by Aoife Walsh
‘We can tell Dad,’ Aisling remarked.
‘Yeah. That’s the best thing. Maybe he’ll ring the police and tell them she might be on the Underground. When he gets here. Ash, I’m really sorry.’
‘You said that.’
‘Do you forgive me?’
‘OK, Minny. There’s Franklin.’
‘Where?’ He came hurtling up on the bike, shoulders hunched and eyes squinting. ‘No sign?’ she yelled.
His brakes squealed and he shook his head, sending raindrops flying in all directions. ‘No, there was no one there. No car.’
‘Maybe they are away then.’
‘The road’s flooding,’ he said. ‘I think they’re going to block it off to cars – that bloody burst pipe’s finally overflowed properly. And the park’s flooding.’
‘What? It wasn’t when I was there. That’s not even an hour ago.’
‘Yeah, well it is now. All the middle’s under water. I guess it must be high tide, or a flash flood or whatever they call it. Don’t look like that,’ he said sharply. ‘It’s shallow. It wouldn’t be over her knees.’
‘It would be by the river. I have to call the police. No – when Dad gets here …’
‘She could have gone to Granny’s,’ Aisling said.
Franklin stopped with his bike halfway up the kerb. He and Minny looked at each other, then at Ash. ‘But Judy’s away.’
‘And Selena knows it,’ Minny said, ‘doesn’t she?’
‘Oh.’ Ash was despondent. ‘I thought she didn’t.’
‘But she was in the room when you guys told me, wasn’t she?’
‘I thought so,’ he said.
‘No,’ Aisling said. ‘She came in just afterwards.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s sure,’ Minny said to Franklin. ‘That might be where she’s gone. Could you bear …?’
‘I’m on my way.’ He wheeled the bike around. He looked frail in his soaking green jacket in the rain, but he got up on it without wincing. He must be fit. Minny’s own coccyx still felt very worn.
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be silly. I’ll ring you when I get there.’
They watched him till he was out of sight, his bony back beaten by the weather. Then they followed him up the street. Minny was wondering if they should split up and go in different directions or if she would just worry that Aisling wasn’t looking properly, so for a moment she didn’t register what she was seeing as she looked down and up the main road. Then Aisling gasped beside her. It sloped fairly sharply at that point; their street was halfway up the short hill, and below them, up to the middle of their their block, water was being rippled violently by the rain. It couldn’t be that deep: at pavement level the ground was still clear. Still, in the gathering dusk and the rain it was eerie, particularly as there were no cars moving.
‘She’ll be OK, won’t she, Ash?’ Minny said.
‘I expect so.’
‘I mean, this isn’t going to be a proper flood. We’d have heard. They tell you stuff like that.’
‘Selena can swim,’ Aisling said.
Minny wiped the rain off her face for the three thousandth time. ‘Bloody, bloody Job. Right. We’d better stick together, I think. And go down.’
‘We’ll get wet.’
‘Aisling, we could both have been stood in the shower for the last forty-five minutes and we wouldn’t be wetter than we are now.’
They heard a car crunch against the kerb behind them and swung round; their father leaped out of the passenger seat. Minny almost expected him to vault the bonnet. ‘Have you found her?’
‘No.’
The driver’s door opened and Harriet’s hair began to struggle out.
‘No ideas at all where she might have gone? Jesus, girls, you’re soaked. Is the baby OK?’
‘Not really – he’s fed up and it’s his nearly his bedtime. Oh yeah,’ Minny remembered. ‘We haven’t had any dinner.’
He had reached them and suddenly she found herself crushed against him. He was dry. She relaxed, just for a second. Aisling’s face was inches from her own, on the other side of his chest; she looked very white.
Minny pulled away and wiped her face again. They all had to lean together to have a conversation; the wind was getting up. ‘We think maybe she might have gone to Granny’s house, so Franklin’s gone back to check – he was here helping us look …’
‘But Ma’s gone off to Kevin. She’s not there.’
‘I know. But Selena didn’t.’
‘Right. Is he on foot? When did he go?’
