The Lost Mother: An absolutely gripping and emotional read that will have you hooked

by Tracy Buchanan

  I’d been silly to think Milo James was a danger after finding that photo the night before. He was just protecting people. The shooting had been all over the news a few years back, but I’d barely paid attention, too busy preparing for Chloe’s birth. Surely Mum would’ve mentioned the shooting if she was connected to any of the people involved? Or maybe not. Once she’d casually mentioned she’d gone to Downing Street for a reception on arts and culture. Why hadn’t she told me before the event?

  I notice the article was written by a Nathan Styles. The name rings a bell. He was the journalist whose business card Claire Shreve had in her atlas, the one Jay Hemingford thought my mum might know. There’s a photo next to it of the journalist, a thin man with a squint. I scroll down. With the article is a photo of a pretty redhead, the caption underneath saying it’s Holly James. I’ve seen this face before. I pull the atlas out of my bag and flick through it until I find the photo of the redhead in front of the blue elephant. I then look at the photo in the article again. She’s older than in the article photo but it’s definitely the same girl.

  Another photo of Holly catches my eye in the ‘related articles’ sidebar. I click on it to see it’s a recent photo of Holly James stumbling out of a nightclub in Bangkok. It’s from just a few weeks ago. I shouldn’t be shocked. No wonder she acted out like that considering her own father shot a young woman. I can’t even begin to imagine what that experience would do to Chloe and Olivia.

  I’m about to return to the search results for Milo James but catch sight of the atlas poking out of my bag. Who was Claire Shreve? I do a search for her, finding dozens of travel articles from different publications. There are photos with some of them, confirming Claire Shreve is the dark-haired woman pictured with Holly in the blue elephant photo… and, it turns out, the woman whose body I’d thought was Mum’s. They do look alike in some ways: same dark hair and olive skin; same big brown eyes and slight Roman noses. I know they’re not related; I’d done our family tree and knew of every member of my mum’s side of the family going back decades. Plus Claire Shreve seems a bit younger than Mum, so that rules her out of being a secret addition to the family: both Mum’s parents died when she was little. I once read a review of her work in an arts magazine where the writer said the reason Mum painted herself so much was because she was trying to find her identity. Becoming an orphan so young had made it difficult for her to get a sense of who she really was. Maybe that journalist was right?

  One of Claire Shreve’s listed articles catches my eye: ‘A life without children’. I click on it and read the bit at the top in italics: Claire Shreve writes about finding her place in the world as an infertile woman.

  Poor Claire. My girls are everything to me. I fell pregnant with both of them straight away. What if I hadn’t, though? What if I’d watched the months go by, one negative pregnancy test after another?

  The thought’s unbearable.

  I look at Claire’s other articles and see they’re mainly about all the different countries she’d visited: New Zealand, India, Vietnam, Russia, South Africa… the list goes on. That must be fun, travelling and writing for a living. She certainly seemed happy in the photos I catch of her in various magazines. I suppose that’s the upside to not having children: the freedom to travel, to follow your dreams. It’s tough with the girls; they rely on me so much. Maybe if I hadn’t had them, I’d be doing something exciting too, making wedding invites for some celebrity or another and being flown out to their beachside mansion in LA.

  I almost laugh out loud. How ridiculous! And anyway, which would I prefer: a jet-set lifestyle or my girls? The girls, of course. But still, what a life this woman led.

  An image suddenly flies through my mind of Claire Shreve’s swollen face and long dark hair clogged with debris. I put my hand to my mouth. That life’s gone now, all that time ahead of her just wasted.

  I go to carry out another search for Milo James, then hear a shuffling sound behind me. A queue’s formed for the computers now, a distressed-looking couple at the front. It’s not fair of me to hog the computer so I log out and stand up, then walk past the long queue that’s formed. So many people searching for their relatives, desperate for news, hope battling with fear… and I’m one of them. I take the chance to show them Mum’s photo, but none of them recognise her. Then I realise I never showed the picture to the Thai boy who’d brought me coffee earlier. I show him the photo now. Instead of shaking his head with a sad look on his face like everyone else has been doing, he nods. My heart starts pounding.

