Mapping the Edge

by Sarah Dunant

  Paul made a grab for the receiver on the wall at the back of the kitchen. I heard him shouting “Hello!” as Mike and I sprinted up the stairs into the hall where the machine was located. We nearly made it in time.

  In her full-length nightgown and tumbling hair she looked like a small pale ghost that had lost its way. She was standing by the hall table, the receiver still in her hand. Through the earpiece we could hear Paul’s voice, insistent, almost angry: “Hello? Hello? Anna, is that you?”

  He had obviously startled her. Him or someone else. As I approached her she shoved the phone straight out to me, partly to protect herself, partly as if it was suddenly something she didn’t want to touch anymore.

  I bent down until I was level with her and took it carefully from her hands. Paul’s voice had gone. The line was dead. I heard his footsteps bounding up the stairs. I opened my arms to her, but she did not come inside.

  “Did the ringing wake you, Lily?” I said softly as I heard Paul arrive behind me in the hall.

  She gave a little shrug, half yes, half no.

  “I’m sorry. We were in the garden. We didn’t hear it.” I motioned to the other two behind me to stay back. As I did so I caught Paul’s eye. He looked strange. I thought about what it must feel like for her, the three of us bearing down on her.

  “How clever of you to get to it first,” I said, smiling. “Who was it, darling? Did they leave a message?”

  She gave her little frown. No wonder she seemed lost. She was probably still half-asleep. “It was Mummy. She said she’d be back soon.”

  Part Two

  Home—Saturday P.M.

  MAYBE SHE ONLY came to me because my body was the right shape, its softness and angles in the same places as her mother, and because at times of stress everyone needs familiar comforts. I think Paul was hurt that she chose me over him, but his voice had been so insistent and anxious through the telephone receiver; he was sensitive enough not to argue with her decision.

  We were sitting in the garden, her on my lap, a glass of fizzy water in front of her on the table, a piece of leftover chicken in her hands. She was telling us a story. It was not the first time we had heard it, but since it changed fractionally with every telling we needed to be sure. Although she was, I have no doubt, disturbed by the event, there was also a sense of occasion about it, and she was not unaware of her place at the center of it.

  We had got to the bit where we were asking her questions: same facts, different angles.

  “She must have been surprised it was you who picked up the phone,” I said brightly.

  “Yes. She asked me if I was in bed.”

  “I hope you told her that you were,” said Paul with mock severity.

  “Yes, but I said I wasn’t asleep yet.”

  I gave her a small squeeze. “You were when I looked in.”

  “I had my eyes closed,” she said solemnly. “I’m very good at that.”

  “And she definitely said that she’d called earlier?”

  She nodded. She had already grown tired of this one, but Paul kept returning to it.

  “Did you tell her we hadn’t got the message?”

  She shrugged, then nodded again, but it was hard to know whether that was because she had told Anna or because it was what Lily thought we wanted to hear.

  “But she said she’d be back soon.” Me, this time, trying to shift the subject.

  “Yes.”

  “On Monday?” Paul again.

  Lily frowned. “I think so. She said she was going to pick me up from school.”

  “Because the planes were full until then?”

  She nodded impatiently, though it was clear she really didn’t have a clue. I noticed her jaw tighten, as if she was clenching her teeth, a warning flare that she was feeling cornered.

  “Paul,” I said lightly. “How about we leave it for a bit and have a cup of cocoa? And maybe a biscuit. What d’you say, Lily?”

  Mike walked back in while the kettle was boiling. He shook his head. “You can’t do it if it comes from abroad. They don’t have the technology.”

  “But if we’d dialed out they’d have an automatic record of the international number,” said Paul. “It’s itemized on the bill.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s how it works. But not the other way around.”

  “You sure?”

  “Listen, I rang the operator and he rang the supervisor.”

  “Maybe the police could do it,” I said quietly, when Lily had her attention focused on the biscuit tin.

  “Nope,” said Mike. “Apparently not. I asked them that, too.”

  “Jesus, and this is supposed to be state-of-the-art technology.” Paul slammed the fridge door shut. “You should have asked to talk to the manager.”

  “I did, Paul. It’s ten o’clock on a Saturday night. He or she is out having a life. Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, okay?”

  Paul sighed. “Sorry.” He went over to where Lily was sitting and squatted down in front of her. She kept her attention stubbornly on the biscuit. Careful, Paul, I thought. “Listen, little lumpalink. I know you’re tired, but I just want you to tell me one more time. Mummy didn’t say where she was calling from, no?”

  She shook her head, her mouth full of chocolate chip.

  “And you said that we were all here waiting for her, right? Stella too?”

  “Yes.” And a bit of biscuit got spat out with the words. “I told you that already.”

  “I know, love. I know. But can you remember exactly what you said about us?”

  She shook her head, her jaw clamped together. I wouldn’t want to be in Paul’s shoes now. Silence.

  “Lily,” he prompted. Then, more firmly. “It’s important, darling.”

