The Drowning Lesson

by Jane Shemilt

  On the journey home, Elisabeth unwinds her scarf. Her hands relax on her lap. We don’t talk much as the miles go by but I tell her I’ve found out that Josiah has been very kind to us and her face softens. Once home, she disappears into the kitchen, pulling off her green hat. In the bedroom, I push the little pot of powder deep into the side pocket of my suitcase. I say nothing to Adam. He might be scathing if I told him what had happened; he might want to throw the powder away.

  After supper he lets the dogs out; from the window I watch his torch bobbing up and down in the darkness as he follows them round the perimeter fence. There is, after all, nothing of importance to say. No clues sprang out today; despite what I’d like to believe no real steps have been taken that have brought Sam nearer. That night I lie next to Adam, wondering how I will convince Goodwill of Josiah’s innocence without revealing the old man’s secrets.

  The next morning, I wake to the sound of the hoe falling on soil: Josiah is back in the garden, digging.

  Later he comes to the door of his hut at my knock. He refuses money, though I tell him it’s for the medicine. He takes my hand and smiles.

  Behind him is the empty room. Now I know he isn’t hiding anything; in any case he has nothing to hide – he owns almost nothing. I want to go in, ask his forgiveness, sit down with him, find out what he did when he was younger, and why he loved Sam. He made a journey, paid money and went to prison for our son. Did he remind him of a boy he knew? His own son?

  Ka a leboga. It’s all I can say, but he nods and smiles again, then releases my hand and turns back into his hut.

  Goodwill doesn’t come that day or the day after. After a while it feels we have gone backwards rather than forwards: Sam seems further away than ever.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Botswana, May 2014

  ‘I’m worried about Alice,’ Adam says at breakfast. The girls have left the table; in the sitting room, Alice has pushed Zoë aside and is sitting so near to the television screen that the blue light plays over her face.

  I’m worried about her too. She is silent and seems fearful. She doesn’t play or even read. The books on the table have hardly been touched since Simon was here.

  ‘She needs to go home.’ His eyes are wary: he’s expecting an argument. ‘So does Zoë. It’s been two months – time for them to get back to some kind of normality.’

  All the fragile leads we’d thought we had have snapped. Teko has disappeared without a trace. Simon and Josiah should never have been pursued. Our story is still in the news, a knot of journalists still camping outside the gates. Elisabeth tells me that Chief Momotsi continues to search. Adam walks out into the bush every day, but for the girls, time is hanging, motionless.

  ‘She’s unhappy enough to be careless,’ he says. ‘She sits in the heat without a hat. I’ve seen her walk in the grass over there with no shoes on.’ He nods towards the side of the garden where it grows tall and spindly under the trees, and snakes could be hiding. ‘It’s as though she doesn’t mind what happens to her, almost as though she’s seeking harm.’

  ‘She’s grieving, Adam. Don’t make it worse than it is. She forgets to take care.’

  ‘I’ll stay here, of course, and carry on searching,’ he continues, as if I haven’t spoken. ‘The Met are sending a task force next week and the private detective arrives in a few days.’

  ‘A task force?’

  ‘I told you yesterday. Goodwill has agreed to work with them as there have been no positive leads.’

  ‘How are we going to pay for a private detective?’

  ‘I’ve re-mortgaged the house. Emma, we had this discussion two days ago.’

  If we did, I can’t remember it – or perhaps I didn’t hear. When Adam talks, the words often jumble together; sometimes I watch his lips moving and hear the sounds as if at a distance.

  Zoë jumps with a little cry of alarm when I pass her on my way to the quiet of our bedroom. She startles at everything now. In our room the bougainvillaea around the window frames the garden like a wreath. A blade of certainty slides between my ribs: Sam is surely dead, or hidden so determinedly that he is irrecoverable. Why hope?

  Adam follows me into the bedroom; I nod without turning my head.

  ‘I’ll get your tickets for a week’s time,’ he says. I can’t tell if he is relieved or sad. ‘Does that give you long enough?’

