by Jane Shemilt
‘I wouldn’t have expected you to come along; it was my mistake,’ I told him. ‘I’d got the diagnosis wrong. I had to sort it out.’
‘How did it go?’
‘I took her some old books of Naomi’s and she thanked me. She seemed glad to see me. She was fatter. The chemotherapy contains steroids, so it’s an artificial sort of fatness, but she looked better all the same.’ I could feel the tears spilling out again. ‘But the most difficult thing was what happened with Jeff Price.’
‘What did he do?’ Michael sounded angry.
‘Nothing. He said sorry.’
‘What?’
I thought back to the moment Jade had taken the books and opened one.
‘Whose writing is that?’ She had turned to her father, showing him the pencil marks scrawled across the sky on the first page.
‘“Naomi Malcolm,”’ he read. ‘“My bed. My bedroom. Number One, Clifton Road, Bristol. England. The World. The Universe. Outer Space.”’ He paused, then added, ‘That’s the doctor’s little girl, Jadie.’
‘Won’t she mind?’ Jade turned her face towards me.
‘No,’ I said. I had forgotten about the writing. ‘She’s … bigger now.’ I tried to smile.
Perhaps Jade read my expression. ‘I’ll give it back when I’ve finished,’ she said.
I nodded, unable to speak. Jeff Price walked down the aisle of beds with me. Children were lying in hot little heaps on their beds, faces flushed and stupefied with boredom. They were as silent as ill animals, swamped by layers of relatives who sat around them, watching television.
He stopped in the corridor outside the plastic doors of the ward.
‘I saw you on the telly earlier. I’m sorry about what’s happened. Not right. I know we had words but that’s not right.’
‘Thanks.’ I paused. ‘The police are interviewing everyone. Even my patients …’
‘Fine by me. Bring it on. Anything I can do to help. I’ve been here twenty-four seven, the nurses will tell them that.’
He touched me on the shoulder and walked back, seeming to fill the corridor as he went, lurching slightly from side to side, his feet in their huge white trainers sucking noisily at the shiny blue floor.
The plastic doors had slapped shut behind him.
Michael was waiting patiently for my response.
‘Jeff Price was sorry about Naomi,’ I told him again. ‘Perhaps you don’t need to interview him after all.’
‘Well, it shouldn’t take long.’
It didn’t seem as if I could stop what I’d started, even if I was sure Jeff Price wasn’t involved.
‘You were great on television.’ Michael smiled, changing the subject.
The lights had been hot and bright. They had made my eyes water but I didn’t want people to think I was crying. I didn’t want Naomi’s abductor to know what he was doing to us. We were warned that if you show your distress it can make things worse. Parents become victims to be manipulated. At the same time we had to do it. We had to reach out to the woman who might have glimpsed her blurred face in a car window in an unknown city, and seen her open mouth calling for help. We had to grab the attention of the man serving in a corner shop, who might have noticed that the quiet bloke who normally just bought cigarettes was now buying extra things: food, tape, sanitary towels for the bleeding. We had to tell the child on a bike ride to pick up the grey hoody that was caught at the bottom of a hedge down a country lane, the one she had thrown out so someone would find it. I wanted the woman by the lights, the shopkeeper and the child on the bike to be on my side.
‘You were really great,’ Michael said again, when I didn’t reply. ‘So was Ted. We’ll need to see him again, by the way.’
‘I think he’s asleep now. It’s funny – he can hardly seem to keep awake but I can’t sleep at all.’
‘Just a few questions; tomorrow would be better.’
‘I can probably answer them now.’
‘No. We need to ask him the questions.’
He sounded serious, almost regretful. I didn’t understand.
‘What questions?’
‘Not everything is adding up. We need to straighten a few things out.’
I felt sick. Did we have to go over it all again, separately? Did this mean the police had decided not to believe what we were saying?
‘Michael, please. Time is going by and every second –’
‘That’s why we’ve got to get this straight. Could you tell him he needs to be at the station in the morning? We’ll collect him.’
