‘I’ll show you where my granny had her allotment,’ I tell them, leading the way across the castle grounds to the old listing wooden fence and the patch of allotments. I can’t see anyone working in any of the gardens. The tabby cat that I saw before is sitting on a bench cleaning her white stomach, back leg pointed in the air.

  Joe is already clicking the latch on a gate. I follow although I’m suddenly uncertain. Granny and Jack once said their allotments were their second homes. ‘Mind the flowers. Don’t stand in the beds,’ I whisper.

  We wander past canes holding up runner-bean plants, the heavy heads of globe artichokes, neat rows of spring onions and parsnips. A small, wizened apple tree is heavy with fruit. Rotten apples lie in the long grass, half-eaten by birds, brown and mushy. Fred stoops to pick one up and throws it at Joe. Joe lets out a shout and turns away, the apple spinning past his head. There’s someone in the furthest allotment, an elderly lady with a headscarf on. She’s bent over, pulling things out of the ground.

  I hold up my hand. ‘Be quiet a minute.’ I want to distract Fred and Joe from chucking the apples, but also I’ve heard something strange: a low, rhythmical banging, and a kind of grunting noise like an animal in pain. I signal to the others to follow me and we edge slowly around the corner of the garden shed, stepping over a pile of plant pots, past a propped-up spade. A man has his back to us. I’m staring at a naked bottom, very white and round, his trousers baggy around his knees. He’s pushing his hips in and out like a piston. There’s a woman’s leg raised around his hips, her arms hanging onto his neck. She’s moving with the force of him, her head knocking against the shed, brown hair spilling across the wooden planks behind her.

  She opens her eyes over his shoulder. Her mouth is wide and pulled down; her lids flutter as she fixes me in a familiar stare.

  Fred grabs my arm, pulling me. The boys are laughing as they stumble away. We crash through a clump of rhubarb, ripping up leaves, crushing them under foot. I slip on spinach, knock cauliflower heads into the soil. It was Robert Smith with his trousers round his knees. I feel sick. I want to get rid of the image of his pale buttocks, his hips ramming against Sophie. She’ll tell him that I saw, and I remember his sneering face in our garden, what he said to me then.

  We stop under the shadow of the castle. There’s no sign of them following us. ‘Going at it like dogs,’ Joe says, cradling his cast with his good hand.

  ‘Yeah,’ Fred is leaning over, hands on his knees, panting, ‘in broad daylight too.’

  I’m trembling. I look away, clearing my throat. ‘It’s disgusting.’

  Fred gives my arm a shove. ‘You country people. You’re all alike.’

  I aim a sharp kick at his ankle, but he jumps out of the way, laughing. He’s surprisingly fast for a fat person, but I don’t say it aloud.

  ‘We’ve got to go.’ Joe’s looking at his watch, and he jerks his head at Fred.

  I rub my nose, feeling awkward, my mouth dry.

  ‘See you around.’ Fred grabs my hand and gives it a shake. ‘Next summer.’ I feel his hot fingers wrapped around me. Then he’s walking away, Joe by his side, waving.

  The world seems empty without them. I curl my hands into balls, shoving them in my pockets, the feel of Fred’s touch fading from my skin. I forgot about my warts. Fred isn’t the sort to care about things like that. Down on the seawall there is just one motorboat powering through the river, leaving a spreading trail of wake. Cormorants dive and surface, black heads sleek. I stand and look over to the island. I have failed. ‘Eva,’ I whisper aloud. But all I can hear is the roar of the powerboat, the noise of the engine fading into the distance.

  As I’m walking home, picking my way from one tuft of grass to another, feet unsteady in the mud, I see the man in the canoe again. I watch him, admiring his slick movements with the paddle, the agile speed of his boat as it slips through grey water. Unlike the powerboat, the canoe is silent. The man is dressed in bright red, matching his boat. He makes a brilliant patch of colour that I follow easily, watching him paddle on towards the harbour and the quay.

  42

  Clara is trying to clear out Eva’s bedroom. But she can’t seem to actually put anything in the cardboard box she’s brought up for the purpose. She keeps picking things up and sitting or standing with them in her hands. Nothing goes in the box. Everything in this room holds memories. She can’t pack any of them away.

