First One Missing

by Cohen, Tammy

  She watched Ken Forbes reach his yellow-tipped fingers into the pocket of his nylon backpack.

  God, she could murder a fag.

  10

  The noise is horrible.

  The noise is coming from me.

  ‘Susan, stop,’ Oliver implores me. His eyes are sunk into his head like black stones.

  ‘Stop,’ he says again. ‘You’re upsetting Mia.’

  That stops me finally. The word ‘Mia’ like a tap turning me off.

  This time two days ago she was right here on the sofa scrubbed and pink, fresh from the bath, in the white pyjamas with pale-blue dogs on them. ‘This is my favourite,’ she’d said, pressing a small, chubby finger on a random dog that was just the same as all the others. ‘His name is Max. When we get a puppy can we call him Max, Mummy?’

  Now I’d buy her a puppy. I’d buy her a litter of puppies. I’d fill the flat with puppies until we couldn’t move for them.

  Why didn’t I say yes? Why didn’t I say yes to it all – sleepovers, trips to Disneyland Paris, a doll that wees like a real baby, just one more chapter, rollerblades, night-vision goggles, Super Soakers, great slabs of chocolate big as breezeblocks? Why did I purse my lips and frown and shake my head and shake it again watching the spark of hope fade in her blue eyes? Why did I dole out pleasure so grudgingly, snapping shut wallet and sweetie jar and favourite picture book with such brutal firmness, enjoying my own sense of control?

  If You let her come back I’ll never deny her anything again. If You let her come back I’ll be a better mother, a better person. If You let her come back I’ll never ask for anything. I won’t complain about Oliver taking me for granted or about my brain atrophying through overexposure to children’s nursery rhymes and soft-play areas in primary colours or about how there’s never enough money for a babysitter or even a nice bottle of wine now that the cost of childcare has made it impossible for me to go back to work.

  This time two days ago I was a different person living in a different world and there were no reporters outside on the pavement and no policemen in my living room drinking tea from the mugs that came free with the girls’ Easter eggs. And she was here with her newly washed hair and her dog-print pyjamas. And I want it back. I want her back.

  I want.

  11

  In the end his mum had got around the potential embarrassment of having Rory fail to turn up for the Megan’s Angels meeting by holding it in their own front room as opposed to the upstairs room at the Victoria Arms where they usually went. It was too annoying, he reflected as he grudgingly set out bowls of peanuts and crisps, pausing every now and then to scoop out a handful and pour them into his open mouth. He’d been all set to boycott it but she’d teared up and he’d found himself saying, ‘All right then. If it’s such a big deal.’ And she’d pressed his hand between both of hers and said that, yes, it was a big deal to her, and how grateful she was to have such a considerate son, until he’d have said yes to anything just to get her off his case.

  His mum and Simon had been bickering all morning – about whether it was appropriate to supply wine and beer at an afternoon event, about why she was asking him to clean the very top loo when no one in their right mind was going to trek all the way up there. There was a hissed exchange in which the phrase ‘that woman’ was used several times. Rory had never fully got to the bottom of what had happened, and he was glad to be spared the details. Oldies with sex lives. Could there be anything more gross? But from the snippets he’d overheard over the past months, he reckoned Simon had had some sort of fling. Must have been someone with serious mental health issues, was all Rory could think. Who else would want to shag podgy Simon with his permanently shiny forehead and sweat-rings under his arms? Rory felt bad for his mum though. Kind of humiliated on her behalf, although he had to admit she wasn’t exactly making the best of herself. Sometimes when his mates came round he’d find himself wishing she made a bit more of an effort. He didn’t want her to go too over the top, though, not like Chigsie’s mum who always wore skintight jeans and low-cut Lycra vests and he had to concentrate so hard on not looking at her chest he always came away with a headache. But often his mum just looked so old. What he really meant was that she looked so defeated. Like she’d given up trying.

