by Heidi Perks
As it is, I don’t get back to my own flat until just before ten, but I’m not ready to go to bed just yet. Instead I snuggle down on the sofa with a blanket, flick on the TV, then grab a magazine from the coffee table and idly thumb through it.
The news comes on and I glance up. A reporter is standing outside a house, holding a large umbrella while the wind whips her ponytail from side to side. My eyes drift to the ticker tape along the bottom of the TV screen and then back again to her. I don’t recognise any of the details behind her at first and am about to turn back to the magazine when something catches my eye.
They’ve caught it at a funny angle, but there’s a distinctive window in the top corner of the picture, circular with obscured glass. I inch forward on the sofa and grab the remote again, turning up the volume so I can hear what the reporter is saying over the hammering that’s beginning to beat in my ears.
It’s funny I didn’t recognise it immediately when every detail is etched on the inside of my eyelids. When all I need to do is call up my memory and I can paint a picture of a thousand pixels in intricate detail. But then it doesn’t look the same. Not entirely.
The windowsills have been painted a deep teal and now the camera is panning out so I can see more of the house. There are colonial-style white fascia boards and a conservatory at the front. It doesn’t look like my home any longer. Yet unmistakably it is. The white picket fence that runs along the left-hand side is still there. Dad had put that up one summer to separate our garden from the path that runs alongside it. On the right, tall pines still drape the length of the garden.
I feel my pulse racing quicker and I try to ignore it to focus on the reporter’s words. ‘Clearly the whole island is in shock,’ she says.
I look back at the ticker tape reeling its breaking news; the words ‘… Island last night’ roll out of sight to the left and a new headline about Syria follows.
‘And the police aren’t able to release any more details as yet?’ This comes from a woman in the studio, but the screen is still filled with the view of my house and garden, panning out further still and exposing a white police tent that is flanked by officers. It has been erected on the right at the rear of the property, tucked neatly in between the house and the trees that separate the garden from the woods beyond.
‘Not yet, but the forensics teams have been working here all day,’ the reporter says.
I look back at the tape. ‘Body found on Evergreen Island last night,’ it now reads in full. I scrunch my hands up tightly, willing the blood to rush through them and stop the numbness from spreading up my arms.
A body has been found on the island. And even though no one has said it outright, it’s clear it’s been buried in the garden of my old house.
Chapter Two
I watch with morbid curiosity as the news filters through in sharp pieces: the current owners were building an extension to the side of the house; excavations ran deeper and wider than expected; last night one of the builders noticed a bone that turned out to be a hand and in turn there was the rest of a body.
The reporter tells us it was a shocking discovery for both the builder and the owners. Around the back of the white tent, she points to the exact spot the body was found. My eyes are wide as I take in every detail, my hands clawing the fabric of my jumper. To anyone who doesn’t know the island it looks like it’s right in our old back garden, but to me, an islander, I can now see it’s actually just outside, at the point where the garden merges into the woods.
But the thing with Evergreen is that most of the houses don’t have fences separating private land from that around it. Where we lived, in the Quay House that sits just back from the jetty, we only did on one side – the white picket fence – because it was the only one completely exposed to the public paths. Every other side was lined with trees, but it means the boundaries were blurred. And it means you’d be forgiven for thinking the body was dug up from the garden and it’s already clear this is the way they’re spinning it.
I cannot tear my gaze away from the TV because this, I realise, is the first time I’ve seen my house since that night. The night we left.
With my eyes glued to the screen, I reach for my mobile. My fingers tremble as I press Bonnie’s number and lift the phone to my ear. She answers just as it’s about to go to voicemail. ‘Yes?’
‘Have you seen the news?’
‘No. I’m getting ready to go to bed. Luke’s not well and—’
‘Turn it on,’ I interrupt. ‘BBC.’
