No! No, it can’t be.
A figure wearing a heavy skirt, and with long red hair, which is snapped around her face by the squall. She has stopped, her hands shielding her eyes, staring out towards the boat. Then she turns and begins moving back towards the land, running away from the barriers, away from the sea and our tiny vessel.
And then I see why.
Another figure is running along the barriers towards her – towards us. A man. He has seen our boat and gives a cry, pushing past Con and moving towards the end of the barrier, the part we will have to pass through to leave these islands.
I’m not close enough to see his blond hair or that sneering, handsome face, but still I recognize him. Even if we do get past him, Con will be left alone with him.
‘Shit,’ I say.
Cesare follows my gaze and says something in Italian that I don’t understand.
‘I have to go back to help her,’ I shout above the wind.
‘I will come with you –’
‘No! No, you mustn’t. He will kill you.’
‘I will not leave you,’ he calls. And he is already trying to turn the boat, trying to row away from the current that surges between the two halves of the barrier. And I love this man so much. This man who will risk his life for me without hesitation. This man who says, I will not leave you, with utter certainty, as if he is telling me that the sea is wet, or the sun is hot.
On the barrier, Angus is running still, but Con is following him, is running behind him. And I see what she intends.
I pull on the oars harder. We have to reach the barrier before she gets to him. But it is hopeless. The current has gripped the boat and is dragging it towards that gap between the piled rocks and steel and stones, where the water roars. We will be carried through and will leave them behind. I will be leaving Con alone in the darkness, on the lonely blockade, with him.
‘Con!’ I call desperately. But she has already reached Angus. She shoves at his back, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t waver, doesn’t stumble. I watch him grabbing at her arm, see him shouting something into her face. I see her shake her head and try to fight him off. But he won’t let go. And our boat is being dragged further away from her.
And then I’m standing up and the boat is plunging, and the sea is surging.
Cesare calls out and grabs my hand, but I shake him off.
And I see Con pushing her hands against Angus’s chest.
I watch him lose his balance and flail backwards.
I see him grab hold of her.
I watch them begin to fall together.
I hear her shout my name.
I jump.
The water hits me and I go under, fighting upwards to the surface, fighting against the current that is dragging everything towards the barriers. A wave crashes over my head and takes me under and twists me around. For a moment, everything is a mass of roaring water. There is no air.
I swim desperately towards light and life, but there is nothing except bubbling confusion. My lungs burn.
I surface briefly and gasp a lungful of air, fighting to see Con or Cesare. But the boat is gone and the wild water around me is empty. Terror and panic swamp me. I have to find them. I swim towards the direction of the barriers, towards the place where I might be able to drag myself out. But another wave crashes over me, taking me under.
And then something grabs at my leg, pulling me further down, pulling me deeper, in towards the rocks and metal under the barrier.
And I know that the hand must belong to Angus, and that he is trying to drown me. And I know that the only thing to do, the only thing that will keep me alive, the only thing that will keep Con alive, wherever she is, is to drown him first.
Part Five
These violent delights have violent ends.
From Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare, Act 2 scene vi
September 1942Constance
After we have put the body in the quarry, after we have put the metal heart on the chest, we sit near the barrier for the rest of the rain-soaked night, hollowed out and shivering.
My clothes are damp and stiff with salt and my fingers are raw from where I’d scrabbled at the rocks. Dot’s are bloodied too, and she shudders violently.
She’s lost so much. I can’t allow her to face any punishment for this. None of it was her fault. And in the morning, there will be answers to give.
So, as I watch the sea shifting from pewter to silver to white, I plan what I am going to say.
And when the guards come to fetch us, to take us away, I hold my hands out and I say, ‘She didn’t do it. I did it. It was me.’
But Dot says almost exactly the same thing, her words blurring with mine and she holds out her own wrists to be taken away.
‘Don’t!’ I say to her, and try to grab her, but a guard seizes her and, to my horror, they begin taking us in different directions. They lead Dot over towards the camp – and I suppose they will put her in the Punishment Hut. But they push me in the direction of the hill and the chapel.
Before Dot disappears out of sight, I call, ‘It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.’
And I hope she hears me. I remember what Dot had told me about the darkness of the Punishment Hut. I remember she’d told me about the chains and the damp soil and the smell of rust and rot. Why would they put her in there? Is it because she tried to escape, because she tried to take Cesare away?
Cesare. Something