  Sometimes he tried to remember what she’d been like before Megan, but it was like trying to remember what it was like to be cold when you were sweltering in 80-degree heat. Too alien to compare.

  Now Simon came stropping into the living room where Rory was trying to decant the remaining peanuts from one bowl into another to disguise the fact he’d eaten most of them.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to have that face on the whole time they’re here.’

  Occasionally, Rory would find himself thinking Simon wasn’t so bad as stepfathers went, then he’d say something like this and it’d remind him what a complete knob he was.

  ‘It is my face,’ said Rory. ‘Whose face would you prefer me to have on? Gary Lineker’s?’

  Simon put on his long-suffering look. ‘Listen, mate. Would it be too much to ask you to stop the wisecracks, just for today? For your mum’s sake. You know how much these occasions take it out of her.’

  The doorbell interrupted the stare-off that followed this request. Immediately there came the sound of Helen’s shoes slapping against the hall tiles.

  Rory’s spirits sagged. It wasn’t just that there’d be all those same faces, talking about their dead children, and Jemima Reid following him with her eyes everywhere he went – although that was bad enough, if you asked him. It was also that his mum would try to get them all to cry. She had this idea that crying was a good thing and that they’d all feel a million times better once they’d done it. What she didn’t appreciate was that some of them didn’t want to cry. It wasn’t that he thought he wasn’t allowed to, or it was wimpy to, or people would think less of him, or any of the reasons she expected were going through his head. It just made him uncomfortable. And the only reason he ever felt better afterwards was because he was glad it was over.

  Now voices were coming nearer.

  ‘The last ones upped sticks yesterday afternoon,’ his mum was saying as she came into the living room followed by Flo-Jo. It had just been a throwaway comment when Jo first came to them as their FLO. ‘Can I call you Flo-Jo?’ the young Rory had asked. But of course his mum had seized on this weak joke as evidence that Rory was doing OK, being ‘normal’, and she’d insisted on repeating it so many times it eventually stuck.

  ‘I was just telling Jo that the last of the media left yesterday,’ his mum repeated as if they were all deaf. ‘Probably all gathered outside the poor Glovers’, I expect.’

  She glanced at Flo-Jo for corroboration, but she just smiled in that ‘I’m giving nothing away’ manner she had and came over to give Rory a hug. He liked Jo well enough, but he found it embarrassing to be pressed against her huge bosoms and was relieved when she eventually pulled away. Plus there was something about her that gave him a sour taste at the back of his mouth. Something about the memories she stirred up especially when, as now, he hadn’t seen her for a little while.

  ‘How’s life?’ she asked him.

  ‘Oh you know.’ He shrugged. ‘Usual crap.’

  The doorbell sounded a second time, causing his mother to jump up out of her seat like it had caught fire or something. She’d got him and Simon to carry chairs in from all over the house, so the living room resembled a junk shop, and she had to pick her way around bits of mismatched furniture on her way to the hall. As she opened the front door Rory heard her say the same thing about the press having left only yesterday, and it made him feel unaccountably embarrassed for her.

  She was just showing Fiona and Mark Botsford into the room when the doorbell rang a third time and, not long after that, a fourth. In a few minutes the living room was bursting with people, and more seats had to be brought, even the moth-eaten piano stool from the room next door. In the mêlée, Rory was conscious
of Jemima Reid’s eyes following him from where she sat with the rest of her family squashed up on the sofa in front of the window. He knew she was younger than him and everything, but did she really have to stare like that?

  His mum stood up and flicked the side of her wine glass with her nail, then called out, ‘Ting, ting.’ Rory briefly closed his eyes so as not to see her. She was wearing a long shapeless pink cotton dress with thin straps that failed to cover her beige bra and she kept smoothing down her frizzy hair with her free hand, which was what she did when she was nervous. There was a tightness in his chest when he looked at her so instead he glanced around the room. All the FLOs seemed to be there, which was unusual, and there was even an extra one, a man who’d been introduced as having been assigned to the new family. Even though he was old, thirties at least, he still had raised red bumps all over his chin and neck like teenage acne.