  I email the girls’ school, my work and Megan – she and I email once a week; whenever her name appears in the inbox my heart lifts just a little. Adam organizes our tickets. We don’t speculate on how long it will be before he comes back to England.

  I text Goodwill to let him know we’re leaving. We debate if we should buy the police something, but in the end decide it might look like bribery.

  The house takes on the look of a ghost house, the rooms emptying of most of our stuff. I move slowly, a victim sorting debris in the smoky remains of a bomb. My hair fades as grey thickens in the blonde and my face is thinner. I haven’t put on makeup since Sam was taken. I wear whatever comes to hand.

  As the last week draws to an end, Goodwill and Kopano come out to the house. Goodwill tells me they will continue working on the case. He stands at the window; as we talk, his eyes rest on Josiah, who is carrying logs to the house in a wheelbarrow.

  ‘Did you ever find out where he was?’ I am curious to see whether he knows the truth.

  ‘A bus driver helped account for all his movements.’

  ‘And the money?’

  ‘Josiah told us he needed medicine. He is an old man. It is natural.’ A little shrug.

  ‘So you let him go?’

  ‘We spoke at length to the owner of the house; he was prepared to vouch for Josiah’s character, having known him for many years.’ Goodwill nods emphatically as he watches me.

  His expression remains carefully bland. There is something more that he’s not telling me. Did the doctor use his power to make Goodwill let Josiah go or was it coincidence? If the doctor had power it was good power, an innocent man was freed.

  ‘The skinned reptiles that Kopano took away, did they help?’

  ‘The men who took your son might have seen the animals in the cages and returned later for their skins. They have a certain value. If we’d found the skins, they could have given us a lead.’ He sighs. ‘But we never did.’

  One of the skins is on a wall in a dark hut in a back-street in Mochudi, I could tell him, and the others are atoms in the air. They haven’t realized that Elisabeth is Josiah’s sister. Though Josiah is innocent, it’s worrying they missed all the clues.

  ‘What’s the latest news about Teko?’

  He stretches his neck, as if the collar is too tight. ‘We do not think she is responsible, as you know.’ He looks down, his next words sound automatic. ‘Nevertheless she remains our primary witness and we are looking for her everywhere.’

  There is nothing more to say. I sense his anxiety to be gone; it is strange that I hardly know this man yet he holds my son’s life in his hands.

  ‘Do you have children, Goodwill?’

  ‘Four boys.’ He nods, pride deepening his voice.

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Twenty-five. Twenty. Eighteen.’ He pauses. His smile is sudden and genuine. ‘Two weeks.’ His hands sketch a rounded shape, the size of a bag of sugar.

  There is a small suitcase under our bed into which everything of Sam’s has been packed. I tip folded babygros, towels embroidered with ducks and nappies into a bag, then hand it to Goodwill before I can change my mind. ‘For your son.’ So you remember mine, I add silently.

  Goodwill has mauve marks beneath his eyes. The baby must be disturbing his nights. He nods quickly without smiling; I can’t tell if the gift pleases him, or if he is reluctant to take cast-offs from a baby who has disappeared. He walks heavily out of the room without saying goodbye.

  Kopano smiles and shakes my hand; his is dry and light. An athlete’s hand. For a moment I wish I’d found out more about these men, tho
ugh I doubt we would have been friends. I was never sure how much I could trust them.

  The next day Adam drives me to the clinic to say goodbye to Esther. As we sit in the crowded waiting room, Adam sleeps, his head swaying and nodding on his chest. The last time I was in this building, men were closing in around our house, creeping into the garden and watching through the windows. I am unable to sit still. Out on the porch a group of three girls sit on the steps, two perched above a third. The two girls are laughing, nudging their friend from behind. She gets up abruptly and walks away, her right foot dragging a little. My heart comes up into my throat.

  I run down the steps, missing the bottom one and turning my ankle painfully. I begin to half run, half hobble after her. The girls on the stairs notice and call to her. She turns but it’s not Teko: it’s not a girl at all; I was fooled by her size. A thin-faced woman of fifty faces me, lips pursed, her hands on her hips. Perhaps she thinks I’ve joined in to torment her. I stammer out an apology and she turns away.

