The Bones of You

by Debbie Howells

Grace shakes her head, slightly embarrassed, giveaway pink washing her cheeks.

  “Grace . . . who were they?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t really know. Just . . . friends of Sophie’s.”

  “You have to tell Sophie they really should talk to the police.”

  “Mum! I can’t! It’s up to her! Anyway, I don’t even know where they are.”

  “Well, if they’re Sophie’s friends, she will, won’t she?” There’s a waspish tone in my voice, because from Grace’s flushed cheeks and evasive answers, I’d say there’s more to this than she’s telling.

  She says nothing. From an early age, Grace has known that silent defiance is impossible to argue with.

  I fold my arms. “Okay. I’ll talk to Sophie, then. Or I could always call Lorraine.” Sophie’s most unmaternal of mothers, called Lorraine by her offspring, too.

  Grace’s eyes widen. “Just don’t, Mum, okay?”

  “So, you tell me. This isn’t funny, Grace. Rosie’s been gone four days now. She might have been kidnapped or hurt or anything.”

  Grace looks apologetic, but then she leaps up, alarmed. “Mum! I forgot to tell you. It’s going to be on the news. Josh told me. Quick . . . We may have missed it. . . .”

  She runs to turn on the TV. I follow.

  Sophie’s friends forgotten, we catch the national news mid-broadcast. It’s left to the last minutes of the program. In case anything more important, more newsworthy crops up? Is there anything more important than someone’s missing child? My head fills with unanswerable questions as Neal appears on the screen.

  I watch him, drained, tense, his pain clearly drawn on his face, as he makes a heartfelt plea. To all of us, whoever we are, wherever, to imagine if this were our daughter. To anyone who knows anything, no matter how irrelevant, how trivial it may seem, to please, please come forward.

  His eloquent, desperate words are the soundtrack to a photo of Rosie, flashed onto the screen, showing her beauty, her pale hair, that faraway look in her eyes. I glance at Grace, who has tears streaming down her face. On the second “please,” his voice cracks, and my heart breaks for them.

  Like a fallen, unseasonal Christmas tree, our village lights up with phone calls. My heart tells me to call Jo, but my head cautions me. At such a time, is it right? I decide not calling doesn’t feel right, either, and I dial her number, imagining her home alone while Neal’s still in the TV studio, ashamed of my relief when no one answers.

  As soon as I put down the phone, Rachael calls me.

  “You did see that, didn’t you? Neal on the lunchtime news? Just so bloody awful, isn’t it? That poor family . . . And someone must know something. Come over tomorrow, Kate. Ten-ish. Oh God, Norman’s cut himself. . . .”

  Only pausing for breath after she’s gone.

  I catch it in my words to Beth Van Sutton in the village shop. Here, too, among the locally farmed meat and boxes of vegetables, her trays of homemade cakes, fear lingers.

  “Terrible, isn’t it, Kate? That lovely young girl . . . that poor family. The police have been in. They’re talking to everyone, you know.”

  It’s no surprise the police have spoken to her. A human inventory of village comings and goings, Beth and her husband, Johnny, have run the shop for as long as anyone can remember. Know everything and everyone—almost.

  “Johnny’s talked to the police about organizing a search,” she adds. “People round here need to do something.”

  It’s the obvious next step, to turn fear into action, gather our numbers and seek out the most hidden places—but no less shocking.

  “It’s unbearable, isn’t it? The not knowing.” It rolls off my tongue almost without me noticing. To a point, it’s true, until my mind inevitably fills with the many possibilities that are each a million times worse than just not knowing.

  Beth looks shocked. “No news is good news.” Then she adds, “Have you seen the strawberries? Second crop, they are. Really tasty.”

  Her eyes meeting mine as the cliché passes between us silently.

  Life goes on.

  When I get to Rachael’s, she’s in her habitual state of chaos.

  “Kate! God, I’m pleased to see you. The police were here yesterday.. . . Have they been to you yet? Of course they have—you told me. Do you know if they have any leads? Someone must know something, don’t you think? Let’s go out for lunch. The kids have eaten everything, and I haven’t had time to shop.”

