Christmas at Claridge's Page 38

  She felt her pulse quicken as the thoughts came fast and sure. He had been up at the lighthouse back then and he must be there now. Clem ran. She gathered her wet skirts in her hand and pulled them up past her knees, so that she could run more easily.

  Her long legs were strong and she felt her fitness help her as she ran against the wind. But something was niggling her . . . something . . .

  And then it came to her: it hadn’t been closing time when she’d seen him that day. Sunset had been a couple of hours off and therefore the prospect of free ice cream, too. She began to slow, less certain. It was hardly likely that a ten-year-old boy would walk a mile just for the view? Had he wanted to be alone, to think? She tried to imagine him sitting there on the bench as he looked out to sea and watched the waves crash on the splintered granite slabs—

  She stopped abruptly, her eyes wide with horror. Oh please God, no. No!

  She felt terror grip her like an icy hand and she couldn’t move. Her brain began working at lightning speed, making other connections and discarding them, trying to come up with alternative, plausible ideas, but she knew, she knew . . . Slowly, she turned back the way she had come, her eyes unseeing of the ivy-walled paths she’d already run through for half a mile. It made perfect sense. That was why he went to the lighthouse. He could see it from there; it was the best vantage point for miles around. He was there for the view, but not to think; he was there to wish.

  She began running again, back the way she’d come, her arms like pistons, propelling her with a speed she’d never known. Every second counted. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow. Because he wasn’t lost any more, he was in danger. There was only one way to get to it – she’d seen that for herself that day on the Riva. And that meant he was in the water.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Clem ran blindly. She had never come over this way on foot before, only ever on the boat, and the ground was rough and uneven, the scrub scratching her bare legs. Only instinct told her which way to head, and soon she saw the heaving horizon of the mass of grey water that lay between here and the wishing tree.

  ‘Luca!’ she screamed, but the wind threw her screams straight back over her. She kept running, slipping in places and having to use her hands to keep her going. She couldn’t see the tree yet, and it was rapidly darkening, but she could make out the shallow sweep of the mile-long bay and the roar of the sea bashing itself against the rocks. She would have to get to the cliffs and then turn right, looking both for the tree and a way down at the same time.

  The water looked inky and mercurial, only the white froth clearly visible in the dusk.

  ‘Luca!’

  She thought she could see the tree ahead, its scarified branches reaching into the storm-filled sky like tongs, not a single bit of it moving as the wind howled and flattened the grasses and full-canopied firs nearby. It’s very stillness was eerie amidst so much fury and chaos.

  Oh please, God, let him be there – and not there at the same time. She wanted to find him, but please not in the water, please . . .

  She scrambled down the cliff-face recklessly. It wasn’t a sheer drop like at the lighthouse, but a tumbledown pile of boulders and mud banks, creating a stepping-stone effect with five-metre drops.

  ‘Luca!’ she screamed, feeling her vocal cords strain as she battled to be heard against the wind. ‘Luca!’

  She stopped suddenly, as alert as a lionness on the hunt. What was that?

  She gasped and turned, trying to locate it. Then she heard it again.

  ‘I’m coming, Luca!’ she screamed. ‘Hold on!’

  She was almost down at the water now, but still 100 metres along from the Wishing Tree rock, and she scrambled over the landslips, gravity no longer on her side and driving her down. Ahead of her was a huge two-metre boulder that she couldn’t possibly get over, so she had to navigate her way around it, cursing furiously as she lost precious time, her feet slipping as the mud crumbled beneath her and her body strained to remain connected to the giant rock.

  She clawed her way round the boulder and, as she rounded its belly, stopped with sudden fright. Directly in front of her, a metre below, the black sea swelled, quietly threatening. There was a 30-metre gap between the boulder she was standing on and the next one, the one nearest the Wishing Tree, and if she wanted to stay on dry land, she was going to have to go back up and inland again.