  The silent gaze of the two girls follows me back inside. We are shown into Esther’s room in an interval between patients. The nurse who was away on maternity leave has returned; she walks noisily round the little room that was mine for a while; her glasses flash through the gap where the door hinges to the wall. Esther is uneasy; there seems little to talk about although she tells me that Baruti has not yet been found. A gulf has opened up between us. I want to tell her that I’m the same person she knew two months back, although we both know I’m not.

  We leave two days later, four a.m. on a Tuesday. The car is packed, the girls have been woken and dressed, and now are sleeping in the back seat.

  Elisabeth stands by the door, Josiah is next to her. He pushes his shoulders back, standing as straight as he did when we arrived. How could I have known then how difficult it would be to leave them? I put my arms round Elisabeth and hold her close; she smiles and pats my shoulder. I shake Josiah’s hand and he nods, looking away. We’ve given them presents already, money, my coat to Elisabeth. There is so much and nothing to say. The final moments pass so quickly they convey only a sense of emptiness.

  As we walk down the steps, they go back into the house and the front door shuts behind them. Later Josiah will be in the garden; Elisabeth will strip the girls’ beds and wash the floors. She’ll cook Adam’s supper. Later still Josiah will let the dogs into the garden; he’s grown fond of them. I’ve seen him talking to them by the cages in the afternoon in a low sing-song voice.

  The car slides out of the drive and the house disappears behind us. Soon I will be thousands of miles away; I am leaving, knowing nothing more than when Sam was first taken. I have failed him completely but, behind me, both girls are sleeping, trusting they will be carried from this place of tragedy back to their lives.

  Kabo is waiting at the airport; in the place where we first met him, it’s obvious that these last months have changed him. His jacket hangs on him now, and his hair is greying. He helps us unload our bags, and carries Zoë to the departure lounge. Alice follows slowly. Kabo and Adam talk quietly together, planning to run down the research as quickly as possible.

  Three policemen in the lounge stand against the wall. They recognize us and nod politely. A group of journalists clusters by the bar, cameras around their necks: absorbed in their stories, they don’t notice us.

  Zoë pulls my hand: she needs the toilet. Inside there’s a queue and she begins to whimper. We stand behind a wild-haired girl, who holds the hand of a sobbing boy. She releases his hand, and scoops her hair into a scrunchie, revealing a long, willowy neck. Teko’s neck. Teko in the act of stealing another child? The girl spins round at my touch. The acned face is unfamiliar. She stares at me questioningly, a pink bubble of gum protruding from her mouth, glances down at the crying boy, then back at me; she thinks I am drawing her attention to the child. She smiles and, bending, hoists him onto her hip, sucks in her gum and kisses him, bouncing him on her hip. The boy stops crying; not stolen then. I continue to wait in line with Zoë, who has watched this little drama silently.

  As the call comes to board, Kabo hugs the children, then me; he pushes his glasses up and walks away quickly. I watch his back view recede and my throat constricts.

  Adam kisses my cheek and bends to the children. Serious and silent, Zoe lays her head on his shoulder. Alice stays stiff in his arms; when he tells her how much he loves her, her eyes squeeze shut.

  We board the plane, find our seats, and the girls sit down on either side of me, Zoë at the window. On take-off Gaborone grows smaller, then the great brown spaces of bush recede beneath. If he’s alive, Sam is somewhere in that wilderness; I have to fight the urge to jump up and shout that I need to go back, my son has been left behind. Beside me, Alice groans. She is rigid, hands clasping the arms of the seat, sweat on her forehead. I put my hand over her clenched one. ‘Ally, sweetheart. It’s okay. We’re up.’

  She looks at me. Her eyes are expressionless.

  ‘I know who took him,’ she whispers. ‘I helped.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  London, January 2015

  Luckily the post comes late. There is a large white envelope on the mat when I return from dropping the girls off at school, the psychiatrist’s report, by its weight: if Alice had seen and guessed, her first day back at school might have been wrecked.

  Zoë’s puppy has puddled the floor again. I wipe the tiny pool, throw the J-cloth into the bin, then wince at my mistake: in Botswana it would be washed and dried in the sun, used and reused.

