Grace Is Gone

by Emily Elgar

  I drive through the estate, past the squat row of red-brick shops—the newsagent’s and the post office, the Star Inn with its blacked-out windows, the butcher’s, and finally the Style Rooms. There’s a short queue of people standing on the pavement outside the salon and Sylvia, clutching a clipboard, is talking to them. Inside, Mum’s leaping around like a cricket, talking quickly on her mobile, and Martin is bending over a map alongside volunteers in his reflective vests. In the window there are three huge posters of Meg and Grace holding hands, with a number to call underneath their smiling faces. I only recognize some of the volunteers, neighbors mainly, standing on the pavement waiting to be told what to do. A balding bloke perhaps in his late thirties stares at me with cold eyes as I pass, and I realize, if Simon doesn’t have her, the person who took her could be anyone, someone we know, or someone we’ve never met. They could even be one of the volunteers outside the salon now, pretending they don’t already know where she is.

  I drive on into town. There’s not a lot in Ashford now, away from the harbor. I get why the tourists don’t bother coming here anymore. What few independent shops there were when I was growing up have been replaced by chains and brands. The hippie shop where I got my nose pierced when I was fifteen is now a mobile phone shop; the Corner Café where I once took Grace for hot chocolate while Meg did some quick shopping is a Starbucks. Even the sea around Ashford feels industrial, as flat and gray as a parking lot. I park behind the pub. The Ship is blessedly anonymous, one of those pubs people generally only come to once. It’s still before opening time and Brian, the owner, who looks like a potato with his round cheeks and prematurely hairless head, opens his arms to me as soon as I walk through the door. He wipes his doughy hands on the cloth over his shoulder, tilts his head, and hugs me. It seems like people are always tilting and hugging when they see me now.

  “Don’t forget what I said on the phone: you just leave any time you need to, OK, Car?” he makes a point of saying before going back to polishing the beer taps.

  The decor in here hasn’t changed in decades, the fake fishing nets hang from the ceiling like great spider webs and the floor is tacky under my sneakers, but it’s a relief to be somewhere without any memories of Grace—Meg would never let her go anywhere so mucky. I fill a bucket with soapy water and carry it out to the front, the harbor side of the pub. The first job, as always on an early shift, is to scrub off the white bombs of seagull shit that have exploded on the outside tables. Far above, the gulls glide smugly. I remember Grace pointing out how their scratchy cawing sounded like they were screaming my name: “Car, Car!” I dunk a brush into the warm water and, with my head down, start scrubbing the wooden tabletop.

  “You’ve got an audience.” I look up and see a man in his mid-forties opposite me, with a brown beard, glasses, and a geeky-looking anorak. It takes me a moment to place him as the journalist the police brought up yesterday, Jon Katrin. He nods to a spot just a couple of feet away, where a huge seagull flaps from the pavement onto the table and, standing on its drinking-straw legs, fixes a blank, disapproving eye on me. I clap my hands at it, try to shoo it away, but it only flaps its wings a couple of times. Clearly I’m not nearly scary enough to make it budge.

  “Stubborn bugger,” Jon says, before lifting his arms like he’s about to take off himself and shouting Coooorrr at the bird. The bird cocks its head and looks mildly amused before flapping its wings and hopping lazily down from the table.

  “Thanks,” I say, even though he didn’t really do much to help, then I go back to my scrubbing. Why is he here? He’s caught me off guard. The police told me not to talk to the press, but it’s Mum who’d hate it most.

  Before I can figure out how to tell him to get lost he says, “One of them dive-bombed and took my son’s ice cream clean out of his hand a few days ago. Scared us both stupid.”

  “It happens,” I say, shrugging and not looking up as I keep scrubbing, hoping he’ll hear the lack of interest in my voice. Even though the first table is white with chalky shit I move on to another table just so I can turn my back to him. But he’s like a seagull himself, unafraid to stick around even when it’s obvious he’s not wanted.