  “Pub?” I suggest.

  “Pub.” Rachael sounds relieved.

  “I tried calling Jo last night,” I tell her as, pausing for breath, she grabs her bag and hunts around for her keys, before giving up and leaving the door unlocked, as she often does. By her own admission, they have nothing worth stealing. “Just after Neal’s appeal. She didn’t answer.”

  “I’m not surprised. I can’t imagine what they’re going through. There was a reporter snooping around the farm this morning. Alan set the dogs on him.”

  “Your dogs? That’s hilarious.” Rachael’s dogs may be multiple, but they’re harmless.

  “He didn’t know that, though, did he?”

  The pub is busy for midweek. Like a car crash on the opposite side of a motorway, is a missing girl suddenly a spectator sport? We opt for inside, a table near an open window.

  “Has Alan noticed a group of boys hanging around?” I’m thinking of Sophie’s friends. I must ask Grace if she’s talked to her.

  “I don’t think so. Though on all those acres, anyone could be there. He’d never know.” She raises her eyes to mine. “That’s the trouble round here, isn’t it? There are too many places to hide.”

  I’ve thought that myself, but if Rosie has run off with someone, the same someone who gave her that beautiful necklace, she could be safely camped out in one of tens of hiding places. No one would know.

  Perusing the menu, Rachael sighs. “Would it be incredibly greedy to have the steak, d’you think?”

  We’re halfway through our lunch when across the bar, I see a face I’d recognize anywhere. One I haven’t seen in years. The last person I’d expect to see here.

  “Laura?” Incredulously, shaking my head in disbelief. Is it her? But as I say her name out loud, she turns toward me, and I see her face light up.

  5

  “I don’t believe this!” Laura comes over and hugs me.

  “Me neither! Rachael, this is Laura. We were at school together,” I explain. “Went on our first teenagers’ holiday together, fell for the same boy. Then she went away, and I never saw her again. Until now! I can’t believe it!”

  “Partners in crime,” Laura says, pulling out a chair. “Are you sure you don’t mind?” Aimed at Rachael.

  “God, no. Help yourself. Join us for coffee. I’ll go and order.”

  As Rachael gets up and heads over to the bar, I glance at Laura, wondering where the frizzy hair and the soft plumpness have gone. This Laura is sleek and honed—and her clothes incredibly fashionable.

  “So what brings you here? I’d heard you moved to the States. Are you back?”

  “I live in New York.” She pauses. “I’m a journalist, Kate.” Speaking slowly, gauging my reaction, her eyes rooted to mine, as I start to get a sense of where she’s going with this.

  “You’ve heard about Rosie.” It’s a statement rather than a question. My pleasure at seeing her dissipates, because I’m not sure how that makes me feel. Disappointment that my old friend makes her living out of other people’s suffering? “It’s a long way to come, Laura. And no one knows what, if anything, has happened to her.”

  Laura nods. “I know. And I really hope, as much as all of you do, that she just walks back in, unharmed. But it’s a big story. Neal Anderson’s a household name. There’s more to it, though. Before this happened, we’d planned a series of articles on the hidden victims of war zones. Including Afghanistan. Human stories about what happens when towns and families are decimated, and about those who remain—the elderly, the maimed. The orph
ans.” She pauses. “He’s already agreed to an interview with me. You see, he’s connected with an orphanage in Afghanistan.”

  It’s the first I’ve heard of this; suddenly, she has my attention.

  She goes on. “Seeing as I’m here, anyway, my editor’s agreed to let me cover this, too. Half the country is following this—and it’s been a while, hasn’t it? You must all be terribly worried.”

  Thinking of Jo again, I’m not sure. There are more than enough rumors circulating, and it feels disloyal to discuss her family like this. They’re too close to my heart.

  “I don’t know, Laura. Jo’s a friend. It might be better if you talk to someone else.”

