Never Ending (6 page)

“According to Greek mythology,”
Declan went on,
“the very first turtle was created by the great god Poseidon when he cast one of his sons adrift at sea, nailed hand and foot to an upturned shield, as a punishment for having sex with an otter.”

“Oh, Declan,
nooo
,” Mum said, trying not to laugh. “That’s disgusting.”

At the wooden jetty, the boat was bobbing at its moorings and a line of holidaymakers – mostly German and British, by the sound of it – had formed, ready to board. Shiv, Mum, Dad and Declan tagged on to the end.

“
Poseidon IV
,” Dad said, reading the name on the far-from-gleaming-white hull. “I don’t like to ask what happened to the first three.”

The Brits in the group laughed.

The smell of salt, seaweed and fish was pungent but not unpleasant. A breeze would have been good though. Even through rubber flip-flops, Shiv felt the heat of the boards boring into her feet. Gulls shrieked and the mooring posts creaked as
Poseidon IV
shifted on the swell. At the back of the boat, an oldish bloke (a sea-dog cliché, with wrinkled nut-brown skin, shaggy dark hair and beard) was doing things with ropes. Towards the front, facing away from the waiting tourists, a much younger guy sorted masks and flippers into two large plastic tubs. He was tall and broad, the thin yellow cotton of his polo shirt drawn taut across his shoulders as he arranged the snorkelling kit with easy efficiency. Shiv caught herself staring at his calves, the muscles flexed beneath bronzed skin as he braced himself against the roll and pitch of the deck.

“Welcome, welcome!” This was the beardy one, who’d finished with the ropes and was doing the smiley, meet-and-greet thing. “You folk ready to see some turtles?”

He pronounced it with a “d” in the middle.

“Turdles?”
Declan whispered, raising an eyebrow at Shiv.

“Baby turds,” she whispered back. “They’re surprisingly cute.”

The boatman received a self-conscious chorus of yesses. “
OK
.” He offered a hand to the first of the passengers. “Please, sir. Be careful when you step, yeah?”

Shiv had stopped paying attention because the young guy was making his way to the rear of the boat to join in helping people aboard. The curly black hair, the brown eyes, the slim hips, the sinuous grace of his movements. He looked eighteen or nineteen, she reckoned, but …
wow!

As the queue shuffled forward, she was tempted to position herself so he’d be the one to take her hand as she stepped off the jetty, and they’d lock gazes … but, no. They were going to be on the boat together for the next three hours, so there was no need to be too obvious. Not so soon, anyway. She got in line for Old Beardy. Smiled and said thank you as he helped her aboard. Sat down with the others. Posed for the first of the photos Mum would take during the trip. And, the whole time, Shiv didn’t catch the young guy’s eye or even glance in his direction.

Old Beardy was Panos; the younger one was Nikos. Father and son. Panos skippered the boat out to sea, while Nikos looked after the front-of-house stuff: taking the money, health-and-safety announcements, the sightseeing spiel. His English was very good. For his age, he had so much confidence and charm. The nice kind. Not the flirty, sleazy self-assurance of a guy too aware of how attractive he is. Male or female, young or old, each passenger received the same open smile, the same warm tone. To the children he was a fun-loving entertainer, while with the pensioner couple from Kent (
We’re here for turtles
, not
snorkelling
), Nikos was solicitous and respectful.

The only awkward moment came when he remarked on Declan’s T-shirt (the Salinger one, again) and asked him to display the quotation to the other passengers.

“Any friend of J.D.’s is a friend of mine,” Nikos said, offering a handshake. But Dec just flushed several shades of red and, for once, was lost for words.

As for Shiv, Nikos paid her no more or less attention than anyone else.

For a while, during the turtle-watching, she almost forgot about him. Along with everyone else, Shiv was transfixed by the strangely beautiful creatures – whether she was scanning the sea for a glimpse of a reptilian head breaking the surface, or gazing into the shimmering depths as a turtle glided beneath the boat’s glass bottom.

