by Jane Shemilt
Michael had come by late. The boys had gone to bed.
I was telling Michael how worried I was for the boys when I had started crying. He had put his arm around me. We had moved closer, he had bent his head to mine, and then, for a second, our mouths had met. I’d pulled back; it had instantly felt wrong. I was exhausted and he must have been too. A momentary reflex, that’s all, created out of despair and loneliness. No one was to blame. We needed to get back to where we had been, so I told Michael about Jade. It seemed to work: as I talked I could see him settling into himself again, taking charge.
“I went to see Jade again today. I’d promised I would. I thought people would stare at me because my eyelids were so puffed up, but no one took any notice.”
I realized as I spoke that when I had worked in the hospital, I had ignored them too, the army of the grief-stricken sleepless who sat invisibly in the wards, watching and waiting. “Her father was with her. He stood up when I got there. He’s big. I’d forgotten.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” Michael asked. I heard annoyance in his voice. “I could have come with you. It might have helped. I’m supposed to be supporting you; it’s my job, remember?”
“I wouldn’t have expected you to come along; it was my mistake,” I told him. “I’d got the diagnosis wrong. I had to sort it out.”
“How did it go?”
“I took her some old books of Naomi’s and she thanked me. She seemed glad to see me. She was fatter. The chemotherapy contains steroids, so it’s an artificial sort of fatness, but she looked better all the same.” I could feel the tears spilling out again. “But the most difficult thing was what happened with Jeff Price.”
“What did he do?” Michael sounded angry.
“Nothing. He said sorry.”
“What?”
I thought back to the moment Jade had taken the books and opened one.
“Whose writing is that?” She had turned to her father, showing him the pencil marks scrawled across the sky on the first page.
“ ‘Naomi Malcolm,’ ” he read. “ ‘My bed. My bedroom. Number One, Clifton Road, Bristol. England. The World. The Universe. Outer Space.’ ” He paused, then added, “That’s the doctor’s little girl, Jadie.”
“Won’t she mind?” Jade turned her face toward me.
“No,” I said. I had forgotten about the writing. “She’s . . . bigger now.” I tried to smile.
Perhaps Jade read my expression. “I’ll give it back when I’ve finished,” she said.
I nodded, unable to speak. Jeff Price walked down the aisle of beds with me. Children were lying in hot little heaps, faces flushed and stupefied with boredom. They were as silent as ill animals, swamped by layers of relatives who sat around them, watching television.
He stopped in the corridor outside the plastic doors of the ward.
“I saw you on the telly earlier. I’m sorry about what’s happened. Not right. I know we had words but that’s not right.”
“Thanks.” I paused. “The police are interviewing everyone. Even my patients . . .”
“Fine by me. Bring it on. Anything I can do to help. I’ve been here twenty-four seven, the nurses will tell them that.”
He touched me on the shoulder and walked back, seeming to fill the corridor as he walked, lurching slightly from side to side, his feet in their huge white sneakers sucking noisily at the shiny blue floor.
The plastic doors had slapped shut behind him.
Michael was waiting patiently for my response.
“Jeff Price was sorry about Naomi,” I told him again. “Perhaps you don’t need to interview him after all.”
“Well, it shouldn’t take long.”
It didn’t seem as if I could stop what I’d started, even if I was sure Jeff Price wasn’t involved.
“You were great on television.” Michael smiled, changing the subject.
The lights had been hot and bright. They had made my eyes water but I didn’t want people to think I was crying. I didn’t want Naomi’s abductor to know what he was doing to us. We were warned that if you show your distress it can make it worse. Parents become victims to be manipulated. At the same time, we had to do it. We had to reach out to the woman who might have glimpsed her blurred face in a car window in an unknown city and seen her open mouth calling for help. We had to grab the attention of the man serving in a corner shop, who might have noticed that the quiet man who normally just bought cigarettes was now buying extra things: food, tape, sanitary napkins for the bleeding. We had to tell the child on a bike ride to pick up the gray hoodie that was caught at the bottom of a hedge down a country lane, the one she had thrown out so someone would find it. I wanted the woman by the lights, the shopkeeper, and the child on the bike to be on my side.
