by Victoria Fox
All those she couldn’t place, she donated to charity: tens of thousands of dollars, but a priceless exchange for her conscience. It was time to start afresh.
She hadn’t done that for Jacob, either.
But still she could not forget his name …
She knew they were from different worlds. Their time on Koloku had been a bizarre interlude before ordinary life resumed. He was a city-boy, a player. He wasn’t the bearded savage who had made love to her over the forest well. There, they were other people. Here, they were impossible. They had both known it the second they landed in America. Neither knew an avenue back to their intimacy.
It all seemed so strange now, as if it hadn’t really happened. Koloku, the beach, the camp, the hunting, the fire, the secrets … Another time, another universe.
So why couldn’t she let him go?
Celeste rounded the corner to her street. Immediately, she slowed.
A figure was outside her door. Her first thought was that it was Carl—but no. She recognised this man’s shoulders, his height and the back of his head.
I know you.
He turned. For a second they just looked at each other.
The rain sliced across the abandoned courtyard, the cobbles slick and a thrum of water as it gushed from a broken drain. Celeste dropped her bags and ran to him.
After the rescue, a recovery mission was sent to Koloku.
Night and day an elite team trawled for Tawny Lascelles. Fans refused to accept the account: a crocodile was too much to bear. But when the remaining survivors reported the same in their statements, the terrible fate of the supermodel was realised once and for all.
Unwilling to let her memory fade, those left behind set up a charity in her name—the TLFF, or Tawny Lascelles Face Foundation—that funded those in need of reparative surgery. Tawny’s crusade to make all things beautiful lived on.
Three bodies, however, were located: the two pilots on the mountain, and the body of the female flight attendant. The team uncovered her in a concealed hollow close to the crash site. She had been thrown clear of the aircraft and had died on impact.
All were flown home and given a proper burial.
Only one remained unaccounted for. Kevin Chase.
Kevin had disappeared.
They scoured Koloku, not knowing what they were searching for. The survivors had not seen him since the fall-out, when Kevin had stormed from their camp and pledged to set up on his own. For a while, foul play was suspected. Were the others hiding something? Were they nursing a guilty conscience? But Joan, the boy’s mother, was unwilling to pursue an inquiry.
‘Don’t you want to know what happened?’ the media asked.
‘I know my son,’ said Joan. ‘He was never coming home.’
Neither did they discover the tribe Jacob Lyle had told them about. On the third day, a small rowing boat was located in a pile of reeds to the west of the island. Unknown to the survivors, and given the natives’ ability to evade detection all those weeks, it was suggested they had been coming and going from an adjacent rock.
Or did the boat belong to Kevin?
Was he dodging their search beam?
In the weeks that followed, and in the years to come, Kevin Chase would become one of the most talked-about and enthralling figures of the millennium. Shrouded in mystery, he grew into a mythical Kurtz-like figure, a fabled being on a far-flung landmass, as legendary as Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman or the Loch Ness Monster. People would photograph him on vacation, spot him in a forest or by a lake, swimming in the ocean or homeless on the streets of New York …
T-shirts were printed: I SAW KEVIN CHASE. KEVIN CHASE WAS HERE. KEVIN CHASE LIVES ON. KEVIN—I’LL NEVER STOP SEARCHING.
It gave whole new significance to the words ‘Little Chaser’.
Kevin became the new Elvis. The God of Pop—and for some, God Himself, or at the height of urban conspiracy some messenger from outer space, sent to spread the pop word. His lyrics were analysed in a new light. Could it be that ‘Girl, I wanna take you out tonight, be your date tonight, be your fate tonight; girl, I wanna take you to my favourite place, buy you burger and fries, give you a tiny surprise’ was code for some deeper philosophical equation?
For those more rational, Kevin had died. His body had drifted out to sea, or been demolished like Tawny’s. Either way, he was never found.