  There’s a novel by the bed, dog-eared, abandoned. A piece of paper sticks out. She hadn’t noticed it before. Eva’s bookmark. Clara picks up the book and flips it open to the marker, wanting to see what Eva had been reading, to smooth her fingers over the same page. She unfolds the bookmark. It’s a letter. The untidy beginnings of a letter. And she sees, with a thud of shock, that it’s addressed to her and Max. Clara holds the paper closer, reading the familiar writing. It’s even more chaotic than usual, letters swirling into circles that come undone and trail away into dots and dashes.

  Mum, Dad… But that’s not who you are, is it… I don’t know what to call you, how to say this…

  You’re not my real parents. Why didn’t you tell me?

  I think I’ve known all my life that something was wrong. Only I thought it was me–ME that was wrong.

  If he knows then who else? How can I face people ever again?

  After last night, M won’t want me anymore. Maybe he won’t love me. You won’t care. It’s your fault. You don’t even know that I have a boyfriend. I love him. You can’t stop me, not anymore. I HATE you both.

  The words fall through her, sliding and crashing into each other. Clara puts a hand over her heart, fingers pressing against a shooting pain. She doesn’t understand. Someone told Eva about being adopted? She reads the lines again, seeing Eva crouched over the paper scribbling those words while her world became false, unrecognisable.

  When did she write it? Clara stares at the scrappy letters, the creased paper. There is no date, no clue. The message trails away, the words breaking up, ending in a stain of ink. Clara gasps aloud. She hadn’t thought that losing Eva could get any worse. A spike begins to stab behind her eyes; it strikes harder. She winces, ducks her head as if to ward off blows.

  She stumbles from Eva’s room, the letter in her hand, the light dimming and closing like a tunnel before her. She wants Max. He’ll be home soon. He’ll know what to do. She fumbles down the landing into her own bedroom, crawls onto the bed, pressing her face into the pillow, blotting out the day. And all she can see before her is Eva’s face. Her drowning face falling away into darkness, mouth opening soundlessly, the look of a martyr on her, of someone betrayed.

  Faith is at her desk in her bedroom. Max clears his throat as he enters, but she doesn’t seem to hear him. Her room is filled with the lush voice of Ella Fitzgerald, an orchestra of strings swooping and crooning in the background. He sits on her bed. ‘Doing your homework?’

  She lifts her shoulders briefly.

  He notices the dark shadow of a bruise. ‘What have you done to your cheek?’

  She puts a hand up to her face. ‘Nothing. Must have bumped into my door. Can’t remember.’

  ‘Faith, I wanted to ask,’ he clears his throat, ‘how you’re feeling now, about Eva? About… everything?’

  Faith, hunched in her seat, hasn’t moved, so he stands up and walks over to her. ‘Of course you’re still missing her. We all are. But are you a bit more… settled?’

  Faith turns and gives him a stare and then looks down at the open book on her desk. ‘I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Dad.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She makes a noise in her throat, her eyes fixed on the work in front of her.

  Max sighs; he rests a hand on her thin shoulder. ‘If I thought it would do any good, any good at all, I’d go to the island. But I’m afraid it would make it worse.’ He wishes that she would turn and look at him. He stares down at the top of her head. Faith is immobile beneath his touch, head bowed, as if she’s waiting for him to leave. He squints at the open exercise book on her desk. Beneath the swing of her pale hair, the blue and white checked paper seems to be filled with algebra workings out. ‘Doing your maths?’

  ‘Trying to,’ she says.

  ‘Know where Mum is?’

  She shakes her head. He leaves her to it, closing the door softly behind him. Ella is singing of springtime in Paris. Strange choice of music for a ten-year-old. He doesn’t know how she can concentrate with it on in the background. Eva used to be exactly the same. Only her music had been louder, more insistent. He and Clara had spent evenings shouting up the stairs, telling her to turn it down.

  As he enters their darkened bedroom, Clara pushes herself into a sitting position. She half-falls out of bed, lurching unsteadily towards him, a sob catching in her throat.

