Never Ending by Martyn Bedford

back on and wore a beach towel as a sarong. Her top was translucent with damp and she was aware that her hair must be a mess, sticking up and claggy with sea water.
    She managed to say, “My name’s Shiv, by the way. Short for Siobhan.”
    “Irish?”
    “The name is, yeah. Not me. I’m English.” She scratched around for something else to say, to keep the conversation going.
    As it happened, he beat her to it. “So, are you staying this side of the island?”
    “Yeah, just a few K up the coast.” She pointed, naming the village.
    “Oh, I know that place. My grandmother lives near there.”
    Nikos had resumed work as they spoke, loosening one of the fender ropes and letting out some extra length before refastening it. He had a livid crescent-shaped scar at the base of his right thumb, she noticed. The black hairs on his wrist were curled tight by moisture, the skin sparkling with encrusted salt.
    Hardly able to believe what she was doing, Shiv told him the name of the villa.
    Nikos paused, half turning to look at her over his shoulder. “D’you mind me asking, Shiv, but how old are you?”
    “Seventeen,” she said, without the slightest hesitation.

4
    The Make session goes ahead without Mikey. Or Webb, who escorted him back to Eden Hall after the assistants had stopped him from dashing his brains out. It took them a while to calm him down and persuade him that he needed medical attention. His forehead was caked in blood, dirt and bits of bark, one eyebrow split right open.
    Shiv couldn’t believe he hadn’t knocked himself unconscious.
    As Assistant Hensher led the rest of the group from the clearing and along a trail to the Make area, a shocked hush descended. It was as though Mikey had dazed them more than he’d dazed himself.
    And so, now, in silence, they emerge into what looks like a picnic site, laid out with wooden tables; they enter a camouflage-green Portakabin to collect cartridge-paper, pencils and drawing boards; they go back outside to take their places at one of the tables. In silence, they listen to the instructions.
    Their task is to draw the face of the person they lost.
    “It doesn’t matter if you can’t draw very well,” Hensher tells them. “It doesn’t matter how close a likeness it is. What matters is that you create an impression of that face in your mind and try your best to put it down on paper.”
    He stresses that, as in Walk, talking is not permitted during Make.
    “Any questions?”
    Lucy raises a hand. “Do we draw their living face? Or their dead face?”
    After the session, Lucy falls into step with Shiv and Caron as they all troop back through the woods. She apologizes for failing to turn up in the Rec Room last night. Tummy bug , she says. Caron doesn’t make an issue of it, although Shiv can tell she doesn’t believe the girl. There’s just room for the three of them to walk side by side, Shiv and Caron slowing to Lucy’s pace on an uphill section. Her panting provides a backing track to their conversation. Even though they’ve spent almost two hours absorbed in Make, the talk quickly turns to what happened before that.
    “D’you think Mikey’s all right?” Lucy asks. “He looked a mess.”
    “It’s the inside of his head that’s the problem,” Caron says.
    “Same here.” Shiv’s tone is sharper than she intended. “Same for all of us.”
    “You’d think I’d have more empathy, wouldn’t you?” Caron says. Not nastily, though. “Sorry if this sounds selfish, but I’m here to sort out my life. Not his.”
    “Psychiatric patients are shipwreck survivors but they do not share the same lifeboat,” Shiv says. “Each is in a lifeboat of their own, adrift on the same sea.”
    The other two girls widen their eyes at her.
    “Something I read on the Internet,” Shiv says with a shrug.
    “You google that stuff?” Caron says. “’Zuss, no wonder you’re screwed up.”
    They all burst out laughing, drawing curious looks from some of the others