Secrets of the Tides (27 page)

‘I know.’ Dan gives her hand another squeeze.

‘There was this time,’ Dora said, ‘ages ago. Before Alfie, before he was even born. We hadn’t been at Clifftops that long and Dad was away. A huge storm blew in off the sea.’ She gives a little laugh. ‘I thought the house was going to blow away.’

Dan smiles at her indulgently.

‘Cassie and I climbed into bed with Mum and the three of us lay there listening to the wild weather as it battered the house. We just huddled up together, warm under the duvet, sharing the moment. And do you know what Mum said to me then?’

Dan shook his head.

‘I’ll never forget it. She looked down at me with the softest look in her eyes and she said, “Don’t be scared. We’ve got each other. Nothing else matters.” ’ Dora gives a little sob. ‘I believed then that she loved me, that she’d do anything for me. But here I am.’ She shrugs. ‘I went to her for help. I went to her for answers. And she as good as turned me away.’

Dan strokes her hand with his warm fingers.

‘But I suppose it actually doesn’t matter now. It still doesn’t change anything, does it? It still happened. We all still live with it every day.’

‘Yes, but you have to accept it, Dora. Accept it and move on. Live
your
life. Live it to the best of your ability with the people who
do
love you surrounding you. Don’t dwell on the past.’

Dora bristles. ‘I’m not dwelling on the past, Dan. I
am
living my life, right now, the one that was given to me, the only life I have . . . with all the good, and all the messed-up
shit
that comes with it. But I just can’t ignore this . . . this
thing
that happened to me. To all of us. I can’t forget him.’ She stops, trying to control the tears, and looks up at Dan imploringly. ‘Can’t you understand?
Alfie
happened to me. To us. And I just can’t forget him. I can’t let go. And if I can’t forget him, can’t live with my part in what happened, then how can I expect to move forwards and be a good parent, a good mother to an innocent child? It’s a whole new life, for Christ’s sake. And it will be my responsibility. It’s too much. I don’t think I can do it.’

‘It’s
our
responsibility, Dora. I’m with you in this too, remember? I’ll be right here.’

Dora looks up at Dan again. His eyes are filled with so much love and concern that it makes her want to weep. ‘Oh God, these hormones. They’re doing my head in. Sorry,’ she apologises and reaches for the hanky he holds out to her.

‘Dora, I don’t know how to help you any more. But one thing is for sure; you need to make a decision. Time is not on our side.’

‘I know that.’

‘And you know how I feel, don’t you?’ He looks at her earnestly. ‘Dora, I want to keep this baby, desperately. But if you don’t think you’re ready . . . if you need to make a different choice . . . well . . .’ His voice trails off.

‘I thought Dorset would help. You know, going back, remembering . . . talking to Mum. But it feels like I still only have one tiny piece of the puzzle. Does that make sense?’

Dan shakes his head. He doesn’t understand.

‘I just need a little more time.’

Dan sighs. He grabs his glass and swallows back the last of his pint. ‘I think I’m ready to go home. You?’

She leaves her glass of orange juice on the table, half drunk. A ring of condensation has formed underneath it, creating an ugly white stain on the dark wood. She rubs at it half-heartedly and then stands to follow Dan out of the pub.

They walk back through the half darkness in silence. Dora wills Dan to stop and take her hand, but he strides on the whole way, just a pace ahead of her with Gormley trotting along loyally at his heels. This isn’t how she’d imagined their reunion. The comforting sensations of the city have left her now. She hears the shriek of a siren in the distance and sees the ugly smears of litter, broken glass and dog shit strewn around the street. Even the familiar silhouette of the button factory seems cloaked in ominous shadows. They plod silently up the stairwell and it is a relief when Dan puts his key in the front door and lets them into the flat.

‘Do you want a drink?’ she asks, keen to defuse the tension between them.

‘No. I’m going to put in a bit more work before bed.’

Dora feels the rebuff, but lets him go without another word.

