Chapter 11
She woke at dawn the next morning feeling remarkably refreshed and alert, given how long she’d gone without rest in the twenty-four hours before.
After a quick breakfast of pitta, cheese and strong coffee, she resumed her place in the triage tent and the day stretched on in a rhythm of labour and laughter.
More relief workers arrived, including a doctor and three more nurses. As the roads were submerged, the doctor had arrived from the next village on a mule – much to Cleo’s amusement.
She continued to work tirelessly, disinfecting cuts, calming frightened children and checking dressings. Her voice never wavered, even when the ground trembled faintly beneath them now and then, like a cruel reminder of what might still come.
Outside the tent, Henrietta and Mark were pitching in with the emergency services and the villagers, helping to set up temporary shower facilities, as well as portable toilets.
Katerina was there, too, determined to do her bit, despite the fact she was half the size of most of the others and at least twice their age.
Slowly the chaos was settling into something resembling order.
Cleo noticed Tash gravitating towards the families who’d lost their homes. She fetched water, found new clothes and sometimes just listened.
There was something about her that invited trust, Cleo decided. Perhaps it was the warmth in her eyes, or the way she never tried to hurry people.
At one point she sat near the triage tent, beside a young mother rocking a baby who wouldn’t stop crying.
She began to hum a slow, soothing tune and gradually the baby quietened, the mother’s shoulders eased and a small circle of calm seemed to form around them.
Tash seemed to be blinking back tears, but kept humming. Later, Cleo heard her say to the mother it was a tune she used to sing to her husband when he couldn’t sleep during his illness.
The mother squeezed Tash’s hand and said in halting English, ‘You have good heart.’
‘I thought it was broken,’ Tash replied. ‘But maybe I was wrong.’
As Cleo continued to treat patients, doing her best to greet each one with a smile, it crossed her mind that she, Tash, Maya and Achilles weren’t just survivors, they were helping to support the shattered community.
Somehow, they were managing to find courage, skill and strength in their own way, Tash included.
By the middle of the evening, almost all the injured had either been assessed and treated onsite, or taken to hospital. Cleo was so tired again she could barely speak and her body ached. One of the female nurses noticed and told her to get some rest.
‘We can manage now,’ she said in broken English. ‘You have been amazing today. You should get some sleep.’
Cleo nodded, rising stiffly from the hard, plastic chair she’d been sitting on.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll get a few hours in. Then I’ll come back and take over from you or someone else. We can sleep in shifts.’
She was still in the yellow-and-white pyjamas she’d worn in bed when the earthquake hit, with a grey sweatshirt on top given to her by one of the rescue team.
The pyjamas were filthy and stained and she hadn’t washed properly, cleaned her teeth or brushed her hair since the earthquake, either. She must look terrible, but she reckoned no one would care. She’d sleep first, wash after. She knew her priorities.
Stepping out of the tent, she blinked in the half-light and almost didn’t recognise Henrietta coming towards her.
Cleo had been so busy, she’d temporarily forgotten about her, Mark and the rest of the original retreat group.
What’s more, the first few days of the holiday before the earthquake seemed so long ago, they might have happened in another life.
Henrietta was grey-faced and grubby-looking, just like Cleo, but managed a small smile.
‘I’ve had a message from your daughter,’ she said, waving a mobile phone in the air.
Cleo started. ‘My daughter? How?’
Her own phone was missing, probably lying smashed on the floor of her bedroom in the villa. She’d had no time to think about Erica’s hospital admission and Erica was the last person she’d have expected to hear from.
‘She was obviously worried. She found my number on our website. She wanted to know if you were all right. I texted back and said yes. You can ring her quickly on my phone if you like,’ Henrietta added. ‘I’m sure she’ll be relieved to hear from you.’
Cleo paused for a moment, too exhausted even to think properly. She desperately wanted the comfort of hearing Erica’s voice, but knew at the same time she’d burst into tears and sound like a frightened child.
‘It’s OK,’ Cleo said, shaking her head. ‘She knows I’m alive. I’ll ring her after I’ve had some sleep.’
Night had fully closed in when Maya directed her to a different, largeish, empty tent with two rows of sleeping bags and pillows laid out neatly on the ground.
