Under an Amber Sky

by Rose Alexander

  ‘I can’t believe this place is still inhabited,’ remarked Anna, a people-person through and through who would never have stood the isolation.

  ‘It’s a long way to go for milk and bread of a morning,’ agreed Sophie, thinking of Mira’s mercy mission taking provisions to the elderly Mr Stojic.

  ‘Or a pint,’ interjected Frank, in a heartfelt manner. He exchanged a few words with the old man and the boy.

  ‘They’re doing the house up,’ he explained to Sophie and Anna.

  ‘What on earth for?’ asked Anna, looking around her with a look of fear in her eyes. ‘I mean, it’s beautiful, idyllic, unspoilt, and the view is to die for, but …’ Words failed her as she scanned the distance down to the bay and civilization: bars, restaurants, society.

  ‘The old man – that’s the lad’s granddad – he won’t leave and now there’s talk of a new fast road on this side of the bay like the one that already exists on the other side. The route – if it’s ever built, believe it when you see it in my opinion – is planned to pass right behind the village here.’

  ‘So suddenly these properties would have a value,’ reflected Sophie. ‘You can see the attraction of keeping your place nice with a view to a sale.’

  The money from selling property that had been in families for generations past was often a lifesaver for current and future generations. One sale of an old stone house on the bay could buy three or four modern apartments and thus provide an otherwise unattainable home and the security that went with it. You couldn’t stop progress – but there was something in Sophie that didn’t want this beautiful, lost, ethereal place in the clouds ever to change.

  And then the donkey brayed again, long and mournful, its voice echoing between the verdant hills, and she shook herself from her patronizing state of mind. She should not bring her own romantic ideas into other people’s lives. Everyone wanted to park their car outside their front door. Why shouldn’t they? How would she feel if she had to take her donkey to Sainsbury’s to bring her shopping home? She smiled to herself at the mental image this thought created.

  Frank and Anna had gone on ahead, Tomasz swinging between their arms, and she walked fast to catch up. By the time she reached them, Frank had thrown Tomasz onto his shoulders and careered off down the hill, galloping like a horse, deep belly laughs that rang out across the hillside emitting from the delighted little boy.

  Sophie flashed Anna a quizzical look. ‘OK about the criminal in our midst now?’

  Anna nodded. ‘You win. He’s great. And lovable,’ she concurred, with a wry smile.

  ‘Anna! Are you suggesting …?’

  But Anna merely shrugged and turned away, her walk turning into a run. ‘Maybe.’ The word was flung over her shoulder as if weightless. ‘We’ll see.’

  Chapter 15

  With the house always filled with activity since the arrival of Anna and Tomasz, time seemed to pass more quickly. Opportunities for introspection, for ruminating on her life and future, were limited for Sophie. And before she knew it, the days had become long and hot and the sea was balmy for bathing. Tomasz became a veritable water baby, staying in the shallows of the bay for hours at a time, watched over by Sophie to allow Anna to get on with her painting.

  One beautiful day, the sun blazing in a cerulean sky, Sophie, Anna, and Tomasz headed off for the beach. Petar drove them, his taxi sweeping through narrow lanes fringed by high banks where blue-flowering rosemary interspersed the grey rocks. He dropped them off in the shade of a grove of silver-leaved olive trees; Sophie would text him when they wanted picking up.

  It was the weekend and the beach was busy, tourists and local families crowding the water’s edge, an army of sun umbrellas standing at the ready, flanked by battalions of loungers. After a cooling swim in the clear sea, Anna and Tomasz set off on a rock-pooling expedition, buckets and nets in hand.

  Sophie stood in the shallows, the water lapping gently around her ankles, and gazed out to where, in the far distance, she could just make out the outline of an island. Mamula island. A few sailing boats at anchor bobbed in the entrance to the bay and she contemplated swimming out to one and commandeering it to take her there. Now the warmer weather had come, it was time to take Darko up on his offer of arranging a boat trip to visit the place that was so shrouded in mystery, that encapsulated one of the worst periods of Montenegrin history.

