The Girl Below (33 page)

Obediently, I looked around, trying to find the beauty he could, but everything in front of me was awful. The cave was roughly the size of a small church, with a high grotto on one side that peaked in a cluster of sharp brown stalactites. Their yellow reflections—drowning-men’s fingers—clawed at the surface. Elsewhere, the water was black and impenetrable and flowed into side caves even more horrible than this one. The ceiling was hidden in shadow, and water bled from the walls.

“Is this place ever submerged?” I said.

“I don’t know,” said Caleb. “But sometimes the entrance is blocked.”

“By what?”

“Water.” He saw my expression and laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s low tide.”

The paddleboat rocked and a splash sounded next to it. Caleb’s seat, when I turned to it, was empty. A meter away, he surfaced and waved. “Ahoy!” he shouted, then duck-dived, his feet kicking briefly above the water before it zipped shut behind him. An orange streak passed under the boat, then disappeared.

Alone in the cave, I fixated on the spot where I thought Caleb would come up, but the boat was drifting, and the water tricked me. The hideous silence was broken by the thunk of fiberglass hitting rock, and the boat jammed up against a wet cave wall, close enough to it that I could make out wormholes in the limestone. I tried to steer the boat away, to turn the pedals, but it had snagged on something, and I couldn’t get it to budge. I tried to rock the boat back and forth to free it, and was so charged with adrenaline that I barely noticed when a large plastic halo broke off in my hand.

“Suki! What the hell are you doing?” Caleb clutched the side of the craft and hauled himself in.

“The boat’s stuck,” I said. “We can’t get out.”

Caleb had to use his full weight to restrain me, to calm me down, and even then I was shaking. “You pulled the steering wheel off,” he said, picking up the plastic ring. “What happened?”

I pushed him off, angry that he’d brought us in here; that he didn’t understand. “I told you I didn’t like caves.”

He looked at me as if I was a crazy person but finally must have gotten that I was afraid. “It’s okay, we’ll go,” he said. “Just sit down.”

I sat down. It turned out that the boat wasn’t really stuck—in my frenzy I had tried to pedal in reverse, a maneuver the rusty old vessel couldn’t handle. Steering was tricky without the wheel, but the rudder was intact and Caleb managed to guide us out of the cave and into daylight. But it wasn’t until we were well away from the cove and I felt sun on my skin that I relaxed.

“You really freaked out in there, huh?” he said, his skinny arm still around me.

I managed a smile, but felt wretched. “I tried to warn you.”

“Anyway, check these out,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his swimming trunks and taking out three or four small metal cylinders. “Pretty cool, huh?” He handed them to me.

“What are they?”

“Empty shells from World War Two. There’re thousands of them down there. Dad says it must have been used as an ammunition dump.”

I examined the casings. To a boy they were treasure but the only thing they reminded me of was the air-raid shelter, that other waterlogged tomb.

“You can keep them if you want,” Caleb said.

“Thanks.” I put the shells in my bag.

After the rescue and the gift, Caleb had a new heroic confidence about him, but I felt diminished. The beach wasn’t far away, but my legs pedaled feebly, and it took us forever to get there. As we drew nearer to shore, I saw that other people had arrived on the beach, most clustered in a group at one end.

“It’s Yanni,” said Caleb, steering in their direction and waving. “I hope he brought lunch. I’m starving. His mum makes the most amazing baklava.”

A few meters from shore, a lanky youth with caramel skin waded out to meet the paddleboat and Caleb introduced us.

“Caleb has talk so much about you,” said Yanni, his absurdly white teeth fixed in an exuberant and slightly mocking grin.

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, feeling uneasy about what Caleb might have told him.

More waifs waded out to greet us, some of them children, others slightly older with chin fluff or budding poached-egg breasts. Two skinny girls with nut-brown skin put their arms around Caleb and tickled his ribs, and he batted them off in a relaxed, brotherly way. All in all, I was introduced to a dozen teens but barely noticed their names, and with every handshake, I felt more and more out of place among these lithe, tan saplings. Led by Yanni, the group drifted back to where they had set up a camp of raffia beach mats, and Caleb cleared a space for me to sit next to him. But I stayed standing. My skin was bright red, burned to a crisp because I hadn’t applied sunscreen. The skinny girls were staring at me, at my ratty swimsuit, at my sunburn, and whispering to each other in nimble Greek.

“I have to go,” I said to Caleb. “I promised to get back and help with Peggy.”

