Page 46 of After the Accident
We carried on walking through the market until we were almost at the edge of the village. We were out by the sign where I’d been doing the interview that morning. I don’t think he knew about it at that point, but, out of nothing, he said: ‘Mum doesn’t want me to do the doc.’
Scott:She said going back to the island would bring everything up again. Hard to disagree with that, I suppose. It has, hasn’t it?
Emma:He said it felt strange being back on the island, that it was like going back in time. I felt the same. There were so many small things I’d forgotten.
There is this spot in the village where there’s a drain cover that’s half in the road but half in the pavement. They built around it and it’s something you’d never think about – except for when it’s right in front of you. When I walked past it, I remembered cycling around that drain cover when I was a girl. Then, from nowhere, you’re right back as that little girl.
Scott:Galanikos does odd things to you. If you’ve never been, then I’m not sure I can describe it. It feels so claustrophobic, as if that village and the hotels are all that matters. Then you leave and life continues. You forget all those feelings until you go back – and then you’re suffocated again.
Emma:We sat on the grass a little past the sign. I suppose there’s an irony that we were close to the edge of the cliffs, given what happened to each of our fathers. I only thought about that later. At the time, it felt natural and normal.
Scott:When I saw Emma that first time by the car rental place, I thought she’d been coming back to the island year after year. That might have been why I was so angry. I pictured this spoiled girl carrying on as if nothing had happened. All the while, my dad was dead.
Emma:I think the crew had put Scott straight on a few things. He’d been with them just before they left for the airport and someone said this was the first time I’d been back since everything had happened with his dad.
We sat and watched the ocean for a while, or perhaps we just listened to it. I remember feeling this incredible sense of peace. I think I’d forgotten about Dad, Daniel and the rest. It felt as if this was why I was back on the island. Why it was worth it.
Scott:She said: ‘Do youreallythink my dad killed yours?’ – and it was so earnest that I knew then for absolute certain that she had no idea what happened the night Dad died. I suppose I’d spent years telling myself that I knew, but the truth is that we were in the same position. Neither of us knew what happened.
Emma:He said he didn’t know.
Scott:I was angry at the time. I’d gone to bed with a father and woken up without one. Then Geoff was named as a suspect and…
…
Are you telling me you’d act any differently? I wanted someone to blame and the police literally told me: ‘Here’s the suspect.’
Emma:He said he’d heard about my dad falling and we didn’t say anything for a while. When I first saw Scott, I had wondered if he might have been involved as some sort of revenge. I stopped thinking that when we talked on the cliffs. I wanted someone to blame in the same way he did.
Scott:What was there to say? My dad fell off those cliffs – and then so did hers. Is it ironic? It was certainly extraordinary.
Emma:There was perhaps a year-long overlap when we were teenagers where we would talk to each other about things like our feelings. Perhaps it wasn’t even that long? Either way, when we drifted, there was a hole in my life that I didn’t even realise he filled until that day on the cliffs. It was around twenty years that had passed – but we were talking like the friends we once were. He started telling me about life just before his dad fell.
Scott:I’d always assumed Emma knew what was going on, partly because she was working for her dad at the time. I guess she didn’t.
I told her that my dad wanted out of the business. Around three months before he died, Dad started talking to Geoff about potentially being bought out of the company. He was bored of property by that time. There was money to be made – but not the sort of money he wanted. Not only that, he’d already done well for himself. He used to say to me: ‘How much money do you realistically need?’ I didn’t understand it then – but I do now. He was saying he’d made enough. He didn’t need to keep buying a bigger house for us. He didn’t need more cars, or more expensive holidays. That wasn’t him.
Emma:I never knew that Alan wanted out.
Scott:I told Emma that Dad was trying to get out – but that hers wanted to expand. He wanted to buy places abroad and rent them as holiday homes. There was a fundamental difference in what they wanted and seemingly no easy way to fix it.
Then Dad died and the situation resolved itself. Daniel came in and bought Dad’s share, while Geoff ended up in a position where he never had to listen to anyone else’s opinion again, unless he wanted to.
Emma:I finally saw things from Scott’s point of view. No wonder he was suspicious of Dad.
Scott:I know we keep talking about ironies, and maybe I’ve been misusing the word – but I’ve got another one here. I’d more or less got over all of this by the time Emma and I talked. I was taking part in the documentary because the team said that, if there was anything to find, then they’d find it. I didn’t necessarily expect anything to come up. If they said they thought Dad had fallen by accident, I’d have believed them.
But, as I told Emma about those differences between our fathers, I got this sense that she was the one who was becoming convinced.
Maybe I’m wrong?
Emma:Our conversation was punctuated by these long pauses where neither of us said anything, but neither of us needed to. It was like we knew what the other was thinking.
Scott:I asked her what she was up to now and she told me about the clothes shop where she works with her friend…
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I’d have never pictured her doing that, not compared to the girl I knew. Obviously, what happened to her son would have changed her… plus prison, of course…
