The Missing One

by Lucy Atkins

  I can feel her eyes on my face.

  I take another almond and crunch into it with my front teeth, very slowly, then look at the remaining half, in my hand.

  ‘Yes. Your mother and I were very close, Kali,’ she says, at last. Her voice is low and slightly spooky.

  ‘Hmmm?’ I nod, and chew some more. Behind her, Finn opens a cupboard.

  ‘She is my dearest friend.’

  I decide not to pick her up on the present tense. ‘Were you … ?’

  ‘What?’

  But I can’t do it. I can’t ask directly whether they were lovers. ‘It’s just odd that she never talked about you at all. Did something happen between you? Did you fall out over something?’

  ‘She didn’t tell you a thing about me, did she?’ She sounds pleased, as if stating this to herself, rather than asking me a question.

  ‘No. Nothing at all. Not that I can remember anyway.’

  ‘Huh. Yeah, well, I guess Elena’s better than me at cutting off.’ Her voice is brittle and suddenly loud, and with a harsh laugh she reaches out and picks an almond off the plate. It is disconcerting, the way she keeps referring to my mother in the present tense. The light glances off her silver thumb ring. I force myself to keep quiet. First rule of interviewing: shut up. But she doesn’t elaborate. Behind her, Finn opens and closes the cupboard door a few times.

  ‘But I wonder why?’ I say, eventually. ‘Why did she cut off like that?’

  She turns the almond around between her thumb and forefinger, as if weighing up how much to give me. ‘I guess,’ she says, slowly, ‘she needed to put everything behind her – me, friends, research, everything. She needed to make a new space for herself in the world. It was easier that way. She had a new life out there in England, and maybe that was the only way she could handle it.’

  This seems extreme, even for my mother.

  ‘But you wrote to each other? You were in touch?’

  She opens her mouth, as if to reply, but then her face falls, as if someone has let go of the strings. For a moment, she stares at her hands. ‘Constantly,’ she says.

  I think about the drawer full of cards she sent, year after year. I should ask her about that. But instinct tells me that if I go there this conversation will be over. It strikes me that in this respect, at least, Susannah is a lot like my mother.

  She chucks the nut into her mouth. ‘I always had this image of your home in Sussex,’ she says. ‘This little English thatched cottage, with roses and hedgerow and apple trees and sparrows. Is that what it’s like?’

  ‘Well, there’s an apple tree.’ An image of my mother with the chainsaw flashes into my mind. She would prune it herself, every spring, after it flowered. She did our neighbour’s cherry tree too. My mother actually owned a chainsaw. She knew how to take the motor apart and clean the bits, and put it all back together.

  ‘But it’s a thatched cottage, right?’

  ‘No, sadly not. It’s Victorian red brick and flint, directly at the bottom of the village high street, with a roundabout and a signpost outside it and roads going off either side. I always half expected a car to careen down the street and smash right through our garden wall and into our front room. It’s actually amazing that it’s never happened.’

  But she isn’t listening any more. She is staring at her hands. ‘I miss her,’ she says. ‘Every day.’

  ‘Did you ever consider visiting?’

  She laughs, as if this is preposterous.

  ‘I suppose you’re very busy.’ I try to keep to my neutral interviewer’s voice. It doesn’t work. She gives me a dismissive look and says nothing. Finn is taking things out of the cupboard now: plastic bowls. He looks very serious, squatting, with his fringe in his eyes. If I go over to stop him, he’ll object, and we’ll all get diverted.

  ‘So,’ she says. ‘She only lived in one place then, after she left and took you to England?’

  I nod. ‘The house my father bought, before she came.’

  ‘Yeah. Well. I guess she wanted stability. She’d had a lot of … a lot of … disruption in her life. She couldn’t handle any more change.’

  I sit up straight. ‘Really? What disruption?’

  But that’s it – her face snaps shut. ‘We should eat,’ she says. She picks up a whisk. There is a loud bashing noise, and glass shatters. I leap up. Finn is standing, horrified, staring at his hands, swaying slightly. And there is blood. On his hands. Shards of glass lie all around him, a silver frame at his feet. He opens his mouth and wails. I hurl myself across the kitchen.

