Secrets of the Tides (20 page)

Steven met her at the sea wall. He shook his head as he walked towards her and Dora felt another nugget of hope disintegrate.

‘Sorry, no one’s seen him.’

Dora bit at her nails. ‘What should we do?’

They decided to split up again, Steven heading into the shop while Dora walked back to the ice cream van and wandered around by the sea wall. There was a smiley old couple sitting on a bench gazing out in silence towards the horizon; a sunburnt family squabbling over who would carry what back up to the campsite; and a harassed-looking father laden with fish and chips. None of them had seen her brother.

Minutes later Cassie and Sam appeared, red-faced and sweating from their walk back up the beach. Dora peered at them, willing the figure of a small blond-haired boy to appear mirage-like beside them. But they were on their own. As they drew closer Dora saw that Cassie’s knee was grazed and bleeding and she held something in her arms. Cassie spotted them and ran over.

‘Is he here?’ she asked with a gasp.

Dora shook her head.

‘Oh, Dora,’ she gasped, holding out a wet tangle of material. ‘It’s his Superman cape. Sam found it on the rocks by one of the pools. It’s soaking wet.’

Dora swallowed. ‘Are you sure? I mean, is it definitely his?’

Cassie didn’t answer. She just gave her a look that made her stomach churn and her eyes sting with tears.

‘Well what now?’ Dora asked. She realised she could hardly breathe.

Blessedly, Sam took charge.

‘Dora, you should go home. Go see if Alfie has somehow made his way back there. If he’s not there you should call your parents. Tell them what’s happened. The three of us will carry on searching here. I think we need to talk to the lifeguard and maybe even get some more people looking with us.’

Cassie moaned. ‘Oh, Alfie. Oh God, where is he? We are going to be in so much trouble.’

Dora’s mind was whirring. Images of Alfie flooded her brain. Alfie standing on the edge of a rock pool as a giant wave washed in. Alfie being led away from the beach by shadowy strangers. Alfie wandering the lethal laneways of Summertown as a huge caravan bore down on him. Alfie wading into the breakers, his little boots filling quickly with water. Alfie standing precariously on a cliff edge, his cloak flapping wildly in the breeze. The images crowded her mind and kept her frozen to the spot. She didn’t want to leave the beach. Not without Alfie.

‘Dora!’ Steven shook her by the shoulder. ‘Dora, go now. Hurry.’

She took one last look at the three of them standing there in the car park, and then she ran.

HELEN

Present Day

Helen is sitting in the conservatory lost in thought when Dora returns. The slam of the back door signals her arrival. She doesn’t know how long it has been since her daughter broke the news of her pregnancy, but the early evening sun is just starting to brush the tops of the trees and its warmth slants down onto the conservatory, making the old wooden joists click and creak like arthritic joints. Helen knows she has handled things badly, even for her. It’s time to make amends. She stands stiffly and tidies their plates and cups, placing the china back onto the tray and carrying it into the kitchen. Then, wearily, she climbs the staircase.

She finds Dora in Alfie’s room. She’s sitting in the old rocking chair by the window, her face turned to the garden, her legs – now mud-spattered – are tucked beneath her. Unobserved, Helen stands in the doorway and takes in her daughter’s profile; her elegant neck taut with tension; her pale skin and seaweed eyes; her nose, thin and straight; a smear of early freckles on her skin; her unruly dark hair scraped back carelessly into a ponytail. Although now a young woman, Dora doesn’t look all that different from the girl Helen remembers racing around the house just a few years ago, twirling a giggling Alfie in her arms, or curled up in Richard’s lap as they pored over some book or puzzle. How have they arrived at this? Two damaged women unable to communicate with each other in anything but brutal jabs and sharp thrusts of confrontation and pain.

It’s obvious Dora doesn’t know how attractive she is and it comes to her now that perhaps it’s her fault. She tries to remember the last time she complimented either of her daughters and can’t, and allows herself a fleeting moment of regret. She knows she hasn’t been a very good mother. She has neglected each of her children at crucial moments in their lives and now she is paying the price. Is it too late to change? Dora sighs and shifts in the chair. Yes, she is beautiful, beautiful but troubled.

