by Jane Shemilt
In the growing light, Michael’s face is white with fatigue, and after a while he goes upstairs to sleep. I hear his shoes drop to the floor, the little noises of effort as he pulls off his clothes and then the bed creaking. After that there is quiet. The silence is so deep it’s as though a faint tune that had been playing in the background has now stopped.
Ed said I didn’t have a bloody clue.
But I did. I had a lot of clues. They had been all around me for a long time. I close my eyes and remember the last time I was in her room. It was the day Ted left me, the day I left the house. Even then I could have seen the clues.
BRISTOL, 2010
EIGHT MONTHS AFTER
Ted went for a long walk in the morning. He told me he didn’t want to be there when I left for the final time. It was a Sunday. I remember that, because for years I had been used to him leaving every day of the week except for Sundays. When he had gone, I went upstairs to Naomi’s room. The moving men were coming at noon. I had packed up what I needed to take to the cottage. The rest would stay in the house for Ted.
It was already hot. The sun was bright in a high cloudless sky, one of those perfect summer days children are supposed to remember all their lives. The room was empty apart from the bed and the curtains, which were closed. The air felt stifling. I opened the window and pulled the curtain back a little. Below me, the street was empty. The journalists had long gone, drifting away to other tragedies where the pickings were richer. As I watched, the air warm on my skin, a woman in a summer dress came around the corner, leaning forward with one hand on a stroller. She held a cell phone clamped against her ear and her head was moving. From here she looked like the little nodding doll that I’d loved when I was small but lost years ago. The stroller was deeply padded and I couldn’t see the child at all. I watched until the woman disappeared from sight, her head still moving up and down.
The curtain beneath my hand felt edged with dust, heavy and soft. The material was striped gold and scarlet. Naomi and I had chosen it together, at John Lewis three or four years before. But we hadn’t been together, not really. I had picked out a roll of leaf-patterned cotton in gray, white, and lemon yellow, imagining how the diffusing light would paint the room in fresh colors. There was another I liked with tiny flowers. I had turned to ask Naomi to decide, but she was already walking to the cashier carrying this exotic-looking cloth in a roll that was taller than she was. It was richly colored with shiny bands of yellow and red. It looked so gaudy with its big stripes. I told her it would stop the light coming in and how different her room would feel from the other rooms in our house. It would be dark and enclosed. Like a hidden cave, with no light, full of secrets. She had smiled. A forerunner of the little half smile. “That’s exactly what I want,” she had said.
Chapter 31
DORSET, 2011
FOURTEEN MONTHS LATER
Into the silence of the kitchen at daybreak comes a sudden noise of tearing or burning; in a second the sound resolves itself as rain falling fast and hard on the thatch. The water against the window is the color of the gray sky. I must hurry with my letters. I want to start the journey and it will take longer in the rain. As I rip out the blank pages in my sketchbook for paper to write on, the flimsy binding comes apart in my hands and the pictures fall, fanning out as they hit the floor: the drawing of her shoes, a toy giraffe, the little hooded top, Michael’s hands. Other pages flutter down on top of them and I leave them where they have fallen.
Ted,
As I write this you are sleeping, but by the time you get it I will have spoken to you and you will have told the boys. I thought if I sent letters as well, it might help. I used to wonder whether knowing would be better than hoping. I can’t tell. It doesn’t feel real yet.
It wasn’t your fault or, if it was, it was mine as well. I should have been more careful when Yoska came to see me. He might have forgiven us. He must have been unsure even then; he belonged to a family so would have known how we would suffer. In the end, I think he took her because they were in love; we couldn’t have changed that.
I’m leaving for Wales. I’m hoping someone at the camp may tell me where he buried them.
Please tell Anya,
I’ll come to Bristol as soon as I can.
Jenny
The scrape of my nib is tiny against the relentless rain. The kitchen feels warm and enclosed, but where will he be when he reads this? The boys will be with him; maybe Anya quietly moving in the background. I see her face, streaming with tears.
