‘You’re a devoted friend to Zara, she’ll really need your support,’ Mr Stewart said. ‘My son wrote to us, telling us about his new girlfriend. We had hoped the first time we met her it would have been in happier circumstances.’
‘They were close,’ I said. ‘They hadn’t been together long, but you could see how well matched they were.’
‘No-one should have to bury their child,’ Mr Stewart said and looked away.
‘What will happen to his studio?’ I asked, trying to ease his discomfort by providing another focus.
‘We’ll stay to sort out the lease, clear the flat. If Zara wants to stay on there, then I’m sure something can be arranged.’
‘I don’t want to speak for her, but I’ve a feeling she won’t want to go back there. Too many memories.’
A few of Joel’s regular customers attended the funeral, as well as Petula, the girl who used to help out in the photographic studio on a Saturday. Mr Stewart thanked everyone for coming. He asked Zara if she wanted to say a few words, but she was in no fit state. She had barely spoken a word since the accident and I hoped things might be a little easier for her once the funeral was over.
The weeks passed and nothing much changed. She slept a lot and would often sit in front of the television with her eyes glazed, unaware when the test card came on. I tried to make sure she ate something each day, but she said she had little appetite.
I called into Q Boutique straight after the accident, telling them Zara wouldn’t be in until further notice. As the time passed I accepted they wouldn’t be able to keep her job open forever. When I attempted to talk to her about it she just shook her head. ‘I can’t think about that now,’ was her stock reply to most things. She never asked or spoke about the accident. Of course, it made sense she was trying to push the memory away as much as she could.
Then, after she had been with us about six months, it was as though a switch had been clicked. She was now awake most of the day and night. Perhaps her body had squirreled away enough sleep and now she was feeding off the store. Some days when Greg had an extra early start for a customer, I would join him for his first cuppa. We’d arrive in the kitchen to find Zara already there, sitting quietly, sipping her second, or third cup of coffee. When I returned from shopping, or from dad’s, she would greet me at the door, as though she’d been hovering in the hallway for the whole time I’d been out. Greg and I usually gave in to yawns just after 10pm and we would leave her sitting on the sofa, looking bright-eyed, as though she’d just woken.
We still avoided the television news when she was around and would only glance at newspapers when we were out of the house, but we didn’t really expect to hear any reports about Joel. It was unlikely now that the driver would suddenly turn up and admit to their crime. Nevertheless, we waited and hoped.
The months passed by and I could tell Greg was becoming increasingly irritated by her presence.
‘Haven’t we done enough for her now,’ he whispered to me one evening, when she had gone up to her room.
‘Do you want me to throw her out? Is that what you’re suggesting?’
‘No, I’m just saying. We’re not helping her move on, at some point she needs to get a grip and sort her life out.’
‘There speaks my considerate husband. Where do you think she can go? She’s got no money, Joel’s flat is no longer an option and she’s lost her job.’
‘She could go stay with her folks. I know the two of you have become close friends, but friendship should work both ways, shouldn’t it? Seems to me she is taking advantage of your kindness.’
‘You’re all heart,’ I said and made a point of turning my back on him.
The one-year anniversary of Joel’s death fell on a Thursday and I was acutely aware of the importance of the day. Every day for a week beforehand I brought the subject up with Zara, as gently as I could.
‘Um, would you like to go somewhere together next Thursday?’ I asked her. She glanced at me quizzically, as though she didn’t understand the question.
‘Would you prefer to be on your own next Thursday, or would you like company?’ was another tack.
Eventually I surmised she was planning her own commemoration and it was best to leave her to it.
As far I knew she’d never once been to the cemetery. I made several visits over the months following his death, it was an easy detour on my way back from dad’s. Whenever I visited, mine were the only flowers and I found myself apologising to Joel.
‘You’re not forgotten, you know, it’s just that it’s too painful for her still,’ I whispered, looking around furtively and praying no-one would think me crazy to be talking to a gravestone. ‘By not visiting she can pretend you’ve gone on a trip and one day you’ll come home.’ I liked this idea myself in truth.
Greg had promised to finish work early that Thursday and dad was happy for me to take the afternoon off. After a few weeks of glorious weather, the forecasters said it was due to break, so Greg and I planned a walk together beside the river and a picnic. We sat on the banks of the river and talked about fishing. Neither of us had ever tried it and doubtless we never would, but on that day it seemed like the perfect pastime to while away a warm afternoon. When we returned from our river walk, I didn’t immediately panic when she wasn’t sitting downstairs, or even hovering in the hall.
‘Looks as though Zara’s gone out. That’s positive, isn’t it? She could be visiting the cemetery after all.’
I rifled through cookery books, looking at fish recipes. We waited to cook supper until she returned. In the end, we had beans on toast.
By 8pm we were both anxious. I knocked on her bedroom door, half hoping she would be curled up, back in sleep mode. Having no response, I pushed open the door to gaze with dismay at an empty room. For the last year the tapestry bag I’d packed for her had sat on the chair by the window. It was as though by leaving it there she was reminding herself that our spare room would only ever be a temporary home for her. Now the chair was empty, as was the wardrobe and the chest of drawers.
