I opened the drawer of the bedside cabinet and rummaged through it. She kept her bank book in there and I went through everything three times before I had to accept that it wasn’t there. I tried to remember how much had been in there the last time I’d looked but I wasn’t sure of the exact amount. I didn’t think it had been a lot. She’d got some money for Christmas but I knew that she’d spent some of that on records so she couldn’t have much left. But where had she gone? And why? We had a plan; we were going to sort things out. She had no reason to run away. Where the hell could she have gone?
Julie’s. She had to have gone to Julie’s.
Mick was standing in the doorway just looking around the room as though he was hoping to see her hiding in a corner and I had to virtually push him out of the way to get out of the room. I ran downstairs and picked up the phone. When Julie answered, she sounded sleepy. I looked at the clock and realised that I had probably woken her up.
‘Is Susan there?’ I asked
‘No. Why would she be?’ I could hear her yawning.
‘Because she’s not here,’ I told her.
‘What?’ That had woken her up.
‘Me and your dad went out for a drink,’ I told her, ‘and when we came back we found her key on the floor. Your dad thought she must have locked the door and gone to bed but when I checked, her bed was still made, her bag is gone and so are some of her clothes.’
‘Where could she have gone?’
‘You tell me,’ I snapped
‘How should I know?’ Julie snapped back.
‘I thought she might have gone to you or at least told you where she was going. I mean you were as thick as thieves the other afternoon.’
‘We’re sisters and she was in trouble,’ Julie said defiantly.
Yeah, well, she is now, I thought, or at least she would be when we found her.
Neither of us said anything else for a bit and all I could hear was breathing on the other end of the line. I heard what sounded like a big sigh from Julie’s end of the phone and I could imagine her blowing the air out her cheeks: she’d done it all her life.
‘You don’t think she’ll have gone to Helen’s, do you?’ I asked and I was horrified just thinking she might have.
Julie asked why on earth Susan would have gone to Helen, but I needed to be sure so I rang Helen’s anyway. By this time Mick had come downstairs and he stood in the doorway watching me. The phone rang about half a dozen times before it was picked up.
‘No,’ Helen said in answer to my question. ‘Why would Susan be here?’
Bugger. What was I going to tell her? I hadn’t thought it through. I’d been so fixed on finding out where Susan was that I hadn’t thought about what I would say if Helen said she wasn’t.
‘Mum,’ Helen said slowly, ‘why are you ringing me at this time of night to ask if Susan’s here?’
I could hear Robert’s voice in the background, not what he was saying, just his voice. His mother would have a field day with this when word got out. A right snob she was.
‘Mum?’ Helen said again.
There was nothing for it, I took a deep breath and said, ‘We had a bit of a row earlier.’
‘What about?’ It was a natural enough question but I wasn’t going to answer it just then.
‘Nothing, really,’ I lied, ‘but Susan must have got a nark on about it because she’s packed a bag and disappeared while we were out.’
‘Out? It’s not like you to go out on a Wednesday.’
‘Yes, well, we did tonight.’
‘She’s probably shacked up with a mate somewhere.’ Helen yawned as she spoke, then she gave a little cough before she said. ‘Can’t believe it of Susan, though. I didn’t know she had it in her.’
Neither did I.
‘Anyway, Mum, I’m going to have to go,’ Helen said, ‘the baby’s crying.’
‘Sorry I woke you. Goodnight.’
‘They don’t know where she is,’ I said.
And before I had chance to say anything else Mick asked, ‘You did tell her didn’t you?’
‘Tell her what?’
‘Don’t give me that, Jean, because I know you too well. You know fine well what I’m talking about.’ He stared at me but I couldn’t look at him. ‘You didn’t tell her, did you?’
I could hear the anger in his voice. Every word was a bit louder than the one before it.
‘You didn’t tell her that she wouldn’t have to give her baby up did you.’
My mouth was opening, I know it was, but nothing came out.
