The Lighthouse, page 27
‘Stop!’ Sammy screams.
‘James!’ But my voice goes unacknowledged.
And Sammy lifts the broken shard of glass.
37
Kira
It takes less than a second. It’s like flash paper. One moment things are relatively calm – it’s a conversation; a dialogue. The next moment it’s like the world has exploded and everything goes a hundred miles a second.
Sammy lashes out. She swipes at James with her bit of broken glass and he yelps, diving to the side just in time. But I don’t think she even intended to hit him, because seconds later the glass is arcing through the air, coming to rest on the middle of the table.
‘Sammy!’ Moira exclaims. Genevieve shouts, too.
Sammy hurls herself at the table. She flings ceramic place settings, wooden candlesticks – their candles still alight – to the ground, dashing them so hard that one of the mats shatters. Lucas and Jess dive for the candles, snuffing them out, while I try to grab hold of Sammy.
But she’s slippery and determined. She begins to lift one of the dining chairs and I let out a scream as I throw myself at her, desperate to stop her before the heavy seat collides with the glass windows. Everything in here is so fragile.
And she is out of control. It’s like, suddenly, she’s a thousand times stronger, driven by denial and fear and confusion. She doesn’t even seem human. There is only me – it’s always me – between her and the rest. My body collides with hers and we tumble hard to the tiled floor but she’s out from underneath me in seconds as I try to drag myself upright, stunned by the impact.
Still she doesn’t stop. I can see her glancing around, looking for something else to grab, something to destroy. Her eyes land on one of the place mats that has skidded to land at her feet. It’s heavy enough to do some serious damage.
‘Sammy, please!’ I shout. ‘Just calm down. It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay!’
She’s not listening. I’m not even sure she could stop now if she wanted to, a one-woman wrecking machine, driven by fear and anger and hurt. Something inside me screams with recognition. That urge to break, to smash – so familiar. Tears stream down her face.
‘It’s not true,’ she cries. ‘None of it is true.’
Jess has dropped one of the candles and it rolls under the table. She curses, cradling her hand. Moira rushes to her side.
‘Just a burn,’ she murmurs. ‘Watch—’
And then the heavy place mat flies through the air, driving them apart. The corner catches Mo in the upper arm. She shouts, a hoarse pained noise that reverberates deep in my chest.
‘Enough!’ Lucas bellows. He dives at Sammy but she’s quicker than him: years of racing with wind and rain; years of outdoor living making her strong and fast.
She slips out of Lucas’s reach and goes for the broken glass again, this time her anger flaring hot.
‘You need to leave,’ she growls. ‘You all need to go. It’s clear now. It’s so clear. You have to forget this place.’
She scrambles over two overturned chairs and reaches for the glass. This time it’s James who manages to grab her, and he doesn’t do it by half. Unlike the rest of us he doesn’t seem to care if he hurts her. He hurls himself at her and catches her square in the chest. The two of them tumble backwards, towards the door to the veranda.
‘James!’ I shout.
Jess screams.
And it seems like only seconds as we watch. They roll together, a ball of limbs, Sammy lashing out with that piece of glass clutched in her fingers. There’s an arc of blood and a loud oof as Sammy’s foot connects with James’s stomach.
I kneel, motionless, unable to make my body obey. All my strength is suddenly gone as Sammy kicks James again, and then his fist lands under her jaw. Her head swings back and the two of them half scramble, half skid through the door.
They crash into the railing of the veranda outside with such force that I hear the wood splinter with a loud crack that sounds like thunder. The rain is still coming down in sheets and the sun has dipped low behind the horizon now.
Lucas is faster than me. He manages to get to the door, but he can’t intervene, fists and feet lashing out, the piece of glass lost somewhere on the wooden decking. I finally get my knees to respond and drag myself to my feet using the side of the table. I follow the others, skidding out into the rain and the frigid salty air, almost catapulting Lucas right into the ocean.