  ‘Your lady come in every day for breakfast,’ he says, jutting his chin towards the wall of photos behind him of various café guests. The one he’s pointing at is of a pretty red-haired girl in her early twenties – Holly James!

  ‘Did she say how she knew the girl?’ I ask, trying to wrap my head around why Mum was looking for Holly James.

  The boy shakes his head then points towards a hotel across the road with a bright pink exterior. ‘I think your lady stay at that hotel. I see her go in there after.’

  I reach into my bag and scribble down my mobile number, my heart thumping so loud I think he might hear. This is the furthest I’ve got so far in finding Mum! I’ve found the connection between Mum and the woman who had her bag, and I’ve found out where she was staying when she was here.

  I stare at the hotel. What if she’s still there? I imagine seeing her silhouette in the window, twirling about as she listens to some local Thai radio, leaning forward to apply lipstick in a mirror, fluffing her hair.

  I take a deep breath then head to the hotel. A fan whooshes in the centre of the ceiling when I step inside, lifting the corners of a newspaper nearby. There’s a Thai woman around Mum’s age on reception, her name badge reading ‘Sumalee’.

  ‘Hello. The boy at the café thinks my mother stayed here, Nora McKenzie?’ I ask her, showing her Mum’s photo and hoping with all my heart that she says Mum’s still here.

  ‘Yes, she stay here.’

  ‘Is she still here?’

  The woman shakes her head and my heart sinks. She flicks through a beautiful aqua-coloured book with a bejewelled elephant on its front, finds a page and traces her finger down it. ‘She check out twenty-second of December.’ Her brow puckers.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.

  ‘I think she say she go to Ko Phi Phi Don next.’

  Oh God, I think I’m going to be sick.

  I sink into the leather seat behind me and put my head in my hands. The images I’ve seen of Ko Phi Phi Don on the news are horrendous. Hotels torn apart, people screaming and crying, twisted metal and bodies floating in filthy water. It was one of the worst-hit islands.

  There’s the click click click of Sumalee’s heels on the marble floor and then I feel her cold hand on my back.

  ‘Maybe she okay,’ Sumalee says. ‘Maybe she go back home.’

  ‘I haven’t heard from her. None of us have.’ I peer up at Sumalee. ‘Did she say where she’d be staying in Ko Phi Phi Don?’

  She shakes her head, her brown eyes heavy with sadness.

  ‘It’s very bad in Ko Phi Phi Don, isn’t it?’ I ask.

  She sighs. ‘Yes, very bad.’

  ‘Is it easy to get to from here?’

  ‘Not so easy now, no boats.’

  ‘Then what are people with relatives there supposed to do?’

  ‘Phi Phi very small and not too far, so they bring bodies from there to here. Some even float here too, you understand? But you must think happy thoughts. You must believe your mother okay.’

  That’s what Mum would say. Be positive, Lou. Believe good things will happen and they will.

  ‘You’re right.’ I pull myself together, quickly scribbling my number down. ‘In case you hear anything. Thanks for your help.’

  ‘No problem. Remember, think happy thoughts.’

  I smile weakly and walk outside, forcing one leg in front of the other when all I want to do is duck into a nearby alleyway and curl up in the
shade. But I don’t, I continue walking until I’m back at the café, sinking into one of the chairs to wait for Sam. I look at the queue of people waiting to use the computers and imagine seeing Mum’s face among them. But she’s not here, is she? Worse than that, she might be on an island that took the full force of the wave.

  After she left Dad and me, I’d imagine seeing her everywhere: outside school with the other mums, in the shops, even on TV. I alternated between being desperate for it to be her, to never wanting to lay my eyes on her again. When she’d picked me up in her old Mini two weeks after she’d left so we could spend the day together, I was even more conflicted, my heart bursting with love at seeing her again, my mind twisted with anger at her leaving.

  ‘I’ve missed you, Lou,’ she’d said when I got into her car. I didn’t say anything and she’d flinched. I remember thinking, What does she expect, a welcoming orchestra?