‘For fuck’s sake, Jean,’ he grabbed his coat from where he had thrown it and pushed his arms into it. ‘We said that she wouldn’t have to give it up, not if she didn’t want to.’ Mick didn’t swear, not in front of me anyway. I had only ever heard him use that word once before and that was the day that I’d told him I was expecting Helen. There was something in his eyes as he looked at me and I can only describe it as dark. ‘I let you talk me into sending her away but we could have come up with a way of letting her keep it.’
‘How?’ I finally bit back. ‘How could we? Do you really want her being the talk of the place? Do you really think that her life would be anything but ruined if she kept it?’
‘Is that what your life was?’ his hand was on the door handle.
‘Times were different then,’ I said. ‘You got pregnant, you either went to that old witch at the bottom of Hagg Lane or you got married, simple as that.’ I stood up to go to him but the look on his face and that rising temper of his stopped me. ‘I was happy to marry you, Mick, but do you really want her hooked up to that Preston lad for the rest of her life? Mick,’ I pleaded, ‘I was only thinking of what was best for her.’
‘You were thinking of what the neighbours would think Jean Bradley,’ he was spitting the words at me. ‘That’s always been the thing with you, getting one up on the neighbours, being better than them. I just never thought that you’d put that before your own daughter.’ He shook his head, opened the door and walked through it.
‘I’ll stay here in case she comes back,’ I said but the door had closed before I’d even finished speaking.
His words had hit me hard and I could feel tears starting to rise up. I wasn’t sure then, and I’m still not sure now, which of his words hurt me the most. Was it what he’d said about me putting what the neighbours might think before the needs of my own daughter or was it the fact that he called me Jean Bradley? Why had he done that? At that point we’d been married the best part of thirty years. He was hurting and he knew exactly what to say to make me hurt too.
He was wrong about one thing though. Whether he liked it or not my name was Thompson, Jean Thompson. As for putting what the neighbours thought before my daughter, maybe I had but in my book appearances were everything. And I hadn’t put them first, I just hadn’t wanted them to see our dirty laundry.
What was wrong with him? He had a good name on this estate, people always said what a good bloke he was or what a nice house and family he had and most of that was down to me. What the neighbours thought or said was important to everyone and anyone who denied that was living in cloud cuckoo land.
There was nothing else to do but put the kettle on and drink endless cups of tea while I sat at the kitchen table and waited. I racked my brains to try and come up with some idea of where she might be. Helen had said that she’d be at a friend’s but I didn’t think that was very likely; Susan didn’t have many friends. I mean, there had been that lass that she’d been to a couple of parties with a while back but I didn’t even know what she was called. It might have been Margaret, or was it Maureen? It could have been Martha for all I knew. It was just someone she knew from school and anyway I was sure I’d heard Susan say that they’d moved to Scotland or somewhere. Something about her dad getting a job on the oil rigs. I don’t think I’d ever heard her mention anyone else. I kicked myself for not paying more attention when she’d been telling me stuff.
Where had she gon
e the silly girl? And why had she done it? Well, I suppose I knew the answer to that one. Mick was right; it was the adoption thing. She’d had the notion in her head that she would be able to have her baby and bring it up herself and life would be just wonderful. She had no idea.
Yes, she could have the baby. Yes, she could bring it up herself but she would forever be known as ‘that lass that fell wrong’ and I didn’t want that for her. If she was honest she wouldn’t want it for herself. I was giving her a way out. I was giving her a chance at having the life that she really wanted for herself. Why could she not see that?
‘Why, Susan?’ I shouted.
An unwanted pregnancy I could cover up, I’d seen plenty of others do it, but this? I had no idea what to do with this.
I watched the door and the clock in equal measures; watched the minutes tick by and waited for the door to open. One time, my eyes were drawn to the bag of chips that we’d bought for Susan. They were sitting on the bench where I had left them before I ran up the stairs. I couldn’t even be bothered to get up and throw them in the bin, so I went back to watching the clock and the door.
