‘It’s OK,’ I say at last. ‘But perhaps I’ll have that glass of wine.’
I tell myself I’ll give her half an hour. Then I’ll make an excuse and go.
‘. . . and not just this Jez business,’ Helen’s saying. ‘It’s what it’s done to the whole family. It started last Saturday. I’d been to a private view in Hoxton. Nadia’s. I thought you’d be there! I was longing to talk to you. She’d cast her belly at different stages of the pregnancy. With Modroc.’
‘What?’
‘Modroc. You know, that bandage stuff they use for broken limbs. You can order it off the internet, replicate your pregnant torso exactly as it is, as it may never be again, I suppose, in Nadia’s case. At 45 she’s pushing it if she hopes to have another one. Amazing, the detail. It’s a trend, Sonia. You and I are out of date! Anyway it was when I came home that we realized Jez hadn’t been in since the previous afternoon. He’s not been back since.’
In the quiet that seems to descend, I’m worried Helen’ll hear the thud of my heart.
‘That’s terrible,’ I manage.
Helen goes on.
‘Of course it is. It’s ghastly. We’ve had the police round, they’ve been dredging the river. I think we’re all hanging on to the fact there is no – oh God, I can hardly bear to say it – OK, no body. Until they find one, we keep on hoping he’s just gone off for a bit, wants to be by himself. I don’t know.’
Helen rubs her face with her hand, smudging her mascara. There are pink circles on her cheeks. She looks terrible.
‘And I know this sounds unbelievably self-centred given the circumstances,’ she goes on, ‘but almost as terrible as Jez going off, is the effect it’s had on our relationship. Mick’s and mine, I mean. I had only just been thinking how much better things were, now we’d got through a period of . . . tension. Tiffs and stresses, the constant juggling to pay off the mortgage. All that. Then wham! My nephew disappears and instead of supporting each other, it seems the gulf just got wider. Mick’s gone cold on me! I almost feel he blames me, Sonia!’
‘You? How can he blame you?’
She pauses and gives me an appealing look. ‘From the moment Jez came, Mick’s compared our boys to him. Me to Maria. She’s always been the perfect one. With the perfect son. Jez is a genius on the guitar. He’s going to get into the very music college Barney wants to go to. If he gets a place, poor old Barney won’t, and yes at times that’s made me – oh, I don’t know, resentful.’
‘I still don’t see why that means Mick blames you,’ I say.
‘He thinks I was too relaxed with Jez. That I treated him the way I do our boys, giving him too much freedom to come and go. He thinks I should have been more like Maria. Ferried him about in the car. Kept close tabs on him.’
She takes another slug of wine.
‘He probably thinks if I was more like Maria, Barney and Theo would have got somewhere by now. But in my opinion Maria pushes Jez too much. I’m not a pushy mother. To be fair, it’s probably compensation for Jez’s dyslexia. You’d think with all that, and being an only child, her son would be geeky or a bit of a loner. No! My boys and all the band boys love him, and he has been staying in my house and Mick seems obsessed with him, it’s as if he wants to be him. He worries about him in a way he’s never worried about our boys. It’s all been getting on my nerves to be honest. But now he’s gone missing, Mick has gone all self-righteous, claims that we – for which read I – should have wrapped him up in cotton wool.’
The Opera House is beginning to fill up again with the evening crowd. It’s dark outside. Helen suggests another bottle of wine but I refuse, wanting to keep a clear head.
How long have we been sitting here? Why does no one wear a watch these days? I try not to let Helen see that I’m agitated. Her drinking is a blessing in this respect, her perception of her immediate surroundings dulled.
Jez has everything he needs. He’s secure. He’s got things to keep him warm. He can’t come to any harm. But he must be starving by now. And thirsty. And wet. And freezing. And though I can barely think about it, he’ll be soiled. Judy’s been in the house alone this morning. Suppose she spotted something I’ve overlooked? Even Kit, who has bigger and better things to think about, saw that the acoustic guitar was missing. Judy doesn’t let things slip by unnoticed. She may be undereducated, but she has an astute brain and uses it to pick up the smallest details of other people’s lives.