She stands at the sofa and watches him walk towards the studio, push on the door, turn on the lights and then shut the door definitively behind him, closing himself off from the rest of the world, and more importantly she knows, from her. She sighs. She knows what he wants to hear. She knows he needs to hear her say that she wants this baby; that it is the best thing that has happened to them; that she can’t wait to become a mother. But she just can’t. She is terrified. She is terrified of the change it will bring to their relationship and terrified by the responsibilities of parenthood and, most of all, terrified of losing not just this tiny being growing inside her, but of everything that she and Dan have built together. Families are fragile. She knows this better than anyone and Dan, for all his talk, doesn’t understand. He can’t, because he has not lived her life. For so long she has protected herself. She lived like one of Dan’s sculptures, hollowed out, her warm clay interior and pliable wax coating removed until there was nothing inside of her but a vast, empty space. Alone, she coped, hidden from the pain and the hurt that could come from giving too much of yourself. But she isn’t alone any more. There is Dan, and now there is their baby. How has she got herself into this mess?

With a sigh she turns to survey the living room. The few surfaces they own are cluttered with the detritus of their lives. She ushers Gormley into the kitchen before grabbing a black bin bag and working methodically, dumping old papers and bills, dead flowers, empty wine bottles, half-eaten crusts of toast and the stumps of misshapen candles into the rubbish sack. She stacks Dan’s art books back onto the bookshelves and carries dirty mugs and dishes into the kitchen. It takes her twenty minutes to do the washing up, and another ten to wipe down the dusty surfaces and whiz the vacuum round, but by the time she has finished the flat looks pristine again.

She looks back at the closed door to the studio and can just make out movement beneath the gap in the door. He is lost in his work, or angry at her still. Either way she knows she’ll be going to bed alone.

That night she dreams she is diving for coins. The water is green and murky but she can see them glinting silver on the bottom, drawing her down. She dives again and again, her hands scrabbling through the silt, her lungs burning as she seizes upon the cold metal and returns to the surface each time with a triumphant rush of air.

There is one more down there. She has seen it winking at her. She can’t leave it behind. With a final gasp she forces her body down below the surface. She can feel her lungs ache but the coin is within reach, she knows it; just a few more metres.

Her hands stretch before her in the gloom and she feels grit sift through her fingers. Nothing.

She has to return to the surface; her body needs the air, but her mind is insistent: it is there, just one more second, keep going.

Her hands pat blindly at the ground and suddenly she touches something; not cold metal but something warm, something strangely flesh-like. Something human. Her eyes open wide with panic in the darkness. She can’t breathe. Her body is on fire, her mind dizzy. She tries to rise to the surface but the thing she has touched has hold of her now. Fingers, insistent and strong, grip her, refusing to let go.

She pulls one more time, her body thrashing under the water as her final survival instincts kick in.

But the hand’s grip is firm and tight.
It will not let her go
.

With a final desperate wrench, she pulls away from its death-like hold and opens her mouth to scream.

She wakes to the shriek of her alarm clock. It is seven a.m. She turns it off and lies in bed for a moment, listening to the sound of rain drumming on the roof and water dripping rhythmically into the buckets and pans scattered around the bed, as the remnants of her nightmare fade away. Another wet Monday morning: she doesn’t know how she is going to muster the energy to shower, dress and get herself on the Tube to work, particularly with the revolting queasy feeling already welling up inside her. She hasn’t even opened her eyes yet, for God’s sake. The last few mornings she’s felt like this Dan has been so sweet. He’s made her tea and toast and brought it to her in bed. She reaches out a hand for him now but finds nothing but empty space. His pillow lies chastely next to hers, perfectly plumped. He hasn’t come to bed so he must have crashed out on the couch in the studio. She hates it when they go to sleep separately, still upset with each other.

