by Jane Shemilt
In the kitchen he sits at the table with his coat on, like a visitor who isn’t going to stay long. I make a cup of coffee and put it down in front of him, then step back.
“Why were you hiding just now?” he asks me, and even his voice is slow and tired. There are mauve marks under his eyes. His hair is grayer and thinner. His stubble is so long he must be growing a beard. “If I hadn’t noticed you against the wall, you would have let me walk by.”
“I wasn’t hiding. I was waiting . . .” I make these words effortfully. I would prefer to stand here silently absorbing the strangeness of his presence.
“Waiting?”
My answer shapes itself, unsaid. Yes, waiting to see what would happen, hoping he would walk by, unknowing. All the weeks and months after Naomi went, I waited for him. He passed me by then, leaving me in the shadows on his way to someone else.
“It’s all right, you don’t have to answer.” Ted shrugs and opens his hands with a little laugh; he has the red palms of a drinker. He sees me looking and closes his hands around the coffee cup. A few drops spill onto the tablecloth and spread into little circles.
“So, you’re okay? Here, I mean. Of course I don’t mean . . .” He stops.
“I’m okay.”
“You look fine. Good, actually.” He sounds surprised.
“Thanks.”
“I mean you look pretty.” His eyes narrow, appraising.
“Thanks.” If I look pretty it’s because of Michael, but I won’t tell him, not yet.
“How were the boys?” He shifts in the chair, as if trying to get comfortable. “When you saw them at Christmas?”
“They were fine.” My heart is still racing fast; I can’t make long sentences, but words spill out of Ted. After all, this isn’t a surprise to him.
“I’ve missed them so much. I’ve seen Ed, of course.” He is thinking of seeing Ed with Beth, all the times he took her to see him.
“What about Theo?” he carries on.
“He’s fine.”
“I should have been here for Christmas. I’m sorry.”
His shirt is crumpled; perhaps he slept in it. His coat is too big for him. The smell of stale cigarettes fills the kitchen. What particular thing is he sorry about? Christmas? Beth? The lies?
“Do you think about Naomi much?” he asks abruptly into the silence.
I turn my face to the window, unable to look at him.
He goes on, his words coming faster. “I think about her all the time.”
I glance at his face. Tears run into the gray stubble.
“At the moment it’s the feel of her hands, when she was little. They were so soft. She used to put them against my cheeks and pretend that my stubble hurt and then we would pretend to bandage them.” His nose is running; the tears are streaking the dust on his face.
I don’t want this unfurling. I hand him a paper towel. He wipes his face. The bunched paper opens itself on the table, translucent with tears and mucous.
“I look for her everywhere I go.” He is speaking so quietly I have to bend toward him to catch the words. “Once, in Cape Town, on my way from the hotel to the hospital, I thought I saw her. I followed this girl into a park. She walked the same way as Naomi.” He smiles up at me. “Remember that little sort of bounce as she walked, as if she could keep going forever.”
“Only she didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?” He is still smiling, but puzzled.
“Keep going forever.”
“Don’t you think so?” He clenches his fist and bangs it softly on the table. “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up. I still think we’ll find her.”
He stood up. “I’ve made so many mistakes.”
“I don’t want to hear this now, Ted. It’s too late for all this.”
He stands in front of me, swaying slightly on his feet, as though he is drunk but he doesn’t smell of alcohol. His eyes are closing. His voice slurs.
“Sorry. Just need to sleep for a bit. Couldn’t on the plane. Drove all night, must lie down . . .”
I run him a bath, and show him the tiny spare room. He stares at the ivory walls that Dan painted so carefully, the blue-and-gray-striped curtains, and the fire grate full of whitewashed fir cones. He takes in the rough pale blue cotton blanket, and his gaze rests on the little bowl of sea glass next to the bed. His shoulders relax. He takes off his coat and puts it on the wicker chair by the window. “Nice,” he murmurs. “You’ve done something. Don’t know what. It’s nice.” He sits on the bed, and then falls sideways with a sigh. His breathing alters almost immediately and becomes slow and deep. I undo his laces and heave his shoes off. He surfaces for a moment.
“Stay here? Sleep next to me?”
I shut the door and empty the bath water out. Then I go downstairs to the kitchen and take off the layers of outer clothes that I had put on earlier. The light is brighter now, but I hear rain starting. We wouldn’t have been able to see much up on Golden Cap after all. I slowly unlace my walking boots and pull them off. Bertie rests his heavy head on my feet. He likes the rough feel of the wool under his soft mouth.
BRISTOL, 2009
EIGHT DAYS AFTER
Ted was late, as usual. Supper had long finished by the time he came home with lines under his eyes, and crumpled clothes pulled on after operating. I was glad to see him. He had promised me the episode with Beth was a mistake and I had to believe him. I needed him. I didn’t have the energy for anger; in any case, what Ted had done began to fade next to the scouring anguish of Naomi’s absence. He was silent as he went to the stove to get the meal, which had been keeping warm. The meat looked dried. The potatoes were shrunken, the greens stringy. I imagined his day and how he might have thought about hot food as he drove home.
