Soul Beach

important question of all. The one that never leaves me, even in my nightmares.
    ‘Meggie? Who killed you?’
    The screen freezes. The early morning mist reappears. The sound of the waves fades, and then the display turns a thousand shades of blood red, like a sunset after a massacre.
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    ‘Meggie?’ I whisper first, and then scream. ‘MEGGIE!’
    But I’m back on my homepage, and when I try to click back to the site via my introductory email, my browser simply tells me The URL you have entered does not exist. Please check your spelling or try later .
    ‘Are you OK in there, Alice?’
    It’s my mother, back from Group. For a moment,I imagine telling her that I’m not OK, not at all, and why. The thought makes me laugh, in a hysterical sort of way. ‘Fine, Mum. Fine.’
    But I’m not fine. I’ve lost my sister all over again, and I don’t know if I can bear it this time round.

12
    The questions in my head stop me sleeping until my overloaded brain shuts down at four or five a.m. And then I’m so deeply asleep that Mum has to come in and wake me for school, something she hasn’t done since I was in Year Ten.
    ‘Come on, Miss Wonderland. It’s like trying to wake the dead.’
    I freeze, halfway between lying and sitting up.
    My mother freezes too. Then her Grief Buddy training kicks in and she tries hard to smile. ‘You know, it’s only an expression. It doesn’t have any power to hurt us any more than we already have been.’
    I can’t speak. Now I’m awake, the memories of Soul Beach flood my brain and I wish I was there, with Meggie, and then I remember I’ve been thrown out of paradise.
    Mum sits down on the bed. I know that look. She’s building up for a proper talk . If I’m lucky it’ll be sex or drugs. Anything but . . .
    ‘Olav has set up a new group, for younger people, and I wondered whether you might be interested in trying it out.’
    ‘A group for other kids with dead relatives?’ I can’t think of anything worse.
    ‘Yes!’ she says. ‘Not like the stuffy group I go to, this is much more informal. There’s no theme to the sessions. A chance to chat, that’s all.’
    ‘Who would go to something like that?’
    She looks hurt.
    ‘Sorry, Mum. I don’t mean you . But I’ve got Cara and Robbie to talk to.’
    She ignores the suggestion that she’s got no friends. ‘Well, Olav already has a dozen potential members, all in their teens. I’ve met some of them at socials, they’re a lovely bunch.’
    I say nothing. Images of Soul Beach distract me, and I can still hear those waves.
    ‘Alice?’
    ‘Sorry. I’m not really awake yet.’
    ‘No. Of course not.’ She shifts on the bed. ‘I’ll leave you to get dressed. But, remember, however supportive Cara and Robbie try to be, they can’t begin to understand. At the group, there’ll be people who can.’
    ‘Maybe I don’t want to sit on a beanbag drinking herbal tea and snivelling into free tissues. It won’t bring her back, will it?’ I sound sharper than I meant to.
    Mum stands up. ‘You’re absolutely right, Alice. She’s gone, and we all need to find our own way of accepting that. I shouldn’t have pushed it. You’re entitled to your space. I’m really sorry.’
    I wait till I’ve heard hear her feet going down the staircase. Then I switch on my laptop, and try Soul Beach again.
The URL does not exist.
    When I try to access it through my browser history, there is absolutely no trace of any web-surfing after seven o’clock last night. It’s as though I never walked on Soul Beach at all.
    Could I have dreamed it all, down to the sand between my toes and the sarcasm in my sister’s voice? Has grief driven me crazy, like Ophelia in Hamlet ?
    But before I call out to Mum, begging her to sign me up for urgent Olavotherapy, I remember the emails. There they are: the blank one from the day of the funeral, and two from Soul Beach.
    Does it make me feel less mad?
    Yes.
    Does it make me feel any better?
    Not even slightly.

Memory is the least faithful of partners.
    It’s nothing but a convincing story you’ve told yourself so many times that it solidifies in the mind, and then seems real. Another person’s version of the same event could be unrecognisable.
    How would Meggie recall our very first encounter?
    My version would go like this. A