Secrets of the Tides (29 page)

Richard gave a slow nod and cleared his throat. ‘I suppose I do. Helen, what do you think?’

Helen sighed. ‘I can understand you wanting some space. Are you sure it will be safe? Won’t it be a little lonely? Most of the other students will have their parents with them and we’ll certainly try not to embarrass you. We really don’t mind the drive. We could make a weekend of it?’

‘You can still come, Mum, just in a few weeks, once I’m settled in.’

‘Well it would be fun for us to come and visit you there, wouldn’t it, Helen?’ Richard tried again, summoning up an enthusiastic tone at last. ‘Maybe we could make the trip just before Christmas, combine it with some shopping and a nice hotel?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Cassie, seizing upon the idea. ‘It’s supposed to be lovely up there at that time of year.’ Finally, they were getting somewhere.

‘And you’ll be OK travelling all that way on your own? You’ll have to change trains in London. You won’t get lost?’ Helen worried again.

‘Mum, I’m about to leave home. If I can’t navigate my way from Dorset to Edinburgh on the train then I’m really going to be in trouble, aren’t I?’

‘Mmmm . . .’ murmured Helen. The worried frown had returned to her face.

‘So your heart is set on it?’ asked Richard one final time.

‘Yes,’ said Cassie.

‘Well, I suppose it will be OK.’ Richard paused. ‘But if you change your mind, it’s no problem. I’d be happy to drive you.’

‘I know, Dad, thanks.’ She knew she wouldn’t change her mind.

‘Could you pass the water, dear?’

Cassie breathed a small sigh of relief. It seemed to be the end of the matter.

Richard leaned over and passed the jug across the table to Helen. Cassie noticed Helen’s little jump of surprise as Richard’s fingers accidentally grazed hers, as if his touch had burnt her. Yes, it would be good to leave.

The night before Cassie left, Dora tapped quietly at her bedroom door. Cassie let her in and watched as her sister eyed the oversized rucksack propped by her bed.

‘All packed then?’ she asked.

‘Yep.’ Too late, Cassie saw Dora’s eyes flick to the vivid red hatch marks streaking up her arm. Hurriedly she pulled down her sleeves and threw herself onto her bed. She blocked out her sister’s horrified look and, willing her not to say anything, returned to frantically scribbling in her diary as a heavy silence settled around the room.

Dora took the hint and grabbed an old
Cosmopolitan
from a stack next to Cassie’s bed and began flicking through the pages carelessly. ‘So, what time are you off?’

‘Mum’s dropping me at the station at nine.’

There was another pause.

‘You’re
so
lucky.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes! You get to escape, start afresh, somewhere completely new.’

Cassie eyed her sister. ‘University isn’t exactly the be-all and end-all you know, Dora. It’s just glorified school. You still have people telling you what to do and when to do it, what assignments to write and when to hand them in . . . which books to read and exams to sit. It’s not
real
freedom. It’s not real escape, is it?’

‘It’s better than nothing!’ Dora wailed plaintively. ‘I’m going to be stuck here on my own. Just me and Mum . . . and Dad, when he’s around.’ Dora paused for a moment to stare at a ‘position of the month’ feature, her eyes boggling, before flicking the page. ‘Can you imagine anything more awful?’

‘Mmm . . .’ Cassie was chewing on her pen lid. She wouldn’t want to be in Dora’s shoes either. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she lied. ‘You’ll be out of here too before you know it.’

‘Can I come and visit you sometime?’

Cassie went quiet for a very long time. ‘Yes of course. If Mum and Dad let you, that is.’

Dora nodded. They both knew how erratic and strange their parents’ moods could be now; how one minute they would be cloyingly protective, demanding to know the ins and outs of every single social interaction or engagement, only then to be weirdly absent and distracted the next, as if they barely remembered the girls existed at all.

‘Sometimes I’d give anything just to get away from here,’ Dora announced suddenly. ‘I can’t understand why Mum and Dad stay. I think it’s making things worse. You know, if we had all just left, had a fresh start somewhere . . . or gone back to London. Maybe it would be a bit easier. Maybe we would feel like a family again.’

‘Maybe,’ said Cassie.

‘But then if Alfie is out there, somewhere, he wouldn’t know how to find us, would he?’

Cassie shook her head. Dora still didn’t get it. ‘I don’t actually think Mum and Dad want to go back to how it used to be. That’s the problem,’ she said. ‘They enjoy the misery. They love wallowing in it.’