Darling Ed,
By now Dad will have told you what happened to our dearest Naomi.
At least she found what she wanted; lots of people never do.
If she hadn’t gotten ill, she would have brought her baby to see us, sooner or later.
I’m so glad you have Sophie.
I’ll see you later today or tomorrow. I’m thinking about you all the time.
Mum
I hope Sophie’s arms are around him. I hope she is wearing her bright colors. She’ll listen to him, make it easier for him.
I flick the kettle on. Bertie shifts a little at the noise, then sleeps. The coffee is black and scalding hot.
Theo’s is difficult to write; it feels as though I am brushing his brightness with thick dark paint.
Theo darling,
You will be on your way home so I will send this to Bristol. I hope Sam is there, sitting next to you.
You said she didn’t talk to you much before she left. It was the same for me. I think she was saying good-bye.
She took the baby cup, the one with the frog at the bottom. I’ve got it now.
When we find her and the baby, I’m going to bring them home. They will be buried here in the churchyard, so we’ll know where she is.
Mum
The rain is softer, the light stronger. Last two letters.
Nikita,
I am going to phone your mum today, so she will have told you by now what has happened.
Michael told me that you knew she was pregnant. She would be pleased you kept her secret safely. She had a little daughter, I don’t know her name.
I think the corals were her good-bye present to you, even if you didn’t know she was going. I’m glad you have them.
Jenny
Michael’s letter is the hardest. I know him so well and yet so little—it’s like writing to a stranger. I try out sentences in my head as I pace the kitchen, but they look artificial on the page. There is so much to say that I can’t find the words and I end up writing almost nothing.
Dear Michael,
I’m leaving now and I’m not sure when I’ll be back.
Bertie will be happier here. Can you let him out and feed him before you go? There’s half a tin in the fridge. Mary will take him in until I get back. I’ll phone her; she’ll come and fetch him.
I need to be with my family. I know you’ll understand.
Jenny
I leave Michael’s envelope propped against the coffee jar on the table and address the others to the Bristol house, even Nikita’s. I can’t remember her address. No stamps, but I can stop somewhere.
Michael’s fingers are curved loosely on the duvet cover. When I slip my hand inside his, his grip tightens but his eyes stay closed. I ask him in a whisper where Yoska’s parents have been taken, so I’ll know where to start from. He sleepily murmurs the name, then his hand relaxes again and his breathing becomes deep and regular.
Newtown. A market town on the banks of the River Severn in Powys, Mid Wales. The tourist website gives me the postal code and I put it into the GPS. I must drive slowly; I haven’t slept. It’s been four hours since Michael woke me and the time has fallen away, vanished. The shock is echoing in my head; I’m still waiting for the pain.
I let the car roll down the little slope into the road quietly and st
art the engine out of earshot of the cottage.
THE FOLDED DORSET landscape flattens into Somerset. I drive past Bristol, just a sign on the motorway that disappears behind me. I stop in a garage in Newport, the letters skidding off the dashboard to the floor. I phone Mary briefly; without asking questions she agrees immediately to look after Bertie. Then I phone Ted. When he answers, I hear the radio in the background. I picture him at the window in the bedroom, tightening the knot of his tie, planning his day.
I warn him it’s bad news and I hear him turn off the radio and sit down. Then I tell him what happened. In the silence that follows I hear myself say she had been part of a different family. She had given birth to a daughter. She hadn’t been raped or maimed, she’d been loved. He starts crying and I try to talk to him some more. I tell him I am going to post him a letter, but there is silence. After a while he puts the phone down.
I buy a cup of coffee, but it tastes bitter and I tip it on the ground and start off again. The roads are filling with cars and trucks. I drive faster. Michael said they had been biding their time; they might be packing up to go now.
