The Lake Louise Sharland (each kindness read aloud txt) 📖

Falmouth isn’t much different to how I remember it; still a mixture of crumbling Georgian architecture and modern dormitories, with their prerequisite solar panels and living grass roofs. I find myself fumbling for a tissue from the glove compartment, recalling my last visit.

I had come to collect Michael’s things, insisting Adam wait for me in the car park. This had seemed like my final duty, and mine alone. I passed a sea of solemn faces as I made my way to the headmaster’s office, where the cardboard boxes were stacked impatiently by the door. Rice pudding. One of the boxes holding my dead son’s precious belongings had once contained tins of rice pudding. If Michael were still around, he would have found it hilarious.

I take a deep breath and blow my nose. My loss feels as intense today as it did six years ago, but there’s work to be done. I set my shoulders and carry on. It won’t take me long to find a brand-new Fiat 500 in the staff car park.

I hear the jingle of car keys before I see her. Turning, I’m surprised by how different Siobhan looks. Gone is the perpetual ponytail, t-shirt and jogging bottoms, replaced now by a tidy bob and standard office uniform of black pencil skirt and white blouse.

‘Shiv … Siobhan?’ My voice is shaky, weak.

‘Yes?’ I can see uncertainty in the girl’s eyes, and then suddenly, the clarity of recognition. ‘You’re Michael’s mum aren’t you?’

I smile and hold out my hand. ‘Kate,’ I say softly, ‘Kate Hardy.’ Then conscious of the uneasy look on her face add, ‘I hope I didn’t frighten you.’ I can sense her unease. ‘I was in the area, visiting friends.’ The words feel as false as they sound. ‘And, well, I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.’

‘Questions?’

Siobhan watches as I remove Michael’s diary from my shoulder bag. ‘Yes,’ I continue. ‘Questions about Michael.’

‘I’m not sure—’

‘Please,’ I say, near tears. ‘You’re the only one who can help me.’

Siobhan gives a reluctant nod and leads me to a nearby bench. We sit in silence.

‘I still think of him, you know,’ she whispers.

I smile gratefully. ‘I’ve been staying at Michael’s grandmother’s house. She’s recently had a stroke.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs Hardy.’

I turn to Siobhan. I can see that her earlier look of uncertainty is now replaced by one of sympathy.

‘While I was at Mum’s I found a few of his things.’ I swallow hard. ‘Things I never knew existed.’ I hold out the diary, the page opened to ‘Jawbone Ridge’, one of his poems in progress.

‘I know this,’ Siobhan whispers, her eyes scanning the page. ‘I told him it was amazing.’ She shakes her head and grins. ‘Whoever thought a macho swimming star could write poetry?’

I turn the pages to his entries about Diving Fish. I watch as Siobhan’s cheeks redden.

‘I don’t think,’ she says, ‘I can do this.’

I feel hope drain away like water into sand. ‘Please,’ I beg. ‘That’s not all I found.’ I get out my mobile and show her the photos I’ve taken of Lisachick’s email, and of Michael’s text to Diving Fish. ‘Can you see why I’m so confused? I need to know who these people are, and what connection they had to Michael.’

Siobhan sighs and hands the diary back to me. ‘There’s a pub just down the road,’ she says. ‘I think you’re going to need a drink.’

11

The Old Wheel is as drab and run down as its name suggests; worn carpets, sticky tabletops and a constant jangle and flashing of lights from a fruit machine. I get us a couple of white wine spritzers and find a secluded table in a tiny alcove. We sit sipping our drinks and gazing at the faded photographs of local football teams, before finally daring to make eye contact.

‘What exactly is it that you want to know, Mrs Hardy?’

‘Everything.’

Siobhan takes a sip of her drink and clears her throat. ‘I don’t know a lot really. Only that after October half term things really started to change with Michael.’

‘What do you mean by change?’

‘He just seemed different. You know, got very secretive about everything. He stopped hanging out in the common room, didn’t spend his free time with us.’ Siobhan takes another sip. ‘He always seemed to be sneaking off somewhere. It was pretty clear he was up to something.’

It takes a moment for me to remember to breathe. ‘And this Diving Fish person. Do you know who she is?’

Siobhan shakes her head. ‘Not a clue.’

‘Why do you think he called her Diving Fish?’

Siobhan smiles sadly. ‘I think it might have been something to do with a story our Swimming Coach told us. She was always throwing motivational quotes and stories our way, most of them rubbish. There was this one she told us whenever we were messing around or getting distracted from our swimming,’ her brow furrows as she tries to remember. ‘A Chinese proverb or something about someone so beautiful that when the fish saw them, they forgot to swim, dived to the bottom of the sea and drowned.’

The word drowned sends a sliver of ice through my heart.

‘I’m sorry Mrs Hardy – I didn’t mean to—’

‘It’s all right.’ People say things like that to me all the time. They don’t realise that six years, six days, six minutes is irrelevant. Time has no meaning, no perspective, when you’ve lost someone you love. But I don’t have time for sentimentality. ‘If it was an actual relationship, why would he keep it a secret?’ I take a sip of wine to steady myself. ‘I get that he may not have wanted me to know – his mother, I mean – but wouldn’t he have told his friends?’

Siobhan seems reluctant; coy. Running her fingertips along the side of the wine glass, she makes tiny circles in the condensation. ‘I’d heard things, rumours; but he never told me anything. And if they were both under sixteen—’

‘And in an intimate relationship,