Chapter 16 Kate

16 KATE

NOW

Kate heads downstairs, yawning. Another morning of radiant sunshine. She wants to love it, but she suspects she is irrevocably a creature of the dark, a night owl, born to burrow into earthen spaces by tree roots. Perhaps she might ask her butler for a fan to keep cool, and a blanket, for comfort. She misses her cats, the nubs of their noses against her cheek at dawn, a velvety coil at her feet.

She heads to the kitchen to make a pot of tea, then reverses course, drawn by something that doesn’t look right. The villa door is open. Just a little, about an inch, a fresh breeze spiraling in from the sea. She approaches it, confused. How long has it been open? Did she leave it like this? Her heart begins to pound, and she wonders if someone has come inside during the night. Panic is beginning to rise again.

She reaches for the phone and presses the button that summons her butler.

“Hello, Rafi? Yes, Kate Miller here, in villa two. I think my door might be broken. Could you come and take a look?”

Ten minutes later, Rafi is there with a younger colleague.

“These are new digital locks,” he says, wiggling the handle. “Sometimes a little temperamental.”

“Can it be fixed?” she asks, still talking down the fear that rose up in her before. PTSD is a difficult thing to explain to people, and it’s exhausting, carrying so much anxiety. The constant mental sorting of rational from irrational fear. Fear can save your life, but it can also drive you mad.

“Yes,” Rafi says, adamant. “But if you are worried, I can move you to a different villa?”

She watches the younger man work the digital locking system, closing the door tight, a red light on the panel confirming that it has finally locked.

“It’s fine,” she says. “As long as it’s fixed, I’m happy with that.”

“I’ll give you a new key card,” he says. “And if it bothers you a moment longer, just let me know. It is not a problem to change villas.”

“Thank you,” she says. “Perhaps I might ask for a little favor?”

He nods, glad to help. “Of course.”

“Perhaps I might get an extra air-cooling unit? And a woolen blanket? As heavy as you can find.”

He doesn’t blink at this strange request, probably a first. “Do you need anything else? I could bring you breakfast?”

She goes to say no, it’s fine, but stops herself. Yes, why not? she thinks. Her default setting is to say no to any offers of help, that she’s fine, even when she’s not.

“I’d love breakfast,” she says.

He produces a folded leaflet from his pocket and hands it to her. It’s a menu. “Just tell me what you’d like.”

He and the younger man head off, her choices selected, and she looks down from the deck at the water below. She feels fragile this morning, still wary of another panic attack. It just leaps on you , she thinks. One minute you’re completely fine, chatting with people, having a drink, and the next you’re ambushed by an invisible assailant, one that lives secretly in your own brain. She hasn’t had a panic attack for well over a decade. That took years of therapy, as well as antidepressants, which she still takes. Maybe they’re wearing off. Maybe she needs a higher dose.

Inside, her phone is buzzing. She lifts it and sees it’s a message from Darcy, sent to both her and Camilla.

Rob followed me back from the gym this morning.

Before she can reply, a response from Camilla pops up.

What??! What happened?

Darcy fires back a reply.

He didn’t attack me, but he was pretty threatening.

Kate studies the words on the screen, recalling the rough way that Rob gripped Jade’s hand by the pool, crushing her delicate fingers against his lips. Kate doesn’t usually like to judge character based on appearances. Rob stands out, certainly, with his swagger, his tattoos, eyes like knives. It’s Jade who makes her worry. She’s twenty years younger, a young woman. Could pass for his daughter instead of his wife. Walking around with an awful bruise over her eye. Kate tries to imagine Jade’s wedding day with that bruise. The whispers. She remembers how skittish she became when Rob approached.

Kate sends a reply.

Shall we come over?

Darcy:

Thanks, loves. Going to have a nap. Meet at 12?

Kate:

See you at 12. Meantime, call us if anything happens.

The door opens downstairs; Rafi has returned with a tray of food that she can smell all the way from her bedroom.

“Here we are,” he says, presenting her with a glorious full English, along with a bowl of porridge topped with banana and honey. An Americano, a tall glass of water, and a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. “You want it on the balcony? I’ll carry it upstairs.”

“Yes, thank you,” she says, and she follows as he takes it up the stairs and along the hallway to the dining area outside.

“Rafi,” she says. “Could I ask a question?”

He removes the items from the tray and lifts it to take it back to the kitchen. “Of course.”

“Well, it’s about another guest,” she says, feeling awkward. “In villa three. An Englishman named Rob. Have you come across him?”

Rafi thinks. “I think I have seen him. Very strong. Black hair. Tattoos.”

“That sounds like him. He has a tattoo of a tiger on his neck.”

Rafi nods. “Yes, I have seen him.”