I felt sick – actually, physically sick – and I prayed to God that Mick would find her.
***
When he came through the door just after midnight, I knew that my prayers hadn’t been answered. He walked in alone and closed the door.
‘Any sign of her?’ I asked, more in hope than expectation.
‘No,’ he said. His head was down and his chin almost touched his chest. I thought I heard him make a sound. I think it was a sob. I felt so sorry for him.
When he lifted his head up he had that darkness in his eyes again. ‘You got your wish,’ he said. ‘She’s gone away and who knows if she’s ever coming back? You can tell the neighbours what you want, but you’d better tell Sally that I won’t be there on Sunday.’
I didn’t know what to say, so I asked, ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’
‘Yeah, why not? That’ll make everything all right.’ He fell onto one of the kitchen chairs and rested his elbows on the table so that he could put his head in his hands.
I filled the kettle, washed the teapot out and got two fresh mugs out of the cupboard. I had just filled the teapot with the boiling water and was about to pick it up when it was as if the teapot had suddenly become too heavy for me to pick up because although I grabbed the handle I couldn’t lift it. I suddenly felt faint and had to put both hands on the bench to support myself. A thought had just occurred to me.
‘She won’t have gone to him, will she?’
When I turned around, Mick still had his head in his hands. ‘I don’t know where she’s gone,’ he said.
I managed to pour the tea and put one of the mugs in front of Mick. I put the other one on the opposite side of the table and sat down. We didn’t say a lot and we didn’t drink much tea either. Eventually I asked Mick where he had looked and he just said, ‘Around.’ I wanted to ask him where exactly but his answers were vague. I put that down to his head being all over the place.
Just before two I said, ‘Come on, Mick. Let’s go to bed. You look knackered.’ And I got up from my chair and went to lock the door.
‘Leave it,’ he said and I put the key that had been in my hand back down. ‘Susan hasn’t got her key,’ he said as he pushed his chair back and it made a scraping sound along the floor.
We went to bed but neither of us slept. As I lay awake and watched a different clock tick off the minutes till morning all I could think about was Susan and where she might be. Where was she sleeping? Was she sleeping at all? She’d certainly made sure that I wasn’t.
I’d always thought that I knew my daughters and that nothing they could do would surprise me because I was always one step ahead of them but, good God, Susan surprised me that night. I hadn’t seen this coming. She had never done anything like it before in her life. She had never defied me before. That girl could pick her bloody moments.
I wished that I hadn’t gone out that night. I’d never have thought of doing it if Mick hadn’t suggested it. He mustn’t have seen it coming either.
I must have dozed off at some point because when the alarm went off it startled me and I didn’t feel any better for the little sleep I’d had. I heard the sound of the toilet flush being pulled and for a second I thought that I’d woken up from a bad dream and that Susan had been at home all the time. But when I turned over and saw Mick walking back into the bedroom, I could tell from the look on his face that we were still living the nightmare.
***
Mick had just gone to work when the phone rang and my heart was in my mouth as I ran to the hallway to pick it up. Was it Susan? Was it the hospital or maybe even the police saying that she had done something stupid? All of this was going through my head in the five seconds that it took me to get to the phone. I looked at it for two more rings because I was scared to pick it up, scared of who it was and what they might say. In my head, I can still see my hand shaking as I picked the receiver up.
It was Julie wanting to know if Susan had come home.
‘No,’ I said, ‘she hasn’t. I don’t know what she thinks she’s playing at.’
We spent a couple of minutes sparring which was all me and Julie ever seemed to do in those days. She wanted to know what we had said to Susan, what support we had offered her.
‘You did let her know that everything was going to be all right, didn’t you?’ Julie said. ‘I mean, I know she’d have to give up her exams but it wasn’t going to be the end of the world.’