  I remember the photo of him posted and shared on Twitter and Facebook six months ago, being led away from number 52 by the police after he smashed Meg’s windows. His glasses were almost knocked off his nose, his mouth frozen around an ugly “F” at the camera, his hair wild. After his article about Meg and Grace was published, everyone was so angry. Mum, Zara, even Sylvia took to the internet to write all sorts of nasty stuff about him. They said they had to speak out and defend their friend. Jon didn’t reply to any of the online comments, but then someone tipped him over the edge by anonymously posting a photo of his sick kid in the Summervale News Facebook group. Whoever it was had left a comment but hadn’t had the balls to post from their real account: Perhaps Jon Katrin should spend more time looking after his poor son than poking his nose into other people’s lives.

  The image got thousands of likes and hundreds more comments, things like I don’t know what must be worse for the poor kid, having Jon Katrin as a dad or having cancer.

  I was busy at college and working at the pub while all of this was going on, too consumed by my own life to get involved in any of it beyond listening to a couple of Mum’s rants. I didn’t say anything, but I thought they were going too far. I remember how Mum’s hatred of Jon lit her up, how there was talk of little else in the salon, how sometimes it seemed like she was enjoying it. I remember reading about Jon’s arrest in the Echo—it was framed as “Drunk local journalist in twisted ‘revenge’ plot against Ashford’s best mum.” The article mentioned that when he was arrested Jon had been shouting about something to do with his son—that stuck with me—but I don’t remember anything else. In the end, the fact it was his first offense meant he got away with a fine, community service, and a restraining order, which made Mum pull at her hair and mumble something about the world going to shit.

  He looks a bit more together now than he did in that photo. Neither of us has said anything for a while when he moves to the front of the table.

  I stop scrubbing and frown up at him as he says, “Look, I didn’t plan on turning up like this, I live just up the high street, above the Ladbrokes. I’m trying to finish an article about the summer fair, but I can’t concentrate, I keep thinking about Megan and Grace. So I decided to go for a walk to clear my head, then I bumped into you.”

  I stand up straight, to look directly at him. “Yeah, but you didn’t exactly bump into me though, did you? You must have seen me and decided to come over.”

  He raises his hands and says, “No, you’re right, sorry. Wrong choice of words.” He drops his hands, shrugs. “It just felt serendipitous, is all.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not talking to journalists.”

  “How about ex-journalists?”

  I roll my eyes at him, drop the brush into the soapy bucket, planning to go inside and tell Brian not to let Jon into the pub, when he says, “Look, I just want to try to help. I know my article . . . well, I know I made some mistakes and I want to try to make up for them.”

  I stop walking because I hear the guilt in his tone; I recognize it from my own voice. I wasn’t a good enough friend to Grace, I know how regret can beat away like a drum. In the past few years I’ve not been there for Grace, and now she’s gone. I turn around to face Jon as he keeps talking.

  “Look, I only want to try to help find Grace. I am, or was, a good journalist. I’m also the only investigative journalist who met them all, even Simon. If there’s a chance I can help Grace, I have to do everything I can. I’ve tried, but I just can’t sit on my arse while a sick child is missing. I keep thinking if it was my son that had been taken—” He stops suddenly, looks up to the sky, and works his jaw. “God, sorry, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I’m meeting a doctor in Plymouth tomorrow, someone who used to know them, but apart from that I’m around. I’m just goin
g to leave my card on the table—”

  “What’s the doctor called?”

  He’s quicker at clocking my interest than I am at concealing it. “Dr. Nina Rossi, I met her before . . .”

  But he doesn’t finish his sentence because he’s seen the recognition spread across my face, the surprise. As he says the name I see each letter carefully written in colorful balloons in Grace’s childish handwriting, the same at seven as it was at seventeen. I push my fringe off my forehead with the back of my hand, leaving a wet smear of soap bubbles across my skin, but I don’t care.

  I try to keep my voice light as I ask, “Why are you seeing her?”