“You were really great,” Michael said again, when I didn’t reply. “So was Ted. We’ll need to see him again, by the way.”
“I think he’s asleep now. It’s funny—he can hardly seem to keep awake but I can’t sleep at all.”
“Just a few questions; tomorrow would be better.”
“I can probably answer them now.”
“No. We need to ask him the questions.”
He sounded serious, almost regretful. I didn’t understand.
“What questions?”
“Not everything is adding up. We need to straighten a few things out.”
I felt sick. Did we have to go over it all again, separately? Did this mean the police had decided not to believe what we were saying?
“Michael, please. Time is going by and every second—”
“That’s why we’ve got to get this straight. Could you tell him he needs to be at the station in the morning? We’ll collect him.”
It sounded so ridiculous, like some television police drama, where the husband is needed for questioning and the wife becomes hysterical.
“If I can answer for him, it will save a lot of time.”
Michael sighed quickly. “All right. Do you happen to know where Ted was the night Naomi went missing?”
I got up and started walking around the kitchen, picking up the glasses and cups that seemed to litter every surface. They knew the answer to that already. I was tired; I wanted to go to bed now.
“I know exactly where he was. At the hospital. His operation was running late. He had a difficult case—it happens all the time. If anyone doesn’t believe that, it’s easy enough to check with the staff at the hospital.”
Michael stood up as well. His face was expressionless and it was as though he hadn’t heard me.
“I’ll let myself out,” he said, and his voice sounded oddly formal. “Please tell him he’ll be collected in the morning.”
Once he’d left, I sat at the table, my eyes closed. Michael’s words seemed to echo on in the silence. After a while I went to the phone and rang the hospital. I asked to be put through to the neuro operating room. Though it was late, a male assistant answered immediately. He sounded very young. I told him who I was and that Ted had asked me to check on the time he’d started in the operating room the previous Thursday evening. He had forgotten to record the length of the operation and needed it for a GP letter. The words came so smoothly it was as if I’d been rehearsing them rather than plucking them from the tumult in my mind. He left for a moment, then returned.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Dr. Malcolm. Had to double-check. Sure you didn’t mean Monday?”
“I am certain he said Thursday,” I replied, my heart thudding.
The young voice sounded apologetic. “It’s just that it was only Mr. Patel in neurotheater on Thursday. Mr. Malcolm’s case was canceled. I can find out how long the operation took on the Monday if you want to phone me back?”
“Thanks. He’ll be in touch if he needs to.” I replaced the receiver and then I went upstairs and sat on a chair nex
t to my sleeping husband. I stared at him for so long that his face changed and seemed to dissolve, in the way that your own identity does if you say your name over and over to yourself. In the end he looked like any man lying there, a stranger who I happened to have met, by accident.
Chapter 19
DORSET, 2010
THIRTEEN MONTHS LATER
A group of small children sing Christmas carols at the entrance to Dorchester station, huddling around a gray-haired woman at their center. The children are restless in their downward-slipping Santa hats, two are stamping on each other’s toes, and the smallest girl wipes her running nose with her sleeve. The woman resolutely conducts the singing, but her sharply moving hands look as if she is painting punishments in the air. “Away in a Manger” spirals thinly outward as I walk toward the barriers to Platform One. There is something familiar in the way this woman is driving herself to play her part; she stands so upright, her voice is too cheerful. She belongs to a world I used to be part of, and as I look at her I remember its weight. There are no duties now to push me through the day. Life is stripped down and my roles are simpler: mother, not wife. If I had to put my occupation on a form, I’d write painter.
Ed’s train is due. Sophie is coming with him. They didn’t need him to stay for Christmas in the unit after all.
It only occurs to me now, too late, that a train journey could be difficult for him, with all the noise and crowds, after the routine and order of his days in the unit. In a few minutes the train rushes in, doors slide open, and then there are streams of moving heads to scan, so it’s a jolt when his arms come around from behind to encircle my waist tightly.
