The Missing Twin

by Alex Day

  In the afternoon was one further stop to have cold drinks and snacks. Zayn was waiting when the boats pulled up, cool-bags by his feet. He said nothing, seeming morose and disinterested in anything other than his phone, which he kept checking, appearing to be scrolling through messages, his eyes flicking up and down as he scanned the screen at the same time as he handed out his wares.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Edie, taking an ice-cold Coca-Cola from his outstretched hand. ‘Bad news?’ She indicated towards the phone. By rights, he should be checking up that she was all right after the canyon debacle. But she’d given up thinking anyone cared about her now. And Zayn’s ever-increasing shiftiness, combined with Vuk’s ever-darkening mood, served only to increase her ever-growing feeling that she was on her own in this – whatever ‘this’ was.

  Zayn looked nervously over his shoulder then back at Edie, hurriedly shoving the phone into his pocket. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s wrong.’

  ‘Why so cagey, then?’ She opened the can, waiting for the hiss to subside before taking a long drink. Zayn shrugged. ‘Forget it, Edie,’ he muttered, and scuttled away to the minivan.

  ‘Be like that then,’ muttered Edie under her breath. She drank the coke. The bubbles fizzed against her tongue like the simmering anger and apprehension she felt inside her. She put her head in her hands in despair. She didn’t know what was happening or what to do about it.

  ***

  Edie had hoped that she might have been forgotten about in terms of the work schedule for the evening after the trip, but unfortunately not. The minibus was met by Ivana in full-on officious mode, and Vlad. As soon as Vuk was out of the door, Vlad was muttering in his ear and they rapidly disappeared together, Zayn trailing behind, heading in the direction of the small marina where the resort’s boats, jet-skis and its beautiful yacht were moored.

  Ivana sent Edie straight to the restaurant. Even walking as slowly as she possibly could, she was still there in under ten minutes. Stefan was delighted to see her, sending her to a table of Russians who had some problem with the menu that he couldn’t fathom. The main complainant, who had a distinct look of a younger Putin about him, initially eyed Edie belligerently but once he’d run his eyes up and down her body a few times, he calmed down considerably. For the first time in her life, Edie did not congratulate herself on this. It was utterly inconsequential. The sheer vapidity of what had hitherto delighted her induced a feeling of self-loathing that she did not know how to deal with.

  The sun was dipping in the sky and she was hard at work when her phone beeped and vibrated in her pocket. Startled, she nearly dropped the tray of crockery she was carrying. She always viewed her phone with trepidation these days, aware that it could be Laura. Or whoever was pretending to be Laura.

  It wasn’t Laura. It was Vuk, thanking her for her help with the guests over the past few days. A message that, only a few days before, would have sent her into paroxysms of joy now just made her feel sick. He never thanked her for anything. Why now?

  To avoid thinking about it all, she buried herself in her work, stunning Stefan with her new conscientiousness. Previously, he had told Vlad she was a good worker just to be nice, Edie couldn’t help inwardly noting. Now she really was one, and for all the wrong reasons.

  Bending down to stash a pile of ashtrays away on a low shelf, she saw Zayn pass by the restaurant entrance. He had a couple of suitcases in his hands that he must be taking to the cabana of some new arrivals. He was striding up the path and as he walked Edie could see his jeans pocket was stuffed uncomfortably full of something. She crept forward a couple of inches, not wanting him to notice her. When she got closer her suspicions were confirmed. Half-protruding from Zayn’s pocket was a silver-grey piece of material. Upon it was a pattern of ivory crosses.

  Laura’s scarf.

  As she watched, Zayn arrived at the big garbage wheelie-bin beside the restaurant wall. Pausing to put down one of the bags, he pulled the scarf from his pocket and shoved it into the bin, pushing it deep inside. Glancing hastily around him, he shut the lid, reclaimed the bag and went on his way.

  Edie remained crouching by the ashtrays until Milan almost fell over her and she had to move.