At Cardiff I turn off and take the road to Pontypridd and Merthyr Tydfil. The Black Mountains. It starts to rain, and I drive carefully as the road dips and curls around the Brecon Beacons. Theo must have brought her somewhere here; her eyes were so alive in his photos. We came here once too, just Naomi and I. She would have been nine, maybe ten. Her blonde pigtails pushed under a pink woollen hat, her legs in waterproof pants climbing up the brown slopes, ahead of me, always. She stood on high ridges, too high; leaning into the wind. I couldn’t look.
I get to Newtown at midday and find a small pub on the road with parking space. The journey so far has taken four hours. It’s warm inside the pub and the smell of stale beer and old dog is overwhelming. Music is playing from the jukebox by the wall, and a few men sitting near the window are reading newspapers and drinking. An old collie lies under the table, eyeing me sleepily. The woman, drying glasses behind the bar, rolls her eyes when I ask if there is a Travelers’ camp nearby but stays silent.
Behind me, male voices chip in. The gentle singsong lilt at odds with their speech.
“There’s been a camp near Llanidloes for months.”
They are watching me, talking around ends of cigarettes, eyes narrowed against the smoke. I thought smoking had been banned in pubs, but I keep quiet.
“They’ve been nicking stuff. Coming into town causing trouble.”
“The police don’t do anything.”
“Gypos. Did you see that in the papers about the drugs?”
“Pikeys.”
I leave quickly without saying good-bye.
LLANIDLOES IS A pretty place with an old timbered market hall. In a Budgens at the crossroads a man in a brown apron is stacking shelves with jars of peanut butter. He straightens and looks down at me.
“You don’t want to go there,” he says. When I persist, he shrugs, takes my map, and rests it against the empty shelf.
“It’s beyond Bwlch y sarnau,” he says, pointing with an orange-stained finger. “Take the B4518 out of town. When you see the mailbox by the gray bungalow on your right, take the next left and then left again. It’s in a dip. You’ll see a stony track leading into their field. There’s dogs, mind.”
He wants to say something else. Perhaps he wants to tell me there was trouble last night. The police got involved. High time, he might say. He watches me closely as I leave.
I am on a twisting downhill road when a Toyota Land Cruiser comes toward me. I back into a gateway. It’s followed by a car pulling a horse trailer. I wait as it moves slowly by. As I inch out, a minibus comes by, so I back in again. It passes, children at the window staring. Bags and packages and suitcases press against the glass; it’s then that I realize that some of the Travelers are moving out, as Michael had said that they would, at least the ones who haven’t been taken into custody.
If I drive on farther I can turn in the track the man in the shop told me about. I can catch up with them if I’m quick. Around the corner the track and a field come into sight. There’s a group of trailers toward the edge of the field, near some trees a hundred yards away from where I park. Most of the trailers are behind a striped tape attached to poles, which sections off that part of the site. In the middistance, toward the back of the field, there are about ten policemen and men in yellow oilskins, bent over in a line, digging.
There is a trailer in front of the tape, and a man is fixing its towing hook to the back of a muddy Land Rover. This must be the last family the police are allowing to leave. The rain has stopped, and a dark-haired little boy of about six, with a thumb in his mouth, leans against the trailer in a patch of sun, watching the man at work. When I get out of the car and push the gate open, the movement snags the child’s attention, though the police in the distance don’t notice; if they did, they would probably stop me. The boy turns to stare and the man beside him straightens. His face, edged with gray stubble and reddened with effort, appears older than his body. Sixty? Seventy? He looks at me briefly, nods, then bends again to his task. In a moment he calls something I can’t catch. A middle-aged woman comes stiffly down the steps of the trailer; she is dressed in black, with a black scarf tied around her long dark hair. She carries a large canvas bag over one shoulder and takes the free hand of the little boy. Without glancing at me, she opens the door of the Land Rover. The little boy is ushered in ahead of her. As she is stepping in after him, she turns her head toward the open door of the trailer.
“Carys,” she calls, singing the word in her Welsh accent.
