I got our old stuff out of storage, and have it in crates in the living room. I’m not going to unpack it, for the time being. I don’t want to tempt my luck. I did sift through a couple of boxes, and I discovered something kind of odd. I found the ornamental box where the five pebbles should have been, and they were gone.
I choose to believe that two were for Deck and Laura, one for Travis, and the others were for Helena and me.
Which is why, though it’s been three weeks, I expect to see Helena again. I asked around, discovered that she wasn’t going out with the guy she’d said. My best guess is that the lie was some kind of protection mechanism for my benefit, to make it easier for us to get reacquainted: that she even went to the trouble to fake a phone call to him. Didn’t fool my mother, though I guess it worked on me.
I miss her now. Properly. Not with anger, or because I want to avenge or undo the past, but just because I’d like to see her again. I know she’s out there somewhere, or perhaps inside, in a place where the air is verdigris. I guess time doesn’t mean much where she is, and she’ll come back when she’s good and ready. Sometimes I think I can feel her, staying playfully just out of reach. Getting closer by the minute, building up speed to pull me free.
Tomorrow I’m going to pack a bag and get in the car and drive down the Baja. I’m going to check into Quintas Papagayo, and collect enough driftwood for a fire, then I’ll take a shower and walk into Ensenada. If I start early enough I’ll get there while the streets still teem with tourists buying rugs and bangles and pottery animals, and the sky over the harbour is still thick with birds squabbling for scraps of fish: early enough to wander for an hour in a bright afternoon sun which hazes land and sea into one.
Maybe later, as the light begins to change and the crowds thin out, I’ll start to feel something, to believe again in nights of shadows and distant shouting. And perhaps as I walk the streets towards Housson’s, past the dark storefronts, I’ll find the corner I’ve always looked for, and turn it, and she’ll be there.
Michael Marshall Smith’s debut novel was the groundbreaking Only Forward. His second novel, Spares, is in development with Steven Spielberg’s production company Dreamworks SKG and Warner Brothers have already bought the rights to One of Us amid intense competition. His novels are bestsellers in translation around the world. Michael Lives in North London, where he is currently working on his fourth novel and a number of film projects while providing a warm place for his cats to sleep.
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