Getting Home

by Celia Brayfield

  ‘Mum, don’t give me that,’ commanded her son, getting up and heading for the door.

  ‘Don’t you want to give your teacher something nice?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But I thought you liked her.’

  ‘We’re late.’

  ‘Well, if you like someone it’s nice to give them flowers.’

  ‘No it isn’t. It’s weird.’

  ‘Max …’

  It rang. The telephone rang. She grabbed it, so eager that her finger missed the talk button three times.

  ‘Hello, darling …’

  ‘Stephanie, I need to talk to you.’ Stewart’s partner. Maybe he could make only one call, maybe he’d asked Marcus to call her.

  ‘Are you going to be at home this afternoon?’ Marcus had been born without social skills. She hated talking to him on the telephone, getting the words out was like pulling teeth. And it was worse when he was embarrassed.

  ‘Did you speak to Stewart this morning?’

  ‘Ah – no, no, not today. Listen, can I come over at around four?’

  Disappointed, she agreed then, seeing the time, swept Max and his educational impedimenta into the car and hit the street. In Elm Bank Avenue she picked up Ben and Jon Carman, who had obviously been fighting so at least they were quiet. In Church Vale she pulled in behind the studio car waiting for Allie.

  ‘It’s eight-twenty, Mum.’

  ‘Clever boy, telling the time.’

  ‘It’s a digital clock,’ Ben Carman sneered, kicking the seat in front of him.

  ‘Mum, we’re going to be late.’ Max was that kind of child, exceptionally anxious to do everything right. She did not like to go into the Parsons’ house in the morning, Allie had a way of creating force fields, and at this hour there was always an invisible ring around her house repelling all intruders.

  The door inched open and Chalice Parsons began to dawdle down the path, dragging her bag on the ground. Twice she turned round as if she expected to be called back. The ribbon from her wispy fair hair fell on the ground. When she got to the car, her bag fell open and two chocolate bars, a packet of frankfurters and a pencil fell into the gutter. Chalice burst into tears.

  At The Magpies the sun had dried the dew on the climbing frame. Miss Helens came out and took Chalice firmly by the hand. Stephanie gave the lilac to the teacher herself. She knew enough about embarrassing mothers never to want to be one.

  The plan had been for Stephanie to be a full-time mother until her children were of a proper age – maybe eight or ten or twelve – but when they came to Westwick they found that full-time motherhood was not quite the thing. A Westwick wife needed a job, the sort of job that embellished her husband’s career, attracted tax breaks on the home and enhanced their family life, like Allie, of course, or Rachel Carman running her mother and baby clinic or Belinda DeSouza with her ski apartments or Lauren Pike with her counselling. So Stephanie was the sole proprietor of The Terrace Garden Design Studio, which allowed her to spend her mornings dreaming up treillage and water features for her neighbours.

  Around 11 am, she had to wait for the ink to dry on a scheme for a pergola for one of Lauren Pike’s friends. Why did Marcus want to come round? It was a very small question, compared to the much larger consideration of why Stewart had not called, but her imagination, a healthy and well-maintained faculty, could not offer an answer.

  When the doorbell rang, and a courier from the florist next to Stewart’s office delivered a bunch of lilies the size of a wheatsheaf, with a card from her husband offering all his love, she forgot about Marcus completely. She put the lilies in a vase on her desk then went to polish the green apples in the pewter bowl on the sycamore dining table. The Magritte apples were her shrine light when Stewart was away.

  Outside, hidden in the carmine blossom of the flowering crab, the thrush stood, cocking his head. Above, he had four hungry nestlings and an expectant mate. Below, a colony of unsuspecting snails was bingeing on young hosta leaves. Every cat in the street was asleep indoors. The nearest hawk was hovering over the verge of the 31. In case any other birds were listening, the thrush sang a few notes to let them know that this was the greatest place in the world to build a nest, and it was his – all his.

  2. Annual Death Rate Under

  6 Per Thousand

  The streets of Westwick were quiet. The trees were rooted in the broad bands of mowed grass which lined every road. Vehicles moved about slowly, like idle fish in a pond. In wide, straight streets like Riverview Drive, exemplary traffic-calming features had been installed, humbling the cars to bump ridiculously over ridges of cobblestones. It was still Westwick’s role to be a model environment.