“That looks disgusting, Ted. Shall I make you an omelette?”
“You don’t have to.” He took a bottle of wine from the cupboard, opened it, and poured out two glasses, and then he sat down heavily with a sigh.
“Sorry I didn’t phone,” he said as he sipped wine. “The operation went on all day. I’m later than I meant to be. Where are the boys?”
“Theo’s around somewhere. Ed’s gone to bed.”
“This early?”
“He needs to catch up on sleep; he’s tired all the time. Anya can’t even get into his room to clean because he gets up so late. The worry is wearing him out.” I started tapping eggs against a bowl. “Michael came by. Harold Moore told us—”
“Who the hell is Harold Moore?” He watched the egg mixture slide, frothing, into hot butter.
He listened as I reminded him; then I told him about the blue van.
Ted tilted his head. “I think I did see a blue car, maybe a van, parked outside the theater, actually. Once or twice, perhaps.” He shrugged; he obviously didn’t think it was important. “We’ll probably find it belonged to the drama teacher or someone,” he went on flatly. “I wouldn’t have said that having Down’s syndrome makes you very reliable.”
“I think Harold would be a good witness. He watches everything. He was very focused on his drawing.”
Ted didn’t reply. I put the omelette in front of him and he began to eat it quickly.
“Michael is working on it.” I sat down opposite Ted. “He is going to organize some kind of reconstruction. You know, a girl leaving the theater late, getting into a blue van.”
“It was late and dark, so it may not help. What else?”
“Ted, couldn’t you miss your Saturday schedule and stay at home tomorrow? If you think we are on the wrong tack with this, then what can you think of instead?” I paused, forcing myself to stay calm. “I made this kind of plan on a card. I want your input.”
Ted pushed his empty plate away. “Show me.”
We bent over the table, looking at the circles surrounding her name. Home. School. Neighb
ors. The theater.
“We need another circle,” he said slowly. “Enemies. Grudge holders.”
“You don’t have those kinds of enemies at fifteen.” I looked at him incredulously.
“Not her enemies. Ours.” He spoke quietly.
“I thought that once, about Jade’s father, even Anya’s husband, but I was wrong. Do you really think anyone could hate us that much?”
Ted’s eyes were thoughtful. “My registrar had his tires slashed once. He wondered if someone had a grudge. I mean, who knows what we do or don’t do, by mistake. Doctors playing God.”
“Christ.” Something seemed to shift and loosen in my resolve. I began to cry.
Ted’s arm came around me tightly. I smelled the familiar, slightly scented smell.
“Reminds me of summer,” I murmured, my head against his shoulder.
“What?” He stepped back and looked at me.
“Lavender.” I stood near him, unwilling to walk away. We hadn’t touched for days. “Not criticizing. I like it.” I took his hand.
He freed his hand and patted my back. “The nurses get to choose the operating room scrub, so it’s scented, probably expensive as well.” He bent closely over the cardboard.
“Speaking of cost”—I remembered the piles of banknotes in Ed’s room—“have you been giving the boys cash instead of transferring their allowance online? Not sure it’s a great idea to be so generous.”
“Have I been generous?” He wasn’t listening. He turned away, pulling out his cell phone.
“I saw that money, a pile of bills. You don’t have to do that.”
“Not sure what you mean, Jen. I haven’t given the boys any cash for months. I set up a bank transfer to their accounts, remember? Let me just text my registrar. He needs to find the scans for tomorrow’s list of patients.”
I was so tired my feet throbbed and my eyes stung. Of course he couldn’t miss the list, I shouldn’t have bothered asking. Where the hell had all that money come from? I was too exhausted to think any more about the money tonight. I’d have to ask Ed in the morning. Ted went up to bed ahead of me and was asleep before I got in beside him. I tried to curl into him but he was lying on his front, head turned away. I rested my head on his shoulder. In spite of my tiredness, I stayed awake, trying to think what enemies I might have, hoping to block the images that swam toward me when I was tired and the waves of utter despair and dread that lay in wait for me everywhere.
BRISTOL, 2009
NINE DAYS AFTER
Ed was tipping cereal into his bowl at breakfast and some spilled over the edge onto the surface of the kitchen table.
“Why do you always have to come into my room?”
His voice was cold.
“Ed, you’d fallen asleep with all your clothes on. I just took off your shoes and covered you up.”
“I’m not a child.”
“So, the money?”
“None of your business, Mum, is it, really?” There was a pause. He shrugged. “If you must know, I’m doing a sponsored rowing event, a sort of gala. It’s on Monday. I’m in charge of the money. That’s why I’ve been late so much. I’ve been training.”
It made sense. The tiredness, late nights at school.
Ted was still asleep upstairs; his operating schedule started late today, and I let him sleep on while I paced around restlessly. The fear was always worse in the morning, moving sharply under my skin. I could never be still or concentrate on anything for long.
I phoned Michael. He told me that they had checked all the regular and student actors who used the school theater. All had alibis.
“What next, Michael?”