  “I met her last year, when I was researching the article. She didn’t tell me much, but I had a hunch then that she knew more about Grace than she was letting on.” He shrugs again. “I thought it worth talking to her just in case I was right. Do you know her?”

  I think about the message inside Grace’s card, thanking Dr. Rossi for getting Meg a job. I never knew Meg worked back then, but then Meg never liked to talk about their lives in Plymouth. Mum said it was too painful for her, that it only reminded Meg of Danny’s death and Simon’s cruelty. I turn to face Jon. Behind his glasses his eyes are wide, fixed like he’s studying me, waiting patiently for me to tell him whatever it is I need to say.

  I shake my head. “No, I don’t know her, I . . .” I stop myself from telling him about the thank-you card, remind myself I don’t owe him anything—that I shouldn’t even be talking to him.

  “Good luck with whatever it is you’re trying to do, but don’t talk to me again,” I say, turning to leave. He doesn’t try to stop me and the water from my bucket sloshes, wetting my jeans as I walk quickly back into the dark safety of the pub.

  As I walk through the pub towards the kitchen, I realize the chefs, the kitchen porter, and two of the other waitresses are sitting at a table with Brian. They stop talking and all of them turn to stare at me, their eyes full of fascination and horror. It’s obvious they’ve been talking about me.

  “Here she is!” Brian says like he’s greeting a puppy, and suddenly I feel as if I’ve just been pushed onto a stage, the spotlight on me, everyone staring, expecting, waiting for me to perform when all I want to do is hide. I drop my bucket to the floor, not caring about the carpet, and run to the toilet.

  It’s a relief to lock myself away in the tiny cubicle, even if the smell of partially digested cheap alcohol and bleach makes me gag. I slide my back against the door and cover my face with my hands. My cheeks are wet with tears I hadn’t realized I’d been crying.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Why have I lost it again? It’s Jon Katrin’s fault. Talking about his guilt, how he’s decided to do something, anything, to help Grace even if it gets him into more trouble. I was Grace’s friend, I am her friend, and what am I doing to help? Nothing. All I’m doing is scrubbing bird crap off tables.

  There’s a gentle knock on the door, followed by Brian’s voice raised in a way he must think sounds concerned.

  “Cara, sweetheart? You OK in there?”

  I wipe my hand across my hot eyes and make my voice steady as I say, “I’m not feeling well, Brian. I think I’ll just go home if that’s all right?”

  “Of course, Cara, you just take all the time you need.”

  I open the door and Brian’s face is all worry as he puts a sweaty palm on my arm, his eyebrows knitted together, and he tilts his head as he says, “Cara, have you heard of post-traumatic stress disorder?”

  I have a disorder now?

  I shake my head as I push past Brian and say, “I’ll call when I’m ready to come back.” Ignoring all the curious eyes that blink out at me from the darkness of the pub, I grab my bag and coat from behind the bar and let the door bang behind me.

  The seagull is still back standing on the table I’d been scrubbing just minutes before, and there’s a white rectangle under the salt shaker. I pick up the business card and read Jon’s name, his contact details. Not wanting Brian and the others to know I was talking to a reporter, especially not Jon Katrin, I shove his card into my pocket and fall, with relief, behind the wheel of Mum’s car.

  I don’t feel ready to go home yet, so I drive on past Mum’s towards Angel’s Bay and pull over when I see a postbox. I take the two envelopes out of my bag. One is addressed to Dr. Rossi at her Plymouth office and contains the thank-you card from Grace, and the other, with the photo, to Mr. Charlie Nichols at Resthaven Nursing Home. I wrote a brief note to send with each of them, explaining that I’d found the card and the photo and that it felt right to pass them on. I’d signed off “Kind regards” followed with my best signature. It all felt quite formal. My hand pauses in the mouth of the postbox. Suddenly I don’t want to let them go, as though by dropping the envelopes I’d be letting another part of Grace disappear. I pull my hand back and stare at the addresses. What if I didn’t post them but gave them to Dr. Rossi and Charlie in person instead? They’re both in Plymouth, after all, and I don’t have anything else to do now I don’t need to go back to the pub any time soon. Maybe Dr. Rossi would tell me more about the Grace and Meg she knew over coffee. I could curl up in an armchair opposite Charlie, like I used to with my granddad, and listen to his stories about what Grace was like as a baby. It would be a small, good thing I can do. I feel a bit better, lighter. I picture Grace smiling, glad that I’m going to meet these people who, at one time at least, were important to her.

