CHAPTER NINETEEN

October 26th

Why wouldn’t Evie wake up? Mia shook the sleeping body and at last she stirred, but she seemed confused, her speech slurred. How much had she had to drink after Mia went to sleep? What else had she taken? Tablets or something? Evie tried to turn back on her side to sleep again. Mia kept on shaking her.

‘Evie, wake up! Something’s burning. The couch.’ Mia coughed and spluttered. They needed air – quick – she could hardly breathe. She struggled in the darkness towards the doors at the back of the cabin and fumbled for the catch. As she pushed the door open she realized her mistake. The rush of freezing air into the cabin fed the smouldering fire and a line of small flames licked quickly along the edge of the couch where Evie was still slumped. Water – get the bucket and fill it from the canal. There was no shortage of water at least, but first she must drag Evie off the burning couch and out into the air.

Evie was a dead weight. She wouldn’t wake up properly.

‘Please, Evie! You have to help. I can’t manage it.’ Mia’s voice shook with fear.

But Evie seemed not to recognize her, seemed to think that Mia was trying to hurt her. She flailed out with her arms and tried to burrow back under the blankets.

The cabin was full of smoke; clouds of it caught in the moonlight that flooded in through the open doors. The air fanned the flames and they licked across the fabric to where Evie lay.

She had to get Evie out of there quickly. Mia tugged and pulled and gradually, bit by bit, dragged the woman closer to the open door and fresher air. Then she went back to beat out the flames. She tried to smother them with the blanket from her bed, but the smoke was so foul she couldn’t stay inside the cabin long enough and she was forced to crawl back to the deck for air. She found the bucket at last, and scooped it into the canal, carried it half full, in shaking arms, and threw it over the couch. Over and over she repeated the action, her arms numb and her throat raw from smoke. But at last the flames went out, and then she tugged the whole foam mattress, charred and smoking and sodden, out through the doorway on to the deck.

Evie watched her, coughing, her eyes hollow and empty.

Mia wept silently with exhaustion and misery. She’d had to do it all, by herself. Evie was somewhere far off, locked in some private misery, incapable of action. They could have burned to death in their beds and no one would have seen the glowing boat on the still water, no one would have called for help. She shook and shivered and coughed, and finally slumped down next to Evie on the freezing deck and put her arm round Evie’s shoulders.

‘You’re OK. You’ll be fine. It’s all OK now. Come on, Evie. We’ll go back in and make you a bed and you can sleep it off.’ She felt Evie’s body trembling through the layers of jumpers. She looked like a small child, Mia thought. Like Lainey or someone. A little girl wearing too big clothes. Pretending to be grown up.

The cabin stank of foul smoke, even with all the doors open, and now it felt freezing, even under layers of covers and jumpers. Mia wanted to sleep and sleep, but every time she closed her eyes she thought she smelled burning again, or heard the faint trickle of a flame stirring somewhere. Her thoughts went round, over and over the same. She could have died. If she hadn’t been there, Evie would have suffocated from smoke, sunk too deep in her drugged sleep. She had to get out of here. Evie was too deep in something she didn’t really understand, didn’t want to know. It wasn’t good for Mia, it wasn’t safe; and what damage was it doing to her baby? Little bean. She hadn’t thought about little bean all through the fire. She ached all over, down to the pit of her belly.

Finally, as it began to get light, she dozed and slept at last.

Mia woke up desperate for the loo. She groped her way to the tiny compartment where they kept the Elsan. She wrinkled up her nose at the chemical smell. Then, horrified, she stared at the paper in her hand, at the small red smear. Even in the grey half-light she knew what it was. She was bleeding.

Mia lay back down, wrapped herself in the blanket and cried. Back in September, she had watched and waited for blood that never came. Each day she’d counted and watched and waited. Now it was beginning, and the sight of it filled her with fear and horror and loathing. So was this it? Somehow she had damaged her body, all that carrying and heaving, first Evie and then the unbearable weight of the buckets of water, and the cold, and the fear… and had she made the baby die?

She was freezing. The stove had gone out. Why wasn’t Evie up and doing things? Mia hated her, the dark shape that was her humped-up body under the covers, snuffling and whimpering in her sleep. No use to anyone. Mia scrabbled around for her bag and found the old pregnancy book. She turned the pages, looking for what to do. There was a whole chapter on losing a baby. She read what it said about a threatened miscarriage. ‘Stop everything and go to bed.’ Then she read what it said about ‘inevitable abortion… a miscarriage that occurs because the baby is no longer alive. Whatever you do and however much you rest, the bleeding is bound to continue.’ The only way to tell was to see if there was a foetal heartbeat – by having an ultrasound scan, in hospital. Or you could just wait and see.