She pauses, trying to word her question the right way. “My friend had a run-in with this man earlier. Do you know how we might report him to the island management?”

“A run-in?” Rafi asks, confused.

“A kind of… confrontation,” she says. “I’m just concerned, really. What happens here on the island if a guest causes trouble with others?”

Rafi considers this gravely. “I will speak to the resort manager.”

“Please don’t mention names just yet,” she says. “And if you hear anything about this man, would you let me know?”

He nods, his expression full of sincerity. “You have my word.”

SHE TURNS TO HER brEAKFAST as he makes his way back downstairs and out of the front door. Despite how beautifully it’s presented, she has little appetite for it, only managing half the coffee and a corner of buttered toast. She has a clearer sense now of the events that preceded her panic attack, a loose chain that begins to reveal a pattern: Rob’s snarling tiger tattoo on his neck, the lips folded. Then the dolphins. Somehow, these two scenes tugged the memory of finding Professor Berry in the guesthouse to the front of her mind. Funny how memory works according to its own logic, that a tiger tattoo could put her in mind of that terrible moment. The cut at the professor’s neck had seemed to snarl at her, the two folds of skin created by a blade. A half-second that expanded into an eternity, in which she felt she would be next.

It’s not real , she reminds herself, trying to summon the words she was to say when anxiety got the better of her. I am here, I smell the seawater, I can feel the wood under my toes, I can taste the coffee on my lips.

The mantra is only mildly effective. She looks down at the waves, suddenly desperate for an intervention. A shock of cold water might help to rinse out the memories that have crawled out of their hiding places.

IN HER BEDROOM, SHE PULLS out her new swimsuit from the top drawer, looking it over. Nothing spectacular about it, certainly nothing sexy. She bought it at the supermarket on a whim. Plain black, sensible straps, and, what’s more, it fits. She pulls off the tags, tugs it on, and pins her hair up before slathering on sunscreen. Rafi left her a snorkel mask and flippers in the hallway. She’ll avoid the flippers, but the snorkel mask seems practical.

Lowering herself carefully down the ladder attached to the side of the balcony, she heads to the lower deck, and from there into the water. It’s not stinging cold, as she’d expected, having only known British seas. This water is warm as a bath. It’s beautiful, and a very effective distraction.

She slips the snorkel mask on. It’s one of those full-face ones, no sticking anything in her mouth. A plastic transparent lens covers her eyes, mouth, and nose, providing her with a better chance to see the reef.

Gingerly, she pushes her face beneath the surface, curious. Instantly the world below is revealed: dozens of striped fish, unfazed by her presence, moving easily beside her. The reef is otherworldly, majestic. She recognizes the coral that looks like the tool she uses to clean her dishes, rubbery fronds poking up from the ocean floor. There is coral that looks like horns, another huge one that looks like a brain, and plenty of the type that looks like broccoli, housing smaller fish that seek refuge in flashes of blue and orange.

It takes a minute or two to get used to the snorkel, or to trust that she really can breathe underwater, so long as she keeps the tube that sticks up like an antenna above the surface. There are cool patches in the water, which feel gorgeous, and she stays there for a moment, enjoying a brief respite from the pounding heat. Deeper in the shadows, she makes out a larger shape among the fish—a turtle. She watches, excited as a child to see it here—not in an aquarium or pet shop, but in its natural habitat. It’s an unspeakable privilege, she thinks, to encounter such things as this, unplanned, without compromising the creature in any way. Well, except for the plastic in the ocean, in everyone’s bloodstream. But she’s seen no plastic out here, not even in the restaurant—all water is served in glass bottles with swing-top silicone seals. No litter anywhere; even the leaves from the trees are carefully raked from the sand and disposed of before the guests start to file out to breakfast.

There is damage here, though—the reef is vibrant in parts and dead in others, bioluminescent coral flickering its gas-blue flame beside what looks like stone, the living coral cheek-to-jowl with the dead. This is certainly not the Technicolor kind of reef she’s seen in the documentaries of Jacques Cousteau and David Attenborough, but then, this is just the house reef. Perhaps the more colorful, rainbowlike reefs are farther out to sea. She moves a little farther on through the water, toward the parts where the reef fans outward. The fish are more plentiful there, too, shoals of powder-blue surgeonfish glinting near flat coral that spreads out toward her in large terraces, like aquatic fungi.

The turtle sweeps past her, sun rays picking out the small round eyes and pointed beak, the lovely mosaic of its shell.

It darts away, spooked by a sudden flurry of water behind Kate. As she turns her head in the direction of the spinning water, a black oar slices through the surface, brushing past her head. A flash of orange above tells her she’s in the path of a kayak. She can’t make out which way it’s heading. Another oar beats down, and another. Her head rings.

The only safe option seems to be to plunge underwater, out of reach.