Meanwhile, Joan Chase’s career soared from strength to strength. With Cut N Dry unreservedly at her back, Joan became a pop sensation, a business queen and a mourning mother: a potent combination. She launched her own fragrance—’Missing You’—and her own pooch fashion range, aided and abetted by Trey the dachshund.
Some days Joan looked at Kevin’s photograph and wept for the son she had lost. She vowed that she would trade her success in a heartbeat, if it meant one more moment with him. Others, she did not think of him at all.
Eve Harley hauled her suitcase onto the bed and began packing. She had to make the most of these pockets of peace, savour each minute before the wailing demands resumed. She had gone past the point of tired, getting by on barely any sleep, and it was harder work than she had ever believed, but all the same she would not swop it for the world. Hope was the start of a new chapter.
After what she had been through, Eve could cope with anything. When she thought back now to the island, to Koloku, to the trauma of her giving birth, it was like it had happened to another person.
In a way, it had.
When she saw the others on TV, or heard their voices on the radio, she felt a necessary pull. They all felt it. It was an invisible tie that would for ever bind them in mutual understanding, for the experiences they shared could never be conveyed to or understood by another. Now, brought back, the context of home was both familiar and distant. As people, they were caught between two stages of existence: the one without boundaries, the group they had been on that island, dark and desperate and somehow free, and this one, who shopped online, who changed her baby’s nappies, who took cabs to meetings and who ate cereal for breakfast.
Eve stood at the wardrobe and surveyed her clothes.
She touched the fabrics. Clothes seemed arbitrary, almost illogical. Fabrics to cover the body, the strange shape of socks, knickers, gloves with their fingers cut out. It was the same everywhere. So much was unnecessary. What humans needed to survive was basic: water, shelter, food, and above all resilience. Yesterday she had been queuing in a Soho café and the woman in front of her had ordered a grande decaf caramel non-fat no-foam whipped cream macchiato. Eve had to leave.
Generally she avoided going down to the city. Like the others, save perhaps for Jacob, she had blanked the attention. As a new mother she carried added allure: they were desperate for her story, but she had no words in which to give it to them. Nothing could describe Koloku. Nothing could describe Hope’s birth. Nothing could describe what happened afterwards. So why try?
She had no need to share it, no desire to confess, and, contrary to what the doctors believed, she wasn’t suffering from pent-up frustration or an urge to repress.
Simply, she did not want to talk about it.
Nor did she wish to return to work, even when Hope was older.
Her editor had been in touch, almost every day at first, promising that her position was open whenever she felt ready. Eve couldn’t imagine ever feeling ready. When she looked around her at the journalists pleading for a comment, camping outside her door and ringing her phone off the hook so she had to change her number, she wondered that she had ever been one of them. She had thought she was putting the world to rights, but all she had been doing was wringing the scandal.
When it came to it, to a human being like Mitch Corrigan whom she had dealt with for so long as a case study, it was at best pointless and at worse damaging. Mitch was a husband and a father, beneath it all just a man, and he had been suffering.
Who was Eve to tear his world apart? Just as she had torn the world from Grigori Cane, unwittingly sealing h
er place aboard that thwarted Challenger jet.
She could never go back.
Besides, she had a new person to think about now.
Eve peeled items from her hangers and folded them into the bag. There was a snuffle on the baby monitor: Hope was stirring.
Eve smiled. Just minutes without her daughter and she couldn’t wait to see her again: her blue eyes opening, her delicate mouth and her tiny fat hands. She had known straight away what to call her. In the context of Hope’s birth, the choice had been obvious.
So, too, had the first thing she’d done when she got back.
Her baby in her arms, a week after the rescue, Eve had stepped into the visitors’ room at HM Prison Pentonville. Though she had not seen him in years, she recognised her father straight away. The thing was, he seemed smaller. Terry Harley walked, stooped, towards the plastic chair like an old man, which, she supposed, these days he was. Gone was the tyrant who had used to climb her stairs, the giant all-seeing monster who had clawed through her nights and terrorised her days.
