Free The Fourth Season by Dorothy Johnston Page A

be time for meeting Katya. I could walk out the front door and close it behind me. That would be safer than the laundry window, if the neighbours happened to be watching. I heard music, and every now and then voices and more laughter. I found my feet taking me back to the laundry.
    The tall cupboard had a shelf at the top. At the front were a selection of torches, a packet of candles, light bulbs and an iron. At the back were two medium-sized cardboard boxes. I fetched a chair from the kitchen, took down the boxes and opened the first one on the floor. It contained Christmas decorations and lights for putting on a tree. The second box looked to be full of towels. I lifted the top layer and under it was a file labelled 2004.
    The university year had officially begun in the third week of February. At the front of the file was a dated set of lectures on marine biodiversity. I flicked through bricks and notes written in Laila’s small, backsloping hand. A plain manila folder at the end, with no name or identification of any kind, contained two single sheets of paper. On one was a diagram downloaded from a website. My heart beat faster as I recognised a computer-generated image of an underwater canyon. Contour lines and depths were marked. Someone, I assumed it had been Laila, had drawn a circle with a red felt-tipped pen, not around the canyon, but a patch of seabed in the top right-hand corner of the diagram.
    On the next page were the words ‘sediment flow’ and the date 1836, followed by a question mark and a pencil sketch. This sketch comprised a horizontal line, underneath which a number of straight lines ran downwards at a forty-five degree angle, with a single line about the middle heavier and more distinct than the rest. On the left-hand side, the angled lines were overlaid by more horizontal ones, so that half the drawing appeared as a kind of crosshatch, and the other half not.
    I turned both sheets of paper over. Nothing was written on the back of the first, but on the back of the second was a sentence in ­quotation marks.
    â€˜In 1971 a springtide combined with a severe gale uncovered a layer of sediment leaving structural timbers visible.’
    . . .
    After Peter came home from soccer practice, he and Kat made a noisy, messy start to dinner, Kat thrilled to be sharing the responsibility. Neither asked where Ivan was, and I had the feeling that they’d agreed on this; that they’d talked about it and agreed not to ask me questions whose answers I couldn’t hope to know.
    Peter turned his music up full volume, while I shut my office door and went back to the reports Don Fletcher had sent me, mulling over whether Laila’s diagram might be part of what was called a swath map, made from sonar beams that had been bounced to the sea floor and back.
    I turned my attention to the red circle in the corner, wondering why it had been singled out. I studied the words ‘sediment flow’ next to the date. Could they refer to layers of sediment under the seabed? I pondered the connection between the diagram and sketch, reminding myself that they didn’t have to be connected, and noticed something else. The layers didn’t match. It looked as though something had fallen in on top of something else.
    â€˜Mum!’ called Katya, her voice full of pride. ‘Mum! Dinner’s ready!’
    The three of us ate together, and I praised every bit of the dinner. Again, Kat and Peter were careful not to ask after Ivan. I saw the looks that passed between them and told myself I must respect their strategies for coping, even as I expected them to make allowances for mine. A tightening of Katya’s black eyebrows signalled a determination ­comparable to her brother’s and a decision to follow his lead.
    Peter said he’d do his homework in his room, and Kat followed him, with her drawing pad tucked under one arm.
    I was midway through the dishes when Rita