  Fatima

  Sailing out of the port, Fatima’s gaze was drawn towards a mountain that blazed in the sun like an inside-out volcano. It was comprised entirely of life-jackets, just one of many such man-made peaks that had grown up around these islands as a testimony to the unrelenting stream of human traffic that was arriving – still – on a daily basis. Their fierce orange was like the fires back home that had raged in the ruins of buildings after the bombs fell. The nausea that held Fatima in its grasp only increased at the sight. She knew she would never shake the memory of the jackets she had bought and worn herself and put on the twins in such good faith.

  She was not sorry to say goodbye to the island, but waved a farewell nevertheless. She was sure that she would never be coming back. It was as if their journey were being continually rubbed out behind them, no traces left behind. In a symbolic gesture, she took the key to her house that she had been carrying since the day it was blown up and flung it into the water. She had no use for it ever again. Their past had been erased by the conflict, all that made them what they were dissolved away.

  They were now defined by what they didn’t have rather than what they did, as refugees, migrants, asylum seekers, all words that symbolised desperation and need, a reliance on others that rankled in every pore of Fatima’s being. All they had was the possibility of a future, the future that Ali had promised to provide, if only they could get there in one piece. He’d sent them a complicated schedule to follow, involving this ferry followed by a series of smaller vessels that would, eventually, bring them to him – and to safety.

  Standing and gripping the ferry’s handrail, the metal burning into her skin, Fatima felt a twinge cross her belly. Sea-sickness again, like on the rubber boat that had borne them here. She had thought a bigger boat would not be as bad.

  Youssef came with the twins. ‘Can we buy Coca-cola?’

  Fatima smiled weakly. She would never have let the girls have fizzy drinks at home. But now, if a sweet, cold can with a bendy straw brought them pleasure, why not? After all they had been through, it seemed a small reward.

  ‘Of course.’ She fumbled in her pocket for some money. Ali had been so generous, they could afford the odd treat.

  As the boat ploughed on, it grew windy. Gusts buffeted Fatima’s face, taking her breath away. The rocking motion grew stronger and stronger and Fatima began to vomit. The sickness was dreadful but it didn’t matter because they were on a proper ferry, piloted by a proper captain, equipped with all proper safety features. However sick she was, she would be safe.

  Ehsan, thank God, stayed well away from her. Fatima could see him, far along the deck, leaning on the barriers like her and chain-smoking. She retched again.

  A crew-member passing by faltered in his step, then stopped and turned to her.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  Fatima took a deep breath. ‘Oh yes, thank you.’ She didn’t dare attempt anything else in case she threw up in the middle of speaking.

  ‘It’s the Meltemi. It’s always bad – everyone on board will be puking by the time we dock.’

  Fatima grimaced. Flashes of memory of the vomiting hoards on the rubber boat flitted before her eyes.

  ‘We might be held up there a few days,’ continued the sailor, narrowing his eyes and sagely regarding the horizon. ‘Are you going far? Or disembarking next stop?’

  ‘Next stop,’ gasped Fatima. She wanted the man to go away. The twinges in her belly had suddenly become deep, wrenching aches like period pain.

  ‘You’re doing the right thing, staying out in the fresh air.’ He turned to go, calling over his shoulder ‘You take care now’ before disappearing through a door to the interior.

  Fatima sank to her knees, doubled over in pain. The realisation of what was happening was begin
ning to dawn on her. But it wasn’t how it had started before, when she had had the twins. They had come early, as twins often do, and of course the birth was a C-section. At that time, the health service still functioned, there were doctors and nurses and operating theatres and electricity and you could go into a hospital without fearing that it might be bombed in the night. Despite the operation being booked well ahead of the due date, the labour had started anyway – Fatima had been alerted by her waters breaking in the middle of the afternoon, when she had been cooking for the evening meal – and, after a mad drive with Fayed slaloming through the commuter traffic, the twins had been born in a rush in the twilight of a late November day. They were tiny but gorgeous, beautiful little parcels of white-swaddled, black-haired perfection.