  As she was contemplating Dragan and his possible fate, she heard screams and shouts wafting over from the rocks at the far end of the beach. Ignoring them at first, she suddenly became aware that their tone and pitch was familiar. Turning hurriedly in the direction the noise was coming from, she saw Anna racing towards her, carrying a wailing Tomasz. The little boy had fallen on the sharp rocks; both legs and his left hand were badly grazed and one of his knees was bleeding profusely. Quickly, Sophie grabbed tissues from her bag and used them to stem the flow of blood.

  ‘Poor old Tomasz,’ she murmured soothingly, as Anna stroked her son’s forehead and attempted to calm him down. ‘What a nasty fall.’

  Tomasz’s crying, far from being assuaged, began anew.

  Suddenly, an elderly lady appeared beside them, grey hair awry, a green box clutched in her hand.

  ‘First-aid kit.’ Without ceremony, she knelt down on the sand beside where Anna had plonked Tomasz on a lounger. ‘Carry it everywhere. I learnt that in the outback.’

  Her arthritic hands were struggling to open a bottle of Dettol. Sophie took it from her to help, her gratitude at the woman’s presence overcoming her surprise. As the cap released, the sharp stench of disinfectant flooded her senses. Instantly, she was back in the hospital – with its clinical miasma of despair, its atmosphere of benign hopelessness, of a war being fought between life and death that often ended badly – being told that Matt had died. She swayed and thought she was going to throw up; the world whirled uncontrollably around her. Hastily, she thrust the bottle into the eccentric woman’s hands and stood for a moment, her head resting in her palms, trying to steady herself.

  She had only ever fainted once before, not long after Matt’s death, when she had decided to go back to work for the last days of the summer term. She remembered her colleagues’ surprise at seeing her, how it had been obvious from their expressions that they thought it was too soon, doubted that she could cope. And so it had turned out because Sophie lasted only until lunch break. She had duty outside; half an hour of walking up and down the playground, intervening in disputes, admonishing litter droppers and confiscating water bottles being used as weapons.

  It was a sunny day for a change so everyone was outside and the noise was deafening. The screaming and screeching of hundreds of overexcited children, eager for the holidays and impossible to suppress, had grated on her nerves and heightened her feeling of being trapped in a version of Hades. The high fences that surrounded the playground, the oppressive brick houses beyond, the harsh sunlight beating relentlessly on the black tarmac underfoot, all had made her feel stifled and confined, hemmed in by claustrophobia and confusion.

  A child had rushed past her, unseeing, intent on nothing but his game of escaping pursuit. As he fled, he’d caught Sophie in his wake, spinning her around so that she stumbled and lost her footing. She had felt herself falling, her hands outstretched and flailing hopelessly, her body thrown into as much confusion as her fuddled mind. In the second before she blacked out, she had thought of how she would never live down the embarrassment of fainting in front of the children.

  Now she recovered without keeling over, grateful for the fact that Anna and the stranger were too preoccupied with Tomasz to notice what had happened to her. A few moments later, Tomasz’s sobs had subsided somewhat, aided by the barley sugar sweet he’d been given by their unknown benefactor. Sophie watched as the elderly lady dipped a pair of tweezers in the Dettol and then, distracting Tomasz by asking him whether he’d seen the ten-foot octopus she knew was in one of the rock pools, deftly extracted a stone from the
bloody wound in his knee.

  ‘Wow, that was impressive,’ Sophie couldn’t help but exclaim.

  ‘Basic first-aid skills, my dear,’ said the woman, completing her cleaning of Tomasz’s knee and expertly bandaging it. ‘Wouldn’t survive without them when you’re thousands of miles from a doctor.’

  ‘No,’ concurred Sophie. ‘I don’t suppose you would.’

  She exchanged glances with Anna, who pulled a face that expressed puzzlement and intense relief simultaneously.

  ‘There, little man. All right as rain now.’

  Tomasz, crunching the barley sugar, stared with silent and solemn fascination at the strange apparition before him.

  Anna, beside herself with gratitude, was loquacious. ‘Thank you,’ she kept saying, ‘thank you so much.’

  ‘It’s nothing, my dear. Please don’t thank me.’

  ‘I can’t believe I’ve come out without anything – not even plasters.’ Anna looked down at her hands as if to signify their emptiness.

