The Islanders

by FJ Campbell

  Five minutes later, it was over. That was all she had to give and it was over. Milo led her out of the church, she felt like the ice had melted, and she gave in to her tears.

  *

  At James’ flat afterwards, Milo introduced them to Dr Simon Smythe. He had worked in Ethiopia in the refugee camps and then moved to Nairobi, where his ex-wife had called him for the first time since he’d left England to tell him about his son’s death. He hadn’t known that Milo had lost his parents.

  Beth could see that Dr Smythe was becoming increasingly troubled as Milo described his life. He was quiet as they ate dinner and the following day he took Milo back to Weatherbury in his hire car, while Beth and Anne stayed with James in Clapham.

  *

  ‘The press are having a field day,’ said Anne to James on the evening after the funeral, after Beth had gone to bed. She sighed as she read the newspapers in front of her on the table. ‘What on earth are we going to do? This story’s not going to die down for lack of information. The Foreign Secretary’s son kills the son of the Duke of Wintoncester, who’s the ex-boyfriend of Beth Sauveterre.’ She swore and put her head in her hands.

  ‘It will die down. Markham has resigned; they’re talking about an ambassadorial posting, possibly Berlin. We need to get through the summer and keep Beth out of the way. Perhaps go back to Cornwall, or Thailand?’

  But in the morning when they suggested the plan to Beth, she refused. She wanted to go back to Melchester. St Emit and Thailand were ‘too far away’.

  ‘Too far away from what?’

  Beth said she didn’t know.

  And so they drove back to the little house in the Cathedral Close. Beth walked up the stairs and opened the door to her room. She sat down on her bed and looked around her. What she wanted more than anything now was to stay there, alone.

  So she did: for every day of that long, hot summer, she locked herself away in silence. She thought about Zack and how she’d shouted at him on the beach wall and told him she hoped he’d die. In the evenings she came downstairs and sat in the garden, and she was haunted by the thought that everything Edward had done had been her fault. She couldn’t sleep at night, lying in her bed and staring at the ceiling, remembering the ambulance and the hospital and how they took Zack away from her to the morgue. She hid everything away in that room and that garden because the words wouldn’t come out right and she was afraid of what those words should be. Silence was easier.

  CHAPTER 26

  Milo was never alone in the weeks following the funeral; Dr Smythe saw to that. He drove Milo back to the cottage and stayed in the spare room. Every day they kept busy, driving to the coast, hiking along the footpaths that criss-crossed the Wessex hills, fishing on a boat Dr Smythe borrowed from an old friend in Knollsea. Sometimes they talked about Africa and Dr Smythe’s work in the refugee camps there; sometimes they talked about Milo’s school life; sometimes about Zack, sticking to their memories of the old days; sometimes they didn’t talk at all, but enjoyed the companionable silence, the warm, salty smell of the sea and the bright colours of the sea and the land reflected in the sunshine.

  On the evening before Dr Smythe’s return to Kenya, they sat in the cottage garden, side by side, grilling sausages on a makeshift barbecue.

  ‘I’ve asked Mrs Toms to stop by every now and again, see how you are,’ said Dr Smythe, staring into the fire.

  ‘Check up on me, you mean?’ But Milo said it cheerfully.

  Dr Smythe gave him a guilty smile.

  Milo said, ‘You don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine. I’ve been through worse.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be alone.’ When he looked at Milo, he had tears in his eyes, and it wasn’t the first time Milo had seen him like that.

  Milo thought, Perhaps it’s you who shouldn’t be alone.

  Dr Smythe said, ‘I’ve been thinking. I’m going to move back; get a job near here. I’ve been meaning to settle in Blighty again.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’ Milo waited. He thought he knew what was coming.

  ‘I’d like to help you more. You shouldn’t have to work all hours and worry about earning enough money to feed yourself. I want to give you some money to tide you over, get you through school and university.’

  ‘That’s very kind. But I’ll pay you back when I start earning.’

  ‘So, a loan?’

  ‘A loan.’ Milo took his outstretched hand and they shook on it. ‘Thank you, Dr Smythe.’

