Donna caught the look on my face and frowned.
Anita’s eyes settled on me. I could see they were resigned now, not angry.
Resigned and disappointed.
‘I can’t believe you’re doing this,’ Anita said to me. ‘I actually thought we could be friends, but clearly I got you all wrong.’
I felt a trickle of remorse but stood my ground, staring her down. Anita blinked then turned on her heel and fled down the beach, leaving her belongings behind. I looked at Idris. He’d said he owned the cave. Had he just lied to make Anita leave? I was about to ask him but then he clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention and the moment was lost.
‘I know that seemed tough,’ Idris said when she was out of earshot, ‘but someone with that kind of vibe isn’t good for us. It will only interfere with the current. Now she’s gone, I guarantee we will all be more creative than ever.’
Everyone nodded and I tried my best to shroud my guilt.
‘And while we’re all gathered together,’ Idris said, ‘I have something I’d like us all to do. Remember I asked you all to remove your watches when you came here?’ He looked at my pocket. I frowned. How did he know? ‘Can you go retrieve them for me?’
We all exchanged curious glances then went off to gather our watches. When we returned, we all stood around the fire Idris had lit, its flames reflected in our eyes.
‘I understand this might be difficult for some,’ he said. ‘But it’s a symbolic gesture, a signal we’ve all entered a deeper phase of our time here.’
‘You’re going to ask us to burn our watches, aren’t you?’ I asked him.
He nodded, holding my gaze. ‘We need this, Selma. A commitment to what we’ve achieved here. What happened with Anita, it has shaken us. But as I stand here, looking at how we’ve supported each other in the face of her lies, it proves to me more than ever how strong we are together. And I want to mark that with a symbolic gesture, a true, clear rejection of numbers, the same numbers the people owning this newspaper are obsessed with,’ he added, gesturing angrily towards the newspaper. ‘Publishing scandalous rubbish to increase their circulation figures, and in turn generate more money. So now is the time to take that step, truly turn your back on numbers by burning your watches.’
‘I can’t,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘It’s all I have of my mother’s. The only thing she left to me after she passed away.’
He tilted his head. ‘Tell me about your mother.’
I thought of my mother’s cold gaze, her beautifully painted lips and the curve of her black hair over her forehead.
‘There’s not much to say.’
‘Tell me.’ His eyes bored into mine.
‘She was … cold. Distant.’ I swallowed, feeling my cheeks turn hot. I rarely talked about this. ‘I – I spent my childhood yearning for her approval.’
‘And this watch,’ Idris said, gesturing to the delicate gold watch. ‘It reminds you of her?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered.
‘It reminds you of how cold she was? How distant?’
I frowned and suddenly felt the weight of it in my hands, the hard, cold metal. I peered up at Idris and we held each other’s gaze.
‘Then why do you keep it?’ he asked.
I nodded. He was right. I walked to the fire and threw the watch in, captivated as sparks flew and it started to melt in the flames.
‘She told me it was real gold,’ I said, laughing bitterly to myself. ‘Gold doesn’t burn like that. She lied to me.’
Idris nodded. ‘She betrayed you again. Her last lie. And now it’s gone forever.’
I watched it sizzle and burn. Then I thought of Anita’s face when she realised I’d betrayed her and felt sick to my stomach. As the watch disappeared, I promised myself I would start over, a phoenix from the flames.
No more lies. Just truth.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Selma
Kent, UK
11 August 1991
In all the drama of the past few days, I almost forgot I had to return to work on the Monday. But the evening before, it hit me like a sledgehammer. I couldn’t see any way around it though. If I stopped working, the impact on my chances of getting joint custody of Becky would be diminished – my solicitor had said it herself.
‘Back to work tomorrow then?’ Donna asked over dinner that night.
I sighed. ‘Yep.’
‘We’ll miss you,’ Idris said softly. ‘You don’t need to go in, you know.’
‘We’ve had this discussion before, remember?’ I said with a wry smile. ‘You all might hate numbers, hell, I hate them too. But the fact is, I have a mortgage to contribute to. Plus not having a job won’t go down well with social services.’