‘I don’t know . . .’ Dora was sceptical. ‘They don’t look like they
love
anything at the moment.’ She chewed on her lip. ‘Cass . . .?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you think about him much?’

‘No,’ Cassie replied bluntly. It was another lie.

‘I do.’

Cassie didn’t want to talk about Alfie. She sat up, slammed her diary shut and threw it down onto the bed, hoping to bring a swift end to the conversation. As her diary thumped on the duvet a collection of sealed blue envelopes slid out from between the covers. They were all addressed to Cassie and whoever had sent them had taken the trouble to draw a tiny heart above the ‘i’ in her name, where the dot should have been. Cassie snatched them up quickly and stuffed them back between the pages of her diary, but it was too late: Dora had spotted them.

‘Aren’t you going to open those?’ she asked, eyeing the letters.

Cassie shrugged. ‘Nope.’

‘Who are they from?’

Cassie sighed. ‘Sam.’

‘What? Sam from last summer?’

‘Yep.’

‘What does she want?’

Cassie shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I haven’t opened them, have I?’

‘Why not?’

Cassie scowled in frustration. How was she going to explain to Dora that the very last thing she wanted to do was confront whatever Sam had written inside those innocuous blue envelopes? She just wanted to forget all about Sam and that unbearable day on the beach.

But it was as if Dora could read her mind. ‘Don’t you ever wonder if it
was
our fault?’ she asked in a small voice.

Cassie didn’t say anything; she just pushed the diary under her pillow and sank back onto her bed, closing her eyes.

‘You know, I can’t help but think . . . if we hadn’t gone to the Crag . . . and if I hadn’t left you all to go and get those stupid ice creams . . .’

‘Dora, shut up will you?’ Cassie snapped.

Dora looked stung. There were tears in her eyes. ‘We never talk about him, none of us. It’s like he never existed. It’s driving me crazy. All I want to do is talk to someone about him. About what happened . . . Just a few minutes. It’s all I’m asking for.’

‘Dora, I won’t tell you again.’ Cassie’s cheeks flamed red with anger. ‘Just shut up! Shut up, or get out of my room.’

‘Why won’t you talk to me? We used to hang out all the time. Now you just shut yourself away. It’s like you can’t bear to spend time with me.’

‘Dora, I’m warning you.’

Dora sighed, and then got to her feet. She threw her magazine down on the floor in front of Cassie. ‘What’s wrong with everyone in this family? You all ignore me. All I want to do is remember him. I’m forgetting Alfie, and it makes me sad.’ Dora looked close to tears.

Cassie felt like a bitch, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘Haven’t you ever thought that it might make us all
more
sad to remember? That’s why we are all trying so hard to forget. And there you are bringing Alfie up every five minutes. It’s not helpful, Dora. No wonder Mum and Dad are barely speaking. That’s probably
your
fault as well. And it’s no bloody wonder I can’t wait to escape this hellhole. I just want to find some peace away from this crappy place. Away from you! Let it
lie
, will you. For God’s sake, you’re not a kid any more! Stop acting like one.’

Dora didn’t say another word. She marched out of Cassie’s room and slammed the door.

Cassie lay back on her bed and tried to block out the sound of her sister’s sobs as she fled down the hallway. She waited until she heard the slam of Dora’s bedroom door and then she reached back under her pillow for her journal. Before she could change her mind Cassie seized the four pale blue envelopes and ripped the contents of each one into tiny illegible pieces, watching as the torn remnants floated to the ground like fragments of ash settling after a fire. Whatever had been written couldn’t hurt her any more. The words were gone.

She lay back on her bed and closed her eyes. She could feel the start of the itch, crawling up the inside of her arms, tingling and hot. She tried to ignore it but it grew more and more insistent, until, unable to resist it any longer, she snapped open her eyes and reached across for the little butterfly brooch in her drawer. It was too hard to resist. Cassie reached for it and began to pick at her skin with the bloodied pin.

Her nightmare returned that night. She woke from it with a start, her pillow drenched with sweat and tears. She knew it was only a dream but she turned on her bedside lamp anyway, eager to chase away the dark shadows still lurking in her mind. She’d been in the Crag, clawing desperately at its walls, screaming and hammering on the unforgiving rock face for Alfie. Although she was wide awake now she could still feel the sensation of stone ripping at her hands, torn fingernails and bleeding skin. She shuddered and pulled her duvet up tight under her chin.