  ‘Thank God you’re here.’ She is holding something towards him. Her hand is shaking. ‘I found this,’ she says in a low voice. ‘It was tucked into her novel. By her bed.’ She falters. ‘It’s a letter. From Eva. To us.’

  His mouth is parched. He tugs back the curtains to let in some light. The writing in his hand pulls into focus. His heart begins to thud, his eyes skimming the scrawl of words. He has the flash of memory again. Eva looking down at him angrily.

  ‘Nobody knew,’ Clara is saying quietly, ‘nobody except Charles. And your mother.’

  Max makes an effort to think. The scribble of words repeats in his head. He remembers Charles looking at Eva with distaste on his face. ‘Charles,’ he says slowly. ‘I don’t understand. But it has to be him.’ He walks across the floor, his hand moving to the back of his head, touching the vulnerable place there. ‘But if he got to her–why didn’t she tell us? How long did she know?’

  They stare at each other, their faces blank and tense. Max begins to pace around the bed, the letter grasped in his hand. ‘Perhaps he changed his mind about staying out of her life.’ He frowns. ‘He must have seen her alone.’

  ‘Yes. That must be it. He told her, didn’t he? For spite.’ Clara’s eyes are huge; her face shrinks around them. ‘I was afraid for so long that one day he’d come for her.’ She puts her head in her hands. ‘I worried all the time about that family taking her back. But he just wanted to destroy us. It was the sea that took her.’

  ‘I can’t believe she knew about the adoption and didn’t say anything.’

  He feels her stillness. ‘She learnt how to keep secrets,’ she says quietly. ‘We taught her how.’

  Max shakes his head. He says nothing. He can hardly remind Clara that for years he’d tried to persuade her to tell Eva the truth.

  Clara flinches as if he’d spoken. She goes to the window, standing with her back to him, looking out at the river in the distance, the rise of the island just visible. She breathes in deeply. ‘I thought it was the right thing, at the time. I didn’t want her to feel different.’

  He stands, hanging his head.

  She leans forwards, pressing her forehead to the glass. When she speaks her breath mists the window. ‘I was selfish.’ He can hardly hear her. ‘I wanted Eva to be mine. It was for me. Not for her. I wouldn’t let myself think about Suky. I just kept pushing the thought of her away. She was a child herself.’ She stops, puts a hand to her mouth. ‘Only a year older than Eva is now.’ Her voice breaks. ‘Oh God, Max, Eva died knowing that I lied to her.’

  He goes to her, feeling too big in the room, too clumsy, not knowing if she wants him to touch her. He stands close, his hands hovering at his sides. ‘Clara,’ he whispers. She turns and presses her face against his chest, and he puts his arms around her, holding her. The relief of her body against him is almost unbearable. His knees sag. He drops his nose into her hair, smells the garden, smells her. The dog gets up, shaking himself noisily, and moves around them, his tail beating against their legs.

  Clara’s voice is muffled in his shirt. ‘She was in love. We didn’t even know. So much we didn’t know about her. And now she’s gone.’

  Max holds Clara, stroking her hair. Out of the horror, he feels something warm and bright, because Clara is in his arms and she said the word ‘we’. If they can share their grief, if they can see this through together, then there is still hope for them. He wraps himself around her tighter.

  He sees Eva in her orange lifejacket, her face twisted with anger. He blinks, trying to remember. Something happened on the boat. Something bad. Before the accident. He sees the boat turning, a scrabble of limbs as it crashed over. Eva’s hand stretched towards him. He struggles to pull the memory free, tug it into the glare of his conscious mind. There she is before him again, and she’s dressed in black lace, her mouth dark with lipstick and she is soaked through, water pouring from her, and no lifejacket.

  43

  Above us stars glare down, white holes cut out of a dark paper sky. Billy has stuck his fishing rod deep into the shingle, used a bit of wood to prop it up, so that he can leave it and lie down next to me. We’re on our backs, staring into the sky. The pebbles are warm from the day’s heat. The night is still. No wind. I listen to the sound of waves moving lazily against the shore.

