The Sea Garden

Ellie Brooke put her face up to the sun, absorbing the heat. On the deck of the ferry, where she had a prime seat, there were few other passengers this late in the afternoon.

The young man had his back to the curve of the deck rail, facing her. It was his T-shirt that drew her attention: the lead singer of a heavy metal band thrust a tongue out from the boy's chest, an image that invited reaction but succeeded only in making its thin, blond bearer appear innocuous in comparison.

The engines thrummed and the boat nosed out into sea glitter and salt spray, then powered up to full speed. The island was already sharpening into focus when the young man climbed over the deck rail, spread both arms, and then let himself slip down the side of the ferry, a silent movement so quick and so unexpected that Ellie was not the only passenger to admit that she had at first doubted her own eyes. No splash was heard in the churning water close to the hull.

Perhaps their shouts to the crew were seconds too late, the choking of the ferry's engine not fast enough. The young man had gone over the edge too close to the bow to have had any chance of swimming away safely. As soon as he hit the water he would have been sucked under and pulled towards the propellers, it was said later.

In the moments immediately afterwards, though, in the calm as the engine noise died and the ferry drifted, it seemed quite possible that he would be fished out spluttering, shrinking with embarrassment at the gangling weakness of his limbs, the idiocy of his stunt. Someone threw a life belt.

On deck, more passengers emerged from the cabin to lean over the rail, asking why the ferry had stopped. They were drawn to one another, wanting to help but frightened of getting in the way as the crew set about a rescue procedure.

Ellie did not speak French well enough to understand much of what they were saying, but it was clear that the middle-aged couple with a small yappy dog, the man carrying a briefcase, and the elderly woman were united in their furious incomprehension of the young man's actions. The man with the briefcase was particularly vocal, and his tirade sounded like condemnation. A man in a panama hat and loose white shirt hung slightly back, making no comment.

“Did you see what happened?” she asked him in English, hoping he would understand.

“Yes.”

“One moment he was fine. It didn't look as if anything was wrong. The next he was gone.”

“It's terrible.”

“Was it an accident, orâ”

“He climbed over.”

There were shouts from the water, but they were not cries for help.

“Don't look,” said the man.

She turned away. Bright sunlit sails slid across the sapphire sea. A small aircraft cut across the sky.

Waves slapped against the portside of the ferry. A dinghy was quickly joined by a police launch. Shouting cut through the buzz of the crew's electronic communications. Falling cadences of conversation on deck marked the transition from irritation with the delay to understanding. The fear felt by all was primitive: the oldest sea story of all, the soul lost overboard.

A hundred years ago the ferry boat had been summoned to the mainland by smoke signalâthe fire of resinous leaves and twigs lit in a brazier outside the cafÃ© at the end of the Presqu'Ã®le de Giens, she remembered. It was the kind of detail she enjoyed, culled from the reading she had done in preparation for the trip. Now, within minutes, invisible modern signals brought the emergency services.

Ellie stood up and went over to the rail. Not for the first time, she wondered why she had come.

A
s it was, her arrival on the island was bound up with more immediate questions from the harbourmaster and two male police officers who boarded the ferry when it docked. Her first impressions of Porquerolles' fabled beauty were shot through with shock and a sense of waste. Oleanders and palms waved a subtropical greeting from the quayside, while the passengers were asked to give their names and contact details and to make statements before disembarkation. What had she noticed about the young man? Had he spoken to anyone? Had he seemed agitated, nervous? It seemed trite to reply that she had paid more attention to the vulgarity of his T-shirt than to the person wearing it.

She showed Lieutenant Franck Meunier where she had been sitting on deck, and approximately where he had been standing.

“Did he shout as he fell?” The police officer was all sharp eyes, buzz-cut hair, and controlled strength. Not as young, close up, as he seemed when he came aboard. His English was good, though heavily accented.

“No. At least, I didn't hear him say anything.”

“Was he sweating, perhapsâhad he taken drugs? Did you see his eyes?”

“I wasn't close enough to see. I don't know.”

The white and steel needles of the marina extended out to the ferry dock. A warm breeze rang with clinks of metal rigging. This shore felt far more foreign than the one they had left, as if the sea voyage had crossed much more than the few miles of the strait.

“Where are you staying on the island?”

“A hotel on the Place d'Armes.”

“Which one?”

She pulled a piece of paper out of her shoulder bag and handed it over, uncertain of the pronunciation.

“L'Oustaou des Palmiers,” read the officer.

She nodded.

“You are on vacation?”

“No. Business.”

He frowned, rubbing at his crew cut. His head looked newly shorn. “What business?”

“I am a garden designer. I'm coming here to look at a garden tomorrow and meet a prospective client.”

Had she been less driven to prove herself, she might have turned the job down months before, on the grounds of impracticability. Any number of garden designers and landscape architects were better qualified to take on the restoration of a garden on a Mediterranean island; someone whoâunlike herâalready knew the terrain and was experienced in the dry heat, rocky soil, and exoticism of the Riviera would have been the obvious choice. But spring in England had been dismal, a fleeting glimmer of sun in March and gone by April; the subsequent weeks of grey skies and rain had been unbearable. It was the simplest of urges that had brought her this far, on the journey up to London and beyond, the flight to HyÃ¨res: the need for heat and the light. Of course she was curious about the job too, and lured by the flattering terms of the invitation.