‘This is your granddaughter,’ she’d said. ‘Hope.’
Terry’s eyes were blank. His grey hair clung to his temples.
‘I thought you were dead,’ was all he said.
His voice betrayed nothing, as if he couldn’t have minded either way. He barely looked at Hope.
What had Eve been expecting? The old Eve might have craved a grand, emotional reunion, a begging apology or a plea for forgiveness. The new Eve hadn’t succumbed to wishful thinking. He hadn’t changed.
The important thing was that she had. Looking into her father’s eyes, just as she had looked into the yellow stare of that majestic leopardess, Eve knew she was more powerful and brilliant than he would ever be. She had defended her child against a beast, roaring back in defiance of her territory, for those few seconds becoming part of the jungle, as woman, as mother, as survivor.
In realising that, she had cut the binds that tied her.
Hope started to cry. Eve went to the bedroom and picked her daughter up. ‘Hello, my darling,’ she said, and kissed her soft, wispy head.
They had a long journey ahead of them, and Eve was filled with nerves. She was going to see Orlando Silvers again.
Given the context, it wouldn’t be easy. But the day was for Angela, and she had resolved to go. Angela had become the friend she trusted most on that island and she had to be there to offer her wishes. If it weren’t for Angela, she might never have made it out of that plane wreck in the first place.
Eve wished she could have repaid the kindness.
Orlando stepped into the Boston garden and felt the sunlight warm his face. At last, Angela was here. She had come home.
‘Everything ready?’ asked Luca, coming to join him. His boyfriend, a banker from Detroit, was at his side.
Orlando nodded. ‘It feels right, doesn’t it?’
Luca nodded. ‘Mom’s doing well,’ he said. ‘After the shock of it, God, I wondered if she would.’
‘This is closure,’ Orlando agreed. ‘Now we can look to the future.’
Guests began to arrive, filtering through the arched gates and building the respectful murmur of conversation reserved for occasions like this. The garden had been decorated accordingly: it was the only place to host today, in the house where Angela had grown up. Nothing fancy, nothing fussy, it wasn’t what she would have wanted. Light, free, out in the open, it felt a good fit.
Luca glanced over his brother’s shoulder, to where a dark car was drawing up. ‘You have to be kidding me,’ he said. ‘How did they get in?’
Orlando followed his gaze, narrowing his eyes as the Zenettis emerged from the blacked-out vehicle. It defied belief that the men should have come on a day like today: Carmine and Dino, the devils who had taken it all from them in the time of their greatest tragedy.
He signalled to Security. The Zenettis wouldn’t be on the premises long.
‘Hey,’ Luca nudged his brother, ‘you got another visitor.’
Orlando turned. Eve Harley was in a plain summer dress, her auburn hair long and loose.
She looked beautiful—more beautiful than he remembered, more beautiful than was possible. In her arms was a tiny blonde baby.
‘Hello, Orlando,’ she said.
He wanted to kiss her, this amazing, brave, magnificent woman, just take her in his arms and kiss her for the rest of time. ‘This is Hope.’
Instead, he gave Eve a smile, and touched his lips to her cheek, and oh, how he had missed the feel and fragrance of her skin. They would take it slowly, whatever Eve wanted and whatever he could give her, because Orlando knew that the protection of his woman and his child was a rare and priceless fortune.
Orlando went to hold his daughter.
‘So it is,’ he said.
She was nervous, which was crazy. After all she had been through, this should be a cinch. Still, it was a big day and she wanted to do it right.
‘I’m proud of you,’ said Isabella, squeezing her arm. ‘Are you ready?’
Angela nodded. She and her mother stepped out of the house. Guests were gathered on the lawn, the family she thought she would never see again, her nonna, her aunts and uncles and cousins—and her new family, too.
Eve. She felt like a sister to her now.
There she was with her daughter: Angela’s niece. The child had been with them all that time, an eighth islander. She would always carry the jungle with her.
