by Emma Rowley
I’ll just about cope, I think, but smile brightly. “I’ll be fine. Take your time.” I listen to her stately tread as she heads for the lifts of our less-than-glamorous office block. Regional charities don’t have the funds for slick corporate headquarters. Still, you’d think they could buy us some biscuits.
My gaze falls on the noticeboard: there’s that puff piece the paper ran last Christmas about our work. There we all are in the picture, one smiling team. I’m in the back row. They worry we feel forgotten about, up here. Head office is in London, a much bigger organization the helpline was folded into a few years ago. But I don’t care about recognition, or team-building. I just couldn’t think of an excuse quick enough to get out of the photo shoot.
I’ve helped out here for a while now, taking the weekend late shifts when other people are busy with friends and family. I’ve let them think it is because I’m busy with work the rest of the time. I don’t want the looks.
My shift started at five, and now I am feeling hungry too. I’ll make another cup of tea for me, and then take my break when Alma’s back and head to Pret, I decide. Alma’s strict. She won’t even go for a loo break unless the junior volunteer’s sitting ready in their chair, which I suppose is as it should be. I wonder if I should go and treat us to one of those mini bottles of wine, half a plastic glass each as we face the night shift ahead. But no, Alma and her rules, she—
When the phone rings I actually jump a little in my chair. First one of the night for me. I pick up within the promised three rings. We don’t even get headsets.
“Hello,” I say, making my voice sound warm and calm. “You’ve reached the Message in a Bottle helpline. I’m Kate.”
A click. Sometimes that happens, they lose their nerve, we were told in the training. There was less said about the prank callers, bored teenagers and men who’d like to hear a stranger’s voice.
It’s been slow tonight. Alma had been right onto the last few, dispatching each caller with practiced ease. “Oh, I know love, it is hard, isn’t it, but it’s never too late to build bridges, you know. In the meantime, I know they’ll be so glad to hear you’re safe, now are you sure you don’t want me to take a phone number for you too, schedule a little check-in call from us in a day or two . . .”
That’s what we do here: people who have run away from home call us and we pass on messages to their loved ones.
RAN AWAY?
Send a message to let them know you’re safe
NO QUESTIONS ASKED
Just phone and give your message
We will pass it on
Send a MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
That’s what the advert says. They’re all over the place, if you know to look for them: in churches, community centers, sometimes a local paper, if they can find the budget.
Alma’s brilliant at it actually, wheedling out parents’ names, half-forgotten postcodes, “how are things with you now?,” sketching over sad details of treatment centers and “no fixed abode,” the detritus of broken lives, sounding for all the world like some cozy great-aunt at a family party. She may look like the president of her local WI—that’s exactly what she is—but Alma knows what she’s doing. Building bridges, keeping lines of communication open, delivering messages to family desperate to know something, anything, about their beloved husband, cousin, son . . . daughter.
As for me, I struggle to build rapport with callers, I’m told, can come across just a little chilly—I even, according to one feedback form (they’re big on all that here, inevitably, there’s endless briefing and debriefing) lack “empathy” with callers’ situations. Which I find somewhat ironic, to say the least.
But if I can’t be Miss Popularity, at least I’m reliable.
The phone goes again, startling me out of my thoughts, and I pick it up again. The static bursts into my ear, making me wince, then the line quiets to a low buzz.
“Hello,” I say. “You’ve reached the Message in a Bottle helpline.” I know: the name is unbearably cutesy. “I’m Kate.”
No response. Then another round of pops on the line.
“Is someone there?” Perhaps this is a misdial, some automated call-center system gone wrong before a worker gets patched in from his desk in Glasgow or Mumbai to try to sell me something.
“Hello?” I say again. There’s a burst of static, but beneath it I can hear muffled sounds now, like someone talking through water.
It’d better not be a crank. We have rules of course, can’t be rude even if they are drunk kids dialing in—“You never know why someone might be calling in,” Alma will tell newbies solemnly, “even a prank call could really be a cry for help.” So when I do get the odd heavy breather whispering obscenities or teenagers giggling into the handset, I make absolutely sure she is out of earshot before I give them a few sharp words, inform them I can trace the call and hang up. They don’t need to know that I can’t.
The line goes quiet again, then someone is there, suddenly real and breathing quickly.
“Hello, Message in a Bottle,” I say. “You’re speaking to Kate.” There’s static again and I pull the handset an inch from my ear. “Do you need me to call anyone for you?”
More crackles.
“This line’s terrible, I’m afraid. Is there anyone you’d like us to send a message to?”
It sounds like someone’s talking very far away, but I can’t make out the words. I can stay on the line as long as I feel the need to. I swivel in my chair and look out of the window. The last of the sun is slipping behind the jagged skyline, low rays of light striking the wall behind me as it flares out.
I try again, starting to work through our questions. “Are you in a safe place?”
A lull, then “. . . hear me?” It’s a woman’s voice, a tinny whisper against the buzzing.
“Yes, I can. Take all the time you need.” I sip my cooling tea. I never want to scare them away.
