Soul Storm (9 page)

I feel as though someone’s watching us.

I spin round and realise it’s just the waiter. We should have finished our food by now, but our plates have barely been touched. He floats away again.

‘So, what now?’

Lewis peers out of the window. I don’t know if he’s seeing the sea, or is lost in Lewis Land. Maybe we all have private places we escape to when we need to.

‘What’s the best way to test a hypothesis?’ he says thoughtfully. ‘Experimentation. There must be a way to analyse what you’re seeing when you are convinced
you’re on this virtual beach.’

‘Really? How?’

Lewis puts his napkin on the table, runs his hands through his hair. ‘I need to work on that part. But there has to be an explanation for what you’re experiencing.’

‘And that’ll help me?’

He sighs. ‘I can’t promise anything. There’s pure science, and then there’s the application. Two very different things. But knowledge is better than ignorance,
right?’

‘I thought a little knowledge was meant to be a dangerous thing.’

And then he smiles. His eyes crinkle at the edges and he looks like he might be about to laugh. ‘Life’s dangerous, Ali, especially when I’m with you. But I kinda like it that
way.’

After lunch, we head for the amusements on the pier.

Salt and vinegar, smoking oil, burnt sugar, seaweed. It’s exhilarating. Perhaps I also feel so good because I’ve shared it now: my darkest secret.

I never smell anything this real on Soul Beach.

I try to stop myself thinking about it, but it’s too late. What is Meggie thinking, and Danny? They were expecting me to be hanging out more, not less, now it’s the holidays. And
after what they said to me about leaving, might they believe I’ve left without saying goodbye?

The thought is
horrible.

I should sneak away from Lewis, find an internet café, so I can go online, explain to my sister and Danny why I’m never there.

‘Cheer up, love, it might never happen,’ Lewis says, and he makes me giggle. He’s watching me so closely that there’s no hope of getting away without him noticing, so I
might as well try to enjoy the time before I return to top-security prison, i.e. home.

We play air hockey – I win. We lose countless tuppences in the coin waterfall, and our hands smell of dirty money.

We watch through the window of a downmarket beauty salon as women have their toes nibbled by carnivorous fish, and we watch kids staggering off the rollercoaster, unsteady on their feet.

Occasionally I catch Lewis glancing at me oddly, but I say nothing. He’s entitled to wonder about me. The main thing is, he’s going to help.

‘Dodgems, Ali?’

I laugh. ‘With your driving? I’ll be behind the wheel, thanks very much.’

As we clamber into our bumper car, there’s barely room for the two of us, and Lewis almost has to fold himself in two to fit inside. Maybe we should have taken one each.

Except there’s something comfortingly solid about Lewis next to me. His height makes me feel protected. No, not just his height. It’s his integrity, too, and his brain most of
all.

Despite everything I told him, he’s still here, at my side. If I could choose anyone in the real world to help me wade through this mess, it’d be him. No doubt.

My car tyre’s flat.

Of course, it could happen to anyone. Punctures are annoying but
normal.
You get them driving over a nail, hitting a kerb too hard.

Except I haven’t driven my car anywhere since the bouquet showdown. Could Sahara have done it, to keep me ‘safely’ confined to home?

‘Bad luck, Alice,’ Dad says. ‘Time for a vehicle maintenance lesson, don’t you think?’

I follow him to the side of the car. He’s already rolling up his sleeves. It’s Monday morning, and I’m meant to be driving myself to my first session with Olav, like a
condemned prisoner making his own gallows. Though Dad is still going to chaperone me before he goes to work, in case I change my mind en route.

If this
is
Sahara’s doing, I could almost thank her for it. Every minute spent fiddling with hub caps and wheel nuts means one less minute being patronised and psychoanalysed by
the creepiest therapist in England.

Mum comes out, hands on hips. ‘This is silly. Take her in your car, Glen. You can show her how to change a wheel later. What Olav is doing is much more important.’

Dad looks a bit hurt: I think he was getting into the whole ‘father-daughter bonding over car maintenance’ idea. Plus, I suspect he’s not quite as behind the Fixing of Alice
Forster as he’s pretending to be in front of my mother.

