Christmas at Claridge's (48 page)

She stood up, unable to bear the inactivity a moment longer. She had to do something, make it up to him. Luca needed her. He had come to her needing the support Chiara had asked her to give in
her absence and she’d failed. Chiara hadn’t even gone and she’d already failed him! The men had been adamant the women must stay here with the other children, but Clem
didn’t belong here. She wasn’t one of them. She wouldn’t be missed.

She ran from the room and stepped into the storm, the wind whipping around her like a jester. It was almost dusk and the sky was a majestic rippling red, the black clouds rolling and rumbling
with menace. She ran to the wall and looked down at the port – lights flickered across the piazzetta but it was deserted, the outdoor tables covered beneath rain canopies like plastic
conservatories. She could hear the bells ringing on the masts of the smaller vessels as they bobbed and jigged on the rough waters.

Her heart lurched. Luca was out in this somewhere, and there was only forty minutes, at most, before it would be too dark to search in these conditions. Rafa, Tom and Gabriel were searching for
him together, their tightly plaited jealousies cast aside for now, and she knew if anyone would find him,
they
would – she’d seen the desolation on Rafa’s face as
he’d understood what had happened.

She looked out into the storm. Where was he? She paced in circles, her dress flapping loudly about her legs, as the minutes passed and still no one called to say he’d been found. Where was
he?
Where?

She stopped abruptly as she suddenly remembered bumping into him on the path the other week – the day they’d later discovered Tom and Chiara in the kitchen. He had seemed unusually
quiet and subdued that afternoon,
before that,
she recalled. Had he already sensed there was something growing between Tom and Chiara before he’d seen it for himself, with his own
eyes? Had he known that his family was changing again? Rafa and Chiara had split up, and Rafa had a new partner; but Chiara now, too? Did he know his family was going to be torn apart for ever?

She felt her pulse quicken as the thoughts came fast and sure. He had been up at the lighthouse back then and he must be there now. Clem ran. She gathered her wet skirts in her hand and pulled
them up past her knees, so that she could run more easily.

Her long legs were strong and she felt her fitness help her as she ran against the wind. But something was niggling her . . . something . . .

And then it came to her: it hadn’t been closing time when she’d seen him that day. Sunset had been a couple of hours off and therefore the prospect of free ice cream, too. She began
to slow, less certain. It was hardly likely that a ten-year-old boy would walk a mile just for the view? Had he wanted to be alone, to think? She tried to imagine him sitting there on the bench as
he looked out to sea and watched the waves crash on the splintered granite slabs—

She stopped abruptly, her eyes wide with horror. Oh please God, no. No!

She felt terror grip her like an icy hand and she couldn’t move. Her brain began working at lightning speed, making other connections and discarding them, trying to come up with
alternative, plausible ideas, but she knew, she knew . . . Slowly, she turned back the way she had come, her eyes unseeing of the ivy-walled paths she’d already run through for half a mile.
It made perfect sense. That was why he went to the lighthouse. He could see it from there; it was the best vantage point for miles around. He was there for the view, but not to think; he was there
to wish.

She began running again, back the way she’d come, her arms like pistons, propelling her with a speed she’d never known. Every second counted. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t
slow. Because he wasn’t lost any more, he was in danger. There was only one way to get to it – she’d seen that for herself that day on the Riva. And that meant he was in the
water.

Clem ran blindly. She had never come over this way on foot before, only ever on the boat, and the ground was rough and uneven, the scrub scratching her bare legs. Only instinct
told her which way to head, and soon she saw the heaving horizon of the mass of grey water that lay between here and the wishing tree.

‘Luca!’ she screamed, but the wind threw her screams straight back over her. She kept running, slipping in places and having to use her hands to keep her going. She couldn’t
see the tree yet, and it was rapidly darkening, but she could make out the shallow sweep of the mile-long bay and the roar of the sea bashing itself against the rocks. She would have to get to the
cliffs and then turn right, looking both for the tree and a way down at the same time.

The water looked inky and mercurial, only the white froth clearly visible in the dusk.

‘Luca!’

