‘She’s good. We still see each other a lot.’
I decide not to mention we and Adrienne are trying for a baby. I don’t want to risk her responding in the same negative manner as Tommy did when I told him.
‘It’s not only Mel you’re doing this with, is it? It’s Ade too,’ he reminded me. ‘You’ll be tied to them for the rest of your life. Mel broke your fucking heart, mate. I was there. I saw how much it took out of you when she left. If I’m being honest, I don’t think you’ve ever really recovered from it. I don’t want you thinking this is a way of winning Mel back, because it’s not going to happen.’
‘I know that, and it’s not,’ I protested.
‘If you have this baby, it’s another excuse for you not to move on with your life and find someone else. Mel thinks she’s doing you a favour by asking you to get involved. But she’s using you.’
Tommy and I haven’t spoken about it since.
Now, I gather myself. ‘Can I ask you something?’ I say to Helena.
‘Of course.’
‘Do you have any recollection of something in my records about the death of a child?’
‘The death of a child?’
I take a deep breath and recount what I saw when I drowned five weeks ago. I don’t tell her that I keep hallucinating his presence.
‘Oh, how awful,’ she says, then shakes her head as if trying to rid herself of the image I have planted there.
‘He can’t have been much older than twelve or thirteen,’ I go on. ‘Dark red hair, blue eyes, pale skin.’
‘And you have no memory of him at all?’
‘Nothing. I remember everything else I saw, but not him.’
‘You never mentioned anything regarding a dead boy when you were living with me. Might it have been something you watched in a film or saw on television? Or something you read in a book?’
‘I don’t think so. It felt too real for that.’ I hesitate before I ask my next question. ‘You don’t think ... I could have had something to do with his death?’
‘You?’ she says in surprise. ‘Why ever would you think that?’
‘The way I saw myself crouching over him, how I wasn’t trying to help him.’ I still don’t admit to my continuing hallucinations. ‘And you know I have gaps in my memory after what happened with Mum,’ I add.
‘Which is understandable,’ she says. ‘You were only a child then. Look, I’m no expert, but it sounds to me as if your brain is playing tricks on you, which makes sense given the circumstances.When I had my strokes, I was convinced I could drive, but I’ve never had so much as a lesson! And there are books and films my sister told me I used to love which I now have no recollection of ever reading or watching. Like me, your brain has gone through considerable trauma, Damon. You must give it time to recover.’
This makes perfect sense, and should put my mind at rest, given I trust her. So why doesn’t it? Another happy product of my seashore trauma: I’ve misplaced the ability to take comfort offered by someone I know cares for me.
I change the subject and remain in her company for another half an hour or so before I explain I need to be back in Northampton by early evening to work a late shift. I promise her I won’t leave it so long before I make a return visit, and we hug our goodbyes at the front door.
I’m halfway up the path when I turn to wave again and something catches my attention back inside the house. Helena is leaning against the wall with one hand. Her look of concern switches to a smile when we hold each other’s stare.
But just beyond her is the red-haired boy.
He stands three stairs up, stretches out his arm and points to me. And from his black hole of a mouth, I hear him scream something I can’t properly make out. Repeatedly he yells it, as cold waves, like the ones I drowned in, wash over me. I want to ask him what he means but the words snag in my throat. Instead, I turn quickly and stagger away, my heart racing.
Chapter 14
Helena
Her house returns to the silence it held before Damon’s unexpected visit. Knowing he has matured into a well-adjusted, compassionate and caring man should have filled her with warmth. Instead, he’s left her restless. She drums her fingers against the arm of the chair, unable to shake the unease that descended upon her the moment he mentioned his drowning and the vision of a dying boy.
Helena recalls that when Damon left her charge all those years ago, she would call him on a phone she had purchased for him, to check in. He had left her care, but not her thoughts. They were more intrinsically linked than he would ever know.
She closes her eyes and Damon’s image emerges like it has done many times in the past. He is never the teenager or the man he is now, only ever the frightened, vulnerable little boy she was persuaded – no,begged– to take in.
