by Rona Halsall
A few moments later, a man was lowered on a winch; he landed a little distance away and unclipped himself before heading in her direction. He spoke to her in Spanish and she shook her head, unable to think of a single Spanish word, her mind numb after her ordeal.
‘All okay,’ he said, giving her the thumbs up before he clipped her into a harness and she was winched into the helicopter. A crew member wrapped her in silver blankets before the helicopter wheeled around and headed back to Mahón, a journey that lasted only a few minutes.
She didn’t remember much about it, was barely aware of being trundled into the emergency department, where she was hooked up to monitors and drips, allowing herself to finally relax and succumb to an exhausted sleep.
* * *
It was the sound of Spanish voices that woke her, and her eyes flickered open to see a doctor and nurse at the end of her bed. The doctor held a clipboard, and when she glanced up from her notes, she caught Chloe’s eye. ‘Hola,’ she said, smiling. ‘You’re awake!’ Her English was perfect, with only a slight accent.
I’m safe, Chloe thought. It’s over.
‘My baby,’ she said, her voice a hoarse whisper.
The doctor came and stood beside her. ‘I’m pleased to say everything is looking fine. We are treating you for hypothermia and dehydration, but you’ll be able to go home by the end of the day. Just another couple of hours to make sure everything has stabilised.
Chloe swallowed, trying to get saliva into her mouth.
‘My husband?’ she croaked. ‘Does he know I’m here? Can I call him?’ Then she remembered that she didn’t have his number, had no way of contacting him. What if he doesn’t know where I am? But he must, mustn’t he? she reasoned. Or how would they be searching for me? Her thoughts scattered like leaves in an autumn gale, making no sense, flashing images into her mind that she didn’t want to see.
The doctor put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. He’s here. I sent him to get something to eat, but he should be back soon. Talking of food, you must be starving. Do you think you could manage something? And a hot drink?’
Chloe nodded, not really thinking about anything the doctor had said except that Dan was nearby.
After everything that had happened, she needed to see him, because only then would she really know what direction her future was going to go in. So many questions, so much that she didn’t understand. Once she had answers Her thoughts started to blur, her eyelids refused to stay open, and sleep claimed her again.
Forty-Two
Chloe’s hand felt warm, pleasantly warm, and she smiled to herself as her dream spun its magic in her mind for a few moments more before fading away. She stirred in the bed, and a hand squeezed hers.
‘Chloe? Are you awake?’
Her eyes opened slowly, her vision blurry with sleep, but there was no mistaking the voice. Dan gazed at her, concern in his eyes, worry lines wrinkling his brow.
She tried a smile but couldn’t make it work. Something was troubling her. But she couldn’t quite remember, couldn’t dig the thought out of its hiding place. She ran her tongue round dry lips and edged herself into a sitting position, a headache pounding behind her eyes. She noticed a cannula in her hand, saw the drip by the bed.
‘Do you need a drink?’ he said, watching her closely. ‘There’s some water here.’
She took the plastic cup he held out to her, guzzling it down. Her eyelids felt so heavy she could hardly keep them from closing, her muscles so weary it was an effort to hold her head up. She leant back on her pillow, closed her eyes while she thought, uneasy under his scrutiny. There were things she needed to say, questions to ask, so she could understand exactly what had happened to her. She needed to make sense of it and tuck it away somewhere, so she didn’t need to think about it again.
She wiped a hand over her face.
Where to start?
She glanced at Dan and knew that things had changed between them. He even looked different now she understood that he’d lied to her, had willingly put her life at risk. How can you believe you’ve fallen in love with someone you don’t know? And that thought led to another question. Do I still love him?
His thumb caressed the back of her hand, a movement she’d always liked, but now it annoyed her, and she slid her hand away, held the plastic cup out to him.
‘I don’t suppose I could have some more, could I?’
‘Of course.’ He refilled the cup from a jug on her bedside table. ‘There you go.’
She sipped at the water while he started to talk.
