by Lesley Lokko
She opened her eyes on an unfamiliar bird, swaying almost within reach of her hand on spindly, jet-black legs. In the pause between the pleasurable balance of sleep and the harsh light of waking, she passed a tongue over her dry, parched lips and the magazine slipped from her stomach, startling the bird, which took off in a great flapping of wings. She sat up, dazed, looking around her. For the second time in as many days it took her a second to gather her thoughts: the children. She scrambled to her feet. There was no one in the pool. ‘Joshua? David?’ she called out, lifting a hand to shield her eyes. There was no answer. ‘Joshua?’ she called again, turning round. Maryam’s chair was empty. How could she have crawled out? A run of trembling went through her. She thrust her feet hurriedly into her flip-flops and ran towards the house. They must be inside. One of the boys must have taken her along.
The kitchen was empty; only the thrum and hum of the refrigerator broke the eerie silence. She felt the beginnings of a slow, terrible dread spread upwards through her belly and chest. She ran into the hallway. ‘David? Didier?’ Through the house, yanking the front door open, running out onto the white-pebbled driveway. Still no one. ‘Josh!’ The word was practically a scream. Back into the house, up the stairs, two at a time, she burst into their bedroom and still there was nothing. No sign of anyone. The beds were exactly as Clea had left them – neatly and perfectly made, as though they hadn’t been slept in the night before. She stood in the doorway swaying on legs that had turned to jelly. The beach. The thought of it made her insides churn over. She ran then, banging her elbow awkwardly against the bannister, feet stumbling over one another. Outside again, feet thudding, slapping against each other, down, down the narrow path to the beach, heart racing, fear a sour, metallic taste at the back of her mouth. The beach was empty; a wave of relief flowed over her – there were no bodies washed up on the shore. She felt the beginnings of tears and a sob escaped her mouth. If they weren’t at the beach, where were they? She turned in panic. Something moved just out of the corner of her eye; she whirled round and almost fell to the ground in relief. It was Cliff. He was climbing over the top of the nearest dune. ‘Cliff! Cliff! Where . . . where are the others?’
He lifted his head and pointed behind him. ‘They’re here,’ he called. ‘Right behind me.’
She could have wept. She stumbled across the long grasses, clutching her shift dress to her. In her panic, she’d forgotten to do it up. ‘Where did you go?’ she shouted as she ran towards them. ‘You know you’re not supposed to go anywhere without telling me! Cliff . . . Dean . . . you should know better!’ They all looked up at her as she bore down upon them with the half-fearful, half-confused look of children caught in the glare of an adult’s anger. Even little Didi looked scared. She forced herself to smile. ‘You gave me such a fright,’ she said, slowing to a walk. ‘I thought you’d got lost.’
‘We were just—’
‘We found—’
‘Cliff, show her . . . go on, you found them’
‘Where’s Maryam?’ Tash looked around her dazedly.
The five boys looked at her, then at each other. Joshua frowned. ‘She’s in her chair,’ he said indignantly. ‘We left her there.’
‘Where?’
‘Beside the pool. She was sleeping. We didn’t want to wake her up.’
She stared at them, a rising fear threatening to burst out of her throat. No. She had to remain calm. For their sakes, if not hers. She swallowed. All five were looking at her expectantly. She took in a deep breath and held Cliff, the oldest, by the shoulders. ‘I’m going back to the house, Cliff,’ she said, in what she prayed was a calm voice. ‘I want you to take the others straight back, d’you hear me? Straight back. I’m going to run ahead. Have you got that?’
Cliff squirmed under her fingers but nodded. ‘Yeah, sure.’ He was eight years old but to her, he seemed almost an adult.
‘Straight back. Don’t stop anywhere, you promise?’
‘Yeah.’
She took one look at the five of them and understood they’d caught something of her fear. They wouldn’t go anywhere. She turned and ran, barely stopping to draw breath.
