She came to on the sofa, her mother sitting beside her, rubbing her hand in her own, as she always had done when she’d been a little girl. No one else was around, although she could hear voices in the hallway, the sounds of doors banging.
‘What happened?’ Cassie croaked, disorientated. ‘Where is everyone?’
Edie, her mother, leaned forwards and kissed her forehead. She looked older than she did on the Skype screens, worry etched into the corners of her eyes, threads of grey at her blonded temples, her round blue eyes, which Cassie had inherited, watery from tears. ‘You just fainted, darling. I told them all to give you some air. It was terribly stuffy in here.’
They blinked at each other, both knowing that wasn’t why she’d passed out. Cassie realized she was holding her breath again. ‘Tell me the truth, Mum.’
There was a tiny pause. ‘They’ve lost contact with the boat, darling. There was a typhoon.’
‘Typhoon?’ Cassie had grown up in Hong Kong. She was well accustomed to storms of this kind and she knew their power – how they whipped up tsunamis in the oceans and snapped communications towers like kindling twigs when they hit land. She remembered how her father used to lash the garden furniture to the balcony railings, religiously clearing out the gutters to make sure the water could run faster than it fell.
Her mother squeezed her hand tightly. ‘But the good news – and what we really have to hold on to at this point – is that it was forecast. They knew the typhoon was coming and they had time to head towards the nearest land mass – some islands, we think.’
‘But if they’ve lost contact . . .’ Cassie prompted. She didn’t want to know, but she had to. Imagination would be so much worse than reality. There was no bliss in ignorance.
‘Then they must have been caught up in it, yes. Of course, it could be that some of the communications equipment was just damaged but the boat is fine. They may well be sailing along, absolutely tickety-boo, just without radio contact.’
‘When was the last contact?’
‘Tuesday night.’
‘Tuesday?’ Cassie echoed. It was now Friday night, but her phone had been switched off from yesterday. ‘But . . . but I was here till yesterday morning. Why didn’t we hear about it before then? I never would have g—’
‘No one here knew till Archie saw it in the papers yesterday, after you’d left. He got in touch with the communications people and . . . that’s when they told him. They thought we already knew. An email had been sent out apparently.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. They’re looking into it internally but . . . well, that’s a fight for another day. Right now, the only thing that matters is making sure that everyone on the boat is OK.’ She squeezed Cassie’s hand again. ‘Everyone’s been calling you constantly since they found out.’
Cassie remembered the call she hadn’t returned to Suzy.
‘Archie even wanted to fly up and go to your flat to tell you, but Suzy’s not letting him out of her sight. He’s terribly stressed about it all and she’s worried sick about him. This kind of strain’s not good for him, so soon after his attack.’
Cassie blinked, her head swimming again. While she’d been shopping and chopping, everyone here had been desperately ringing her, and all that time Henry had been – what of him? Was he desperately clinging to an upturned raft? Were the bottles scattering in the ocean, one by one, littering the seas and doing the very thing they were protesting against?
She frowned. ‘How did you get here so quickly?’ Hong Kong was a twelve-hour flight away.
‘I was coming anyway, darling. I wanted to surprise you.’ Edie smiled. ‘I’ve been trying to support Hats through this wedding malarkey. Honestly, that poor family is going through the wringer at the moment – first Archie, then Gem, now Henry.’ She sighed. ‘Between you and me, I’m not sure how much more she can take.’
‘But you’re so terrified of flying.’
Her mother shook her head. ‘I’m more terrified of letting down my best friend. She needs me right now. How could I put my irrational fear before her very real trauma? Frankly, a Valium and a couple of gin and tonics was the very least I could do to support her.’
Cassie smiled wanly – she knew the cost to her mother’s nerves would have been significantly graver than she was letting on – but her concern was elsewhere. She stared into space, trying to make the words real. She felt numb and disconnected, the words bouncing off her like rubber bullets: the boat was missing. The boat made with bottles in a typhoon-whipped ocean had lost contact with land, with the people who could read the satellites and keep them safe and bring them all back to the people who loved them.
It was hideous but true: Henry was missing.
‘So w-what next?’ Her voice shook like a leaf about to fall.
Edie sat straighter, pushing back her shoulders. ‘We wait, darling. That’s all we can do. Obviously, the satellite and communications people are in constant contact with the authorities. The boat will show up on a radar somewhere – military or commercial or what-have-you. We’ll hear something soon. Any minute. Any minute.’
The tears came then, small, tight budded ones as she tried to imagine the number of people searching for the man she loved, lost in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. Reassurance was hollow when weighed against the bald facts, the overbearing odds as to what had happened.