She staggers into the bathroom and loses herself under a jet of steaming water for a few minutes, then dresses and heads into the kitchen, swallowing back bile as she goes. She makes tea and throws down a bowl of dog biscuits for Gormley before noticing the furry bulge sticking out of the black bin bag she filled the night before. Reaching in she pulls out the mystery object by one fuzzy leg. It is a teddy bear, the old-fashioned kind with soft tawny fur and moveable joints. He still wears his price tag: £65; not cheap. Dan must have bought him for the baby. As teddy bears go he is really rather sweet: a round podgy tummy set off by oversized paws and ears. The sight of him in her hands, his fixed black eyes looking up at her with a sad, doleful expression is almost too much to take. She puts him to one side on the kitchen table, ties off the bin bag, and sits gazing at the bear for a few more minutes. Then, before she can change her mind she reaches for the telephone.

‘Hello?’ The voice at the other end answers midway through the first ring, as though the person has been standing by the phone all this time, just waiting for her call.

She takes a deep breath. ‘Dad, it’s me . . . it’s Dora.’

CASSIE

Ten Years Earlier

Cassie sat on her bed surrounded by revision notes. She was supposed to be studying for her history A level, but her brain felt like mush and all she could think about was the little butterfly brooch tucked away at the back of her bedside table. There was an itch spreading across her skin and she couldn’t ignore it.

Kicking her notes to one side, she reached across and pulled the diamond and mother-of-pearl ornament out of the drawer, turning it over and over in her hand. It was so pretty, shimmering its muted pastel colours back at her, even in the gloom of a rain-soaked afternoon. She gazed at it a moment longer before unhooking the clasp and testing its pin for sharpness against her fingertips. It was good enough.

She pushed her sweater sleeve up past her elbow and pressed the point against the pale skin in the crook of her arm, the spot where the skin was most sensitive and the results of her work could be hidden. Then, sucking in her breath, she pressed harder and winced as the metal punctured her flesh. Ruby red blood sprang up around the pin and as she watched the beads bubble and form she dragged the spike down in one long, painful stroke, exhaling deeply as the metal did its work. She repeated the action several more times, watching with satisfaction as a crazy criss-cross pattern sprang up on her skin and the warm blood began to seep down her arms. Then, feeling a little dizzy, she lay back on the bed and let the pain wash over her. It felt good to feel something.

As the knife-sharp sting gradually subsided to a dull ache, Cassie returned to the present. The world flooded in around her once more and she lay there for a while just thinking about how much her life sucked. It sucked more than Jessica Goldstein getting off with Charlie Simpson right in front of her at the rugby club dance last weekend. It sucked more than her mum telling her in no uncertain terms that she could not get her belly button pierced before she passed her A levels. It sucked more than being stuck in her bedroom listening to the dull thump of Dora’s pop music while she tried to concentrate on her history revision. And it sucked even more than the incessant rain belting down outside keeping her trapped in the house like a prisoner, again. Yes. Life sucked, more than all of those things put together, and then some.

She pressed a tissue to her bloody arm and then reached out and banged on the wall. ‘Turn it down, will you?’

Dora’s latest girl-band fixation shrank a decibel or two until it was just a dull, unfathomable noise from the other side of the wall; it was slightly better, but she still couldn’t concentrate. The Reformation really was so boring and with Dora safely secreted in her bedroom, the house lay quiet and inviting below. Her mother had left over an hour ago – Violet was staying for a few days and they’d gone off in her battered little car to trawl some local farmers’ market. Richard was safely ensconced at work and the only other sound she could hear was the faraway buzz of a saw on wood; probably Bill tending to the garden somewhere. The house was all hers.

She pulled her sleeve down over the wound, tucked the brooch back into its hiding place and then left her bedroom, tiptoeing silently down the landing past Dora’s door before heading on to the guest room where Violet had set up camp. She tapped very lightly on the door, just in case, and then pushed it open, ducking inside and shutting it behind her in one smooth movement. She stood, listening for a moment, but Dora’s music continued its muffled thump and she knew she was alone.