the tops of the pagodas sticking up, dark blocks against the sky. The part of the island that I can see is a pebbly expanse with clumps of low greenery. Distance smudges details, like the pastel drawings Eva used to do, smearing outlines with her fingers, blending one colour with another. I wonder if the seals are on the point, scenting the air with their cat’s noses, eyes brimming with tears.

  It’s high tide. Water laps at the foot of the sea wall. The broad expanse of river is rough with small waves, whipped up by the wind. I don’t know how I’m going to get across. The stretch of sea that lies beyond the river’s mouth is even more terrifying. Thinking of Fred’s cheerful face, his thumbs-up sign through the grubby window, I swallow, scuffing my heels in soft muddy ground. I won’t cry, even though the back of my throat is tight and hot. Funny how knowing them has made me feel worse. Before I met Fred and Joe, I’d got used to being lonely.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ I tell the water. ‘I can’t find her on my own.’

  ‘Remember the Charleston,’ Granny’s voice says in my ear. ‘How brave you were, dancing in front of all those people? You did it on your own, Faith.’

  When Jack showed me the steps, he told me, ‘Give it the old razzle dazzle.’ He’d put a finger under my chin. ‘Head up. Big smile. Make it up if you forget. They’ll never know; not if you do it with a smile.’

  I’d been nervous, my heart racing, palms sweaty. I’d wanted to run away from the circle of faces peering at me from their armchairs. Some had been expectant, some blank. One or two had been asleep, mouths sagging, arms crossed over hollow chests.

  I can see Jack standing in the hot, stuffy room, Granny just behind, watching me, willing me on. I’d tried to ignore the funny smell, not just boiled cabbage and bleach, but the smell of old people.

  I like old people’s hands, veins pressing up through the surface, thin as paper and mottled with sun-spots. You can see the tendons and tiny bones, as if the inside is coming through the outside. It gives me a calm feeling to think of the lifetime their hands have spent loving people, hugging children, soothing fevered brows, making food, sweeping away dirt. But when Jack held out his hand to me there in the room, I’d hesitated.

  He beckoned impatiently. ‘Come on Faith. No time to lose.’

  I close my eyes and feel his fingers clasping me, warm skin, rough and thickened with time. He lets go as the music starts and I’m on my own. I move my feet, tapping out the rhythm. I open my eyes, blinking into the sunlight remembering that once I’d started dancing, it had felt like flying. It felt as though I could do anything.

  A gull swoops low across the river, snatches at the water and rises, a fish dangling from its beak. I start to walk fast with my arms moving by my sides, head down, thinking about how to get onto the island. Even if I could get a dinghy into the river, I don’t know how to rig it, and anyway, I’d be too afraid to sail it on my own. I know that fishermen sometimes go over, but I can hardly ask them to take me when they’re doing it illegally in the first place. Deep in my thoughts, I don’t see the boy until I nearly tread on him. He’s sitting in the grass on the side of the path, long legs bent under his chin, staring at the river.

  He looks up, as startled as me, his face pale and thin under a dark cap. He’s dressed in black. His hair rises, slick and shiny, in a wave from his forehead. He doesn’t look as though he belongs here by the river. He looks as though he should be on Top of the Pops. We recognise each other at the same time and he uncurls his body, staggering onto his feet, brushing mud from his jacket.

  He stares into my face, and I realise that he can’t recall my name. But I know his. ‘Marco,’ I say. ‘It’s me. Faith. Eva’s sister.’

  He nods. ‘Thought it was you.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  He screws up his mouth, looks at me sideways, embarrassed.

  ‘Have you come because this is… where she drowned?’ I look at the water.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Stupid, but I thought I’d kinda feel closer to her here.’

  ‘She’s alive,’ I say in a rush. I can’t help it.

  He raises black eyebrows at me.

  ‘She’s not dead. I know she’s not. I think she’s out there somewhere.’ I nod in the direction of the island. ‘She didn’t drown. Something took her.’ I bite my lip.

  He stares at the island and frowns as if considering. ‘Nah,’ he says slowly, ‘I’d know if she wasn’t dead. Have a feeling about it. And I don’t.’

  Disappointment drops through me heavily, making me feel unbalanced. He’s like Mum and Dad. I don’t understand. If he loves her, he should have the same feelings as me. Shouldn’t he? He should know that something isn’t right, that she hasn’t drowned. It’s like a pressure in my heart.

  ‘Isn’t there some military shit over there?’ he’s asking. ‘Bombs and things?’

  ‘They tested atomic bombs. It’s still out of bounds. Private land.’ I lean closer to him, lowering my voice even though there is nobody else around. ‘Me and Eva used to go there.’ I touch his arm. ‘She’s there now.’

  He shakes his head. ‘If she was, someone would know,’ he says. ‘The coastguard would have found her body. Anybody living there would starve, wouldn’t they? And what about fresh water?’ He looks at my face. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, kid.’

  I open my mouth but he’s already speaking. ‘I came to say goodbye to her, really. I’m going away.’ He twiddles the silver ring in his ear lobe. ‘I’ve moved out of my parents’ back to London. Staying on a friend’s floor for now. I’m in a band and we’re doing some gigs around the country. I’m off in the van. Got to meet the others in Ipswich tonight.’

  ‘Tonight?’ I rub my nose. ‘Well, I’m going to go to the island,’ I tell him. ‘I’m going to look for her.’

  ‘It won’t be dangerous with all those bombs?’ He frowns.

  I cross my fingers behind my back. ‘No. They’re only on one half of it.’ I don’t mention selkies or the Wild Man. I can’t trust him not to be like other people.

  ‘I don’t get why you think Eva’s there. But it’s kind of cool that you do.’ He gazes across at the island with narrowed eyes. He doesn’t believe she’s there. He just wants to, which is a different thing.

  I frown. ‘I can’t explain.’

  ‘Well,’ he takes a pen out of his jacket. ‘Can I give you my parents’ address, in case there’s any news?’

  We don’t have any paper so he asks for my arm and I push up my sleeve, scrunching it as high as it will go. The pen slides across my skin in a ticklish whisper. He has to hold my wrist and turn my arm around to fit the whole address in. We both look at the dense scribble covering my forearm. ‘They’ll know how to reach me. I don’t have a phone yet,’ he says, ‘or a permanent address.’

  He blinks, his mouth turning down. ‘Just before she was lost, she was supposed to… meet me. We had a plan. She was going to catch the last bus into Ipswich. But she didn’t. I waited but she never turned up. I never heard from her. That was strange. Not like her.’ He adjusts his cap above his quiff, clearing his throat. ‘I can’t get her out of my head. I’ve written a song about her.’

  ‘Oh.’ I’m not surprised. I think that anyone who could write a song or a poem would write one about Eva.