The Survivors, стр. 40
Audrey began to whine in her sling, twisting her head back and forth and urging him to get moving again. Kieran could hear the surf below and see a thin strip of sand. The caves were hidden from sight.
He had been up to the lookout dozens of times since Finn died, but didn’t often go beyond the boundary. Never when Mia was with him. But every once in a while on his own. When he found himself thinking about that day years earlier when he’d stepped out onto this same track, with The Survivors already deeper than they should have been and storm clouds already gathering on the horizon.
Kieran steadied Audrey with one hand and began to make his way down the path now. He started slowly, but muscle memory quickly took over. As he walked he tried – the way he had a lot over the years – to think about that day differently. There were factors in his defence. He knew that. He could recite them as he walked down this trail he also knew by heart.
He had only been eighteen years old.
The tight bend at the jagged rock.
He hadn’t realised how bad the storm was going to be.
The smooth rock followed by a dip.
No-one had realised how bad the storm was going to be.
The first view of the caves.
He had really liked Olivia and had only wanted to see her.
The final narrow steps as the trail came to an end.
Finn and Toby were experienced enough to make their own decisions on the water.
The sand.
It had been an accident.
None of that mattered, though.
Kieran stood now on that familiar strip of beach. Out on the water, The Survivors were knee-deep. The caves were yawning black holes behind him. Maybe that was why he hadn’t felt anything much at Finn’s grave. Because whatever he told himself, or however many times he said it would be the last time, he always somehow ended up down here. Back in the same place. Where Finn was still dead, and it was still Kieran’s fault.
He became aware of a shrieking that, for once, had nothing to do with Audrey. Around the cliffs, the seabirds were protesting his presence, swooping and circling overhead. The terns were nesting, he could see now as they hovered around their babies, anxious and agitated. The birds had rarely nested here before, back in the days when Kieran had traipsed up and down all summer. They’d become less used to visitors since the safety barrier had gone up.
Kieran moved away from them, crossing the beach to the South Cave, where he and Olivia had once lingered while the day slipped away and the tide slid in. He stepped inside now, not far, just a few paces. He could see the outline of the ledge from where he stood.
He was struck, as always, by how close it was to the entrance. He walked over. It was definitely the right ledge, though; he could make out where Ash had carved his name nearby.
Kieran reached up and ran his finger over the letters. He had almost forgotten how they had all used to do that. Pull out their keys and slice their names permanently into the sea-softened rock face whenever they reckoned they’d discovered something new of interest in the caves. Only Sean had tried to talk them out of it, with predictable results. Even he had buckled in the end, and under pressure from Kieran had given in and scratched his name at the start of a route they’d mapped together in the North Cave. Sean had felt bad about it for the rest of the summer, which Kieran had thought was overkill at the time. But looking at the letters now, still legible more than a decade after they’d been made into the rock face, Kieran couldn’t believe he had ever been such a dickhead. He couldn’t remember how he’d convinced himself this was a good idea, or even an acceptable one.
He leaned his back against the ledge and turned to the glow seeping in from the entrance. The sea and the sky were both a brilliant blue and he could see Sean’s catamaran anchored above the site of the Mary Minerva.
Kieran watched it for a while, the dive flag flapping. He hadn’t been able to face going out there himself at all in those early years, not even to join his parents for an on-board memorial ceremony to mark the first anniversary of Finn’s and Toby’s deaths. But Sean had never stopped sailing out. Two years after the storm, Kieran had cracked and asked him how he coped with being on the same body of water where his brother had died.
Sean had thought about it for so long, Kieran had started to feel bad for asking.
‘It’s like a bubble,’ Sean said, just as Kieran thought he wasn’t going to answer. ‘I sort of draw a circle around it. Keep it all in there and try to carry on like I would have if it had never happened.’ Sean gave a small shrug. ‘It feels a bit easier that way.’
It was the last time they had ever talked about it, but when Sean next asked if Kieran wanted to go out on the boat, Kieran said he would. It had been about as bad as he’d feared, and he had barely said a word the whole time. But at least he’d done it, and after that it had been easier to do it again.
Kieran pushed himself away from the rock now and took a last look at the ledge. In his mind, it was always further back in the cave, buried deep. In reality, the entrance was far closer than he remembered. There was no reason he shouldn’t have noticed the storm drawing in so fast. No excuse there.
He walked with his daughter back out to the beach, shielding