  Laura sits back, still watching me. “Will you give me a chance to explain how we work? I can understand what you’re thinking, because right now, if I were you, I’d feel the same. But I’m really not one of those horrible, ruthless reporters who twist facts and who’ll do anything for a story. I promise you, cross my heart. Obviously, it’s awful that Rosanna—or Rosie, you say she’s called—is missing. There’s a story to write, sure, but accurately. And sympathetically, because awful though it is, this happens to people. The papers will print it, Kate, regardless. And not always the facts, either. You know that.”

  “She’s right.” Rachael reappears with a tray of coffee. “So who do you work for?”

  “An American magazine called Lifetime. . . . It’s a monthly journal—mostly about family and the kind of real-life issues facing women. I’ll give you a copy. I’ve got some upstairs.”

  “You’re staying here?” Rachael places cups in front of us.

  Laura nods. “For a couple of days.”

  Until Rosie comes back, is what she means.

  Or doesn’t.

  However bright the sun, however warm and soft the air on my skin, I discover you can’t unlearn fear. It’s there, all around us, as we gather to search for Rosie. I wonder if Jo knows just how much support there is. But after a long day yields nothing of any significance, as daylight fades, numbers fall away, leaving the police to continue with a dog.

  It’s there again, fear, my instant split-second response, that evening, when my phone rings. I’m in my pajamas, tidying the last of dinner away before I go to bed, meaning it’s late enough that it’s important.

  Grace’s number flashing up on the screen.

  “Mum, they’ve found her. . . .” Her voice is small and shocked.

  Oh God.

  “Is she all right, Grace?”

  “She was in the woods. . . .”

  My heart misses a beat, because it’s not what I want to hear, nor is the rushing sound in my ears as it comes back to me. The storm, Zappa, my fall . . .

  Clamping the phone to my ear as my heart leaps wildly, pointlessly with hope, because I know already from her hesitation, from the tremble in her voice, long before she speaks the words.

  “Mum . . .” Her voices breaks. “Rosie’s dead.”

  ROSIE

  I’m ricocheted forward through two elastic years. Another bigger, noisier car, which my father drives too fast. I’m slumped in the back, on the soft, low-slung seat, and can’t see out, so sickness rushes over me in waves. Mummy’s sick, too, all the time, but she says hers is different.

  When we get to the new house, I shiver under a streetlight while my father stands in the drive, just staring at it. Then steps back, still staring, before a smug look spreads across his face. It’s not like our old one. It’s too big and dark.

  As we go inside and can’t find the light switch, my father says, “Really, Joanna, this is your fault.”

  It’s when I notice how he always calls her Joanna, not Jo, like other people do. I wait for them to find the lights, listening to the echo of their footsteps, wishing we were back in our old house. But when it’s warm and lit and the furniture is set out, and after about five days, when the windows have curtains and the rooms look a bit like our old rooms, and I have new toys and my own brand-new pink TV, I decide I like it here.

  I start my new school under a lavender sky just before a hailstorm, small, in a too-big overcoat, carrying my schoolbag, following other children across the playground just as the hail starts. I remember its icy sting against my hands and face, the drumming sound as it falls on the pavement. I don’t see my mother bolt for the car or the lavender sky darken to a steely gray. I never look up.

  I’m nervous all morning, staring out through the window at the gloom lightened only by an ice carpet, imagining I’m caught in a gray hinterland where the sun never rises, until break time, when a girl asks me to play. That’s when I meet Lucy Mayes, and then a little while later, the sun comes out and the ice melts away. I find out Lucy’s clever and lives in a nice house quite near ours and plays the violin. As Mummy says, she really is the perfect friend.

  And then, just before Christmas, our house made beautiful with a tree that glitters and presents tied with ribbons piled underneath, Delphine comes to us, another perfect daughter in the random world that isn’t random.

  I look at my sister, who has my pale hair and eyes that stare into mine as if there are secrets there. She’s someone who needs me. A gift.

  When we’re alone, I call her Della, liking its sound and how it flows off my tongue.

  As I watch, the feeling comes back. The same excitement, mixed with happiness and gratitude for Christmas, my new sister, and my perfect childhood. I whisper to Della about the things we’ll do together and how I’m her big sister. I’ll always look after her.