‘Is there a note?’ Greg asked, having followed me into the bedroom.
‘Not an obvious one. Where do you think she’s gone?’ The churning in my stomach had nothing to do with hunger.
After two days I was convinced she must have had an accident. I woke in a sweat from a series of nightmares involving various car crashes, with Zara’s bloodied face staring up at me. I visited the local hospital, asking at reception if she’d been admitted, half dreading the reply.
‘She’s taken her bag, all her things,’ I said, hoping Greg would appreciate the importance of my words. But his expression was blank.
‘Don’t you see, if she took all her belongings then it must mean she’s okay. Someone doesn’t pack a bag if they intend to end it all,’ I said.
His impassive expression did nothing to allay my fears. I hadn’t told Greg that when I did another search of her room that first night I found a note. It was screwed up at the back of one of the drawers, as though she had written it and then thought better of it. All it said was: ‘I can’t do this anymore.’
Late evening on the second day I contacted the police. Greg was less than enthusiastic about the idea.
‘They’ll say she’s an adult,’ he said, the exasperation evident in his voice, ‘she can choose to go where she wants without telling anyone. We’ll be done for wasting police time.’
The police were understanding, but said there was little they could do unless we feared suspicious circumstances. They suggested we do our own search, put up posters, speak to people who knew her. So, we launched our own campaign. The local newspaper agreed to print a notice in their latest edition, with Zara’s photo. We got some posters made up and put them up all around the town. One of the posters was pinned up inside the mobile library and I asked every customer who came in to study it.
‘Are you sure you haven’t seen her?’ I said to each of them. A few of my regulars stopped coming in for their weekly li
brary book exchange, fearing me pouncing on them as soon as they stepped in the door. I scanned each person who passed the library van, confident I would spot her strolling by.
The days and weeks passed and there was nothing, no leads. Zara had vanished. We turned the television on each night, hoping for some mention of her, dreading the news she’d been found hurt, or worse.
It was Greg who voiced what I’d been thinking since that first day. ‘Maybe she’d just had enough,’ he said one evening.
‘Don’t say it, I don’t want to hear it.’
‘Okay, but we may have to face it.’
‘She never cried you know. I’ve never seen her cry.’
Now the television news has given us a glimmer of hope. There is a new lead. I pray it means my friend is alive and well.
Chapter 5
‘Like a good detective story myself,’ remarked Miss Howard. ‘Lots of nonsense written, though. Criminal discovered in last Chapter. Every one dumbfounded. Real crime – you’d know at once.’
The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie
Tuesdays and Thursdays are my days at dad’s. My dad is blind. I was five years old when a bus ran into him. He was crossing the road to get me a doughnut. It had been snowing, a light sprinkling that made the roads glisten. Beautiful to gaze at, but treacherous to drive on or to walk across. I watched the accident unfold and, like they say about any tragic event, it happened in slow motion. If I close my eyes I can feel the chill of the snowflakes and hear the screech of the horn when the bus driver realised too late what was going to happen. He retired on the grounds of ill health after my dad’s encounter with his front wheels. The police said it was an unfortunate accident, the weather was to blame, but that poor driver blamed himself.
He visited dad in hospital several times. According to the nurses, he’d sit beside dad’s bed, rarely speaking. Dad’s eyes were all bandaged up, so he often didn’t know who was visiting him, particularly if they didn’t say a word. We never heard from the bus driver again after dad came out of hospital. It’s no surprise he didn’t keep in touch, but I think about him from time to time and hope he’s okay.
On the rare occasion I was allowed to visit my dad in hospital I’d sing to him. Nursery rhymes mostly, anything to make him smile. Sometimes the nurses would join in. One afternoon we even got a few of the other patients on the ward joining in with Oh, the Grand Old Duke of York, until a doctor arrived to do his rounds and Matron told us all to hush up. I was certain the doctor would have enjoyed it as much as the rest of us, he looked like a cheery sort as far as I remember.
Dad’s sister, Aunt Jessica, moved in to look after me at around the same time as mum moved out. When her strapping detective became a blind ex-policeman who needed a helping hand, mum decided that hand wouldn’t be hers.
Once he was out of hospital it took dad ages to get used to moving around the house. He kept bumping into furniture, or fumbling for light switches. I never understood why he bothered with the light switch. I figured being blind meant you would be forever in the dark, regardless of the time of day or night. When I was old enough to understand, he explained how sometimes he could see vague shadows, different patterns of light and shade. He told me he wanted to carry on as he was before. If that meant switching on a light when he entered a room, then he’d jolly well do just that.
If I had to sum my dad up in one word, it would be ‘determined’. For a while it was the three of us, Aunt Jessica, dad and me. Then Charlie came to stay. Charlie was the first of a series of beautiful German Shepherd dogs who have become dad’s eyes. When Charlie the 1st came to live with us I thought he was just there for me to play with. He was nearly two years old and had learned how to be a proper guide dog, but once he was off shift he was ready to act like a puppy again. He and I would run around the garden together until we dropped from pleasurable exhaustion.