  Fatima struggled to tell them apart; a tiny birthmark behind Marwa’s left ear was their only point of difference. Now, of course, they had developed their own characteristics and although strangers never knew one from the other, Fatima could always pick out Marwa, with her perpetually defiant eyes, and Maryam, with her sweet, wistful smile.

  Because of the C-section, Fatima had not experienced labour so had no idea what to expect. Now she understood everything any helpful friend or acquaintance had ever told her about the horror of childbirth. Another gut-wrenching, scream-inducing, vice-like pain overtook Fatima’s whole body as the land mass of the island on which they had spent such a dreadful few weeks disappeared completely from view. Struggling to her feet, she stumbled into the cafe compartment. Youssef and the twins were still there, savouring every drop of their precious drinks.

  Fatima pulled some more cash out of her pocket and almost threw it onto the table. ‘Get the girls something to eat,’ she instructed. ‘Chips, ketchup, anything you like. And afterwards – afterwards you can take them to the entertainment centre, see if you can win them a teddy bear from one of those grab machines …’ She was starting to feel faint, desperately trying to hide how bad she felt from the children. Youssef’s guarded eyes told her nothing. The girls were so delighted with the unaccustomed freedom that they giggled happily, high on sugar and adventure. Fatima was continually amazed at how they seemed to arise anew every day, without bitterness, always hopeful.

  Back outside, she found a quiet space behind a lifeboat where she clung anew to the ferry’s metal railings, vomited copiously into the sea again, and then half-crouched, half-lay as the contractions took over.

  The ferry was headed for one of the much bigger islands to the west and there they would be met by Ali’s friend and taken on smaller boats further into Europe, to the hallowed territory of the EU. It had all sounded, at the end of such a tortuous journey, so simple.

  As Fatima faced up to the fact that she was strongly in labour, weeks, months, too early, all ideas of simplicity blew away like thistledown in the throes of the Meltemi wind.

  ***

  The labour, that was in reality a miscarriage at only halfway through her pregnancy, seemed to go on forever. Far from blowing out, the Meltemi intensified, rocking the ferry from side to side, gusting so forcefully that it stirred up the sea and washed waves over the empty decks. Fatima was soaked, shivering and retching repeatedly when finally they reached land – one of the many islands on the ferry’s itinerary – and disembarked. By this time, she could only just walk, had to stop every few paces for another contraction. Ehsan took barely any notice; he seemed incapable of comprehending what was happening, and it was Youssef who put his arm around her waist, hers around his shoulder and bore her weight as they stumbled down the gangway.

  Unbelievably, there was a man waiting for them, pretending to be a taxi driver with whom they had to have a protracted pretend negotiation over price and destination to obfuscate the harbour police and allay any suspicion of what was going on.

  The man drove them to a deserted beach with a tiny pier, all the while casting anxious glances over his shoulder to where Fatima lay, half-prone on the backseat, the twins and Youssef somehow squashed in beside her. He cottoned on pretty quickly to what was happening and clearly wished he could dump them all by the roadside but didn’t, presumably because that would bring some terrible consequence from his paymasters, not least of which would be lack of his fee.

  Somehow, Fatima, Ehsan and the children got aboard the motor boat that powered into the bay as soon as they arrived there. Fatima knew that it wasn’t just that she was losing the baby; something else was going badly wrong for it to take so long, to make her feel so ill. But there was no one to help, no medical assistance available. She began to drift in and out of consciousness, unaware of where she was or how long they had been travelling for. Day merged with night and turned to day again and she couldn’t grasp hold of any of it.

  In her few cogent moments, she found herself thinking of Fayed, longing for him, missing him more than she had had time to, or had allowed herself to, in all the preceding weeks since their odyssey had begun. When she had first realised she was pregnant, she had hoped it would be a boy; she had always wanted a son. Caring about the baby’s gender hadn’t lasted long, though, in all the horror that surrounded them. And now she could only remember how Fayed hadn’t been bothered about ever having a boy, was content with his two daughters who he doted on and adored. They had decided to wait a while, anyway, before adding to their family. Double-trouble was enough to be going on with, Fayed used to joke as he threw the girls in the air or dandled them on his knee. He had died without knowing about the baby, but even though it hadn’t been planned Fatima knew he would have been overjoyed. He loved children.