‘It’s just proof of an income they want,’ Julien said. ‘What about your book royalties?’
‘They’re only paid twice a year,’ I replied, playing with the soup Donna had made for us. ‘That won’t be regular enough for social services. Plus there’s the mortgage still to pay.’
‘But your royalties must be a decent whack,’ Donna said. ‘What with you being a bestseller and all.’
‘I’m not a bestseller,’ I said, my cheeks flushing.
Donna frowned. ‘But that’s what the other mums at school told me.’
I may have told a few of the school-gate mums my book had hit the charts. ‘It was just a few days,’ I quickly said.
‘Why are you talking about numbers, Donna?’ Idris said. ‘You know we don’t do that.’
Donna looked wounded. ‘Sorry.’
I smiled at him, pleased for the support. I took a deep breath, looking towards the town where my office was. In just thirteen hours, I’d be back at my desk, writing copy I hated as people gossiped worthless nonsense around me.
I clenched my fists beneath the table, pressing them into my legs.
‘Did you know,’ Idris said softly, ‘two thirds of many people’s lives are spent working in an office? Many of those people hate their jobs, yet they call that life.’ He looked at everyone around the table who had stopped eating and were listening intently. ‘If you open the dictionary, life is defined as organisms that are not dead and inorganic.’
Great. I didn’t need a sermon about how rubbish the nine-to-five rat race was when I had no choice but to face it. I loved being in the cave, it was doing wonders for my writing, but sometimes the naivety of the group astounded me.
Idris got up and walked outside, leaning down and picking something up from amongst the seaweed and shells left behind by the tide. When he returned, he had a red starfish in his hand, its legs bent out of shape.
‘This is dead. But in life, it moved and it changed, like the current.’
He stood behind me, and placed the dead starfish by my plate.
I raised an eyebrow. ‘Gee. Thanks for that, Idris.’
He didn’t smile like he usually did when I said something like that. ‘Are you moved by your job, Selma? Like you are by the current? Or are you dead when you’re there, like this starfish?’
I stared at the hopeless starfish, my jaw tightening. Then I looked up, seeing the way everyone was looking at me like they felt sorry for me. It infuriated me how naive they were!
But it also infuriated me that I had to return to normal life the next day.
I flung the starfish to the ground and stood up. ‘How many times do I need to say it? I have no choice.’ I took a deep breath, suddenly feeling horribly wary. ‘I’m going to bed.’
Then I walked to my bed, feeling Idris’s eyes on me.
I barely slept that night and woke early, getting ready for work in silence. As I stepped out of the cave into the morning sun, I yanked at the collar of my blouse. It felt like I was wearing someone else’s uniform, the wrong size, starchy, unfamiliar. It was like being back in court again. I’d been so used to my long flowing skirts and soft tops with flip-flops lately.
‘Packed your lunch?’ Caden called out to me.
‘Ha ha
,’ I said.
‘Have a good day!’ Oceane shouted out, waving.
‘Yeah right,’ I grumbled back. I took a deep breath and headed towards town. When I walked into the office a few minutes later, the receptionist greeted me with wide eyes.
‘Wow, you look tanned!’ he said.
‘Yep, the summer has a way of doing that to humans!’
I carried on until I got to the main office, stopping at the glass doors. I could see them all in there, machines as Idris would call them, faces lit up by the synthetic glare of their screens, circles under their eyes, fingers tapping to the dullest of tunes. They all looked so grey, so dead like that starfish.
But that was life. Real life – not the refined bubble of life the cave dwellers lived in. I held Becky’s face strong in my mind and took a deep breath, walking in.
Monica caught sight of me and looked over at a colleague, frantically gesturing towards me. Everyone else stared up at her as I walked through the office, my head held high.
Jesus, their lives really must be dull if they found a new tan this exciting.
‘Selma!’ Monica called out as she passed, causing more people to raise their heads. ‘Welcome back!’
‘Thanks!’ I said without looking at her, waving my hand in the air.