By the time Charlie the 1st was seven and I was ten, dad had applied to study physiotherapy. He’d mastered pretty much everything else about day-to-day living, with Charlie’s help, and now it was time for him to discover a new career.
After the war dad had joined the police force. He was getting used to it all and from what he’s told me he loved every minute; the organisation, the rules and the fact he was making a difference. After a couple of years as a bobby on the beat, watching out for children whose worse misdemeanours were scrumping, he was promoted to detective. It was temporary at first, giving him an opportunity to learn the ropes. But it wasn’t to be.
It wasn’t only his eyes that were damaged in the accident. His left leg had broken in two places. The physiotherapists performed wonders and that, together with dad’s natural persistence, means he’s barely got a limp now. So, his new career choice reflected his experience during those first weeks after his accident. He transferred all his visual skills into his fingers.
‘The physiotherapy team helped me realise there was a difference between living a life or just existing,’ he told me much later, when I was old enough to understand.
Aunt Jessica stayed with us for nine years altogether. Then, on my fourteenth birthday she announced it was time for her to do some exploring. As far as I know she’d never fallen in love, in fact, I never found out what she was doing before she came to live with us. My dad and I owed her a huge debt; like the physiotherapy team she had made the difference between us having a life or just existing. Without her we would have even struggled to do the latter.
After she left we received regular postcards from all over Europe. I read them out to dad, tracing her journey on the atlas. She travelled by train through France and Switzerland, into Italy and across to Greece. I envisaged her on her adventures, promising myself I’d do the same thing. As soon as I left school I’d be off. When it came to it that was the last thing on my mind. Right now I have no idea where Aunt Jessica is. When we last heard from her she wrote to tell us she planned to explore life in a commune.
I let myself in the front door and called out hello. Dad was chatting to Charlie, something about the promise of a walk later, when the rain stopped.
‘Hi, how are things?’ I said, as I headed for the kitchen and put the kettle on.
‘You’ve heard the news?’ he said, knowing I wouldn’t want to bother with small talk when this was the single most important thing that had happened to us.
‘Yes, and I’m hoping you’ll have some idea of what the police might be doing.’
‘Princess, I know you have a high opinion of me and for that I am forever grateful. But a brief spell as a detective many years ago does not mean I have access to all things policing.’
‘Point taken. I’m planning to go to the station, try to find out what the lead is, the report was vague.’
‘You can try, but I’m not sure they’ll tell you much.’ Dad knew me well. Once I have an idea in my head there’s not much anyone can say to change it. ‘How about doing some work then? You are supposed to be my admin assistant, aren’t you?’
On the two days I’m not looking after the mobile library, I call round to dad’s and type up his patient notes. Since he qualified he’s been steadily busy and gained an excellent reputation locally. The doctors all know him and point patients in his direction. More often than not the forty-five minute physiotherapy session turns into an hour, as patients tell dad their latest worries about a child or grandchild, or ask his advice about a work problem. I told him he should charge them extra for counselling.
‘Who’s been in today then?’ I said, picking up the appointment list and looking through the names, many of whom are now familiar to me. ‘Not Mrs Potts again. I’m certain that shoulder of hers is fixed now and she likes coming in for a chit-chat.’
‘Her grandson has managed to get into Cambridge.’
‘University?’
‘Yes, how about that. She’s so proud, she was barely through the door before she told me. She told me all about the entrance exam and how difficult it is and how Luther scored top ma
rks. She’s convinced he’s going to change the world.’
‘Next Nobel prize winner then? Not like your numbskull of a daughter?’
‘That doesn’t even deserve a reply. Did the library say yes to the new books you ordered? ‘
‘They’ve approved the latest 007 and Alastair Mclean, but no to The Valley of the Dolls, and I can’t imagine why. For now, anyway, but I’ll keep on at them. All I’m waiting for is the new Agatha Christie, I’ve read everything on the crime shelves twice over.’
‘My little bookworm. Come on, let’s have a cuppa and then we’d better get on with some work.’
‘Er, the thing is dad I can’t stand tea anymore. I’m convinced they’re putting something into the water. I’ve asked Greg to check our water supply. I’ve descaled the kettle, but nothing I do makes much difference. All Greg says is I should try another brand of tea. I’ve even bought a more expensive one. It’s the smell of it, it turns my stomach.’
‘Can’t stand tea, eh? I remember your mother saying just the same thing.’
‘Mum?’ It was so rare for dad to mention her, he took me by surprise and I wasn’t sure what to say next.
‘I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the water, love, but maybe make an appointment with the doctor?’
‘Is it some strange illness then, is that what you’re trying to tell me, without much success?’
‘I wouldn’t call motherhood an illness, although it will play havoc with your body I’m sure. But in a nice way, I’m told.’
Since Zara’s disappearance, Greg and I had slipped back into our own routine. Perhaps it was the undiscussed sadness of recent events, or the fact that we only had ourselves to think about, but whatever it was we found we were closer than ever. So, there it was. A visit to the doctor’s confirmed it. The two of us would soon be three.
The Tapestry Bag Page 3