  The vehicles of Westwick were the breeder wagons. The Carmans ran an Espace, the Parsons family looked down on the world from their Discovery, the De Souzas had the Volvo as long as Stockholm Sound. Stephanie and Stewart felt a little juvenile with their five-year-old bottom-of-the-range Cherokee but agreed that they were not quite ready to trade up to a seven-seater which cornered like a floating wardrobe.

  As Stephanie coasted into New Farm Rise, a breeze brushed blossoms from the cherry trees. Pink petals sprinkled the roof of a foreign vehicle outside her house, a 3-series BMW, the classic singleton transport, owned by Marcus, her husband’s partner.

  ‘Steph, I need to see you.’ Marcus was better with drawings than words; anything without dimensions made him insecure. She had given only passing thought to why he might want to see her. Perhaps Stewart’s visa needed to be amended. Perhaps Marcus had a job to discuss – since she had left the firm he occasionally sent a private client to her, someone whose landscaping needs were too small for the department at Berkman & Sands.

  She saw Marcus get out of his vehicle and she saw a police car pull gently to the kerb behind him, a woman officer at the wheel. While she was scanning her memory for neglected parking tickets, the officer approached Marcus; they seemed to agree about something. Stephanie had the first tremor of anxiety. She pulled up in front of her house and was aware of the two of them standing around awkwardly while she let Max out of the back of the car.

  ‘I am WPC Clegg.’ The officer gave her a cold, strong hand to shake. Firmly buttoned and tightly belted, she stood square on her heavy shoes, employing routine eye-contact. ‘I’m here about the same matter as Mr Berkman, so shall we all go in together?’

  In the breakfast room the sun had drawn out the scent of the lemon geranium, Pelargonium crispum. The calico blinds were fresh and spotless; the long sycamore table, for which Stewart had paid a month’s salary with joy, was pale and handsome in the sunlight and the silver bowl of green apples was positioned exactly where he had determined it broke up the space most effectively. When Stewart was away all the rooms felt neglected.

  ‘You’re getting the place in shape?’ Because he was so afraid of being misunderstood, Marcus ended his statements with a rising inflection, always asking, ‘you got that?’

  ‘It’s coming along,’ she agreed. ‘I can’t believe we’ve been here two years.’

  They let her make the coffee, and the hiss of the hot water and the rattle of the spoons amounted to a clamour. WPC Clegg had an air of impatience. She marched about the room without looking around, as if concerned not to waste time. Marcus perched awkwardly at the end of the table. Something of great weight was lying in the air.

  ‘So, on this lovely afternoon – what brings you out to Westwick?’ Stephanie put the tray on the table, wondering if she should have taken the initiative in opening the subject.

  Marcus drew in a deep breath. ‘Look, Steph, we’re here … look, you’ve got to understand, there isn’t any easy way into this …’ His high forehead wrinkled with distress. The police officer shot him a look of annoyance.

  ‘It’s about your husband, Mrs Sands.’

  ‘About Stewart?’

  ‘Yes.’ Relief made Marcus hiss a little. Stephanie looked around for Max, but he was oblivious in the play-room, watching Pepe LePew.<
br />
  ‘Well – ah – has something happened?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Something has happened.’ Now he was sweating.

  ‘So – is he dead?’ It seemed best to work down from the worst possibility. Stephanie was perfectly certain that her husband was not dead; she had not felt the shudder in the cosmos which their separation would have created.

  The officer intervened. ‘Normally, Mrs Sands, you would have received a visit from an officer alone, but in this case since the authorities had contacted Mr Berkman …’

  ‘Could we cut to the chase? Is he injured? Has there been an accident?’

  ‘No, nothing like that, Mrs Sands. As far as we know, he’s fine. Would you like to sit down?’

  They seemed to expect it, so she sat, and the others took chairs also. Her brain had stalled, no thoughts were coming. Her imagination, normally so good with disaster, was paralysed. The police woman took charge of the conversation, her manner implying that Marcus had unjustifiably attempted to usurp her role. ‘I expect you know that your husband was with a trade delegation to the former Soviet Union,’ she began.

