She just hoped the artist was a bit woo-woo and was speaking nonsense. If not, please God whatever it was Cleo ‘needed to do to help’ would be quick, painless and easy.
As far as she was concerned, she’d already been tested extensively and had had quite enough challenges to last a whole lifetime.
The sea was unnaturally calm that evening, as if holding its breath after so much violence. From high up on the mountain, a soft glow shimmered across the dark water.
The sounds of the camp – murmured voices, canvas creaking in the wind, the occasional cough, laugh or cry – blended with the distant, rhythmic hush of the waves.
Cleo sat outside her tent, washing her hands in a plastic bowl of lukewarm water. Her fingers were raw and swollen, her nails rimmed with grit, but she didn’t mind.
She was tired to her bones, yet it was a good kind of exhaustion – it felt well earned.
She glanced round. Most people were in or around the food tent, eating supper, or beginning the process of bedding down in their tents. Maya, though, was still working, chatting to an emergency worker in an orange jacket. Straight-backed and with a notebook in hand, she looked every inch the person in command.
Tash was sitting a little apart from the others, near the olive trees, with a shawl pulled tightly round her shoulders. She was staring at something in her hands – the small silver locket she always wore.
Cleo dried her hands and walked over.
‘Ready for bed?’
Tash started, then smiled faintly. ‘Not now. Every time I close my eyes, I hear the ground moving again. I’d rather wait till I’m so dog-tired I’m practically comatose.’
Cleo sat beside her.
‘I know what you mean. It’s as if the earth’s breathing has changed. It keeps you on edge the whole time.’
Tash opened her locket and showed the photograph inside – a man with kind eyes, thinning brown hair and a warm smile.
‘Alfie,’ she said. ‘My husband.’
Cleo nodded. She’d guessed as much.
‘I keep thinking he’d have loved it here – before all this happened, I mean. He adored the sea. He always said it made him feel small in the best possible sense.’
‘That’s a lovely way to put it,’ Cleo said.
Tash smiled wryly. ‘He was better with words than I am. I miss that – the talking. Since he died, I can’t seem to speak properly. Nothing comes out right any more. All I can hear is jumbled sentences in my head, like a kind of white noise.’
Cleo reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘You’ve spoken up beautifully these past few days.’
Tash blinked, surprised. ‘You think so?’
‘I do. You calmed that crying baby, soothed her mother and made half the camp laugh. You’ve got a gift for reaching people, Tash, for communicating with them – whether you’re acting or not.’
Tash’s mouth worked as she tried to answer, but nothing came. She simply squeezed Cleo’s hand and smiled back.
Maya approached from the other side of the camp, her footsteps brisk and purposeful.
‘The guy I was talking to said we should get more supplies in the morning,’ she said, her voice taut with exhaustion. ‘More blankets, food, maybe even a satellite phone.’
‘Good.’ Cleo frowned. ‘You look shattered. Sit down before you fall.’
Maya hesitated for a moment before sinking onto the grass beside them.
‘I can’t switch my brain off,’ she admitted. ‘I keep thinking – what if the tremors start again? What if the mountainside gives way?’
‘Then we run uphill and start again,’ Cleo replied. ‘There’s no rulebook for this. We just do the next best thing.’
Maya gave a small, incredulous laugh. ‘You sound so relaxed about it.’