It sounded so ridiculous, like some television police drama where the husband is needed for questioning and the wife becomes hysterical.
‘If I can answer for him, it will save a lot of time.’
Michael sighed quickly. ‘All right. Do you happen to know where Ted was the night Naomi went missing?’
I got up and started walking around the kitchen, picking up the glasses and cups that seemed to litter every surface. They knew the answer to that already. I was tired; I wanted to go to bed now.
‘I know exactly where he was. At the hospital. His operation was running late. He had a difficult case – it happens all the time. If anyone doesn’t believe that, it’s easy enough to check with the theatre staff at the hospital.’
Michael stood up as well. His face was expressionless and it was as though he hadn’t heard me.
‘I’ll let myself out,’ he said, and his voice sounded oddly formal. ‘Please tell him he’ll be collected in the morning.’
Once he’d left I sat at the table, my eyes closed. Michael’s words seemed to echo on in the silence. After a while I went to the phone and rang the hospital. I asked to be put through to neuro theatres. Though it was late, a male theatre assistant answered immediately. He sounded very young. I told him who I was and that Ted had asked me to check on the time he’d started in theatre the previous Thursday evening. He had forgotten to record the length of the operation and needed it for a GP letter. The words came so smoothly it was as if I’d been rehearsing them rather than plucking them from the tumult in my mind. He left for a moment, then returned.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Dr Malcolm. Had to double-check. Sure you didn’t mean Monday?’
‘I am certain he said Thursday …’ I replied, my heart thudding.
‘It’s just that it was only Mr Patel in neuro theatre on Thursday. Mr Malcolm’s case was cancelled. I can find out how long the operation took on the Monday if you want to phone me back?’
‘He’ll be in touch if he needs to.’
I replaced the receiver and then went upstairs and sat on a chair next to my sleeping husband. I stared at him for so long that his face changed and seemed to dissolve, in the way that your own identity does if you say your name over and over to yourself. In the end he looked like any man lying there, a stranger who I happened to have met, by accident.
19
DORSET 2010
THIRTEEN MONTHS LATER
A group of small children sing Christmas carols at the entrance to Dorchester station, huddling round a grey-haired woman at their centre. The children are restless in their downward-slipping Santa hats, two are stamping on each other’s toes, and the smallest girl wipes her running nose with her sleeve. The woman resolutely conducts the singing but her sharply moving hands look as if she is painting punishments in the air. ‘Away in a Manger’ spirals thinly outwards as I walk towards the barriers to Platform 1. There is something familiar in the way this woman is driving herself to play her part: she stands so upright, her voice is too cheerful. She belongs to a world I used to be part of and as I look at her I remember its weight. There are no duties now to push me through the day. Life is stripped down and my roles are simpler: mother, not wife. If I had to put my occupation on a form, I’d write painter.
Ed’s train is due. Sophie is coming with him. They didn’t need him to stay for Christmas in the unit after all. It only occurs to me now, too late, that a train journey could be
difficult for him, with all the noise and crowds, after the routine and order of his days in the unit.
In a few minutes the train rushes in, doors slide open and then there are streams of moving heads to scan, so it’s a jolt when his arms come round from behind to encircle my waist tightly.
‘Ed!’
He is laughing. Laughing! I haven’t seen Ed even smile for months. I needn’t have worried. His face is unshaven, his brown eyes deeply alive, his long black hair shining. He has a rucksack and his guitar is slung across him. He turns, puts his arm round a girl almost hiding behind him.
‘Mum, this is Sophie. Soph, Mum.’
Her colours light up the drab station. Short bright-red hair, green eyes circled with grey kohl, a green knitted coat, stripy blue gloves, orange hat, yellow boots. There is a silver ring through one nostril. She is carrying an accordion strapped to her back. Her face is watchful, calm and very pretty. I take one of her gloved hands in mine.
‘Hello, Sophie.’
She smiles. ‘Hi.’
‘So lucky she could come,’ Ed says, looking at her. ‘She nearly couldn’t. Jake wanted her to be there for Christmas lunch on the boat, but in the end it was all right.’