“A possible reconstruction on Friday night. I’ll let you know if that goes ahead.”
So another girl would play the part of my daughter, another girl would get into a blue van outside the theater after 10:30 P.M., but then when the camera stopped rolling, she would get out again and go home. I wouldn’t watch.
Frank phoned back in answer to the message I had left. He agreed to let me try a clinic if I was sure. Work was gathering pace. Run up to December. Usual seasonal coughs and colds. Could I start the day after tomorrow?
BRISTOL, 2009
ELEVEN DAYS AFTER
I hadn’t been in my car for days, but my hands on the wheel looked certain of what they were doing. In the office, my room was immaculate. The desk had been sorted. I put my bag down, pulled out my stethoscope and auroscope, and put them next to the clean prescription pad.
Lynn came in and gave me a hard hug.
“I’m not going to be nice. You’ve got today to get through. I’m next door if you need me.” She left, brushing her eyes with her hand.
Jo brought me a cup of tea and kissed me as she said, “We’ve booked you easy patients to get back into the swing.”
The first patient was a child. A silent little boy of six with shiny bangs and huge brown eyes. His mother, in a blue sari, sat silently on the chair. He told me what was wrong in careful English. There were little yellow spots at the back of his throat and his head was hot with fever. The deep trustful eyes of the child and his mother were soothing. When they had gone, I realized that for the few minutes they had been here the torment had eased. I took a mouthful of the hot sweet tea. Then a small thin woman walked in, her shoulders bent. Life was a gray blank. Speaking slowly, she told me how she could no longer watch television, eat, or sleep. I asked her questions and organized blood tests, but then I just sat and held her hand in silence as the tears rolled down her cheeks until it was time for her to go. I saw fifteen patients in all; the very last one of the morning was a young builder with a discharging ear. My auroscope light was dim; I needed new batteries. I unzipped my bag. The small glass vials of morphine and Demerol were kept uppermost, safely stored in shaped foam-rubber compartments, along with liquid Nurofen and antiemetics. In the act of opening the bag I told myself I must check later to see if they were in date. But the vials had gone.
I stared at the empty sockets where they should have been. Had I got rid of them before and simply forgotten? Surely I would remember the feel of the smooth glass, the tiny crash they would have made as they went into the sharps disposal can. I opened the bag wider, my head singing with panic. There was less in the bag than I remembered. The little elastic straps at the side usually held the boxes of drugs that I used when called out on visits. Co-codamol. Temazepam. They were gone as well. Maybe I had forgotten to put them back. Had I left them in a patient’s house? What if a child got hold of them?
This just took a few seconds to process. I found the batteries at last, fitted them, checked the young man’s ear, and wrote a prescription, all in a daze. Perhaps the medicines were at home. Perhaps I had cleared out my bag and not put everything back, then Anya had put them in our medicine cupboard. I decided to wait until I got home. I wouldn’t worry Frank yet.
Later, I went in through the back door at home. Eleven days ago I had returned from work to see my daughter dancing by herself in the kitchen, happy and unharmed. I leaned against the wall in the empty silence, wanting to lie down on the floor and cry like a child. Then I pushed myself away. She needed me to be strong. Today I had gone to the office. I had done it. No clues had sprung out, but sooner or later perhaps someone would come through the door and remind me of something I had forgotten. There had to be something I wasn’t thinking of. Some veil I needed to push aside so I could see more clearly. Maybe it was just a matter of time.
I checked in our medicine cabinet, but there were no drugs from my bag there. I began to search in cabinets in the bathroom, next to my bed, in the kitchen. I left the doors swinging as I ran between the rooms. I looked in the utility room, by the dog food in the cupboard, under the sink. Nothing. I stood trembling, my hand on the ironing that Anya had left. The clothes were neatly piled beside a heap of paired socks. I picked
them up and walked upstairs slowly. Everything that had happened must have affected my memory.
Frank would understand. I had probably thrown out the drugs and asked him for more, then simply forgotten. He might already have them waiting for me. I put fresh towels in the bathroom. Ed’s rowing clothes were still on the floor. He must have forgotten too. His forgetfulness had spread into his life like mine had, but today was important, it was the charity rowing gala. I pulled out my phone and sat on his bed to call him, but only got through to his voice mail. He must be in a class. I called the school and asked to be put through to the sports center; eventually I was passed to a sports teacher, and I offered to bring the uniform in, knowing Ed wouldn’t have time to come home.
“Rowing for charity?”
“This afternoon.” I felt surprised the sports teacher didn’t know. “I thought I could bring them in.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t bother, Mrs. Malcolm.”
“Normally I wouldn’t.” I didn’t like the amused voice. “But he’s had a lot to contend with. It’s understandable if he is forgetful at the moment.”
“Then he must have forgotten that we don’t do rowing this term. It’s cross-country running, Mrs. Malcolm. Rowing is next term.” There was a little laugh, as though he had made a joke.
“It’s Doctor, by the way,” I said. “My name is Dr. Malcolm, not Mrs.”
“I beg your pardon?”
I put the phone down.