And then Dad came with Rue and Wren. And it was Rue who hugged me first. So tightly I thought I might throw up.
‘Ruthie, careful, love.’ Dad’s voice, but it didn’t sound like him.
Wren sat by my side with a tear-stained face. I reached out my hand to find hers and squeezed it. ‘I’m OK,’ I said.
I could see Dad talking to Antoine.
Rue released her grip, and I could breathe more easily again. ‘Mum and Dad thought you were going to die. But I knew you wouldn’t do that to us,’ she said, her face red from where she must have been crying.
‘I wouldn’t,’ I said.
And then I was surrounded by French paramedics, lifted on to a stretcher and carried towards an ambulance.
Mum came with me and Dad said he’d follow with Rue and Wren.
And through the open door I saw Antoine standing there. He was examining something. A necklace on a blue cord. One that looked like a shark’s tooth. Like one I’d seen before, but I couldn’t place it. I couldn’t think properly.
And Antoine looked like he’d seen a ghost.
24
The hospital was a blur of doctors and nurses talking to each other in French, then speaking to me in English. Not that I remembered any of what they said. I kept thinking of my last memory. Paddling out for bigger waves, then getting stuck in the rip current.
And then in between doctors, and nurses, and tests, it came back to me. Gabriel. The anniversary of his death on the same day as my near drowning. Part of me hoped that Felix wouldn’t find out, but the campsite wasn’t a big place, and after what had happened, I didn’t think there was any chance of it staying quiet.
Eventually the doctors said I could go home that evening if I remained stable.
Which I did.
Mum, Dad, Rue and Wren took me home, and I spent the next day at the mobile home with someone constantly at my side. If it wasn’t Mum bringing me croissants and reading me the paper, it was Dad showing me something on YouTube, or Rue and Wren making me watch their cartoons. But it was nice. My muscles still ached, and there was a tightness in my chest, but it was slowly getting better.
‘Felix came over to see if you were OK,’ Mum said later that morning.
‘Oh, that’s nice. Did anyone else come? Delphine or …’Antoine.
‘Just Felix,’ Mum said. I tried to hide the empty feeling of disappointment that filled my gut from showing on my face when Mum didn’t add another name.
‘I asked him if he wanted to see you, but he said he was in a rush. He seemed quite upset.’
My stomach sank, and my heart ached for him.
‘What do you mean, how did he seem upset?’ I asked.
Mum looked up to the ceiling like it would help her remember. ‘Oh, I’m not sure. He was talking very quickly. He said that the water waswrongthat morning. That the current was pulling north. But he was rambling, and his English was mixed up with French.’
I sat up. Desperate to know more. ‘Did he say anything else?’
Mum shook her head. ‘He just said he was glad you were OK and that he had to go.’
He saw the water that day. Had he been on the cliff? On the beach? Had he been the one who dragged me from the water?
Breath caught in my throat and Mum put her hand on my shoulder. ‘Margot, are you OK?’
‘I’m OK,’ I assured her. But I needed to know.
That night, after Rue and Wren went to bed, Mum and Dad sat down either side of me.
‘I think we can all agree, no more surfing,’ Dad said, as if it was something obvious. He took a sip from a glass of whiskey, which he only drank when he was stressed.