Julie would be thinking like that though. I knew that she and Chris were trying for a baby so being pregnant wouldn’t be the end of the world for her. But Susan wasn’t her. I didn’t think that was the time to tell Julie about the plan to send Susan to Sally’s until she’d had the baby, and I certainly wasn’t going to say anything about adoption.
‘Hopefully she’ll be home soon,’ was the last thing that Julie said, but I was starting to have my doubts.
On any other Thursday morning I would have been cleaning the windows but that day I sat at the table and prayed. Though I’d been raised Catholic, and I’d had all the girls baptised, I’d not been much of a one for church in recent years but I didn’t know what else to do. I’m not exactly sure what it was that I was praying for, maybe it was that Susan would come back so that at least we could control the situation, but more likely it was to go back to a time when there was no situation to control. And that was when the thought came to me. Maybe Susan had gone to make the situation disappear. I don’t really hold with abortion, and I’d always said that, so maybe Susan had gone somewhere she could get an abortion without me knowing. Was she trying to make the situation disappear? To my shame now, I hoped she was and I think in my heart that, for a second at least, that was what I was praying for: that there’d be no hiding and explaining and she could come back and carry on as normal. She could put the whole thing behind her and pretend it had never happened.
It didn’t take me more than a few seconds to work out that she couldn’t have done that. I mean, she didn’t want to give it away so there was no way she’d let anyone kill it and I hated myself for even thinking that she might do something like that. She just wouldn’t. I prayed some more, repeating the words that I’d been taught as a child and thought I’d forgotten.
Just before eleven the phone rang again and once more my legs shook as I walked the few yards to the hallway. I hoped that it would be Susan but, judging by the time, I thought it would most probably be Mick, on his break, checking to see if she had come home. I got the shock of my life when a woman said, ‘Hello, is that Mrs Thompson?’
Oh my God! Was it the hospital or the police? It had to be one of them.
‘Yes?’ I managed to whisper.
‘Oh, hello Mrs Thompson. I’m sorry to bother you, but this is Miss Ford, Susan’s form teacher. I just wondered if Susan would be in school this afternoon.’
I think I said ‘Sorry’ or ‘Excuse me
’ or something like that because the next thing Miss Ford was saying was, ‘It’s just that, as you know Mrs Thompson, Susan is in the middle of her exams. Now I know that they’re called mock exams but that doesn’t mean that they’re not important…’
I remembered Miss Ford – not much more than a kid herself. When we’d met her at the last parents’ evening both me and Mick had agreed that she didn’t look old enough to be a teacher.
‘…So can you tell me if Susan will be in?’
She’d caught me on the hop. ‘No Miss Ford. She won’t. Susan’s not feeling very well today.’
She started to say something else but I cut her off. ‘I’m really sorry Miss Ford,’ I said, ‘but I’m going to have to go.’
‘But will Susan be in tomorrow?’
‘I’m not sure. Goodbye,’ and I put the phone down. I don’t know what she must have thought of me but she had caught me unprepared. I kicked myself for being so stupid. Why had I not remembered Susan’s exams and thought to ring the school to say that she wouldn’t be in?
They had a policy now of checking on kids that didn’t turn up at school. There’d been a letter come home about it. It was something about cutting down on the number of truancy days. Now, thanks to me forgetting to ring them, they’d had to ring me and that would be a mark against Susan’s name.
‘Not feeling very well.’ Was that the best I could come up with? I know you’re probably wondering why it mattered about Susan getting a mark against her name, because she wasn’t going back to school anyway, and maybe it wouldn’t matter to some, but it did to me. My kids were never in detention and they didn’t get marks against their names at school. Some kids stayed home from school at the fist sign of a sniff, but not mine. My girls always had good attendance records. I knew that I would have to deal with the school again but right at that moment I couldn’t think about that.
For the first time in all our married life, Mick came home to his tea not being on the table that night. It wasn’t my fault really because he’d knocked off work an hour early. I commented on it when he came in.
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