After lunch,
Poseidon IV
sailed further up the coast with the son at the wheel while the father sat at the prow, smoking. One way and another, Shiv wasn’t getting to see as much of Nikos as she’d hoped. The ache in the pit of her stomach had nagged at her since she’d first set eyes on him and, if the boat trip hadn’t been so wonderful, she might easily have made herself miserable. But the turtles, the light sparkling on the water, the lulling rhythm of the boat, the spectacular cliffs, the tingle of the sun on her bare skin … on a day like this, she couldn’t fail to be blissfully happy.

The boat slowed, describing a long curve into a cove where a finger of land provided a natural shelter and the sea calmed to pond-like stillness. Nikos brought the vessel to a halt and shut off the engine while his father dropped anchor.

“You’ve got your hair caught in the buckle.”

Shiv stammered a thank you as Nikos cupped the back of her head with one hand while he gently freed the trapped strands of hair.

To be standing so close to him in her bikini …
Jesus
.

She’d meant to put on her one-piece bathing suit beneath her clothes for the boat trip but had worn it without thinking for the pre-breakfast dip in the pool and it was still damp when they’d set off. The two-piece was
brief
, meant for sunbathing more than swimming. Shiv was the last of the snorkellers to kit themselves out; the others were in the water already, or lining up to go in. But Shiv had managed to make a hash of the headgear.

“There you go,” Nikos said, adjusting her mask and repositioning the snorkel for her. “So, you been snorkelling before?”

“A couple of times, yeah.”

“OK, enjoy.”

She made a sad face, as far as that was possible in a mask. “Er, sorry, I can’t.”

He looked puzzled. “How come?”

Shiv pointed at the floor. “You’re standing on my flippers.”

Nikos laughed and took a deliberate step back, arms spread in apology.

That was their first conversation. The second took place after the snorkelling, as the boat headed for home.

Panos was at the wheel again while Nikos gave his final spiel. He was talking about turtles’ egg-laying habits and had produced the dried-out remains of a hatchling which hadn’t made it from the nest to the sea. The tiny corpse, like something made out of leather, was handed from passenger to passenger with a mixture of revulsion and fascination. Shiv thought it was the saddest, most exquisite thing she’d ever seen.

After the talk Nikos set to work, repositioning the rubber fenders along one side of the boat, ready for docking. Shiv watched him covertly.

Too soon the trip would be over. The thought sunk a weight in her chest.

She noticed the baby turtle, then, lying on a seat where one of the passengers had set it down. Shiv checked to see if she would be noticed. No. Mum and Dad were engrossed in conversation with the old English couple and Declan was leaning over the side rail, one arm outstretched to catch the spray from the vessel’s wash.

“You forgot this,” Shiv said, the desiccated creature in the flat of her palm.

Nikos stopped what he was doing and straightened up. Thanked her.

As he took the baby turtle from her she felt the graze of his fingernail. She kept her voice steady. “I never knew something dead could be so beautiful.”

He smiled but didn’t say anything.

“There’s a museum in Oxford,” Shiv went on, “where they’ve got these tiny heads – I mean, actual human heads that have been shrunk to about the size of an apple and, I don’t know,
preserved
.” She was losing her way with this, waffling on. She shrugged. “Anyway, that baby turtle kind of reminds me of them.”

“Some folk think it’s fake,” Nikos said, slipping it back into its plastic case.

“It isn’t, though, is it?”

“No.” He put the case in his shorts pocket. Then, “You enjoy the snorkelling?”

Shiv nodded. Her throat was so tight she could barely talk. She had put her T-shirt back on and wore a beach towel as a sarong. Her top was translucent with damp and she was aware that her hair must be a mess, sticking up and claggy with sea water.

She managed to say, “My name’s Shiv, by the way. Short for Siobhan.”

“Irish?”

“The name is, yeah. Not me. I’m English.” She scratched around for something else to say, to keep the conversation going.