As Helen watches her daughter, it occurs to her that she sits in the very same chair she herself occupied thirteen or so years ago, nursing Alfie day and night and rocking him gently to sleep. She remembers the sweet, talcum powder smell of him, the impossibly soft skin and the rhythmic suck and pull of his mouth at her breast; mother and baby connected in the nocturnal hours to a universal force that is as natural and insistent as the ebb and flow of the waves down on the shoreline. And now, in some strange twist of fate, here is Dora, seated before her, pregnant and distraught.

She’s known this day would come. She’s imagined it in her head a million times, one of her daughters sharing the news that she is to become a mother. She and Richard even talked about it in the early days when the girls were little more than babies, imagining the glorious days of wedding celebrations and the births of their grandchildren. They’d lived with such innocence then, made so many naive assumptions, for she’d only ever imagined those moments to be filled with joy. And she
is
happy for Dora. Of course she is. But what she hasn’t expected, what Helen hasn’t banked on is the indescribable feeling of jealousy that surged through her body at Dora’s announcement. It had been physical; a violent force that stole the breath from her lungs and left her speechless and shaking with the sheer ugliness of its existence. How
could
she?

Surely she is a monster; to feel such burning jealousy for her daughter who has been given a fresh start, a new life, while all Helen has left are her mistakes, her regrets and her overwhelming grief? There are no second chances for her. She has had her time and she has squandered it.

But she has, at least, swallowed down her seething jealousy. It is under control and buried now, smothered beneath the more pressing need to make amends with Dora. She wants to go to her, to draw her into her arms and reassure her daughter that everything will be all right; but she can’t. It is as if she is anchored to the spot, pinned down by fear and regret and the aching desire not to make things even worse, and so she just stands there, right where she is, barely breathing until Dora turns suddenly, startled to see her mother watching her from the doorway.

‘I didn’t hear you come up.’ Her daughter’s voice is flat and she turns her tear-stained face back towards the window. She is still angry.

‘No,’ says Helen. She is unsure what to say. She doesn’t know how to start the conversation that hangs unspoken between them but she forces herself to enter the room and sits down on the bed in the corner, smoothing the blue comforter beneath her.

‘I’m sorry.’ Helen pauses but Dora doesn’t interrupt. She knows this is her stage now. ‘I didn’t expect . . . I didn’t know what you wanted me to say earlier . . . downstairs.’ She draws a breath and carries on. ‘How are you feeling? With the pregnancy?’

Dora’s gaze remains fixed on the blossom outside. ‘Sick most mornings, and so tired by the evening. I’m tired like I’ve never been before, as if it’s burrowed deep in my bones.’

‘I was the same with Cassie,’ Helen remembers with a small smile. ‘It should pass in a few weeks.’ Another pause, then, ‘Was it an accident?’

She sees her daughter flinch. It is the wrong question. She tries again. ‘What I mean is, you seemed so upset earlier. It threw me. I thought, perhaps this was something you weren’t pleased about.’ Helen wonders privately if Dan is giving Dora a hard time. He seems like a nice chap but you can never be too sure.

Dora sighs and finally turns to her mother. ‘I’m scared.’

Helen takes a moment to form her response. ‘Well, that’s completely natural, most first time mums are. Your body is going through an enormous transformation. All those hormones rushing around—’

‘No. It’s more than that,’ Dora interrupts. ‘I’m scared of the past. Of what happened. I’m scared it could happen again. I already feel like I’ve lost one family. Starting another is too much responsibility . . . it’s too much to lose all over again. I can’t do it. It would break me.’

There. It has been said. Helen closes her eyes momentarily, trying to find words of comfort. ‘What happened was terrible . . . tragic. But it’s done now. It’s in the past.’