  ‘Let’s stop all this “Dr Smythe” now. Simon will be fine.’

  ‘OK. Thanks.’

  Dr Smythe – Simon – paused, as if he was deciding whether to say more. ‘You’ve really been through the mill these last few years. I’m proud of you. A lesser man would have crumbled.’

  ‘Like Dad, you mean?’ It just slipped out; Milo hadn’t meant to sound so resentful.

  ‘Your dad had his own demons. But you’re different. Stronger. More like your mum.’

  ‘He took Mum’s death hard. Harder than I did, apparently.’

  Simon shook his head sadly. ‘It’s more complicated than that… it’s important for you to know that your dad’s suicide wasn’t a reflection of how he felt about you.’

  ‘I’m not sure I agree with you. We both missed her; only he left me to deal with it. I was seventeen years old.’ Milo jabbed the fire with the stick he was holding, sending up sparks into the semi-darkness.

  ‘No. That’s not the full story. You probably don’t remember because we kept it all away from you. Milo, listen. This is important. You need to know that he wasn’t a well person, his whole life. He’d been suffering from depression before you were born, way before your mum died.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’d always struggled. This is what I’m trying to tell you. Those times I used to come down to Wessex and take you and Zack off for the day – our camping trips, the rugby matches, all of that…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There were times before then, that he’d tried to take his own life.’

  ‘What?’ Milo wished he could stop saying, ‘What?’ but he couldn’t seem to process what Simon was saying. ‘How did I not know this?’

  ‘Your mum didn’t want you to see him like that. I helped out as much as I could until he was back on his feet.’ Simon looked at Milo. ‘I thought you ought to know. You couldn’t have done anything. It wasn’t your fault.’

  It wasn’t my fault. Slowly those words arranged themselves in Milo’s frozen brain, until they were the only things he could see. It wasn’t my fault. He stared at Simon, his heart hammering, feeling the words and the thoughts solidify. It wasn’t my fault. Milo put his head in his hands and felt relief rush through his body and tears burn his eyes. All this time, he’d tried to figure out what exactly what he’d done wrong and the answer was nothing. It wasn’t my fault.

  ‘Milo, was I right to tell you? Are you going to be OK?’

  Milo straightened up and nodded. ‘Yes. Definitely. I’m going to be OK.’

  *

  Thanks to Simon’s loan, Milo didn’t have to work through the summer holidays for the first time since he could remember. Twice a week, he did his work experience at the vet’s practice on the outskirts of Melchester.

  On the other days he went to visit Beth, who refused to leave her house. He had tried taking her out for a walk one evening, but a young girl approached with an autograph book and smiled sweetly at her. As Beth reached out her hand to take it, the little girl said, with tears in her eyes, ‘I’m so sorry that people you know keep dying in car crashes.’ Beth turned on her heel and stormed back inside the house, leaving Milo to apologise to the girl and her mother.

  At least Beth agreed to see him – she wouldn’t even open her door to Livvy, who called Milo after work one day and begged him to do something.

  One day he and the vet paid a call to Yalbury Farm, which had a riding stables, run by the farmer’s wife. Mrs Durnover was fretting because her groom had broken his arm a
nd was out of action for at least four weeks. Could Milo fill in? He couldn’t, but he told her he knew someone who could.

  When he knocked off work he drove to Melchester and found Beth in her usual spot in the garden. She was so thin, she looked more like her mother than ever, frail and washed out but hauntingly beautiful. She often forgot to wash her hair these days and was wearing an old, faded pair of jeans and a baggy T-shirt. She had a book on her knees, but Milo noticed that she hadn’t read much of it since last week.

  ‘I’ve found a holiday job for you.’

  ‘I can’t. People stare at me and say stupid things.’

  ‘You’d have to get up at the crack of dawn.’

  ‘You know I’m not a morning person.’

  ‘It’s on a farm, out in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘Sounds charming.’ She scowled at him.

  ‘The pay is pitiful.’

  ‘Well, you’re really selling it to me.’

  ‘It’s with horses. Grooming, mucking out, feeding, exercising them when they’re not being used for lessons. Will you think about it at least?’