“You’re there!” The relief’s palpable in her voice, low and hushed. She’s young—they often are.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “Whenever you’re ready to talk.” The Post-it I’ve stuck to my handset reminds me of our latest prompt, by order of the helpline’s harried volunteer manager, Chrissie. “If you prefer to text, we can, no problem. We now do—”
She interrupts me. “I’ve got to be quick. I need you to tell them not to worry anymore about their daughter. That she . . . that I’m fine—”
The words are drowned out by static again. “Who? Who do you want me to tell?” Suddenly my heart is racing.
Silence, then the voice, now tiny, like it’s very far away, “. . . not to worry if they don’t hear from me after this, it only hurts . . .” and it’s gone again.
“I can’t hear you, sweetie.” I’m gripping my headset to my ears, pressing harder, harder, straining to hear. The line pops and sings.
Then the voice again, now clear, one that I know better than any other. “. . . are Kate and Mark Har—” My skin is cold, all over.
“Sophie,” I say. Finally allowing myself to say it. “Sophie, is that you?”
But then there’s another burst of static, I can’t tell if she’s still talking.
“Are you still there?” I wait, my heart pounding. “Are you still there?”
“Yes, yes, I’m here,” she says. “I’m still here.”
“Love you, So,” I say.
It’s all I want to tell her, in the end. I don’t know what she’s going to answer, and then—
The dial tone sounds, too loud as I strain to hear. I breathe out, setting the phone back, slowly.
Every part of me knows that voice. My daughter, Sophie.
By the time Alma’s back, I’m calmer, at least on the surface. I’m good at that. You’re so calm, people kept telling me. And later: I can’t believe how calm you’re being about it. I knew it wasn’t a compliment.
But I find I can’t quite sit still, my mind replaying those few syllables over and over: “Kate and
Mark Har—” She was about to say Harlow, I know. “Kate and Mark Harlow.”
I’ve told Alma what’s happened, the call that’s finally come for me, that I’ve always expected. The reason, she will know without me having to tell her, that I started to volunteer here.
“Well, I’m so glad, dear,” she said, after a pause. “I know you’ve been waiting a very long time, haven’t you.” I returned her hug, so she couldn’t see my eyes fill with tears. Her soft cardigan had her perfume—rose scent and custard creams.
She’s letting me skip the rest of the shift: she thinks it’s best if I go home. She can handle it tonight. For Alma, a veteran of the helpline, family break-ups and reunions are the bread and butter of her life, as much as trips to the supermarket and walking her dachshund.
I find I am trembling now, despite the two sugars in the milky tea Alma’s made me sip (“For the shock, dear”). I want to get out of here, itching to act. And there’s something on the edges of my mind, if I can only grasp it . . .
I shake my head. Be practical. I’ll leave a message on the extension of the family liaison officer the police assigned to us. If it’s not too late, maybe I’ll drive to Dad’s. I want to tell him in person. And I need to get a message to Mark, I suppose. It’s the right thing to do. As Sophie’s father, my ex needs to know.
As soon as she hung up, I’d tapped in the numbers for caller ID, even though I knew what the answer would be. That automated voice: “The service requested is not available.” We can’t identify our callers even if we want to—it’s a fundamental policy, and the system’s set up to ensure that.
But I’d know that voice anywhere. She was talking quietly perhaps, and the line was terrible, but it was her. She wants to get a message to Kate and Mark: me and her dad. Not to worry about her—and not to worry if we don’t hear from her? What does that mean?
I feel a burst of longing, raw and hurtful. If only I could have spoken to her longer, I could have persuaded her to come back, I could have. Come home, Sophie, I will her, as if I can convince her to do so through the sheer force of my emotion. Come home.
I am halfway to my car, keys in hand, when I realize. I check myself, stopping dead in the car park, suddenly rigid. What it is that’s bothering me.
I’ve thought about this call before. I’ve imagined it so many, many times: all the things she could be. Distant. Angry. Upset.
But I never imagined that she’d sound so . . . scared.
CHAPTER 3
My coffee from the vending machine, lukewarm to start with, is now cold. It’s not making it taste any better. With my back to the room, I pull a face.
“Well, there must be something you can do to find her,” I say steadily, turning round. “There must. Some sort of log kept by the phone company maybe—something.” I sound more confident than I am, I used to be good at that. “I mean, the police must trace calls all the time.”
“I do understand your frustration, Mrs. Harlow. I really do.” The young officer taking down a report of the call has been polite, even solicitous, making me go over every detail. Getting him to do something about it, and now, is another matter. “But we can’t do anything until we take a look into the original investigation, get up to date with that. Which will be this week, I can assure you.”
“This week?” I catch the expression on his face. “Look,” I say, “I know how it sounds. But it’s not what she said. It’s how she said it.”
“Yes, you mentioned. You’ve a feeling,” he says. I give him a sharp glance, but his face is blank. “But did she say she needed help? Police assistance? Has someone threatened her, attacked her?”
“No, I told you,” I say, trying to suppress my frustration. He already knows she didn’t. “She said to tell us not to worry anymore. But—but she didn’t say she was safe.”
“And no one else heard her, no one else heard you take the call, even?”
“No,” I said, “it’s a skeleton staff on Saturday nights. My colleague had just gone out for her break.”
