Page 66 of The Blue Hour

There is water coming into the car.

There is water coming into the car!

It’s OK, it’s all right. It’s just a nightmare, he remembers now. It’s just a nightmare.

It’s not a nightmare.

He’s been sick again.

He needs to get out of the car. He must get out of the car, he needs to do it now, it’s not too deep yet. He’ll wade across, it’s not that far. It’s not too deep. It’s not too far.

The water is freezing, it is already up to his thighs. It buffets him one way and thentearshim the other. He loses his footing almost instantly, he gasps in terror, he struggles to stand, he cries out. Help me. Help me. There is no way he can get to the other side, he has to go back, he has to turn back.

Oh, he’s so tired.

The cold is torture, it’s like ice, he cannot stand it, he cannot stand it another moment, it is agony.

And then it’s not so bad. It’s not so bad. It’s not so cold, now.

He thinks of the black paintings.

No, not those, not Vanessa’s black paintings, the originals, Goya’s black paintings, hanging in the Prado in Madrid. He visited when he was younger, he was with a girl, he can’t remember her name now. Not Helena.

He is the dog, the Drowning Dog, trying to keep his head above water.

Helena. Oh, Helena.

The baby.

He sees the light again, water splashes against his face. If he could get back to the car, if he could just get back to the car, thenmaybe he’ll be all right. His phone! Where is his phone? If he could hear her voice again, just once.

He hears her voice.

She is calling him, a voice is calling his name.

It’s the gulls. The gulls are saying his name.

He sees the light again, from the lighthouse, it is strobing, flashing faster now, faster, it is no longer white, now it’s blue.

Now it’s blue.

Now it’s blue.

Vanessa Chapman’s diary

I didn’t think to stay so long.

I thought it would be a few years, a decade at most. Back then, I thought I had all the time in the world, I thought I had a lifetime. I did, I suppose – it just turns out to be rather a short one.

The Glasgow doc had nothing good to say.

In the car on the way back, I thought about the first time I ever crossed over, the first time I saw the house, the house I’d bought sight unseen. I was so brave then! And so young. For the first time in forever I thought about that clipping that arrived, the one I was sure had been sent by a friend, but which no one ever owned up to. It suddenly came to me – Julian! Of course it was Julian, trying to get rid of me, giving me a gentle shove. He of all people would have known what it was I’d be unable to resist.

Poor Julian, he sealed his own fate.

Grace was out somewhere when I got back to the island, so I went up to the studio and cried and raged alone. I feel so cheated – I wanted to burn the place to the ground.

I never could, of course.

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