‘Oh, darling, please don’t cry,’ Edie soothed, her voice cracking too. ‘He’ll come back. Everything will be fine, you’ll see.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Cassie cried. ‘This entire expedition was risky enough, without putting a bloody typhoon in the mix.’
‘Hats sent me the links for the JustGiving page before he left. I thought the boat looked very professional and high-tech.’
Cassie cried harder. Her mother’s idea of high-tech was an ice dispenser on the fridge. ‘God, poor Hattie,’ she wept, pressing her palms against her eyes, but the tears just overflowed through her fingers. Her son was missing at sea and Cassie knew her well enough to know that behind the brisk Pollyanna demeanour was the heart of a bunny. She looked up. ‘Where is she?’
‘Upstairs, resting. I was giving her half of one of my Valiums when you arrived. It’s all too much. She has to try to relax. She’s no good to anyone if she’s exhausted. The poor old girl’s running on fumes.’
‘What about Suzy?’
‘Arch is with her. I think they’ve taken Velvet in with them for the night.’
‘Right,’ Cassie nodded, trying to swallow down the tears, to calm down.
‘We should get you up to bed too. Kelly and Nooks said you were up early, running around like the proverbial fly all day, and then a seven-hour drive on top of it all? It’s no wonder you were giddy.’
‘I’m fine, Mum, really. I think I’ll just . . . I’m just going to sit here for a bit. But you should go and check on Hats. Make sure she’s OK on your medication. I bet it’s superstrength, isn’t it?’
Her mother smiled, but her eyes were sad. ‘It’s you I should be looking after. You’re my baby girl.’
‘But you must be jet-lagged out of your mind.’
Her mother squeezed her hands again. They both knew Cassie was trying to say that she wanted to be alone.
‘Well,’ she said finally, ‘I suppose I am a little all over the place.’ She rose to standing. ‘But I’m in the blue room, if you need me, OK?’
Cassie nodded, sniffing as she watched her walk to the door.
‘Mum?’
Her mother turned.
‘I’m so pleased you’re here.’
‘Me too, darling. We’ll face this together. We will.’
‘I know.’
Cassie listened numbly to the sound of her mother’s footsteps retreating down the hall, fading into silence as she climbed the carpeted stairs. Cassie slumped back on the sofa, the words ‘typhoon . . . lost contact . . . missing . . .’ buffeting her from the inside. She tried not to imagine the waves; she tried not to think of the bottles drifting off one by one, of Beau grabbing the last life jacket, of Henry being a hero to the others stuck in a cabin . . .
He wasn’t even supposed to have been there! If he’d just had that meeting after the race, he’d be safe in the Arctic by now. If he hadn’t run into Beau, he never would have known about this damned trip. ‘Beau was doing a favour for a friend . . .’ Amy’s words floated through her mind again, snagging somehow.
Her face crumpled, sobs wracking her in spite of her best efforts. How could she only know about his torment now? Why hadn’t she felt it, somehow – a fear in the pit of her stomach, that something, something was wrong?
How many rings of hell had he been to while she had debated whether or not to leave him? What furies had he battled while she kissed another man and indulged herself in fantasies of reviving a long-lost love affair? Had he shouted her name in the waves even as she insisted that losing her freedom was too high a price to pay for love?
She retched, feeling sick to her core, sick with herself. She had been a fool to think she ever deserved him, that she would ever be the one doing the leaving. He was too good for her. She’d been lucky to get away with keeping him for as long as she had. The glint of gold caught her eye and she grabbed at the bangle with her right hand, desperately pulling at it, trying to get it off as though it scorched her skin; but no matter how hard she tugged and yanked, trying to force the precious metal past skin and bone, it remained fixed round her wrist like, Kelly had said, a handcuff, shackling her to her own ugly delusions, mocking her falseness.
She cried again, her eyes falling to a photograph on the side table: Henry aged eleven, in an Aran jumper, his bright blond hair shaggy and unkempt and falling into his eyes so that all that could really be seen of his face was his exuberant smile, Rover’s paws resting on his forearm as the two of them grinned for the camera.
Cassie reached for it with her treacherous, cuffed arm, tears splashing onto the glass as she stared at the little boy who’d become the man in whose eyes she had glimpsed forever, the man she had loved, the man she had now lost.
Breakfast was a ghost of itself. Tea grew cold in the pot, croissants stale on the plates, smoke from the toaster allowed to drift, unnoticed, to the open windows.