  Rory concentrated on the man’s skin so he wouldn’t have to think about the new family and what they were going through, which might remind him of what his own family had gone through.

  ‘Thank you all so much for coming.’

  His mum’s cheeks were flushed pink like her dress. She wasn’t used to drinking during the day. Rory hoped she wouldn’t get pissed.

  ‘I only wish we didn’t always have to meet in such unhappy circumstances,’ said his mum.

  This was met with a low murmur as people resolutely avoided each other’s eyes.

  ‘We all know now that another little girl, another family’s daughter, has … gone to join ours. Our hearts go out to the parents. Their grief is still too raw for them to be here today but Kieren, their FLO, is here on their behalf. Where are you, Kieren?’

  The spotty policeman half raised his hand while his cheeks flushed to match the inflammation around the lower part of his face.

  ‘I’m sure in time the Glovers will come to find solace in this group, just as the rest of us do. Sometimes I really don’t know what I’d do without you all. When the news broke the day before yesterday, the only people I wanted to speak to are in this room. The only ones who can possibly understand.

  ‘In a few moments, Pete Delagio would like to say a few words on behalf of the police. But first, as ever, shall we just have a minute’s silence while we think about our girls. All our girls.’

  Rory fidgeted on his uncomfortable kitchen chair. This was precisely why he didn’t want to come to these things any more. As if they didn’t think about the girls all the time anyway! Why would they want to come all the way here to sit in his living room and think about them some more?

  Over the sea of bent heads, he caught Jemima Reid’s eye. He was about to raise his eyebrows in a complicit ‘what are they like’ gesture, but she’d already looked away, frowning in that intense way she had.

  After the uncomfortable silence, his mum chatted a bit about how she’d felt when she’d heard the news about the Glover girl. Tears spilled from her eyes but she didn’t seem to notice them. Then Guy Reid said something, then Simon. Yawn. Yawn. Now they were talking about coping mechanisms. As far as Rory could see there was one really obvious coping mechanism: think about something else. Whenever he found himself dwelling on Megan and what happened to her, and his own part in it, he quickly substituted some other line of thought. Georgia Reynolds, for instance, and why she’d drawn a heart in the back of his maths book and whether that meant she’d finally finished with Connor Bateman and whether in that case she might do with Rory the things she and Connor were rumoured to have done upstairs in Maddie Jameson’s parents’ bed. Or he’d think about Arsenal and whether next season would top the last.

  But not this lot. They were talking about ring-fencing their personal space and allowing themselves to grieve, and breathing exercises and standard responses to blundering questions, and now Fiona Botsford, who rarely contributed much to these occasions as far as Rory could tell, suddenly said, ‘Of course we’re adopting the most extreme coping mechanism of them all – emigrating to the other side of the world!’

  Well. That shut them all up.

  Flo-Jo was the first one to speak. ‘You’re moving to Australia?’

  She made it sound like the moon. Rory knew it was a long way, but really, had they never heard of long-distance flights?

  ‘There’s nothing to keep us here,’ Fiona Botsford was explaining. She was half smiling, but had one of those faces where it looked like smiling hurt. ‘Unlike the rest of you, we haven’t got other children already settled in schools. Leila was all we had. We just want a fresh start.’

  That made sense to Rory. If you didn’t have to stay here where every few months, every time there was an anniversary or a birthday, the whole thing was dredged up again, if you didn’t have to be forever Tragic Girl’s Mum or Brother, then really why would you? But now something else was occurring to him. How was his mother going to deal with this piece of news? She set such store by this little group. For the two years after Megan died she’d been a shadow of a person, but meeting the Reids and then the Botsfords had brought her back to life. How was she going to cope with the break-up of Megan’s Angels? He didn’t have long to wait for an answer.

  ‘Oh Helen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just blurted it out like that. I wasn’t thinking.’

