‘Who’s this?’
‘Fredrik. From Norway. Cycling across France.’
‘That’s great. We need to get going,’ said Abby brusquely before turning and heading back to the car.
Ellie sighed. ‘Sorry about her. She’s . . . got a lot on her mind.’
‘Ellie!’ called Abby sharply.
‘Jeez.’ Ellie stood, held out her hand. ‘It was very nice to meet you.’ Fredrik stood too, keeping hold of her hand, then seemed to make a sudden decision and leaned in and kissed her cheek.
‘You too. Hope it’s not as serious as you think.’
Ellie held his gaze. ‘Hope you find your perspective.’
‘Ellie!’
Ellie rolled her eyes but turned and headed towards Abby, who was sitting in the car, engine running. As she made her way across the square, she looked back at Fredrik who, she was pleased to see, watched her all the way.
‘Finally!’ said Abby, pulling away as Ellie belted up.
‘I wasn’t that long,’ said Ellie, breaking into a smile as she turned and waved to Fredrik. Then Abby left the square and she could see him no more.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed.
‘What?’
She’d given Fredrik her number but she no longer had her phone! What an idiot. She’d completely forgotten Abby had ditched it. Did she explain? Taking one look at her sister, she thought it best not to. Ellie felt a sadness cloud over her; seemed she wouldn’t get any pictures of Antibes after all.
‘Nothing. Just spilled some coffee,’ she said, brushing away an imaginary spot off her dress.
‘So, what was all that about? He rescuing a damsel in distress?’
‘We were just talking. Passing the time of day.’
‘You do realize it’s probably better not to speak to anyone. Let alone cosy up to some strange man.’
Ellie paused, then levelled her gaze at her sister. ‘Oh, I see what this is about.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You. Being all huffy. Not liking the fact I’m . . .’
‘What?’ goaded Abby.
‘I can’t help it if some men are attracted to me, Abby.’
‘You make it sound as if that little encounter there was nothing to do with you.’
‘Fredrik asked me over to the bench, actually.’
‘You were flirting.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’
‘It’s like you can’t help yourself.’
‘Are we really still going on about this? It was years ago. You two had broken up.’
‘Only because you decided you wanted him for yourself.’
Not true, thought Ellie angrily. There had been a man – Jon – whom Abby had been dating. They’d all been so young, and she had been insensitive, but Abby and Jon weren’t dating when Jon had asked her, Ellie, out. She glanced across; God, her big sister looked so self-righteous.
‘You know, when the police got to your house, they wouldn’t know,’ said Ellie.
‘Wouldn’t know what?’
‘If it was me or you.’
‘What . . .?’
‘Who pushed Mum. No one saw. Could’ve been you.’
It had the desired effect. Abby was furious, but could do nothing other than continue driving. ‘You want to walk?’ she managed.
Ellie gave a tiny smile. ‘I’m just saying.’ She turned her head and looked out of the window. Didn’t want to rub it in too much.
Sorry, Mum, she offered up in her head. But sometimes she drives me so mad . . .
TWENTY-NINE
1993
The long metal spike glinted in the bright overhead lights and Ellie whimpered as it pierced the tender inside of her elbow, a place that had been punctured so many times she felt the accumulative effect of what seemed like a thousand needle jabs. She knew she wasn’t supposed to cry, she was supposed to be ‘brave’ and ‘not make a fuss,’ but it stung and she could see the blood – her blood – filling the vial, and it made her feel as if something was wrong with her, so very wrong, and the tears were more from fear than pain. She turned her head into her mother’s arm and wept, knowing she had no control over what these people were doing to her body, and then the nurse said it was all finished and she was sticking a plaster over where the needle had been. Ellie watched weakly as the nurse wrote on sticky labels and attached them to several vials of her blood.
‘Mummy?’ she asked, turning to Susanna.
Her mother smiled. ‘Yes?’
‘Am I going to die?’