  It’s a bubble that lasts until the night before Christmas Eve. My father comes home late, shouting at Mummy, who has crystal tears that hurt her. She goes upstairs to comfort Della, because she’s crying, but he pulls her back and locks Della’s door.

  I cry then, and the baby behind the locked door cries because of the noise, and because all she wants is a warm body to cuddle against. But my father’s shouting at Mummy, and wherever I look, I can’t find the key. So while my six-year-old self talks through the door to her baby sister, I stand above her cot, whispering to her.

  “It’s okay, Della. You’re not alone.”

  6

  Death casts its shadow, leaving our hearts sad and tainting our world with fear. Have I reached that point in life where from here on it will always be there, lurking, just out of sight, but waiting in the background for its next victim?

  And while our questions go unanswered, life goes on, the sun rising over grass sparkling with dew and the dawn chorus as loud and sweet as any morning, just as Ella, my neighbor, walks past with her black Labrador and the post arrives and Angus goes to work. He has an important meeting with the head of an American company, who’s flown over from Boston just to see him.

  Early morning, with the sun rising through the trees, is a time of day I love. Not just the quiet, but the low, clear light, which gives color depth, each petal and leaf freshened by the cool of the night and the dew. But this morning, I don’t see the rose that’s bursting into bloom, just as I breathe the lavender without savoring its warm fragrance and pick the last of the raspberries without tasting them.

  Yesterday I’d have called Jo—to see if she’d heard anything. But in this changed world, I don’t. It feels too intrusive. Instead, my thoughts turn to Grace and her friends, reeling from the realization that even this close to home, no one’s invincible.

  “I should have done something, Mummy. . . . I should have been nicer, been her friend. . . .”

  Her childhood name for me, her hysteria—partly tiredness but heartfelt—is completely understandable. But not her guilt.

  “It’s not your fault, Grace. Even if you’d been friends, it doesn’t mean you could have stopped it.”

  “She doesn’t deserve this, Mum. . . . She never did anything wrong. . . .” Past and present are muddled as she navigates unfamiliar territory.

  “I know she didn’t.”

  All I can do is hold my daughter’s sobbing body, grateful with every fiber of my being that I
still have her, can still touch her, hear her voice. That it wasn’t Grace who disappeared, that I’m not Jo, whose world has been decimated.

  “I have to go to the funeral . . . even if it means missing class, Mum. I can’t not go.”

  “I understand, Grace. We’ll work something out. It’s okay.”

  “Everyone says they’re going,” she says. Her eyes are bloodshot; her face is stained with tears. “I know we weren’t best friends, but it doesn’t mean we can’t, does it?”

  I discover, too, that grief is different things to different people. Comes in many guises. In shocked silences and closed doors around our village, as people try to shut it out. That a blank face or fleeting smile can hide the worst, most private kind of agony.

  I leave it several days longer than I planned before I call round to see Jo, expecting drawn curtains, locked doors, and no one to answer. It would be easier, too, because I can leave the flowers I’ve picked from the garden in the shade of her porch. Post Grace’s card. Not have to look at her and see from the pain in her eyes how real this is.

  As I pull up outside, there are several parked cars on a road that is usually empty. The press? But though I feel eyes watching, they don’t approach me, even as I raise my hand to knock and the door opens.

  “Jo . . .” I look at her, then hold out my arms, suddenly unable to speak. For all the time I’ve spent thinking about this, prepared what I’d say if I actually saw her, there are no words.

  She lets me hold her, and I think, She’s still Rosie’s mother. She’ll always be Rosie’s mother. Nothing and no one can change that.

  “I’m so sorry, Jo. I didn’t want to disturb you. I just wanted to leave these.”

  “Oh. They’re lovely. . . .” She barely looks at the flowers I hand her. Her eyes are glassy; her words thick with medically induced evenness. “Will you come in?”

  “I won’t, Jo. I don’t want to intrude.” I step back.

  “Please . . .” There’s a pleading note in her voice as she glances up the road to see who’s watching her. “Please come and have a cup of tea.”