  She looked into the darkness, frantically trying to focus. Where was he? Everything was moving; the sky was a deep indigo now and the moon had yet to switch on its beams. Then she saw something, the tiny bob of something round in the water, pale, milky arms stretched wide and clinging to the front of the rock as the water pulled, splashed and smashed against him, enticing him, forcing and demanding he get in.

  ‘Luca!’ she screamed.

  ‘Clem! Stop!’

  What? She turned. Tom was far above her, atop the cliffs, and she saw the swing of torch beams like lasers over the grass.

  ‘He’s in the water, Tom!’ she screamed, just as Gabriel caught up with him and saw her beside the water. She could see the change in his expression even from where she was.

  ‘I’m coming! I have rope!’ Gabriel shouted, running down the slope at an angle that didn’t even seem possible.

  Relief flooded through her. Rope? Oh thank God!

  ‘Stay there, Clem! Promise me!’ Gabriel shouted. ‘Promise me!’

  ‘I promise!’ she shouted back. She turned towards the threshing water. ‘Hold on, Luca! Help is coming!’ She squinted. ‘Luca? Luca!’

  But he was gone.

  She let the blackness claim her, the shocking cold jolting her body as she tried to make herself move, a tiny pinprick cutting against the huge rolling body of the Mediterranean. She stayed under for as long as she could – she could keep a straighter line underwater, away from the splash and froth on the surface – but sooner or later she had to come up for air, to breathe. She had to see him. She had to tell him. She would stay this time and she would never leave.

  She gasped – her lungs screaming for air – as she surfaced, close to the rock. She had covered a good distance, but she could feel the water pulling her towards the rocks like a gravity field, and she knew that she would feel her bones break and snap as water and rock met over her.

  Her limbs were beginning to feel leaden and her dress was weighing her down. It was no good, she couldn’t stay on the surface while she was wearing it. She dived down quickly, letting it float up and over her head, until it was off and she was all but naked – lighter in the water, but colder, too.

  She resurfaced with a frantic gasp and trod water, turning desperately in a circle, trying to find him. It had been at least a minute since she’d seen him.

  ‘Luca!’ she cried, just as a wave hit her in the face and she began choking. The water was so salty she felt her stomach contract, but still she kept searching for a splash or bubble or break that would show her where he was.

  Somewhere high above she could hear Luca’s name being called. And . . . and hers too. She knew what this would be doing to Tom, watching her in this water, but she couldn’t think about him. Luca was all she could keep in her head.

  Then her eyes caught a movement. Beyond the rock. It was only a flash – it could have been a fish’s tail slapping against the surface, a piece of driftwood carried in by the storm, but she moved towards it immediately. It was all she had.

  She dived down into the deep, where light wouldn’t have penetrated even in the middle of the day. The pressure in her ears began to build, but she kept going down, her arms reaching in front of her in huge arcs, feeling for a slip of silky flesh in the vast aching space of the sea.

  Then her hand touched something. Skin on skin – the primal touch she had known once before. She grabbed it and kicked up powerfully, holding Luca’s inert body against her own and streamlining their progress through the water. She was almost out of breath; her lungs and ears felt like they were bleeding, but she had to get to the su
rface.

  They broke through the sea’s skin like a bullet and hands grabbed them, pulling them roughly, nails scratching as they scrabbled for grip and tenure, then her skin freezing as air replaced water, and the sweet stinging roughness of the barnacled rock cut into her. Coughing and retching, she dropped onto all fours, her body spent. She lifted her head and saw Rafa kneeling over Luca, giving him heart massage. In the force of the waves, his clothes had been ripped from him and his body looked tiny and soft upon the mammoth black rock. She thought about his enormous eyes, which managed to hold so much fear and yet so much mischief; she thought of how quickly he moved and the skill those small feet possessed when there was a ball beside them; she thought of his gappy grin and the way he stuck his tongue out when he was concentrating . . .