Cassie hadn’t slept – in fact, she hadn’t even been up to her room. Her overnight bag was still in the hall, and her clothes were so rumpled from a night on the sofa, her body so inert, it was like she’d been trampled by cows. It didn’t appear anyone had slept, except for Velvet, and they all sat round the kitchen table, staring into the woodgrain like it held answers that would unlock the riddle of where, quite literally, in the world Henry was now.
Sighs issued from Archie like gales as he stood boiling the kettle for the sixth time without ever remembering to pour, much less to drink. Suzy was trying, in a tiny voice, to cajole Velvet into eating mango with a bib on; Hattie and Edie were still upstairs.
‘Please try to have some tea,’ Kelly said, setting a fresh, steaming cup in front of her. (Archie had wandered into the garden and was standing staring out to sea, the kettle forgotten again.)
Cassie blinked a ‘no’, her eyelids so puffy and raw they barely needed to move at all.
‘Maybe coffee?’ Anouk tried, earning herself an arched eyebrow from Kelly.
‘I . . . can’t.’ She felt sick, wretched, disgusted. She felt more things than she could consciously process.
The room fell silent again, Kelly and Anouk uncomfortably aware of the frozen sea that separated Cassie and Suzy as they sat, oblivious to each other across the table, each wrapped up in their own pain.
‘How about a walk?’ Kelly tried. ‘Some fresh air would do you all good.’
This time, no one bothered to answer and Kelly got up, a pained expression on her face, as she gave Anouk a tiny, imperceptible shrug.
‘Well, have a shower at least,’ Anouk implored, doubtless being driven to the edge of reason that Cassie wasn’t in fresh, matching lingerie. ‘Put on some clean clothes.’ She reached for Cassie’s hand, tugging at it gently until Cassie got up wordlessly and followed after like an obedient puppy.
She stood under the water that Anouk got running for her, only coming out when Anouk turned it off and wrapped her in a towel, drying her hair lightly before laying out clean clothes on the bed.
When she came back downstairs forty minutes later, she was clean, but not revived. Nothing had changed. They were still waiting.
Archie was no longer in the garden. There was a void where he’d been standing by the hedge and she went to fill it, her eyes on the thin stretch of blue that ran across the horizon like a ribbon on a birthday cake. What had it done with him, that malevolent body of water? Was it tossing him like a cork on the froth of its waves? Had it pulled him down to the murky depths where blue turned to black?
Her gaze swung round the ellipse until it came to the tiny church’s steeple, which punctured the sky like a nail, a sudden blip of activity on a heart monitor that was flatlining. Her feet began to move towards it, one in front of the other over the grass. She climbed over the stile as if on automatic, her hand trailing over the prickles and thorns of the brambly hedgerow, welcoming the pinpricks of pain, grateful she could feel that, at least.
Ahead, she could see two figures rushing up the path, back towards the house. The smaller one was faltering, stumbling, arms outstretched as if to break a fall.
Cassie stopped, waiting for them to reach her.
‘I just . . .’ Gem’s eyes were as red as her own, her face as pale as a moon. ‘It’s off. I’ve told the vicar.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Cassie said quietly. In truth, the wedding had completely slipped her mind, but of course, how could it have gone ahead in these circumstances? She remembered, too, another wedding that had slipped her mind as she realized that, right now, hundreds of miles north of here, Gil was moving on. Just like that, their marriage was being erased, overwritten by a new one, a new hope, as if it had never existed at all.
Her eyes slid over to Luke, silent as a shadow, behind Gem.
‘It’s because of the timing,’ Gem said.
‘Yes.’
Gem stared at her shivering in the warmth. ‘I have to see Aunt Hats.’
Cassie watched her go.
‘I’d better stay with her. She’s in pieces,’ Luke murmured. ‘She didn’t want this. It was Laird’s decision.’
‘Oh.’ She didn’t know what to say. Speaking felt like an effort too far. It was almost more than she could manage just to breathe and move when all her efforts were going into trying not to feel. ‘Where’s Amber?’
‘Sleeping.’
Cassie didn’t reply. Wasn’t Amber supposed to be Gem’s friend? Her bridesmaid?
‘She needs a lot of sleep,’ he added, his voice an apologetic mumble.
Cassie bit her lip. She felt a sudden wave of anger to think that Amber could be so peacefully, so indulgently sleeping her way through this living nightmare.
‘It’s not just the timing,’ Luke said, bringing her back to the moment, back to him. ‘He thinks she’s not ready.’ He looked at her closely as he said it, as though the statement was also a question. For her.
