‘He’s a friend. There are more good men than bad.’ Her smile is tired. ‘Took me a while to realise that.’
I find that I can’t look at her, which is ridiculous. She touches my shoulder, and when I flinch, she sighs.
‘Go out onto the balcony. I’ll bring us some coffee. And then you can ask me anything you want to.’
The balcony is small, the table and chairs plastic. I sit, look out at all those blues and yellows and greens. No rocky coastline here after all, but a long, sandy bay and a pier surrounded by wooden fishing boats. I can hear the rattle of mooring rings, the creak of straining hawsers, and I fix my gaze on a boat painted red and pastel blue, bobbing low between waves.
When El comes out with the coffee, I do look at her. It’s still so new, so strange to be able to do that, to know that it is her. It’s been so long. Far longer than just these months that she’s been gone. It’s been years. Lifetimes.
She sits down. Sighs. ‘I needed Ross to believe I was dead. I needed you to believe that he’d killed me. I needed him to let you go. And then I needed you to let him go.’ A long pause. ‘So I lied.’
‘But why couldn’t you just tell me? Why didn’t you ever trust me?’ It’s what has hurt the most.
‘God, it wasn’t you I didn’t trust, it was him!’ She takes hold of my hands. ‘I wanted to tell you, of course I did. I wanted to tell you everything. But I had to save your life like you saved mine. And I knew you wouldn’t believe me. Couldn’t believe me.’
Because believing hurts. No one has ever lied or hidden the truth from me better than I have.
‘After the trial,’ I say, ‘why didn’t you get in touch then? Let me know you were alive? What did you think I would do? Tell the police? Choose him over you?’
‘I thought you would forgive him. That’s what you do.’ She looks out to sea, blinks to hide the tears I’ve already seen in her eyes. ‘I’m counting on it.’
But I can’t. ‘You wasted years of your life in an abusive relationship. You wasted years of our lives – our lives, El – because our crazy father chose to choke you first instead of me? You made me think that you were dead!’
‘I’m the eldest, Cat,’ she says, as if it’s the most logical explanation in the world. ‘I’m the poison taster. I’m supposed to look after you.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ I get a sudden flash of Mum: the meanness of her frown, the pinch of her fingers; cold eyes and a sharp, hard voice. And I’m as close as I’ve ever been to admitting that a part of me has always hated her – even now, even knowing what she did for us.
‘I need to know why. I need to know how.’
Her smile is pure El: half-defiant, half-sorrowful. ‘Then ask me.’
‘How did you get here?’
It’s a question with a thousand answers, I realise, but she only nods. ‘After I … scuttled The Redemption, I kayaked to Fisherrow. It’s an old harbour in Musselburgh, mostly disused now. No one saw me.’
‘You were the person in the parka, weren’t you? Seen hanging around the house that day? Coming out of the alleyway?’
She nods again. ‘I dumped the kayak in the shed. And I’d hidden a Survival Pack under the bed in the Clown Café. Just like we used to. It had been there for months. Money, clothes. There was a neighbour, a friend. We both once volunteered at a charity for immigrant families. I told her about Ross, and she gave me a false passport and papers. Before I decided that I couldn’t run.’
Because of me.
‘Marie,’ I say.
El’s surprise makes her look better, lighter. ‘You know her?’
‘Ross didn’t send you those cards,’ I say. ‘It was her. She sent them to me too.’
‘God.’ El’s shoulders slump. ‘Poor Marie.’
I feel angry again, and I don’t know why. El sees it, visibly squares her shoulders.
‘I got the express to Heathrow. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do, where to go – I just needed to get away. I ended up buying a ticket to Mexico because it was the next flight leaving for another continent. But I was so afraid that Ross was going to find me. I kept thinking, any minute, he’s going to appear, he’s going to walk right through those airport doors. And find me.’ She half laughs, half sobs. ‘And the only thing that kept me sane was wondering if Andy Dufresne had been just as scared. When he was crawling through that tunnel, that pipe, those five hundred yards of shit; when he was so close to being out, to being free, after all those weeks and months and years of being so far.’
Instantly, my anger dilutes, mixed with all that new relief and happiness; the sheer joy of knowing that she’s here. The luxury of being angry with her.
‘I came here maybe a month after Mexico. I’d gone south to Costa Rica because I was still too scared to stop running, and then there it was on a map in a bar. Santa Catalina.’ Her smile is fleeting. ‘And I thought, is that why I bought that ticket to Mexico? So that I could come here? So that I could stop running?’
I close my eyes. I’m aware that I’m doing what I always do – circling around the pain so that I don’t have to feel it. So that I can pretend