‘I’m so glad you’re safe. I was beginning to think’ He leant forwards and looked down at his hands, which were clasped together in front of him on the bed. ‘Well, the coastguards had been out, and when they found’ He sighed, and it was a moment before he carried on. ‘They found Liam’s body.’
She gripped the cup tighter, sending a spurt of water onto the covers.
‘And that’s when I thought’
‘You thought what?’
‘I thought you were dead too.’ His voice was thick with emotion. ‘Oh, babe, you’ve no idea what I’ve been through.’
She gazed at him, astounded. What you’ve been through? And I nearly died, because She frowned and a flash of conversation replayed in her mind, Liam talking.
‘There’s something’ She studied his face, looking for the truth. ‘Dan, I don’t understand why you didn’t transfer the money. Liam said he’d let me go if you paid him, so why didn’t you?’
Dan stared at her for a moment, mouth open as if he was about to speak, then his eyes slid away. ‘I know how it looks’ He swallowed. ‘But the police told me not to.’
The silence stretched out between them, her heart pounding as the truth began to crystallise in her mind. She cleared her throat before she spoke. ‘So, when did you call the police?’
He sat back in his chair, swept an imaginary bit of something off his jeans, fiddled with his wedding ring. ‘When I got back to the house and you weren’t there, I thought you’d run off again like last time. I rang your gran, but she didn’t know anything, said you hadn’t been in touch. So then I got a taxi to the airport to see if I could find you. Asked at all the airlines, but nobody could find a record of you travelling with them.’ He sighed. ‘I didn’t know where to look then. I walked round town, went back to the village, but nobody had seen you. So I went back to the house.’ He looked at her, face flushed, and threw up his hands. ‘I was beside myself with worry, but there was nothing else I could do.’
Chloe nodded, chewed at her lip. He’s avoiding my question. She stared at him, eyes narrowed. ‘When exactly did you ring the police? I need to know.’
He shuffled in his seat, crossed his arms over his chest. ‘When I got off the phone to Liam.’
A sudden rage erupted inside her, burning up her throat, surging round her body.
‘What?’ Her chest heaved. ‘But I’d been gone for hours by then. And you’d kept telling me I wasn’t safe. That he’d made threats to my life! I can’t believe it took you so long.’
He reached for her hand, but she snatched it away.
‘Chloe, you don’t understand. I’d already negotiated terms, made him promise not to do anything.’ A sheen of sweat coated his brow. ‘I was going to pay him. I thought we’d done a deal a few days ago.’
‘Oh yeah?’ she sneered. ‘So, when did you know that you hadn’t?’
‘When you were on the boat,’ he whispered.
‘Let me get this straight.’ Chloe felt her head would burst with the enormity of the truth. ‘You didn’t get the police involved until you knew I was out in the middle of the bloody sea—’ her voice was rising, getting louder ‘—with a lunatic who wanted to punish you by killing me?’ The magnitude of what had happened, how close she’d come to death, hit home then. ‘Don’t you think that was just a bit bloody late?’ she hissed, her teeth clamped tight.
‘But I didn’t know where you were.’ His eyes pleaded with he
r. ‘For all I knew, you’d just gone walkabout.’
‘And that meant I wasn’t in danger?’ She glared at him, incredulous. ‘The whole honeymoon had been rearranged, supposedly to keep me out of danger. But I’m beginning to wonder about that. I’m beginning to wonder if money was a part of this whole thing. That you were trying not to pay him, playing a game of cat-and-mouse, thinking you could hide us and then we’d be safe. Playing games with my life.’
‘Oh, babe, it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t.’ His hands were pressed together as if in prayer. ‘You’ve got to believe me. Honestly, I did everything I could to make sure we were safe from him. I’d worked out he was unstable, but I didn’t think he’d go that far. I really didn’t.’ He squeezed his eyes shut, his body rocking slightly as he pleaded his case. ‘I was trying to make a future for us. I thought if we came here, wound up everything in the UK, then he’d have no idea where we were, and we’d get to keep all our money. Enough for us to make a new start.’