‘How can you know that, Mum? I mean, honestly, none of us would have thought, you know . . . none of us would have imagined what happened . . . the impact it had.’ Dora’s words trail off again. She seems unable to continue, but then she finds the words in a rush. ‘I don’t think I can handle the responsibility of becoming a mother. You know, I still wonder whether things might be different if I had acted differently that day, if I had
been
different. I mean, how can I possibly be ready to be a parent when I still feel like a child inside, the same child that I was on the beach that day?’

‘But that’s exactly it, Dora. You
were
just a child, a girl.’ Helen puts her fingers to the crease between her brows and tries to smooth away the headache she can feel building. ‘I think we’d all do things differently a second time round,’ she finally admits. God knows she would if she could. She has so many regrets of her own to bear. She wonders if now is the time to admit her own guilt, to air her own dirty little secret. But Dora is speaking again.

‘I can’t let it go. I think about it every day.’

‘We all do, darling. But at some point, you have to. You have to say to yourself, “This was not
my
fault.” ’

‘Wasn’t it?’ Dora looks at her mother searchingly. ‘Do you really believe that?’

Helen swallows. She knows what Dora needs to hear. She knows Dora needs to be absolved of her guilt. And she could say it out loud now. Helen could say the words she has rehearsed in her head over and over since that day.
Say it. Say it
, she wills herself. But again, a stifling fear prevents her and seconds later she sees the hope that flared in Dora’s eyes die as quickly as it arose. She burns with shame for her cowardice and tries another approach. ‘Some days, I wake up and just being here, in this house, well, it brings me great comfort. Other days it’s different. I know before I even open my eyes that I can barely muster the strength to get out of bed, because to do so means facing another dark day; another day when we all face our future, and our lives, stuck in this horrid black hole.’ Helen pauses, looks at her daughter pointedly and adds, ‘Without him . . . without each other.’

Dora nods. She understands. They’ve been ripped apart and scattered on the wind, each locked away in their own private purgatory. ‘Do you ever wonder if the police got it wrong?’

Helen gazes out at the garden. ‘No,’ she lies.

‘I do, all the time.’

Helen thinks of all the possible scenarios she has churned over night after night and winces in pain.

‘Sorry, is this too hard for you?’ Dora asks.

‘No, it’s good to talk about him. We’ve never . . .’ She breaks off.

Dora nods. ‘Dan says this is our opportunity. He thinks that we should grab it with both hands. He thinks this baby is a chance for me to start over, but he doesn’t understand. There’s no such thing as a “fresh start” is there? There’s no full stop. No clean page. Our lives just carry on. And yet, I had to come here. I can’t let go of this feeling . . . it’s the not knowing.’ She stops and rubs her belly unconsciously. ‘I have dreams.’

‘What sort of dreams?’

‘Dreams of falling. Dreams of drowning. I have this one dream where I lose something really important. It can be anything, but I am haunted by it. It’s such a terrible feeling that overwhelms me when I realise that it’s gone . . . for ever. I keep dreaming it, over and over. Then the other week, on the Tube, there was this crush. It was rush hour and I got caught up in it. It was terrifying, like being caught in a rip . . . I panicked. That feeling . . . of floundering, suffocating . . . it tore me apart.’

Helen closes her eyes again.

‘Sorry, Mum, I know this must be painful. But don’t you ever wonder if one day we will find out what happened?’

‘Would it really make such a difference now, after all this time? Dan’s right. You should grab this opportunity with both hands.’

‘And I want to,’ insists Dora. ‘I really do. I don’t want to push Dan away. I just don’t know if I can move forwards when I feel as though I’m standing on such a precarious ledge. How can you just accept that this is it? Don’t you want answers?’

‘There are no answers, Dora. Don’t you think we searched for them? We searched and searched but there weren’t any. I’ve had to accept that. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I did it.’

‘But there are still so many unanswered questions . . .’ Helen sees her daughter close her eyes and rub at her temples, a gesture so reminiscent of Richard it almost takes her breath away. ‘I just don’t believe . . . ‘I can’t believe it until—’