In the car, he offers me a wine gum. The pocket of the driver’s door is stuffed with crinkled family-size bags of sweets and peanuts. Empty ones. At least he’s eating
something.

He doesn’t speak till we’ve turned out of the close. ‘You know, if it’s not for you . . . this Olav. Well, I can talk to your mum.’

He must notice the hope in my face, because he adds, ‘Talk to her about alternatives, that is. Clearly you’re still not one hundred per cent, and though I’m no fan of therapy,
we need to get you shipshape before university.’

‘Alternatives like what, Dad? Knock-out drugs? A mental hospital?’ I regret it as soon as I’ve said it.

He sighs. ‘We realise this is hard for you, Alice. I’m just saying there are other therapists. You’re a smart kid. No, a smart young woman. I know once we’ve got the
right approach, it won’t take any time at all to get you fixed.’

Olav beams when he comes into reception, his swollen lips pouting like a puffer fish’s. Finally he’s got his two fiercest opponents into his soft pastel
territory.

OK, maybe I
am
being paranoid now. If everyone watches you for signs of insanity, after a while you start showing them.

‘Alice. Glen.’ He shakes our hands in turn. ‘So pleased you could make it.’

‘I’m off,’ Dad blurts out, as though he’s worried he’ll be frog-marched to a padded cell and forced to reveal his feelings. ‘I’m going to run some
errands.’

Like buying himself more three-for-two wine gums?

‘Shall we?’ Olav says to me, dismissing Dad with a nod and showing me upstairs.

The therapy room is painted lemon yellow, but when Olav pulls the blind to stop the sun shining in my eyes, the colour seems muddier. There are two chairs facing each other, and a table with a
box of tissues in the middle.

Whatever happens, I won’t cry for him.

‘So, Alice, shall we start by looking at how it feels to be here, right now?’

The fifty minutes go faster than I expected. It’s a game. Every question he asks, I try to think of the most evasive and confusing answer.

By the end of our treatment, I want him to be doubting his
own
sanity.

‘Right, Alice, time to leave it there, OK? But I do want to say something about getting the most out of our sessions together.’

‘Hmm.’ This is my default answer for when I can’t think of anything cleverer: I learned it from Olav himself. It’s the ultimate in noncommittal mumbles. Says nothing,
gives no clues.

‘Alice, I can tell you’re resisting. That’s normal.’

‘I’m glad something about me is normal.’

His eyebrows dart up. Funny, I was sure he’d had too much Botox to manage that. ‘But the sooner you commit to working with me, the sooner we can make things better. We could easily
spend the next four weeks playing games—’

‘Four weeks?’

‘That’s the minimum that your mother and I agreed would give me a chance to help you. Individual sessions twice-weekly, plus we’re hoping your father will agree to a family
discussion or two.’

So much for offering me ‘alternatives’.

‘Alice, I’m not your enemy, OK? It’s pretty common to resist change.’

Now I’m
common
as well as crazy.

As he walks me back down to reception, I wonder what would have happened if I
had
told him the truth. The Beach, Triti, Javier, my theories about Meggie and Tim and Zoe. My certainty
that Sahara is stalking me. My fear that Lewis, my only ally, might now run away as fast as his long legs can carry him.

I can’t help smiling. If I’d ’fessed to all that, I’d have made Olav’s day.

Dad doesn’t ask what happened. He just hands me a warm doughnut in a bag, the oil oozing through the brown paper.

‘What are your plans for the rest of the day, then, Alice?’

‘More of the same, I suppose.’

My father gives me a sympathetic look. ‘I guess these aren’t turning out to be the most exciting summer holidays you’ve ever had.’

‘You can say that again.’

All weekend I sat in the living room, trying to find a book I wanted to read, a movie I wanted to watch on Sky. I couldn’t focus on anything. What I really wanted, of course, was to be on
the Beach. But Mum locked the broadband router in the garage and announced that if we went out at all, it would be ‘as a family’ – she made it sound like a threat.

I kept remembering what Sam had said about how hard Meggie was finding things. And of course I miss Danny’s kisses, even though . . .

It seems disloyal to admit it to myself, but his words keep coming back to me:
I won’t ask you to sacrifice yourself for this limbo.