Right up until the moment she lifted the receiver to dial 911 she thought Maryam might be found any minute now. It was fourteen minutes past one. Forty minutes since she’d woken up to find the children gone. There was a second’s pause as the numbers went through, then the calm, professional voice of the operator came down the line. ‘Emergency services. How may I direct your call?’
She opened her mouth but nothing came out. ‘I . . . I . . .’
‘How may I direct your call? Law enforcement, fire or ambulance services?’
‘P-p-police. Law enforcement. There’s a child missing,’ she gasped. There was another pause as her call was re-routed. A man’s voice came on the line and suddenly, the full weight of what was about to happen came down upon her.
REBECCA
It seemed to her as soon as she put down the phone that she’d been waiting for the call – or one like it – from the moment Maryam was born. When Tash had managed to choke out the words she’d been waiting nearly a year to hear, she put down the phone with hands that were surprisingly calm. Julian was sitting on the bed, his back to her, barking instructions into the mobile. Their suitcases were beside the door. His and hers. Black leather, Tumi badges, red trim. Details. Strange to think she had the capacity to notice.
‘Ju-Julian.’ She tried out the word on her tongue. He took no notice, still yelling into the phone, sorting out whatever it was that had to be sorted, back home. Home. Where was home? Where her children were, surely? ‘Julian.’ She said it louder this time. He half-turned towards her, impatience written in both his face and stance.
‘What is it?’ He held the mobile away from him.
‘It’s Tash.’ She wasn’t sure how she’d said it. ‘Tash,’ she repeated woodenly.
‘What? What’s the matter?’
‘She . . .’ She stopped, unable to say it out loud.
‘What?’
‘Maryam.’ There. She’d said her name.
He was beside her in an instant. She heard his mobile drop as if from a very great distance. She began to make a noise she’d never heard before – a half-groan, half-grunt – and saw the alarm in his face, quickly replaced by the rising terror she was sure was mirrored in hers. ‘Maryam,’ she said again, her voice quivering, breaking.
‘What’s the matter? What’s wrong with Maryam?’ He put out one hand to hold onto her and with the other, grabbed the phone she’d just replaced. ‘What is it, Rebecca?’ She covered his hand with her own, holding onto it as though for dear life. She tried again and again to speak, to tell him what Tash had just blurted out. But he was already dialling.
ANNICK
In one of those surprising moments of clarity in which the future is suddenly revealed, Annick knew that she would remember for the rest of her life the relief that flowed through her when she heard it was Maryam who was missing and not Didier. She gave out a strangled cry, causing Yves to look up from his laptop in alarm.
‘What is it?’ He threw the computer to one side and scrambled out of bed.
‘Th-thank you, yes . . . yes, we’ll be right there. Does her mother know? No, not her godmother, her mother. Rebecca. Rebecca Harburg, she’s—’
‘What is it?’ Yves was beside her. He took the phone from her. ‘Hello? This is Yves Pas—Ameyaw. Who is this?’ There was a few seconds’ silence as the police officer she’d just spoken to relayed the same facts to Yves. A child was missing. No, not their child. Mr and Mrs Lovell’s child, Maryam Lovell. Yes, a driver had been called. He’d be at the hotel in a few minutes, if they wouldn’t mind returning to Martha’s Vineyard? ‘We’ll be right there,’ Yves said, reaching out to hold Annick’s arm. ‘Thank you. What was your name again? Detective Sergeant Vargas? Varga. Thank you, Detective Varga. We’ll see you shortly.’ He put down the phone and turned to her. ‘Maryam’s missing.’ He said it slow
ly, as if he were dazed.
Annick swallowed. Shame welled in her throat like nausea. ‘I know . . . she . . . I thought—’
‘I know what you thought,’ Yves said quickly. He pulled her towards him roughly, pressing her head against his neck. She began to sob – great heaving, dry sobs that shuddered through her. ‘Don’t,’ Yves said quietly, stroking her hair. ‘Don’t think about it, chérie. Let’s just get there first.’