It’s dark on the veranda, despite the lights from within the sunroom, and I can hardly see James and Sammy through the rain. I can just hear their grunts, as James tries to hold down her arms, her legs, anything at all, and she fights with every fibre of her being.
‘James!’ I shout. ‘Just let her go!’
It isn’t worth it. I know it isn’t. But James is like a creature possessed now: something inside him is fighting against her, determined to win. A brief spark of that dark strength inside him I remember, vying to be free. And I’m grateful for it now. I grab hold of Lucas’s arm as Moira, Jess and Genevieve run to join us. The wind snarls down the length of the cliff and I feel it in my bones: a strong tug that almost lifts me off my feet.
There is another gut-wrenching crack of wood.
A scream. A shout.
And then – a jagged bolt of lightning surges and I see James. Only James. Alone on the veranda with his eyes wide, his mouth agape.
‘Where is she?’ Genevieve yelps.
James is frozen for a solid second, his face a pale oval. And then he rushes to the balcony, looking like he’s going to throw himself over the edge.
Lucas is quick, Moira not far behind, and together they grab James’s arms and haul him back. His feet scrabble against the slick decking and he lets out a groan that is more a sob, kicking out once, twice. They hold fast.
‘Let me go! Let me— I’ve got to— She went over,’ he cries. ‘I didn’t mean – I was trying to stop her from hurting herself. From hurting us.’
I hurry to stand beside them and I peer over the balcony. Down, far down into the murky darkness. The waves are unhinged, clawing at the cliff and the rocks beneath. Rain sluices from the sunroom roof, torrents soaking the decking.
There’s no sign of her.
‘I have to go in,’ James pants, fighting against Mo and Lucas again, but they are stronger together. Lucas pulls him into a bear hug, locking his knees. ‘I have to help her!’ James screams.
‘No,’ Moira asserts, her voice strained as she tries to pull them both back, out of the wind and the rain that still howl like wild beasts caught in the night. ‘It’s too dangerous!’
‘You could die.’ Jess’s words are quiet but we all hear them as though they are crystal clear.
He could die.
Like Sammy.
Samantha.
‘It would be no use now anyway,’ I say quietly, pulling myself back from the balcony. ‘She’s gone.’
‘We don’t know that,’ James sobs. ‘She might have landed – she might reach the beach. I didn’t mean for this. It was like something pulled her out of my hands. We have to do something!’
Lucas twists James, pulling him back until all of us are crowded inside again. Jess, Genevieve and I block the doors, as if James might bolt. Instead, he sags against Lucas, tears and rain streaking his haunted face. Jess hugs her arms to her chest.
‘It’s too dark,’ Mo says firmly. ‘By the time you get down there it will be pointless. And if she’s in the water … what could we do?’
Genevieve shakes her head, looking like she’s about to argue. ‘Mo’s right,’ I cut in before she can speak. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’
‘We need to tell somebody then,’ James begs. ‘We have to get signal, try to phone somebody. The police or the coastguards. We can try the radio again. We’ve got to tell somebody – anybody.’
‘And even if we can get through, what exactly would we say?’ I hold in the squirming, sick feeling in my belly. All of us against her? How would that look to anybody else? They’d never believe us. And James … ‘They’ll think we hurt her on purpose.’
‘Why would they think that?’ Jess’s eyes are wide. ‘She attacked us. James was just protecting us.’
I stare at James. He meets my gaze and I can see the hollowness inside him. He knows what I’m going to say.
‘Because of me,’ he answers before I can. ‘Because of my past. What happened between me and Kira. The police were called. I have a – record.’
Mo and Jess exchange a glance and Genevieve lets out a breath that is full of sadness. Before she had been ready to run, too; to rush down to the beach and find a survivor. Now she seems to realise how futile it all is.
‘But Lucas said that happened years ago,’ Jess says. ‘Surely we could explain. We can tell them about the cave, about the broken mirror …’ She trails off, her voice growing weak. Moira shakes her head.
James won’t look at me now. He won’t look at anybody; he just stares at the floor like he wants it to swallow him.