  Full of memories of me and Grace, I walk along the beach to while away a couple of hours, and by the time I get home Mum is sitting at the kitchen table chewing the end of a pen and staring fixedly at an unmarked piece of paper in front of her. She gets up, relieved to have a distraction, kisses me, tilts her head to look at me, hugs me, and kisses me again.

  “How was the pub?” she asks.

  “Fine. Just normal,” I lie.

  “Brian looked after you, did he?”

  I shrug, pour myself a glass of water. “How’s it going with the volunteers?” I ask before drinking the water in one go.

  “Amazing. People are really coming out of the woodwork to help, but of course I’m not surprised: everyone loves them. There’s been a good turnout from the Wishmakers too. If only I could say the same for the police. Upton called me today and basically asked me to call the whole community search off. I almost told her that if they were doing their job properly they would have Grace safely home already. Simon’s dangerous, but from what Meg told me about him, he’s too stupid to be some kind of criminal mastermind,” Mum says, sitting back at the table and sighing as she looks at the blank page in front of her before turning again to face me.

  “I spoke to Jane today as well, Car, she was talking about that counseling again, she was saying how—”

  “Mum,” I cut in, “did Meg ever have a job?”

  Mum’s eyes dart to the far corner of the ceiling, as though something’s caught her attention up there or as though she doesn’t want to look at me. She frowns. “What’s brought this on?”

  “I’m just curious. I know she never worked when they moved here, but before, I mean, when they were in Plymouth, was she ever able to work then?”

  Mum leans back in her chair and sighs again, but this time at me. “Cara, being a single mum is the toughest job you can imagine, let alone when you’re a single mum to a very sick child . . .” Her voice has a frayed, defensive quality.

  “Mum, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m asking because I found a—”

  “And I’m trying to answer, but you’re not listening to me.” She smacks her hand down on the kitchen table. We both stare at it, surprised by her overreaction. She closes her eyes briefly and comes to stand opposite me.

  “Look, Car, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout. I’m just worried about how you’re reacting to all this. Like I tried to say earlier, Jane and I were talking today and she said that counseling—”

  “I don’t want to see a counselor, Mum, I want to find Grace.” I
sound angrier than I mean to.

  “I know you do, love, we all do, but you’ve been through a huge trauma. I know you’re trying to battle on, pretend like it never happened, but that can’t go on forever, Car, you’ll make yourself ill.” Mum pushes some hair back behind my ear. Her long nail against my skin makes me shiver. I pull my head away and she looks newly hurt. Her hand drops to my shoulder.

  “That’s exactly what you do, though, isn’t it? Battle on. Why aren’t I allowed to do the same?” I ask, my voice calmer.

  “But I didn’t find her, did I? The police haven’t been calling you to tell you to keep an eye on me, have they?”

  “They’ve been calling you about me? Why?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. They’re worried, Cara, like everyone else is worried about you.”

  “I’m all right, Mum, I don’t know what else to say.” I know now is probably not the best time to ask a favor, but I have to try. “Can I borrow the car for a few days? I can’t face the bus, there are still reporters around.”

  Mum’s hand drops from my shoulder to hold her waist, her eyes narrow. She shakes her head and splutters a small, exasperated laugh. “Have you even listened to a word I’ve said?”

  “What if I agree to call this counselor woman? Then can I have the car?”