  Gabriel and Tom pulled themselves out of the water, weak, both of them, from the effort of punching through the waves that had avalanched over them, stopping dead at the too still, silent sight on the dry rock. Clem was shaking her head, tears skimming down her face in sheets, her entire body convulsed with terror.

  Gabriel fell to his knees and threw his arms around her, trying to warm her up, his hands rubbing hard over her frozen arms.

  ‘No, no,’ she moaned as Luca remained motionless. If he died she would jump straight back into the water. She couldn’t live without him. She had tried and it had been half a life.

  ‘He’ll be OK,’ Gabriel murmured quietly, his eyes also on the still child.

  ‘My boy my boy . . .’ she whispered, her stare fixed on Luca as if it had been anchored with weights.

  Rafa sat back suddenly on his heels and she gasped, every muscle in her body bunched and taut. Why was he stopping? He couldn’t give u—

  Luca coughed, his shoulders heaving once, twice, and then up came the green saltwater he had swallowed, forcing him to twist on the rock, his body contorted, the veins on his neck bulging blue.

  Rafa sobbed, covering his face with his hands as Luca brought up more and more water, crying from the effort as the corrosive salts tore against his throat. He fell back against the rock, weak, his eyes blinking rapidly, his breath ragged, and Rafa gently moulded him into the recovery position, grabbing Tom’s jacket to place over him. Someone covered her too with . . . something; she didn’t know what, she didn’t know who. Every fibre of her being was focused on Luca. He was alive. She crawled towards him in weakened lumbering movements, her knees bleeding against the rough rock.

  In the distance, the thrum of a helicopter could be heard and she could make out a solitary light in the sky. She placed her hand on his arm, and the tangible feeling of her skin on his once more felt almost violent, as if her heart was exploding in her chest, emotions tearing through her like poisons, making her fold and cry, love mixed with pain. The only way she’d ever known it.

  She was shaking uncontrollably, barely aware of Gabriel beside her, or that his hands on her shoulders were now still and heavy and calm.

  Luca moved, breaking the contact, and her eyes flew open.

  ‘No, Luca, you must stay still,’ Tom said, trying to hold the boy back as he wriggled free from the hands and clothes that were trying to protect him. Rafa – curled into himself, his face hidden in his hands – looked up.

  But Luca had proved his dexterity many times before now and, in a moment, he was flat on his tummy, his arm reaching out to the black, rigid tree that stood above them, unmoved by the storm, unmoved by them. Luca’s fingertips brushed the smooth bark and he closed his eyes.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Rafa asked desperately, bewilderment and terror jumping in his eyes, on high alert again, as though he expected Luca to jump back into the water.

  Clem looked at him, her tears falling harder so that she could barely see. ‘He’s wishing.’

  ‘Wishing for what?’ he cried.

  She could scarcely get the words out. ‘For a family.’

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Her eyelids fluttered lightly, her vision blurred, and she tried to move, still drowsy and heavy-headed from the blunt-edged oblivion that had claimed her. She hadn’t slept, she had simply dropped away into a fathomless black hole where there was no pain, no light, no horror, no yesterday.

  ‘Luca!’ she gasped, sitting bolt upright in the bed she’d been sleeping in and sending her heart rate rocketing.

  ‘He’s OK. They kept him in hospital overnight for observation,’ Gabriel said, turning from his position by the window. The sunlight beyond the window backlit him, and she could see his silhouette through the fine cotton of his pale blue shirt. ‘They’ll let him out today.’

  Clem looked at him, bewildered. She had no recollection of what had happened after Luca had been airlifted to hospital and she was surprised to find herself in bed, in their room.

  Outside the folly, the day looked crisp and clear, blown through, making a mockery of the memories of the night before.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, watching as she pushed away the duvet a little. She was surprised to find it was one of three layered on top of her. ‘You couldn’t stop shivering last night. The doctor said you had mild hypothermia.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Your colour has improved.’

