by Jane Shemilt
WHEN I LEFT the practice it was dark and cold, but Naomi’s room was warm. I had kept the radiator on and I sat there most evenings. Sometimes I thought that molecules from her skin or her hair might still be in the air and that, if they were, they might be touching my face or my hands. I imagined that if I kept perfectly still, I might feel them.
That evening I could hardly breathe for the hope that was gripping me tightly. I wanted her to have planned leaving. I wanted that to have been what she had smiled to herself about. I didn’t care if she knew that it would hurt us, or even if she wanted to. It didn’t matter, if it meant she was safe.
Her room had been searched by the police and by Michael. I would try again. If she’d had a plan, there might be a clue. Her thick coat was in the closet, with her school skirts. I felt in the coat pockets. Nothing. All her shoes, neatly lined up, the green pumps, the Converses, the flip-flops. I slipped my hand into one of the pumps, felt the smooth dips in the leather sole where her toes had been. I opened the drawers of her bureau, pushed my hands under the jumbled sweaters. Nothing. The ornaments on the mantelpiece had been shifted; expert searching hands had taken the photos out of the frames to feel behind them and had replaced them slightly crookedly. Everything else was in its place: the little china horse, the old autumn leaves, stones from the beach in Greece, a pot of blusher, her jewelry case.
Below me in the house I heard the front door open, and Ted’s footsteps slowly cross the hall.
I sat on the bed and as I opened the white lid of the jewelry case, the little plastic ballerina in her pink net skirt pirouetted to faint broken music. I closed my eyes. When she had unwrapped the jewelry case on her sixth birthday, she’d found the curled coral necklace inside. Then my eyes snapped open. The necklace wasn’t there. I searched the inside of the box. Where was it? She always kept the corals in her jewelry case. They must have been taken out, recently taken. They had left a spiky indentation on the soft bed of old satin. I checked on the mantelpiece, on the floor, under the rug. Then I ran downstairs.
“She knew. She planned it.”
Ted was sitting in the chair, staring straight ahead, glass in hand. He turned to look at me blankly.
“Planned what?”
“Her necklace is gone, the corals that my mother gave her. They’re gone. She must have taken them with her.” I stopped for breath.
“How can you know that?” Ted’s voice was low and flat. “She could have lost them years ago.”
“They were taken out recently; you can still see the imprint.”
“She lost them recently, then.”
“No. She would never have lost them. She loved those corals. It means this was planned. She would have taken them with her. She knew she was leaving. That was why she smiled to herself.”
“She smiled to herself?”
“Yes. At the party.”
“What party?”
I ignored the question. My mind was spinning. I tried to remember back to the last time I saw her. Had she been wearing the corals then? Perhaps they had been in the bag with the shoes? The questions started to chase each other around and around.
“Jenny, you are completely exhausted.” He stood and put an arm around my shoulder. “You look as though you’ve been crying.”
His arm was heavy, his breath smelled sourly of alcohol. I moved back quickly.
“Don’t . . .”
He looked at me then as if he hardly knew me. He shrugged and started toward the stairs.
I called after him, “It means she wasn’t abducted, don’t you see?”
He continued toward the stairs. “I’m too tired for this,” he said. “Don’t bother with supper for me. I ate something at the hospital. I’m going to lie down.”
I watched as he went up the stairs, hauling himself by the banisters. It seemed to me then that he was slowly climbing out of my life. I didn’t care. She had taken her corals. She had planned to go. She was safe.
Chapter 29
DORSET, 2011
THIRTEEN MONTHS LATER
Naomi is dancing. She is Maria dancing with Tony and you can see she is falling in love. It’s different from the real West Side Story, but that doesn’t matter in my dream. The tempo is slow to start with and they dance close together, mirroring each other’s movements. Gradually the music quickens so they have to dance faster and faster, then it gets louder and louder until it stops being music and becomes ugly noise instead. There are stirrings in the audience. The lights begin to flicker so that the dance movements look jerky and strange. Something is wrong and mutterings spread. People are leaving the theater. The drums give a great crash, jolting me awake, leaving a fading echo in my head.
The beating of my heart slows in a few minutes. The dreams are happening every night now.
I haven’t thought about that theater for months. I push the hair out of my eyes so I can stare into the darkness at the images that are racing through my mind. He was a shape, a shadow, glimpsed at the back of the auditorium by the teacher and Nikita. James had seen him leaning against a wall inside.
Thoughts start to flicker in my mind like the lights in my dream. Had he left anything behind in the theater? A hat? Hairs from his dark coat brushing the seat? Anything that touched his skin could carry DNA. The police had looked in the theater, but they may have missed something. I’ll phone Michael and ask him what they did. I can go myself and search. He’ll think I’ve gone mad. Perhaps I have. Perhaps I’ll have to look everywhere again—how else can I be sure there is nothing more? Somewhere in the world there will be something that will prove he took her. I only have to find it.
I lie awake for the rest of the night, questions turning and turning in my head. At seven I phone Michael.
