Page 21 of After the Accident
Julius:I watched the end of the storm from the balcony. There were quite a few lights on from the other windows of the hotel and I think lots of people were doing the same. I thought about getting the girls up, but they were sleeping so peacefully. I can’t remember the last time they were that tired.
Emma:There was a coffee machine in the cottage, so I made myself a mug and then watched the storm peter out. It was only a little while later that the sun started to rise. The view from the hotel is nowhere near as wide or clear as the one from the cliffs – but I sat and watched it anyway. The sky was flaming orange and I thought about the old saying ‘Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.’
Claire:Red sky in the morning, sailor’s warning.
Emma:Some of the staff were sweeping water into the drains, but, within about an hour, it was as if the storm had never happened. Everything was dry again and the sky was cloudless and blue. I thought about Dad in hospital and wondered if there would be more improvement. I thought about Mum and her diagnosis – plus how this was the last thing she needed. The holiday felt like a mistake, but I’d had such a great night with the twins that I was stuck not knowing how I really thought about it.
Julius:I pulled the curtains and went back to bed as soon as the lightning stopped.
Emma:Before prison, I never understood exercise. I hated PE at school and didn’t see how anyone could ever take pleasure from running around.
When I was inside, it was a gradual thing, but gym became the thing I looked forward to the most. It became the start of my routine before I knew that could be so important.
That morning, after the storm, my legs were itching, like they were craving the exercise I’d not given them in a couple of days. I went into the cottage and put on my running gear and then left the hotel.
If I’d waited another couple of hours, it would have been too hot, but the temperature was perfect.
I ran down the slope towards the village just as a pair of delivery trucks were pulling in. There was one with a Coca-Cola logo and another with Pepsi. It was this really normal thing and yet you’d never see it during the day. There was a peacefulness about something so utterly mundane.
I continued through the village and out the other side. The road gets narrower there and the verges are overgrown grass. It was only as I was running past it that I remembered the Grand Paradise Hotel. They’d started building it ten years before and, at the time, it was said that it was going to be the biggest and best on the island. There were brochures and Dad had talked about switching our annual booking to the new hotel when it was ready.
When I ran past the site, I realised that it was still this half-finished, abandoned patch of land. I didn’t stop running, but I did slow and look across the site. There were foundations and a couple of walls – but that was about it. I suppose the developer ran out of money. The grass was up above my knees and it didn’t look as if anyone had worked there in a very long time.
I kept moving and cut in on a path that took me out towards the cliffs. I stayed away from the edge but followed the shape of the ridge all the way back around the coast until I ended up going past that single cone that was still on the spot where Dad fell.
It was laughable really. Worse than having nothing there.
After that, I was back at the front of the hotel. I was sweating so much that it was running into my eyes and stinging. Trying to rub it away was only making it worse, which is why I almost missed Mum walking towards the taxi. I was past her when she called my name. I stopped and tried to clear my eyes while she asked what I was doing. I didn’t get a chance to answer before she laughed and said it was a stupid question. She told me she was off to the hospital, but then asked if I was going back to the cottages. She said she’d forgotten her phone charger and that she wanted to take it to the hospital in case she ended up being there all day.
I’ve thought of that moment quite a bit since it happened – but I honestly can’t remember whether she asked me to fetch it for her. I think it might have been one of those things that was implied. If she was going back for her charger, she would have said that.
Whatever was said, I ended up going through the hotel, out towards the cottages.
I went into mine first to grab a towel – and then let myself into Mum’s with the spare key I’d been given by the manager. Mum hadn’t told me where the charger was, but I started by looking next to her bed, because that’s where I keep mine. The first thing I noticed was that the bed didn’t look slept in… either that, or Mum had got up and made the bed herself. It was probably nothing important – but I forgot to ask her about it because of what happened next.
I couldn’t see her charger in the bedroom, so I went through to the combined living room and kitchen area. There was a big suitcase on a table that was resting in an alcove of the wall. I thought the charger might be in there, so opened it up and started looking.
…
I didn’t go looking for that envelope – it was just there, sandwiched between a pair of Dad’s trousers. The flap wasn’t sealed. Maybe I opened it up to see what was inside, or maybe it fell out. I don’t think it matters. I don’t know why anyone would care how I found it, only about what was inside.
I should have taken a photo of it so that people would believe me later on, but that’s easy to say after the event. At the time, I was struggling to understand what it meant. I almost didn’t believe what I was seeing. I picked it up and turned it over, then twisted it around, trying to convince myself it was real.
It was a driving licence: a normal, British plastic card with Dad’s photo on it. He was giving one of those dead-eye stares to the camera like you have to do for those things. You’re not allowed to look human – but anyone would still recognise their own dad.
The problem was that it wasn’t Dad’s name on that licence – it was Alan’s.
Chapter Twelve
THE BEST PASTRIES
Emma:I couldn’t figure it out. I wondered if it was an old licence that actually belonged to Alan – but the issue date was from about six months earlier. By that point, Alan had already been dead for more than eight years. Then there was Dad’s photo. Everything looked new.
When I was fifteen, one of my friends at school said she could get us all fake IDs. There were about ten of us and we all gave her a fiver with a passport photo. She came back after the weekend with an envelope full of fake student cards, with every one making us seem three years older than we were. I had my first drink in a pub using that card. I was thinking of that as I was holding the envelope. It was a fake ID, with Dad’s photo and Alan’s details.
When we were kids, we needed those cards to make us look older – but Dad had this to make him look like Alan… to make him look like a man who’d died nine years before…
It wasn’t just the ID in the envelope. There were a couple of sheets of paper and a small key. I remember ‘Ag Georgios’ being written across the top and thought it was probably a person. There was a separate line that had ‘#133’ on it.
