‘I believe it was your birthday a few days ago. I’m sorry to have missed it.’
For the first time since she stepped into the shop, her poise buckles. Her shoulders seem to wobble as she watches me.
‘You’ve literally missed every single one of them,’ Maz points out.
‘And whose fault is that?’ Anna claps back, straightening her shoulders. Every trace of vulnerability has disappeared, and she’s once again the proud woman who dominates the room.
‘I’ll see you both in two weeks.’
She steps out of the shop. The bell above the door jingles, like she is nothing but a customer with a takeaway coffee rather than my believed-to-be-dead grandmother.
CHAPTER 8 – SIMO
At first, I’m certain the shouting is in my head. Ambience that my mind creates to go with the events on the page, a soundtrack that only I can hear while reading. It takes the violent thunder of a door slamming and Maz shouting Luca’s name to crumple the fictional world around me like a hand scrunching paper.
I glance out of the window and see Luca half running, half stumbling down the street towards the beach. The anxiety is instant. Every nerve in my body flares up, and I rush out of the flat that isn’t mine but still feels so much more like a home than the one I live in.
Downstairs in the cafe, Maz is crouched behind the counter, head in his hands, feet in a puddle of what looks like coffee. His body ripples, from anger or pain, I can’t tell. The sight of him hits me; a man so solid and familiar he never fails to make me feel safe, now shattered in the midst of broken porcelain.
I must have made a sound, because he looks up. His eyes are red-rimmed, but they harden with resolve.
‘Find Luca for me. Please.’
All I can do is nod. I head out the door, follow Luca’s trailto the beach and even though I don’t have the faintest idea what went down at the cafe, I instantly know Luca won’t be here. The crowd is too big, too carefree for someone wanting to escape company.
‘He went that way,’ someone grunts, and I turn to see Paul. He leans out of the kiosk, plucks the cigar from his bushy moustache and points it north. ‘Looked so livid I thought his head was gonna burst.’
I thank him wordlessly and follow his directions. Luca might have a head start, but my feet will carry me to him regardless. My heart steadies, its frantic beats mellowed by the reassurance that he isn’t lost, that he’ll wait where I can find him.
Still, my head is in uproar, thoughts bouncing off the walls of my skull, chasing one another. Luca and his dad don’t fight. They tell each other off and regularly get into heated debates about which Florence and the Machine album is the best or how to correctly pronounce ‘bruschetta’, and then bully me into picking a side. They disagree and quarrel and bicker, but they don’t have shouting matches.
When it comes to dysfunctional family dynamics, I win hands down. Though you won’t hear any raised voices in my house. The Lorcas fight with silence. I know I’m in trouble when both my parents ignore me as best as they possibly can, and recently the dead air between us is deafening.
Sandy beaches turn into rocks, swiftly replaced by cliffs and stretches of sea wall. Clifford Island draws closer and, not for the first time, I think that it looks like the belly of a sleeping giant poking out of the sea. When I reach the causeway, I consult the info chart to reassure myself thatI won’t be surprised by the incoming tide. Like a spine, the path connects the island to the mainland, mudflats flanking both sides like wings. The blues and ambers of the fading afternoon reflect in the shallow pools left behind by the tide. To my right, a row of stone pylons taller than me reminds me of the fact that this is no safe walk. When the tide is high, only their very tips remain visible, like the crowns of teeth. The thought makes me queasy and I hurry on, glad to feel packed dry earth beneath my feet when I reach the other side.
A trodden path leads me through low shrubbery and grass so tall it brushes my thighs. After a minute or so, I veer off, making my way to the heart of the island.
When I spot him, a sense of calm washes over me. His outline is set off against the endless horizon. He sits and stares across the waves, almost motionless, except for the breeze that tugs at his hair. Granada burned white streaks into the gold, and though it needs a cut, the scruffiness adds a rough edge to his sweetness. Summer looks good on Luca.
He doesn’t stir when I take my place by his side. We’ve sat like this a thousand times, salt in the air and on our skin, on overgrown slabs of stone, a crumbling wall at our backs – a remnant of war or faith from times before there was a town. We don’t talk, but that doesn’t mean it’s quiet. Sea and wind melt into their own kind of melody and a choir of chirps rises from the underbrush. Faint laughter tickles my ears, but for all I know it might be birdsong. When he finally speaks, his voice is steady, but I detect a wistfulness that usually isn’t there.
‘The day we met, I was scared of you. I don’t think Iever told you that. You were so quiet. Not your voice – you spoke so politely – but you didn’t speak often. The way you looked at people though, or maybe just at me, I don’t know, it was unsettling. You didn’t look away. You took me in, and I had no idea what you were thinking, but you were clearly thinking something. I didn’t like to be noticed, not by the other kids. Because being noticed meant getting chased around the playground when the teachers weren’t looking.’
I close my eyes. Heat flickers in my gut, so I take a deep breath to extinguish it. I remember it too, the way the children at school stalked Luca, the way he shrank away from them, and me, at first.
‘And then, on that first day, we were meant to go outside during the break. I was always the last kid to leave the classroom, cos if I stayed behind while everyone rushed out, they might forget me and forget to call me names. Except this time, the boy, the pack leader, he stayed behind too. And so did you.’
The memories of that day rise to the surface, and they’re so strong that I open my eyes again and try to focus on something that takes their edge off. But I can’t shake the images completely; the hallway with rows and rows of benches and coat hooks, the short flight of steps leading down to the main door, and seven-year-old Luca, fear written on his face.
‘I don’t remember what he said exactly, only that he was too close and too loud and that he spat when he talked. He pushed me. You were there, and I thought you’d hurt me too. But instead you pushed him, pushed him straight down the stairs. I heard his head smash against the tiles. Still makesme feel sick, that sound. Then he screamed and people came running. They saw him crying at the foot of the stairs and us standing above him, and, well, you remember the rest.’
There’s no way I’d forget. The only other time I heard someone scream like that was when Mum found out about my brother. Both screams haunt my worst nightmares, but it’s been a while since I had dreams like that. I try not to dwell on the thought, try to focus on the fact that I met Luca that day. We were taken to the head teacher’s office, and he watched over us as the ambulance arrived first, and our parents second. They asked us, over and over again, who did it, who pushed him. But I was too shaken by what I’d done, scared by the destruction my own anger could cause. And anyway, Luca had witnessed it all. He would tell them.
‘But we never said a word. And because the boy couldn’t remember anything, and we wouldn’t budge, they gave us a week of detention, and then another, and another, to make us talk. To this day, they still don’t know. And honestly, it was worth it. Not one of those kids touched me again. Because of you.’
Our eyes meet for the first time since I found him. His are deep pools of blue, and I see gratitude in them, a hint of sadness, and other emotions that float too far beneath the surface. I’m unable to look away.
‘I mean, who knew what else you could do?’ he whispers, and his breath grazes my skin, which immediately breaks out into shivers. Only then he turns his gaze back to the sea, and I’m released.