  ‘I saw a shooting star,’ I murmur sleepily. ‘I know it’s not really a star. Dad said it’s dust and stuff from space. But I like the idea of a star falling.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he blows through his lips, ‘people are always trying to get proof for things. But the world’s not like that. You can’t explain it.’

  I raise myself on my elbows to look at him. ‘I thought a soldier would be more, you know, on the side of practical things.’

  ‘I am. I am practical.’ He turns his head to look at me. ‘But I know what I know. There’s what we can see and what they want us to see. And then there’s the truth. But we’re not supposed to understand any of that.’ He lowers his voice. ‘They don’t want us to know. They want us to be ignorant.’

  I hesitate for a moment. ‘So the voice…’

  ‘A few years ago I would have laughed in your face if you’d told me that I would be listening to an angel. I’m not supposed to hear her. It’s dangerous for them.’

  ‘You mean the… things that are watching you–us–the bad things?’ I glance behind me at the crouching shapes of the gorse. ‘Do you know what they are? Who they are?’

  ‘High-ups in the army. The government. In on it together.’ He frowns. ‘I don’t know what the plan is. Not yet. But they’re poisoning us with lies, with chemicals. Everything is a set-up. It’s about power. Corruption.’ He sits up abruptly. ‘They’re always watching me. Waiting for a slip-up. Waiting to take me over. But I’m cleverer than that. My army training, see. It comes in useful. They’re not going to catch me out.’

  He looks at the quivering line, and moves like a cat, springing to his feet, grabbing the rod, turning, reeling in, and I look past him at the waves, watching for the sudden spark of brilliance, how it fires through the dark mass, igniting a green lacing.

  I’ve persuaded Billy to let me hang our blankets outside to air. I can’t stand the stink of unwashed skin, fish and damp. They need boiling and disinfecting to clean them properly. I would like to make a bonfire of them, my clothes too, pile them in a heap and strike a match. I’ve beaten the blankets with a stick and flapped them around, and now they’re draped over gorse bushes, caught on green prickles like offerings to the sun.

  Billy sits on the shingle nearby, watching, a half-smile on his face. He has the stub of a cigarette glued to the side of his mouth. ‘Storm coming,’ he says, squinting into the sky. He doesn’t seem to notice the filth we live in, the state of our bodies. I pause, panting with my exertions. I haven’t recovered completely. I still wheeze. At night it feels as though there’s something heavy pressing on my chest.

  Billy holds out the remains of his cigarette. ‘Want a drag?’

  I shake my head. It’s the first time he’s offered me a smoke. I’m thinking about how to tackle the inside of the pagoda. Get rid of the crumbling concrete pieces, thick dust and splatters of bird shit. I look around for something that I could use. In a few moments I’ve collected some withered sticks and a handful of long grasses, pleased with myself because I’ve made a kind of broom. Stooping, I bend my elbow and flick, sweeping in firm movements, but the sticks crumble and the ends of the grass splay uselessly. I straighten, resting my palm on my aching spine, frowning.

  Billy has followed me inside. He shoves his hands in his pockets, lounging against the wall. His lips roll back as he laughs, showing his teeth. I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand. ‘Yeah, well. At least I gave it a try.’

  ‘Spring cleaning!’ He loops his fingers next to his ear. ‘In this place? You’re crazy!’ He wanders away, scratching his head. He’s still laughing. I glimpse a strip of flesh between his trousers and jumper as he pushes his arms above his head in a slow yawn. He pauses on the edge of the pit, arching his back lazily. This is the moment, I understand with sudden clarity. This is my chance.

  I run at him. Head down, shoulders hunched. My head crunches into his ribs, arms flailing around his waist. He lets out a cry of surprise, his body tensing. He has lurched forwards, his foot slipping at the edge of the pit. He teeters for a second and my feet scrabble on the floor, pushing against him as hard as I can. But I don’t have the strength. He is all bone and muscle. He surges back, his weight falling into me. His arm is around my neck and I can’t breathe. He swings me around, my feet leaving the ground, my jaw cracking under the pressure. He’s shouting but I’m smothered inside folds of his clothes. I can’t make out words.