I smile at Sophie.
‘Thanks for having me.’ Her chin tilts a little as she says this. There is a soft Irish lilt to her voice.
In the car on the way back, Sophie sits close to Ed and he points out the cliffs and beaches as we pass. I tell him Theo is arriving later with Sam, the partner we haven’t yet met. Then he wants to know what time Ted is expected.
‘Tomorrow or the next day. He’s flying back from Johannesburg today.’
‘I reckon he’s really on holiday,’ Ed says, shrugging.
I thought he kept in touch with Ed. So nothing’s changed. He’s been busy all their lives – birthdays, parents’ evenings, sometimes Christmas and holidays. The burden of responsibility settles down on me again; it feels as heavy as it did during all those years when I thought he was sharing it. Ironically it got lighter after he left, or perhaps I just knew to brace myself. Why then does the disappointment burn now?
‘Not on holiday. I told you, he’s been at a meeting.’
‘Typical.’
I check in the driving mirror, but he’s smiling again; there is even a slight air of pride as he slips an arm round Sophie. My father, busy and important.
‘Good for your dad. I’ve always wanted to work in Africa,’ she says.
‘It’s only a conference,’ I tell her. ‘For a couple of weeks. His real job is in Bristol.’
‘Sophie works for Amnesty International,’ Ed says.
‘That’s impressive.’ I look at her face in the mirror; she smiles and shrugs.
‘I just translate stuff. French and German.’
‘She and Jake can talk to each other in any language, especially if they want to say something about me they know I won’t understand,’ Ed says matter-of-factly.
‘You wouldn’t understand about you whatever language we spoke in. Would-be medics don’t get themselves. Too busy being heroes in their own drama.’ Her lilting voice is amused.
They both laugh as if it’s an old joke.
In the weeks after his admission to the unit we had skated around what he might do when he left. He never mentioned doing medicine again after he’d had to leave school. He did his A levels in the unit, and when his spectacular results came through it only added to the grief, the sense of what might have been. He told me he’s happy to stay on helping out for now. This isn’t the moment to talk about plans. He seems as if he is fresh from a holiday.
Bertie is standing in the hall when I open the door. Ed’s face crumples; he kneels down, puts his arms round the dog and starts to cry. Bertie stands still, blinking. He sneezes once and then sniffs Ed’s hair, tail wagging. Sophie kneels next to Ed and hugs him, laying her cheek next to his. I make tea. I should have seen this coming and prepared him in some way for how the past melts into the present.
After a few minutes, Ed gets up, blows his nose and laughs shakily.
‘Sorry, Bert.’ He bends and puts his hand on Bertie’s head again.
‘Shall we go to the sea now, and take Bertie?’ Sophie asks.
Ed nods and they drink their tea, then they all go out to the fields through the garden. I watch him pause at the gate, touch the post. I wonder for the hundredth time whether he has yet found a place to put everything that has happened, to keep it until he can think about it and try to make sense of it.
I watch them cross the field, then it’s time to take the chicken out of the fridge, slide butter and herbs under the skin and put lemon and garlic inside. When it’s in the oven I pour a glass of wine and take it to the wooden shed outside that I cleared for a studio a week ago, knowing there wouldn’t be room in the house. With the windows clean, the light had poured through; the old leaves and dust and mouse droppings were swept away. There was a trestle table in there already. I bought a new heater and hung some of my paintings from the nails in the wall.
My oil painting of Mary’s hands is on the table. They look like claws, the fingers deformed by rheumatism, the skin shiny and puffed. She calls them her witch hands but they make tea, hold eggs and garden tools, bake bread. I’ve painted them loosely open for her kindness. If Mary is a witch she is a good witch. Dan’s hands are holding a piece of wood. They look careful and careless at the same time – the wood tilts out of his fingers but he’s trapped it with his thumb so that the holding and letting go are balanced. And there is a very new pencil sketch of Michael’s hand. Last weekend he was sitting in here in an old deckchair, near the window. He was reading, and resting his hand on his knee. The sketch has captured the power of his fingers and the width of his hand. It needs finishing. I find my pencil, and as I work a few flakes of snow fall outside the window. I shade the marked curve of the muscles of the ball of his thumb and it’s as though he’s touching me. I close my eyes, remembering the feel of his hands on my body. Naomi’s eyes, as they are in the portrait, shine at me behind my eyelids. Secrets are dangerous; she should have been careful. Should I be, of Michael?
