The Missing One (54 page)

My body crashes into a side table this time. It collapses under me into soft slivers. As I scramble to my feet the floorboard gives and one leg plunges downwards. I throw my weight in the other direction, yank my foot back and
then haul myself away from the hole in the floathouse floor. Finn's cries are travelling away from me.

I see her disappear through the kitchen doorway – I glimpse his terrified, tear-stained face over her shoulder, mouth open, unable even to scream, his star-shaped hands bumping with each step. Her wasp clasp is loose and her wild hair streams behind her, my bag flaps on her thigh – then she vanishes.

I hurtle across the rotten floor but she's out the door already. I wrench it open and burst after her, into the grey dawn. Freezing mist hits the back of my throat and I gasp – but there she is, running, up ahead. I can just see her through the mist with Finn jolting against her shoulder and his screams echoing through the ghostly pines.

I leap from the floathouse onto dry land and sprint across the stony ground after them. She is scrambling over rocks up ahead, using one arm to steady herself. Her legs are strong and fast; she is a blurry shape, but I will catch her. My body powers me along faster than I've ever moved in my life, and then I'm in the air as if I've taken off and am going to fly to Finn – as if I have unfurled vast maternal wings – but I'm falling, coming down, and stones slam into my torso, jolting my teeth inside my skull.

For a second, everything rings and I open my mouth but nothing comes out, no breath will go in or out of my lungs. Then I give a terrific gasp. I am on my front, with stones in my face, spitting gravel and twigs. Finn's cries are further ahead, muffled by the crash of the waves and by the mist. I get up, stagger a few steps – my right leg doesn't seem to
work properly – but it has to – it has to – and despite it, I start to run again.

I claw my way to the top of the rock. I am above a white beach, a tiny beach and I can hear Finn, somewhere close by – down there, beneath the ledge of rock below me – but I can't see him. I bend my knees to leap down onto the beach and something hits the back of my head. Everything goes black.

*

I am swimming. It is so cold, this water, and I am so tired. I can't keep swimming under this freezing water. I have to open my eyes and come up to the surface. I have to breathe.

Stone shapes – an eyeball, a teardrop, a heart. Something flexes in the background through a shroud of white. Out of the corner of one eye I can see the fur of the parka hood, flickering. I must lift my head. I must get up. My cheekbone hits down hard, and I'm swimming again beneath the surface.

Then I hear her voice, sharp and clear, next to my ear.
Open your eyes, Kali. Get up. Get up now. Run
.

The shingle grinds into my knee bones, stones icy and smooth under my palms. My head is ringing, singing, like the high wind. I sway, hands in stones. But her voice is very clear and firm in my ear.
Get up
, my mother says.
Run, Kali. Run
.

*

And I'm up. Something is pressing on the back of my head. I touch it with my fingertips. Then I remember what's happening and where I am.

I open my mouth and I bellow, not a word but a continuous, prehistoric sound that rattles around my skull.

Then I see them. They aren't far away – grey shapes on the rocks – there is a boat and she is climbing onto it and I can see him on her shoulder; I can hear his cries.

I scrabble back up the rock, slithering and scratching to the top, and I hurtle towards them through salty mist. My head sings – something in my leg is very wrong but I move it anyway – the bad sensation is far off, irrelevant, a hypothesis of pain – I gasp for air and power towards them.

Pain jolts through me but it doesn't matter. Seagulls wheel overhead, ghostly shapes in the mist. I see her look round, gripping Finn with one arm as she unhooks a rope from a tow post. Her face is grim and her hair flies like snakes.

‘Get off him!' I roar. ‘Stop!'

My feet hardly touch the ground but the boat engine snarls and it is moving away now – she is in, and driving Finn away from me. It is a small boat, with ropes around the side and a little cabin, and the engine is loud. She is pointing the boat out across the bay, pinning my screaming baby to her side with one arm and steering with the other.

I think about plunging into the freezing sea but I know I won't catch them, not like this. The boat is moving too fast. Somewhere above the engine I can still hear him desperately howling for me.