‘He’s on his bike. He’s fast – he’s probably nearly there by now. Or … she might have tried to go off to Edinburgh.’
‘What?’
‘She’s been missing Mum,’ Minny said. Her chin began to tremble and she took hold of the pushchair handle. Aisling was holding the other one.
‘So. Would she be at King’s Cross yet?’
‘Probably not, but she might be getting near.’
‘Well, that’s something to go on. We’ll wait a few minutes to hear from Franklin and if he hasn’t found her I’ll ring the police and tell them to look round King’s Cross.’
‘I think you girls should come back to the house,’ Harriet said. ‘You’re soaking and you look shattered.’
‘No,’ they said together, and Minny added, ‘but if you’d take Raymond that would be great, and give him something to eat – some bread and butter or something, or toast, and there are bananas, or baby-food pouches in the cupboard …’
‘It’s all right, Minny,’ her father said as Harriet took the pushchair and the keys she was holding out. ‘We’ll find her.’
‘But it’s so wet everywhere. What if she went down to the river?’
‘Now why would she go down to the river?’ He had his arm around her.
‘And it’s getting dark, anything could have happened.’
‘Nothing’s happened, and we’ll find her any minute, you’ll see, and it’s not really dark; it’s only the storm. The baby’s off your hands now, you don’t have to worry about him. Can you think of anywhere at all she might have gone apart from what you’ve already said?’
They went through it again, then he said the two of them should head up the road checking each street and he’d go down. Minny’s phone hadn’t rung yet. ‘Tell you what – why don’t you ring him and see where he is? He must have got there by now.’ He raised his sleeve to protect her phone from the elements.
Aisling, who had set off in the correct direction, shouted something.
Minny looked up.
Half a block away, crawling towards them in the battered light from the street lamps, was a curious shape. Minny squinted. She might need glasses. She set off running. When she caught up with Aisling she could see what it was – Franklin, bruised by rain, wearing only a T-shirt, pushing his bike, Penny holding its saddle from the other side. Selena astride it, wrapped up in something which didn’t fit her and with her hair streaming.
Minny flew past Ash and right at them, so that Penny let go of the bike in alarm, Franklin staggered and Selena tipped on top of him with a squeak. Minny pulled her off and nearly crushed her. She felt tiny, and as if she’d never be dry again. Franklin’s jacket fell off her.
Then Ash was there, grinning and squeaking, and their father, who lifted Selena right up and didn’t put her down again. ‘What happened? Where have you been? I ought to murder you – we were petrified. Minny’s been crying.’ Minny didn’t even deny it. She tried not to hold onto Selena’s leg.
‘Where did you find her?’ she asked, handing Franklin’s jacket back to him.
‘I found her,’ Penny said.
‘I went to Granny’s house, but she wasn’t there,’ Selena said into her father’s shoulder. She’d started back in the direction of home, but there weren’t any buses and the rain was getting harder and harder; and she didn’t want to go home. ‘I thought you’d laugh at me,’ s
he muttered to Minny. ‘So I walked up to church.’
‘Oh God.’
‘I thought it would be nice – but it was cold and there wasn’t anyone there. And the chapel was locked. I could see the Jesus lamp was lit, but I couldn’t get in.’
Her father squeezed her, and Minny leaned her head against Selena’s side. The poor scrap. She’d been standing in the car park trying to decide what to do when Penny happened to come past, and Sel’s raincoat, which was sulphur yellow and had once been Minny’s, caught her eye. Penny had just been bringing her home when Franklin saw them and pulled up so hard on his bike that he sent a spray of water over their heads – according to Penny. From what Minny could work out, both she and Franklin had refused to leave Sel to the other. And she was tired so Franklin put her on his bike. ‘Why didn’t you ring?’ Minny asked, laughing for sheer relief.
Penny looked embarrassed.
‘Come on,’ Des said, shepherding Aisling away and still carrying Selena. ‘Can you manage that bike, Franklin? You look done in. Let’s get back to the house and get everyone dry.