  *

  Susannah cracks eggs, sharply, one after another into a big ceramic bowl. She only uses one hand, and as she cracks each egg she swoops the hand up and lets the yellow yolk trail its mucus then fall – slap – into the bowl. It is almost two o’clock.

  Finn is sleeping on the sofa now with cushions on the floor in case he topples off. It wasn’t a deep cut, just a surface scratch on the soft skin of his palm. He screamed for a bit while I washed it and dabbed it dry and put antiseptic on it, and covered it with a plaster from Susannah’s first aid kit. But he stopped crying when Susannah gave him a chocolate-chip cookie.

  There was glass everywhere. The frame was ruined. As I dealt with Finn’s scratch, Susannah swept up the debris with a dustpan and brush. The black-and-white photo – it looked like a whale – lay reproachfully on the countertop.

  For a while, Finn fussed and whined and wouldn’t be put down – but wouldn’t be held – and his eyes became red-rimmed, his movements more and more jerky. I paced up and down the kitchen, but he wouldn’t settle and eventually I realized that it wasn’t about the scratch – he just needed a nap.

  It took half an hour, sitting by the sofa, patting his back, singing ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’, but he fell asleep eventually, with his cheek on his bunny, his bum in the air.

  *

  I watch her break the last egg, and toss the broken shells in the bin.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘About the picture of the whale. Is the photo itself damaged?’ It isn’t on the counter any more.

  She stops what she’s doing, but she doesn’t look at me. She just stares at the pan, then she tips the eggs in.

  ‘I feel really bad that I let him break something else. Obviously, I’d like to replace the frame.’

  ‘Weren’t you watching him?’ Her voice is dry. ‘Didn’t you see what he was doing?’

  ‘Well, yes. I mean, I could see him by the cupboard. I thought it was a Tupperware cupboard – I thought he was just playing with plastic tubs, and we were talking. I didn’t think there would be a silver picture frame in there—’

  ‘No,’ she interrupts, still staring oddly at the pan. ‘Well. I guess you weren’t watching him closely enough, huh?’

  I can feel my shoulders stiffen. Who is this woman to lecture me on how to look after my own child? But of course, I’m in her house, and he just broke another of her belongings. I force myself to sound deferential. ‘I’m really sorry, Susannah. You’re absolutely right. I should have watched him more closely, it was silly of me. I didn’t see him pick up the whale picture.’ Then I realize that the picture Finn just broke is the one I was looking at this morning – the photo of the orca launching itself out of the water. It was on the sideboard with the other pictures. She must have put it away to keep it safe, though she didn’t put any of the other pictures away. Just that killer whale.

  ‘No,’ she hisses. ‘I guess you didn’t see, did you, Kali?’ She still isn’t moving. She is holding the spatula and her knuckles, I notice, have turned white. ‘He could have slashed himself right open on that glass. He could have given himself a terrible injury. You know how far we are from a hospital, here?’

  ‘Please.’ I try to sound unthreatening, placatory. ‘Please let me pay for a new frame.’ She doesn’t respond – just stands there, gripping the spatula. She probably put the photo in the cupboard because it’s precious, and she didn’t want him to pull it down. No wonder she’s an
gry. ‘Please.’ I try again. ‘It would make me feel a lot better to replace it.’

  ‘Oh Kali.’ She turns her head, ever so slowly, and fixes her bleached-out eyes on mine. ‘I don’t want your money.’

  Chapter eight

  The omelette oozes Cheddar and chunks of fleshy tomato; it is flecked with chives and black pepper. I make myself eat more slowly this time, pausing for sips of water. Neither of us speaks. I try to see all this from her perspective. She’s right. I have been distracted, definitely. I haven’t been as vigilant with Finn as I should have been. This is a house full of expensive breakables and I have brought a toddler here, then failed to watch him closely. I have to be more alert. I need to watch him every second. The notion of Finn near the Chihuly makes me feel positively ill.

