“Yes, yes, thank you. I’m looking for my daughter.”
“You got a picture? Maybe Benny here knows her?” They snicker. The one I guess is Benny administers a painful-sounding thump.
I fumble for my phone in my shirt pocket, bring up the photo app. It suddenly strikes me that I don’t have anything recent, nothing from the last few months. I trail back through the images of the lab refurbishments, you among the succulents at the garden center, the odd badly angled selfie of us both. Finally, I find one of Eleanor. She doesn’t look all too pleased about being photographed makeup-free and still in her pajamas, a half-empty glass of Buck’s Fizz in her hand. Last Christmas, according to the date. I am struck by just how vulnerable she looks, a child with the weight of adult worry etched under her eyes.
I turn the screen to face them, braced for a flurry of inappropriate remarks. Clearly, they think better of it.
“Sorry, I haven’t seen any girl like that.” They turn their semicircle inward again by a fraction.
“Thanks anyway,” I mumble, tucking the phone back in my breast pocket, keeping some part of Eleanor safe and close to me.
I peer into the houses where the curtains have been drawn or never existed in the first place. I imagine handing out flyers, leaving my name and number in all the local shops. I try to quell the thought. It would hardly be appropriate to launch a missing-person campaign for a girl who is only missing from our lives.
At the top of the hill, I stop by the corner shop. There isn’t much on the shelves and what there is has been pushed toward the back, giving a look that is more postapocalyptic than minimalist. I pick up one of the two bottles of sparkling water and wonder just how long it has been there. The man behind the counter slides off his stool to serve me, and I hear his knee click as he stands.
“Sixty pence, please.”
I hand over the cash and bring out my phone at the same time.
“Could I ask you something?” I continue before he has a chance to stop me. “Have you seen this girl? Eleanor, or Ellie, Nell maybe? She’s my daughter? We lost touch.” I am struck at once by the gravity of what I have just admitted and, at the same time, its sheer understatement.
“Pass it here.” He sits back down and produces a pair of glasses from behind the cigarette cabinet. He tucks them behind his ears and keeps one finger on the bridge, bent badly out of shape, as he zooms in on the image of Eleanor. I can feel my heart rate quicken as he zooms in. Clearly he has been here before.
“Yes.”
I gulp, and my tongue sticks momentarily to the roof of my mouth, thick and fuzzy from the sleepless night before.
“Here?”
“She comes in to buy stuff. Alcohol, cigarettes, pasta. She must live nearby.”
“And is she by herself?”
“Usually. Sometimes with another girl.”
I am unsure what else I can ask but am anxious about losing this sole link to Eleanor. My link to finding her again. The bell above the door rings to announce another customer, and I realize that my time is running out. He senses it too and leans forward over the counter, one elbow propped against the chewing-gum stand.
“Look, I’m a father too. I know how we worry, even when they fly the nest.” His other hand reappears. In it there is a worn A5 notebook with a pencil dangling from the bottom. He opens it at the page marked by the string and begins to run his index finger through the faintly marked lines. “What did you say her surname was?”
“Hobbs.” I hope she hasn’t renounced that too.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he mumbles, “but we worry. Being a parent—worry, worry, worry.”
I smile weakly, aware that the next customer has just begun queuing behind me.
“Here she is—Nell Hobbs. She keeps a tab.”
For a second, I am confused by what sort of shopkeeper allows students to keep a tab. I quickly suppress that thought; I couldn’t be more grateful that he does.
“Take a picture of the address. Can’t say it’s a real one, or that she’s still there, but it’s worth a try.”
I do as I’m told, overcome with a sudden urge to reach across the counter and hug him.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“On the house.” He slides a Mars bar toward me. “Good luck.”
