‘How was your day?’ Simone asked.
Irene swallowed hard.
Her mother gave her a cheeky smile. ‘You can tell me.’
Irene sat down next to her mother, who put an arm around her.
‘How was yours?’ asked Irene.
Simone let out a sigh, remembering the afternoon spent with Lazarus. She hugged her daughter.
‘It was a strange day, Irene. I suppose I’m growing old.’
‘What rubbish.’
Irene looked into her mother’s eyes.
‘Is something wrong, Mum?’
Simone smiled faintly and shook her head.
‘I just miss your father,’ she replied finally, a tear rolling down her cheek.
‘Dad is gone,’ said Irene. ‘You have to let go of him.’
‘I don’t know if I want to.’
Irene hugged her mother and could hear the sound of her tears in the darkness.
6
THE DIARY OF ALMA MALTISSE
Dawn crept up on Irene almost without her noticing. She was still engrossed in the diary with which Ismael had entrusted her. What had begun as simple curiosity some hours earlier had become an obsession during the night. From the very first line, the faded handwriting of the mysterious woman who had disappeared in the waters of the bay had captured her imagination. After only a few words, she had known she would not go to sleep.
Today, for the first time, I’ve seen the shadow’s face. It was watching me from a dark corner, lying in wait, motionless and silent. I know perfectly well what I saw in those eyes, the force that keeps the shadow alive: hatred. I could feel its presence and I’m certain that, sooner or later, our life in this place will become a nightmare. I’ve finally understood the help he needs, and, come what may, I cannot leave him on his own . . .
As Irene turned the pages, the woman’s voice seemed to be whispering to her, confiding secrets that had remained forgotten for years. Six hours after she had started reading the diary, Irene felt that this stranger had become more like an invisible friend who had chosen her to be the repository of her private thoughts and her memories.
It has happened again. This time it was my clothes. In the morning, when I went to my dressing room, I found the wardrobe door open and all my dresses, the dresses he has given me over the years, shredded to ribbons, as if sliced by the blades of a hundred knives. A week ago it was my engagement ring. I found it lying on the floor, twisted and ruined. Other jewels have disappeared. The mirrors in my room are cracked. Every day its presence is stronger and its anger more palpable. It’s just a matter of time before the attacks stop focusing on my possessions and turn on me instead. I’m the one it hates. I’m the one it wants to kill. There’s not enough room for both of us in this place . . .
Sunlight flooded Irene’s room as she turned the last page of the diary. For a moment it occurred to her that she’d never known as much about anyone. Nobody, not even her own mother had disclosed the very secrets of her soul as candidly as this woman who she’d never met. A woman who had died years before Irene was born.
I have nobody to talk to, nobody in whom I can confide the horror that invades my soul day after day. Sometimes I wish I could turn back, retrace my steps. But that is when I realise most clearly that my fear and sorrow cannot compare to his, that he needs me and that, without me, his light will go out for ever. I only ask that God will give us the strength to survive, to escape beyond the reach of the shadow that hovers over us. I feel as if every line I write in this diary might be the last one.
Irene felt tears spilling down her cheeks as she thought about this poor woman’s plight. As for her identity, all the diary revealed was two words on the top of the first page: ‘Alma Maltisse’.
It was not long after that Irene saw the sail of the Kyaneos heading towards Seaview. She picked up the diary and tiptoed off to meet Ismael.
It seemed only minutes before the boat was sailing through the choppy current that flowed around the tip of the headland and had entered Black Bay. The morning light sculpted silhouettes along the cliffs that made up much of the coastline, great walls of rock confronting the ocean. At the helm, Ismael seemed unusually cheerful as he steered the boat towards the lagoon. Happy to be under the spell of the sea, Irene told him what she had discovered through reading Alma Maltisse’s diary.
‘She obviously wrote it for herself,’ she explained. ‘But it’s strange that she never mentions anyone by name. The people seem to be invisible.’
‘It’s impenetrable,’ said Ismael, who had given up trying to read the diary long ago.
‘Not at all,’ Irene objected. ‘The thing is, you have to be a woman to understand it.’
Ismael pursed his lips and was about to fire off a quick reply, but for some reason he thought twice about it.