  ‘I got you some presents,’ she’d said. ‘New clothes, some jeans – remember the ones you liked when we went to the shops at Easter?’

  ‘You can’t buy my love,’ I’d snapped back, heart thumping with the guts it had taken to say that. I’d heard a friend’s older sister say it to her boyfriend on the phone and had thought it very grown-up.

  She’d slammed on the brakes then and I’d darted forward, pressing the heels of my hands onto the dashboard to steady myself. ‘Mum!’

  She was shaking, the tops of her cheeks red. Someone beeped her so she indicated left, pulling up under a huge oak tree. Then she’d turned to me, tucking her finger under my chin and making me look at her.

  ‘I understand why you’re angry at me,’ she’d said. ‘But I love you, very very much. And I’m here because I want to spend the day with you, do you understand? Let’s not ruin things.’

  ‘But you left!’ I’d screamed, shocking myself.

  She’d closed her eyes briefly then opened them. ‘I love you and respect you so I’m going to be honest with you, all right?’

  I didn’t say anything, too scared to open my mouth, too curious too. Was she going to reveal some big dirty secret?

  ‘When I met your dad,’ she’d continued, ‘I was young and very bored. And when I say bored, I mean bored with all the bohemian arty boys that kept asking me out after I moved to London. Your dad was different, completely different in his Marks & Spencer suit and slicked-back hair. And a car, he had a proper car! I ran into his arms just to show everyone I was different.’ She’d sighed then, hands squeezing the steering wheel as she stared ahead of her. ‘But that’s never a good reason to be with someone. There needs to be some depth of feeling. Do you understand?’

  I’d opened my mouth and closed it, unsure what to say, feeling out of my depth with such a grown-up conversation.

  ‘Your dad’s a wonderful man,’ she’d said, her face soft. ‘But because we never started with strong foundations, with good pure reasons for being together… it was bound to crumble when the going got tough. And the going’s been getting particularly tough lately.’

  ‘Just because you argued with Erin?’ I’d spat, still angry.

  She’d got that pained expression on her face that she always got when her old best friend was mentioned. ‘Not just that. Look, whatever happened between your dad and me doesn’t mean what you and I have isn’t strong. You’re the one strong piece of foundation we have and our bond is very very special because we’re mother and daughter. So don’t go pulling faces and getting into a strop. You’re very special, you see, and special girls are grown up enough to know the way the world is. And the way it is is simple: I love you and your dad loves you and there’s a picnic in the back of this car that’s waiting to be eaten. All right?’

  Then she’d smiled at me, that huge beaming smile, and I couldn’t help but smile back. We spent the rest of the day outdoors, eating food and running around, with promises at the end of the day to see each other again in two weeks’ time.

  But those two weeks went by with not a word from Mum. Then another two weeks, then a month, and my resentment began to build again so that by the next time I saw her two months later, we had to go through the same routine. I’d taken it so personally then, the way she just disappeared, even when Dad said that was the way she coped with her guilt. By not seeing me, she didn’t need to face that guilt. If it were me, I’d have dealt with the guilt by seeing my girls as much as possible. But Mum wasn’t like that. She crumbled under pressure, just as she had when she and Erin argued.

  Maybe that’s why she hasn’t talked to me for two years: perhaps the guilt is particularly unbearable with Olivia and Chloe there to remind her of the way I was back then and what she did by walking out on me when I was a kid?

  ‘Louise?’ I look up to see Sam standing over me wearing the same T-shirt he was wearing the night before. I wonder if he’s been volunteering all night. ‘How’d it go with Jay?’ he asks, sinking down into the seat across from me.

  ‘He didn’t turn up.’

  ‘Shit. Sorry.’

  ‘Not just that.’ I try to control the tremble in my voice. ‘I discovered where Mum was staying so spoke to the hotel manager. She thinks she went to Ko Phi Phi Don.’

  His face drops.