Ellie saw her mother’s face contract in a strange way, almost as if she had forgotten to breathe or something, and then she smiled her biggest smile and said, ‘Don’t be silly.’ Ellie didn’t know whether to believe her or not. She knew dying was what happened to really ill people and you stopped moving – a bit like the bird that flew into the window a few days ago with a loud bang, even though it was only a tiny little thing. It fell onto the patio on its back with its stick-like legs up in the air. Her mum had put on a pair of rubber gloves and picked it up, holding it at a distance, then she’d put it in the rubbish bin. Ellie had been sad about it lost there in amongst all the stinky rubbish in the dark and hoped that even though it was dead it wasn’t too scared.
They caught the bus home and Ellie found herself alone while her mum went into the kitchen to make some lunch. She sat on the sofa feeling the plaster pull at her skin and hated it because it reminded her of how she was different. The patio doors were open and she got up and stood on the sill, rocking her feet back and forth until a sound drew her into the garden, pulling her like a magnet.
A distant collective laughter: four hundred children in a playground on their lunch break, playing, shouting, screaming. Ellie strained to hear the detail – the rules of the games they were enacting, the chants from the skipping songs – but as with every other time she’d come out here to try and be a part of it, she was just too far away. Usually she liked to stay outside to listen and imagine herself in the playground, running in a game of Tag so fast she’d never get caught, but today it made her feel trapped in her tiny square of a garden where she couldn’t see over the hedge, and she was feeling so angry she went back inside and lay on the floor.
It wasn’t fair. She hated being ill, hated the sickness, the doctors, the needles. She hated being alone at home when all the other children got to go to school and play and have fun. She hated everything.
As she tipped her head listlessly to one side she spied something under the sofa: a pile of books she’d shoved under there the day before, books her mother had made her get from the library. She hadn’t wanted to pick out any but Susanna had got cross and told her to hurry up, so she’d just taken the top four from the pile. Ellie thrust an arm through the dust, retrieved the one nearest to her and pulled it closer. There wasn’t much point really and she didn’t know why she was doing it except that there was nothing better to do. There it lay, close to her cheek. She didn’t bother opening it up; instead she stared at the picture on the front: a map.
Her mother came into the room.
‘What are you doing on the floor?’ asked Susanna, bustling over and holding out a hand, but Ellie refused to take it.
Susanna glanced down at the book. ‘Atlas,’ she read, ‘A journey around Europe’s Biggest, Tallest, Longest.’ She picked it up, flicked it open. ‘Ooh, Hungary. Home to the Danube, Europe’s second-longest river. Fun fact: the Danube passes through ten countries.’
Ellie was barely listening; she could still hear the playground joy filtering in through the patio doors.
Susanna turned to another page. ‘Spain,’ she read. ‘Home to the Alhambra, a royal palace.’
The word ‘palace’ filtered into Ellie’s consciousness. She liked palaces. And princesses.
‘The Sultana’s Garden, one of the oldest surviving Moorish gardens,’ read Susanna.
Hmm, though Ellie. A garden where they grow sultanas. She liked sultanas. More than raisins. They were squidgier.
‘Oh, and what’s this?’ said Susanna, moving her finger across the page. ‘The Vixía Herbeira cliffs. Six hundred and twenty-one metres high. Wow,’ she exclaimed, ‘it says here that’s nearly six times the height of the White Cliffs of Dover!’
Ellie didn’t know about the White Cliffs of Dover but her mother’s voice held enough excitement for her to sit up. She peered over at the book and Susanna turned it so the photograph was facing her. Ellie’s eyes widened; it was so high! She felt a flutter in her belly and pulled the book closer.
‘If you don’t go while alive, you must go after death, goes the saying,’ read Susanna.
‘What does that mean, Mummy?’
‘It’s probably a legend or something. It must mean it’s so good, you absolutely mustn’t miss it.’
Ellie nodded and thought for a moment. ‘One day, when I’m better, can I go there?’
‘Of course,’ said Susanna. ‘You can go wherever you like.’ Her mother handed her the book. ‘You keep on looking while I check the macaroni cheese.’