His voice is guarded but gentle. “I’ve been trying to reach you, Jenny. I wanted to come and see you last night, but it got too late. I’ve been feeling terrible. I shouldn’t have said that about finding DNA.”
“You were right.”
“No, I wasn’t. There isn’t a body, of course. There never has been. So of course there is no DNA.”
He may be going to tell me again that the only place they find criminal DNA in the hunt for a missing girl is inside her body, but I already know this. I know they look in her vagina, her esophagus, on her clothes, in her hair. I don’t want to hear any more words. If he doesn’t say them, I won’t have to see the pictures that go with them.
“I mean you were right that there was nothing in the wood,” I explain, to stop him telling me anything else.
“So you went after all? Ah, Jenny.” His mouth will be turning down at the corners. It was one of the first things I noticed about him; I remember thinking it was a good sign that things could still make him sad. “I told you the police had searched it all.”
“Did they search the theater?”
“The theater.” He repeats the words slowly.
“Yes. You see, I had this dream.” But if he thinks I’ve gone mad he won’t help me, so I begin again. “She was in West Side Story, remember?” A little pause follows my words.
“Of course I remember. We did a thorough search, starting with the changing room.”
“What does that mean, exactly, a thorough search?”
A little sigh, an unzipping noise as he pulls his laptop from the case. “I’ll phone you back with all the details in a moment.”
They would have started with the changing room where she had become Maria, but, thinking about it now, she had used it only to change her clothes. Afterward, changing back into her own clothes, she used to keep the makeup on. She had always applied it at home before she left as well. Why was that? Perhaps she met him on the way there or the way back. She had looked eighteen with that eyeliner and foundation. What had that allowed him to do?
When the phone goes, I answer quickly.
“As I thought, t
hey looked everywhere.” Michael’s voice is calmly certain. “I’ve got a list here.”
“Yes?”
“They fingerprinted everything, door handles, taps, the seats at the back of the theater, toilets. They went through every cabinet, the costume baskets, wastebaskets, and the rolling garbage cans outside.” There is a little pause. “They took up floorboards.”
I didn’t know that. So they thought she might be dead, even then.
“Jenny, this will have to stop.” He clears his throat, speaks louder. “You’ll drive yourself crazy.” He pauses, and then carries on more quietly, “Leave things to us. You can let go.”
“I can never let go.” There is silence on the phone. I continue anyway. “Michael, when you catch him, he’ll deny everything.” Yoska will shake his head with a half-hidden smile in his eyes. “He will know that without proper evidence we won’t have enough to convict him. We need something to prove he was with her.”
“You can’t look for it in the theater because of a dream.” He gives a little laugh.
And I can’t let the dream go; I can’t let her go with it.
I REDIAL. THE headmistress of Naomi’s school is in a staff meeting, but she phones me back after ten minutes.
Her tone is kindly. “How very good to hear from you again. I have so often wondered how you are getting on.”
“Fine, thanks, Miss Wenham.”
If she saw me, I’m sure that’s what she would think anyway. The months by the sea have done their work. I look much better than when she last saw me. She wouldn’t be able to tell that the wounds have been reopened; the bleeding isn’t visible from the outside.
“I was wondering about the theater,” I say carefully. “There may have been things left behind, that the police missed.” I hurry on, in case she interrupts and then I might lose my nerve. “I wanted to check. Something could still be there, even after all this time. I know it sounds stupid. Perhaps there’s a hat or a jacket . . .”
My words are tumbling out too quickly, and in the listening silence they sound absurd.
Miss Wenham is hesitant. “You can look, of course you can, my dear. But it’s unlikely you’ll find anything. It’s all very different now.”
“Different?” They might have self-locking doors now. Keypads with passwords or a guard at the door. Lessons learned because of Naomi.
“Well, it’s not finished yet,” the measured voice continues, “but we are in the home stretch. A past pupil left us money in his will, to refurbish.” There is a little pause, but I don’t reply and she carries on. “There have been many changes, a new stage and so on . . .” Her voice trails away in the silence. She realizes she is being tactless.
“Perhaps I could come and have a look, just in case.” I try to make my voice hopeful even as my heart is sinking. Too late, much too late.
“Once they’ve finished, one of the girls will take you round. Try again in a week or so. I’m so glad—”
I don’t wait to find out what she is glad about. I put the phone down. It will be too late when they’ve finished; I’ll go today. A jacket may still be hanging on a peg that they have all got used to walking by, a hat trodden underfoot, kicked into a corner somewhere. I can always look, even though I am almost fourteen months too late.
That’s how it works in medicine sometimes; the thought strikes me as I back the car out of the garage. You look again, or someone else does, and get the diagnosis just when everyone has given up. It’s sometimes the most obvious thing that no one has thought about. Jade’s face seems to float in the mirror for a second. It’s always worth looking again.
Bertie is in the front seat, nose on his paws, eyes closed, settled for the journey, but there is a knock on my window as I turn the car to face the road. Dan is standing there, taller in a new coat, collar up against the wind.
