C.J. Cooke - The Blame Game

‘You did it, Dad!’ she squeals, high-fiving me. ‘Five points for Gryffindor!’

Reuben comes in through the front door, his dark hair and shorts dripping wet. I’m careful to be calm around him. No eye contact. I’m still in his bad books. He dumps a plastic bucket on the floor.

‘We can’t go home,’ he announces flatly.

‘Daddy pancaked the ceiling,’ Saskia says.

‘Five points for Gryffindor,’ Reuben says, deadpan. ‘Look what I found.’

Saskia peers into his bucket and squeals. I tell her to shush, she’ll upset Reuben, but his focus is on the baby turtle, its head no bigger than the tip of my thumb, its shell covered in zigzag patterns. It sweeps its flippers back and forth as though it wants to swim.

‘We should take it back to the water,’ I say as Saskia plucks it out of the bucket and cuddles it to her chest. ‘His mum must be looking for him.’

‘Like Finding Nemo ?’ Saskia says.

‘That was a clown fish,’ Reuben replies.

‘Dude,’ I say, imitating the turtles in Finding Nemo. ‘What up, squirt?’

Reuben falls silent, and I freeze, expecting one of two reactions: he’ll either storm out of the room or he’ll slug me across the face. Reuben isn’t often violent but when he is it’s ugly, given that he has the strength and height of an adult. He looks like he’s thinking really hard about something. Maybe he’s trying to control his anger.

‘Righteous!’ he says suddenly, a big grin lighting up his face.

‘Curl away, my son,’ I say, suddenly glad that I watched Finding Nemo ten million times.

I raise my eyebrows at Helen who is standing there with her eyes like saucers and her jaw on the ground, stunned that Reuben has actually spoken to me. He’s deeply forgiving, full of love, but I could hardly expect him to react any other way after what happened at Josh’s birthday party.

I was only trying to protect him. That’s my job. My whole reason for existing.

I wake to find Helen sitting at the end of the bed wrapped in a yellow towel. She’s on the other side of the mosquito curtain but I can make out her gold hair, braided down her back, the web of the Celtic tattoo on her shoulder just visible in the dim light. I sit up quickly, amazed that I actually slept , and she tells me to relax, it’s OK, but I’m covered in sweat and my heart is racing. I was dreaming. Bright images pitch and mulch in my head like a soup. When Helen comes into focus I see her face is filled with worry.

‘Are you alright?’ she says. ‘Bad dreams again?’

I push my fingertips into my eyes, trying to blot out the disturbing images in my head. For years, the same dream. A door made of fire. I’m standing in front of it with the knowledge that I have to open it, because on the other side is paradise, a land of pure, endless happiness. Sometimes I’m alone. Sometimes I’m with Helen and the kids, and I have to take them through the door, but I worry about them getting hurt. I always wake in a sweat. Sleeping pills washed it away and now it’s back, as vivid as ever.

‘I went for a swim,’ she whispers. I take her hand, wondering what’s wrong. She looks shaken.

‘You OK?’

‘I saw something weird. It was probably nothing. I don’t know.’

‘You saw something weird where? Out in the water?’

She nods and holds a finger to her lips, urging me to keep my voice down. ‘In the beach hut next to ours. They had a telescope just like the one we have in the living room.’

A telescope? Ah yes, I remember. The scope on the tripod we moved into a corner so the kids wouldn’t knock it over. We presumed it was for spotting sharks and rays in the water outside.

‘And?’

‘It was pointed at our hut.’

‘What was?’

‘The telescope.’ She gives a shudder. ‘It was creepy …’

‘But … didn’t the butler say all the other huts were empty as of yesterday?’

She bites her lip. ‘That’s the other thing. When I looked in the window of one of the rooms the bed was unmade. There were clothes on the floor. It looked like someone was staying there.’

‘Maybe one of the groups stayed on? Or a late booking?’

‘But why would they point the telescope at our beach hut?’ She looks on the verge of tears now, terrified. ‘It felt like someone was watching us.’

I tell her I’ll check it out myself. But if I’m honest this has me worried. The fire at the bookshop was no accident, I know that, but I can’t say too much about it to Helen. We were being watched at home, before we left. I saw a guy watching the shop right before the fire. Same car outside every day for a week, and then he followed me home. Couldn’t say anything about this to the police, of course. They’d ask questions. Why would someone be watching you? It was the reason I pushed for us to go abroad for an extended holiday, to buy some time to think.

I can’t change what happened to Luke. I can’t stop them from hunting our family. But I can definitely work out a way to protect us.

I don’t go back to sleep. Nothing unusual about that, though tonight I’m wired, all my senses on high alert. I’ve learned to manage on about four hours a night, with the occasional catnap during the day to keep me going. Four nights a week I’ll set my alarm for 3am and get up to work out. Arms and abs on Mondays and Thursdays, a ten-mile run on Tuesdays and Fridays. Then I read, answer work emails, maybe tidy the house or go for a walk. We live near a beautiful tow path in England and at sunrise you see all kinds of wildlife: otters, foxes, hedgehogs. I’ve tried to persuade the kids to come out with me but they’re not morning people.

Here, though, the wildlife is something else. We’re about a mile from the rainforest but even so, I spot a monkey in one of the trees at the side of our hut. He helps himself to the coconuts, then spies a half-empty packet of crisps left out by one of the kids on the decking. I film it all on my mobile. He’s right in front of me, so close I can touch him. Completely unafraid. I set down my can of Coke to reach out and stroke him. Amazingly, he lets me, then reaches out and snatches my Coke before running off. Little git.

I put my hands in my pockets and take a walk up the bank to the road that links all the beach huts. The family from Alabama are gone, and good riddance. Too many questions about where we were from, why we were here. One of the kids screwed up her face at Reuben and said loudly, ‘Why are you so weird? ’ Yeah, so she’s only a kid but the parents didn’t correct her, didn’t tell her gently not to be rude. They just laughed.

The road is clear of cars, meaning that there aren’t any guests in the huts. So why would Helen have seen clothes in one of the bedrooms? There’s nothing but rainforest for about twenty miles. Someone could have been dropped off at one of the huts, or the guests could have gone out for the day. Holiday season’s virtually over, though. That’s what Kyle said.

I walk on the sand, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. The moon is bright tonight, a long causeway of silver light tossed over a slate of ocean. I walk carefully around the hut and when I glance into the living room window I make out the shape of the telescope pointed not at the sea but towards our hut, just like Helen said. It could just be pointed at the north end of the bay, though. Hard to tell. The dolphins like that end of the bay so it’s feasible that they were watching the pod … The other windows are at the back of the hut, too dark to make out what’s inside. No lights on. The palm trees sway in the breeze and the sea sweeps forward and back, exhaling. No movement, no sign of anyone around.

After ten minutes or so I turn back.