‘Okay, okay, give me a minute,’ Bonnie huffs. I imagine her strolling into the kitchen and flicking on the small flat-screen that sits on the wall above the counter. ‘Christ,’ she says suddenly. ‘Is that our old house?’
‘They found a body,’ I tell her. ‘Right outside our garden.’
Bonnie is silent for a moment. ‘It might as well be in it,’ she says eventually.
‘I know. But you can tell it’s not. Look at it, it’s just on the edge of the woods.’
‘Bloody hell. Who is it?’
‘They haven’t said. There’s barely any details.’
I hear Bonnie suck in air through the gap between her front teeth.
‘They haven’t even confirmed if it’s male or female. Surely they can tell. They say forensics are all over it.’
‘Well, someone on that island knows who it is,’ she says. ‘Oh my God,’ she adds with a short laugh. ‘Can you imagine them all? They’ll be like vultures.’
‘It must be awful for them, Bonnie.’
‘I know, but seriously. You couldn’t do a thing on that place without everyone else knowing. I got my period and the boys found out within twenty-four hours.’
She was right. I hadn’t been able to dangle a foot over the cliff edge without Mum finding out before I got home. Danny couldn’t fall out of the tree he’d been hiding in without it being whispered around the island within hours, but then there’d always been an interest where Danny was concerned.
‘One of them must have done it,’ she says suddenly. The thought sounds like it interests her, like this isn’t real but simply a drama we’re watching.
‘We don’t know that.’
‘Oh, come on. Who else would bury a body on that island?’
Again she’s right, but I don’t want to think about it. ‘Do you think we know who it is?’ I say. ‘The body, I mean.’
‘Probably not. It’s been so many years since we left.’
I nod but don’t answer.
‘Or,’ she goes on, making the word sound dramatic, ‘it could have been there all the time we were living in the house. We could have been walking right on top of it and we’d never have known. No one believed me there was something off about that place.’
‘There was nothing off about it.’
‘They’re probably digging up a whole load of bodies right now.’
‘Bonnie!’
‘Oh, lighten up, Stella. We haven’t lived there for twenty-five years.’
‘I know, but …’ I murmur without finishing my sentence and sit in silence until Bonnie finally speaks.
‘I like what they’ve done with the house.’
I stiffen at her words. ‘What do you mean?’
‘They painted it, it looks good.’
‘Have they?’ I reply. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’ She must know I’m lying. How could I miss the deep teal paint that makes it look so modern, so unlike ours?
Bonnie lets out a snort before asking, ‘Are you going to call Dad?’
‘I guess.’ I know I should but I don’t relish the thought, not least because I don’t speak about the island with Dad any more.
‘Have you spoken to him lately?’ she says.
‘No.’ The familiar surge of guilt washes over me. ‘I need to go and see him. Maybe I’ll do that instead.’
‘When the witch isn’t there.’
‘Olivia seems to be working a lot at the moment. There’s a good chance she won’t be there if I go dur
ing the week. Would you come with me?’ I ask, hoping, but already knowing what the answer will be.
‘No,’ Bonnie replies bluntly.
I sigh. ‘I’ll call him in the morning,’ I say. A familiar tightness has already wrapped itself around me. It always feels like it’s compressing my lungs, forcing me to breathe harder. I want to speak to him but it’s not the same any more. It feels like he’s altogether a different dad than the one I had on Evergreen, but there are times when I temporarily get him back again and I never know which is harder.
‘It makes you think, doesn’t it?’ Bonnie says, bringing me back to the moment.
‘What?’
‘Whether we know whoever did it.’
After I hang up I carry on watching the news, flicking between channels, chasing the story, but there are no new reports and at some point I fall asleep on the sofa. I dream of the island again, as I have been doing lately. I am chasing my friends through the woods. They are laughing and I am too, but then they disappear and now someone is chasing me. When I wake my heart is fluttering and my neck is caught in a crooked position on the cushions.