I lower the window. “Nice coat.”
“Thanks. Gran’s Christmas present. It’s always snowing in New York in films.”
“You’re really going, then?” I hadn’t realized time was passing in other lives as well.
“Leaving tomorrow. The course starts next week.” His face is guarded but his voice lifts with excitement.
“Wait, I’ll just park again.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll come back later.”
I know he won’t, and if he does I won’t be here. Switching off the engine, I get out quickly.
“Mary will miss you. I’ll miss you.”
He looks at his feet for a second and swallows.
“What’s the plan?” I ask quickly.
“I’m staying with Theo and Sam till I find somewhere.”
“Are you okay for money?” But it’s a question too far. He steps back, his face closed.
“You sound like my mum.”
“I am a mum, that’s why.”
“Not mine.” He looks at me, his flecky green eyes staring directly into mine. He continues, “I’ll let you know what happens.” He pauses. “Theo will, anyway.”
There is a second in which I might touch him, a second when he stands there, looking lost. As if he guesses my thoughts, he flushes and turns away. “See you later,” he says.
Then he’s walking away down the road and I haven’t even thanked him. I draw level with him outside the shop and lower the car window, but just at that moment two girls come out of the doorway and greet him. He steps into the road; I see him in the mirror, leaning forward a little, looking after the car. A moment later one of the girls moves toward him and takes his arm. I turn the corner in the car and they disappear. He will go to New York; he will start a new life. It’s all in front of him. A life to be lived, a whole uninterrupted life.
WE ARE IN Bristol by midday. When I was last here, it was summer. The chestnut trees on the Downs are bare and we missed the leaves falling. Naomi’s favorite time of year. I remember how surprised the searching policeman was by the collection of shriveled leaves in her room and the little heap of shrunken horse chestnuts on the dressing table.
I park outside our house. Bertie whines at the gate, tail wagging. The gatepost is rough under my fingers, the paint is peeling. The windows look dirty, and the front garden is thick with weeds. Inside will be tidy; thanks to Anya. Ted will be at work now. I look up at the tall dark windows, remembering how in my last months here all the bright warmth had leaked away, and in the dark emptiness even my own footsteps had begun to take on the quality of a dream.
I had waited here from November through to August last year, our marriage unraveling in those nine months while hope faded and friends drifted away. Frank understood when I couldn’t go back to work after the evening I had broken down. He found a temporary doctor again, but the thought of his waiting had added a sharp-edged layer of anxiety and I told him I wouldn’t return. That loss drowned in the months of nothing that followed. I had lain on her bed, or the floor of her room, motionless, watching the daylight bloom and darken as the hours passed. I had wanted to die. Then one day I went to the cottage again. Ed had needed some books he had left behind on a previous visit. He had begun to work for his final exams by then and was staying on in rehab. The light in Dorset seemed different. It was clearer, the air felt warmer. I could hear the gulls from the garden. I came home again, but as the search for Naomi slowed down and as the weeks dragged by, I thought of the cottage more and more. By the summer I had made a plan, and by the end of August I had left. I’ve lived off my inheritance. Ted would have given me what I needed if I had asked, but I’ve lived simply and haven’t needed his help.
For a moment I’m tempted to ring the bell. Anya might be here. But this house is Ted’s territory now and I pull Bertie from the gate.
There is scaffolding outside the theater. Ladders are propped against the wall and cast-iron radiators lie in a Dumpster. A couple of vans in the street outside have their doors open; there are workmen
inside on their tea break, hunched over steaming mugs. The doors of the theater are propped open. I hesitate, wondering if I can take Bertie with me. His presence gives me courage.
No one stops us as we go in, treading on the plywood sheets that protect shining new floorboards that have been laid in the entrance. Did they damage the old wooden ones when they took them up, looking for her body? The bar has been painted red; it’s bigger now and there is a new mirror behind it. The air is cloudy with dust and smells of plaster. Bertie sneezes twice. I pull open the heavy wooden doors to the auditorium, the harsh scents of paint and wood dust greeting us immediately. It is larger and brighter than it used to be. There are no dream-dark shadows anywhere under the hard light that bounces off the newly smooth walls. The stage has vanished. Splintered planks lie in a heap, some broken in two, and there is a great stack of long shining ones for the new stage leaning against the wall. Bertie, pulling ahead of me, almost tumbles into the trap room, the dark pit that was under the stage and is now revealed. Below us, as we stand at the edge looking down, a gray-haired man in blue overalls is measuring the floor with a spirit level. There are a couple of wooden stools, a plastic fireplace, and a heap of dirty canvas sacks in one corner. He looks up, his forehead glinting with sweat. He nods briefly at me, then, noticing the dog, his face softens and he walks nearer, reaching up to pat him.
“You shouldn’t have brought him in, though he’s lovely. Got one a bit like him at home. Were you looking for someone?”
“My daughter was in a play last . . . before . . . She lost some things. They might have been put somewhere?”