Left on the corner, Minny and Penny stared at each other. ‘I deleted your number,’ Penny said, snuffling in the rain. ‘After your text.’
‘Oh, Penny.’
‘So I couldn’t ring.’
‘Look, I’m sorry about that. I thought you sounded like you were still arsey with me though – your text. And it just came at a really bad moment and I didn’t have time to answer properly.’
Penny snuffled again. ‘You never rang me though.’
‘Yeah. Sorry. I’ve been busy, but I should have done. Are you OK?’
She thought about it. ‘Yeah, I think so. We just weren’t good for each other, you know?’
‘Minny,’ Des shouted from over the road. ‘Come on, you’ll freeze. Penny, come on.’
‘Come back to the house,’ Minny invited her.
‘I can’t,’ Penny said. ‘I’ve got to go home, there’s a thing. My mum’s birthday.’
‘Sure? OK. Well. Thanks for finding her.’
‘Will you ring me tomorrow?’ Penny asked hesitantly.
‘OK.’
‘Because, you know – I can’t ring you.’
Minny sighed. ‘Yeah, I will.’
‘And – you can tell me what’s new with you.’ She grinned. ‘Because it’s obviously much more interesting than what’s been happening to me.’
Minny’s own grin froze because a cheerful voice behind them suddenly called, ‘What on earth is going on?’ She turned round and Nita was just getting out of a taxi. ‘What are you doing out here in the rain? Is that … Des? What’s happening? Just let me pay the man …’
FOURTEEN
Nita’s theatre in Edinburgh had been flooded as well; it was an underground one. ‘I’m beginning to think I’m a Jonah. But it didn’t matter because the big show was last night and it was packed out. It all went incredibly well. I didn’t ring because I wasn’t sure if we’d get a train, and then I thought I’d surprise you. Now, tell me …’ She had the baby hanging onto her with all four of his limbs and his head as well, and Selena clinging around her waist. They had to detach Sel to get her into a hot shower before she froze to death; she didn’t want to go, partly because of wanting to hug her mother and partly because she didn’t want to miss what they said. Minny was keen to send her upstairs so that her mother didn’t have to control her reaction when she first heard what had happened.
While the story unfolded people got showers, and put their pyjamas on, and fetched a bottle of milk for the baby. Franklin had to be cajoled into a pair of tracksuit bottoms Nita never wore for the runs she didn’t go on – and a jumper of Minny’s. ‘I can’t wear that.’
‘Franklin, it’s a boy’s jumper.’
‘It doesn’t smell of boy.’
By the time their mother was over the worst of the shock, everyone was feeling quite friendly to everyone else. Des even thanked Franklin for all his help and cycling during the panic, and they had a rather manly conversation about bikes. Nita kept bringing more and more toast and biscuits into the back room where they all sat round, half of them in heaps of tiredness on the floor since there weren’t enough chairs.
‘I don’t know how we’re going to sort all this out,’ Nita said.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Des said. ‘You’ve got to let me help.’
‘I know.’
‘This just seems to me like a problem of management, in that everyone’s been under stress, a lot of it due to me, and people have been taking it in turns to take too much on and so everyone snapped within a couple of days.’
‘You’re right.’
‘What this family needs is a management consultant. Or some goodwill and determination. Mind you, I wouldn’t blame you for having a few sharp words with your mother.’
‘I will, I will.’ Even Nita looked more relaxed. She leaned her head on the back of the sofa.
‘I should be going,’ Franklin said, starting to get up.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Nita answered. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Franklin. First of all, the weather is far too wild for you to be cycling out again and I can’t be bothered driving you, and secondly there’s no one at Judy’s. I doubt that’s even a legal situation, especially in your particular case. And after all your help today there’s no way we’re sending you away. You can go home as early as you want in the morning and pick some stuff up so you don’t have to keep wearing Minny’s clothes. But you’re staying nights here till Judy’s back. You can sleep on the sofa, it’s comfortable.’
‘Is it?’ Harriet said, struggling to change position in the big white chair.
‘Not for you right now – most of the springs have gone,’ Nita told her.
Harriet sighed.