  ***

  They changed from the motorboat to a yacht. The sea broiled and bubbled between them.

  ‘What the hell’s wrong with her?’ Fatima heard a harsh male voice rasp. She wanted to cry, to sob, to tell this person what was happening, to ask him for help. But the tone of the voice told her that the question was asked in anger, not concern.

  She flopped down onto the deck. Dimly, fighting the urge to close her eyes and sleep, she watched through half-closed lids as the twins were brought aboard, and then Youssef. Waves were washing over the sides of the boat and they soaked her clothes, making her shudder and shiver. She put her hands to the deck and the liquid surrounding her felt slimy and thick; not like water usually felt. The moon was bright and full. Fatima raised her hands to her face and saw that they were red, covered in thick, viscous blood. Her blood.

  Someone grabbed her, pulled her sodden trousers off her and wrapped her in a sheet, rolling her over so that it encased her as if she were mummified.

  ‘Clean this!’

  On hearing the order, Fatima thought it was addressed at her. She was drifting in and out of awareness, the light of the moon merging into the light that formed behind her closed eyes. She felt that she was above herself, looking down, seeing her prone body, feeling pity for the poor human who was in such a state.

  Someone lifted her bodily, throwing her over their shoulder and marching across the wobbling deck and then dumping her on a raised seat of some kind. Behind, she heard the sound of water sluicing onto boards. The cleaning. A little water clears us of this deed. The words, so familiar from the time when she had studied English literature in the hope of taking a degree in the subject, floated around in her head.

  ‘What the fuck do I do with this?’

  The voice was a different one, a deeper, lower one. What were they talking about, Fatima wondered. The answer, being barked out as she lay incapable of movement, was lost in the sound of the wind and the waves. She was lifted once more, and taken inside; she heard the catch of a door and the sudden absence of the breeze rushing in her ears. And then she must have slept, because she remembered no more.

  ***

  Coming to when they finally got to land, someone told her that she’d given birth to a son, a tiny little boy far too undeveloped yet to have survived. The voice of the person who told her this was familiar from some deep recesses of memory but it wasn’t until much later that she realis
ed it had also been speaking her language, not English. She vaguely registered her surroundings as a stone building on a hot, dry hillside. She could not imagine where they were. The nameless man told her that the baby had been buried at sea.

  Fatima heard herself scream, an inhuman, visceral lament that wrenched her heart from her body and tossed a piece of it into the roiling water with her son.

  Her last thought before she lost consciousness again was that she had neither seen nor held him.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Edie

  Edie headed up to the back of the resort, towards the staff cabins and her room. She was tired but the sight of Zayn secretively disposing of the scarf had energised her, an energy born of disbelief and growing fear. She now had the actual evidence that even feeble, forlorn Zayn was in on whatever egregious villainy was going on. Oh yes, she had the ‘evidence’ that the police had so loved to emphasise the necessity of; she just had no idea of what crime it pointed to.

  Bypassing her door, she found that her feet were taking her of their own accord deep into the olive grove where the trees grew thicker together and the discernible path petered out. At first she disregarded the noise she made, the breaking twigs and the dragging of the fruit-heavy branches of the wild pomegranate trees against her arms. But as she got further away from the restaurant and the cabins and clambered higher up the hill, she walked more slowly and carefully, even though all reason told her that there was no one to hear her but the lizards in their lairs in the tree roots and the owls hunting in the night sky above.

  And then she saw it.

  At first she thought she had imagined it. But then there it was again. A tiny pinprick of light wandering haphazardly, stopping and starting, appearing and disappearing. She stopped dead, waiting, finding herself holding her breath. There was nothing. And then, as soon as she crept forwards, it shimmered into view again, the same golden beam making erratic progress ahead of her. Her breath catching in her throat, she paused once more. The light was nearer now, much too near, and she shrank back into the bushes, wincing at the noise of branches bending and yielding against her back.