‘This’ll be ours for the duration now. Tash and I will join you, and I thought I’d put the nurses in here, too. I’ve given the small tent to the doctor.’
‘I feel bad, sleeping when you’re still working,’ Cleo said, rubbing her eyes.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Maya replied. ‘You’re a crucial part of the rescue team. We need you to be alert and rested. Tash and I will join you in a bit.’
Despite being worn out, this time Cleo had trouble dropping off. Her mind was restless, filled with images of the earthquake and constantly on alert for aftershocks.
They had already experienced some soft tremors today, passing through the ground, like a shiver underfoot, and conversation had stopped dead until they’d subsided.
Cleo’s worst fear was that there’d be more big tremors in the night and she’d wake up in utter terror.
Her brain kept ticking through half-formed plans, including how to keep people calm when the shock began to sink in.
Shock was the silent killer, she remembered. It came after the noise, when the adrenaline ran dry.
She was still fully conscious when she heard Tash tiptoe in and undress quietly before slipping into the sleeping bag next to her.
‘Are you still awake?’ Tash whispered.
Cleo rolled over with a sigh and opened her eyes.
‘Yes. I can’t sleep.’
‘I spoke to Danny – and my mum,’ Tash went on. ‘Apparently the earthquake’s all over the papers in the UK. It’s caused loads of damage and two Brits – a man and a woman who were on holiday in the area – are missing, feared dead.’
‘How dreadful,’ Cleo said with feeling.
‘You’d think I’d be used to this sort of thing – hospitals, alarms, all that waiting round and not knowing,’ Tash went on.
Cleo gave her a sidelong look. ‘Hospitals?’
Tash nodded. ‘Alfie was in and out the whole time. We got to know everyone in the haematology ward.’ She gave a crooked smile.
‘All that time I thought if I just stayed positive enough, or prayed enough, or read him funny lines from books or newspapers, I could make him better. As if willpower could stop leukaemia.’
Cleo took a deep breath. ‘You did what you could,’ she said gently.
‘Did I?’ Tash looked down at her hands. ‘I can’t even stand bright lights now. The smell of disinfectant nearly sends me under and just the thought of performing in front of a crowd gives me a panic attack. It’s humiliating.’
‘But you’re here now, surrounded by people and interacting with them the whole time. That’s something.’
‘Is it?’ Tash gave a doubtful look. ‘I came here because I thought yoga and quinoa might fix me. You know – a few sunsets, herbals teas and voila! A new woman. Now look at us, stuck on a mountainside and the world falling apart.’
Cleo smiled faintly. ‘Maybe this’ll turn out to be the best therapy.’
Tash looked at her, surprised, then smiled back. ‘That’s an odd thought, but maybe there’s some truth in it.
‘The airport at Chania’s been damaged,’ she went on, changing the subject. ‘Some planes are taking off from Heraklion, but quite a few of the roads have collapsed and it’ll no doubt take time to arrange emergency transport. I suspect we’ll be here for a while yet.’
Cleo thought for a moment. ‘You know, I wouldn’t want to leave right away now anyway. I’d rather stay and help.’
‘Weirdly, me too,’ Tash agreed. ‘I say weird, because I know I can be more of a hindrance than a help. But it’s strange, I feel connected to the village and its people now in a way I’d never have imagined. I wouldn’t want to abandon them in their hour of need.’
She paused. ‘D’you remember what that bizarre old woman said in the bar – Katerina?’
‘What?’ Cleo frowned. So much had happened, her memory of the conversation which had taken place only the day before yesterday was already vague and fuzzy.
‘She said: “I can see you are all facing a big challenge,”’ Tash repeated. ‘“You will be tested, but I have faith you will come through.”’
She turned to Cleo, propping herself up on an elbow and looking at her seriously.
‘Do you think she’s psychic and she knew there was going to be an earthquake and this is what she meant? We’re being tested for sure.’
Cleo thought for a minute. Katerina’s words were certainly peculiar and the artist, Marina, was unusual, too. Come to think of it, so was her father, Konstantin, who looked older than the white mountains themselves.
It was true Cleo, Maya and Tash were all facing a massive challenge, which seemed to be changing them in ways Cleo wouldn’t have believed. But psychic? Pah! It would take a lot more than a random chat in a rowdy bar to convince her of that.