She thought she could see the tree ahead, its scarified branches reaching into the storm-filled sky like tongs, not a single bit of it moving as the wind howled and flattened the grasses and
full-canopied firs nearby. It’s very stillness was eerie amidst so much fury and chaos.

Oh please, God, let him be there – and not there at the same time. She wanted to find him, but please not in the water, please . . .

She scrambled down the cliff-face recklessly. It wasn’t a sheer drop like at the lighthouse, but a tumbledown pile of boulders and mud banks, creating a stepping-stone effect with
five-metre drops.

‘Luca!’ she screamed, feeling her vocal cords strain as she battled to be heard against the wind. ‘Luca!’

She stopped suddenly, as alert as a lionness on the hunt. What was that?

She gasped and turned, trying to locate it. Then she heard it again.

‘I’m coming, Luca!’ she screamed. ‘Hold on!’

She was almost down at the water now, but still 100 metres along from the Wishing Tree rock, and she scrambled over the landslips, gravity no longer on her side and driving her down. Ahead of
her was a huge two-metre boulder that she couldn’t possibly get over, so she had to navigate her way around it, cursing furiously as she lost precious time, her feet slipping as the mud
crumbled beneath her and her body strained to remain connected to the giant rock.

She clawed her way round the boulder and, as she rounded its belly, stopped with sudden fright. Directly in front of her, a metre below, the black sea swelled, quietly threatening. There was a
30-metre gap between the boulder she was standing on and the next one, the one nearest the Wishing Tree, and if she wanted to stay on dry land, she was going to have to go back up and inland
again.

She looked into the darkness, frantically trying to focus. Where was he? Everything was moving; the sky was a deep indigo now and the moon had yet to switch on its beams. Then she saw something,
the tiny bob of something round in the water, pale, milky arms stretched wide and clinging to the front of the rock as the water pulled, splashed and smashed against him, enticing him, forcing and
demanding he get in.

‘Luca!’ she screamed.

‘Clem! Stop!’

What? She turned. Tom was far above her, atop the cliffs, and she saw the swing of torch beams like lasers over the grass.

‘He’s in the water, Tom!’ she screamed, just as Gabriel caught up with him and saw her beside the water. She could see the change in his expression even from where she was.

‘I’m coming! I have rope!’ Gabriel shouted, running down the slope at an angle that didn’t even seem possible.

Relief flooded through her. Rope? Oh thank God!

‘Stay there, Clem! Promise me!’ Gabriel shouted. ‘Promise me!’

‘I promise!’ she shouted back. She turned towards the threshing water. ‘Hold on, Luca! Help is coming!’ She squinted. ‘Luca?
Luca!’

But he was gone.

She let the blackness claim her, the shocking cold jolting her body as she tried to make herself move, a tiny pinprick cutting against the huge rolling body of the
Mediterranean. She stayed under for as long as she could – she could keep a straighter line underwater, away from the splash and froth on the surface – but sooner or later she had to
come up for air, to breathe. She had to see him. She had to tell him. She would stay this time and she would never leave.

She gasped – her lungs screaming for air – as she surfaced, close to the rock. She had covered a good distance, but she could feel the water pulling her towards the rocks like a
gravity field, and she knew that she would feel her bones break and snap as water and rock met over her.

Her limbs were beginning to feel leaden and her dress was weighing her down. It was no good, she couldn’t stay on the surface while she was wearing it. She dived down quickly, letting it
float up and over her head, until it was off and she was all but naked – lighter in the water, but colder, too.

She resurfaced with a frantic gasp and trod water, turning desperately in a circle, trying to find him. It had been at least a minute since she’d seen him.

‘Luca!’ she cried, just as a wave hit her in the face and she began choking. The water was so salty she felt her stomach contract, but still she kept searching for a splash or bubble
or break that would show her where he was.

Somewhere high above she could hear Luca’s name being called. And . . . and hers too. She knew what this would be doing to Tom, watching her in this water, but she couldn’t think
about him. Luca was all she could keep in her head.