He meant the Beach, of course. But I’m in limbo here too, aren’t I? Trapped between his world and mine. The kisses always close that awful gap, but is it possible they’re a
distraction from the reality? That we’re going nowhere.

I don’t have anything to offer you except this, and this is not enough.

But not going onto the Beach was just about bearable because I knew Lewis was working behind the scenes on a scientific solution. I waited and waited for a call to reassure me that he had found
some technology that would be able to work out what Olav can’t: what’s really going on in my head.

But he didn’t call. Four days now since the Brighton trip. With every day, the dread grows. No texts. No calls. No unexpected visit.

Has he had second thoughts about me?
I don’t know what I’ll do if he has.

‘I might have good news, Alice.’

For a moment, I think Dad’s guessed how I’m feeling, and is going to tell me Lewis is waiting for me at home.

‘Your mother’s talking about booking a short holiday. I’m in enough trouble with the other partners already about how much time off I’ve had in the last year, so
it’d be just the two of you. She was wondering about New York?’

He glances at me, to assess my reaction. I try to summon up the right level of enthusiasm. ‘New York!
Wow!’

And I really hate myself, because they’re trying so hard, and only an ungrateful cow like me would not be thrilled at the prospect of a trip to NYC.

‘Let’s see how it goes with Olav, eh?’ he says, and I realise the holiday is conditional on my progress. A bribe, like a promise of biscuits to stop a toddler having a tantrum
in the supermarket.

Back home, Dad changes my tyre before he heads out to work. Mum makes me tea and I can tell she’s itching to ask how it went, but is trying to respect my therapeutic boundaries or
whatever.

‘Olav was great,’ I say.

She stares at me. ‘Really?’

‘So understanding.’ I know she’s bound to tell him what I said, so I might as well say something that will make Mum happy
and
confuse Olav even more.

‘Oh. Fantastic. I’m so pleased, Alice.’

‘I might go out,’ I say. ‘Olav thinks it’s important I don’t mope around the house all day.’

‘Fine,’ she says. ‘I’ll come with you
.’

‘Three might be a crowd at Lewis’s.’ I say it as though he’s invited me round for tea. But I have to see him. I have to know.

Mum frowns. ‘Will you call me when you get there? I’d love to say hi.’

Check up on me, she means. And make certain he doesn’t let me online.

I get in the car. He won’t like me turning up unannounced, especially if he’s already written me off.

Better to find out, though, right? Better to be put out of my misery if the last person on my side has decided I’m a lost cause.

I have to ring the bell three times before I get an answer.

Lewis comes to the door with headphones round his neck, his chin covered in dark brown stubble and his eyes half open.

When he sees it’s me, he frowns. For an agonising moment I think he’s going to shut the door in my face.

‘Oh. Hi.’

‘Sorry. I know you weren’t expecting me. You’re probably in the middle of something. I can go, if you want.’

Please don’t make me go.

‘No.’ He grinds his knuckles into his eye sockets, trying to wake himself up. ‘No, you’re all right. I threw an all-nighter on a project. I could probably do with some
human contact.’

I pretend not to hear the doubt in his voice. Inside, it’s so dark that I can’t see anything for a few seconds. Then the tropical plants that form a living curtain beyond the patio
doors come into focus. The room smells musty, of pizza and cold coffee.

‘Maybe I should have pulled up the blinds and let the light in, but I was . . .’

There’s a pile of papers on the floor next to the chocolate-brown sofa, along with the remains of last night’s takeaway. And the night before’s.

‘Busy?’ I finish his sentence.

‘Yup,’ he says, and walks past me to open the doors that lead onto the tiny patio. ‘Fresh air. Now why didn’t I think of that before? Can I sort you a coffee? Or a Coke?
You know there’s nothing un-caffeinated in the entire flat. Even my shower gel’s stuffed with it.’

‘Coffee, please.’

It really is a mess in here. If I had to guess, I’d say he hasn’t left his place since he got back from Brighton on Thursday. This is a Lewis I’m not used to. Yes, he’s a
workaholic, but he’s image-conscious, too. Everything is just so, from his designer glasses and man-bag, to the plant varieties he’s chosen and nurtured, and the caffeine in his shower
gel.