Just keep walking, I told myself. Just eight hours and it’ll be over for the day. You can get back to the cave, drink gin and forget about this godforsaken place.
I got to my desk and sat down, leaning my head on the heel of my hand as I waited for my computer to turn on. I looked up and peered out at the summer sun in the distance, imagining it warming my skin as Idris painted nearby. I tried to focus on that instead of the shadows that sat in angles over me in the reality of this office. I imagined the smell of salt, paint oils and oranges in contrast to the synthetic office stench of coffee, printer ink and air freshener. I imagined a breakfast of fish caught by Idris instead of the dry croissant I’d bought myself on the way in. And then nightfall, guitar music and the flames of a fire, Idris’s green eyes on mine.
Not long …
‘Ah, she’s back.’ I looked up to see Matthew swinging his bag onto the table and sitting down, his chair bouncing. ‘Monica cornered me in the kitchen after that article was printed,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Seriously, that woman has no space boundaries.’
‘You lucky man,’ I replied with a raised eyebrow. ‘All your dreams coming true.’
He gave me a disgusted look. ‘Please don’t put that image in my mind. Oh God, here she comes,’ he said, quickly putting his headphones on and pretending to type.
‘So,’ Monica said, sitting on my table as I resisted the urge to shove her off, ‘is it true you’re living in the cave with all those people?’
‘Yep,’ I said, logging into my computer.
‘What does Mike think?’ Monica asked.
‘I don’t need his permission to be there.’
‘So Becky’s with you?’
‘She’s visited.’
Monica frowned. ‘I see. So what’s he like then – Idris? Did he mention the bottle of wine I left him?’
More people were walking over, desperate for information about the mysterious cave dwellers.
‘He’s fine,’ I said. ‘Look, I have a lot of work to do. Maybe I’ll see you in the kitchen later?’ I added, having no intention whatsoever of stepping foot in that gossip pit.
Monica frowned. ‘Okay. But can you please tell everyone he’s not a kiddie fiddler? He saved my son for God’s sake! I keep telling everyone not to believe the rumours, but you live with him so you can tell them yourself.’
‘For God’s sake,’ I hissed.
‘Yeah, like he’s shagging that blonde kid who never wears a bra,’ the man from accounts shouted over.
I shot him a look of disgust. ‘No, he bloody isn’t. He wouldn’t go near Oceane.’
‘Oceane?’ Matthew said, taking his earphones off. ‘My little brother was at school with her last year. Apparently, she’s been telling her friends she and Idris have a thing going on.’
I looked at him incredulously. ‘What?’
He put his hands up. ‘Don’t shoot the messenger.’
‘But she has a boyfriend,’ I said.
‘Since when has that stopped you hippy types?’ the man from accounts piped up.
‘All I know is that she’s seventeen,’ Matthew said, brow creased. ‘Just a kid really. If it is true …’ His voice trailed off.
I stood up, grabbing my bag. ‘I can’t be here. Tell Daphne I have a tummy bug.’
‘Another one?’ Monica said, shooting me a cynical look. ‘You’ve had an awful lot of those this year.’
‘Fine, tell her I quit instead. Haven’t used that excuse yet, have I?’ I shoved away from my desk and walked out.
It was just rumours about Idris and Oceane. Surely it was just rumours? But as I drew closer to the cave, anger twisted and turned inside me.
What if it wasn’t?
Even worse, when I got there, the first people I saw were Idris and Oceane who were at the edge of the waves, peering down at some fish.
Had the naivety of the people who lived in the cave infected me? Was I seeing Idris through rose-tinted glasses; seeing the man I wanted him to be? What if he’d been taking me for a fool all this time, making me believe he felt something for me? Taking Oceane for a fool too, a naive seventeen-year-old?
Oceane let out a giggle as Idris twirled her around. Had he slept with her already? That silly lithe teenager. That would make sense, a kid like Oceane falling for his charms. But me? Nearly forty, a writer and a mum. What a fool I’d been! What a fool to think he’d be attracted to me. I thought of the dimples on my thighs, the stretch marks on my stomach. How, when released from my bra, my breasts sagged down slightly now, bumping against the top of my stomach.
