Where the Memories Lie

 

A cry from Nadia pulled my gaze away, and I saw her walk-ing Charlotte back towards us, an arm firmly guiding her. Blood 50

 

Where the Memories Lie poured from Charlotte’s nose, down her face and chin, dripping onto the sand.

 

I leaped up and got into automatic nurse mode. ‘Sit her down.’

 

I went the other side of Charlotte and pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘You need to keep pinching here, darling, OK?’

 

Nadia sat her in Lucas’s chair as Lucas grabbed some tissues from their beach bag.

 

‘OK, can you pinch it now?’ I asked Charlotte when she was settled.

 

She nodded and took over on the spot my fingers had vacated.

 

Lucas put a wad of tissues under Charlotte’s nose to stop the blood going all over her.

 

‘She hasn’t had a nosebleed for years,’ Nadia said. ‘Since she was little.’

 

‘It was you. You banged into me with your forehead when you were trying to get away,’ Charlotte said with a nasally twang.

 

‘I didn’t. I wasn’t touching you when it happened.’

 

‘You did!’

 

‘Well, never mind,’ I said. ‘It’ll stop soon.’

 

Ten minutes later, when Charlotte stopped pinching her nose, it had stopped as predicted.

 

‘There.’ I smiled. ‘All finished.’

 

Charlotte glared at Nadia. ‘It was your fault.’

 

Nadia lifted her hands in mock surrender. ‘OK, OK, sorry if it was my fault.’

 

‘Why don’t we have some lunch now, then, eh? You up to that, darling?’ Lucas said to Charlotte, trying to take her mind off it as he handed her a wet wipe for her face. Food usually took her mind off most things.

 

‘Yeah. I’m starved. I want some of those cupcakes Mum’s made.’

 

She grinned and put the tissue in the rubbish bag.

 

51

 

Sibel Hodge

 

There. Crisis averted!

 

After lunch, Charlotte and Anna were back in the sea again.

 

They’d found a couple of kids with a Frisbee and were playing with them in the shallows.

 

I sat in one of the chairs, dragging my toe through the velvety-soft sand, not really listening to the conversation going on around me because I was worrying about what to do. I couldn’t keep it inside any longer. I didn’t want to ruin the family day. And I’d tried, really I had, not to bring it up. I’d tried to forget about it because it was so ridiculous. But, well, as family, I needed their advice on it, not just Ethan’s. I knew he wouldn’t be happy with me, but I thought it was only fair they knew what Tom had said, as well.

 

‘Something really weird happened when I went to see Tom this week.’ I sat forward in the chair and glanced around at Nadia, Lucas and Chris. I avoided Ethan’s eyes, but I could feel them burning into me because he knew what I was going to say.

 

‘What, did he catch himself in the mirror again and think his reflection was Gregory Peck?’ Chris laughed. ‘I had a nightmare trying to convince him otherwise a few weeks ago.’

 

‘No.’ I didn’t join in with the laughter.

 

Instead, I told them what Mary had told me about Tom having fitful dreams and then becoming agitated and hard to settle after-wards. About how he’d said Georgia Walker was haunting him.

 

How she was apparently missing. And that he said he’d killed her.

 

Nadia gasped. Lucas’s jaw dropped open. Chris’s eyebrows shot up. Ethan glared hard.

 

‘What?’ Nadia asked.

 

‘Can you repeat that?’ Chris poked a finger in his ear. ‘I think I must’ve heard you wrong.’ He let out a slight laugh.

 

‘It’s completely crazy. I’ve already told her.’ Ethan shook his head wildly. ‘Dad’s just confused. Or delusional. There’s no way he’s talking sense.’

 

52

 

Where the Memories Lie ‘What, he actually said he’d killed her?’ Lucas whispered the word, his eyes straying to Charlotte and Anna, safely out of hearing distance as they bobbed up and down in the sea now.

 

‘Yes, that’s what he said.’ I repeated everything again for them so it would sink in.