Angela had been shocked when she’d heard about Orlando—her brother and Eve? Why hadn’t he said? Why hadn’t she? But none if it mattered against the place they had come from. It was good. It was better than good. It was great.
Two figures caught her eye. Carmine and Dino Zenetti, at the gate, blocked by Security.
‘Wait here,’ she told her mom.
Clad in her wedding dress, Angela stalked through the gate. Carmine saw her approach. He backed up, holding out his hands. ‘Angela—’
Without a word she punched his jaw. It made a sharp, cracking sound and caused her veil to dislodge. Calmly, she fixed it. Carmine toppled backwards, flailing against the hood of his car. His son stumbled to catch him.
‘We came to apologise!’ mumbled Carmine. ‘Have you lost your mind?’
Angela hauled him up and grabbed him by the collar. Dino withered away.
‘You can shove your apology up your ass,’ she told him. ‘You’re only here because you heard I’ve got plans to buy you out. Newsflash, Carmine, I can now—your balls are on the line and they’re mine to do with as I damn well please.’
She pushed him back. ‘But do you know what?’ He gaped up at her. ‘I’m not like you. I’m decent. We’ve got our money back, so here’s the deal: you take yours and you run far, far away. Never look round. Never slow down. Never turn back. If you so much as attempt to contact me or my family again I will tear your dick from between your legs and send it back to you in the mail. It’d be a cheap delivery.’
Carmine straightened his jacket. His face was bleached.
‘Goodbye, Carmine.’ She nodded to his son. ‘Dino.’
Dino watched her go, a parallel wedding, the wife he should have had, and helplessly reached out to nothing.
Music filled the air. Her brothers stood at the front, pillars on either side of the leaf-strewn altar. At its centre was the man she adored.
Noah Lawson.
Love of her life. Man of her dreams.
Angela half expected, as she did every day, to wake up and find herself still on that sun-drenched beach, the heat beating down, the sea glittering and wide, and the ache for home beating hard in her chest. All those times she had been desperate for Noah and had tried to conjure the contours of his face, the blue of his eyes and the softness of his lips … after all that, here he was.
Here. Hers.
Never again would they be separated, never again would they part. They had wasted too many years.
Noah had come for her. In a feat of bravery beyond her most coura
geous imaginings, he had searched where others had feared to tread. And when he had found her, he had saved her life. The snakebite Angela had almost died from was still a wound on the inside of her wrist—a tattoo she wore, a reminder of all she had conquered.
Those final stages were a blur, pieced together from what people told her.
But she did remember him: Noah’s arms lifting her into the boat; the sound of his voice above the hum of the motor, never stopping, always telling her he loved her and that she would live and that they would live together, a long, lovely life, his voice carrying her across leagues of ocean, towards death or towards home and at some points there wasn’t even a line in between.
For a week she had lain in hospital, Noah keeping vigil at her bedside. When she was better, they had flown to America. They had shunned the whirlwind spotlight, renting a house by the lake, miles from everything.
Angela heard what Noah had been through: the search, the journey to Maliki, the man working for Cane, the pirates, the escape from the boat and finally the Russians who had rescued him in the eye of the storm …
Only one doubt remained: why the pirates had wanted to take him to Koloku. To whom had they meant to deliver? What for? She had her suspicions about the tribe, and what that might have meant. Noah did, too. But to this day the natives defied discovery, or definition. They came from another place that Angela and her fellow survivors would probably never know.
Isabella kissed her cheek and let her go.
Angela stepped up to the altar. She took her true love’s hands. All she could see was Noah: a man who had chased her across wild oceans and brought her back from the brink—but still, as well, the boy she had known as a teenager, working at Hank’s, driving to the lake in the open-top car and calling up to her window.
‘Angela,’ said the minister, ‘do you take Noah to be your lifelong partner, to love and support him, forsaking all others, as long as you both shall live?’
‘I do.’
They did not wait to be told they could kiss.
Koloku Island, Southeast Asia, the Palaccas Archipelago