‘I’ve interviewed the people you’ve already seen,’ she answers, ‘plus some others. I tracked down the supremely sexy Dr Martinez, who is now at a different hospital, and talked to him and some of the nursing staff about what it was like over those few days. I haven’t been back yet … to the village.’
‘Do you plan to?’ I ask, wondering how I’d feel about that. If I could even do it.
‘Yes. I think so. I’ll need to film there, no matter how hard that might be. I’m told it became a bit of a ghost town for a while – nobody wanted to go back there to start with, which you can understand. But I think in the last couple of years there’s been some rebuilding. There’s a new church, I’ve heard.’
I let that thought settle in. New church. New homes. Maybe new tourists, who knows? Much as I like to keep an eye on earthquake activity, I’ve studiously avoided keeping an eye on Santa Maria.
‘I don’t know if you remember Janey Gregor and Shelley Dawes, two of the Australians?’
I nod, and she continues. ‘Well, I’ve met with them. Marissa … well, she didn’t make it.’
I frown in confusion, as Marissa was the one in the burns unit. She made a full recovery, and went back home to Sydney to be with her boyfriend. Shelley was still in a coma when I left, but is clearly alive and well now.
‘I thought Marissa recovered?’ I ask, wondering if I’ve got the names switched around somehow.
‘She did, physically. Apart from the scarring. But … well, according to her boyfriend, she never recovered mentally. She died a year after.’
I bite my lip and dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands to stop the tears that threaten to spring up as the full weight of Em’s words sink in. As I realise that she is telling us, as subtly as she can, that Marissa took her own life. I remember her as one of those carefree young girls, laughing and giggling their way around Mexico. I look at Harry, see that he is equally as distraught.
Em reaches out and touches my arm briefly, united in our shared grief.
‘It’s one of the things I’ve noticed most,’ she says. ‘How the earthquake has affected us all so differently, how we’re all still to some extent “surviving” all these years later. Still learning how to process what happened that night.’
I nod, understanding what she means.
‘Have you talked to everyone involved?’ asks Harry. ‘Have you talked to Alex Andersson?’
My eyes flick to Harry’s, taken aback by the unexpected question. Shocked by hearing Alex’s name out loud. Like a splinter trapped in the soft flesh of my heart.
He shrugs and looks at me. ‘I know you’re wondering what’s happened to him, Elena. So am I.’
‘I haven’t spoken to him yet, but I think I might be close. Hopefully. Turns out that Andersson is pretty much as common in Sweden as Jones is here. Did you stay in touch with him?’
‘Just for a little while,’ I reply quietly, hoping to leave it at that.
‘Elena met up with him a few times, didn’t you?’ Harry says. He turns back to Em and adds, ‘I think it helped them both, having each other to talk to. Plus it gave Elena a bit of time away from me every now and then, which she thoroughly deserved. It was a lot, what we were going through, and I know her friendship with Alex helped.’
He’s right: it did help. For a while. A few weeks after he went back to Stockholm, Alex contacted me and apologised for the kiss. For the way we’d left things.
I didn’t think he had anything to apologise for, but I think we both knew that if we were going to stay in each other’s life, we needed to draw a line under it. Revert back to being friends.
So we emailed, shared stories, occasionally talked. He was trying to rebuild his life in Sweden and I encouraged him. I was trying to rebuild a life in the UK, and he supported me in a way nobody else did. Here, I was too busy being strong for Harry’s sake – but with Alex, I could be weak, and sad, and myself. We were friends – the very best of friends.
When he first suggested meeting up in London I felt both excited and worried. Would it be awkward? Would it feel wrong? Would it be somehow betraying Harry?
When I discussed it with him, Harry was astonishingly understanding. He gave me his blessing, seemed to understand that we shared a bond, an experience, a friendship that I needed back then. A friendship that I still feel the loss of today.
I can feel Em’s gaze on me, and try to calm my breathing to a steadier pace. She seems a bit like one of those human lie detectors, and I am not quite ready to have this conversation. Not quite ready to remember when I last saw Alex.
‘I haven’t spoken to him in years,’ I reply. And it’s the truth. The last time I saw him, on a cobbled street in Paris, we were both in tears. Even now the pain of that memory can take my breath away.
‘Well. We’ll find him, I’m sure,’ she says, smiling at me reassuringly. ‘Hard to tell your story without his, isn’t it?
‘Anyway, if you’re both up for it, I thought we could get some footage today? The lighting is perfect here by the sea, and then we can film some more stuff back at your home. Ollie will be operating the camera and you’ll have a lavalier microphone attached to your clothing, so you don’t need to worry about speaking loudly or anything. And, I promise, I’ll do everything I can to make you feel comfortable. You don’t even need to look at the lens, just look at me. Okay?’
I nod, but in all honesty I’m barely listening. My mind has fluttered away, to another place and another time, to Alex. To when I last saw him, and how much I miss him if I let myself think about it. To a future that might bring us into each other’s lives again, if Em finds him.
‘That sounds fine,’ says Harry. ‘Right, Elena?’