  She has obviously hidden the whale photo again, already, but I can’t see how breaking the glass would damage the actual photo. And the frame must be replaceable. But I can see that this is not just about a silver frame.

  She has had enough of us. That’s what this is. I can’t blame her. We should leave. I want to leave. But I also want to know what she knows about my mother. It’s obvious that she’s hiding something. If I go without finding out what she’s hiding, I may never know.

  I think about her hand gripping the spatula. She probably won’t ever tell me the truth. Perhaps this is futile. Maybe when Finn wakes up, I should just pack our things. We could get the last ferry back.

  I fork some omelette into my mouth. At least now I know where my mother learned to tie nautical knots.

  I can hear Susannah chewing her food. I can’t bring myself to look, but I can feel her eyes on me.

  ‘So.’ I force myself to raise my head. She is, indeed, staring at me. ‘Susannah, I’d love to hear more about my mother before I head off – I should get the afternoon ferry back to Vancouver – but I’d love to know what she was like when you knew her.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to leave,’ she says. She sounds suddenly friendly, as if the photo incident is trivial. ‘I was upset about the child back there, but you don’t have to run away now. You’ve come such a long way. Stay another night, at least.’

  ‘Oh. Well. That’s kind. Thanks.’

  She chews on, slowly, very straight-backed, fork in one hand, the other splayed next to her plate.

  I suddenly have the feeling, again, that she is toying with me – a push-me, pull-you game. But why? I am tying myself up in knots here. I blink and rub my eyes. I am tired, still, despite the long sleep this morning. Behind her, the sky outside the French windows is growing heavier and darker. Maybe she’s right. I could stay another night, get over the jet lag, maybe find out some interesting things about my mother, then leave first thing in the morning. I try to smile.

  ‘Susannah. How long did my mother live up here?’

  ‘Here?’ She puts down her fork, wipes her mouth with a napkin. ‘Oh, she never lived here.’

  ‘But you said … ’

  ‘She was living further north mainly. She never came here, to Spring Tide. I didn’t even live here in those days. I lived in Vancouver.’

  ‘Oh? Oh. You were living in different places?’

  ‘We were roommates in California. That’s how we met. There. Not here. You really didn’t know anything at all about your mother’s life, did you, Kali?’

  ‘No.’ I don’t know why I have to keep persuading her of this. Does she think I’m pretending ignorance?

  ‘I can’t believe she never said a word.’ She’s looking at me, but she sounds as if she’s talking to herself.

  ‘I never even knew she studied killer whales.’

  ‘She didn’t keep up with the latest research?’

  ‘I have no idea. I don’t think so. But maybe she did, and never told me.’

  ‘Well then, Kali.’ She sits back. ‘How about we start with what you do know about your mother’s past?’

  ‘What I know?’ I push away my almost empty plate. ‘Very little. That’s why I came to find you. She absolutely hated talking about the past. She wouldn’t tell me anything, in fact. I just know the bare bones. I know she was an only child, and that my grandmother died when she was little.’ As I talk, I realize our roles have reversed – she’s the one asking questions and I’m opening up. ‘In fact, I was sort of hoping you might be able to help me piece some things together, if you know anything? Did she ever talk about her childhood with you?’

  She looks at her fork, picks it up again and stabs a tomato with it.

  ‘She wouldn’t even let me ask questions,’ I continue. ‘She’d just snap at me – “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember.” On a good day she’d say, “It makes me sad to look back.” I suppose I stopped asking pretty early on. Then, as an adult, when I should have pushed her for more information, I didn’t because we just didn’t have conversations like that. It felt too … risky … We had managed a sort of truce. We were reasonable and polite to each other – and I probably didn’t want to risk that.’

  Susannah swallows her food with a gulp as if she’s just thought of something. ‘You have a sister? Alice, right? Did she talk to your sister?’

  ‘They were much closer.’ I take a sip of water and force myself to stop talking.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But Alice says she didn’t tell her anything either.’

  I can see the relief in her eyes, now, but I’m not sure why.

