Seeing Charlie again reminds me of how I used to moon about after him. It was only a few years ago, really, but I was a kid then. It’s embarrassing, thinking of the girl I used to be. But it also makes me kind of sad.
I’m looking for somewhere to hide from them all. I take the track past the ruined houses, left over from when people used to live on this island. Jules told me that the islanders abandoned their homes because they found it easier to live on the mainland, that they wanted electricity and stuff. I get that. Just the fact of being stuck here would drive you mental. Even if you managed to get a boat to the mainland you’d still be a million miles away from anywhere. Your nearest, I don’t know, H&M, say, would be hundreds of miles away. I’ve always felt like Mum and I lived out in the sticks, but now I’m just grateful that we don’t live on an island in the middle of the Atlantic. So, yeah, I can see why you’d want to leave. But looking at these deserted houses with their empty windows and tumbledown appearance, it’s hard not to feel like bad things happened here.
Yesterday, I saw something on one of the beaches; it was bigger than the rest of the rocks, grey but smoother, softer-looking somehow. I went to get a closer look. It was a dead seal. A baby, I think, because it was so small. I crept a bit closer and then I got a shock. On the other side, which had been hidden from me before, the seal’s body was all open, dark red, spilling out. I can’t get the image of it out of my head. Since then this place has made me think of death.
It only takes me a few minutes to get down to the cave, which is marked on a map of the island in the Folly. The Whispering Cave, it’s called. It’s like a long wound in the ground – open at both ends. You could fall into it without realising it was there because the opening is hidden by all this long grass. When I came across it yesterday I nearly
did fall in. I would have broken my neck. That would ruin Jules’s perfect wedding, wouldn’t it? The thought almost makes me smile.
I climb down into the cave, down the rocks at the side that resemble a flight of steps. All the noise in my head dials down a notch and I start to breathe easier, even if there is a weird smell in this place – like sulphur, and maybe also of things rotting. It could be coming from the seaweed, lying all around in here in big dark ropes. Or maybe the stink’s coming from the walls, which are spotted with yellow lichen.
In front of me is a tiny shingled beach, and the sea beyond. I sit down on a rock. It’s damp, but then this whole place is damp. I could feel it on my clothes when I dressed this morning, like they’d been washed and hadn’t quite dried. If I lick my lips I can taste salt on my skin.
I think about staying here for a long time, even overnight. I could hide here until after the ceremony is over, until it’s all done and dusted. Jules would be livid, of course. Although … maybe she’d pretend to be angry, but actually she’d be secretly relieved. I don’t think she really wants me at her wedding at all. I think she resents me because Mum gets on better with me and because I have a dad who wants to see me at least occasionally. I know I’m being a bitch. Jules does do nice stuff for me, sometimes, like when she let me stay in her flat in London last summer. And when I remember that I feel bad, like there’s a nasty taste in my mouth.
I take out my phone. Because of the rubbish signal here my Instagram is stuck with one photo at the top. Of course it would be Ellie’s latest post. It’s like they’re mocking me. The comments underneath:
You GUYS!
 |
OMG sooooo cute.
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mum + dad
#mood
 |
so can we assume its official now, yeh? *winks*
It hurts, still. A pain at the centre of my chest. I look at their smug, smiling faces, and part of me wants to lob my phone as hard as I can at the wall of the cave. But that wouldn’t sort my problems out. They’re all right here with me.
I hear a noise in the cave – footsteps – and almost drop my phone in shock. ‘Who’s there?’ I say. My voice sounds small and scared. I really hope it’s not the best man, Johnno. I caught him looking at me earlier.
I stand up and start to clamber out of the cave, keeping close to the wall, which is covered with thousands of tiny rough barnacles that graze my fingertips. Finally I put my head around the wall of rock.
‘Oh Jesus!’ The figure stumbles backwards and puts a hand to her chest. It’s Charlie’s wife. ‘Christ! You gave me a right shock. I didn’t think anyone was down here.’ She’s got a nice accent, Northern. ‘You’re Olivia, aren’t you? I’m Hannah, I’m married to Charlie.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I got that. Hi.’
‘What are you doing down here?’ She does a quick glance over her shoulder, like she’s checking there’s no one listening. ‘Looking for a place to hide? Me too.’
I decide I like her a little bit for that.
‘Oh,’ she says, ‘that probably sounded bad, didn’t it? I just – I guess Charlie and Jules will catch up better if I’m not around. You know, they have all this history and it doesn’t include me.’
She sounds a bit fed up. History. I’m like 90 per cent sure Charlie and Jules have screwed at some point in the past. I wonder if Hannah’s ever thought about that.
Hannah sits down on a shelf of rock. I sit, too, because I was here first.
I really wish she’d take the hint and leave me alone. I take my pack of cigarettes out of my pocket and tip one out. I wait to see if Hannah’s going to say anything. She doesn’t. So I go one step further, to test her, I suppose, and offer her one, along with my lighter.
