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Evie isn’t waiting at the car. I retrace my steps again, returning to the pier. The gates have been closed and padlocked. The restaurants and cafés won’t be opening tonight, out of respect for the dead or a lack of customers.
A security guard is seated in a booth. ‘There’s nobody left inside,’ he says. ‘I checked.’
‘She could be hiding. She gets scared.’
I contemplate offering him a bribe, but I don’t have any money. I’m shoeless, in clothes that are stiff with salt. Why should he believe me?
For some reason, he relents and keys open the padlock. ‘You have five minutes.’
I slip through the gate and begin searching every corner, alcove, doorway, nook, recess and unlocked room on the deserted pier. There is a sad loneliness about the place because the kiosks are shuttered and litter blows across the boardwalk.
I come to the public toilet and go inside the Ladies, announcing myself, hearing the words bounce back from the concrete and tiles. Glancing along the line of cubicles, I see the open doors, all except for one. I knock and say Evie’s name. No answer. I crouch and look under the door. No feet.
In the adjoining cubicle, I stand on the rim of the toilet and peer over the top of the partition. Evie is below me, squatting on the toilet lid, hugging her knees, hair covering her eyes.
‘Evie? Open the door.’
She doesn’t move.
‘Did something happen? What’s wrong?’
Again, nothing. I gently cajole her, but she doesn’t react. She hasn’t acknowledged me at all.
Clumsily, I climb over the top of the partition and squeeze down beside her, unlatching the door. When I put my arms around her, she doesn’t respond. I take an inventory, examining her face, her arms, her hands, her legs. I look for blood or bruises. I shouldn’t have left her alone. I should have stayed with her.
Evie is holding her phone, pressing it against her chest. I prise it from her fingers and call 999.
‘I need an ambulance. I’m on Cleethorpes Pier.’
The operator wants names, addresses, nearest intersections, the nature of the injuries . . . When I hang up, I lead Evie out of the toilet block and along the pier to the gates. She follows me compliantly, matching my steps, repeating my questions back to me.
The security guard is waiting. He holds open the gate.
‘I need a thermal blanket,’ I say.
‘What happened to her?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Should I call the police?’
‘Not yet.’
5
Evie
This is different. My mind is still working, turning over thoughts inside my head, but I’m also outside of my body at the same time, watching myself or dreaming that I’m awake. Maybe I’m dead. No, if that was the case Cyrus wouldn’t be talking to me, telling me that an ambulance is coming.
What is the last thing I remember? The phony fortune teller and her handsy husband and being angry at Cyrus because he was going to say, ‘I told you so.’ It must be so boring being right all the time.
He wasn’t waiting for me. I walked towards the pier. There were crowds of people, gathered at the edge, staring at the water. I had to push my way through to reach the front, annoyed when they wouldn’t get out of my way. Some of them were crying or shielding the eyes of children. Others were filming with their phones.
That’s when I saw Cyrus, waist deep in water, carrying a child in his arms. I felt a surge of adrenalin and a sudden, overwhelming need to run. I couldn’t make my legs move. I couldn’t speak. It was as if somebody had hit the pause button and my life had stopped, frozen on that image of Cyrus holding a dead child, with dangling limbs and a lolling head and open eyes, staring at me. My bladder loosened and wetness spread down my thighs.
‘Oh, you disgusting girl!’ said a woman, but I didn’t see her face. I was fixated on the dead child, who looked exactly like me. How old? Four, maybe five.
They say that the first thing we lose is our baby teeth, but that’s not true. We lose our honest, unbiased memories. We begin to rewrite events, slowly altering the truth until we create a new, more acceptable story, one we can live with or tell others.