‘Th-they thought Tash was the mother; they got it wrong . . . I told her, Tash is her godmother, not her mother and—’ She had to stop. Her teeth were chattering.
‘We’ve got to go, Annick. Help me.’ Yves gave her a gentle shake. ‘Come on. We’ve got to pack up. The detective said they were sending a car over. Let’s go.’
She followed him numbly. She couldn’t think straight. What the hell had happened? Missing? What did that mean? As they emptied the suite, hurriedly gathering up their possessions, something else came to her . . . why wouldn’t Yves look at her? He was avoiding her eyes, just as she was avoiding the shame of her own relief. Something wasn’t right.
TASH
‘Ma’am?’ She looked up. It was a female police officer. She couldn’t focus properly on the woman’s badge. ‘You need to come with me.’
‘Wh-where? Wh-where are you taking me?’
The woman’s voice was surprisingly gentle. ‘Ma’am. You need to get dressed.’
Tash looked down at herself. She was still wearing the long linen shirt and the red bikini she’d been wearing that morning. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Y-yes,’ she stammered. ‘I’ll . . . I’ll just go upstairs . . . my bedroom . . .’
‘Ma’am, I need to accompany you. Will you show me the way?’
In silence, with the woman’s hand on her arm to guide her, Tash walked unsteadily out of the room.
The woman detective – Detective Sergeant Maria Varga of Troop D-4, Field Section of the Massachusetts State Police, Middleborough HQ – was still talking to her, her calm voice barely raising a notch as Tash fumbled her way into a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. It was nearly two thirty. Maryam had been missing for two hours. The house was now full of people. Within half an hour of making the call, police and officers from the various departments and agencies trained to deal with such emergencies had descended upon them. Rebecca and Julian were on their way; Annick and Yves would follow shortly. The scared and confused children had been taken upstairs. Maria Varga was asking her something. She frowned and tried to concentrate.
‘Wh-what d’you mean?’ she stammered, her hands refusing to do the work of buttoning a cardigan.
‘Were you drinking, Miss Bryce-Brudenell?’ Detective Sergeant Varga’s voice was steady. ‘We found an almost-empty bottle of gin on the kitchen counter. How many did you have before you went outside with them?’
Tash opened her mouth to explain. ‘It’s not like that. I’m not . . . I don’t—’
‘You don’t need to explain anything to me. I just want the facts, Miss Bryce-Brudenell. How many drinks did you have?’
REBECCA
She remembered little of the terrifying dash from the hotel to the airport, a journey of no more than an hour; it seemed triple that. She was dimly aware of Julian’s hand holding hers tight and hard throughout. A cold, terrible dread seeped through her every pore so that she could barely breathe. Her thoughts were confused and incoherent; Maryam, Tariq, Tash, Julian, the boys, her mother . . . round and round, forwards and backwards, this way and that, each possibility more terrifying than the next, until she thought she might actually be sick. The dreaded phone call that every parent reads about but deep, deep down, prays will never be one that they will receive, bobbed back to the surface of her consciousness, over and over again. ‘Maryam’s gone missing, Rebecca . . . we’ve searched everywhere . . .’ Tash’s voice. What had happened next? Did she drop the phone? Say something? Explode? She couldn’t remember. Other things came back to her – Julian’s back, the fine fabric of his light-blue shirt stretched across his muscles as he leaned forwards into his telephone call; the dark plum velvet of the curtains, herringbone weave of the carpet, the colours of the satin bedspread. But not her response, not that.