As Susanna left the room, Ellie looked back at the cliffs. The image stirred her again, something strong and powerful that she found hard to describe, but one thing she did know for certain was that she liked how it made her feel. And then it came to her. The feeling was escape.
She flicked through more pages, unable to read much of the text, but it mattered less now. It was the pictures that spoke to her, that transported her and took her away from her lonely place in the living room.
One day, Ellie thought, she would go to these places in this book. When the book was due back at the library, Ellie asked if they could keep it for longer. It was renewed. Again and again.
THIRTY
They drove through the heat of the middle of the day, the roof down as they stuck to the minor roads that jumped in and around the coast for much of the Côte d’Azur, skirting around Monaco, Nice, Cannes, places whose very names conjured up glamour and allure. In another time, it would have been the perfect adventure, cruising through some of the most beautiful places in France, except Abby and Ellie had to avoid the towns themselves, only occasionally getting a distant glimpse of shiny dense high-rises and luxury villas perched on cliffs. Between the towns they would travel along narrow roads lined with maquis, roads that would bend to dramatically reveal a hidden cove, flanked by palms and rocks, everything bathed in the bright Mediterranean light.
Ellie’s eyelids began to droop. She was feeling so sleepy; in fact, her whole body ached with fatigue. She forced her eyes open and, for a moment, the view of the coast on her left was partly missing. The sea appeared to suddenly cut off, right at the periphery of her field of vision. Alarmed, she blinked, but her sight stubbornly wouldn’t adjust. She closed her eyes, waited a few seconds, then slowly opened them. Gradually, as she kept her head very still, the images went back to normal. She sat still for a moment, unsettled.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Abby. ‘You look a bit pale.’
Ellie carefully shifted her gaze to her sister. ‘Yeah. Think so. Everything just got a bit weird there for a minute.’
‘Probably need some food,’ said Abby. ‘We’ll find a place to stop.’
‘We need to find help,’ said Ellie. ‘We can’t just keep on driving.’
‘I know but . . .’ Abby’s voice suddenly took on an edge of excitement.
‘What?’
‘I have a friend, back in London. He’s a lawyer. Criminal.’
Ellie sat up. ‘How come you didn’t mention him before?’
‘I’ve only just remembered him. It’s been a year since we were in touch.’
How could you forget a friend like that, right now? thought Ellie. Her sister clocked the look on her face.
‘Sorry, OK? I’ve had a lot on my mind. When we stop for food, I’ll get a phone as well. Jamie might be able to make this whole nightmare a little bit easier to manage.’
‘Like how?’
‘I don’t know, give us some advice maybe. It’s worth a try. He’s a good guy.’
They had moved inland and Abby saw a sign for a retail park. They pulled off at the roundabout and headed towards the mammoth shopping area, parking up outside an electrical store.
‘I’ll get a pay-as-you-go,’ said Abby. She nodded at another huge shop further along. ‘Then we can go to the supermarket.’
Ellie watched as Abby went through the sliding glass doors of the phone shop and then could see her no more. She stretched out her numb legs, and knew she needed to get out of the car. As she put her foot down on the tarmac, her leg unexpectedly gave way and she grabbed hold of the car door to steady herself. Ellie took a moment to recover and, leaning against the door, she looked across at the phone shop. She’d like to buy a phone herself but knew her credit card would almost certainly be declined. Even if she did buy one, she wouldn’t be able to give Fredrik the new number. That moment had gone. She wondered where he was on his cycle route. They must have passed him long ago, unknowingly been mere miles from a tall, blond Norwegian man peddling through the French countryside. Perhaps he had stopped for lunch. He was sitting in a village square like the one she’d met him in, eating a baguette. She wondered if he’d thought about her at all since they’d parted that morning.
She sighed and gazed around at the soulless car park. A few shoppers pushed giant trolleys from the supermarket, laden with food. Cars pulled in and out of spaces, their occupants on the hunt for new electricals or sofas. To the side of the phone shop was a row of plastic cubicles, each with a payphone in it. They were all empty, as of course no one really used public phones anymore. It was then that Ellie had the idea. She’d call her old mobile, see if Fredrik had rung her and left a message. It was unlikely – after all, only a few hours had passed – but it gave her something to do while she was waiting for Abby.
