than five minutes here?
I shake my head. He grabs my arm. We look at each other through our masks, my eyes pleading with his to give me more time. He shakes his head and points towards the surface.
In the distance, the other divers start heading back. I feel like taking my snorkel out and screaming. Instead, I follow Ajay out of the ship.
Before I head towards the surface, I look back once more and say a silent goodbye to my parents.
That evening, I walk into the restaurant of the large beachside hotel where we’re staying in Rhodes. People turn to stare as I pass them. I suppose I look out of place here among all these tourists, a lone wolf, as Ajay calls me, pale skin, tattoos and short black hair. Wait until they see all the other divers pile in.
Ajay and Guy are already here, sitting in a quiet corner, two bottles of beer nearly empty already. I slump down across from Ajay, unable to hide my disappointment.
‘It sucks, doesn’t it?’ Guy says.
‘Sure does,’ I say, trying to get the attention of a waiter, desperate for a beer too.
‘So you must have been young when your folks died? Did you have family who took you in?’
I nod. ‘My aunt.’
I spent that first week after my parents died imagining them coming back, found and safe. Then my aunt had come to me one morning, her bag slung over her shoulder. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s see your new school’.
That’s when it hit me, my parents were really gone and the wonderful life I’d had with them gone too. Waves of grief overwhelmed me and the emptiness of the life that lay before me seemed to unravel. I yearned for the huge cottage I’d grown up in just outside Busby-on-Sea. I yearned for my lovely room with its aqua walls like the sea. I yearned for my dog, Tommy, but Aunt Hope had refused to take him in. I didn’t want this decrepit old seaside town with its soulless school and strange homeless woman with her trolley full of shoes.
I’d burst into tears. My aunt had to postpone the visit I was such a mess.
The only thing that got me through those first few months was imagining the grey sea outside my aunt’s house was the Aegean Sea. I’d envisage diving under the waves, plucking my parents to safety. It wasn’t long before I begged my aunt to take me swimming. She reluctantly agreed, and would sit perched on a rock with her notepad and pen in hand as she watched me teach myself to swim in the shallow sea just outside the cottage. Occasionally, she’d look up and shout out some half-hearted words of advice. ‘Kick your legs harder, Willow!’ or, ‘Not like that, you look like a rhino.’
‘Did you get into diving because of your folks?’ Guy asks now.
I nod as I order a beer. ‘If the rescue divers had got down there quicker all those years ago, they might have saved more passengers. I guess I wanted to see if I could do better.’
‘Why didn’t you get into rescue diving then?’
‘I did at first. It wasn’t enough. So I did my commercial training with Ajay.’
‘What inspired you to get into all this?’ Guy asks Ajay.
‘I used to dive the forest in the lake near where I was born. I suppose it got under my skin. You?’ he asks Guy.
Guy smiles. ‘Grew up by the sea.’
When the waiter arrives with my beer, I take a sip, savouring its coolness. We all grow quiet, looking out at the sea. White buildings scatter across a nearby hill that stretches out above the waves, tourists walking up a set of steps towards some ancient ruins, the setting sun casting them in yellow. Beyond, the sea stirs, flexing its muscles, ready for another night.
Ajay tilts his bottle towards mine. ‘To the sea getting under our skin,’ he says.
I cling my bottle against his. ‘To lost souls,’ I say.
I wake the next morning, eyes adjusting to the glare of light slicing through my hotel room. There’s a ringing sound and I can’t quite figure out where it’s coming from.
‘Your phone,’ Guy says, handing it to me. He’s lying naked in my bed, his arm flung over his head to protect his eyes from the sunlight.
I take the phone, see it’s Ajay, and so I drag myself out of bed, grabbing on to the desk nearby to steady myself when I see stars. I put the phone to my ear.
‘Ajay?’ I say as I squint out of the window at the bright blue skies, the clear sea. Behind me, Guy rises and pads into the bathroom.
‘I’ve been looking through the items some of the divers recovered from the wreck,’ he says.
‘They managed to recover stuff?’
‘Only a few bits and pieces. I think there might be something here that belonged to your mother.’
My heartbeat gallops. ‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’
Twenty-eight minutes later, I’m standing in a large warehouse by the main port in Rhodes, looking at one of four tables laid out with items taken from the ship. Before me is a bag threaded with silver, its straps made from satin and silver leaves. It’s faded by the sea and time, but it looks like the bag I’ve seen in photos, the same bag Dad helped me buy Mum for her thirty-fifth birthday just a few months before I lost her.
I gently pick it up and open it…and there it is, etched into a tarnished silver plate inside:
Mummy,
Happy birthday.
Lots of love, Willow x
I clutch it to my chest, emotions so intense I can hardly breathe. I remember how excited I’d been to give it to her. Dad had made her breakfast, setting it all out in our gorgeous garden. I’d patiently sat at the table, waiting for her to come out, the bag carefully wrapped in my lap. When she’d opened it, she’d been delighted.
I look inside, not surprised to find it empty. I wonder what she kept in there that night. Her trademark red lipstick, a small bottle of perfume – that rose scent of hers. Maybe a comb?
I slide open the small zipper, carefully dipping my fingers in. There’s something in there.
A necklace.
I pull it out. It’s rusty and twisted but the pendant hanging from it is still intact. It’s a symbol of some kind, half a circle with a curved thread of gold inside.
‘Was that in the bag?’ Ajay asks, looking over my shoulder.
I nod. ‘I don’t recognise the symbol though.’
‘Looks like two initials, a C and an N. Wasn’t your mum’s name Charity?’
I frown. ‘Yes, but Dad’s name was Dan.’
Ajay shrugs. ‘Maybe it’s not initials then.’ Someone calls him over. He puts his hand on my arm. ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah. Thanks
