There was no expectation, no real belief that I would find anything new. Only this time as I clicked through the familiar pages of links and articles, before moving on to a stream of images relating to Harry and his various reports, my eye hovered for a moment longer than usual over one particular photo. It was a repetition of the byline shot I had first spotted that morning in the smoking room, in what felt like another lifetime. Now, rather than skimming over it as I had done previously, having mistakenly taken it for a piece I had already read, I clicked through to the article.
On closer inspection, the photo was attached to a syndication of the article I had seen years earlier in my parents’ house the first night I looked him up. It was a report on Harry’s dismissal from the paper the night that we first met, the one I re-read over and over that night at my parents’ house so that I could almost recite every line – except in this version, a tweaked version published in the paper’s Irish sister title, there was an additional detail.
According to our sources, the paper’s editor, Eddy Monkton, saw off the writer, who was raised in Cork, in characteristically pithy style.
Cork? The room went very still. Was it possible that I had misremembered? Running the conversation back in my mind, I could picture his face as he spoke of his childhood, a distance in his eyes. Galway. He was born in Galway. He had been born there and had never left. He had talked about it, reluctantly at first and then with a weary nostalgia in his voice, the quaintness of it, the romance, and ultimately of his boredom.
Cork was miles from Galway – the paper must have got it wrong, I told myself. It had to be a simple mistake. And yet, for an Irish paper? It was quite a splendid error, if that is what it was.
She answered after two rings, when I called the following day from the playground on the Heath, leaving the house moments after David had left for his football match.
‘Mrs Dwyer?’
There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘Yes?’
‘Mother of Harry Dwyer?’
‘This is she.’
In the background I could hear the hum of the washing machine. I imagined her in the kitchen he had described, the garden tumbling down towards a dry-stone wall, her hand pulling at the cord of the phone hanging on the wall. And yet how much of that was lies? Did she even live in the countryside at all?
I knew from the dialling code of the number I had acquired from one of Harry’s former colleagues at the local paper where he had started out, that the house in which Mrs Dwyer stood was in a totally different part of the country, some 100 miles from the one he had described during one of our early heart-to-hearts.
‘Hello?’
‘Sorry …’
My mouth was dry; I held my hand over the mouthpiece of my phone, blocking out the sound of the girls playing beside me.
‘My name’s Anna, I’m … I’m a friend, of Harry’s.’
‘I see. I’m sorry I don’t … Have we …?’
‘We haven’t met. Harry and I, we worked together. It’s a funny thing, actually, I got a new phone recently and I can’t seem to find his number. There was something I needed to follow up on with him and I’m so sorry to bother you, but I just wondered if you wouldn’t mind passing on his number?’
The pause was longer this time, and then her voice came again, resolute.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t have that information. Harry calls here, I don’t …’
There was something about her voice I could not read. Was she lying, or was she simply trying to convince herself it was normal not to have a phone number for her own son?
‘That’s OK.’
I reached out a hand to steady Rose at the top of the slide.
‘I wonder, I’m sorry to ask, but might one of his siblings … As I say, I wouldn’t usually ask, it’s just that there’s something we really need to follow up on.’
‘Siblings? I’m afraid Harry doesn’t have any … Sorry, what did you say your name was?’
‘Mama!’
At that moment, Stella launched herself from the top of the slide and the phone slipped from my hands as I lurched forward to catch her. There was a second of horror as her face clipped the curve of the metal, but my hand reached her soon enough to pull her back.
‘You’re OK. Shhh, you’re OK.’
I soothed her with one arm, scrambling with the other for the phone, which had fallen to the concrete in the commotion. But when I lifted the receiver to my ear again, she was gone.
‘Hello?’
I had to ring the buzzer twice before the young woman answered, her voice short, as if I had pulled her from something more important. The taxi driver insisted on keeping his engine running so that the fumes from the exhaust hovered at the side of the buggy as I pushed it back and forth in sharp motions, desperate for the girls to stay asleep.
‘You can leave them in the back, I’m not going anywhere,’ he had called over the microphone as I ignored him, steadily heaving the buggy from the back of the black cab, which I’d hailed as we exited the Heath at Parliament Hill.
It was the third time I had tried Harry’s old flat in the months since he had disappeared, but this time I heard the click of the intercom, and then a woman’s voice. My momentary relief was instantly replaced by unease.
‘Hello? Is anyone there?’
It took a moment for me to gather my thoughts clearly enough to speak. ‘Sorry, hi, look, I’m so sorry to bother you. This is Anna. I’m a friend of Harry, is he here?’
‘Sorry, I don’t know who you’re talking about.’
I twisted my head quickly to check the taxi. The driver was on his phone, his eyes looking forward. I moved closer to the intercom. ‘I’m looking for my friend, he used to live here. I thought he might still. Harry. He owned the flat – I wondered if you knew how I could find him.’