As it happened, he beat her to it. “So, are you staying this side of the island?”

“Yeah, just a few K up the coast.” She pointed, naming the village.

“Oh, I know that place. My grandmother lives near there.”

Nikos had resumed work as they spoke, loosening one of the fender ropes and letting out some extra length before refastening it. He had a livid crescent-shaped scar at the base of his right thumb, she noticed. The black hairs on his wrist were curled tight by moisture, the skin sparkling with encrusted salt.

Hardly able to believe what she was doing, Shiv told him the name of the villa.

Nikos paused, half turning to look at her over his shoulder. “D’you mind me asking, Shiv, but how old are you?”

“Seventeen,” she said, without the slightest hesitation.

4

The Make session goes ahead without Mikey. Or Webb, who escorted him back to Eden Hall after the assistants had stopped him from dashing his brains out. It took them a while to calm him down and persuade him that he needed medical attention. His forehead was caked in blood, dirt and bits of bark, one eyebrow split right open.

Shiv couldn’t believe he hadn’t knocked himself unconscious.

As Assistant Hensher led the rest of the group from the clearing and along a trail to the Make area, a shocked hush descended. It was as though Mikey had dazed them more than he’d dazed himself.

And so, now, in silence, they emerge into what looks like a picnic site, laid out with wooden tables; they enter a camouflage-green Portakabin to collect cartridge-paper, pencils and drawing boards; they go back outside to take their places at one of the tables. In silence, they listen to the instructions.

Their task is to draw the face of the person they lost.

“It doesn’t matter if you can’t draw very well,” Hensher tells them. “It doesn’t matter how close a likeness it is. What matters is that you create an impression of that face in your mind and try your best to put it down on paper.”

He stresses that, as in Walk, talking is not permitted during Make.

“Any questions?”

Lucy raises a hand. “Do we draw their living face? Or their dead face?”

After the session, Lucy falls into step with Shiv and Caron as they all troop back through the woods. She apologizes for failing to turn up in the Rec Room last night.
Tummy bug
, she says. Caron doesn’t make an issue of it, although Shiv can tell she doesn’t believe the girl. There’s just room for the three of them to walk side by side, Shiv and Caron slowing to Lucy’s pace on an uphill section. Her panting provides a backing track to their conversation. Even though they’ve spent almost two hours absorbed in Make, the talk quickly turns to what happened before that.

“D’you think Mikey’s all right?” Lucy asks. “He looked a mess.”

“It’s the
inside
of his head that’s the problem,” Caron says.

“Same here.” Shiv’s tone is sharper than she intended. “Same for all of us.”

“You’d think I’d have more empathy, wouldn’t you?” Caron says. Not nastily, though. “Sorry if this sounds selfish, but I’m here to sort out
my
life. Not his.”

“Psychiatric patients are shipwreck survivors but they do not share the same lifeboat,” Shiv says. “Each is in a lifeboat of their own, adrift on the same sea.”

The other two girls widen their eyes at her.

“Something I read on the Internet,” Shiv says with a shrug.

“You
google
that stuff?” Caron says. “’Zuss, no wonder you’re screwed up.”

They all burst out laughing, drawing curious looks from some of the others filing along the bark-chip trail in the direction of Eden Hall, and lunch. The path has begun its descent, the sun dropping coins of light all about them through the branches.

They continue discussing Mikey, exorcizing the shock of what they witnessed, it seems to Shiv – or, at least, trying to make sense of it. No amount of talking it over can rid her of the image of his smashed-up face. It might be this, or a delayed reaction to the incident – or just that she’s tired and hungry – but Shiv has begun to feel nauseous, trembly, a little light-headed.

“I thought he was trying to kill himself,” Lucy says.

“No chance.”
This is my territory
, Caron’s tone suggests. Shiv recalls her admission, at Break, about having taken an overdose. “If you’re serious about suicide,” the oldest girl says, “you don’t head-butt a tree with two care assistants standing twenty metres away.”