The Surface Breaks(37)

“Maybe later, Mother? Grace and I are going riding again, it’s such a pleasant morning. We should make the most of it while we can, don’t you agree?”

And on it goes.

“But, Oli,” his mother says the following day, “It is imperative that we deal with—”

“I’m so sorry, Mother. I’ve decided to take Grace into the village, I want to treat her to croissants. Will we finish this conversation later?”

And on.

“I beg of you,” his mother says the day after that when Oliver has dabbed his mouth with a napkin, pushing a near empty bowl away from him. “I cannot make any more excuses for you, Oliver. Petro Tsakos is meeting with the Galanis people too. If Tsakos-Co secures this merger over us, they will control more than a quarter of the world’s fleets, and it will be next to impossible for us to catch up. You are twenty-one now and—”

“Mother, I know I’ve been distracted this week,” Oliver says. “But Grace and I have plans today that cannot be changed. I’m sure the board will do whatever you tell them to do. Most people do.”

I sneak a look back at Eleanor as we leave, slumped in her chair. Her life seems such a struggle, continually trying to get all these men to respect her, to give her the keys to their kingdom. Perhaps they never will. Perhaps she should just build her own, like the Sea Witch did.

I want to tell Oliver that he should go back and speak with Eleanor, that the matter is clearly of great importance. I wish I could tell him how lucky he is to even have a mother.

“Oh, Grace,” he says, as we walk through the front doors, servants scurrying out of his path. “That’s what I like the most about you. You never judge me.”


“We used to have parties here,” Oliver tells me, linking arms with me. Adrenaline courses through me as his skin meets mine, and I shiver. How can one man have such an effect on me?

We left the mansion and he led me down the marble steps, but not to the sea. A sharp bend to the right, through a thicket of tangled roses, thorns catching on the ends of my dress as we fought our way into this secret garden.

“There’d be a band in the gazebo,” he points at a wooden structure in the corner, tangled weeds creeping around it, “and everyone would dance in the middle of the lawn until the sun rose. There was music and drinking and people kissing, which I thought was disgusting at that age, of course. Little did I know how my opinion would change within a few years.” He sneaks a look at me and I blush. “I wasn’t allowed to stay at the parties for very long. They just rolled me out to charm the guests, then my nanny would come and take me back to the play room. I was the only one of my friends with a live-in nanny, you know. Mother was too busy working. Working, working, working, that’s all she ever cared about.”

Where was Oliver’s father in all this, I wonder. As though he had heard me, Oliver continues.

“My father would come if he was feeling well enough,” Oliver says. “Everyone would have been enquiring about him. Where’s Alex? they’d ask, and my mother would promise that he would be there soon. The party couldn’t start until Dad arrived; he was the life and soul of every event. But towards the end … Dad just looked sad all the time. Then he would become bothered, and my mother would be embarrassed, apologizing for his behaviour. My husband isn’t himself these days,” Oliver mimics in a mocking tone. “He wasn’t well; he needed help, and she just…”

She just what? What did Eleanor do?

“I’m feeling tired,” he says abruptly. “You’ll find your own way back, won’t you, Grace.”

It isn’t a question.


Every night, I dream of that woman who looks like – who must be – my mother. Gaia, she says, and she starts to cry. Gaia. And every morning, I awake determined that today will be the day that I find out what happened to her, discover the humans who betrayed her and locked her away. Even if she is dead, I need to know for certain.

Then Oliver does something to distract me, or he simply looks at me with those dark eyes of his, and I forget my mother. I had thought that impossible; her name has thrummed its beat down my spine every day since she disappeared, making a home out of every vertebrae. But Oliver makes me forget everything. I want him to look at me, I want him to touch me, I want him to make me feel things that I had never thought appropriate for a girl to feel. I want him to make me his.

But I do not have that much time. I count the moons and the sunrises, scoring them across my heart in order to keep track of the days that are falling away from me. How do I make him love me? My grandmother said bonding was about anticipating your husband’s needs and meeting them, and I have been trying to do that but my very existence is now at risk. The ticking of the clock, the light changing its skin in the sky, and then another day is done. It is hard to admit this, but I am beginning to wonder what death might taste like.

At breakfast every morning, Oliver asks me to accompany him on today’s “adventure” and at first I had presumed I would shadow him while he went to work as Eleanor does. She is unceasingly busy, always leaving the house for meetings, every available space in her office piled with papers and files as she talks into something called a “telephone”, rattling off lists of numbers and figures off the top of her head. “Have you taken a look at those reports I sent you, Oliver?” she asks him. “Did you look at the spec for that new ship? Oliver, are you listening to me? Oli?”