Mia lay on her back, her hands curved round her belly. It had stopped aching. Was that a good sign or a bad one? She tried not to think about the trickle of blood. Was there more? She couldn’t be sure. She turned all her attention inside herself, willing little bean to be all right. Please, please, please. I’ll do anything. I’ll go back home – anything.

Gradually she became aware of sounds outside the boat. Morning on the canal. Coots and moorhens, songbirds in the woodland. A pigeon, cooing. Then a new sound. Chug, chugging of a distant engine. Coming closer? A boat? A little bubble of hope rose to the surface. But what if they went straight past, without stopping? She staggered out to the deck to flag them down.

Joe’s boat. Mia recognized the bright blue paintwork, the sacks of coal on the roof, and there – Shannon at the tiller, guiding the boat alongside and waving with one hand.

Her face changed as she caught sight of the charred mattress and the smoke-stained doors and windows of Dragonfly, and Mia’s ashen face.

‘What the –?’

‘There was a fire.’

‘Are you both OK? Where’s Evie?’

‘Inside. She’s sleeping. She won’t wake up properly. I don’t know if she’s OK or not – and –’

‘Joe?’ Shannon yelled down to the cabin. ‘Quick! There’s been a fire. Take this.’ Shannon threw her the rope, jumped over on to Dragonfly, and went into the cabin. Mia secured the rope and followed.

Shannon got the stove going while Mia told her what had happened.

‘You shouldn’t take any risks,’ she told Mia, making her lie down again. ‘You ought to go to a hospital and get checked out.’

Mia nodded.

‘Evie’s in a state. She gets like this. I shouldn’t have stayed with Joe. I knew she wasn’t happy.’ She stroked the hair back from Evie’s forehead. ‘I’ll sort her out a bit. Then we can take you to the next town. How far is it?’

Mia shook her head. ‘I dunno. We had a map somewhere.’ She rooted about half-heartedly in the pile of books and papers she’d shoved out of the way in a bag in the kitchen area. Shannon tutted impatiently. Finally Mia found it, damp and scrunched up, and they spread it out on the floor.

‘I think we’re about here.’ Shannon pointed to a straight stretch of canal. She showed Mia the wood, and the little squares that meant farm buildings.

‘So it’s about twelve miles to a big enough town.’ She looked at Mia. ‘Or you could get to the next pub and phone someone. A taxi? To the hospital? Your mum?’

Mia shook her head.

‘Don’t be stupid. Don’t you want this baby?’ She glowered at Mia.

Mia’s eyes were full of tears. The lump of fear under her ribs expanded a little; her heart beat a little faster.

‘Yes. I do.’ Her voice came out too quiet. She hesitated. ‘What’s wrong with Evie?’

‘Overdose, probably. Alcohol and tablets. Stupid. She’s done it before. You’re best out of here, Mia. You don’t want to get mixed up in Evie’s mess.’

‘What happened to her? Was there a baby?’

‘What did she tell you? About the baby? I knew I should have stayed with her.’

‘She said it was you. You that had the baby – who died. Drowned. But it wasn’t, was it?’

‘She said what?’

‘I sort of guessed it wasn’t. That it must have been her. It made it easier for her to tell me, I suppose, pretending it had happened to you.’

‘Oh, Mia! What a mess!’

‘But she said things were better now, and it all seemed so lovely, the boat, and everything, till then.’

‘Well. Now you know. Things happen to people. You don’t leave them behind that easy.’ Shannon turned her back on Mia and went on stroking Evie’s face. ‘I think she’ll be OK. When she wakes up properly. How did the fire start?’

‘I’m not sure. The candles, maybe? Or she was smoking?’

Shannon nodded. ‘I’ve told her before. But when she gets down she forgets stuff. Lucky you woke up.’

‘Yes.’

Mia watched Shannon stroking Evie’s cheek, smoothing back her hair. Like a mother might. The two women were close in a way Mia could hardly understand. It would be like her and Becky perhaps, if they’d been through something terrible together. A giving and taking of comfort, but shared, not just one way. Taking turns to be the strong one. Sometimes the mother, sometimes the child. Mia wasn’t close to her sisters or her mum. But maybe that didn’t matter so much. It didn’t mean she’d never be close to anyone.

‘Perhaps we should get a doctor?’ Mia suggested. Shannon shook her head.

‘No way. Once you get caught up with that lot, they start taking over. Saying you’re not fit, need medication. It’s a slippery slope. Evie’s been there. She was in hospital before. After the baby. You know, the mental health system.’ She said the words as if they were poisonous. ‘She’s much better off with me looking after her for a bit. I wonder what got to her. Set this off again?’

Mia immediately felt guilty. She said nothing.

‘We’ll move her on to Joe’s boat when she wakes up. It’s disgusting in here now, what with all the smoke and damp. You must have shifted bucket-loads of water. No wonder you’re bleeding. Is it stopping?’

‘I’m not sure. I think so.’

‘Well, stay lying down a bit longer. Then we’ll sort you out.’