Footprints in the Sand (Back-2-Back, Book 1)

by Chloe Rayban

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Come on – I’m dying for a drink and a shower.’

  I got Mum a white wine while she was in the shower. She came out wrapped in her bathrobe and patted the bed beside her.

  ‘Sit down. I want to hear all about your day. I’m sure it was much more fun than mine.’

  ‘Not much to tell really. I made a bit of a fool of myself, I think. I kept thinking about Dad and you.’

  ‘That’s all in the past now.’

  ‘I know but… I kept thinking it must be so horrid for you. And I was out enjoying myself. As if I didn’t care. I mean, if it had been me I’d have felt… well…’

  ‘…old and rejected and past it?’

  ‘No! But kind of sad maybe.’

  ‘You couldn’t be more wrong.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was the one thing that kept me going – cheered me up. The thought of you two, young and happy and out together.’

  ‘I would’ve been dead envious.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve been there, Lucy. You haven’t.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was a curiously quiet evening. I leaned over the rail, gazing into the bay, thinking about what Mum had said.

  I wondered what Dad was doing. The reception would be over by now. It wasn’t going to be a big affair, just a party in a room over a pub – but with loads of people we knew. They’d probably be driving to the airport – right now. Dad and Sue were going to have a really lush honeymoon in a proper hotel with a pool in the Seychelles. I felt the familiar frisson of envy.

  But Mum had got over it. Why hadn’t I?

  The sun was setting with its usual swiftness. I watched as the horizon took the first chunk out of the bottom of it. The low light was turning the harbour that ridiculous over-the-top copper colour. Hang on – something was missing – the dredger. It had gone. It must’ve been towed away during the day. I’d got so used to seeing it there, the bay looked somehow empty without it.

  I remembered my first impression of the place. I’d thought it was so run down. What a dump! But I’d really got fond of the funny old village. If you looked closely, you could see that each house had its own little path and gate, a balcony to sit on, a blue or green-washed window, a flowering pot plant, a birdcage, or a rag rug outside its door. As if however small or humble the house might be, someone was taking pride in it.

  I wandered down the steps to the beach; each step with its neat white line and then the flight of wobbly ones which Ben had painted.

  His windsurfer wasn’t stacked with the others, so he must’ve still been out there. I decided to wait on the beach for him. On the rock, at the tip of the headland – the place where we’d first met. I wanted him to come back and find me waiting there for him, so that I could make up somehow for this afternoon. But how would he know I was there? Simple!

  I slipped off my shoes and laid a neat trail of footprints along the beach for him to follow. Then I settled in the shade, expecting any minute that his sail would come darting towards me across the bay.

  Shading my eyes against the low light, I scanned the sea. I couldn’t see him anywhere. The gloom was gathering fast. It would be dark soon. He should be back by now.

  After another ten minutes or so I was starting to feel really worried. I stood up and searched the sea from one side of the bay to the other. He must be ever so far out if I couldn’t see him.

  Could people windsurf in the dark? They didn’t have lights or anything so how could they see where to go? And more to the point, how could other boats see them? It must be dangerous, sailing out there at night. Really dangerous.

  There were lights in the bay. Two of them moving in unison. I strained my eyes into the gloom and could make out two figures standing up rowing. They must be fishermen rowing their boats out to check their nets. I went to the very edge of the water and called to them.

  ‘Hello…!’

  ‘Yassos,’ the call came back.

  ‘No! Please listen… Have you seen Ben?’

  The fishermen leaned on their oars and said something to each other in Greek.

  ‘A boy… on a windsurfer… Have you seen him?’ I tried again.

  A stream of Greek came back. They obviously didn’t understand a word of English.

  ‘Please… listen. Will you look for him?’

  I pointed out to sea and tried to make the shape of a windsurfer with my hands But it was no use, I couldn’t make them understand. I was starting to feel desperate. What should I do? Ring for the coastguard? What number did you ring? Did the coastguards speak English? It was like one of those terrible nightmares where you’re running against time and not getting anywhere.

  The fishermen were shouting to a boat further out. One I hadn’t noticed before. I could just make out the skinny outline of another figure. There was a dog in the boat too, I could see its silhouette against the water. It was Ari – the Albanian boy. He spoke English – he’d understand…

  I shouted for all I was worth.

  ‘Ari! Have you seen Ben?’

  He rowed closer inland. ‘Ben? No.’

  ‘He’s out there, on his windsurfer. He hasn’t come back. We’ve got to do something…’

  ‘How long is he gone?’

  ‘I don’t know. Two hours. Maybe more.’

  Ari shouted in Greek to the fishermen. They responded. They were going to help, I could tell by their voices. They were already turning their boats and starting to row out to sea.

  Ari shouted back to me. ‘Go tell Stavros. Ask him, ring for help. We look.’

  ‘Thank you, Ari. Oh thank you…’

  ‘Don’t worry. I will find him.’

  I felt panic rising as I ran breathlessly up to the taverna. Stavros was standing at the top of the steps.

  ‘I hear,’ he said. ‘Help is coming. I made the call already.’