Whatever patience she might have had was fast disappearing. ‘There’s no Harry living here, but maybe it was before my time. I’ve only been here a few months. Listen, I was in the middle of working, I need to get back. I’m sorry I can’t help, but the man who lived here, he wasn’t called Harry. He was an old guy, Mohammed; he lived abroad and the flat was empty most of the time. Maybe your friend stayed here sometimes, when Mohammed was away.’
The taxi driver called out the window, causing me to jump.
‘Love, are you going to be much longer?’
My eyes turned to his and he looked away, muttering something into the receiver.
‘That can’t be right. He owned it, he had lived here for years … He told me—’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t want to be rude but I have to go now. I hope you find your friend.’
CHAPTER 53
Anna
It was my fourth year with the company when Clarissa announced she was side-stepping to become Editor-in-Chief, leaving me to deal with the day-to-day running of the magazine.
My promotion to Editor did not go unnoticed within the industry, where my youth was commented on with a mixture of reverence and disdain. By way of contrast, at home my new role was greeted with indifference by David, whose disappointment in me and the life we had built together seemed to expand weekly, after the brief spell of peace that had followed the wedding. Two years of contempt, trapped in a purgatory of my own making.
Nine months had passed since I last heard from Harry. In the same length of time it would take to grow a life, part of me had died. Without him, I couldn’t be sure who I was any more. Sometimes I wondered if I ever knew.
With the girls due to start at the nursery of a local private school that September, my regret for the extra hours my new role involved would creep up occasionally in the early hours of the morning, and then I would push it away again.
We spent a long weekend in Provence in October, escaping the interminable rain of London, with the usual tag-alongs in tow.
It was unseasonably warm, even for the South of France. On the Saturday morning Jeff and May were due to arrive from their pied-à-terre along the co
ast, and I woke to find the three men playing cards on the terrace, the smell of lavender swelling under the morning sun.
‘Jeff, good to see you.’ I leaned in to kiss him before pouring myself a cup of coffee from the pot.
‘And you, my dear. Looking delightful as ever.’
‘David, where are the girls? I thought I might take them into town for an ice cream.’
‘Maria’s taken them out for the day.’
Without warning, I felt myself overcome with a rage that was impossible to repress, even in front of the others.
‘What the fuck, David? We’re supposed to be spending time together as a family.’
‘Well, you hadn’t bothered getting up and they were bored, and Maria offered, so—’
‘My alarm didn’t go off.’
‘Your alarm?’ David snorted, releasing a short laugh. ‘Right.’
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean? I set my alarm, David.’
Why did my voice sound so unconvincing?
‘It just seems unfortunate you had trouble passing out, given how much you put away at dinner.’
‘Excuse me?’
David said nothing as Clive intervened.
‘Give the girl a break, David, for God’s sake. She is on holiday, she is allowed to have the occasional glass of wine …’
‘“Occasional” …’ David muttered under his breath, flicking through a handful of cards.
My cheeks burning with fury, I turned and stormed back upstairs towards the bedroom, plucking my phone from the bedside table and dialling Maria’s number, but her phone was off. Pausing for a moment, I pressed the settings buttons, scrolling through to alarm.
It was off. But how could that be? Since the pills Dr Blackman prescribed had stopped having a soporific effect, my insomnia had returned. While the doctor still insisted that was no reason to stop taking the pills, emphasised with knowing looks and clichés about how depression is a disease like any other, I had started to rely heavily on additional tranquillisers, and had taken one around 2.30 a.m., having held off as long as possible before giving in.
Knowing the impact they had on my ability to wake naturally, I had made sure the alarm had been on before I finally passed out, sometime around 3 a.m.
My thoughts were disturbed by the sound of the wheels of Clive’s Bentley crunching against gravel. When I looked out of the window I saw the car flanked by Jeff’s soft-top, he and May visible in the front seats, exiting the drive.
Once the sound of the engines had faded into silence, I wandered back along the empty halls and down the wide curved staircase, the panelled walls sticky with beeswax. The silence in the kitchen was overwhelming. Pouring myself a glass of wine to allay my nerves, I moved outside and settled on a blanket on the lawn where I finally dozed off under the shade of a tree.
It was the sound of the girls returning later that afternoon that woke me.
‘Mama!’
‘Hello, darling … Have you had a lovely day?’
‘Why didn’t you come with us?’
Stella threw herself at me as I attempted to pull myself up, my eyes still adjusting to the light.
‘Maria?’
My voice stopped her in her tracks and she smiled, turning and making her way down the slope of the gardens, which led down to an elaborate ornamental pond with lily-pads and a thin coating of moss.
‘I’d rather you didn’t take the girls out for the day without asking me.’
My voice was uncharacteristically reprimanding. It was not my way to speak to Maria like an underling, and the fact was I had always encouraged her to be autonomous when it came to looking after the children.
‘I’m sorry. David asked me to, and I—’
‘He what?’
She stopped, as if checking herself.
‘I mean, he … Or maybe it was me. I’m sorry if it wasn’t what you were hoping for today.’
‘David asked you to take them out?’
