Page 17 of Someone in the Water

Frankie

Lola is at Hotel Paoli.

How can she be there after everything I’ve done to keep us both away?

But now I need to go back. For Lola.

I slam my foot against the decking in frustration.

Why did Mum keep those postcards? She knew I never wanted to talk about that place again.

That I needed to lock it away in my past if I wanted to have a future.

And then once Lola did find them, why didn’t she come and tell me, ask me, rather than conspiring with her friends and taking a secret trip by herself?

I look at the date on my phone: 26th of July. Tears well in my eyes as I realise how close it is to the anniversaries. And in five days’ time, it will also be the most terrifying night for me to be in Corsica. The 31st of July. Whatever happens, I need to get Lola off the island before then.

I push up to standing and my whole body feels weary. I’ve only slept for about three hours, but I think my exhaustion has more to do with the emotional toll of hearing Lola’s news than sleep deprivation. Especially knowing who she’s with now.

I sit at the table and pull my laptop towards me.

Without letting myself think too hard about the consequences, I click into Skyscanner and look for flights to Corsica.

There aren’t any to Figari until Wednesday, which is the closest airport to Porto Vecchio, but it’s not a big island, and I can get on a flight to Ajaccio Napoleon Bonaparte – named after Corsica’s most famous resident – first thing tomorrow morning.

It means that Lola will spend another night alone, but it’s the best I can do.

God, I hope she follows my advice to not ask any questions.

I book a seat on the plane, then look back at my phone.

It’s 10.30 a.m. I’ll need to go home first, pick up my passport, then leave for Gatwick around three in the morning, but I still have time to kill.

Really, I should try and sleep. But with Lola at Hotel Paoli, and all those memories resurfacing, I know that I’ll see my friends’ faces every time I close my eyes.

Sometimes alive. Sometimes dead. And what will that do to me?

Send me spiralling again? Summon up the worst nightmare of them all?

I capture that terrifying dream on canvas to stop it coming for me in my sleep. But what will happen if I can’t paint?

I’ll do something constructive while I wait instead. A task to distract me. And if I’m going to get Lola out of Corsica before Thursday, I’ll need to be as efficient as possible.

An hour later, I sit back and rub my eyes.

From what I can glean from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office website, Lola needs a crime reference number before she can apply for temporary travel documents – which means visiting the police station as soon as I arrive tomorrow.

I hate the thought of going back to that place, but I need to remember that Lola’s situation is completely different from mine.

We’ll be in and out in five minutes. And hopefully that misogynistic police officer will be long gone.

Then we need to contact the closest British consulate, which is in Marseille – on the French mainland – to apply for the documents.

They take twenty-four hours to produce, and the consulate works seven days a week, so assuming they can send them next-day delivery, we can be on a flight home – or a ferry to mainland France if it comes to it – by Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest.

I don’t have the energy to pack up all my stuff, but I’ve rented this place for two weeks, so I can come back once I’ve got Lola safely back to the UK.

Instead, I shove my favourite clothes in my holdall – the cut-off denim shorts and white T-shirts, the Quiksilver sweatshirt and O’Neill windbreaker – and wolf down a big bowl of cereal.

Then I lock the door on my refuge, and head back into the world.

It’s hard to believe that I only left my house yesterday – so much has happened since – but its familiarity is welcome.

The air is thick with July heat, so I head to the kitchen and push open the back door.

I run the tap until the water finally turns ice cold, then pour a large glass.

I sit on the back step to drink it, and as I stare at the lilac lavender wafting in the breeze, my eyelids grow heavy again.

I should go to bed. If I’m driving to Gatwick in the middle of the night, I owe it to myself – and Lola – to at least attempt sleep.

I head upstairs to my bedroom, pull the curtains closed, strip down to my underwear, and climb into bed. Sunlight is still streaming through the cracks, so I pull on my eye mask, and everything goes black.

But the darkness triggers my memories. I see Izzy in a bar, dancing wildly to Beyoncé.

And then lying on her bed, the night air too hot for sheets, confiding in me about her father, and how losing him changed the trajectory of her life.

I see Dom. Laughing, sad, humiliated, bleeding.

And I see Archie and Jack. Archie’s glass of Long Island iced tea tipping against mine with a conspiratorial smile.

Him looking at Jack, like he still can’t believe his luck.

And Harriet. Fucking hell, Frankie! You’re a shit friend!

And then I see waves. And rope. And Salvo’s wizened face. And then they’re dead.

I push the eye mask off my face, catapult my body up to sitting, suck in air.

My heart is pounding. The water I gulped down earlier sloshes in my stomach.

Emotion swamps me and I burst into tears.

Why did it happen? How could I have let it happen?

And how the hell am I going to find the strength to go back there?

When I’m all out of tears, I push back the duvet and head into the bathroom. I run the shower and step inside – cold first, to calm my burning skin, then hot, another pointless attempt to scald my guilt away. The shower does its job of waking me up, but I know it will only be temporary.

When I’m dressed again, I head back downstairs and make myself a cup of strong coffee.

If I’m not going to sleep, then I need to do everything possible to help keep my body awake.

It’s a three-hour flight to Corsica. Maybe when I’m buckled in, flanked by happy strangers heading off on their summer holidays, I’ll finally be able to drift off.

A few hours later, I lock up for the second time in two days, this time with my passport zipped inside my jacket pocket and a new set of clothes in a cabin bag, and start the two-hour drive to Gatwick Airport.