  She snapped her head up at him and her voice exploded out. “I said you were in the garden, all right?” she yelled. “Didn’t you hear me the first time?” Then she flounced her body away from him, shoulders hunched right over, head down, enclosing herself in her own storm, blocking out any further incoming signals.

  At full throttle (which, luckily, isn’t often) Lily’s temper can strip wallpaper. There is an internal incandescence to her fury. While other children shout and scream she goes into closedown, total absence, deafness like a form of civil disobedience. Paul put a hand on her knee. She jerked her leg away. As a strategy it had got the British out of India, and it would defeat us here tonight if we didn’t think fast. Once they locked horns we’d be here for hours. I glanced at Mike over the top of his head. He made a small face, then laughed out loud.

  “Hey listen. Anna didn’t want to talk to us because she phoned to talk to Lily,” he said merrily, coming up and putting a hand on his lover’s shoulders. “If it had been me, I would have done the same thing. Sounds like you’re jealous, Paul.”

  Paul scowled. Lily spotted the look. She shot Mike a fast glance to check whether she was being humored, thought about it for a while, and decided to let him do it anyway. She relaxed her shoulders. I swear I saw them fall. The air around us began to move freely again.

  I let it circulate for a while. “And I’m sure she’ll call us later,” I said when I thought the coast was clear. “After you’re in bed.” I paused. “Speaking of which, do you know what the time is?”

  She sighed, but the weather was clement now and it was more a breeze than a harbinger of a gale. “Oh, Stella . . . it’s Sunday tomorrow,” she wheedled, the old Lily back again.

  “That’s as may be, but Stella’s right, it’s still time for bed,” Paul chipped in, looser this time. “Come on. Who do you want to take you up? Me or her?”

  She paused and looked at us both. “Can I have another biscuit?”

  “No,” we said together, laughing.

  She gave a shrug and pointed to Mike.

  He grinned. “Good choice. It would be my pleasure. Just so long as we don’t have to read the story about the giant-eating man again.”

  She took his hand and let him lead her out. I watched them
go. Harmony restored. How can anyone believe that children are powerless? They know more about fighting than the average German Panzer division. Yet their real strength is how to make peace.

  Although some would no doubt find it precocious, I love the way Lily knows how to handle adults. It speaks of a certain confidence about the world—something that had always eluded me as a child, though it has to be said that circumstances were not on my side.

  At the door she turned. “If Mummy calls again, will you wake me up? There was something I forgot to tell her.”

  Paul nodded. “Yes, of course. Up you go now, pumpkin. I’ll come and say good night in a minute.”

  They went off together, as if it were something they did every night. I thought again of how substantial Mike had proved himself to be this evening and how this crisis could only serve to deepen their relationship. It was interesting, seeing Paul with a younger man. In contrast to Mike’s casual style, Paul’s now seemed more focused, more regimented. Maybe Mike had just allowed Paul to grow older at last (it has always seemed to me that good-looking gay men carry the burden of others’ sexual expectations upon them), to become more himself.

  It had also been illuminating to watch him with Lily; the up-front questioning, the domesticity, the edge of discipline along with the love. It made me realize how in the past I had only ever seen him as the supplementary parent, more likely to be playing Mr. Nice Guy to Anna’s primary mum. How much of his tougher stand was about chronic worry and how much it reflected his own style of parenting was hard to tell.

  It is, I think, time to say something more about this strange unnuclear family of which Lily is the center and in some ways the key.

  I know academically speaking the jury is still out on nature versus nurture, but I have to say that fifteen minutes in the company of Lily as a baby would have sorted most people out on that one. Because Lily didn’t simply arrive, she came equipped with her own game plan. The only child of a single mother. What was needed here? An essentially sunny disposition, an ability to sleep through the night at an early age, attachments to other adults if and when they proved trustworthy, and a kind of innate belief that the world will do unto you as you do unto it, and thus you will be charmed and loved forever. Lily. Outgoing and self-contained at the same time. If you could have used her as a political weapon the debate about nuclear versus dysfunctional families would have taken a whole new turn.

  Of course, we have helped. Right from the beginning the three of us have provided a structure and a security in which this unusual plant can flourish. My side consists of regular visits, me to them and them to me, large phone bills (I talk to Lily on her own almost as often as I do to Anna), and a growing proportion of my more than adequate income spent on games and books and the more extravagant bits of a child’s yearly wardrobe.

  Perhaps more unexpectedly, given his other life as a gay man, Paul has shown a similar level of commitment. Maybe he always harbored a secret desire for a child and knew that this would be his only chance to have one. I don’t know him well enough to ask, but I do know that he’s always been there for them both, financially as well as emotionally. From the acorn of that computer graphics course at which he first met Anna thirteen years ago has grown a sturdy software business, and as his income has risen so has his level of financial commitment. It took Anna a while to accept it, but in the end it seemed churlish to refuse. His support has made their life easier. Just as their life has made his richer.

  For years now there has been a routine to his care. He stays on Friday, and occasionally Saturday, nights, takes Lily out for part of the weekend, and looks after her if Anna is away. During this time he has also had a succession of lovers—his gayness has always been openly acknowledged and talked about—but none of them have ever been particularly serious or, to put it another way, none of them have been allowed to affect his commitment to Lily. And with Michael’s acceptance into the family it looked as if that wouldn’t change now. It was that security of care which gave Paul the right to say what he did about her on that Saturday night. He had evidently been worrying at it for a while.