“And this caller—”
“Sophie,” I interrupt.
“As you say, Sophie—she ended the call—”
“Yes, of course I didn’t end it, I wouldn’t hang up on her.”
“As I said, she ended the call after she realized it was you at the end of the line?”
“I think so, yes, but it would have been a shock.”
“Well, then. Maybe she’ll ring again?”
I grit my teeth. I was always so grateful before, so guilty. I’m the mother whose daughter had run away. But now I’m not just upset, I’m angry.
I don’t know what I expected, really, but something a bit more than this. Some sense of urgency, at least.
There’d been no reply when I’d left a message on the number I’d saved in my mobile phone for Kirstie, our old family liaison officer. So I’d simply driven straight round to the police station in Amberton, the market town next to Vale Dean, the village where I live. I got ushered into a room before an officer came in to take down my report. It was early enough that it was quiet, the Saturday night drunks not yet starting to fill the town center, still calm under the pink skies.
Not anymore, though. I’ve been here for what feels like hours, waiting for them to swing into action. It’s become clear that I’ll be waiting a while.
“Now, in the meantime, you said she told you not to worry,” he says. He fiddles with a page of his notebook. “You know, at eighteen, if someone doesn’t want to come home, well. The truth is, Mrs. Harlow, this may not actually be a police mat—”
“Not a police matter? My daughter, who’s been missing for two years, calls me and what? It’s not a police matter?” My voice cracks on the last few words and he casts his eyes down. He’s embarrassed for me. He thinks I’m grasping at straws.
“You don’t understand,” I say bleakly. “I know my daughter. Or I did. Please, Officer”—I try to remember how he introduced himself—“Jesson. You know . . .” I say slowly, the thought unfurling as I talk, “do you have a sister called Jessica, did cross-country for the county?”
“Uh, no. Jessica’s my cousin,” he says, a little more warmly. “That name’s a mouthful, but people don’t forget it. She’s at uni now, doing law.” He pauses, as he realizes the most likely reason I’d know the name. “She must have been a couple of years older than your Sophie. Was she a runner too?”
“Is,” I say, meaningfully. “Not was, is.”
“Is,” he corrects himself. “All right,” he says, more quietly. “There’s really nothing we can do tonight. This will have to go to our detective unit, you understand. It’s not a simple thing, pulling phone records, even—” He stops. Even on priority cases, I fill in silently. “Even when it’s not a Saturday night. But I’ve noted your concerns. We will be in touch.”
This is as far as I’m going to get this evening. What else can I do?
“Thank you,” I say, getting up to leave. There’s no point antagonizing him.
It’s dark when I leave the station. I have to navigate a group of drunk girls in heels, weaving their way through the back streets, before I get to my car. I am used to being out of sync with the rest of the world.
Driving home, I turn the radio on loud, flicking through the club music until I find some call-in show with mindless chatter to distract me.
“. . . so do today’s teenagers have it tougher than we used to? A new report says that mental health problems are on the rise among the young—but what do you think, give me a call. Now, Dave from Stockport has quite a controversial view about body image, don’t you Dave, he’s on the line now, he—” I flick it off. But as I leave the fringes of the town, the built-up estates giving way to fields, the memories keep coming.
I’d been away, on the tail end of an over-the-top bachelorette party that I’d wobbled about attending. “She’s more Charlotte’s friend than mine,” I’d said, looking at the program: a race day, spa treatments.
Sophie had encouraged
me to go for the whole thing. “You should. You might enjoy it.”
Afterward, the police said she probably knew then that she was going to leave while I was away: that perhaps—they phrased this tactfully—a mother might be slightly more observant than a father.
It had been a source of contention between us: me, always trying to keep our daughter at home, safe, close, concerned about her schoolwork; Mark, more confident that things turned out for the best, arguing that a teenager needed her freedom, that I’d end up pushing her away.
Maybe it was her age. Maybe it was because, contrary to what I’d thought, teenagers could get into just as much trouble out of London as in it. And they seemed to have so much freedom here in Vale Dean, all driving as soon as they hit seventeen, racing round the country lanes. It filled me with horror.
There were endless rows: Sophie, tear-stained, upset that I’d stopped her from going to another party or gig. “But everyone’s going, Holly’s going. Danny will drive us, you don’t even need to take us.”
“Oh, that makes it better. A seventeen-year-old boy who’s just got his license!”
“You wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t them, would you. Admit it, you just don’t like my friends.”
“It’s just not safe, Sophie. I can’t let you go.”
And then that last one, the week she left, about nothing at all, really. I wanted her to eat dinner with us, but she wanted to eat it in her room. “To finish some coursework,” she said.
I remember how it ended, as always: Sophie slamming her way out of the room.
“Just let me go. I can’t stand it! Don’t you get it? I just want some space!”
“Sophie . . .”
I thought it had blown over though, even if she was a bit quieter than usual, before I went. She gave me a proper hug goodbye on Thursday evening, when Charlotte had picked me up, her pale brown bob in a careful blow-dry for the occasion. She’s always hated how her hair frizzes, saying she’d rather have straight flat lengths like me and Sophie.