“No you didn’t,” he said. “They’ll be fine without you. Elena’s like supernurse. She can change sheets one-handed—and Mum loves it when there’s too much to do.”

For a moment, his eyes were just a bit pleading, but I ignored them and gathered up my towel and knapsack, anxious to leave. “I’ll see you back at the villa,” I said. “Thanks for showing me the cave.”

“You don’t mean that,” said Caleb. “You hated it.” He didn’t get up to follow me, and I marched up the goat track at a ferocious pace, relieved to get away. At the top of the hill I drank the last of my bottled water and steeled myself for the long trek back.

By the time I reached Elena’s I was dehydrated and starving, but couldn’t face returning to the hospice just yet. Instead, I walked toward the village, fixated on a mouth-watering souvlaki. In the piazza, I discovered where all the men spent their days: under the canopy of a knotty fig tree, a dozen of them sat sipping ouzo, hard at work over backgammon boards. Some even gave me the glad eye as I walked past, and I felt vaguely flattered but mostly insulted by the way Mediterranean men could have one foot in the grave and still think they had it.

I found Ari at his brother’s taverna, sitting out front with a glass of pale yellow liquid in his hand. His cheeks were flushed, but not, I thought, from exertion. “Sit down a while,” he said. “Would you like a bite to eat?”

“Yes, please. I’m ravenous.” I inhaled the first souvlaki, and when another was brought out I devoured that too. After two liters of water, my thirst was almost quenched, but I declined Ari’s offer of an ouzo for the road. “I better get back,” I said. “There’s so much to do.” It hadn’t been a dig at Ari, but he took it that way.

“I tried to help,” he said. “But I got sick of them telling me I was doing everything wrong, so I just left them to it.”

Back at the villa, sickbed chores were in full swing, and I was soon swept up in a flurry of sheet folding and bed moving. Ari was right—Pippa did have a particular way of doing things, but I didn’t mind conforming to her standards as I had none of my own. In my absence, Peggy had rallied briefly, and demanded to be moved outside again. They’d been waiting for an extra pair of hands with which to accomplish the task. So with Harold and I on one side, Pippa and Elena on the other, we shunted the trolley bed—with Peggy in it—across the pebbled courtyard, its wheels snagging constantly and its cargo threatening to tip over or jump out. Once she was in place, with Pippa’s help I fashioned an awning out of an old quilt and two broom handles, but the quilt was too heavy and the tent sank in the middle. A sheet worked better, but still left Peggy partly exposed to the sun, and Pippa and I spent a good half hour applying industrial-strength sunscreen to her desiccated skin. By then Peggy had lapsed into a state resembling a coma—or so it appeared.

“She’d kill us if she knew what we were putting on her skin,” said Pippa, not bothering to lower her voice. “In her day it was baby oil or nothing.”

“I can hear you,” said Peggy, her eyes still shut.

“Good,” said Pippa. “Do you want your sunglasses?”

Peggy half-opened one eye to the bright sun. “No, I want to see Madeline.”

Her request was ignored. “Mummy, we’ve put you in the sun so you can work on your tan—remember how keen you were to get one?”

“What have you done with her?” Peggy gave her daughter a black stare, then looked away. When she saw me, her eyes widened and she seemed to do a double take. She tried to reach for my hand. “Suki, you must know where Madeline is? I know she talks to you too.”

“The statue’s in London,” I said, backing away. “We had to leave it behind.”

A look of pure madness crossed Peggy’s face. “Why are you all lying to me?” She tried to drag me onto the bed, but Pippa intervened, pulling Peggy’s hands off. While she was doing so, Peggy turned on Pippa, grabbing a handful of her hair.

“Ouch!” said Pippa, trying to shake loose from her mother, who was snarling like a cornered cat. “I know she’s here,” she said. “I’ve talked to her. She comes to me at night and sits by my bed.”

Caught at an odd angle, Pippa flailed. “Mummy, stop it. Let go!” But still Peggy held on, surprisingly strong for someone so frail. I tried to prise Peggy off, but her hand was clamped as though rigor mortis had set in. And then, just as suddenly as she’d woken up, the old lady collapsed, and her hand, holding a few strands of her daughter’s hair, fell to the sheet.

Pippa clutched her scalp and retreated slowly from the bed. Her face was white, as though she might faint. “I can’t handle any more of this,” she said.