The address isn’t far, thankfully. There is something rather grand in the long, luxurious vowels of Albemarle Street that its appearance doesn’t live up to. The wheelie bins cluster together, some still standing, their lids blown open, while others have fallen, spilling their innards on the pavement like a group of neighborhood drunks on the way home from a night out. In front of most of the houses there is a collection of junk—a discarded mattress here, a TV with a punched-in screen there, a microwave with the cable ripped out, a jagged hole in the plastic casing at the back. I try not to think how much force that would have taken.
Number 174 is at the end of the terrace. The grass could do with a mow and the patches where the moss hasn’t taken hold grow wild and unruly, catching crisp packets and cider cans. I feel I could learn a heck of a lot more about Eleanor’s diet from her front lawn than from the number of meals she has endured with us this past year.
A twitch in the lace curtains on the second floor registers in the corner of my eye. I have been so fixated on tracking down Eleanor that I haven’t given any thought to what I will say. One hundred and fifty miles is a long way to come just to extend an invitation to enjoy a bone-dry turkey and a series of increasingly tenuous cracker jokes. I suddenly realize I have left the heater in the boot of the car.
“Dad?”
It is not so much a greeting as an accusation. I step up the path and see that she hasn’t taken the chain off. I don’t imagine I will be asked to stay for tea.
“Eleanor, hi! How are you?” I inch closer, hoping I haven’t come all this way to have the door slammed in my face.
“How did you find me?” Eleanor is clearly shocked, but there is some other emotion at play beneath that that I can’t quite put my finger on. Before I can work it out, she pulls her sleeves down over her palms, wraps her hands inside her sweater. I have seen her do that a hundred times before: as a child getting chilly at the bus stop, as an adolescent increasingly on edge.
“Oh, you know, that degree does come in handy.” Perhaps not a time to be joking. She seems distracted, distant. “Look, darling, I have some things from Mum in the car. I can go and fetch them—”
The words are barely out of my mouth before I am cut off.
“No. No. I’ll come with you.”
The door clicks shut, and I can hear the snatch of keys behind it, a vague call up the stairs. A minute later and Eleanor emerges. She isn’t wearing a coat, but I restrain the urge to say anything. I offer her my scarf instead and flush warm with delight when she accepts. For the first time in a long time, I feel like a father again. Providing. Being acknowledged by my child as something more than a nuisance. Maybe it isn’t too late to get us back on track?
I walk slowly, trying to eke out the journey back to the car. I’d walk to the end of the earth barefoot if it would buy me more time with her.
“So, Ellie, how is uni going?”
“Fine, yeah, well, I suppose.” I try to catch her eye, but she resolutely avoids meeting my gaze. Instead, she looks down at her battered trainers, a nineties trend I could have sworn had gone out of fashion, only to boomerang back with an extortionate price hike a decade later.
“And you’re living here now?” I try out a tone I hope is encouraging rather than judgmental.
“Yeah, suits me better, I’ve got some friends here. Different unis.” Her voice is quiet and it quivers slightly, as if getting the words out is a strain in itself.
“Well, that’s great, Ellie. I remember that I didn’t make any friends my first year at university.” I can sense the silence about to settle. “And the first term must nearly be over now?”
Eleanor nods. She is smart enough to know where t
his is going.
“So, we’ll be seeing you at Christmas then, I hope?” We’ve reached the car and have come to a halt. “Your mother would love to see you, Edie too. And me.” I am standing with my back to the driver’s door, as if I am terrified Eleanor will hop in and zoom off forever, license or no license.
“I’ll see.” Eleanor is still analyzing her trainers, and her hair hangs forward, a mess of curls and the odd matted knot, obscuring her face. Looking at her straight on, I am struck by how much she seems to have shrunk, her tracksuit bottoms hanging off her as though she is a child playing clandestine dress-up in her parents’ clothes.
“Eleanor, please.” I reach out and tilt up her chin. I expect her to flinch the same way she had the morning after the dinner party and every time I’d tried to hold her since. Nothing. There is something so infinitely reassuring in that brief moment of touch. I want to bundle her in my arms and never let her out of my sight again. I cannot tell if I am imagining it or if it really does seem that, for a split second, she might throw herself against my chest of her own accord. Every muscle in her body seems to have been pulled tight in the effort to keep her distance.