Lucas lets go of James as though the thought of holding on sickens him now – as if he has the urge to wipe his hands on his jeans to clean them. I avert my gaze, focusing instead on Jess, who stands beside me trembling.
‘It won’t look good,’ I say softly. ‘The six of us against her. One small woman who there’s no record of. They won’t understand that she was wild; that we were afraid. They’ll ask why we couldn’t stop her without hurting her. And if they know James has a history of violence …’
The silence is deafening.
‘It was an accident,’ Genevieve says then, soft but determined. She bites at her lip. ‘We can tell them it was an accident.’
I don’t say what I am thinking: that we have, each of us, got something to lose. There is always something to lose. Lucas has his new job, and Genevieve has her position at AdZec to think about. Mo and Jess have Emma. And James … It’s the worst for him. He could lose everything. They might send him to prison.
I don’t want something that happened ten years ago to ruin his life now.
‘We can search for her in the morning,’ I suggest, fighting the guilt and the sickness inside me. This is wrong – everything has gone so horribly. How can we ever fix this? ‘When there’s daylight it’ll be easier to see. Maybe she’ll turn up on the beach like James said, and if we find her we can apologise; make sure she’s okay. We can play with the radio until then, try to come up with a plan. If we find her we can figure out what to do next.’
Lucas nods and I can tell he understands me. He knows how much we have to lose. Moira is frowning but she knows it too.
‘And if we don’t find her?’ James asks. ‘What do we do then?’
Nobody answers.
MONDAY
38
Genevieve
We don’t speak. I don’t think anybody has said anything at all since the early hours, when we all decided to try to get some sleep. The radio was a waste of time again – just static, or worse, silence. Like a black hole that eats everything up. We took turns to scroll through the options, and tried to get enough phone signal to do more than load a Google search. There wasn’t enough to make a phone call: the line just crackles and dies. And what would we say anyway? Kira is right about that at least.
I don’t think any of us managed sleep. Lucas lay stiff as a board for three hours, before getting up to have a shower. And when I repeated what I’d said to everybody earlier on, that I thought we shouldn’t use it just in case we decided to speak to the police, he just sighed and sank back down onto the bed and sat, still and silent, for another hour.
Long before the sun has fully risen I get dressed and find Jess and James in the kitchen. Jess holds a mug between both hands but the tea has been cold for a while, a scummy ring forming on top. James clearly hasn’t slept either. Both wear dark clothes, jumpers and jeans, as if they dressed for the atmosphere here today. Bleak.
‘Does it hurt?’ Jess asks when I step into the kitchen. For a second I’m confused, because everything hurts. I ache all over, as if I’ve run two marathons back to back. Then I notice she’s looking at the cut on my face, my swollen nose, and I shrug.
‘Yes, but I’ll live.’
The choice of words is poor but I’m beyond worrying now if I might upset anybody. Jess’s lips form a straight line and she finally pushes the cold tea away.
‘We need to tell somebody,’ she says, glancing between James and me. ‘We can’t just pretend that nothing happened.’
‘I don’t want to pretend anything,’ James agrees. ‘I’ll take the fall. I deserve it. It’s my fault she fell and it’s my fault w—’
‘This isn’t just about you any more.’
All three of us whip round as Kira’s voice startles the stillness in the room. She’s already dressed in jeans and trainers, her hoodie pulled up high around her ears, which look pink in the pale light spilling through the window. She stares at James and he flinches.
‘You can’t just act like this didn’t happen,’ I say. ‘She is still human.’
‘I’m not saying we pretend it didn’t happen,’ Kira snaps. ‘I’m saying we don’t tell anybody about it.’ She reaches out and takes the mug away from Jess, dumping the contents in the sink before wiping her hands on her jeans. ‘But it’s not that simple.’
‘How will you sleep at night?’ I push. ‘If we just leave today and never say anything? How will you sleep knowing we just abandoned her?’