So why did he look at me the way he did?
I thought of my mother then. There was this one time when I was about ten, when she’d been acting unusually kind: cuddling me lots, buying me pretty dresses. I’d dared to hope she might have changed. But it wasn’t long before I realised why she was acting like this – there was a potential new boyfriend on the scene, a rich one left with three kids to care for after his wife died. My mother had seen the pound signs, pretty dresses and parties, and the man had clearly seen a new mother for his unruly children, which was ironic considering she was barely able to care for her own daughter, let alone three new kids. But my mother was astute enough to know the way to impress the man was to weave a lie and show him what a wonderful mother she was. It didn’t last long. My mother soon realised what a handful the kids would be. As soon as her ambitious plans to snare him fled, the affection she’d feigned for me did too. I’d cried, asking for the ‘nice mummy’ to come back.
‘Oh you’re so naive, Selma,’ my mother had said. ‘It was just an act, didn’t you know? You know I hate cuddles and all that fuss.’
Was Idris the same, just putting on an act? Tears pricked my eyes at the thought then I shook my head, clenching my fists. How ridiculous, to react like this! Nothing had happened between me and Idris anyway!
Over dinner I barely talked, just shrugging when people asked about work. I avoided making eye contact with Idris, but could feel his stare. After, I walked along the beach in the dark, not wanting to be around them … especially Idris and Oceane. After a while, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to see it was Idris.
‘Mind if I join you?’ he asked.
Another shrug.
‘You’re in turmoil,’ he said, looking sideways at me. ‘Did someone say something to upset you at work?’ He seemed so concerned, his green eyes searching my face.
I took a deep breath. ‘Oceane’s been telling her friends she has a thing going on with you.’
Idris’s hands dropped from my shoulders. There was a look in his face that made me hesitate.
‘She’s seventeen, Idris!’
‘It’s just a number.’
<
br /> I closed my eyes, pinching my nose. ‘So something is going on between you both?’
‘No! You need to stop listening to people. Just know the truth in your heart.’ He put his hands on my shoulders again. ‘You know if a tree—’
‘I don’t want one of your bloody adages, Idris,’ I said, shoving his hands away. ‘I just don’t want to be lied to. I thought you were more than the sex-mad cult leader people have been making you out to be, but maybe they were right all along?’
His face hardened. ‘There were no lies, Selma. Nothing is going on with Oceane and me. And anyway, you’re hardly the person to complain about lies, are you?’
I glared at him, my face turning hot. Then I strode down the beach away from him. ‘Don’t follow me!’ I shouted over my shoulder.
I eventually ended up in the cave Idris had shown me that first day we met, peering up at the outlines of the stone birds and bats hanging from the ceiling as I thought of my mother, beautiful face frozen like stone, eyes hard.
‘You can hardly talk of my lies, Selma,’ I remembered her hissing at me once, ‘when you’re the queen of deception.’
Maybe I’d been lying to myself about this whole thing at the cave, about Idris? What was it that the old man at the café had said? I for one can’t wait to see it all fall down around your ears.
Maybe that was what was happening now? The newspaper article, the revelations about Idris and Oceane. Even if he was telling the truth and they were all lies, that was what people thought. Add to that the fact I’d walked out on my job and I might lose custody of Becky …
The horrible reality of it suddenly hit me. What had I done?
I squeezed my eyes shut, tears sliding down my cheeks.
‘Selma.’ I looked up into the darkness to see Idris entering the cave. ‘Can I join you?’
I didn’t say anything but he walked in anyway, his shadow spreading across the cave, making him seem like a giant. He sat down next to me, his shoulder close to mine. We both looked up at the frozen birds.
‘Maybe I’ve been frozen here all this time,’ I said, wiping my tears away angrily. ‘In a stupid naive little bubble, lying to myself about the cave, about you, just so I had an excuse to get away from my marriage.’
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