She ignored it. ‘Where is he now?’
‘Laird? Giving her space. His brother landed in Newquay this morning, so he went to pick him up and I think they’re spending the day over there. I wouldn’t like to be him, having to explain that the journey was for nothing.’
When Cassie didn’t reply, he carried on. ‘Anyway, he reckons it’ll be better all round if he’s not in the way for a while.’
‘Probably,’ she murmured, looking back at him, aiming the double meaning at him this time.
‘Cass.’
The word was like a red balloon that had escaped a child, bobbing untethered, trying to rise.
She looked at him and saw the same apprehension in his eyes that she had seen last night. She understood it now; she knew he had realized – even before she was told the news last night – that this changed everything. He couldn’t know that she had already made her decision anyway, that the very sight, sound and smell of him, intoxicating though he was, wasn’t her home. She had known it with utter certainty when she’d walked into the room. He was an interloper in her life, a pleasing and sexy diversion, but distraction was all he offered. Henry was nourishment. He fed her soul. He made her a better version of herself, bigger in every way.
His mouth opened, his speech – pleas – ready, but she shook her head, looking back out to sea. Their silence would have to say it all. Words, actions, chemistry, history – they weren’t enough. He wasn’t enough; he wasn’t Henry. Even if she couldn’t have Henry, she didn’t want him.
‘You need to take this off,’ she said quietly, holding up her arm. The bangle dangled from her wrist – beautiful but dead.
He stared at it. ‘But it’s yours.’
‘I don’t want it.’ Her words were flat, the rejection absolute.
He recoiled as though she’d slapped him. ‘Well, I can’t. I don’t have the screwdriver here. On me.’ He patted his jeans pockets as if to show her.
She forced herself to hold his gaze, even though the look in his eyes sliced at her like a swinging scythe. She knew she had to do this. ‘Later, then. Bring it to the house before you leave.’
His mouth parted at the order that, strictly speaking, wasn’t hers to give.
‘Cass, look, I know you’re hurt – it’s terrible not knowing about Henry – but don’t you think you—’
‘No.’ She blinked at him, knowing exactly what he was saying – that the news coming her way might be the worst, that Henry was never coming back. Why throw away everything they could have for something she might never be able to have? He didn’t see that she could never forgive herself for what they had done in these past hours. That they may have had a complicated past, but even if she had still wanted him, their future was already too tainted to navigate, bound as it was now in the jet threads of this nightmare. She would choose to be alone over ever being with him. ‘It’s not going to work, Luke.’
‘But the other night, you felt it too – I know you did; you said so yourself.’
‘You said what I wanted to hear. You want me to just ignore my fears, to run away from my life, from myself. But I have to face up to my past. There’s no way around it. I can’t keep pretending it didn’t happen or it didn’t matter, I am who I am because of it.’
‘And I love you just the way you are, Cass. I always have.’ He took a step towards her, desperation in his movements. ‘The girl in front of me – that’s all I’ve ever wanted.’
But Cassie took a step back, holding up her arm so that the bangle glinted in the sun. ‘This isn’t love, Luke. This isn’t freedom. It’s denial, it’s possession. You just want back what you lost – your ego needs—’
‘No.’ He shook his head, his jaw clenched. ‘You’re upset; you’re not thinking straight. See, I knew this would happen. I knew it’d send you off spinning back to him, that you’d feel some kind of . . . duty.’
She laughed suddenly, like he’d told a joke. ‘Duty? Being with him?’ The smile faded from her face as a vision of Henry – windswept and tanned, his roguish smile lopsided, his grey-blue eyes soft as he stared at her – swam before her eyes. ‘I should be so lucky ever to stand by his side again,’ she murmured. ‘To say that I was his . . .’ Her fingers found the Tiffany solitaire and she brought the ring to her lips, her eyes closing as she kissed it with almost reverential tenderness. She had to believe . . .
Cassie opened her eyes and met Luke’s gaze with sombre certainty. ‘Please, Luke. Please believe me when I say I never want to see you again.’ She knew the words were like knives. She regretted their savagery, but there was nothing else to be done when he wouldn’t give up. He just wouldn’t let her go.
She watched as his eyes roamed her for the last time, his idea of love – possession – hardening in front of her into something cold and brittle before he turned and marched away. Cassie watched him go, catching sight of a familiar figure standing on the balcony, hair blowing in the breeze, her child on her hip.
Cassie raised her hand, like a boat signalling to the lighthouse, but Suzy simply turned and disappeared back into the bedroom, leaving her to crash upon the rocks. Alone.