And I turn. I run again – back over the rocks, aware that my leg is wrong, but that it means nothing. Over the stony path where I fell – I am running through the undergrowth,
now, jumping over roots and boulders, ducking round the back of the floathouse, in darkness, plants slashing my face and torso, I don't know how I know where to go – I just do. It's instinct that propels me and I am among the trees, dense trunks, the stink of pine needles, and the sea, and the distant rumble of the engine out there in the bay – and I'm pushing past trunks, dodging sharp rocks; my muscles burn but I keep going. I see a crouching animal, fur, yellow eyes – I leap past it – and I am out – on rocks again, above the water. Icy rocks. Mist hangs low. I scrabble to the flat top of the rock; my hands and feet move deftly.

I crouch there, sucking in the freezing mist. My lungs are on fire. There's a drop of about fifteen feet to the water – I see rocks beneath the surface. And I can see the boat approaching, shrouded in mist. It is almost level with me already, passing through the neck of the bay out to the open sea. Susannah is looking straight ahead. She doesn't see me, maybe the mist hides me, or maybe she thinks I'm back on the beach still. Finn is struggling and howling – she has him wedged against her flank with one arm. As the boat gets closer, I know that there is only one thing left to do.

I kick off my boots and tear off the parka and Doug's too-heavy sweater, hurling them one on top of the other on the rock.

And I leap.

Suspended in mid-air, I know that if I have misjudged this I will impale myself on the rocks. The shock of the water bites into my flesh, the cold burns, salt stings, filling my eyes
and mouth and nose, pouring down my throat, into my ears. For a moment I am far below the surface, kicking inside a block of ice; I feel the vast frozen body of water over my head, pressing into my eardrums, biting at my skin, clamping at my muscles like teeth, but my feet hit rock and I thrust off it, pushing myself up to the surface with the one leg that seems to work best, and I am out – gasping for air, tossed on a huge wave, then under again, blinded, another lungful of brine. Back up again – back up – choking – a great gasp of air – the boat is right here – just an arm's length away. It is moving too fast. I can't. My limbs are frozen. I can't get it. But I have to.

With every cell in my body I power myself towards the hull and, miraculously, I feel the side of the boat – slippery under my palms – if I can't hold on then the next bit of the boat to hit me will be its propeller – my fingers close over the rough rope that runs around the flank. For moment, I am towed along, swallowing water, gagging, gasping, my legs trailing behind me, gripping the rope with both hands – my arms are wrenched from their sockets, every muscle and sinew is stretched tight. But I hear Finn's cries above the motor and it's as if his voice is pulling me out of the water – somehow I haul myself up and dive, head first, over the side.

I stagger to my feet, bracing myself against the bump of the boat, water pouring off me. My skin is on fire, my head feels tight as if my skull is about to crack open and spew its contents on to the deck.

She is standing at the wheel in a covered area just a few
feet away from me. The engine is so loud, but Finn spots me over her shoulder and his tear-stained face collapses. He holds out his arms to me, his little fingers splayed. It takes all my willpower not to move or speak. I can't fight her for him. She'll kill us both.

‘It's OK,' I mouth at Finn. ‘It's OK.'

‘Mama!' he opens his mouth. ‘Maaaaamaaaa!'

The wind and waves and the sound of the engine roar below his screams, and she still doesn't know I'm here. It is as if she is in a trance. I stare at her broad back in the brown fleece. I have to think fast. I have to act. I look around for something – anything. And then time seems to slow. The colours of the world intensify, all noise quietens, my vision becomes sharper, clearer; nothing hurts now, I don't even feel cold: there is a small cabin to her left. I can see down into it – a few steps to a bed and a sort of sofa. My bag on the floor, the red file spilling out. I could try to shove her in there, lock her in. But I can't risk trying to wrench Finn out of her arms. She's stronger than me. At any moment she will sense me and turn round.

I spot a metal pole, lying along the side of the boat. It has a hook on the end. I swoop to it. It is not heavy and it is hard to make my fingers tighten on the freezing metal but I see her begin to turn and with all my remaining strength I sweep the pole at her ankles and jerk it, sideways.

She topples. I drop the pole – it clangs down – and I throw myself at Finn, wrenching him from her one arm and shoving at her with the other. He comes to me easily – her hands instinctively fly out as her body crashes sideways, and
he hurls himself towards me. I see her head bounce, just once, on the fibreglass hull.