Ed and Sophie come back. Their clothes are flecked with snow.
‘I’ve never seen the beach in winter,’ Ed says as he strips off his wet coat. ‘It was so empty.’
Sophie’s teeth are chattering. ‘The cliffs were amazing, all those layers.’
They go to bathe and shower, and later, after the chicken, after wine and coffee and washing-up, they sit near the fire and Sophie plays her accordion. Ed joins in with his guitar. They look comfortable; this must be something they do often. I join them at a little distance, half in the shadows, sitting in my father’s blue chair near the door.
‘Who are we going to dedicate this to, then?’ Sophie asks.
‘Dad.’
‘Tell me about him,’ Sophie says sleepily. She lets her arms rest and her fingers stop playing.
‘I told you. He’s a neurosurgeon,’ Ed replies. ‘He operates on people’s heads. You know, fixes their brains?’
I feel sad at this pride in his voice. Does Ted have any idea? Would he care? Two years ago I would have thought I knew the answer. No, I wouldn’t even have asked the question.
‘Must have been hard on you, growing up. I mean, you can’t have got to see him much.’
‘It wasn’t really hard.’ Ed is cheerful. ‘He was kind of around. He used to be there on holidays and stuff. He always came home at night.’
He didn’t, though. Ed was wrong. He didn’t always come home at night.
BRISTOL 2009
SIX DAYS AFTER
The phone was ringing as I woke. It was on Ted’s side of the bed. I turned over to stretch across him but my reaching hand hit the wall. Of course. Spare bed, spare room. I heard Ted answer on the floor beneath me; his quiet orderly cadences meant it was a call from the hospital. I heard him get up and go downstairs to make coffee. He had kept to the usual routine though everything around him w
as different. He would be wondering why I hadn’t slept next to him; he would think it was because I had come to bed too late and didn’t want to disturb him.
He wouldn’t know that I had hardly slept, that, when I did, unspeakable nightmares had filled my mind, nightmares that were still there when I woke, thoughts so monstrous that I felt my head would burst open with them. Ted had lied. He hadn’t been in the hospital the night Naomi disappeared. It was Ted who had taken her. Ted had picked her up from the theatre that night and had secretly taken her away. Why would he do that? The answer was there, ready-made. When he had seen her play Maria he had realized she was someone different now, not his little Naomi but another girl completely, grown-up, sexy, challenging. Perhaps he didn’t like that, so he had – what? Raped her? Killed her? He would know how to; he would know precisely how to block the carotid artery, or crush her trachea. I lay there letting my darkest thoughts torture me until I felt sick and giddy with them. I knew there couldn’t be any truth in them, but wasn’t that what people always said when it turned out that the murderer was someone they loved?
I walked down the flight of stairs from the spare room and sat on the edge of the empty double bed in our room. Ted’s returning footsteps were slow on the stairs, and then he came in. He put my coffee on the bedside table.
‘Was I snoring again?’ He leant to give me a kiss on the head, and then went into the bathroom without waiting for a reply. A give-and-take moment that was not what it seemed.
There were probably clever ways of getting at the truth, some trick I could play to catch him out, pockets I could search or a diary hidden somewhere; but I was too tired, too heartsick. I had to know quickly.
‘Michael came round last night.’
‘Yes?’ His voice was thick with toothpaste.
‘He wants you at the station this morning.’
‘That’s not possible, I’m afraid. Why, anyway?’ He shut the shower door, not waiting for the answer. I quickly put on what clothes came to hand.