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5
Cyrus
Evie is sitting on a low stone wall with her arms wrapped tightly across her chest, holding a book. A gust of wind stirs up an eddy of dust on the pavement and lifts her hair from her forehead.
‘I borrowed it,’ she says. ‘I had to promise to bring it back.’
‘That’s how libraries work,’ I say, taking a mental inventory of her demeanour and body language, concerned about her state of mind. She shows me the photograph. ‘He was on the boat that picked us up.’
The caption reads: Cameron Radford, aged 19, died in the fire.
‘Are you sure it’s him?’ I ask.
She nods. There’s another photograph on the same page – a fishing trawler. The Arianna II.
‘Could this boat have been the one?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Where were you picked up?’
Evie spells the name because she doesn’t know how to pronounce it properly.
‘A . . . V . . . I . . . L . . . E . . . S.’
‘That’s in northern Spain,’ I say, surprised. ‘I thought it would have been France.’
‘I know the difference,’ Evie says irritably. ‘There was a harbour and a square lighthouse and old buildings.’
‘Who else was on board?’
‘People like us. Migrants.’
‘How many?’
Evie struggles to remember. I try to help her fill in the missing pieces, asking her to concentrate on the small details. How many men? How many women? Where were they from? Where were they going? How long did it take?
Evie is shaking her head. ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’
‘Try harder.’
‘I’m trying.’
‘Do you remember a fire? What about the rest of the crew?’
She covers her ears, saying, ‘I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.’
Her eyes have lost focus and I can almost see her mind beginning to slip away from me. I say her name. She doesn’t respond. I wave my hand in front of her face. She doesn’t blink. I touch her arm near her elbow. She jerks it away, glaring at me accusingly.
‘I lost you for a moment,’ I say.
‘I didn’t go anywhere.’
She holds up the book, pointing to the author’s name. Ronald L. Edwards.
‘He’s a local historian. The librarian gave me his address.’
The landscape changes as we drive north. The trees become more gnarled and spindlier, and the heather looks like lichen clinging to the rocks. Black-cloaked rooks lift off fences as we pass and return to the same spot, as though tethered by invisible strings.