‘I’m sorry, I really can’t remember whose idea it was, maybe it was mine. But I will ask next time. I won’t do it again, I’m sorry. Would you like a cup of tea?’
I nodded, unsure for the first time whether I believed a word she was saying.
Clive poured me a second large whisky as we awaited the dinner David was preparing in the kitchen that evening, waving his hand against my protestations.
‘Nonsense. This holiday is a celebration of you. You and David, how much you’ve achieved, despite everything. Don’t think we don’t see all you do.’
His eyes held mine as I knocked back the drink before standing on unsteady feet, resting my hand briefly on his shoulder, a flash of electricity shooting up through my shirt.
‘Anna, where are you going?’
David appeared at the doorway as I reached the bottom of the stairs.
‘Nowhere, I was just going to check on the girls.’
‘Maria has them. They’re fine, they’re having a rest.’
‘But it’s suppertime, I wanted to—’
‘For once, Anna, this isn’t about what you want. The girls need rest. Besides, the food is ready. You look like you could do with something to eat.’
There was a moment of silence, the words I wanted to say ricocheting around my head, and then I nodded and followed him back into the kitchen.
‘Well, that was a triumph,’ Clive announced as Maria cleared the table once we had all finished our mains, refilling his own glass before passing the bottle to May.
‘Anna, are you OK? You look unwell.’
He was seated at the opposite end of the room, David for once having offered me the head of the table.
‘I can’t imagine why.’ David’s words were pinched.
The taste of the beef swam around my mouth, bitter and heavy. Gradually the room seemed to contort and it was all I could do to hold onto the side of the table, in an effort to ground myself.
‘Actually, I’m … I don’t feel very good, I might …’
May reached out a hand to help steady me.
‘I’ll take you upstairs, maybe you should have a rest.’
The sheets were cool beneath my head; the last thing I heard before the room went black was May’s voice.
‘Anna, really, I know it’s not my place to say anything, but you’ve really got to … David’s very worried. We all are.’
CHAPTER 54
Maria
It was past the time when Anna usually left for work as I padded softly down the stairs one morning, the twins trailing behind me, Stella first, Rose dawdling, running her hand along the bannister.
They had been out the night before, she and David, and had arrived home around midnight, unaware of the sound of their raised voices echoing through the house.
This morning, from the final step, I could see her through the kitchen door, seated at the table, her skin pale, her hair unbrushed. She flinched as I stepped into the room flanked by her daughters.
‘Rose.’ Her face softened as the girls ran towards her legs, Stella pulling herself onto her mother’s lap.
Rose followed, and they sat for a minute, their faces wide with satisfaction as their mother nuzzled their ringlets.
After a moment, she whispered something into their ears, and their faces fell as she made to stand.
‘You two sit and have your breakfasts.’
The false brightness of her smile was not lost on her children.
‘Help yourself to coffee, Maria,’ she added, pointing to a pot that stood stone-cold on the table, before re-emerging twenty minutes later, fully dressed and businesslike, with that manner she could adopt, the one that warned you not to come closer.
I watched her from the window, the trail of her perfume following her down the steps and onto the pavement, her daughters’ little legs hanging over the side of the sofa where they sat.
Without warning, an image of David shot into my mind, like a hairline fracture appearing across a glass; his hand on mine, held there a beat too long, as
he passed me the girls’ bag, that first morning in Provence.
‘I was …’ But my words failed me, sticking in my throat as David’s eyes fixed on me.
‘Daddy!’ Stella stumbled across the room towards us, as David pulled his hand away, his thumb moving across my palm, so lightly that I wondered if I’d imagined it.
It was a few hours before Anna returned. Even from the living room, I knew it was she who had arrived home first; I could tell from the way she closed the door, too self-consciously, the way she does and thinks no one hears.
‘Anna?’
I called her name quietly, afraid of waking Stella, who had finally gone down after hours of tossing her head.
Her voice broke as I reached the bottom of the stairs, the phone pressed between her shoulder and ear. Pulling back, I peered through the bannisters down to the hall where she sat, a bag of bones collapsed on the floor, face tight with pain, the phone clamped to her ear, tears silently streaming down her cheeks.
CHAPTER 55
Anna
The house stood in the middle of the cul-de-sac. As the car turned the corner, I held up my hand, signalling for the driver to stop at the end of the street.
Breathing deeply, I stood tall as I stepped out of the cab, taking a moment to absorb the lonely sycamore lining the curve in the pavement in front of my parents’ home. The flat roof of the garage that they had never pulled down, a permanent shrine to the misery that still defined them.
As I walked towards the house, I pulled my jacket tight around me. Was that the curtain twitching in the top room, the one that had been Thomas’s, or had I imagined my mother’s silhouette quickly moving away, heading towards the stairs?
It was too easy to visualise the inside of that room. Though the door was kept locked, I could picture it exactly from the times I had returned home to find my mother, her eyes like glass, perched on the edge of the bed; the same small white bed in which he had slept the night before he died. The same teddy bear, his fur past its best, his limbs stiff, perched in the middle of the pillow.
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