Page 104 of Sunrise By the Sea

‘Is there?’ said Huckle. ‘What’s it like?’

‘Revolting,’ said Marisa. ‘I mean, if you think that’s a drawback.’

‘Okay,’ said Huckle, as Daisy and Avery sang a loud and extremely rude song off the radio. ‘Well, I might have to think about it. Do you know how long you’ll be away?’

Marisa shook her head shortly. Neither of them wanted to state the truth: until they knew the outcome, either way.

‘I wouldn’t mind if Polly stopped doing pizza for a couple of weeks,’ said Huckle. ‘She needs rest.’

Marisa nodded. ‘She does. Also think of how much pent-up demand there’ll be when I get back.’

Huckle looked at her and smiled.

‘Well, look at you, all optimistic and stuff. I think you’re going to be okay.’

They pulled up outside the station which the twins mistook for the drive-through and started shouting about chicken nuggets.

‘Thank you,’ said Marisa. Inside the car had felt safe and private and contained. Outside, the world was bustling and busy and nothing like the quiet of Mount Polbearne at all, and full of people shouldering their way through normal life, whatever that was. It was undeniably unnerving.

Huckle hefted her wheelie suitcase out of the boot and watched her wheel off into the crowd, worried about her, and slightly worried about his wife if they never saw her again.

Chapter Sixty-three

She very nearly didn’t make it. It was the smell of the airport; that mix of booze and anxiety and diesel and duty-free perfume: all sorts of things bubbling up to fuel her nervousness.

It felt so familiar: the desire to press herself against the wall, to render herself invisible. There was comfort in it, somehow, the old familiar panic; the comfort of the familiar even as she knew it was coming, a storm pulling up around her, a tornado, and she was standing directly in its path, her breath growing shorter, her hands trembling with the inevitability of everything she couldn’t do, of all the way she had yet to go, of how very, very difficult it is to change meaningfully, to change yourself, to get away from what is comfortable to you; all of it is unspeakably difficult, to step out with the sandworms, and she didn’t want to. She’d rather take the punishment beating of the panic attack, even as she leaned against the wall, felt her vision clouding over.

No. No. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t just wait to be engulfed in this chest-squeezing, appalling thing she thought might kill her at any moment She wasn’t having it.

She clenched her fists and remembered what Anita and the book had said: try and control your breathing and think of your happy place. Your calm place. Remember it. Find it.

She shut her eyes tight. She could feel other people passing her, sense them looking at her, a girl in an airport corridor.

She focused hard on the sand between her toes, her grandfather’s hand . . . but it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t feel it, couldn’t block out the roaring in her ears, the sound of a tannoy, the tightness in her chest, the beads of perspiration on her brow . . . It was so hot, why was it so hot, why was she so fricking hot? She felt she was going to pass out . . . everything was going a little wobbly around the edges, as if the world was zooming in and out of focus, and oh God was she going to faint, and she tried to focus on the beach, the beach with her grandfather, but all she could think of was hernonnabeing taken away in an ambulance, and sometimes people did die and—

‘Excuse me, are you all right?’

It was a young, friendly-looking girl in glasses, afro, backpack, looking concerned.

‘Oh, thank you so much,’ Marisa managed to stutter out to a perfect stranger. ‘I’m fine . . . thanks for asking. I just hate flying.’

The girl smiled. ‘If you hold on to the armrests really tightly, you know, that’s what keeps the plane in the air.’

Marisa felt herself trying to catch her breath.

‘You’re all right,’ said the girl. ‘Are you all right?’

Marisa closed her eyes again. And this time she didn’t see the beach. Instead she saw a blue room, with a sea view, with lamps, and food, and a piano. She breathed in.

‘Through your nose, that’s it,’ said the girl. Marisa half-opened one eye.

‘You seem to know a lot about this.’

‘Anxiety?’ snorted the young woman. ‘Me and half the world, mate. You’re hardly the only one.’

And Marisa thought about all the people around her who had picked her up and dusted her off – even this complete stranger – and, somehow, came back to herself.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m all right. I’m all right.’

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