  The woman made a face that said that she couldn’t fathom this, either. ‘Always be prepared; that’s my motto!’

  There was silence for a moment as they all stood silently regarding Tomasz and his carefully bandaged injuries.

  ‘Can we buy you a cold drink?’ interjected Sophie. ‘It’s so hot out here.’

  The woman considered this proposal and then nodded. ‘That would be lovely, thank you.’

  ‘No – thank you … er …?’ Anna faltered as she realized she didn’t know how to address their unexpected benefactor.

  ‘Irene’s the name,’ said the woman as she stood up, hair even more dishevelled than before. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘And you,’ enthused Anna, smiling warmly, ‘I’m Anna and this is Tomasz.’ She shook Irene’s hand and then impulsively dropped it and kissed her heartily on both cheeks.

  ‘I’m Sophie,’ said Sophie, rolling her eyes at Anna’s effusiveness.

  Anna scooped Tomasz off the lounger and they all trooped off to the café, Irene moving with an athletic bound that defied her obvious years. Nearing the entrance steps, Anna succumbed to Tomasz’s weight and set him down. Gamely he hobbled in, making sure that everyone noticed how brave he was being.

  ‘Mine’s a Fanta, please,’ said Irene, as Anna set off to the counter to make their order.

  Chatting over their drinks on her return, the subject of Mamula island, hovering amidst the shimmering water before them, came up.

  ‘I really want to go there,’ explained Sophie. ‘But you need a boat and I haven’t got round to organizing it yet.’

  Irene finished her Fanta, and fished the orange slice out of it. She handed it to Tomasz who took it with alacrity. ‘Well, I can help you there.’

  Sophie and Anna looked at her in astonishment. ‘How come?’ asked Sophie. Irene was certainly full of surprises.

  ‘Sally-Ann will take us.’ Irene looked at Tomasz, who had devoured the orange slice, skin and all. ‘Oh dear,’ she muttered. ‘Still, I don’t suppose it will do him any harm.’ Attention back to Sophie and Anna, she laughed at their expressions of shocked surprise, eyes wide and eyebrows raised.

  ‘Who is Sally-Ann?’ asked Sophie, tentatively, assuming some friend they had yet to meet – although how she would be able to take them to an island that by definition was surrounded by water she couldn’t imagine.

  ‘My boat. I sailed here,’ stated Irene, matter-of-factly. ‘Spent the winter on the Italian Riviera, continued on down through the Med when spring came, meandered through the Croatian islands and now – well …’ she looked around as if surveying her newly conquered territory ‘… now here I am.’

  ‘On your own?’ asked Sophie, wonderingly. It didn’t seem feasible that this woman, redoubtable though she evidently was, could have sailed all the way from England single-handed.

  ‘Sometimes I have companions,’ explained Irene, ‘friends, godchildren, you know. They come and they go.’

  Tomasz spat out a soggy orange mush onto the table. ‘Tomasz!’ exclaimed Anna, ‘that’s yucky.’

  ‘Blah,’ replied Tomasz, sticking out his tongue that was sprinkled with specks of orange peel like a particularly nasty rash.

  ‘I was a bit surprised to think he had eaten it,’ remarked Irene, as if what had happened had been an interesting scientific experiment. ‘Not to worry.’ She seized a napkin and cleared up the mess. Anna looked stunned. She was not used to people who took a small child’s more revolting habits totally in their stride. Catching her look, Irene sighed. A small, sad smile flashed across her face. ‘I always wanted to be a grandmother,’ she said. ‘Would have had to have been a mother, though, for that to have happened – and it didn’t work out that way for me.’ She gazed wistfully at Tomasz, and ruffled his white-blond hair.

  ‘Anyway – if you really want to visit this Mamula place,’ she continued. ‘We can go there now.’ She pointed out to sea. ‘My old girl’s just there.’

  In unison, Sophie and Anna whisked their heads around, like a crowd watching a tennis match. Not far from the shore, a small sailing boat bobbed casually up and down on the water. It was one of those that Sophie had noticed earlier, and wished she had access to.