Finn's arms whip round my neck. I pin him to me with both arms. ‘I've got you. I've got you.'

Nobody is steering the boat now and it veers to the right over a big wave. I'm above Susannah, with Finn clinging to me so tightly that I hardly need to touch him to keep him there, but I do, I hang onto him.

He is silent, perhaps in shock, locked onto my soaked torso. I suck in air, everything inside me is pulsing, throbbing, ready to protect him. Her head is on the floor, resting on one arm. She lifts it halfway up.

I put a foot on her neck, then, and firmly, but not violently, I press down.

‘Don't.' The sound of my own voice surprises me. It is deep and loud and threatening. ‘If you get up I will kill you. I will kill you, Susannah. This is over. You hear me? This is OVER.'

The boat is still motoring through the waves, wildly off course now, careening towards the rocky coastline.

I take my foot off her neck and seize the steering wheel with one arm, wrenching it round so that we are pointing out to sea again. Then, not knowing what else to do, I see the keys, and turn the ignition off.

The engine cuts. Suddenly there is eerie silence. Just the bump of waves. Sea mist creeps round us. I am shaking so hard that my teeth clatter against each other. I hold onto Finn but I can't keep my arms from jerking. Water drips from my body. I stare down at Susannah. I have no idea what
to do. She doesn't move. She lies with her head on her arm. Then I realize that I am no longer scared of her.

‘Susannah,' I say. ‘Are you OK?'

Her legs crunch up suddenly, into a foetal position. Her massed grey hair covers her cheek.

And then I hear a new rumbling noise. For a moment, I think it's the boat engine, and I've failed to switch it off, but then I see it, over to the left, through the mist: Sven's fishing boat.

I wave one arm. ‘Here!' I shout. ‘Help!'

Dawn is breaking through the bruised and misty sky, Susannah is curled at my feet. Sven is coming. And my baby is safe.

*

As his boat draws alongside ours, I see that there is someone else in the cabin, a crouched figure in a blue woollen hat. He cuts his engine and Ana stands up.

‘You a'right?' Ana climbs aboard. I nod, but my body is shaking so violently. ‘Baby OK?' I can't speak because my jaws are clattering together. I realize that my leg hurts, quite badly.

Finn points. ‘Boat!' he says, as if Sven's boat is the first one he's noticed today.

‘Yes, love.' I squeeze his solid little body and for a moment I feel as if he is holding me up, not the other way around.

‘Big boat!' he says.

The pain in my leg is extraordinary, as if there is something burrowing inside the bone. I stand on the good leg, which quakes. The back of my head throbs.

‘Susannah,' Ana kneels at her side. She calls to Sven, ‘Blankets!' She points at me.

Susannah still doesn't move but she is breathing.

Ana and I both look at Finn.

She does not seem to require an explanation.

‘Down.' Finn wriggles. I make myself put him down but I hang on tight to his hand. He looks up at me. ‘Carry 'oo?' he suggests. I pick him up again.

Sven clambers over into Susannah's boat. He drops a blanket over my shoulders. ‘Get dry, fast,' he mutters. ‘Hypothermia.' My teeth are comedy chattering. I wrap the blanket tightly around us. ‘Go on into the cabin.' He nods at his boat. ‘There's clothes in there. Get out of those wet things. Fast.'

Then he kneels next to Ana. They exchange some mumbled words.

‘Susannah,' I hear Ana say briskly. ‘You have to get up now.'

Susannah heaves herself off her side and I tell myself it's OK, because Sven is here, and Ana. But I still don't trust her. I don't take my eyes off her. My teeth are still chattering insanely. Beneath the blanket my freezing clothes are plastered to my body.

Now Susannah is face down with her legs tucked under her, and arms splayed in front, in a yoga child's pose, but her head is at an odd angle, with her face turned away.

Her hair tangles on her shoulders and across her cheek. I notice her wasp hair clasp is next to my foot. I kick it, hard,
and it skids across the deck, through the railings, and into the sea. Her spine is curved like a turtle's shell.

Ana is saying something to her, but I can't hear what. She is bent over and her hands are on Susannah's shoulders. The boat rises and falls with the waves. Sven must have anchored, and I can see that our two boats are lashed together, now, with big ropes.