“Ed!”
He is laughing. Laughing! I haven’t seen Ed even smile for months. I needn’t have worried. His face is unshaven, his brown eyes deeply alive, his long black hair shining. He has a backpack and his guitar is slung across his body. He turns, puts his arm around a girl almost hiding behind him.
“Mum, this is Sophie. Soph, Mum.”
Her colors light up the drab station. Short bright red hair, green eyes circled with gray kohl, a green knitted coat, stripy blue gloves, orange hat, yellow boots. There is a silver ring through one nostril. She is carrying an accordion strapped to her back. Her face is watchful, calm, and very pretty. I take one of her gloved hands in mine.
“Hello, Sophie.”
She smiles. “Hi.”
“So lucky she could come,” Ed says looking at her. “She nearly couldn’t. Jake wanted her to be there for Christmas lunch on the boat, but in the end it was all right.”
I smile at Sophie.
“Thanks for having me.” Her chin tilts a little as she says this. There is a soft Irish lilt to her voice.
In the car on the way back, Sophie sits close to Ed, and he points out the cliffs and beaches as we pass. I tell him Theo is arriving later with Sam, the partner we haven’t yet met. Then he wants to know what time Ted is expected.
“Tomorrow or the next day. He’s flying back from Johannesburg today.”
“I reckon he’s really on holiday.”
I thought he kept in touch with Ed. So nothing’s changed. He’s been busy all their lives—birthdays, parents’ evenings, sometimes Christmas and holidays. The burden of responsibility settles down on me again; it feels as heavy as it did during all those years when I thought he was sharing it. Ironically it got lighter after he left, or perhaps I just knew to brace myself. Why then does the disappointment burn now?
“Not on holiday. I told you, he’s been at a meeting.”
“Typical.”
I check in the rearview mirror, but he’s smiling again; there is even a slight air of pride as he slips an arm around Sophie. My father, busy and important.
“Good for your dad. I’ve always wanted to work in Africa,” she says.
“It’s only a conference,” I tell her. “For a couple of weeks. His real job is in Bristol.”
“Sophie works for Amnesty International,” Ed says.
“That’s impressive.” I look at her face in the mirror; she smiles and shrugs.
“I just translate stuff. French and German.”
“She and Jake can talk to each other in any language, especially if they want to say something about me they know I won’t understand,” Ed says matter-of-factly.
“You wouldn’t understand about you whatever language we spoke in. Would-be medics don’t get themselves. Too busy being heroes in their own drama.” Her lilting voice is amused.
They both laugh as if it’s an old joke.
In the weeks after his admission to the unit we had skated around what he might do when he left. He never mentioned doing medicine again after he’d had to leave school. He did his final exams in the unit, and when his spectacular results came through, they only added to the grief, the sense of what might have been. He told me he’s happy to stay on helping out for now. This isn’t the moment to talk about plans. He seems as if he is fresh from a holiday.
Bertie is standing in the hall when I open the door. Ed’s face crumples; he kneels down, puts his arms around the dog, and starts to cry. Bertie stands still, blinking. He sneezes once and then sniffs Ed’s hair, tail wagging. Sophie kneels next to Ed and hugs him, laying her cheek next to his. I make tea. I should have seen this coming and prepared him in some way for how the past melts into the present.
After a few minutes, Ed gets up, blows his nose, and laughs shakily.
“Sorry, Bert.” He bends and puts his hand on Bertie’s head again.
“Shall we go to the sea now, and take Bertie?” Sophie asks.
Ed nods and they drink their tea; then they all go out to the fields through the garden. I watch him pause at the gate, touch the post. I wonder for the hundredth time whether he has yet found a place to put everything that has happened, to keep it until he can think about it and try to make sense of it.
