lantern across the sea. And when Steve let himself go at last and called out her name, Annie, Annie, she cradled his head in her arms and kissed his eyelids, and afterwards they lay still together and the murmur of the waves broke over them all over again.
‘Today, with you, has been one of the happiest days I have ever known,’ Annie said, almost to herself. That it couldn’t repeat itself, unfolding into other days until they were old, was both its sadness and its strength. They had known this day, at least. That was what Tibby had meant. Suddenly, with certainty, Annie knew that that was the truth.
‘Remember it,’ Steve echoed.
‘Remember it,’ she echoed, sealing the pact of the day.
She lay in Steve’s arms with her mouth against the smooth warmth of his skin, and fell asleep listening to the sound of the sea.
Annie dreamed the dream again.
The blackness was not just dark, but a terrible weight on top of her. She was pinned by it, crushed and bleeding, and in a minute, in a second, the weight would collapse and she would be blotted out. She opened her eyes wider until they stung in their sockets and there was still only the acrid dark. She was utterly alone. She knew that, because she was shouting somebody’s name and he couldn’t answer her because he was gone, or dead. She was certain he was dead. Terror engulfed her as she heard the rumble beginning overhead and beneath her. Now the rocks would smash down, and the pain would destroy her. She struggled, with a last, impossible effort, and reached out into the empty darkness.
But it wasn’t empty. She was calling his name, and he answered it. His arms held her as she sat up, gasping and sobbing.
‘Annie. Annie. I’m here. It’s all right.’
‘Steve?’
‘Yes. Yes, I’m here.’ His voice was low, and calm, and she felt the terror falling away in ugly swathes.
‘The dark.’
‘I know. It’s all right. Look, there’s the lighthouse.’
And through the window she saw the beam of it, bright, and regular, and beautiful. Steve held her until her breath came steadier. He kissed her wet eyelids and brushed the matted damp hair out of her eyes. She shuddered and lay against him, letting the ordinary reality of touch and sight and smell lift her out of the black terror. ‘Was it the same dream?’
‘Yes. Exactly the same.’
With one arm still holding her, Steve reached out and turned on the light beside the bed. Annie saw the reality of the patchwork quilt and the beamed ceiling; their discarded clothes and her own belongings laid out on the top of the chest of drawers. Colour flooded softly back into the room.
‘Look at me now,’ Steve said. She turned her head slowly. He took her fingers and pressed them to his face. To Annie it was as if they were in the wreckage again, but she could see him now, and touch him, and she wasn’t afraid any more.
‘It’s over,’ he said. She listened carefully to the echoes in the words. ‘You’re safe now.’ With their linked fingers he touched the fading scars on her arm and shoulder and the long one across her belly. ‘We survived. We made each other survive. It’s all over, Annie.’
She nodded, suddenly mute with exhaustion.
‘Lie down again.’ Steve turned out the light once more.
She did as he told her, and he drew the quilt around them. Without knowing that he was doing it, Steve put his arms around her and held her exactly as he had done in the worst moments, when he was afraid that she would die. But her breathing was regular now, warm on his cheek, and her face when he touched it was clean and smooth.
It’s over, he told himself once more. He remembered when the rescuers came. He had let go of her in the end, under the arc lights in the icy air. Now, the dim sweep of the lighthouse beam was like the faintest echo of those same lights. Involuntarily, uselessly, he held her tighter. ‘Are you still awake?’
Her cheek moved against his shoulder. ‘Yes.’
‘Are you still frightened?’
‘No,’ Annie said. ‘Not any more.’ She was certain now, as sure as she would ever be of anything, that the terrible dream was gone and that it would never trouble her again. ‘The dream is over too,’ she said. ‘It won’t come back any more.’
In the darkness, with only the faint grey shimmer of the lighthouse as a reminder, Steve smiled with his mouth against her hair.
They lay for a long time, holding each other, in the old position. And then, at last, they fell asleep.
The sun rose over the sea, and filled the rooms of the blue house with penetrating light. When Annie went to look out, yawning and wrapping herself in her robe, the fishing fleet was coming in, drawing after itself a double wake of silvery, foaming wash and black swooping gulls. The diesel engines chugged in the stillness. Steve came and stood beside her and they watched the wake from the boats fan out and reach the shore in ripples which rolled over on to the shingle with hardly a splash.
Remember it, Annie told herself. Remember it.
They stood in silence for a moment and then Steve said, lightly, as if it were any day, ‘I think we should have a proper seaside breakfast. I’m going to the shops.’
Annie sat on the duckboards of the balcony, her knees drawn up and the sun warm on her face, and waited for him. The first of the fishing boats was winched slowly up on to the shingle, the rusty old engine on the beach painfully grinding.
She heard Steve come in again, and begin to clatter in the kitchen. She went downstairs, barefoot, padding in and out of the shafts of sunlight. She stood in the kitchen doorway smiling, but then Steve glanced sharply at her and her smile faded.
‘What is it?’ Annie asked.
She stared around the kitchen, seeing the box of eggs and the brown paper bag of groceries, the unfolded newspaper and the coffee pot waiting on the table.
Steve hesitated and she felt the cold pulse of her heart, and then he picked up the newspaper. He came to her, holding the front page for her to see. Annie thought, Martin. Tom and Benjy. What’s happened to them, while I’m here, away from them? No, please. Please not that … not now, and here.
She looked down in bewilderment at blurred photographs, mugshots, two men and a woman. The meant nothing to her and the fear that had leapt into her throat subsided again. They’re always here inside me, she realized. Wherever I go.
She knew, suddenly and with utter conviction, that there was no decision to be made. It had been made, long ago, with the times that had become memories whirling like confetti in the darkness.
‘What is it?’ she repeated stupidly.
‘Read it.’
Annie forced her eyes to focus, skimming over the words. She saw, Arrested in South London. In connection with the Christmas bombing. There were names, absurdly ordinary, and aliases. Suspected political affiliations. Continued on back page. She knew that on the back page there would be a reminder of what had happened on that day. Perhaps a photograph of the bombed store.
She