Chloe gasped as his admission hit her. ‘Oh my God! It was you who closed my bank account, resigned me from my job, terminated the lease on my flat.’ Her face burned hot, her pulse whooshing in her ears. ‘You did all that?’
He nodded and looked at the floor. She could see the blush spreading up his neck, colouring his cheeks.
It was all barefaced lies. The glimmer of hope that had been burning in her heart was snuffed out. She stared at him, unable to speak.
He chewed his lip as he looked at her. ‘I was trying to do what was best for us. That’s all. If you’d only done as I’d asked, if you’d stayed in the house, none of this would have happened.’ His eyes glinted, his apology over.
Chloe’s hands grasped at the blanket that covered her body. ‘Oh, it’s all my fault!’ she shouted, hardly able to believe what he was saying. ‘I nearly died because of something you did, and it’s all my fault?’ Her mouth opened and closed as she struggled to find the words to express her fury.
A nurse bustled over, looking concerned, said something in Spanish. She looked at Chloe while Dan answered.
Chloe pointed at him. ‘I want him to go now.’ She hoped the nurse understood and turned her back on him, curled herself under the blanket, her shoulders heaving as she struggled to hold back the sobs that threatened to burst out of her. ‘Please, I don’t want him here.’
The nurse spoke to him in hushed tones, and finally, she heard him get up and leave. Only then did she allow herself to cry until all her tears ran dry.
Alone with her thoughts, she had no idea what the future held, no idea what she was going to do, her anger shredding any plans she might have had, any ideas about happy families. Her life was a horrible, ugly mess, and the man who she’d thought was the love of her life was the cause of it all. He’d made her behave in a way that was alien to her. He’d made her into an animal, fighting for her life and that of her baby.
Forty-Three
A year later
Chloe woke up, confused for a moment before remembering that she was staying at her gran’s house. Something she’d started to do more often since Jonah was born; the odd night here and there, giving her the chance of a break. Her tiny second-floor apartment near the hospital was not ideal with a baby – she’d rushed into renting it as soon as she’d got back from Menorca. At the time she’d had nowhere else to stay and there wasn’t much else on offer. Still, it would be handy for work when she returned in a few months’ time, and Jonah would go to the crèche, which was just a few hundred yards down the road.
She glanced at her phone to check the time. That’s when she saw the date: it was her wedding anniversary and a day when she’d have to make a decision that she’d been avoiding. She sighed and listened, could hear the snuffles, the little mewls that told her Jonah was awake and would be wanting his feed soon.
She flopped onto her back, memories of the events that brought her to this place, this day, flowing like water into her mind, filling it with images she didn’t want to see.
There was uncertainty still. There were questions she couldn’t answer, because she only knew the outcome of one set of events, couldn’t possibly know what might have happened if she’d made different decisions. She could see the scene so clearly, could even feel the panic that had filled her chest at the time, experience the flush of adrenaline that had sharpened her senses, allowing her a chance of survival. But the calculation was brutal. There was only one life jacket and only one of them was going to have a chance. It was her or Liam.
She had chosen her life over his. A natural reaction, and one that she couldn’t regret.
Jonah’s cries brought her mind back to the present. Nobody knew what had happened out there, nobody. She got to be the judge and jury of her actions, and the verdict was impossible to tie down. He told me he wanted to die, she reminded herself as she picked up her child and nursed him at her breast, let his tiny hands grasp her finger.
Jonah opened his eyes and gazed at her, a look that never failed to fill her heart with love and make her smile. How could she have done anything different?
A knock at the door made her jump and she turned to see it open, Janelle’s face peering round. ‘Thought you might be awake. I’ve got a cup of tea here.’
‘Oh, you’re a lifesaver,’ Chloe said, smiling.
It’s funny how things work out, she thought. If she hadn’t married Dan, Janelle wouldn’t have come into her life, and now she was like a mother, who helped her with all the worries of being a new mum.
