Chapter 22
Alice
When I wake up the first thing I do is reach an arm across the mattress, feeling for Jack’s body. He came to bed later than me, slipping in silently beside me when I was just drifting into sleep. To my relief my hand meets the soft warmth of his back. I shuffle closer. The room is dark, the sleeping house quiet around me. It must be the middle of the night. I can just make out the light patter of rain and the back and forth of the sea down on the beach.
Despite being awake now, I can feel the fear from the nightmare I just had lingering in my mind. It all felt so real. I dreamed I was in a hospital, looking down at a ghostly figure I barely recognised as my friend, and Jack and Molly’s old teacher. Lying awake in the darkness, the thoughts I’ve been trying to push away for weeks come rushing in.
The truth is, I still haven’t told Jack that Jean is sick. I can’t bring myself to say the words aloud. If I hold them inside, perhaps it isn’t true. I just can’t quite accept that my friend, the friend who taught my husband and my daughter and who has always seemed so cheerful and so strong, is ill. She has been back and forth to the mainland for appointments at the hospital’s oncology department, but has only kept us loosely updated. I get the sense she isn’t telling us everything. We’ve all tried to stay positive for her. On good days, I feel hopeful. There is so much more that they can do nowadays and everyone in our group of friends seems to know a story of someone who had cancer but has since made a full recovery. But some days it’s hard to stay optimistic.
She kept teaching right up to the end of term but instructed the school governors (of which I’m one, alongside Sarah and some parents of younger children still at the school) to start looking for a replacement for the new term. So far, we haven’t had a single application. We’ve placed adverts online, using photos of the newly tidied classroom as well as a few of the island itself, all shot to make it look as beautiful as possible, and have asked friends on nearby islands to spread the word. But so far, nothing. We have willing parents on the island who could band together to form a temporary solution, but despite their enthusiasm, no one here is qualified to take on the school long term. The reality is, if we don’t find a new headteacher the school will eventually have to close. This is not the first time that this cold reality has hit me in the dead of the night, keeping me awake while Jack sleeps silently beside me.
The young families will be the first to leave the island. There’s already a noticeable tension among the parents as families decide whether to try and move to the mainland over the summer or hold out for a suitable applicant for the role. We’d stay as long as we could, but eventually the population would decline, just like it did on Caora. New families would stop arriving and one by one the families already living here would leave. Eventually it would no longer be viable to keep up the pub and the shop. The ferry service would probably reduce too until one day our home would become a ghost island. A school is the heart of an island like ours. Even for people who don’t have children, having one here matters. It’s the thing that keeps our remote life viable.
I wonder, not for the first time, where my friends would all go if we did eventually have to leave? Surely not to the same town or village. We’d all scatter, the community that has become so important to me breaking up and falling apart.
I’ve kept these fears about the school to myself too. Jack has enough on his plate without me adding to his worries. I’d hoped that we’d have found someone by now. And then when Lorna arrived and told us all that she’s a teacher … Well, I have to admit a spark of hope ignited inside me. I saw it on the faces of my friends too. Maybe Lorna could be the answer to our problems? But Jean made us all promise not to tell her what was going on.
‘But maybe she’d want to help?’ suggested Sarah. But Jean had been adamant.
‘No. I will not put that kind of pressure on her. These problems are ours, not hers.’
And now Lorna is leaving and any hope I might have felt dies away. I glance across at my husband, sleeping silently beside me. What is he dreaming of right now? What did he and Lorna say to one another at the house that made her want to leave? I hug my knees to my chest, listening to the sound of the rain and the sea outside in the darkness.
Chapter 23
Lorna
Last night I couldn’t wait to leave the island. But confronted with my packed suitcase this morning and the prospect of the ferry in a few hours I’m surprised by how sad I feel. I think it’s best for everyone if Ella and I go back to our life and let my brother and his family return to theirs. But I’m going to miss the people I’ve met here, and Sarah with whom I’ve only just reconnected. I’ll even miss the sound of the sea. The island scenery was starting to grow on me too; it will feel strange to return to concrete and brick.
I take a deep breath and cross the corridor to Molly’s room. I feel so bad for how things went with Ella last night. I love her with every cell in my body but it doesn’t mean I always say or do the right thing. I knock gently on the door. When no reply comes, I knock a little harder and ease open the door.
‘Ella sweetheart?’
Molly’s bed and the camp-bed where Ella has been sleeping are empty, the duvets neat. Ella’s suitcase is at least zipped shut in the corner. Perhaps they are already downstairs having breakfast.
‘Ella? Molly?’ I call as I step into the kitchen. But the room is empty, the curtains still closed and last night’s mugs resting on the counter above the dishwasher. I pull open the curtains. The sky has grown darker, brooding clouds rolling in slowly from the sea. I call the girls’ names in the living room too. Maybe they are out in the fields, having a last look around together before Ella leaves. But as I peer out the window all I see are the cows and sheep grazing as usual.
This doesn’t feel right. Wherearethey? I climb back up the stairs two at a time, not worrying now about the noise my feet make against the floorboards. Jack and Alice’s bedroom door is closed and I hesitate then knock. There’s a sound of shuffling followed by footsteps, then Alice is at the door in a dressing gown. I’m surprised to spot Jack still in bed behind her; usually he would be up and out on the farm at this hour.
‘I can’t find the girls.’
Alice turns back to Jack. He is already stepping hurriedly out of bed. I glance away as he pulls a pair of jeans on over his boxer shorts and reaches for a T-shirt.
‘I’m sure they’re around somewhere,’ begins Alice, but Jack is racing to the door.
‘Have you looked through Molly’s room?’
‘I just saw they weren’t there. Ella’s suitcase is packed though.’
Jack follows me along the corridor while Alice slips back inside to get dressed. In Molly’s room Jack looks around, pulling back the duvets and peering under the beds. He lifts up Ella’s suitcase.
‘It’s empty.’
‘What?’
Jack unzips the case. There’s nothing inside. I spin around, frantically searching the room. What’s happening? And where is my daughter?
‘But where’s her stuff?’