I shift in my chair. How thorough was I when preparing the garage? How careful to cover my tracks? What might Judy see? That the garage keys are not hanging in their usual place on the hook? That sheets from the airing cupboard are missing? No. Impossible that she should put these facts together and come up with such an outlandish conclusion, even if it is the truth.
As Helen returns with the wine, I excuse myself and rush to the loo. I empty my bowels in the luxurious bathroom of the Royal Opera House then lean on the glass handbasin for a while, attempting to regain my composure. I catch glimpses of women applying lipstick, replacing stray hairs, smoothing down their dresses in the mirrors next to me. Peering at myself cautiously, I’m anxious that the face I spot looking back will have changed, will show all my innermost thoughts and fears. I’m surprised at how normal I look. Still the same grey eyes, the same black hair. Only one or two stray silver ones beginning to show. I take my lipstick out of my bag and reapply, and I’m as good as new. I take a deep breath. I’ll invent an emergency text from someone. Anything to get back to Jez.
Helen glances up as I come across the foyer.
‘Have you lost weight, love?’ she asks, as if this were the first time she’s looked at me today. ‘My God. You have. You look fab. Nadia said how good you looked. What’ve you been doing?’
I shrug. I want to be able to say to her it’s nerves, it’s being permanently on edge. I want to tell her, she was my friend once. I look into her eyes and see that she’s already drifted off into her own world, her own story, and I feel that yawning distance that lies between you and someone close when you have a heavy secret you simply cannot share with them.
‘I think Mick’s going off me,’ Helen says. ‘He can’t bear the sight of me. I’m afraid he and Maria might be getting . . . close.’
‘Hey,’ I say. ‘He feels guilty, that’s all, that he didn’t take more care of Jez. He wants to assuage his own conscience by blaming you. That’s what it sounds like to me.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘I do. Yes.’
‘What about all his hair combing and running and stomach patting?’
I laugh. An odd sound these days, to come from my own mouth.
‘Sounds like a classic case of midlife crisis,’ I say.
‘And Jez. Should I be worrying more about him and less about Mick?’
‘No!’ I say. ‘You’re quite right not to be stressing about Jez. Teenage boys. They’re free agents.’
‘He’s very young, Sonia.’
‘Whatever. You can’t watch over them like children for goodness’ sake. Jez has got a mind of his own. Of course you had to let him go. Do his own thing. And Helen, that’s what he will be doing. His mother, your sister, she sounds so overbearing. Wouldn’t you want to get away from a mother like that? No wonder he wants to hide. Who knows, he may have a lover he hasn’t told anyone about. He may not want to be found. I bet he wants to be left alone. Has anyone thought of that? Has Mick? Has Maria? Have the police?’
Helen looks at me. This is the longest speech I’ve made since we arrived at the bar and I can see it’s taken her aback a bit.
‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘But there’s something else. The police think that I’m involved in Jez’s disappearance. They’ve questioned me more than once. I admitted to some of the feelings I’ve just told you about.’ She pauses. Her cheeks are redder than ever and her eyes slightly bloodshot from the wine. She sniffs. Looks at me.
‘And now they want to question me some more. I was the last person to see him. And the fact is,
I had thought, before all this, about horrible things happening to Jez. Isn’t that awful? I thought, what if he had the kind of accident teenagers often have. Broke his leg while base jumping, or got scarred in a car crash. Nothing life threatening, of course! Just something that would let Barney get that place at music school. Isn’t that terrible?’
I stare at her for a moment. It is indeed terrible to think of anyone wishing Jez harm. How could she? I’m tempted to say something to defend him.
‘Then I’ve been so shocked with myself!’ she goes on. ‘What if my feelings had led me to . . . to do something terrible to her beautiful son? Of course I never would. But I feel I’m being punished! For having those terrible thoughts! Being suspected of something really heinous . . . It makes you think how easy it must be to be an ordinary law-abiding citizen one minute and a criminal the next.’