  ‘If I think about it will you bugger off?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘You’re so annoying. Seriously, Milo, I don’t think I’m ready.’

  ‘You’ll never know unless you try.’

  She shook her head, giving up. ‘OK. You win. I’ll think about it.’ She sighed and went back to picking a scab on her arm. ‘When would they want me to start?’

  Milo grabbed her thin wrist and looked at her watch. ‘Mrs Durnover is expecting you in… about eleven hours.’

  She blinked. ‘What? Don’t tell me you’ve already told them I’ll do it?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘What the…? You can’t do that, Milo.’

  ‘I just did.’

  *

  In the morning, she followed the directions Milo had given her and arrived at Yalbury Farm at 6am. She could imagine from Mrs Durnover’s expression how she must look – even though she’d washed her hair last night and tried to eat something. She looked frail and tired. She felt frail and tired.

  But once Mrs Durnover had shown her what to do and left her to it, her exhaustion melted away, and for the first time since Edward’s party, she forgot about Zack, about everything but saddles and bridles and stirrups. The horses were beautiful and stood patiently as she tried to remember what Edward had taught her. She loved touching them, their warm flesh under their silky coats that she brushed until they were glossy. Three hours later, all the horses were gleaming and ready for their lesson. At the end of the day, she worked on each of them until her arms ached so badly she could hardly drive home.

  When Milo called at eight o’clock that evening she was fast asleep.

  *

  Beth worked to blot everything out. Her appetite returned and she wolfed down the meals she was given, because they no longer tasted like cardboard. The colour returned to her cheeks, her hair shone and when she rode the horses, she felt the nearest to happiness that she thought possible. She cut off several pairs of her jeans and wore them to work, with old T-shirts and trainers. She wore her hair in a thick plait down her back, no make-up, chipped nail varnish and the NY Yankees baseball cap on backwards. Not a single one of the kids who came for riding lessons or their parents recognised her.

  She still cried herself to sleep some nights. She still had bad dreams. She thought about Zack and Bonnie and Edward and blamed herself for the whole mess. If she hadn’t come along, everything would have been different. Zack and Bonnie would have found a way to be together and Edward would have been safely on his way to Cambridge University.

  When Zack had died, she’d felt like she was swimming underwater. Everything around her was quiet and dark. The water was pressing on her and none of her senses worked properly. She couldn’t hear her own heart beating. She couldn’t feel her own skin. But she wanted to stay submerged because if she rose up to the surface of the water, the horror of what she’d caused would be there and she couldn’t face it. It was too big.

  Time was abstract and enormous; a day seemed like a month and a sleepless night like a year. But when she started working at Yalbury Farm, there was something about those horses that trickled into her senses. They were so alive, it was frightening. When she touched them or smelt them, it flooded through her and warmed her. At night, when she closed her eyes and thoughts of Zack loomed, she reached out and touched the horses and felt their heat and their softness, and she drifted off to sleep. Mrs Durnover had been kind and sometimes told her to slow down a bit, take one horse at a time. That was how she got better: one horse at a time.

  *

  She had a visit one evening from Milo.

  He dumped a cardboard box on her bed and said, ‘I’ve got good news and… weird news.’ He sat down next to her. ‘Mrs Markham came to the cottage. They’ve been trying to get Edward committed to a psychiatric hospital, and Zack’s mum and dad have agreed to support that in court instead of a prison sentence for him.’

  ‘Wow. That’s so kind of them to do that.’

  ‘Yeah, so Mrs Markham is hopeful that Edward will be able to put it behind him and concentrate on getting better. If that’s possible. They – the Markhams – are talking about going abroad, perhaps next year, or as soon as Edward can be discharged.’

  Beth felt a tiny twinge of hope. It was possible, surely it was.

  ‘And the weird news?’ she said.

  ‘Mrs Markham was clearing out some of Edward’s school things the other day and found this box with your name on it. She asked Edward, and he said he wants you to have it.’

  ‘Why didn’t she bring it to me herself? Doesn’t she want to see me?’ She blames me for what’s happened with Edward, she thought.