“Who is this client?”

“Laurent de Fayols. At the Domaine de Fayols.”

Lieutenant Meunier considered this, then flipped back through his notes. “When did you first see the man go to the deck rail?”

For what seemed like hours, pinned down on the motionless ferry, Ellie gave answers that could offer nothing in the way of insight and could save no one. From the dock she could see pale beaches and low, verdant hills berried with red roofs. The fort above the harbour punched up a fist of stone through green trees. The sun was dazzling.

Finally she was allowed to go. She wiped a hand over her forehead and consulted the information and a map outside the tourist office on the quai. “Average temperature for June, 20 degrees Celsius,” she read. It was only the beginning of June, and almost seven o'clock in the evening, yet it felt hotter. She set off wearily towards the Place d'Armes. The wheels of her travel bag, weighted by a laptop, a box file of sketches, and photocopied material from old books, scraped along behind her.

It was a wide, dusty square dominated by a church with a distinctly Spanish look. Three sides were edged with eucalyptus and the canopies of restaurants and shops. She made her way round, moving slowly from pool to pool of harsh light and shadow towards what looked like a hotel at the far end. It was not the Oustaou des Palmiers. Nor were any of the other establishmentsâthe apartment entrances or art galleries, the souvenir shops, or the bar that looked as if it would be crowded later, outside of which a jazz guitarist now practiced. She walked on past fruit stalls stacked with watermelons, apples, strawberries, bananas, pineapples, until she was back almost where she started. It was only then that she saw she had missed the hotel by a few metres when she arrived at the square. The sign was hidden under a red canopy and succulent green creepers that shaded tables laid outside for dinner.

Inside, the reception desk was a cramped counter under the stairs.

“I'm Jean-Luc,” said a young man who looked like a student dressed for the beach, shirt hanging open to expose a smooth, bare chest. He handed over the keys without consulting any paperwork. “Anything you need, you can come and find me.”

Mercifully he asked nothing about her journey.

“And there is a message for you,” said Jean-Luc. He smiled and looked around vaguely in the small space behind the desk, as if he knew he had put it somewhere. “Ah!” He seized on an envelope and handed it over.

“Thank you.”

“I will take you up.”

He picked up her bag as if it contained only air, bounded upstairs.

The room was better than she'd imagined, with simple decor and a harbour view. Jean-Luc bounced across the roomâhe walked in that elastic way of the young and very fitâto show her the air-conditioning control and compact bathroom. When he'd gone, she threw open the windows and stood for a while, trying to reconcile what had just happened with the pleasure boats swaying at anchor and, beyond, the sea of scudding white sails. Slipping her shoes off, she padded across bare polished floorboards.

She looked around for the envelope she'd been given and found it on the dressing table. Her name was written in ink, the hand bold yet elegant. It was a long time since she'd received a message written in fountain pen. Or any handwritten message. It all added to the feeling that she had stepped back in time on this island. She slid out the card. Her hands were still trembling slightly.

I
am very glad you have arrived safely,” she read. “I look forward to seeing you at the Domaine de Fayols tomorrow morning. I will send transport for you at ten o'clock. Enjoy your first evening on our lovely island.

“Cordialement, Laurent de Fayols.”

What had made him do it, the boy in the T-shirtâwhat disturbance in the mind, or sickness, or terrible event had induced him to go over the edge, and so quietly? Had he intended to kill himself, or only to attract attention?

There could be no comfort in solitary thoughts in a single hotel room. She put her camera into her shoulder bag and headed outside. A rough concrete road led away from the main square and crumbled into dust that sifted into her open shoes as she walked through pines and Mexican cypress tall enough to deaden any sounds.

Even in her darkest moments she had never considered suicide. Not even in the agonizing weeks after Dan died, when she was struggling to process the loss. Her business was life: the nurturing of plants and the innate optimism involved in planning gardens that would not grow to meet her vision for years, decades even. It had been hard, but she had turned her grief into determination. Self-reliance, too. She had simply worked harder, investing in life. But perhaps other people could find neither the strength nor their own versions of her beech avenues and sculpted borders to watch over.

Where the path split, the beach was signposted: Plage d'Argent. The scent of pines, intensified by a dense heat, mingled with the unmistakably salty tang of the shore. Dan would have loved it: Porquerolles, the island of the ten forts. As a dedicated army man, he had been fascinated by any kind of military history. A tear escaped. He's gone, Ellie told herself for the thousandth time. Let him go. She had to let herself go too, push herself out into the unknown.

The sea nibbled at bone-white sand. She stood alone, lost in thought, where shallow ripples nudged shells into lace patterns across the beach.

Other books

Hack:Moscow by W. Len

Eternity and a Year by Ranae Rose

A Matter of Temptation by Lorraine Heath

The Cain Conspiracy by Mike Ryan

Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford

The Find by Kathy Page

As Twilight Falls by Amanda Ashley

Winter Heat by Dawn Halliday

Hidden Magic by K.D. Faerydae

Dread on Arrival by Claudia Bishop