  ‘Great,’ replied Sophie, her voice rising to a high-pitched, excited shriek. ‘You’re on.’ Getting up, she grabbed Tomasz off his chair and pulled him along behind her before Anna could protest that it wasn’t safe for him or ask about life jackets or put any kind of a spanner in the works. This was an adventure that Sophie was not saying ‘no’ to.

  Chapter 16

  The sun, high in the sky now, set a trail of diamonds sparkling on the water, like a path leading their way. The little boat slipped effortlessly through the calm sea, Irene at the helm, expertly steering them towards their destination. As they drew nearer to the island, Sophie’s gut clenched and she found herself tightly gripping the rope Irene had asked her to hold. She was finally going to set foot on the island where Dragan had been held captive.

  Irene was scanning the rocks that surrounded the base of the island. ‘We’ll do a circumnavigation,’ she pronounced, ‘so that I can find a safe place to make landfall.’

  Sophie sniggered and almost let go of the rope as she tried to hide her face with her hand. ‘It’s just like Swallows and Amazons!’ she cried. ‘Hoist the mainsail!’

  Irene shot her a withering look. ‘I think you’ll find those fictional characters sailed dinghies, not oceangoing vessels such as this,’ she said, in a tone heavy with the weight of the task of educating the uninitiated. ‘And the mainsail is already up and under your control.’ Irene indicated the rope in Sophie’s hand.

  Sophie pulled a suitably contrite face. ‘Whoops. Sailing is not my area of expertise.’

  ‘I think we noticed that,’ teased Anna. ‘As for me, I grew up in a place about as far from the sea as it’s possible to be so I don’t even know which end of a boat is the front.’

  ‘Prow.’

  Anna looked at Irene. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It’s called the prow.’

  Fortunately, Irene began a complicated manoeuvre involving the boom and the sail, which distracted her attention from Anna’s and Sophie’s helpless giggles.

  ‘She’s so much fun,’ whispered Sophie, when she got close enough to Anna’s ear.

  ‘Mad as a hatter,’ replied Anna. ‘But yes – fun with bells on.’

  Having found a suitable landing place, Irene carefully manipulated the boat into position. It was clearly a spot that had been made for this purpose, as there was a long, low concrete pier that still had a post in place that could be used to tie the boat to.

  Stepping out onto the rocky shore, Sophie was instantly aware of the complete silence. There was no sound at all apart from the splashing water. Leaving Anna, Tomasz, and Irene behind, she walked on up the overgrown path towards the fortress. The succulent, grey-green leaves of huge century plants lined the way, their smooth, r
igid surfaces counterbalanced by the sharp teeth along their margins.

  Sophie’s shorts snagged on one, and as she pulled herself away, she saw that a thorn had pierced her skin and left a drop of bright red blood. Wiping it with her thumb, she thought of all the blood that had been spilled in this place, the torture and the deaths. Dragan’s included? She did not know.

  The circular fortress building enclosed a cobbled courtyard. In the centre was a well, and all around were doorways, windows, and staircases. Sophie was surprised to see how intact it all was, with only a few broken mouldings, collapsed window arches or missing stair treads. Stepping carefully and quietly, as if conscious of the ghosts that resided there, she made her way through the buildings. Bare, barren rooms with stone or dirt floors were a cool relief from the sun and heat now, but Sophie could imagine how cold and damp they would be in winter. There were no facilities at all, just as Darko had explained: no toilets, no running water, no kitchen.

  She climbed a staircase, by the side of which sprawled an anarchist fig tree, branches, leaves, and unripe fruit spreading invidiously in all directions, smothering the golden stone. The exposed, flat plateau she emerged onto was thick with brambles. Rabbits grazed on the tough, stubby grass, evidently seeing no threat in humans, and the tall, bare stalks of some dried and etiolated plant stabbed aggressively at the sky.

  Sophie wondered if the rabbits had always been there, if the prisoners had been driven to eat them. One of her few successful pieces of research had been to find an online testimony of a woman who had been imprisoned here with her child. The woman described how she was given one small can of milk a day to feed her two-month-old son. She would whisk it with water to make it go further. Then she would give the baby to another woman to hold whilst she was allowed ten minutes to wash herself and the baby’s clothes. She would spread the clothes on the stone floor of her cell and lie on them overnight; it was the only way she had to dry them.