‘Have you seen the twins?’ he said. ‘Have you seen them? They’re not watching the ship. Are they backstage?’
Alexei leapt off the stool and they both went backstage to have a look, calling their names. They were nowhere to be found, not in the green room, or the storage areas.
‘Shit,’ said Huckle. ‘God.’
‘We’ll go search,’ said Marisa. ‘Huckle. There’s millions of lifeguards and nannies here, you know that.’
‘All I know is that we’re on the wild Cornish coast and there’s millions of people here I don’t know and tin mines and surfing waves and rocks and . . . Christ,’ said Huckle, turning white and grabbing his phone. ‘Shit, I have to call Polly.’
‘We’ll start looking,’ said Marisa and Huckle nodded, shortly, grimly.
Before long the entire beach was out searching: the pirates, who had just been readying themselves to do battle with an entire platoon of stormtroopers, throwing themselves into it too. The children were half-convinced this was part of the party, and were jealous of the twins for being the ones who got to hide from pirates.
Polly charged up to the road in case they’d got in the way of the cars; Huckle went from food stall to tent, turning things over, shouting until he was hoarse. The terrible paralysing fear of it; the blind, white panic of missing children.
He reached the wild animal tent, where a large rabbit was being packed away. There were raised voices inside and a short-haired woman came out, looking mutinous.
‘Uh, yeah, we have a bit of a situation?’ she said. ‘Only, Janice is missing.’
Chapter Seventy-seven
They ran, both of them. Alexei was surprisingly fast for such a big fellow; he pulled off his ridiculous tailcoat and bow tie, shedding a couple of buttons. Marisa ditched her shoes, and grabbed the skirt up round her hips, and they ran like lightning.
‘Start at rocks,’ Alexei said. ‘Kids lovink rocks.’
They clambered around the headland, Marisa cutting her feet and not even noticing, calling and calling.
‘Where would they go?’ wondered Alexei. ‘Are there caves?’
They glanced back. There weren’t any to be seen.
‘The dunes?’ said Marisa.
‘But there are pirate ships and toys and sweets . . .’
‘I know,’ said Marisa. ‘Why leave that party? It doesn’t make sense.’
Alexei looked at her.
‘Maybe, for some people, is too noisy,’ he said.
They looked at one another and dashed on towards the dunes.
She slipped and stumbled behind him. He listened very carefully to the wind, listening for the tiniest change in sounds.
‘Come with me,’ he said, hearing something, the faintest of sounds; a sound between sounds. A rustle he felt was not right.
‘Avery? Daisy?’ shouted Marisa, but he hushed her, surprisingly.
She crept along behind him, tiptoeing through the sand – and what she saw made her gasp.
The two children were huddled underneath a large swathe of marram grass, clutching one another, white-faced, Daisy’s mouth wide with panic.
And in front of them, rearing and hissing, was the huge snake.
Marisa turned pale. She too was utterly terrified and it took everything in her not to simply bolt. Her throat was dry and she felt absolutely stuck in place.
‘Okay,’ said Alexei very quietly. She looked at him in horror.
‘You have a plan?’
He didn’t answer. She saw in his face that flash of anger she had seen before.
The snake was waving its huge head, poised to strike. The children were struck dumb with terror.
‘Are you ready to take children?’ he said. ‘Be ready.’
‘You know . . . snakes are really fast!’ whispered Marisa, remembering a terrifying documentary.
‘Be ready,’ he said, unsmiling. He took off his shoes and advanced, very quietly, then suddenly, shouted, ‘NOW!’ and, from behind, brought down his heavy shoe on the snake’s head while simultaneously grabbing it round the back of its throat, squeezing it into himself where it couldn’t reach him and shouting a huge stream of furious invective in Russian at the unsuspecting animal, all the while whacking it.
‘Daisy! Avery! Come with me!’ screamed Marisa, and the children, shaken into action, leaped up. She grabbed their hands and charged back towards the beach, as all she could hear behind her was furious hissing and a repeated whomping noise, and the crowds on the beach began to race towards her.
Chapter Seventy-eight
Polly’s face worked in slow motion as she saw the twins running towards her. She opened her body like a gate, gathered them in, clung them to her, a warrior queen, fierce in fury and holding them tight, oblivious to their cries or their need to tell her what had happened. Avery looked up, all preferences forgotten.
‘Daddy! Daddy! We need you too!’
And Huckle, who had been thundering up behind, completely whey-faced, was hurling himself on top of them, completing the circuit.
Polly looked up to babble at Marisa, but she had already left and was charging back to the dunes.
By the time they got there, the situation had changed considerably. Alexei was standing being shouted at by the girl with the short hair for damaging her snake, which she insisted had been no threat at all, and now he’d given it concussion and Alexei appeared to be apologising.
Marisa saw red.
‘What the hell are you doing letting a snake roam free at a children’s party?’ she hollered.
‘We don’t believe in cruelty to wild animals, actually?’ said the woman.
‘You rent it out for children’s parties! If you really don’t believe in it, take it and set the bloody thing loose in South America! And I don’t believe you. I’ve watched documentaries. That thing was ready to go for one of those children.’
‘Don’t talk about Janice like that.’
‘You are actually going to be sued to South America, and back,’ said Reuben, who was unable to stop himself clutching his cutlass. ‘So, I hope that suits you?’
The women sloped off in a hurry after that, carrying the very dazed-looking beast over their shoulders.
‘Should have stuck to pirates,’ said Reuben, half to himself.
He stalked over to Alexei, who was panting slightly.
‘You saved my friend’s kids,’ he said. ‘Tell me what you want. Anything is yours.’
Alexei shook his head.
‘It was nothink,’ he said. ‘It was my pleasure.’
Marisa, bold as brass, stepped firmly in front of him.
‘But he’d quite like that piano he was playing earlier.’
‘Oh yeah, sure, whatever, done,’ said Reuben, wandering off to find Huckle and Polly.
Marisa turned to Alexei, her face bright pink.
‘Oh my God! Did you really hit that snake with a . . . ?’
But before she could finish the sentence, he had grabbed her in his arms and was looking down at her, his whole body trembling.
It had been so long.
She had denied herself human touch for such a long time, hadn’t even reached out to a human being. Her loneliness had gone beyond the skin; had been bone-deep, soul-deep.