  ‘It’s terrible out there,’ I continue, desperate to continue talking, anything but stop and break down. ‘I’ve seen the news, I…’ But it’s too late. My voice breaks and I put my head in my hands as the tears come, feeling Sam’s hand on my shoulder. After a while, I look up at him. ‘I need to go to Ko Phi Phi Don. But I don’t think there are any tourist boats going there. Can you help?’

  He considers it a moment then nods. ‘I know someone with a boat. He owes me. I can make some calls.’

  He pulls his phone out and starts talking in Thai. When he puts it down, he looks at me. ‘My friend said he’ll help get us over there. The authorities aren’t letting many people go to the island but he can pull a few strings. He won’t be free for an hour or so though. That okay? Maybe we can hang out here, get something to eat?’

  After we order some food, I tell Sam about what I’ve learned from my internet investigations.

  ‘God, yeah, I remember that shooting in Exmoor,’ he says. ‘How do you think your mum knew Holly James?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Maybe the whole reason your mum came out here was to find Holly James? In fact, she may have come out with Claire Shreve to find her. You said there were articles suggesting Holly was out of control? They could have been coming out to do an intervention or something.’

  ‘But it doesn’t make sense. Mum would need to be really close to Holly or Claire to do that and she never mentioned either to me. Unless she met them in the past two years. Can you ask your mum? Maybe my mum mentioned something to her?’

  ‘Yeah, of course. It’s the middle of the night there now but I can call her later.’ He peers towards Claire’s atlas, which is sticking out of my bag. ‘In the meantime, why don’t you have a look through the atlas properly, see if you can find a connection between your mum and Holly James? And maybe a clue to where she is now?’

  I think of Claire again, lying dead in that temple. And here we are talking about pawing through her special atlas. ‘I don’t know, it’s not mine to look through.’

  ‘It’s not like you know where Claire’s family live to return it to them right now. Surely it wouldn’t be so wrong if we searched the other pockets to see if there’s any mention of your mum? Desperate measures and all that? And anyway, I’m sure Claire wouldn’t mind if it meant helping you. I know I wouldn’t.’

  Maybe she wouldn’t mind? She seemed nice in her photos, and the brief glimpses I’d seen of the articles she’d written suggested she was the sort of person who wanted to help people. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ I say.

  He pulls the atlas from my bag and lays it on the table between us. ‘Ready?’

  I straighten my shoulders, ignoring the guilt. ‘Okay. Let’s do this.’

  We fan through the pages until we find an
other stuffed pocket, this one next to the map of Serbia. I look inside, finding a pamphlet with a clenched fist printed on the front, then another photo of Milo James. This time he’s with Claire and they’re staring into each other’s eyes like there’s no one else on earth.

  Will and I never look at each other like that. Is it because we have two little girls jumping on our bed most mornings? Judging from that article Claire had written, she and Milo never had children. Surely two beautiful daughters trump intense looks of love?

  Sam pulls out another item, a small article about a Serbian dog sanctuary with a note clipped to it.

  Claire,

  I thought you’d enjoy this. You must visit again. But no Milo, understand?

  Nikola x

  ‘He clearly doesn’t like Milo,’ I say.

  ‘I guess it takes a certain kind of person to shoot your own brother.’

  ‘But he did it to stop his brother killing others. I think that’s quite brave.’

  The waitress brings over our toasties.

  ‘I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘I could do it for my girls.’ I put my sandwich to the side. I really can’t face food at that moment. Then I continue looking through the atlas, finding another full pocket next to the map of Finland.

  ‘A Christmas card,’ Sam says, pulling out part of a festive card; its pieces are taped back together, a sentence or two just about legible on what remains of the inside:

  …can’t continue. Please come back for Christmas, we’re all worried. Lots of love. M x

  ‘M as in Milo?’ Sam says as he examines the card.

  ‘Maybe.’

  In the same pocket is another photo of Claire and Milo, this time with Holly and the blond boy from the Thai photo. They’re all smiling and bundled up in layers, hints of a snowy landscape behind them. They look like a family. There’s another photo too, of Milo holding a rope above his head with a reindeer in the background, the sky a dewy pink overhead.