  ‘He called me from Kiev the day before yesterday.’ What could have happened in two days? Sex? Drugs? A Mafia massacre? International fraud? Some Kafkaesque diplomatic incident? The idea of Stewart related to any of these was impossible. She felt interrogated; when did you last see your husband?

  ‘I understand from the Foreign Office that it was quite a high-profile delegation to a place called …’ she took an extra breath to tackle the pronunciation, ‘Kazikistan?’

  ‘Kazakhstan. It was a government invitation – the new government. They were talking about developing a resort on the Caspian Sea.’ We do talk, my husband and I.

  ‘That’s right.’ Clegg clearly did not like to be corrected. ‘We understand the visit was well publicised within the province, a public relations coup for the regime there.’

  ‘He told me all that. Is he accused of something? Is it spying? Stewart? I thought that sort of thing didn’t happen any more.’

  ‘Fortunately, what has happened seems to be clear. Fortunately because sometimes in these situations what has actually happened isn’t clear for quite a few days …’ She spoke as if incidents were staged purely to annoy the police.

  Seeing Stephanie’s face now breaking up in distress, Marcus cut in bluntly. ‘Steph, it’s a kidnap.’

  ‘Kidnap.’ A word, at last. Her mind turned it over, trying to make it fit into their life, like Max trying to fit the cylinder peg into the triangle hole in his shape sorter. It did not fit. ‘So – why …’

  ‘By what the FO tell us is quite an organised group who have already communicated with an embassy in Moscow. The French embassy.’ Marcus was breathing hard from emotional exertion.

  ‘We know they are all in good health.’ Clegg cut in. ‘At least, that’s what was said.’

  ‘What do they want?’

  ‘It isn’t clear yet what their demands are. As far as we know, that wasn’t part of the message. They’re not a group known to our intelligence and the FO find the action unexpected because this certainly isn’t a war situation, or even one of conflict. I’ve been told Kazakhstan has been quite stable although is has a common border with Chechnya and obviously certain elements cross that border even though there’s no more fighting in Chechnya now.’ She recited this information with flawless authority, as if these distant provinces with explosive names had been the subject of her doctoral thesis. Stephanie pictured her lecturing a squad of armed muggers from the same great height of certainty. Did she know martial arts? Could she lay a man out with one supple high kick?

  They kept talking, the officer calm but vague, Marcus very abrupt, both of them so intent on reassuring her that she began to feel panic because it was so obviously expected. It was a brittle emotion but enough for tears to start leaking from the corner of her eyes.

  Marcus got up and shot away to the edge of the room. A twitch of something – regret? sympathy? – showed on the woman’s face, but when she saw that Stephanie had tissues she kept talking. ‘For the moment, Mrs Sands, it’s going to be a question of watching and waiting. The French are handling negotiations very well. We’ve been told their experience of these situations is quite extensive although as matters progress our people may opt to take an independent line …’

  Was she using bland language deliberately? Marcus, who would have said ‘terrorist’without any hesitation, was halfway through the door now, glancing worriedly towards Max as if he had just remembered that they had the child.

  Not knowing what else to say, Stephanie asked, ‘What was the communication? What actually happened?’

  ‘The message came by computer.’ Clegg blinked and one side of her pink mouth was dragged out of line by momentary humour.

  ‘An E-mail,’ confirmed Marcus.

  ‘An E-mail?’ Her husband was lost in that infinite anonymity. She felt a flash of terror. In cyberspace nobody can hear you scream.

  They seemed relieved that she had forced them to disclose this detail. ‘That’s right, Mrs Sands. Unexpected, certainly. I did query it and it seems that very few agencies in the former Soviet Union are linked up and able to do that. It should give the FO some valuable leads.’

  ‘And … but …’

  ‘They listed the passport numbers and scanned the photographs. It’s been downloaded if you’d like to see it. It was in English. Kind of English.’

  ‘Hadn’t I better see it? Won’t it be in the news tomorrow?’ Terrifying enough to face the fact in her own home, much worse to share it with faceless, prurient millions.