  ‘It’s not that she blames you. It’s more like she thinks you wouldn’t want to see her. Because her son killed your… killed Zack.’

  Beth stared at the box. ‘What’s in it?’

  ‘I don’t know, I haven’t looked. Neither did Mrs Markham. It’s for you.’

  With trepidation, Beth opened the lid and they saw piles of letters, books, photos and packages. She reached out and picked up a piece of paper. It was a letter Edward had written to her from Berlin and never posted, dated the 21st February. Another written the following day, then two more the week after that. There were letters he’d written all the way through March and April and a diary he’d filled with stories about Beth, how he loved her, how it felt to kiss her and what she looked like naked. Beth felt queasy as she read it. She flicked through the pages and read her name and Bonnie’s as Edward confused the things he’d said to them. There were poems and presents, the watch he’d given to her for her birthday, jewellery, twelve faded red roses, unopened boxes of chocolates, the map she and Milo had drawn to Greenhill Bridge, newspaper cuttings from Easter, and scrawled over everything, Beth Markham, B. M.

  Milo and Beth looked through everything and she could see that he was getting more and more worked up. It was all sick, the product of a sick mind, and she felt only pity for Edward and her overwhelming and relentless guilt. All of it, it was all her fault. She waited for Milo to ask her whether any of it was true and knew, because she knew him, that he would never believe a word of it. How lucky was she, to have his unbreakable loyalty? If only she believed in herself as he believed in her. She let him take the box away to make a bonfire of it in his garden.

  Milo carried on visiting her every day. Sometimes, when she was having a bad day, she took it out on him, snapping at him or ignoring him. He apologised if he thought he’d said the wrong thing. She complained that she couldn’t read any more, and he offered to read to her. She griped that she looked and smelt terrible every day after work, and he went upstairs to run her a bath. She took it out on him and he listened, or soothed, or smiled, or hugged her, whatever she needed. When they were alone she told him about her nightmares and how Zack’s face haunted her. She said a word she could never in her life re
member saying to anyone, ever: sorry.

  *

  The start of the new school term was looming. Everyone else had been sure that Beth wouldn’t want to return to The Island, but Milo knew she would want to be there and he knew why, because he felt the same way. At The Island they felt safe.

  Term started and Beth threw herself into the routine and felt comfortable with the curfews and the rules that she had found so restrictive last year. She wanted to direct another play and was constantly in the AV department editing films that she’d made. They were all so busy with piles of homework and university applications that there was no time to dwell on their grief.

  Milo began writing his application, and had intended to write Bristol Uni as his first choice, as well as Liverpool and Edinburgh. Simon persuaded him to apply for Cambridge as well. He had never even considered Cambridge, but Simon and Mr Toms were optimistic. Simon had also written to an old rugby friend of his who lived in Queensland, who offered Milo a job on his sheep farm for July, August and September next year, after he’d finished A Levels and before he went to university. Milo was tempted; he had never been abroad and the money was good, which meant he could pay Simon back earlier than he thought.

  Beth had always planned to go to an American college, USC or NYU, but was having second thoughts. James tried in vain to find out what had changed her mind. She couldn’t explain it; she’d thought about it non-stop through the summer and she knew she wanted to stay in Britain. She visited the NFTS in Beaconsfield and applied only there. Everywhere else was ‘too far away’. James gritted his teeth and said nothing. He was splitting his time between London and LA, and Anne was getting itchy feet again and was talking about travelling around South America. But Beth, young, adventurous and with her whole future in front of her, didn’t want to go ‘too far away’, a phrase that was starting to get on James’ nerves.

  Beth was surprised at herself too and she found herself wondering what had changed. She knew she was a different person from the one who’d arrived at The Island just over a year ago. She felt like she’d grown up so much since then, when she’d only been interested in how people saw her and how attractive they found her. She had behaved so badly towards Edward and had deserved everything she got from Zack. When she heard about Milo’s plans, especially about Australia, she tried to be happy for him, but failed miserably. She tried not to be selfish, but it was no good.