Chapter One

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‘When did it all start? That is a tricky question, but thinking back, it was probably when my mother died trying to save me and my brother. Our parents had taken us on holiday, a rare event, as dad worked hard in the business he had set up. We had gone to the seaside just for the day, I think, and dad had bought us one of those inflatable dinghies. It did have a rope attachment so that the boat couldn’t float off too far, but dad, in his wisdom, decided we were too big for that and could cope with the paddles. Dad lay down on the towel that mum had laid out for him, while she sat upright, with her newly purchased sun hat perched on top of her head. I remember it was pale blue with a pink flowery lining. She watched us as we splashed about in the sea. We took turns jumping out of the boat into the shallow water and climbing back aboard. We tried to haul each other back in, but this was difficult given the amount of sun tan cream that mum had covered us in and of course by the time we’d hauled ourselves in a few times, most of the sun cream was now on the dinghy making the surface slippery. I can’t remember which of us, probably me, decided that it would be good fun to row around the cove. It wasn’t very large and we reckoned that it would take us half an hour at the most. We would be back for the picnic we had helped mum prepare.

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Sitting side by side in the dinghy, we had an oar each. For some reason, I didn’t know that when you rowed, you had your back to where you were going, so I didn’t realise we’d got to the mouth of the cove until we were the other side of it, looking in. I remember seeing my mum stand up, whip off her hat and run. She swam out to us. I’m not sure what happened next. I know she’d reached the cove entrance but she was unable to get to us. It seemed like she was swimming around the corner instead of towards us. Dad later told us that she must have got caught in what he called a rip-tide. The life-guards on the beach had a motorised dinghy which they used to bring us back to the beach. Mum’s body was never found. It could have been eaten by any number of large marine life as it floated further out to sea.

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We couldn’t have a funeral, there was no body to bury, but we did have a memorial service. The vicar let dad put a memorial stone in the churchyard so that we would have something to focus on, a place we could visit. There are always flowers left there. I don’t know who leaves them, probably dad.

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Afterwards, dad was like a robot, going through the motion of looking after us and running the business. He didn’t talk to us much. Most of his conversation was to tell us to get up, have breakfast and go to school. We seemed to have adopted the good sense of not getting into too much trouble, so we were rarely told off. When we got home from school, it was usually left to me to cook up a meal. For a while, I cooked for all three of us, but dad never ate, so in the end, I just cooked for me and my brother. I set fire to the chip pan one day, which seemed to wake dad out of his grief ridden stupor. I wasn’t allowed to cook again, for a long time.

 

It was when we got home from school that we missed mum the most, especially bed time. She always read us stories, lying on the bed with us, one either side of her. I continued reading stories to James, lying on the bed, just as mum had done. He nearly always fell asleep crying for her.

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The next tragedy to hit our lives was when James went missing. We had been playing in the vicarage garden with other children in the village. The house was empty, and the garden, being enclosed, was a good safe place to play in. We were playing hide and seek, and it was my turn to seek. I didn’t find everyone, I think a couple of them went home. I presumed that my brother had also returned home, as I couldn’t find him.

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My brother’s disappearance seemed to tip dad back over the crevice he had climbed out of. I think he blamed me, but never actually said so. There was always a plate of sandwiches or something to heat up in the microwave when I got home from school. Dad was never there to greet me and barely said a word to me when he was around. I may as well have never existed.’