  The hour that followed was the longest of my life. I stood on the shore going through all the events that had led up to this one impossibly horrifying moment…

  If only he hadn’t gone out windsurfing so late in the day… If only I’d tried to stop him… If only I hadn’t remembered that Dad was getting married at three… Then we’d have spent longer together on the beach… And he wouldn’t have gone off like that – so far and so late. If anything happened to Ben it would be my fault. If only I’d stayed there instead, with his arms around me, so warm and so strong. I kept going over and over it in my mind. And all the other ‘if onlys’ that led on from that.

  Mum came down on to the beach with a blanket and Stavros brought a bottle of Metaxa. Mum looked tense and frightened and I could tell Stavros was trying to put on a brave face, but his fingers shook as he fiddled with his worry beads. We built a fire of driftwood and stood there in a miserable little huddle, waiting round it.

  I kept wandering away from the fire trying to make out the lights of the fishing boats through the darkness. I could hear the engines of speed boats setting out from the windsurfers’ bay. They were obviously taking the search really seriously. I kept telling myself, nothing as horrible as this could possibly be real.

  I stared out to sea. That same sea that had appeared so dreamily inviting – such a vivid turquoise during the day, now turned black and oily and threatening.

  Time passed impossibly slowly. As slowly as sand passing through an hourglass, grain after grain after grain. My whole being ached for this all to be over and everything to be back to normal. Why did this have to happen to me? Why did it have to happen at all?

  And then I saw it.

  One tiny light. I was sure it was moving towards us – approaching the beach.

  I went and grabbed Stavros’s arm. ‘Look!’

  He moved down to the edge of the water and stared intently in the same direction.

  ‘Look, there!’ I pointed it out to him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You are right. A boat is com
ing back.’

  What had they found? I hardly dared imagine. My mouth went dry. My knees were weak with fear, my hands clammy with a cold sweat. An eternity seemed to pass before we heard his shout. It was Ari’s voice, very faint in the distance.

  Stavros waded out into the water and shouted back in Greek. I studied his face as the reply came back again.

  ‘Bravo!’ roared Stavros, and he turned back to me, splashing through the water.

  He lifted me up and was hugging me, nearly squeezing the breath out of me, before I could get any sense out of him.

  ‘Is OK. Ben’s OK. He’s found him!’ he said at last.

  Suddenly I was laughing and hugging Stavros back and Mum came and joined us. So we were all standing in the water laughing and hugging each other like a load of loonies.

  All I could think of was that Ben was alive. The nightmare was over. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so happy in all my life, or ever will again. Within ten minutes we could make out the boat coming towards the shore with the windsurfer dragging behind it. Stavros waded in waist-deep to meet it.

  And then Ben climbed out and made his way through the water. He walked straight past the others. He just came to me and put his arms around me without saying a word. We forgot about everyone else. We just stood there clinging to each other.

  Everything was a kind of blur after that. All I can remember is that everyone seemed to be talking at once and fussing about blankets and water and hauling out the windsurfer and that Ari got left out somehow. Before anyone noticed, he’d started pushing the boat back out to sea. Ben tried to stop him and then Stavros waded in after him.

  Some kind of discussion was going on between Stavros and Ari, and then Ben was joining in. The dog was leaping round in circles, barking with excitement, drowning out what they were saying.

  The three of them stood knee-deep in the water, arguing. At last Ben waded back shaking his head as if he didn’t believe what he’d heard.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Looking back on the week that followed, I realise now I was living in a sort of haze. Everything fell into place. Ari had his way – he had his job back, with double money. So, Ben was back on holiday. Which meant, of course, that we could spend as much time together as we wanted. And we wanted all right!

  We explored every inch of the island. We even found places like Dad had told me about. Where the sea was an endless limpid blue and you could see down to where the fish swam metres below.

  One day, one perfect day, we hired a boat and Ben rowed me out to this tiny island with a chapel and an olive tree and a beach just big enough for two people…

  And no – I’m not going to tell you everything that happened there.

  I can hardly bear thinking about the day we had to leave. Ben came to see us off on the ferry. I can remember him standing on the jetty, watching the boat go out. And how he got smaller and smaller as we headed out to sea, until he was just one tiny dot among all the people waving from the shore. And then I lost sight of him.

  I thought it would last forever. Love like that had to. And although we lived miles apart, it did at first. For those first few weeks we rang each other every night and talked for hours.

  But after a while, there wasn’t so much to say. He didn’t know any of my friends and I didn’t know his. And it’s a bit boring hearing stuff about people you don’t know. But we planned to meet up in the Christmas holidays and I thought it would all come right then. We’d get back to where we had been.

  We both wanted it to be a really special night out. The best. We argued for hours about what we would do. In the end Ben rang Mum and then secretly bought tickets for a show I’d been dying to see.

  I had a brand-new outfit and I actually lashed out on a proper haircut for our big night out.