  The little black dog is warm on my lap. These days, I’m always cold. I walk around in two jerseys and sometimes my duvet. Weight loss. Loss.

  Rain is lashing the windows. It will be midday in Kubung now, the heat reaching into the shadows. Josiah will be asleep in his hut, Elisabeth serving lunch. Someone else will be standing at the door, her hand shading her eyes, calling her children in.

  Kodi chews the envelope while I read the report, my hands pulling at the satin triangles of his ears. Kodi: Setswana for kudu, Alice’s idea.

  Report by Dr Harnham FRCPsych

  Patient: Alice Jordan. DOB 10 August 2004

  Diagnosis: Psychotic depression.

  Generalized anxiety syndrome

  Siblings:

  Zoë Jordan. DOB: 19 June 2008. Alive and well.

  Samuel Jordan. DOB: 17 November 2013. Missing, presumed deceased, March 2014.

  Missing. That word opening always into the vacant room: the empty cot, the black night beyond the shattered glass. Presumed deceased. I don’t presume anything. Certainties have disintegrated. There are times I know Sam’s alive, times when I hear him breathing in the silence of our room at night. Then, more often, and lately much more often, I know he’s dead. I wish I hadn’t opened the report. I wish it hadn’t come. Though Adam and I have talked through everything that happened with the psychiatrist, it looks so much worse, typed out in black and white.

  10.8.2004 Full term, normal delivery of female infant. Weight: 3.175 kg. Apgar score: 10.

  Normal? It was cataclysmic, splitting me from the woman I had been; I’d become consumed, torn, embattled.

  Early childhood uneventful.

  (Uneventful? What about love? Breastfeeding, bedtime stories, walks in the park, the beach, the food? And what about the return to work, the tears, the promises, the late returns. The rushed talks. Events, good and bad, happened all the time.)

  School

  Academic record: Consistent excellence across the board (see attached report)

  Extra tennis, Mandarin lessons, violin …

  Personal and Social Development

  History of pilfering: … stolen items … self-validating …

  Alice calling for help, asking to be noticed. I flick back to Dr Harnham’s report.

  Home Life and Early Psychiatric Morbidity (ages 4 to 8)

  Father Consultant Oncologist (full time)

  Mother Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist (now retired
)

  Parents co-habit: high level of expressed emotion … eased in holidays but not sustained … Child care delivered by series of au pairs.

  They were safe, though. Efficient. I took up references …

  Reported symptomatology occurring at this time: poor sleep, obsessive tendencies …

  The footsteps I heard at night, months before we left for Africa, were Alice’s, not Sofia’s; Alice was listening to us even then.

  The stolen things, the broken dolls, the rigid arrangement of hairclips: warning signs of a child who felt unsafe, attempting to order her world, the significance missed, then forgotten.

  Alice felt left out of important family issues, e.g., exclusion from the fact of her mother’s pregnancy. Retrospective diagnosis at this stage: mild depressive disorder, with associated anxiety.

  I should have told her. I wish I had. She was tired but coping. That was what we thought. We didn’t see anything … No: we didn’t understand anything.

  Third sibling: born 37 weeks gestation normal delivery …

  Alice experienced raised level of anxiety and depression around the welfare of the new baby and describes his birth in terms of a tipping point. She felt less visible to her parents from then on, and in addition to feeling more unsafe herself was concerned for the baby’s wellbeing, and also her sister’s. She has positive memories of time spent with a family friend, with whom bonding occurred, which mitigated these effects at this time.

  Megan saving us, as she still does, but even so, in spite of everything, sometimes I look at her peaceful face, and think, Could it possibly, still, be you?

  History of Presenting Incident

  The family moved to Kubung, Botswana, in December 2013 in order for Dr Adam Jordan to take up a planned research sabbatical. Alice experienced further anxiety, due to interruption of normal routines; and the loss of relationships with the family au pair and the above friend. Alice had been informed by her mother she would be at home during their sabbatical so she experienced significant loss of trust when her mother unexpectedly returned to work at six weeks.