I watch them cross the field, then it’s time to take the chicken out of the fridge, slide butter and herbs under the skin, and put lemon and garlic inside. When it’s in the oven I pour a glass of wine and take it to the wooden shed outside that I cleared for a studio a week ago, knowing there wouldn’t be room in the house. With the windows clean, the light had poured through; the old leaves and dust and mouse droppings were swept away. There was a trestle table in there already. I bought a new heater and hung some of my paintings from the nails in the wall.
My oil painting of Mary’s hands is on the table. They look like claws, the fingers deformed by rheumatism, the skin shiny and puffed. She calls them her witch hands, but they make tea, hold eggs and garden tools, bake bread. I’ve painted them loosely open for her kindness. If Mary is a witch, she is a good witch. Dan’s hands are holding a piece of wood. They look careful and careless at the same time—the wood tilts out of his fingers, but he’s trapped it with his thumb so that the holding and letting go are balanced. And there is a very new pencil sketch of Michael’s hand. Last weekend he was sitting in here in an old deck chair, near the window. He was reading, and resting his hand on his knee. The sketch has captured the power of his fingers and the width of his hand. It needs finishing. I find my pencil, and, as I work, a few flakes of snow fall outside the window. I shade the marked curve of the muscles of the ball of his thumb and it’s as though he’s touching me. I close my eyes remembering the feel of his hands on my body. Naomi’s eyes, as they are in the portrait, shine at me behind my eyelids. Secrets are dangerous; she should have been careful. Should I be, of Michael?
Ed and Sophie come back. Their clothes are flecked with snow.
“I’ve never seen the beach in winter,” Ed says as he strips off his wet coat. “It was so empty.”
Sophie’s teeth are chattering. “The cliffs were amazing, all those layers.”
They go to bathe and shower, and later, after the chicken, after wine and coffee and washing up
, they sit near the fire and Sophie plays her accordion. Ed joins in with his guitar. They look comfortable; this must be something they do often. I join them at a little distance, half in the shadows, sitting in my father’s blue chair near the door.
“Who are we going to dedicate this to, then?” Sophie asks.
“Dad.”
“Tell me about him,” Sophie says sleepily. She lets her arms rest and her fingers stop playing.
“I told you. He’s a neurosurgeon,” Ed replies. “He operates on people’s heads. You know, fixes their brains?”
I feel sad at this pride in his voice. Does Ted have any idea? Would he care? Two years ago I would have thought I knew the answer. No, I wouldn’t even have asked the question.
“Must have been hard on you, growing up. I mean, you can’t have gotten to see him much.”
“It wasn’t really hard.” Ed is cheerful. “He was kind of around. He used to be there on holidays and stuff. He always came home at night.”
He didn’t, though. Ed was wrong. He didn’t always come home at night.
BRISTOL, 2009
SIX DAYS AFTER
The phone was ringing as I woke. It was on Ted’s side of the bed. I turned over to stretch across him but my reaching hand hit the wall. Of course. Spare bed, spare room. I heard Ted answer on the floor beneath me; his quiet orderly cadences meant it was a call from the hospital. I heard him get up and go downstairs to make coffee. He had kept to the usual routine, though everything around him was different. He would be wondering why I hadn’t slept next to him; he would think it was because I had come to bed too late and didn’t want to disturb him.
He wouldn’t know that I had hardly slept, that, when I did, unspeakable nightmares had filled my mind, nightmares that were still there when I woke, thoughts so monstrous that I felt my head would burst open with them. Ted had lied. He hadn’t been in the hospital the night Naomi disappeared. It was Ted who had taken her. Ted had picked her up from the theater that night and had secretly taken her away. Why would he do that? The answer was there, ready-made. When he had seen her play Maria, he had realized she was someone different now, not his little Naomi but another girl completely, grown-up, sexy, challenging. Perhaps he didn’t like that, so he had—what? Raped her? Killed her? He would know how to; he would know precisely how to block the carotid artery, or crush her trachea. I lay there letting my darkest thoughts torture me until I felt sick and giddy with them. I knew there couldn’t be any truth in them, but wasn’t that what people always said when it turned out that the murderer was someone they loved?