She walked across the car park and, digging some change out of her purse, she dialled her own number. It went straight to voicemail and she intercepted the recorded message by typing in her access code. To her delight the automated voice informed her she had two new messages. She contained her hope – they were most likely her bank telling her she needed to get in touch about her overdraft.
‘Message one,’ said the automated voice, ‘received today at twelve forty-seven p.m.’ That was only an hour ago, thought Ellie. Her heart leaped as the message kicked in.
‘Hey, Ellie, it’s Fredrik. We met this morning, at the fountain. I just wanted to say hi again. I’m sitting on a bench, a different one with a different view. I’m at the top of some hills and the road is snaking back down in a switchback all the way to the sea. It’s a shame you’re not here as well. Anyway, it would be great if you wanted to call.’ As he relayed off his number, Ellie frantically scrabbled around in her bag for a pen and paper and wrote it down. He rang, he rang! Her heart sang and she mentally checked her change – she probably had enough to call him back, although maybe she could try the phone shop after all, see if she might be able to swing it with her card. She carefully saved Fredrik’s message, following the robotic instructions in her ear.
‘Message two,’ continued the voice, ‘received today at ten seventeen a.m.’ This would be the bank one, thought Ellie, but she was so euphoric from Fredrik’s call, she didn’t care.
‘Ellie, it’s me. Your mum. You need to call me as soon as you get this. Don’t tell Abby.’
Ellie was vaguely aware of the ground reaching up, or was she falling? Then everything blacked out.
THIRTY-ONE
She came around to a blurry hand waving in front of her face. Ellie, eyes half open, saw two identical middle-aged women looking at her with concern in their eyes. As she blinked, the two women morphed into one and this woman was babbling to her in French.
Confused, Ellie tried to make sense of where she was. Her legs were splayed awkwardly and she instinctively pulled her skirt down so it covered her. What am I doing on the ground? Feeling vulnerable, she tried to get up but her head began to spin. The woman hel
ped her but Ellie could only manage as far as sitting before she had to rest her back against the wall, as she tried to contain an onset of nausea.
‘Merci,’ she managed weakly to the woman, who on hearing Ellie’s poor command of her language immediately switched to English.
‘Are you OK? I saw you faint.’ She fussed and held out a bottle of water that Ellie took automatically. She drank, just as the woman was insisting. Then in a swift, breathless moment, she remembered.
Her mother had left her a message. Her dead mother.
It couldn’t be, thought Ellie. It’s madness. Her brain scrambled for some logical explanation – triumphantly relieved when she reasoned that the call must have been made before the accident.
But the relief was short-lived. Ellie remembered. The message had been left at quarter past ten that morning. Susanna had died on the terrace of Abby’s house yesterday. Ellie thought hard. Was it definitely her mum’s voice she’d heard? Yes, she was certain she’d recognize it anywhere.
‘Shall I call a doctor?’ the woman asked in her heavily accented English.
Ellie plastered on a smile of what she hoped was reassurance. ‘No, thank you. I’m fine. I think it must have been the heat.’
She let the woman help her to her feet and, steadying herself against the wall, she brushed herself down.
Her mother had called her.
She started to walk back towards the car, the woman still insisting on staying with her. Ellie could see Abby making her way over, a plastic bag in her hand with the phone shop’s logo on it. She was frowning at Ellie and quickened her pace.
‘What happened?’ Abby asked as she hurried up to them.
Abby was staring at her and Ellie felt her pulse quicken. She closed her eyes a moment, still bewildered. Aware she was being watched by her sister, she lifted her head, tried to rearrange her features into something resembling normality. ‘Nothing. Just passed out for a moment. Overheated. This nice lady helped me out.’
‘You look as white as a sheet,’ said Abby, placing a hand on her arm. She turned to the lady. ‘Thank you so much. I’m her sister. I’ll take care of her.’
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