Eventually, I step back, wary of pressing my luck. Her eyes seem larger, the sockets scooped out in purple hollows. Tears are brewing. Quickly, she draws up a sleeve, looped loosely over her hand, to blot them away. In the ferocity of the motion, the misshapen fabric gapes, and the inside of her wrist, feather thin, escapes. Red raw against the translucent skin is a network of interlocking scars. Among them, her radial artery pulses short and shallow.
Eleanor realizes what has happened and pulls her jumper down in a flash. I am left staring at her worn sleeve ends like a child bereft at the end of a magic show. What the hell was that?
“You ought to get going.” Gone is the tenderness of a moment before. Eleanor straightens up, all the time keeping her hands balled into fists so tight that her nails must be cutting into the flesh beneath.
“Eleanor?”
“Please, Dad.”
Do you know what, Mags? Eleanor didn’t even stay to wave goodbye. She walked off there and then. No momentary bend of her head for a goodbye kiss. Not a single glance over her shoulder. It is always the smallest things that cut the deepest, the splinters that wriggle their way so far into the wound that you have no chance of removing them.
I am a mile onto the motorway when I start crying. I pull over at the first services and squash your bag of gifts into the nearest bin. The plug on the heater falls out of the cheap cotton tote, and its plastic casing chips against the metal can. None of this can fix it; not a visit or a vest or whatever other token of our endless devotion. She needs more. She needs help. The sort of help parents can’t provide.
And that is when it hits me. I could lose her, that part of my heart I never knew I had or would be lucky enough to find. That tiny ball of cells—yours and mine—that had given my life a whole new meaning.
With new resolve, I fumble for my phone in my jeans pocket, my hands clawed from the cold. I open the search engine, type in self-harm (give or take a few rogue letters), and find the NHS site. I manage to copy the link into my thread with Eleanor. I check once, twice, three times that this is going to Eleanor, not you. Underneath I type: Please, I love you.
I should have told you, Mags—what I saw, how I felt. I didn’t have the words. But even if I had? What good would that have done? What use would they have been? I had to protect you too.
Even now the words still aren’t enough.
Chapter 13
I am woken by firm pressure on my shoulder.
“Hey, Frank, you’re drifting off,” Daisy says, stepping back from me and heading to adjust the drip on Maggie’s left arm.
“Shit. What time is it?”
“Seven in the morning.”
“Shit.”
“Hey, hey, now, don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s tiring, all this. You’ve been here three nights now. It’s your body crying out for a break. But I thought you’d want more time before . . . well . . . before Dr. Singh gets back.”
So, Daisy knows too. Half the hospital must be peering in at the man on this most borrowed time.
“He told you.”
“Hmm.” Daisy releases a small, closed-mouthed hum that gives nothing away. The answer is written in her inability to look me straight in the eye.
“How long before he gets here?”
“He’s usually in at nine, but I can try to stall him a bit longer.”
“Thanks, Daisy.”
“Not a problem.”
It is all too much to take in. I slump forward into my palms, raking my fingers through the little hair that, miraculously, has not yet receded at my temples. Two hours before the doctor is back. Two hours before I need to make a decision on what happens to Maggie.
“That story of yours, whatever you had to tell her, wrap it up. You’ve got this, Frank.” Daisy waits to see that I am sitting up, not at risk of dropping off again, and then heads out the door.
I force myself to stand up and shake my arms out. Two hours. That’s all I have left. A lifetime together, and now we are teetering on the final meters of the tightrope of time. How have I not managed to spit it out yet? In the darkness, I bump heavily into the hard plastic edge of the bed frame and swear under my breath. Even after nearly four days, I still find it hard to comprehend that Maggie isn’t asleep, that she won’t wake up any minute at the slightest of noises.