Helen refills her glass again. I notice the second bottle of wine has almost disappeared, though I have hardly drunk a drop.
‘You’re not shocked, are you, Sonia?’ she goes on. ‘I’m only telling you this because I know you’re someone who thinks outside the box. You’re not judgemental like some people. We’ve talked about dark thoughts before, remember? It doesn’t mean we’d act on them.’
‘When have we discussed dark thoughts?’
‘You told me about your feelings towards Greg, how sometimes you wished he’d just not come back, remember? How he always tries to control you. Perhaps I shouldn’t bring that up now.’
‘I’d forgotten we’d had that conversation.’
‘Please don’t hold all this against me. Oh God, I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t said anything. It’s the wine. I must stop.’
‘It’s OK. But look. Where’s Maria now, and Nadim? What’s everyone doing? When do people give up hope of finding him and go home?’
Helen stares at me for a second before she says, ‘I don’t think people ever give up. We have to take this one day at a time. If we imagined that it was going to go on for much longer I think we would all begin to crack up. But for the moment, Nadim has had to go back to work. Maria wants to be here. I don’t blame her, though I wish she would find somewhere else to stay. The only person who I seem to be able to tolerate is Alicia. Jez’s girlfriend. She and I both suspect that if Maria was a little less conspicuous, Jez would creep back. But Maria is there, in my house all the time, glaring at me – she forgets we agreed to be civil. Usually it’s when I’m having a drink. But God almighty, I need to drink. She and Mick are doing their bit for Jez together. There’s the Facebook page, they’re giving press reports, everything. Alicia doesn’t think he’d like all the limelight. They’re right on the case, but in the meantime, they’ve got it in for me. It might sound callous, taking the only opera ticket for myself after what Maria’s going through, but we’ve all been through it, Sonia. He’s my nephew too.’
‘Helen,’ I say. ‘Calm down. You were quite right to take the ticket for yourself. Sometimes, we need to take the only ticket for ourselves. And Alicia is right. Jez will no doubt come home once all this focus is taken off him.’
I tell Helen I have to go. She begs me to agree to meet her, ‘Like we used to, when the kids were younger, in the park one day,’ she says, and I say OK. OK. Ring me.
Outside, the lights of Covent Garden are garish, the bars are full and the piazza seems to heave as the party-goers gather for a Friday night. I breathe deep lungfuls of city air as I hurry towards Embankment. I’m not waiting any longer for my husband or my daughter or her boyfriend. I have to get the Clipper back to the boy I have kept in the dark.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Friday night
Helen
‘Any news?’ Helen asked.
It was the first question any of them asked as they opened the front door. Blank faces in response were all they needed to know there was none.
Helen sat down at the kitchen table. Her heart thumped at the sight of Mick and Maria drinking red wine by candlelight. She poured herself a glass. She could hear Barney open a can of baked beans behind her. He’d clearly only just come in, there was the smell of pub about him, of cold night air. Mick and Maria must have been here alone, together.
‘What’s with the soft lighting?’
‘It helps with my migraines,’ said Maria. ‘I’ve had endless problems with them since Jez . . .’ Her voice cracked and she didn’t continue.
Getting things off her chest with Sonia had helped Helen put things in perspective. She knew what she must do. Rather than letting her imagination run away with her, she must remember the strain they were all under. Particularly Maria. She went over to her sister, put a hand on her shoulder, and squeezed it. Maria shrugged her off.
‘How was the opera?’ asked Mick.
‘It was OK.’ Helen sat down and took a large swig of wine.
Her sister was impossible, she wouldn’t let Helen get close to her.
‘I bumped into Sonia. We had a drink together afterwards. Did you save me any dinner?’
‘Sorry, we didn’t know if you’d be back,’ said Mick.
‘You can have mine. I can’t eat,’ Maria said, pushing a plate of griddled tuna towards Helen.
Helen looked at the food, then at Mick. He didn’t catch her gaze and she felt her insides collapse. Udon noodles! Their special meal, and he hadn’t done any for her.