I’d stopped dreaming about Evergreen a few years after we’d left but had started again straight after those sessions I’d endured during my training as a counsellor. Now I don’t know how to make them go away. Each time I wake from a dream, I hear my counsellor’s voice. See, this is why it’s important to flush out the demons.
But there were never any demons on Evergreen. In my eleven years there I could stack my happy memories on top of each other and they would reach the sky. In one session, I’d skimmed over my parents’ divorce by stating categorically that none of their problems started until much later. Until after we had left the island and moved to Winchester. When my dad had lost his soul to an air-conditioned office with blacked-out windows in the city – that was when they were no longer happy. I told her that a few times, though I wasn’t sure I believed it myself, but I wasn’t prepared to open the lid on that box.
It is not even three a.m., and I should be going back to sleep, but I glance at my iPad. There have been times in recent years when I’ve wanted to look up my house online. After my first counselling session, when we had dissected Evergreen in more detail than I’d been prepared for, I’d returned to my flat and opened up Rightmove, tapping the Quay House address into the search bar but deleting it before I hit Enter. I hadn’t been ready to see how it might have changed.
I had previously managed to look up some of the islanders, though. Many times I’d searched for my once best friend, Jill, but I’d never been able to find her. Even some other names I’d tried like Tess Carlton and Annie Webb – the woman we called Aunt, though she was no relation. I hadn’t been so surprised to find she wasn’t on Facebook – by now Annie must be in her eighties.
But my dreams have left a bitter taste in my mouth and instead of scouring the web I find myself reaching for my childhood scrapbook that hides in the magazine basket beside the sofa. Always this is a comfort, a reminder of blissful times, and I can already feel my pulse slowing.
It falls open at the place I last looked, where a feather is stuck with brown, now-faded Sellotape which is curling at the ends. I press it down, but as soon as I release my finger it springs back up. One day I must go through the book and carefully mend pages and stick pieces in again before the whole thing falls apart irretrievably.
I know every page by heart, so much so that I don’t know if it brings back actual memories of the island or if the photos and memorabilia have taken over because I’ve looked at them so many times. I turn over a page and catch a photo before it flutters out.
It’s one Mum had taken of my friend Jill and me that last summer. We were sitting on the sand, our heads so close that tendrils of our hair wound together – mine, tinged golden from the sun, and Jill’s amber curls floating in the wind. We had such different hair, yet blended together it created something beautiful.
I run my fingers over Jill’s face. If I close my eyes I can hear her laugh, but in this photo she isn’t smiling. Mum had caught us unawares and I can still hear Jill’s urgent whisper in my ear, ‘Don’t tell anyone,’ before Mum shouted out at us to ‘Say cheese for the camera!’ I wonder if Mum had noticed then that something wasn’t right.
I snap the book shut and inhale a deep breath that catches in my throat. I had kept my promise that I wouldn’t tell for the whole summer, but in the end I hadn’t been able to keep it. Maybe that had been a mistake, but it’s too late to consider that now.
Chapter Three
The following day I contemplate how lunch with Bonnie will play out since our conversations about Evergreen have always been strained. I put it down to the fact we saw our upbringing in starkly different lights. Sometimes I wonder how we could have come from the same family when our perceptions of growing up are so different.
Bonnie opens the door and stands aside, ushering me into the long hallway and out of the rain that hasn’t stopped since last night. ‘Luke’s still sick. He ended up not going away,’ she says as she brushes past and leads me to the kitchen at the back of the house.
‘Oh? What’s wrong with him?’
‘A cold.’ She sighs loudly. ‘He’s in bed. Complaining. I told him not to come out in case he’s contagious.’
‘You could have come to my house instead of keeping your husband upstairs,’ I say.
She looks taken aback at the suggestion. ‘I’d already got lunch.’
I raise my eyes at her lack of compassion as I slip my coat off and hang it on a hook by the back door.
‘What do you want to drink, tea or coffee?’
‘Tea. Thanks.’