“Looks like my time is running out here, Mags.” I attempt a chuckle that comes out more macabre than I had intended. “We never did talk about this, did we?” I gesture at the room, the panoply of humming machines, the sanitizers affixed to the walls. What difference would it have made, anyway?
“I’m going to fight for you, Maggie. Even if you think you are done. We can’t leave it how it is.”
I wish I could open Maggie’s eyes, to see if there is some belief in there, if she can still find it in herself to trust me. The cardiac monitor on her left side beeps the hour, and a new bar of readings begins.
“I’m sorry, Maggie, but we can’t leave it here. I’ve been in pieces over this. I opened my mouth to say it a million times, and God knows you must have noticed. I thought maybe once the shock had worn off it would be easier. But that never happened. It just got harder and harder, Mags. I told myself I had time to find the right way to say it. I wanted a way to tell you the truth without risking you leaving me . . .”
My voice breaks into the short, shallow heaves that signal I am about to cry. How I haven’t done so more is a miracle in itself. Only I can’t afford to lose this time. I try to slow my breathing and shake my head, my neck stiff from three nights on a camp bed.
“They’ll be here soon, the doctors, and they want to talk to me, about decisions and next steps, and whatever they are, Maggie, I need to tell you this now . . . About . . . the silence, about why. Just please, Mags, remember I’m sorry.
“Please come back to me.”
I spent the whole drive back considering what I could tell you. Did I admit to having seen Eleanor? Or say I had missed her at lectures, that I had left a note? I had already resolved to lie. I’m sorry to say this, but if I’m honest, I never even thought of it that way. Not even as a white lie. It was to protect you, when you needed it the most. And hadn’t I promised that to you, in the registry office, the two of us shivering in our cheap garments, no idea how the vows would pan out?
Thankfully, Eleanor had already come to my assistance. You were at the front door before I’d had so much as a chance to lock the car.
“Evening!”
“What’s all this for?” I am delirious with confusion. The events of the day flash before me: the latch on the door; Eleanor’s rush to pull down her sleeves and get me out of there; how close I came to collapsing at the service-station forecourt; how close this all was to falling apart.
“She called!”
I try not to show my shock. Fortunately, you are too deli
ghted, too relieved, to notice. You have already headed back into the kitchen to stir whatever is bubbling on the hob.
“She said how good it was to see you and that she has moved.” I open my mouth to answer but you are off again. “That she’s sorry she hasn’t replied to us, but the signal is very patchy there.” I think of the full signal bars I’d had on my phone; how quickly the satnav had loaded. Clearly Eleanor had resolved to be creative with the truth too.
You are out of sight from the stairs where I am sitting, busy doing battle with a knot in my shoelace. There is a giddiness in your voice that I haven’t heard in months, years maybe. I am terrified of how quickly this could be extinguished by just one wrong move on my part.
“So, how did you find her—if she’s moved?”
I am glad I am far enough away for you not to see the panic flit across my face, my cheeks flushing and my mouth dry as I spit out the first explanation that comes to mind.
“The girl in her room.”
“What about her?”
“She was very helpful. She was a friend . . . She gave me the address.”
“Lucky she was in then, eh?”
“Quite.”
“And we talked about Christmas, but she’s away with friends. Did you meet them? Frank?”
“Oh, sorry, Mags. Just give me a second.” I wiggle my foot free and head over, pretending to look at what is for supper. I cannot meet your eye.
“So, what were they like, Eleanor’s friends? The ones she’s living with?”
“I didn’t speak much to them, really.”
“Oh.” You look crestfallen. I have burst your bubble, unwittingly, and feel myself scrabbling to contain the damage, using reserves of energy I thought I had long since spent, somewhere off the M5.
“You know what she’s like—‘Dad, stay in the car!’ ‘Don’t say anything!’ Really, I’m used to it.” I wrap my arms around your waist and nuzzle into the curve of your shoulder. “The house looks spacious. I suppose she wanted a bit more freedom than halls. They do all rather live on top of each other there.”
The Silent Treatment Page 12