  Clem lay back on the pillows, wondering why he was staying at the window, so far away from her. She sensed a change between them. He seemed distant somehow, newly reserved as he fiddled with his cuffs. She tried to remember the minutiae of the previous day’s events – the argument they had been on the verge of having the moment before Luca’s disappearance – but so much had happened since then, and only one thing mattered: Luca was safe.

  ‘Is everything all right, Gabriel?’

  He looked straight at her. ‘After what happened last night? How can it be?’

  He turned away again, one hand on the wall, and she watched his back expand and narrow with slow, deep breaths. He had nearly lost her. It had been traumatic for him, too. She had defied him and dived into the black water even as he’d begged her not to; she had disregarded his heart for hers, and she would do it all over again in a heartbeat if needs be. As far as she was concerned, there wasn’t even a choice.

  ‘What you said . . .’

  She watched him impassively. What had she said?

  He turned back again, leaning against the wall. ‘At least now I understand.’

  She didn’t reply; it was hard to focus on his words. The lingering chill of the midnight water had begun to creep up on her again and she pulled the duvet back around her shoulders. Whenever she closed her eyes for a fraction too long, she saw the black murk of the churning depths again, Luca’s thin arm a milky glow in the gloom. The fear of losing him clung to her still, an odourless stench that drenched her with horror and made her heart quake.

  ‘I can actually see it now: the resemblance. He’s got your nose and bones.’ He shook his head. ‘Tom’s smile. And he does that thing with his tongue when he’s concentrating – like you.’

  ‘Gabriel, what are you talking about?’

  He looked back at her in astonishment, as though he hadn’t counted upon this response. ‘Are you really going to deny it? Even after you said the words yourself?’

  A new fear was filling her, and it was every bit as terrifying as the black water. ‘What did I say?’

  Gabriel stared at her for a long, drawn-out moment, his adoration for her still spelled out on his features, though the purity had gone, his feelings clouded now by what he had learned. ‘You said he was your boy. Clem, I know that Luca is your son.’

  A silent, violent sob escaped her. Hearing the words spoken out loud – for the first time in her life – was like bringing a sledgehammer down onto a frozen pond, and she didn’t know whether the deep cracks splintering through her were pleasure or pain. Relief, terror, isolation, years of conditioning – all of it collided inside her as if she were inside a rolling car, being thrown and tossed, crumpled, battered . . . broken down.

  He looked away, tormented by the anguish he saw
in her. ‘I know you were young,’ he managed, his voice heavy with torment and what this meant for them.

  Her breath came in silent hiccups, sudden and snatched, unpredictable, unreliable. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Eighteen.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He dropped his head. ‘Too young.’

  She bit her lip, feeling the same rush of anger she’d felt when she’d heard those words more than ten years earlier. ‘Well, my mother certainly thought so.’

  Her sarcasm changed the tone, the pace. ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘Of course I did! But I didn’t want an abortion either. I knew who I was, even at eighteen. I knew what I could and couldn’t live with.’

  ‘Yet you could live with leaving your child to be raised by another family? In another country? You could live with that?’ he asked in disbelief, and she knew he thought she was a monster.

  ‘Just.’ She swallowed hard as the familiar pressure at her temples began to build. ‘Because I knew it was the best thing for him.’

  Gabriel shook his head, deplored by her actions, confounded by the decisions she’d made, the secret she’d kept. ‘Why here? Why did you bring him all the way out here to be raised as an Italian child, to speak a different language? Why didn’t you at least keep him in England where you—?’

  ‘Because none of it was planned, Gabriel!’ she screamed, enraged by his cool logic, his superior judgement. ‘Because he was born six weeks early, OK? I had to come out here for my exchange trip, because I had to behave as normal. No one fucking knew! No one!’

  ‘You said your mother—’

  ‘My mother knew jack-shit! She gave me an ultimatum: have an abortion or get out. She thought I did it!’

  ‘But . . . how could you hide something like that?’