Fish Soup by Michelle Heatley

Author:Michelle Heatley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

The room, once stark and empty in my eyes, feels safe, and I am comforted by the simplicity. The open shutters allow a shaft of light across the scrubbed wooden floor – a lighthouse shining a beacon across the ocean of wood. The singing cicadas fill the room with sound, and I lie back on my pillow and listen to the island.

Above the high-pitched insect song I hear voices float up from the terrace; they creep through the window and all I can do is listen.

‘It was fortunate you were near… accept my gratitude… but now you must leave.’

Cecelia talks without feeling, as if she were sending away a stray dog.

‘Please, Fredriko,’ I hear Isa call, and it sounds as if her heart is breaking.

I cannot hear Fredriko’s reply. His voice is soft and sad; all I can hear is the wind rattling the beads with such violence it is as if they are being torn down.

Isa is still crying when she sits on the bed next to me.

‘How are you feeling?’ she says, biting her lip to stop the tears.

‘Pretty rough, but I’ll survive. What was all that going on downstairs?’

‘Nothing.’

‘It didn’t sound like nothing. Are you going to tell me, or do I have to get out of this bed and ask Cecelia?’

‘Look, I said it’s nothing.’ She swallows hard, and I see her desperately bringing back the old, sensible, no drama Isadora. ‘Anyway – what do you think you were you doing on those rocks?’

It’s my turn to be evasive. ‘Trying to get a signal on the mobile, this island must be in a black hole.’

‘And who were you trying to call?’ Isa glares at me with an I know damn well why you were trying to get a signal look.

‘If you must know, I was trying to call Paul.’ Time to own up. ‘Fat lot of good it did! I was going to tell him … well it doesn’t matter what I was going to tell him. All I know is, he couldn’t be bothered to answer.’

Isa begins to fidget, then proceeds to wipe my forehead a little too vigorously.

‘Careful with the Nurse Nightingale act!’

She looks shifty, averts her eyes, and I know she’s trying to hide something.

‘Now, Isadora, you’d better telling me what’s being going on.’

‘Earlier,’ she begins, ‘after we had all that fun with the tomatoes, when you went upstairs, I called Paul.’

‘You did what!’

‘I did it for you, Chloe.’ Isa holds the cloth between her hands as if it would give her some protection. ‘You’ve been so miserable without him, I just thought…’

‘It wasn’t up to you to think!’ I’m furious, sit up far too quickly and the room begins to spin. I fall back on my pillow. ‘It really wasn’t.’

Isa looks away, searches the room as if she could find the answer, staring at the floor, the sheeps-wool rug, the chipped enamel bowl, her hands, her feet… She looks anywhere but straight at me. She reaches over to take hold of my hand.

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