  ‘There’ll be no media announcement unless you sanction it, Mrs Sands. And the FO advise against it, for your own sake as well as because they want to play this down. You would be surprised if you knew how many of our nationals are held around the world; the families often feel they want their privacy. And it may all be over by tomorrow. If it isn’t,’ the officer leaned forward, making an important point, ‘you’ll need some peace to get used to the idea.’

  ‘I’ve had a visit from a Foreign Office official already, Steph. They’ll be keeping in touch with us daily until he’s home. He said these groups are often after access to the media and it is their policy to deny them that if they can. With a roadside ambush, which it seems this was, that’s quite possible. Of course if this were a hijacking, it would be more difficult.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that.’ Her arm felt unreal as she poured more coffee.

  ‘I’ll give you his card.’ Marcus laid it on the table in front of her, a white rectangle bearing the word ‘Liaison’and some numbers. The name was Capelli, with three initials before it. ‘His office handles anything that involves the relatives of nationals abroad. He’ll be calling you pretty soon, I told him what time we’d be here.’

  ‘Mrs Sands, is anyone with you at present?’ She was winding up the interview, reaching into a pocket for a pen, ready to note down whatever was required from this assignment before moving on to the next.

  ‘Only my son.’

  ‘So – is there anyone you would like us to call for you?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure, Steph, I thought maybe your mother.’ Marcus’s shoulders were sagging in apology, his elbows rigid as if nailed to his body. ‘And then there’s Carl and Betty.’ Stewart’s parents had moved to British Columbia where his brother sold helicopters. ‘I don’t know what to do here, Steph.’

  Marcus came along with Stewart, a fixture in his present and his past, partner in his business, keeper of his history. She had never asked herself if she liked him, that was a leading question. They were different. Marcus was entrepreneurial and Stewart was visionary, Stewart was relational and Marcus was mathematical. What Marcus decreed Stewart would dream and what Stewart dreamed Marcus would cost, present, put in hand and see through to the last drop of paint. The business was the sum of them both and their prosperity the alchemy of their characters. When Stewart once asked, ‘Are you ever jealous of Mar
cus?’ she had been utterly surprised.

  Marcus and Stewart could talk together, but otherwise talking was not Marcus’s thing. Their city friends, collectively called The Crowd, tolerated him but there was mutual admission that he did not fit in. To Marcus, the long Sunday morning telephone calls fixing brunch wasted his time; he came, he ate, sometimes he smiled, once he made a joke about blessed eggs Benedict. Occasionally a woman came with him, and he appeared proud of it, but women were not his thing, or perhaps he was not a woman’s thing.

  Marcus did not like surprises. That much Stephanie had in common with him. Now she saw he was as helpless as driftwood, tossed every way around by this flood of the unexpected. ‘You were kind to come, Marcus.’

  He caught the officer’s cold eye. ‘They traced you through me, you see. Because we did the visa application through the office.’ He wanted her to do what had to be done and what he could not do. Like speak to Stewart’s parents.

  They expected her to act now. She looked at her watch. ‘Carl and Betty won’t be up yet. I will speak to them this evening. I’ll call my mother – she should be back by now.’ Her mother’s life was now ruled by golf and her stepfather. They did not like to play in the late afternoon because the shadows were tricky and working people started to get on the links.

  ‘I can’t think of anything else,’ she said to the police-woman.

  ‘You’ll find it’s a lot to take in,’ she replied, moving towards the door. ‘There’s a very good Victim Support organisation in Westwick. I’ll leave you their number.’ She picked a card from a pocket in the cover of her notebook and left it on the console in the-hall.

  ‘If you need anything, Steph …’ Marcus did not know how to get off the doorstep.

  ‘I’ll call,’ she reassured him. ‘You were good to come, Marcus. I appreciate it.’

  She walked down the front path to see them off; it seemed only polite. The departing cars made whirlpools of blossom petals, then the street was quiet and sunny again. She felt dread drenching her heart; trouble had found its way to her door. Things like this were not supposed to happen in Westwick. The schools and the gardens and the history and the ten-minute run to the airport were part of the story, but the real reason she had set her heart on living here was that it was safe. Or had seemed safe.