‘So I told him no, Em,’ I say, feeling tears wet on my cheeks without even noticing that I cried. ‘I told him I couldn’t go with him, and that I couldn’t see him any more. It wasn’t fair to any of us. Not to Harry, not to me, and definitely not to Alex – it’s like I was keeping him hanging on somehow. Holding him back without meaning to. Stopping him leading the kind of life he deserved. I told him no, and I’ve not seen him since.’
Em, I see, is crying too. We are a pair of emotional wrecks this morning.
‘How did he react?’ she asks.
‘He understood. He said he thought it was probably for the best. That he’d go to the end of the world for me if there was hope, but he couldn’t carry on living in suspended animation. That he’d lost Anna, and now he was waiting for me, and … I was right. We had to stop. It was terrible. Walking away from him, leaving him there that night, alone, was terrible …’
‘It is terrible,’ she replies, wiping her face. ‘I feel like my heart’s breaking. In a different world it could have worked for you two.’
‘It could – and I try hard to not regret anything. There isn’t any point is there? The moment I met him was one of the most important in my life. But it also led to the greatest pain I’d ever known … and since then? Well, I’d be lying if I said I never googled him. Never thought of him, or wondered how he was. Hoped he was happy. I’d never expected to see him again, and now I will. Now I’ll be going back to Mexico, and he will be there, and it all feels like such a mess.’
‘You don’t have to!’ she says quickly. ‘You can skip it … or you can talk to him before … he has asked if you’re coming, in our emails.’
‘Has he?’ I say, and she nods. ‘Well. I’ll think about it. Thank you for listening to all of this. Harry knows I saw Alex, but … well. I suppose there was more to it than met the eye, and I never told him that. I just ended it. Now I feel all churned up inside, Em, and I think maybe Harry does too. You are a bringer of chaos!’
‘I know I am,’ she says, grinning and standing to her feet. ‘I can’t help it – it’s a gift! And yes, think about it. There is no pressure here. I want to make a good TV programme – but not at the cost of destroying my friend.’
Chapter 27
I am waiting for Olivia to emerge from her college building when I look at the photos Em gave me. The ones that Shelley had developed, after years of leaving them hidden in a drawer.
It sounds like such a mad thing to do, leaving the camera tucked away out of sight and out of mind for almost a decade – but I completely understand why she did. That night derailed her life, killed her friends, changed everything. It takes time to build up the heart to face the reminders of such things.
Shelley had emailed them over from the land of Oz the night before. She told Em they made her laugh and made her cry, and made her miss her friends even more after seeing them all up to various acts of no good. They didn’t, though, make her remember the events of that night any more clearly.
I wonder if Shelley will find it within herself to go there, to film in Santa Maria, and what it will be like to see those people again. People who are really strangers, but who I have so much in common with.
I let the photos spill across my lap, and gaze at them. Miraculously, they do make me smile. They were so alive, these girls. I see shots of them on the coach, pulling faces at each other. Shots of them twerking in the plaza, pints held aloft. Group shots of them hugging Jorge. More pints. More dancing.
Even now, I am staggered and impressed by how much they managed to drink without once falling over. They were wonderful, and I am shot through with regret that I didn’t speak to them more.
There are a few photos of the scenery, of the stalls, of one of those hummingbirds. Some of Janey doing what appears to be a handstand in the water of the fountain. The quality isn’t brilliant – Shelley was drunk and the camera was cheap – but that doesn’t matter. Somehow they perfectly capture the spirit of that particular group of women on that particular night.
I move through the pile, and the backdrops change. A picture of one of the little boys playing keepy-uppy. One of the church.
I reach the ones Em mentioned, of me and Alex – I don’t know why Shelley took pictures of us; perhaps we were just there by accident as she clicked. We are engrossed in conversation and it feels so strange, seeing that moment captured on film. I didn’t even know his name back then.
I wonder what would have happened, if the earthquake passed us by? If the Cocos plate ramming into the North American plate sent hell running underground all the way to some other place that night?
I liked Alex, even then. I was intrigued by him, and I enjoyed our conversation, and I found him attractive in all kinds of ways.
Maybe we’d have stayed in touch, got together, lived happily ever after. Maybe I’d have gone travelling and he would always have been a pleasant and mysterious memory, a what-if that I could look back on and smile. Maybe I’d have stayed with Harry, had a beautiful baby, gone on to enjoy a traditional life of motherhood and suburbia and contentment.
It is impossible to say, and I push the pictures to one side and look at the rest.
The next few were all taken on the side streets that I remember snaking round from the central plaza, the quiet paths I wandered with Harry. Practically abandoned, as all the inhabitants were down in the square. Bright flowers around the doorways, fruit trees, the washing lines stretched out of windows. None of the other girls are in the pictures, so I assume Shelley was exploring alone.
I pick up the next few and stare at them side by side, at first unsure of what I am seeing. It’s a series of three, obviously taken one after the other.
They are of Greta, one of the girls who died on the night. Big blonde hair, bright pink T-shirt, short-shorts. She is tangled up in a man’s arms, sharing a passionate kiss. In the next shot, the man has his hands firmly placed on her Daisy-Dukes-clad bottom, which makes me giggle. In the final one, Greta seems to finally realise her friend is watching, and gives a jolly thumbs-up sign over her shoulder, while still snogging someone’s face off. These girls were masters of multi-tasking.
The man is in darkness, hidden by Greta and her hair and the shadow cast by the small houses that line the narrow street.
I am about to put the pictures away, to pack them all back up for Em, when something makes me take another look at that last series.
I hold the middle one up, examine it more closely. Squint my eyes as though that will help.
I see the man’s hands, grabbing Greta’s backside. I see his wrists. I see the bracelet he is wearing – a string of black-and-white yin-yang symbols, chasing each other around.