Minny wandered past the kitchen a few minutes later and heard her father apparently having a conversation with himself. She pushed open the door. He was moving around the kitchen making yet more tea and talking to his mobile, which was sat on the counter, set to speakerphone.
‘The bar sounds very quiet tonight, Kevin.’
‘I’m not in the bar, Des, I’m not let be in there for the next few days, I’m told.’
‘Hello there, middle daughter,’ Des said, seeing her.
‘Is that Minny? Good girl, Minny.’
‘Will you forgive your poor old uncle now?’ Des asked her, in a not very low voice.
‘Don’t be at her, Des.’
Minny rolled her eyes.
‘Ah, go on. He has enough to put up with.’
‘Mmm. Sorry about your leg,’ she told the phone.
‘His leg nothing, Ma has him driven mad already and she only got there an hour ago.’
‘An hour and a half,’ Kevin said tragically. ‘There’s a pot of stew on the stove already and it smells revolting. I’m going to get fat and I’m not even going to enjoy it.’
‘All right,’ Minny said.
‘You mean you’ll talk to me again? Honest now?’
‘It was all my fault anyway,’ her father pointed out.
‘True,’ Minny and Kevin said together.
‘That means the world to me, Minny,’ Kevin carried on. ‘I’m going to open a new email account just for you, so be sure not to tell your father the address.’
‘Very funny.’
‘How is the leg?’ Minny asked, pointing out the box of herbal tea to her father.
‘Not as painful as my ears, listening to Ma. It’ll be fine. I only stepped off a rock the wrong way, it’s ludicrous.’
‘Aha,’ Des said suddenly. Minny looked round and saw him pounce on the school reports, which had got crowded into a corner of the counter, behind the olive oil. ‘What are these little beauties? Now this is interesting. The school report of one Miss Minny Molloy, Kevin.’
‘Read out the one for English,’ Kevin said instantly.
‘No, that’s not fair,’ Minny protested. ‘I haven’t even read it yet.’
Her
father held it above his head and squinted up. ‘Let’s see now. Chemistry, physics – that’s your mother’s business. French – boring. PE – who cares. English. Ahem. I have enjoyed teaching Minny this year.’
Minny scoffed to herself.
‘She is very bright and has it in her to be an excellent student. Once she acquires some discipline and learns to challenge herself as a reader, and edit herself as a writer, I think English may really be her subject.’
‘Pah,’ Kevin said, after a pause.
‘Load of nonsense,’ her father agreed.
‘You’re an extremely intelligent reader, Minny.’
When I’m not wallowing in old books I’ve read hundreds of times, Minny admitted to herself.
‘And a vivid imaginative writer,’ Des declared.
Mmm. But I do go on a bit.
‘She underestimates you,’ Kevin said.
Minny shrugged, forgetting that he couldn’t see her.
Des dropped the report beside her. ‘When are you going to stop underestimating yourself?’
Kevin said goodnight after that. He said he wanted to get into bed before Granny came up from the bar so he wouldn’t have to talk to her. ‘Sounds as if my mother will be back in a couple of days, if Kevin has any say at all,’ Des said to Franklin, handing him a mug of tea. ‘You won’t be on the sofa here too long.’
Minny collapsed back onto the floor next to her mother’s legs. Nita leaned over and brushed back her hair. ‘You need a haircut. How are you doing down there? Tired?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Busy day. Do you think you’ll make it up with Penny?’
‘Yeah, I suppose so.’ Minny yawned. ‘I still can’t understand what went on though, really – all that with her mother. I’ll just have to not think about it.’
‘Well –’ Nita passed the digestives to Harriet – ‘she always did have a bit of trouble not exaggerating things. You don’t know where the lie came from – perhaps she was in a difficult situation and it snowballed till she couldn’t take it back.’
‘Like, her mum sort of asked questions she had to lie to?’ Selena mused.
‘But if she didn’t expect her to, it wasn’t her mother’s fault exactly,’ Minny argued. ‘It wasn’t like she knew Penny was going to lie, not like Mum says.’