  Fiona Botsford was crouching down by his mother’s chair, holding on to her hand, and Rory wasn’t surprised to see more tears snaking down his mum’s cheeks.

  ‘No. Please ignore me. It’s just a shock, that’s all.’

  His mother had on that face she sometimes pulled over her real face when she was trying to keep her feelings under control.

  ‘Of course you should go,’ said Guy Reid, whom Rory had always secretly found intimidating with his brooding misery. One of those intense types who rarely looked you in the eye. ‘Sometimes I wish we could just pack up too and go somewhere – anywhere – where no one knows us and we can be a normal family again.’

  Rory sneaked another glance at his mum. Her eyes were fixed on Guy Reid’s face and the skin was tight around her mouth.

  ‘Not that that’s in any way a possibility,’ quickly added Guy’s wife, Emma. She was looking at Jemima as if trying to reassure her daughter they weren’t going to be on the next plane out of there. ‘We’re very much rooted here. As much as anything else, London was Tilly’s home. It’s where I feel a connection to her.’

  ‘And what about the investigation?’ His mum’s voice was unsteady and higher than normal. ‘What if the police need you?’

  ‘We’ll keep in regular contact with Fiona and Mark,’ the Botsfords’ FLO piped up. His name was Pete, Rory remembered suddenly. The last time they’d met they’d had a long, involved conversation about England’s chances in the World Cup, now just a few weeks away. ‘And of course we’ll keep them up to date with any developments. The wonders of Skype.’

  After that the conversation limped on for a little while, but never recovered its rhythm.

  ‘More drinks, anyone?’ asked Simon as if this was a fun social event. No one took Simon up on his offer, but he still disappeared into the kitchen to fetch himself a beer. Rory wished he could have one. Might make this whole excruciating afternoon more bearable.

  ‘Is this a good time for me to say a few words?’ It was Pete again, looking at Rory’s mum with his eyebrows raised expectantly. She nodded slightly, hardly moving her head.

  Still Pete held back. ‘I’m not sure if this is really suitable for the younger ones.’

  His eyes were on Jemima Reid and her little sister, but Rory felt his face burning. That was all he needed to really round off today perfectly – to be lumped in with the kids.

  ‘Come on, you lot.’ Flo-Jo had her jolliest face on as she stood up and moved towards the door. ‘Let’s go and raid the kitchen and see what we can find.’

  Jemima and Caitlin Reid had already got reluctantly to their feet but Jo was looking pointedly at him. ‘Jump to it, Rory. You can show us where your mum stashes the goodies.’

&n
bsp; Like he was five years old or something. He heaved himself upright.

  ‘Good man,’ muttered Simon as he walked past.

  Could life actually get any worse?

  12

  Leanne’s eyes followed Rory Purvis from the room. Poor kid was at that age where every emotion was displayed on his skin. Even his Adam’s apple was blushing. After he’d left, her eyes remained glued to the door, trying to put off the moment when she would have to look at Pete. It was so weird, after all these months of hardly seeing him, to find herself yet again in close proximity to her ex-husband. She glanced at his left hand, and immediately felt angry with herself for minding about that blank space on his fourth finger where even now if you looked carefully, you could spot a band of skin slightly whiter than the rest.

  As penance she forced her thoughts back to Will. Her tensed muscles relaxed thinking about his gentle brown eyes, and the way, while having dinner, he’d pause mid-sentence and reach out one of his slender fingers to stroke her cheek as if she was some lovely thing he couldn’t help touching.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Desmond asked me to have a quiet word with you all.’ Pete looked ill at ease. Leanne didn’t blame him. She was glad not to have been burdened with this particular task. They were in a room of parents who’d lost children. There were so many things that could not, should not, be said.

  ‘The thing is, there seems to have been a leak from somewhere, which obviously we are taking very seriously, leaving no stone unturned, and if it’s established that it’s come from the police end, rest assured there will be serious consequences.’