‘I won’t,’ Kira says simply. She turns towards me with her hackles raised but I can tell now it’s not me she has a problem with. She’s doing what she thinks is right. We are backed into a corner and there’s no way out. ‘It doesn’t matter if we sleep, though. It matters if our lives fall apart. This wasn’t our fault – no, James. It wasn’t. We didn’t do anything wrong. Do you want this to ruin everything? For all of us? We’ve got to do what’s right. I don’t think Sammy would want police crawling all over the island either.’
We’re all silent again, only the gentle tick-tick of the clock near the kettle betraying that time is moving at all. My limbs feel locked with sadness. In the end it’s Moira who breaks the silence, appearing with Lucas at her side. They’re both dressed now, too, in coats and boots.
‘It’s light enough, I think,’ Moira says. Her voice creaks with disuse. She gestures outside at the pale rose sky. ‘We’ll see her if she’s washed ashore. We’ve still got a few hours before the boat should be back to pick us up.’
Lucas hands me my jacket as Jess and James grab theirs and we walk towards the door of the cottage. The others follow us quietly. We trek down to the beach dressed in hats and still-damp coats, scarves wrapped tight around our throats, but nothing is enough to dull the chill in my bones. I don’t care what Kira says: this is selfish. This isn’t about Sammy, about doing what’s right. This isn’t about protecting the island.
This is about us. About lying to protect ourselves.
We search the beach as a group, silent between rumbling arguments. There is no sign of life on the sand. If Sammy had come out of the water anywhere along this stretch there would be something: some evidence. There is nothing except the thrash of waves and the threat of more rain.
James demands, again, that we try to call the police, clutching the radio as we walk, even as it continues its static hiss. Jess echoes him, begging Kira to reconsider. Moira disagrees with her wife with a vehemence I was not expecting, her whole body taut as she kicks at the remains of the fire we built on Friday night. The thing that started it all. We’ve circled this beach twice and still seen nothing. No sign of Sammy at all.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me, Jess,’ Moira cries angrily. ‘Can’t you see what will happen if they think we did it on purpose? If they don’t think we did enough to help her? They will punish all of us.’
Jess stands her ground. ‘What sort of example do we set for Emma if we don’t say anything?’ she retorts.
We’re firmly in two camps now: James, Jess and me in one; Kira, Lucas and Mo in the other. And I don’t know which way this will go. I feel sick with it.
‘The kind of example that we’re actually fucking around to set!’ Mo throws her hands up, her face contorted. ‘You said yourself: what happens if she loses us? Both of us? That’s what you’re suggesting. Emma growing up without us, or watching us suffer through it. They won’t just let it drop.’
‘Don’t you dare turn this on me.’ Jess trembles with barely subdued rage. ‘This isn’t about us.’
‘Of course it fucking is,’ Moira snaps. ‘This whole thing is about all of us.’ She gestures at James, at Kira. ‘What, you honestly think we’ll all walk away from this clean?’
‘I can tell them it’s my fault,’ James argues. ‘Nobody else will get in any trouble.’
‘Can you promise that?’ Lucas demands. He stares at James and then at me, and as much as I love him I can feel the weight in his gaze, the fire when I don’t immediately agree. ‘How do you know?’
‘And anyway, we can’t let you take the fall for all of this,’ Kira says. ‘It isn’t your fault.’
‘It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,’ I say. ‘It’s not right. Sammy doesn’t deserve this.’
‘Fuck what’s right!’ Lucas rubs the stubble on his jaw. ‘None of this is right. But I’m not letting this stupid accident – which she engineered, by the way – take away everything we’ve ever worked for.’
‘We don’t even know if she’s alive,’ Moira adds softly. She glances from Jess to me, and then to Lucas who wavers indecisively between us. ‘If she isn’t, then what harm does it do? It was an accident. Like so many accidents on the cliffs. We can just go home. Nobody knew she was here.’
‘We knew,’ I say.
‘Apart from us.’ Moira’s eyes are dark and unclouded. She’s been thinking about this all night and even I can tell that her mind’s made up. Kira nods. She agrees. ‘And if she somehow managed to survive the fall … the waves … then isn’t leaving today exactly what she wanted us to do?’
