Page 28 of The Beach Holiday

‘Sadie, we need to start moving forward. I’m going to ask you a series of questions. Hopefully I can get a few answers to them that might help me help you.’

I look at Dr Bhaduri and blink slowly. This was all getting too much anyway. The flashbacks had increased the last few days. I was worrying more about Jane coming back to see me, and the piles of paper in the wardrobe were getting out of hand. If he could do something to ease some of my worries then that would be helpful. I wasn’t going to turn my nose up at that.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Fire away.’

Dr Bhaduri looks at me over the top of his glasses for another moment then lets out a long sigh. He uncrosses one leg and crosses it over the other, then puts his reading glasses on and looks down at the paper in his lap.

‘Okay. Let’s start with the basics, shall we? When was the last time you remember seeing your friend Avril?’

The name in this room sounds alien. I try to form a whole picture of her in my mind and keep it there, but the mind is an amazing thing. If you don’t see someone for a period, you very quickly stop remembering what they look like.

But I couldn’t picture Avril in my mind.

Avril. Had I mentioned her name to them? When would I have told them? At the beginning when they found me in the Pacific Ocean floating like a piece of driftwood?

‘I don’t know who you mean,’ I say eventually.

I know that is not what Dr Bhaduri wants to hear; I can tell by the way his lips part slightly that he is letting out a long breath.

He wants me to give him more. I know I should. But the words simply won’t come.

20

THEN

Three days passed since Clara’s accident and I still hadn’t seen her. I had asked, and my requests had been either ignored or brushed off until I felt stupid asking again. Despite being assured she was being looked after and that disturbing her was not going to help her recovery, I thought about her day and night. I dreamt vividly of her, and I kept replaying the incident in my mind. Each time I tried to replace the part where I was in the water alone and I heard commotion, into something more comprehensible. Putting in the missing piece of the narrative so I could see at what point Clara was injured. By Kali. Was it pure irresponsible behaviour or a total accident?

I wanted to see Clara because she was my friend, and I knew that seeing people who cared about you when you were unwell was ideal for aiding recovery. But I was being made to feel as though I didn’t know enough about anything. Andit wasn’t anything anyone had said, just an energy they were emitting. I was wholly concerned for my friend, and they were not. I felt the very opposite. This was my new home and I had spent that time trying to get myself accustomed to the way everything worked and trying to fit in. I didn’t want to stand out as someone who was incapable of adapting to this sort of lifestyle, and it did need adapting to, but I wanted to hurry the process along. I wanted to be seen as one of them and not some naive little girl who didn’t understand camp life and was still fuelled by old-school ways and ideas.

I wished I was able to relax and get on their wavelength. They didn’t seem to worry about anything. Yet I was panicking that no one seemed to be talking about Clara. In such a small community I didn’t want to be the one to stand out despite how much my mind was on my roommate.

Avril passed through the camp that afternoon and I approached her.

‘How is Clara?’ I asked her.

Avril looked at me and it seemed to take her a moment to register what I was saying.

‘Oh yes, she’s okay. But, Sadie, she has said she doesn’t want to see anyone. She hates the way she looks and feels at the moment. She knows you’ve been asking after her; she’s such an independent thing.’ Avril said the last part of the sentence as if it were an afterthought.

‘But she knows I’ve been asking after her?’

Avril nodded firmly. ‘She does. I’m guessing you won’t want to go back to the fishing anytime soon, so how about we get you cooking? I know it’s not on the rota for you to cook, but I don’t think anyone would mind this once,’ she said loud enough thatthe two women I knew as the mothers who were on cooking duty this week had heard. One flashed the other a look, and then they both looked at me.

‘Sure,’ one said and threw me a tea towel, which I caught. ‘Gives me a night off.’ She swaggered off out of camp.

The other woman looked at me and smiled.

‘I’ve not started preparing anything yet, so it’s all yours,’ she said sweetly, and I felt her calm energy more so than her friend. The kitchen was a place where many liked to make their mark, and I imagined by now, there were certain women who thrived there. I couldn’t help but feel as though I had just stood very heavily on their toes, but Avril was keen to let me have a go at cooking, I supposed, as a way to keep my mind off Clara, and I was keen to accept anything that would occupy me and deter my thoughts from the horror of what I had seen.

‘Another chef is exactly what we need here,’ Avril said quietly once both women were out of earshot. ‘It’s not that they aren’t good, it’s just nice to have a fresh input sometimes.’ Her gaze followed where they had walked, then she turned to me and touched my cheek.

‘You are a breath of fresh air, Sadie.’ Avril’s voice was low and husky. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ She kept her hand there.

‘I’m glad I’m here too,’ I said, but as I said it I couldn’t ignore the doubts that had begun growing within me. Had it started when Avril had lied to me about how long it would take to get here? Since then I had tried not to let my mind create a monster out of the other things that had cast a shadow over this otherwise beautiful experience. Yes, Clara had been hurt, but she would recover, and I was in a wonderful place full of beautiful women with so much to give. Without ever knowing it truly,this was the place I had always meant to end up in. And because it was never somewhere I had properly envisioned, it was going to take a while for me to fully realise it, to feel it and to relish it.

I had come from a society where everything happened instantly. Food arrived in minutes; information was at the touch of a button. Here things were slower. The culture was unfamiliar and I couldn’t have been more back to basics if I tried, and yet there was this part of my brain still pulling me back to the UK, reminding me of the alternative.

‘I think it would be good for me actually,’ I said as Avril dropped her hand away and began tidying up the area around her feet, gathering discarded bits of wood and leaves. It was amazing to see what a difference it made to the small cooking area.

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