Mick turned to Maria. ‘Have you met Sonia? The voice coach? Her husband Greg and I used to play together, in that band. He’s a neurologist. Though he spends most of his time lecturing these days. You’ll probably meet them sometime.’
‘Great,’ said Maria without interest.
‘If they don’t move soon. Greg’s been talking of moving out to Geneva.’
The air felt dense. It was hard to talk, to force out any conversation that wasn’t about Jez. As if they were all on some stage, playing unfamiliar roles.
‘Yes. But Sonia doesn’t want to go,’ said Helen. ‘She loves the River House. She got really depressed when they lived in Norfolk.’
‘Geneva’s hardly Norfolk.’
‘She says the Thames is where she needs to be, for her health.’
‘Ha! It’s generally accepted the Alps are better for the health than London,’ said Mick.
‘Depends whether we’re talking mental or physical,’ said Helen. ‘Anyway I told her about Jez. Her theory is he might have a lover. Might have chosen to go away without contacting anyone.’
‘What would she know?’ asked Maria. ‘Has she ever met him?’
Helen noticed a change in the atmosphere as she brought Jez’s name into the conversation. They could breathe at last.
‘She’s got a daughter Theo’s age, so she knows about teenagers. She met him once when you lot were shinning up the walls by the river, do you remember, Barney? We called in there for tea. Oh, and they must have met at Mick’s fiftieth recently.’
‘They did.’ Barney plonked his plate on the table and sat down. ‘Now you come to mention it. Her husband, Greg, offered to lend Jez that Tim Buckley album he was always on about. Jez said he was going to pick it up . . . actually, I think it was last Friday afternoon. The day he went missing. You mentioning Sonia reminded me. That’s where he said he was going.’
‘When did he say this?’ Maria asked. All their faces turned to look at Barney.
‘I dunno. The night before, maybe. He said that before he left for Paris, he had to pick up the album from the River House. I asked if he knew where it was. He said he’d been there once before. It must’ve been that time you’re talking about, Mum. He was going to go there, then meet Alicia in the tunnel. Before the gig. The one he never came to.’
‘Why the bloody hell didn’t you mention this before, to the police?’ Mick said, reddening.
Maria stood up. ‘We must tell them immediately.’
‘What sort of brain have you got?’ Mick said, standing over his son. ‘I know you’re a bit doped up sometimes but this could be crucial. What d’you think you’re
playing at?’
Barney shrugged. ‘Nothing. Really, I forgot. Honestly. I hadn’t given it a thought until just now when Mum mentioned Sonia.’
‘It’s ringing,’ said Maria, holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder.
‘God, I’d like to knock some sense into your skull sometimes,’ said Mick, cuffing Barney’s head.
Helen stared at Mick. She’d been with this man for over twenty years. Did he usually touch his sons like that? She had a sudden need to examine him, to work out what it was about him that made him the man she thought she knew.
‘There’s no need for that,’ she said at last. ‘Barney forgot. It’s not the kind of thing you’d remember necessarily. A minor detail like that.’
‘It throws a whole new light on Jez’s possible movements,’ said Mick.
Maria stuck her finger in her ear. ‘Shh!’ she hissed. ‘I can’t hear the options.’ She took the handset into the hall.
‘Dad!’ Barney said. ‘Bloody hell. He just mentioned it, I didn’t think, oh I must make a note of that. I had more important things on my mind.’
‘Like where your next smoke was coming from?’
‘Oh sod off!’
‘Don’t speak to me like that!’
‘But you’re being such a dick over this Jez thing,’ Barney said. ‘Mum’s right. You’ve changed. You aren’t like this with us when we go off for a few nights.’
‘No, I’m not having that. We’re responsible for that boy. He’s gone missing from under our roof and now we’re bloody well going to find out what’s happened to him.’
Barney stomped out of the room.
‘I can’t see how Jez saying he might call in at the River House can have anything to do with this,’ said Helen.
‘If Sonia saw him that afternoon, it means he disappeared after that but before he was due to meet Alicia. It narrows down the possibilities,’ said Mick.
‘Yes, but she didn’t.’
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