I look around the site. Besides the trailers, there are pale squares in the green grass where other vans must have stood. There are no dogs on chains; several garbage bags tied neatly lean together in a heap. There is a patch of deeply charred grass in the middle. One of the policemen in the distance calls something and waves me back. I step back outside the gate.
“Carys,” the woman calls again, then ducks out of sight into the Land Rover.
The trailer door is pushed wider open and a young woman comes out. As I glance at her, I stop breathing and hold the gate tightly. She has shaved her head so it seems small. The stubble has been dyed red, which matches her long skirt. Her skin is very pale. A tattoo wraps around her neck, and from here it looks like leaves. She is carrying a little girl of about six months in her arms and the child has red hair too; I can see her bright curls from here. The child has been wrapped in a red-and-yellow-striped blanket and it looks as if she is asleep. At the bottom of the steps the young woman half turns so she is facing the gate, the baby held across her like a shield.
The fingers holding the carrier are long, though from here it’s impossible to tell if there are still freckles, like grains of Demerara sugar, reaching to the second knuckle. It’s too far to see the little mole beneath her left eyebrow. Her gaze meets mine; her eyes are calm, though there are red marks underneath them as though she has been crying. We look at each other. I will think about this forever, but there are things in her glance that I will never know how to name. Recognition. Yes. Vengeance, shuttered. She made Maria vengeful when Tony died. Was that a warning? Something else, something softer . . . Sorrow or forgiveness? She is there. That’s all. She is there. The world disappears around her. The lies they told the police fall away. I don’t cry or laugh or even smile. There isn’t room. There isn’t time.
“Carys. We’re leaving.”
I start running toward her then, but my feet slip in the wet mud by the gate. As I fall clumsily on my side she turns away and the baby’s soft face is squashed tightly against her thin neck. She bends into the car, with the child, vanishing from sight.
I get to my feet, coated in mud, and stumble into a run. By now the car has started and the wheels are spinning. It jumps forward, engine roaring. I keep running toward it and for a moment it seems I’ll reach it
in time, but it’s moving faster all the time, speeding toward the gate. If I run in front it will surely stop. As I change direction it comes so close that the bumper brushes my leg, and despite myself I swerve. The side of her face, half hidden by the child, is so near that if the window was open I could reach out and touch her. Then, suddenly, she lifts her hand to the glass, her fingers spread wide. In that fragment of time I see the clear red lifeline on her palm, curving like a line on a map. Then the car has gone by; it doesn’t stop as it turns onto the road but it accelerates up the hill and quickly goes out of sight.
FIFTEEN MONTHS LATER
Carys. It’s a Welsh name. I looked it up. It means “love.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my agents, Eve White, Jack Ramm, and Rebecca Winfield.
Many thanks to the team at Penguin UK, especially Samantha Humphreys, Maxine Hitchcock, Celine Kelly, Beatrix McIntyre, Joe Yule, Clare Parkinson, and Elizabeth Smith.
Thank you to the team at William Morrow, including my editor, Rachel Kahan, also Kim Lewis, Lorie Young, and Mumtaz Mustafa.
My gratitude to my tutors, including Patricia Ferguson, Chris Waking, Tessa Hadley, Mimi Thebo, and Tricia Wastvedt.
Thanks to my writing group: Tanya Atapattu, Hadiza Isma El-Rufai, Victoria Finlay, Emma Geen, Susan Jordan, Sophie McGovern, Peter Reason, Mimi Thebo, and Vanessa Vaughan.
I am grateful to police constable Nick Shaw for the police details and for his help with the manuscript and to my sister, Katie Shemilt, for her photographic skills.
My family made all the difference. Martha’s encouragement was the starting point. Henry and Tommy were generous with their technical skills. Steve, Mary, and Johny were the essential backup team.
To my father and mother, whom I miss every day, thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
While working full time as a physician, JANE SHEMILT received an M.A. in creative writing. She was shortlisted for the Janklow and Nesbit award and the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize for The Daughter, her first novel. She and her husband, a professor of neurosurgery, have five children and live in Bristol, England.