  ‘So,’ she says, in an almost friendly voice. ‘You want me to tell you about your grandparents? Is that it? Fill you in a bit on your family history?’

  ‘Yes, well, God – definitely. Can you? If you know anything, I’d love to hear it.’

  ‘It’s not a pretty story, Kali.’

  For a moment, I wonder whether to tell her about my visit to Harry Halmstrom. Then I decide not to. She’d only think I was unhinged. I lean forwards. ‘No – that’s OK – please – I really want to know everything you know about my grandparents.’

  ‘Sure. OK. So. Your grandfather was violent. A wife-beater. He beat your grandmother, but not your mother. He was a drinker.’

  I feel as if she’s leaned over and punched me. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. ‘Oh God. That’s … that’s … horrible.’

  ‘He was drunk and at the wheel of the car when the accident happened.’

  ‘What accident?’

  ‘When your grandmother was killed?’

  ‘My grandmother died in a car accident?’ I realize then that I’d always imagined that my mother’s mother died from some tragic and somehow old-fashioned illness, like tuberculosis. In the absence of facts, I have apparently invented a family medical history.

  ‘Wow,’ Susannah says. ‘She really told you nothing, huh? Your grandparents were coming back from a night out in Seattle and he’d been drinking; he veered across four lanes and smashed into a tree. Your grandmother was thrown out of the car and died instantly. He staggered out with a few scratches. Your mother was eight years old at the time.’

  ‘Jesus.’ I sit back. ‘This is horrific.’ I don’t want to ask the next question, but I make myself. ‘Was my mother in the car too?’

  ‘No. Of course not. She was home alone. She told me it got really late, and they didn’t show up, and then the police came to the house. She hid in her mother’s closet, because she was scared she’d done something wrong.’

  For a moment, I can’t speak. I picture my mother as a terrified, abandoned little girl, cowering in a closet on the night her mother died, and it is unbearable. This, presumably, is what my father wanted to tell me about, when he cornered me on the stairs. This would certainly explain my mother’s erratic behaviour, her sadness about the past, her unwillingness to talk about it. She would have been badly damaged by such a childhood trauma.

  I wonder if I have found the root of our issues at last. Perhaps something dark and unconscious was going on for her. Maybe I reminded her of herself as a child – we looked so similar. Maybe that was it. These thing
s would explain, to some extent, why she couldn’t cope with me but was always such an uncomplicated mother to Alice: tall, blonde, calm Alice. I suddenly want to call my sister. Does Alice know any of this? This is ghastly.

  Worst of all is that my mother is gone and I will never be able to ask her about this or tell her that I understand, and I’m sorry. This explains why she leaped at the chance to marry my father and become English, and live in a Sussex village and paint and make shepherd’s pies, and never, ever go back to the States. I look up at Susannah. She is watching me. She sinks her canines into a hunk of granary bread.

  ‘Thank you for telling me. This actually explains a lot,’ I say.

  She shrugs and chews. Then something occurs to me. What if my mother just pretended that her father was dead? What if he is in fact still alive? Could Harry Halmstrom be the man that Susannah has just described? Maybe he changed his name to Harry. But I’m being silly – how did he end up in Vancouver? Of course, Alice is right. I have to stop filling the gaps with my own stories.

  ‘What?’ she says. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just that, before I came here, I went to this old people’s home in Vancouver. This probably sounds crazy to you – but I went to meet this old man because I thought he might be a relative. He’s ninety-three years old, and his name is Harry Halmstrom and Halmstrom is a very uncommon name – so I wondered … But of course it couldn’t be him because my grandfather is dead, isn’t he? And his name wasn’t Harry, it was Theodore. So I don’t know why I thought … ’

  She puts the bread down. ‘You did what?’ Her face has gone the colour of construction paper.

  ‘I know. It was a bit silly of me to think that just because of the name … I don’t know why I went, but I suppose I was curious, because Halmstrom is an unusual name and … no, but really, the truth is I just needed an excuse to leave England.’

  ‘Your mother’s father died.’ She fixes her eyes on mine. ‘He died.’