Janelle sat next to her and gazed at Jonah. ‘Oh, he’s such a gorgeous lad. And I hadn’t realised until your gran showed me some photos yesterday how like your mum he looks.’
Chloe took a sip of her tea and studied her son. She could only see Dan in him and wondered if everyone saw what they wanted to see in people. It was fair to say her gran was besotted with her great-grandchild; his arrival had given her a new lease of life, and her anger at Chloe had thankfully dissipated. Their relationship had a warmth to it again, the bad feeling between them forgiven and forgotten as Jonah made them look to the future rather than wallow in the tragedies of the past.
Today’s the day.
The thought made her tense. She was meeting Dan later and she’d promised him a decision on what happened next.
‘What time are you going out?’ Janelle asked. ‘I don’t mind coming with you if that would be easier. I can always take this little fella while you and Dan have a chat.’
Chloe sighed and put her tea down, moving Jonah to the other breast. ‘Thanks, Jan, but I’ve got to do this on my own.’ She gazed at her son and realised that she would never be on her own now, a thought that filled her with warmth. Whatever decision she made, it was about the future of this little boy as much as it was about her.
Janelle got up to leave. ‘We’re off shopping today, and no doubt your gran’s going to be dragging me into the baby shop. Is there anything you need?’
Chloe laughed. ‘A few more bibs maybe, but that’s about it. Honestly, this child has more clothes than he could possibly wear.’
Janelle stood. ‘I’ll try and control her, but you know what she’s like. Loves this little fella, she does.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘So much better, isn’t she? Since he came along. It’s like she’s got a reason to keep going now.’
Chloe smiled. ‘Brilliant, isn’t it? She’s been struggling since Mum died, but she’s been able to put that behind her now she’s got Jonah to focus on.’
Janelle sighed. ‘She’s always a bit sad after you’ve been staying, you know. I’m sure she’d be happy to see more of you, if that’s what you wanted. But it’s your life, just remember that. You’ve got to do what’s right for you and Jonah.’
Chloe nodded. ‘I’m not sure I’ve even made a decision yet.’
‘You’ll know.’ Janelle rubbed her shoulder. ‘I’m sure you’ll know. It’s been a while now, hasn’t it? You can’t just tread water, you have to move forwards now. Do what’s right for your family.�
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Chloe watched Janelle walk out of the room, looked down at her son and knew that she was right.
* * *
It was a beautiful day, the sea sparkling, the air still and warm for the time of year. Chloe sat on a bench on the promenade, looking out to sea, oblivious to the people passing by as she waited for Dan, her decision flickering between a yes and a no. He’d been in Brighton for the past year, back living with his mum. When she’d first got home, Chloe had decided that she didn’t want anything to do with him, but over time, as she chatted to Janelle and her gran, she realised that life wasn’t black and white and the decision had to be more carefully considered. They were married after all. And they had a child growing in her belly, which changed her perspective.
Dan had done a lot of things wrong, but for all the right reasons. It had taken her a while to work that one out.
She had also done things that had been wrong. And in a way, her actions had been more culpable than his. It had taken her a long time to admit this, because it was always easier to blame someone else, wasn’t it? Human nature.
Her decision couldn’t be about who was to blame for things that had happened in the past. It had to be about what was best for her and their child in the future.
She watched Dan walk up the promenade towards her, an imposing figure, a goliath of a man, who cherished her above everything.
As he got closer, her heart started to race.
Am I ready to move on? Ready to let go of the horror of our honeymoon?
‘Hey,’ Dan said, a gentle smile on his face. He pulled a bunch of red roses from behind his back. ‘Yeah, yeah, a cliché. Not that I think you’ll be swayed by some flowers, but I love you, Chloe.’ He sat beside her and took her hand. ‘I love you now as much as I did on our wedding day. I know I can’t make up for what happened, but I really want us to be a family. I want us to try. Can you forgive me? Please, can we try again?’