  Ben met me at the station. He looked so different. I’d never seen him in normal clothes and he had this jacket on that was new and didn’t really fit him and was, well – a bit naff. He wasn’t tanned any longer and his hair looked darker. And I don’t know why I’d ever thought his eyes were blue-green, they were really quite a dull sort of grey.

  We had a meal after the show and it was so obvious that he was making a big effort to keep the conversation going. I wanted to say – loosen up, it’s OK, it’s me, Lucy. But I couldn’t find the right way to say it. And then it was too late – it was time to leave the restaurant, I had a train to catch.

  When he kissed me goodbye on the station platform, I knew it was the end. We didn’t mention seeing each other again. I think both of us knew there was no point.

  When I got home that night, I went straight up to my room and I took out the pebble he’d given me that afternoon on the beach – the little piece of serpentine that was the colour of his eyes. The pebble wasn’t blue-green any more. As soon as I’d got it home it had turned a plain dull grey. I’d kept it all the same. But even when I’d soaked it in water, that wonderful magical colour hadn’t come back.

  Where had it gone – the love we thought we had? Could it actually have been love, if it could disappear like that? It was back to that same old circular argument again.

  That’s when I got to thinking about Dad and Mum. I realised I’d been blaming them for not loving each other any longer. Deep down I’d been really resentful. But it wasn’t really Dad’s fault. And it wasn’t Mum’s fault either. They couldn’t help it, any more than Ben and I could.

  I walked slowly back downstairs. Mum had been waiting up for me. She was sitting in her dressing-gown in front of the electric fire.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said when she saw my face.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ I said.

  ‘I wasn’t going to.’

  I settled down in the warmth of the fire and leaned against her knees.

  ‘I think maybe I might go over and see Dad and Sue tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Would you mind?’

  footprints

  in the sand

  Ben’s side of the story…

  CHLOË RAYBAN

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter One

  It was brilliant, ace, legendary, perfect. The bay curved away in a shallow arc. Gently shelving – not too steeply – with curious black sand. It was sheltered from squalls on the north by a protective bank of cliff, but open to the sea on the south, where a stiff but steady cross-wind promised hours, days, weeks, a lifetime of perfect windsurfing.

  ‘Hey man! Look what I see!’

  I’d spotted the stacked boards waiting and ready for us beside a ramshackle hut – not exactly state-of-the-art, but that was good news. They wouldn’t have the nerve to charge extortionate hire fees like they’d done back in some of the plusher resorts we’d visited.

  Sprout shrugged and drew his jacket up around his shoulders, blowing his nose noisily. He’d been whingeing on about breakfast all the way here in the bus. But Mick caught on, a slow smile spreading across his face as he stared in the direction I was looking. He crossed his arms and said ‘Ye-ah.’

  We’d arrived on the night boat and had to sit till dawn in this bus shelter – ’bout the size and cleanliness of a chicken coop – waiting for the first bus out of the port. We needed to get off the beaten track as-soon-as – didn’t want to risk another tangle with the tourist police. Backpackers aren’t exactly popular with the officials on the islands these days. We’d been turned away from a couple. But nobody got turned away from Lexos.

  Lexos was bottom of the pile
as far as Greek islands were concerned. A resort so starved of the touristic limelight that no normal, self-respecting holiday-maker ever set a flip-flop on it. Even shabby, unwashed and unshaven backpackers like ourselves were greeted with open arms on Lexos.

  As soon as our boat arrived, a load of black-clothed grannies descended on it and started squabbling over us, shouting, ‘Thomatia, thomatia’. One actually grabbed Squid by the arm and was trying to drag him towards her house.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded, a bit overcome by his sudden popularity.

  ‘They want to let us rooms in their houses!’ I shouted back.

  I caught up with Squid and turned the lady’s attention to our bedrolls, indicating sleep. She took one look at them and called over to her friends, then the old dears tutted and shook their heads and went off, grumbling to each other.

  So we waited, crammed into our bus shelter, worrying about whether they’d report us to the police and whether we’d get moved on to another island. It was a relief when the first bus came rattling to our stop, good and early – even before the sun rose.

  We climbed aboard feeling cold and clammy – my stomach was beginning to rebel at the treatment it’d had recently. Hadn’t felt right since we’d eaten those dodgy kebabs – where was it? Couple of islands back, anyway. So we all sat in the bus feeling green and pukey as this maniac driver negotiated the hairpin bends with one hand on the steering wheel and one eye looking over his shoulder at us. We were the only people on the bus, and he kept checking to see what effect his virtuoso driving performance was having on his passengers. As the bus climbed out of the port and switched to a narrow cliff-top road, I moved my seat to the landward side, so that I was out of eyeshot of the perpendicular drop to our left. So I didn’t get much of an impression of the island on that first journey.

  Gradually, the grey sky took on a warmer hue. The sun was rising, and its first rays began to catch the tips of the hills above us, tinting them golden. I felt my spirits rise as the sunlight began bleeding colour into our monochrome world. The driver leaned forward and snapped the radio on and the joyful chaos of clattering bazouki music filled the bus. I settled back in my seat. Hot sun filtered through the murky windows, warming my body. I reckoned Lexos was going to be OK.