Just then, Harold and Elena appeared in the courtyard to see what all the fuss was about, and I gestured to them to withdraw. I put an arm around Pippa’s shoulders, and felt how shaken she was. “Why don’t you take off for a bit?” I said. “Go for a swim or a walk. The rest of us can hold the fort for a few hours.” I didn’t like the idea of being left alone with Peggy, but Pippa seemed on the verge of a meltdown.

She agreed to stay away until at least teatime, and Harold and Elena and I arranged to take one-hour bedside shifts. The main task was to make sure Peggy stayed hydrated by dripping water onto her lips from a sponge. Late in the afternoon, I took over from Harold, who went to the village in search of an English newspaper. He told me Peggy had slept most of the time he was with her, and I sat by her bed with a book, hoping she’d continue to do the same. Elena was somewhere in the villa, praying or cleaning or chopping vegetables. At half past four, Peggy’s eyelids flickered and she woke up. She scanned the courtyard, disoriented, and I took her cold, frail hand and gently squeezed it.

“It’s okay, Peggy, I’m here. You’re safe.”

Her eyes locked on mine. “Suki, I’m so glad it’s you. Where’s Pippa?”

“She’s gone for a walk, but she’ll be back soon.”

“I hope she’s gone for longer than that,” Peggy said. “Quickly. Bring me my fur coat. And my photographs.” When I wavered, she snapped, “And don’t make a meal of it.”

The suitcase we’d brought from London was in Pippa and Ari’s room, and had been unpacked and hastily restuffed, so that items were bursting out of its sides. Carrying the fur coat back to Peggy, I read on its label:
GENUINE MINK; BY APPOINTMENT TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN
, and felt how heavy it was—more than the two photograph albums put together.

Peggy was waiting expectantly for my return, but when I offered to help her put on the mink, she said, “I don’t want to wear it, I want you to unpick it.”

Following her instructions, I fetched a pair of scissors, and began to unstitch the satin lining of the coat, starting near the hem.

“Not there, farther up,” ordered Peggy, grabbing the scissors and stabbing them near an inside pocket. “There, look.”

Where she had indicated, the lining bulged and, hands trembling, I began to unpick the nearest seam. Propped next to me on her elbow, Peggy wheezed heavily, from either excitement or exertion, it was hard to tell which. Under the lining, I found an envelope glued to the pelt.

“Rip it off,” urged Peggy. “But don’t look inside.”

I tried to do as she instructed, but the old, yellowing envelope tore and a wad of pound notes cascaded to the floor.

“Well, don’t just sit there, pick them up!” Peggy said.

I got to my knees and scooped up the bills. They were all fifty- and hundred-pound notes, and I realized I had thousands of quid in my hands. The envelope was in pieces, but I did my best to patch it together, and Peggy pulled me close and wheezed in my ear, “There’s a pocket in the back of the photo album, behind the last photo.” She paused to gasp for air. “Don’t let Pippa see. She’ll try and take it.”

She collapsed back onto the bed, eyes not quite closed, and for a whole minute I thought she was dead, that the sight of so much money had killed her. But it hadn’t; holding my hand in front of her mouth, I felt shallow, rasping breaths.

When Elena appeared for her shift, I tried to explain that Peggy had been upset, and perhaps ought to be moved back to her room, but Elena misunderstood, and instead gave Peggy a medicinal nip of ouzo—“No tell Peepa,” she made me promise—as well as an extra dose of morphine. Watching the tiny pump do its work, I thought of my mother, how she too had been hooked up to one of those near the very end.

In Elena’s room, behind the curtain of my sleeping platform, I discovered that one of the photograph albums had a pocket exactly like the one Peggy had described. The pocket wasn’t empty—other bits of paper had been stuffed in there too—but I crammed in the cash and ignored them. I had to return the album quickly to the suitcase before anyone noticed it was missing. I’d have to tell someone about the money too, but I wasn’t sure whom, or when would be the right moment. I knew I should tell Pippa about the money, but I also thought it might be better to wait until the others weren’t around.

When Pippa returned that night, I was exhausted and had a new respect for the stress she was under. Not only did Peggy require constant attention but she had also turned against the one person who really cared for her, and that could only have hurt Pippa deeply. She would be braced for grief, conscious at every step of the loss she was about to suffer. At least when my mum was dying I’d been oblivious to what I was about to go through, and directly afterward, too immature to feel anything but numb. But had that really been any better? Instead of grieving and getting over it, I had run away to the other side of the world, gotten into bad relationships, taken drugs—really pushed myself to the edge—then wondered what was wrong with me. It should have been obvious what was wrong with me. It couldn’t be more obvious now.