She screws up her face. ‘I shouldn’t,’ she says. Then she sighs. ‘But why not? We had such a mental crossing over here – I’ve got the shakes now.’ She holds up a hand to show me.
She lights up, takes a deep drag and gives another big sigh. I can see she’s gone a bit dizzy. ‘Wow. That’s gone straight to my head. Haven’t had one for so long. Gave up when I got pregnant. But I smoked a lot in my clubbing days.’ She gives me a look. ‘Yeah, I know – you’re thinking that must have been a million years ago. Certainly feels like it.’
I feel a bit guilty, because I had thought it. But looking at her more closely I can see that she has four piercings in one ear and there’s a tattoo on the inside of her wrist, half hidden by her sleeve. Maybe there’s another side to her.
She takes another big drag. ‘God that’s good. I thought when I gave them up that I’d eventually go off the taste, or wouldn’t miss them any more.’ She gives a big, deep laugh. ‘Yeah. Didn’t happen.’ She blows out four perfect rings of smoke.
I’m kind of impressed, despite myself. Callum used to try that but he never got the hang of it.
‘So you’re at uni, right?’ she asks. ‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘Whereabouts?’ ‘Exeter.’
‘That’s a good one, isn’t it?’ ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I suppose so.’
‘I didn’t go,’ Hannah says. ‘No one in my family went to uni,’ she coughs, ‘except for my sister, Alice.’
I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t really know anyone who didn’t go to uni. Even Mum went to acting school.
‘Alice was always the clever one,’ Hannah goes on. ‘I used to be the wild one, if you can believe it. We both went to this crummy school but Alice came out of there with amazing grades.’ She taps ash from her cigarette. ‘Sorry, I know I’m banging on. She’s on my mind a lot at the moment.’
Her face has changed, I notice. But I don’t feel like I can ask her about it, seeing as we’re total strangers.
‘Anyway,’ Hannah says. ‘You like Exeter?’
‘I’m not there any more,’ I say. ‘I dropped out.’ I don’t know what made me say it. It would have been so much easier to play along, pretend I was still there. But I suddenly felt like I didn’t want to lie to her.
Hannah frowns. ‘Oh yeah? You weren’t enjoying it then?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I guess … I had this boyfriend. And he broke up with me.’ Wow, that sounds pathetic.
‘He must have been a real shit,’ Hannah says, ‘if you left uni because of him.’
When I think about everything that happened in the last year my mind goes hot, and blank, and I can’t think about it properly or sort it all out in my head. None of it makes sense, especially now, trying to piece it all together. I can’t explain it, I think, without telling her everything. So I shrug and say, ‘Well, I guess he was my first proper boyfriend.’
Proper as in more than someone to hook up with at house parties. But I don’t say this to Hannah.
‘And you loved him,’ she says.
She doesn’t say it like a question, so I don’t feel I have to answer. All the same, I nod my head. ‘Yeah,’ I say. My voice comes out very small and cracked. I didn’t believe in love at first sight until I saw Callum, across the bar at Fresher’s Week, this boy with black curls and beautiful
blue eyes. He gave me a sort of slow smile and it was like I knew him. Like we had always meant to come together, to find each other.
Callum said he loved me first. I was too scared of making an arse of myself. But eventually I felt like I had to say it too, like it was bursting out of me. When he broke up with me, he told me that he would love me forever. But that’s total crap. If you love someone, really, you don’t do anything to hurt them.
‘I didn’t leave just because he broke up with me,’ I say, quickly. ‘It was …’ I take a big drag on my cigarette. My hand’s trembling. ‘I guess if Callum hadn’t broken up with me, none of the rest would have happened.’
‘None of the rest?’ Hannah asks. She’s sitting forward, interested.
I don’t answer. I’m trying to think of a way to go on, but I can’t find the right words. She doesn’t push me. So there’s a long silence, both of us sitting there and smoking.
Then: ‘Shit!’ Hannah says. ‘Is it me or has it got quite a lot darker while we’ve been sitting here?’
‘I think the sun’s started to set,’ I say. We can’t see it from here as we’re not facing in the right direction, but you can make out the pink glow in the sky.
‘Oh dear,’ Hannah says. ‘We should probably make our way back to the Folly. Charlie hates being late for anything. He’s such a teacher. I reckon I can hide for another ten minutes but—’ She’s stubbing out her cigarette now.
‘You go,’ I say. ‘It’s fine. It’s not important.’
She squints at me. ‘It kind of sounded like it was.’ ‘No,’ I say. ‘Honestly.’
I can’t believe how close I came to telling her about it all. I haven’t told anyone the other stuff. Not even any of my mates. It’s a relief, really. If I’d told her, there’d be no taking it back. It would be out there in the world: what I’ve done.
