The Cove by Alice Clark-Platts

Author:Alice Clark-Platts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2022-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

24

LOU

She has to find Laila.

Fat drops of rain fall on her head as she hurries over the clearing towards the staff quarters. She can still taste whisky in her mouth from earlier. Why did she drink it? She knows why. Because in the moment that the woman had held out the glass, she had looked at it and felt the desire for oblivion so strong that she had no control. She had watched her hand take the glass and, before she knew it, felt the peaty burn of it down her throat.

It had been a mistake, obviously. She wasn’t going to be knocked out by one whisky and, anyway, she knows that she can’t find oblivion until Adam is back and with them all once again. She doesn’t deserve it. She is responsible for his death. Or his disappearance. She may as well have pushed that kayak out into the waves herself.

She has to see Laila. She has to feel her daughter’s warmth, the blood underneath her skin, her milky breath, soft fontanelle pulsing. Her daughter is so alive. She has to feel that life in her arms.

By the time she reaches the hut where Laila is being looked after, Lou is soaked to the skin. The monsoon arrived only a moment after Lars announced that it was coming, but that the police were not. No help was on the way. No coastguard. No search party. No one. Nobody can make the crossing from the mainland in this weather.

They are stuck together on this island in the middle of nowhere until the storm plays itself out.

She bangs on the door, shivering in her wet nightshirt. Still, she hasn’t changed. Still, she carries the shame of last night. It’s a reek that hangs off her, an indelible stain that no amount of washing or scrubbing will ever remove.

How could she have let him go like that? Drunk and paralytic. Barely able to speak, stumbling around in the dark. Yes, in her mind, their relationship was all but officially over. But he was the father of her children. How could she have let him go? What had she been thinking?

The door opens and she’s inside, grasping for Laila, pulling her into her chest, breathing in her smell, putting her cheek to hers, feeling the gentle heat of her. She lays a hand on Laila’s head and sways gently with her, crying silently.

Tita watches her from the shadows. She sits on her usual wooden chair, polished with time, her broad thighs lapping its sides. Wringing her hands, she hums the songs of the sea, of the underworld and the legends of the moon, as Lou rocks back and forth in the middle of the room.

After a moment, Lou lifts her head and meets the old woman’s gaze.

‘I didn’t mean to do it.’

Tita offers her a white-toothed smile.

‘I didn’t know he would go off like that. When I hit him, I didn’t think …’ Lou shivers, and not only from the cold of her damp nightshirt clinging to her frame.

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