  “I don’t get it,” he said almost angrily. “How could Anna possibly not ask to talk to one of us? She must have known we’d be out of our minds with worry.”

  “Not necessarily. Not if she believed she had already left a message for us.”

  “But she hadn’t, had she.”

  “The trouble is we don’t know that for sure, Paul. What if it was on your mobile?”

  He shook his head. “In that case we’ll never find out, because my bloody secretary canceled the whole thing before checking. But there wasn’t, anyway. I mean, I checked the messages first thing on Friday morning, before I went into the meeting. There was nothing there, and she was already twelve hours late by then. If she was going to call she would have done it before.”

  “Maybe she got held up. Why would she say to Lily that there’d been a message if there hadn’t?”

  He sat silently for a second, picking bread crumbs off the table with his fingertips, then flicking them into the grass. “You don’t think Lily was just telling us what she thought we wanted to hear?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you saw how angry she got when we questioned her.”

  “Oh, come on, Paul, she just lost it. I thought we were lucky she went so long. We were pushing her.”

  “You mean I was pushing her?”

  I shrugged.

  He sighed. “Do you think I’m being unreasonable? Don’t you think Anna should have talked to us?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she wanted to and Lily hung up before she got the chance.”

  He shook his head. “She hasn’t called again.”

  “The line’s been engaged, remember. Mike was checking with the operator.”

  “Yeah, well, the line’s not engaged anymore.”

  We sat in silence for a while. Upstairs in Lily’s bedroom I heard the murmur of voices. They’d be well into the second book by now, and Mike probably wouldn’t even have noticed the join. I poured myself another glass of wine. The sky was thickening from gray to black; one month on from the summer solstice and the light was already on the turn. It is the mark of a committed pessimist, looking for winter in the middle of summer. Despite my recent successes, the older I get the more I find myself in need of the light. Maybe that was why I was holding out against Paul now. I could feel it building up in him. Still I didn’t say anything. Which meant that in the end he had to.

  “She’s not going to call,” he murmured when the wine was halfway down in my glass.

  “What are you trying to say, Paul?”

  He sighed. “Listen, nobody heard the phone ring, right? We were all out here with the door open; the music wasn’t that loud, yet we didn’t hear it and she did. If she had been asleep—and you and I both saw her—it would have had to ring a number of times to wake her, yet we still didn’t hear it. And when I picked the receiver up in the kitchen the line was completely dead. There was definitely no one on the other end. It was like the sound you get when someone has had the phone off the hook for too long. Was Lily actually talking when you found her in the hall?”

  “No. But that’s because you were shouting down the receiver at her. Wait a minute. Are you saying you think that Lily made all this up? That it wasn’t Anna on the phone?”

  “Look, Stella, I don’t know what I’m saying. All I know is that if Anna had called, she should have talked to us. Or at the very least to you, when she heard that you were here, too. It doesn’t make sense that she didn’t. And, well—well, it is possible. I mean you know what Lily’s like. Always wanting to make things better for everyone. I think she might have just decided to say all that because she knew we were worried. Or maybe she did it because she was worried—pretended to talk to Anna to make herself feel better. She’s always been a great chatterer when it comes to fake phone calls.”

  “Yeah, but that was when she was younger and we
all knew it was fake. She hasn’t done anything like this before.”

  “There hasn’t been anything like this before, has there?” He sighed. “You and I both know that Lily’s got a pretty powerful imagination. She can hold on to a story when she wants to, even when it’s made up. Anna told me how she came back the other week with some number about how all the kids in her class had got chicken pox. Kept it up for ages. It was because she didn’t want to do gym next day in school. Anna had to call one of the other mothers to check.”

  Maybe she’s just better at fibs than you are, I thought, though clearly it wasn’t the time to say it. “But this isn’t the same. I mean, this evening she retold the same consistent story under questioning.”

  “It wasn’t exactly a complicated one, though, was it? Mummy called, said she’d been delayed, they talked about what she’d done at the fair, then Mummy said good night and that she loved her and that she’d be back soon. Nothing about where she was or why she hadn’t called sooner. I’m sorry. It just doesn’t sound convincing to me. And you saw how mad she got about it.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know. I think in her shoes I would have got mad, too. She’s a smart kid, Paul. Somewhere underneath all this happy-weekend stuff she knows it’s falling apart. I’m surprised she hasn’t lost it sooner, really.”

  We stopped talking. It occurred to me that Paul would almost certainly think that he knew Lily better than I did. And that in some ways that might indeed be true. I also knew that he was right; Lily’s version of the phone call didn’t completely make sense, but I really didn’t want to think about what that might mean. Because, of course, it affected the next question we had to discuss.

  “I still think we have to tell the police,” I said tentatively.

  He sighed. “If we didn’t speak to Anna directly I don’t think we can vouch for the conversation.”