‘I was looking forward to him getting out of my hair this weekend. He’s doing my head in.’
‘He’s always doing your head in,’ I say, thinking of my poor brother-in-law upstairs and imagining at some point he’ll appear to say hello anyway.
‘Well, he’s been more irritating than usual. He’s signed the boys up for boxing classes, can you believe it? Why the hell does he think I want them boxing?’ She stops when her oldest, Ben, comes into the room.
‘I want to do boxing, Mum,’ he says. ‘You said I could.’
‘I know I did.’ She watches her twelve-year-old for a moment and then turns away.
Ben shrugs and I open my arms to pull him in for a hug. ‘Your mum worries about you, that’s all,’ I murmur in his ear. ‘She doesn’t want you getting hurt.’
‘And it’s expensive,’ Bonnie says, ‘on top of everything else.’
I roll my eyes at Ben who grins. ‘I swear you’ve grown again,’ I tell him. ‘You’re nearly as tall as me.’
‘Yes, but you’re short, Aunt Stella.’
‘Hey,’ I laugh. ‘Five five is not short.’ He has always joked about my height, though compared to Bonnie, who’s at least four inches taller than me, I often feel tiny.
‘Mum,’ he says, ‘can you take me to Charlie’s? It’s raining.’
‘No way. That’s why we bought your bike. He’s only around the corner, and besides, I have your aunt here.’
‘I don’t mind—’ I start.
‘Uh-uh. He has transportation. And legs.’
‘Fine. See you later, Aunt Stella.’ Ben gives a wave and he’s gone.
‘He’s such a handsome boy,’ I say when the front door closes behind him. ‘They both are.’
‘I know.’ Bonnie pauses, watching the space he has left before turning to fumble in cupboards for tea bags and mugs. ‘I dread the day they bring home girlfriends.’
I pull out a chair at the table as Bonnie finishes making tea. ‘There’s no more news about the body,’ I say.
For a moment she doesn’t answer, and I wait for her to change the subject as she often does. ‘Did you call Dad?’ she says.
I shake my head. ‘Not yet. Don’t you ever want to see him, Bon?’ I ask. ‘Don’t you miss him?’
Bonnie screws up her mouth and looks away. ‘I wa
sn’t as close to him as you were.’
‘That’s not what I’m asking, and you were still close.’
‘Neither of them had much time for me.’ She brushes her hands flat across the work surface.
‘That’s a ridiculous thing to say. You used to tell me the opposite was true,’ I remind her, thinking back to the rare times she’d opened up.
‘That was in the early years when they were always trying to fix me,’ she says. ‘At some point they gave up. Probably when you came along,’ she adds. ‘I’m joking.’ She peers at me over the rim of her mug. ‘Anyway, they loved you the most, anyone could see that.’
‘Bonnie, that’s just not true.’
‘It is.’ She scrapes her chair back sharply. ‘And I’m long past caring. I’ll get lunch ready. It’s only soup.’
‘That sounds great,’ I say, wondering why she couldn’t have rescheduled if she hadn’t gone to much effort. ‘Where’s Harry?’ I ask.
‘He’s at a friend’s too. I swear they spend more time at other people’s houses than they do at their own these days. I never see them.’ Bonnie dips her head. It’s easy to see how much she misses her boys even if she won’t say it. ‘I guess it’s what comes from going to a normal school and living in a normal city – the opposite of what we had. I can’t imagine what they’d be like if they had to live in the kind of confinement we did.’
‘Was there really not anything you liked about Evergreen?’ I ask her.
She turns to face me. ‘Nothing. I had no life, no friends—’
‘You did,’ I say, ‘there was Iona—’
‘One.’ She turns back to the stove muttering, ‘And that was only for one summer.
‘I thought of Danny the other day,’ Bonnie goes on. A leap of conversation for her. A missed heartbeat for me. ‘I don’t know what made me start thinking of him, but it was about a week ago.’