Julius: Emma always had a thing about the village below the hotel. I didn’t see it myself. The hotel was about as luxurious as you’re going to get on an island like that, so why waste your time in a dump?
Emma: Things must have changed over time, but, as I got to the edge of the market, it all seemed the same as I remembered. There were the stalls selling counterfeit football shirts, bags and branded tops. The rug stall was still on the corner, with a huge, faded carpet rolled up against a telegraph pole. I swear it was like that the last time I’d seen it.
I suppose the sights are much like any market – but it’s the smell that sets it apart. It’s hard to describe because you have to experience it. It starts at some time after eleven, when the locals are cooking lunch, hoping to entice the tourists. There are these huge vats of rice, vegetables and spices, which blends with fresh fish being grilled on outdoor barbecues. Because the village sits down a path below the hotel, it all whips together on the breeze and drifts its way up.
It’s just…
…
It’s the smell of hope and being young. Summer and sun. There’s nothing like it.
Julius: I don’t think I’ve ever noticed a smell. Sometimes the sewers run over. Is that what you’re talking about?
Emma: I ended up sitting at a table outside a café. There was shade and a gentle breeze. All I wanted to do was watch and listen. To absorb everything. I had a lump in my throat and cried a little bit to myself.
I’d usually have found a place to be alone and hide everything – but I didn’t want to move in case the feeling went away. It was the village that caused that. It was that smell.
I could tell you I was upset about Dad, but it wouldn’t be true… not completely. It was those feelings of the life I’d lost.
At the sentencing, my solicitor talked about ‘genuine remorse’ and it always stuck with me. He said: ‘She has genuine remorse for what happened’ and it felt like one of those things a lawyer would say. I bet everyone has ‘genuine remorse’ because it makes their sentences shorter. Except, I was actually broken by it.
Properly broken.
I could barely dress myself, or get out of bed. I wasn’t eating. I had to be reminded to drink. People would whisper about me and wonder if I was planning to kill myself.
And, as I sat outside that café, all I could think about was how younger me had walked through this village, had drunk the tea and eaten the fish. How she’d never have been able to guess the person I’d become.
So, yeah, I cried for myself.
Julius: I don’t think I visited the village once on that trip. Why would I?
Emma: We went to the island so often that it would have been impossible not to pick up a little of the local dialect. I’m not saying I’m bilingual, but I do know the odd word and sentence, plus I can generally get the gist of what someone means.
I was sitting at that table and there were these two men standing near the café door talking to each other. I heard the word ‘beach’ and ‘fall’, plus what I thought was the word ‘British’. I turned around and asked the man who was talking if he was the person who’d found Dad on the beach.
He only knew a few words of English, but we managed to figure it out through a mixture of the two languages.
I told him I was staying at the hotel and that my dad had fallen the night before. He came across and held my hand. He knew the word for ‘sorry’ and kept saying it, before the café owner had to help us piece together the next bit.
He was saying a word that sounded like ‘smock’. I’m probably pronouncing it wrong. The owner was saying ‘fall’, ‘fall’ – and I didn’t get it. I felt like such an idiot because what he was trying to say was that the man hadn’t just found my dad on the beach, he’d seen him fall.
Julius: Sometimes Emma hears what she wants to hear.
Emma: The man said he was walking on the beach and heard a noise from up on the cliffs. It was dark by then, so he didn’t realise what was happening. He saw a shadow and thought it might have been a tree branch falling. It was only when he got closer that he realised it was a person… that it was Dad.
He said he’d already talked to Jin about it that morning because he was sure the noise he’d heard from the cliff wasn’t just a voice. He said it was voices…
Chapter Seven
THE STUPID SENSE OF ENVY
Emma: I can’t remember how I felt when I was walking up the hill from the village. I’ve been on that beach and, when it’s quiet, it’s almost as if it absorbs all the noises from around and above. You can hear boats from the other side of the island, or chatter drifting from the village. Perhaps he had heard voices from above – but that wasn’t proof Dad was with someone.
It also wasn’t proof that he was alone.
Claire: It was sometime on the morning after Geoff fell that I went for a walk on my own. I didn’t know the layout of the island but ended up on the beach underneath the cliff. I was following one of the paths at the side of the hotel, wondering where it went. I’d not necessarily planned to be there.
The main thing I remember is how noisy it was down there. It was this little cove that seemed like it was sheltered by the cliff. You’d think it would be this peaceful postcard, but, instead, it was like all the sounds from the island converged there. There were birds chirping and car engines rumbling. There was nobody anywhere near me, but it felt like I was in a crowd. Then, as immediately as it began, the wind dropped and there was silence. It was the creepiest thing I’ve ever known.
Emma: To get to the cottage, I had to walk around the pool. I wasn’t paying much attention to anything and certainly didn’t want to accidentally catch Daniel’s eye. I was almost past the area where they stack sun loungers when I realised Mum was sitting on the edge of a bed next to Daniel and Liz, close to the water.
Liz: Beth got back from the hospital and not one of her kids were there for her. Good job she had us.
Emma: I went across and asked how she was. She looked so tired. I know that shouldn’t have been a surprise because she’d spent the night at the hospital – but it was deeper than that. I think you can tell the difference when you see people. Someone might look like they need a good night’s sleep, but, other times, it’s like their eyes haven’t closed in days. Their whole face hangs and there’s a small delay when they try to talk, as if you’re in different time zones.
When I asked Mum how she was, it took a second for her to blink her way up to me and open her mouth. She said she was ‘all right’, but only in the way people do when they don’t know what else to say. I think it’s a British thing, almost like our national catchphrase. Someone could have been hit by lightning and crawled their way across a county to the nearest hospital and then, when a doctor asks how they are, they’d say ‘all right’. It’s what people do. It’s what I said when Mum visited me in prison for the first time.
I asked about Dad and she said he was breathing for himself now and making progress, even though he was still unconscious. I think she’d forgotten that she asked me to look for flights because she never mentioned it.