She’d thought it was getting better. She hadn’t dreamt of him at all the last few weeks. But then, just like that, Alfie was back. Damn Dora and their argument. Why couldn’t she try to forget like the rest of them? God knows none of them wanted to relive last year, night after night, like a never-ending horror movie stuck on repeat.

It had been horrendous.

Her stomach churned.

She looked around her bedroom desperately, trying to find something normal to fix upon, something mundane that would keep the nightmare at bay, keep it from being real. She tried counting the rows of CDs in the rack across from her. One, two, three, four . . . Unwanted images came crashing in on her from all directions.

Oh God. There she was, at the far end of the beach, sunburnt and foggy from too much spliff, stumbling around the rock pools at the far end of the beach with Sam. They were both calling Alfie’s name in raspy, panicked cries. Her tongue was heavy with the taste of marijuana and she was thirsty – so thirsty, she could barely find her voice. She remembered a sudden rush of seawater breaking over the rocks and filling her sandals. The water had been cold enough to make her shriek. Then, Sam’s shout. She had turned to see her holding something above her head.
Don’t be ridiculous
, she’d thought, we’re looking for my brother, not beachcombing for washed-up junk, but then her eyes had readjusted and she’d realised with a horrified gasp that the dark, shapeless object Sam held aloft was, in fact, Alfie’s Superman cloak.

She’d stumbled towards her, falling once and grazing her knees on the rocks, but moving forwards all the time until she reached Sam.

‘No!’ she’d shouted. ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ She’d started to cry.

Sam had looked on, shocked and silent.

She remembered running her hands through her hair and pulling it hard, and again harder still, trying to get a grip of the situation as it spiralled wildly out of control around her. She had turned and looked out at the surf crashing onto the rocks closest to the beach, scanning the water for a sign of Alfie.

‘It doesn’t mean . . . you know,’ tried Sam, nodding her head in the direction of the waves. ‘Maybe he was hot. Maybe he took it off and then headed back up the beach, to get ice cream? Perhaps,’ she tried again, ‘perhaps he went to look for your sister?’

Cassie looked at her hopefully. ‘You’re right.’ She ignored the damp bundle of cloth in her arms. ‘He’s probably up at the car park now, with Dora and her friend. This doesn’t mean anything.’ She dried her eyes, suddenly hopeful. ‘We should go find Dora and Steven, see if they’ve found him.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Sam.

Suddenly they were both keen to leave the remote outcrop behind. They wanted to return to the main strip, to surround themselves with the buzz and chatter of families going about the normal business of holidaying.

Cassie closed her eyes and swallowed hard. When she opened them again she could see light from her bedside lamp pooling onto the duvet cover, highlighting a small circle of pink roses on the material. She pleated the fabric frantically between her fingers, willing away the scenes flashing before her eyes. But it was no good.

Now there was Helen racing towards her across the car park. Even in her state of distress Cassie remembered thinking her mother looked strange. Usually so poised, there she was stumbling and tripping in espadrilles across the tarmac with her face twisted into a terrifying grimace like a theatrical Greek mask, half rage half fear.

‘Where is he?’ Helen had gasped as she got closer. Then when Cassie didn’t reply, she screamed it again, ‘Where is he, Cassie?’ Her mother had seized her arms and shaken her violently. She remembered going limp like a rag doll, allowing her mother to buffet and bruise her in the painful embrace. There was nothing she could say.

‘Er, miss. Are you Cassandra Tide?’ A large man in police uniform was looking at her with concern.

‘Yes, yes I am.’

‘I need to ask you some questions. To help us find your brother. Will you come with me?’

Cassie nodded and let him lead her into the shade of the beach shop. It was hot and stuffy in there, but it was a relief to be away from all the staring faces. And she’d answered all of their questions. Even when Helen had burst into the claustrophobic storeroom and stood by the doorway glowering at her with barely disguised disgust, she’d kept her eyes fixed on a strange elephant-shaped stain on the floor and answered each question as best she could. And the only details she omitted were the ones she knew shouldn’t be spoken out loud; like the smoky tang of the spliffs she’d shared with Sam that had burnt her throat and coated her tongue; like the slow creep of Sam’s fingers as they travelled up her thigh and under the hem of her denim skirt; like the velvet-soft brush of Sam’s lips on hers and the taste of her tongue, soft and sweet. Yes, there were some details she had left out, but she knew they wouldn’t have helped with the search and so she hadn’t spoken them out loud. They wouldn’t change anything.