Then her eyes caught a movement. Beyond the rock. It was only a flash – it could have been a fish’s tail slapping against the surface, a piece of driftwood carried in by the storm,
but she moved towards it immediately. It was all she had.

She dived down into the deep, where light wouldn’t have penetrated even in the middle of the day. The pressure in her ears began to build, but she kept going down, her arms reaching in
front of her in huge arcs, feeling for a slip of silky flesh in the vast aching space of the sea.

Then her hand touched something. Skin on skin – the primal touch she had known once before. She grabbed it and kicked up powerfully, holding Luca’s inert body against her own and
streamlining their progress through the water. She was almost out of breath; her lungs and ears felt like they were bleeding, but she had to get to the surface.

They broke through the sea’s skin like a bullet and hands grabbed them, pulling them roughly, nails scratching as they scrabbled for grip and tenure, then her skin freezing as air replaced
water, and the sweet stinging roughness of the barnacled rock cut into her. Coughing and retching, she dropped onto all fours, her body spent. She lifted her head and saw Rafa kneeling over Luca,
giving him heart massage. In the force of the waves, his clothes had been ripped from him and his body looked tiny and soft upon the mammoth black rock. She thought about his enormous eyes, which
managed to hold so much fear and yet so much mischief; she thought of how quickly he moved and the skill those small feet possessed when there was a ball beside them; she thought of his gappy grin
and the way he stuck his tongue out when he was concentrating . . .

Gabriel and Tom pulled themselves out of the water, weak, both of them, from the effort of punching through the waves that had avalanched over them, stopping dead at the too still, silent sight
on the dry rock. Clem was shaking her head, tears skimming down her face in sheets, her entire body convulsed with terror.

Gabriel fell to his knees and threw his arms around her, trying to warm her up, his hands rubbing hard over her frozen arms.

‘No, no,’ she moaned as Luca remained motionless. If he died she would jump straight back into the water. She couldn’t live without him. She had tried and it had been half a
life.

‘He’ll be OK,’ Gabriel murmured quietly, his eyes also on the still child.

‘My boy my boy . . .’ she whispered, her stare fixed on Luca as if it had been anchored with weights.

Rafa sat back suddenly on his heels and she gasped, every muscle in her body bunched and taut. Why was he stopping? He couldn’t give u
—

Luca coughed, his shoulders heaving once, twice, and then up came the green saltwater he had swallowed, forcing him to twist on the rock, his body contorted, the veins on his neck bulging
blue.

Rafa sobbed, covering his face with his hands as Luca brought up more and more water, crying from the effort as the corrosive salts tore against his throat. He fell back against the rock, weak,
his eyes blinking rapidly, his breath ragged, and Rafa gently moulded him into the recovery position, grabbing Tom’s jacket to place over him. Someone covered her too with . . . something;
she didn’t know what, she didn’t know who. Every fibre of her being was focused on Luca. He was alive. She crawled towards him in weakened lumbering movements, her knees bleeding
against the rough rock.

In the distance, the thrum of a helicopter could be heard and she could make out a solitary light in the sky. She placed her hand on his arm, and the tangible feeling of her skin on his once
more felt almost violent, as if her heart was exploding in her chest, emotions tearing through her like poisons, making her fold and cry, love mixed with pain. The only way she’d ever known
it.

She was shaking uncontrollably, barely aware of Gabriel beside her, or that his hands on her shoulders were now still and heavy and calm.

Luca moved, breaking the contact, and her eyes flew open.

‘No, Luca, you must stay still,’ Tom said, trying to hold the boy back as he wriggled free from the hands and clothes that were trying to protect him. Rafa – curled into
himself, his face hidden in his hands – looked up.

But Luca had proved his dexterity many times before now and, in a moment, he was flat on his tummy, his arm reaching out to the black, rigid tree that stood above them, unmoved by the storm,
unmoved by them. Luca’s fingertips brushed the smooth bark and he closed his eyes.

‘What’s he doing?’ Rafa asked desperately, bewilderment and terror jumping in his eyes, on high alert again, as though he expected Luca to jump back into the water.

Clem looked at him, her tears falling harder so that she could barely see. ‘He’s wishing.’