Tracy Buchanan - My Sister’s Secret

I stare at it, feeling an unbearable sadness. The first time I saw it was on the front of the brochure. Even at just seven, I could sense my dad’s excitement. Finally the cruise ship he’d dreamt of building was ready for its maiden voyage. He used to read the brochure to me like it was a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar .

The next time I saw that same photo, it was shown alongside photos of the ship languishing at the bottom of the sea the week it sank. My aunt Hope had been looking after me in the ramshackle pebbledash house she and Mum had grown up in in Busby-on-Sea. We got the call in the middle of the night to confirm they’d died.

‘They’re gone,’ she said as she peered up at me in the darkness.

I’ve never quite forgiven her for that. They’re gone.

I hadn’t been able to process it properly, I was so young. I remember running to my room and slamming the door, saying ‘no’ over and over. My aunt didn’t come to comfort me. Instead, she went outside and knelt on the shore, smashing her fists into the waves as though she was punishing the sea for taking her sister away from her.

The memories dissipate. I can’t get caught up in them, I must stay focused.

So I continue swimming towards the ship, trying to stifle my grief and sadness. After a while, I see the hole in the side of the ship that the rescue divers must have made all those years ago. The lights from our torches join up to illuminate the area in front of us. The hole’s ragged and just about wide enough for two to swim through without snagging skin.

Am I really about to go in there?

I stop a moment, floating in the water, staring at the ship. Then I kick my legs hard and head towards the hole. Guy goes to follow me but Ajay holds him back. I know why he’s doing it: I have to be the first one in there. My heart clenches at that.

Thank you, Ajay.

I slide my body through the hole and the ship’s once grand dining room is right there in front of me, an eerie shadow of what it once was. I find it hard to breathe for a second, my chest struggling to take in the air being pumped from the tank on my back. The tank itself suddenly feels heavy, too heavy, and my heads swims slightly.

I try to focus on my breathing as I look around me, the rest of the divers are spilling into the hall behind me and spreading out around the area, cameras ready to take photos, to assess what needs doing. Some divers have large nets to bring items of note up to surface. But my camera stays floating from my belt. I need to see this with my own eyes, not through a camera lens.

Faded Garden of Eden murals line the walls above, a large staircase winds its way up to a gilded balcony. Nearby, a huge chandelier lies on its side, its smashed crystals glinting in the light from our torches. To my right are tables and chairs embellished with gold leaf, piled on top of each other. And in the middle of it all, now lying on its side but once lying across the dining room floor, a glass viewing pane that’s splintered and thick with sea moss.

Survivors said the first wave hit as dessert was served that evening.

I imagine the whole area coming to life before my eyes as it does still in my nightmares: the tables and chairs righting themselves, silver cutlery clinking into place, fragments of glass floating back together to form large wine glasses. I pass a smashed piano and can almost hear the soft lilt of music echoing in the background, the sound of laughter and chatter around me.

Maybe Mum would have been sitting at one of these tables in her long black dress, the silver mesh purse I’d got her for her birthday clutched in her lap. Dad would be dressed in his smart tux, his blond hair swept over his forehead. He’d be whispering something to Mum and she’d laugh in response as they clinked their champagne glasses together. This would have been a big night for them, the launch of Dad’s ship. In those last few months, he had worked into the early hours. Mum often waited up for him, and I sometimes watched her without her realising. She’d be curled up on the sofa in her silk nightie reading a book, glasses perched on the end of her nose. When the key turned in the door, her face lit up and Dad would walk in, twirling her around in his arms as she laughed.

A few nights later, they were here, in this very dining room.

But then the scene disintegrates, chairs splintering, tables collapsing, glass and silver smashing apart as my parents fade away until I’m back in the foggy depths of this sea coffin again, still an orphan, still alone.

This is harder than I thought. I’ve wanted it so long I’ve lost track of what it really means: I’m here, in the belly of the ship where my parents died.

The yellow of Ajay’s fins catch my attention. He’s filming the scenes around him for the video we’ll all watch later to assess just how much work needs doing. He heads down a corridor leading away from the dining room and I follow. Some paintings are still secured to the walls, including one of a woman in her fifties with black hair and penetrating blue eyes. My grandmother from Dad’s side. Like my other grandparents, she passed away before I was born. I slide my fingers over the canvas and it bubbles under my fingertips.

In the distance, I see the remains of a bar, stools toppled on to their sides. A large balcony appears on my right, providing a route out on to the ship’s decking area and the sea beyond.

There’s a loud creaking sound. Ajay and I both pause, his limbs floating, almost disappearing into the haze. One of the pictures falls from the wall, bobbing towards me. I push it away.

Another creaking sound.

Ajay waves his hand from side to side, the diver signal that something is wrong and we need to head back to the surface. My first chance to see the place where my parents died and I have to leave after less than five minutes here?

I shake my head. He grabs my arm. We look at each other through our masks, my eyes pleading with his to give me more time. He shakes his head and points towards the surface.

In the distance, the other divers start heading back. I feel like taking my snorkel out and screaming. Instead, I follow Ajay out of the ship.

Before I head towards the surface, I look back once more and say a silent goodbye to my parents.

That evening, I walk into the restaurant of the large beachside hotel where we’re staying in Rhodes. People turn to stare as I pass them. I suppose I look out of place here among all these tourists, a lone wolf, as Ajay calls me, pale skin, tattoos and short black hair. Wait until they see all the other divers pile in.

Ajay and Guy are already here, sitting in a quiet corner, two bottles of beer nearly empty already. I slump down across from Ajay, unable to hide my disappointment.

‘It sucks, doesn’t it?’ Guy says.

‘Sure does,’ I say, trying to get the attention of a waiter, desperate for a beer too.

‘So you must have been young when your folks died? Did you have family who took you in?’

I nod. ‘My aunt.’

I spent that first week after my parents died imagining them coming back, found and safe. Then my aunt had come to me one morning, her bag slung over her shoulder. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s see your new school’.

That’s when it hit me, my parents were really gone and the wonderful life I’d had with them gone too. Waves of grief overwhelmed me and the emptiness of the life that lay before me seemed to unravel. I yearned for the huge cottage I’d grown up in just outside Busby-on-Sea. I yearned for my lovely room with its aqua walls like the sea. I yearned for my dog, Tommy, but Aunt Hope had refused to take him in. I didn’t want this decrepit old seaside town with its soulless school and strange homeless woman with her trolley full of shoes.