The same driver who’d picked them up barely a week earlier was waiting for them. There was another man with them: a tall, lean man with a craggy, weather-beaten face. Detective Carducci. She took in the name numbly. It was Julian who did the talking. Nearly a year old, dark hair, dark eyes . . . he pulled out his wallet and handed the photo over across the seats that divided them. Rebecca looked away. She had to hold her hands, one on top of the other, to stop herself reaching over and tearing it from his hands. Maryam’s picture had no place being passed from father to detective in the back of a chauffeur-driven car. She swallowed and swallowed again. It seemed inconceivable that they were driving along the same route, rolling blue sea on one side, houses of unimaginable splendour on the other, a beautiful, early summer day just like the one they’d landed on . . . there was nothing in the landscape that even hinted at the terror lying within her, lying within them all. Julian still had hold of her; every now and then she felt a tremor pass through his fingers. She sat numbly beside him, speechless, as though paralysed. The car glided along smoothly, braking when necessary, picking up speed as they left the town behind, each of the four occupants lost in their own terrible, private fears.
TASH
The dread they brought with them blew into the house like one of those storms that came up off the ocean suddenly, mowing down everything in its path. She could feel it even before the car came to a juddering stop. Feet running across the pebbles, officers getting to their feet, the ‘crack!’ as the front door burst open and suddenly there they were. Rebecca and Julian.
Rebecca’s face was twisted, made ugly with dread. ‘Where is she? What have you done with my child?’ The words exploded like gunshot. Tash jumped to her feet.
‘No, no . . . it’s not . . . I was watching her, Rebecca, I swear . . . I don’t know what happened. They were all there, all of them. It was just for a moment, Rebecca, I swear. I just shut my eyes for a moment—’ Her teeth were chattering; she couldn’t get the words out fast enough. They were all looking at her with the same wild-eyed stare. A stare of accusation, of disbelief . . . of hate. She felt her stomach turn over.
‘Mrs Lovell, please.’ There were three law enforcement officers in the room – she’d forgotten their names already. The detective who’d accompanied the driver – Carducci? Carlucci? – quickly moved forwards, taking Rebecca by the arm. She shook it off angrily.
‘Don’t you dare try and squirm out of this one, Tash!’ she screamed. ‘This isn’t something you can buy your way out of! Where’s my child?’
Tash took a step backwards. Buy her way out of it? What was Rebecca saying? ‘I—’
‘Rebecca, darling, don’t say that. It’s probably just—’ Annick stepped in, putting an arm round Rebecca, who was almost bent double. Julian was looking from side to side, as if he couldn’t quite grasp what was going on. Rebecca shook off Annick’s arm in the same way she’d pushed aside the police officer.
‘Don’t you fucking tell me what to say! You’re just relieved it’s not your child! Go on, admit it! You’re all just standing there! Why don’t—’
‘Mrs Lovell,’ one of the female officers was more forceful. ‘Don’t. None of this is helpful. I need to ask you a few questions and—’
Tash stood by, open-mouthed with fear and shock. A sudden burst of static from a walkie-talkie shattered the air and then the officers all began to talk at once, that strange, surreal mixture of words and phrases familiar to her from American television shows – AMBER alert; primary officers; securing the site; anything with her scent – each bringing on a new wave of deeper, more terrifying fears. Everything seemed to happen at once. She watched one of the officers whisper to the other and then they both moved towards Rebecca, gripping her firmly by both arms. She struggled, of course, but th
ey were not only stronger, they were professionals. Weeping uncontrollably, Rebecca was led out of the room. Outside she could hear more cars arriving and the sound of a hysterical Clea being questioned in the hallway. Betty Lowenstein was in the corner, her face as hard as stone. It was Betty who’d come upon her in the study and it was Betty who’d prized the glass of vodka out of her clenched hand. She’d said nothing; she didn’t need to.
‘It’s not my fault,’ Tash screamed suddenly, the pressure erupting in her chest. ‘It’s not my fault. Please, please believe me . . . it’s not my fault!’
No one spoke. No one even looked at her.
119
TARIQ MALOUF
Martha’s Vineyard
He looked at his watch. It was almost a quarter to three. Across from him, Maryam sat in a high chair that the friendly waitress had so kindly found for them. Father and daughter. His wife, he explained with a practised ease that astonished him, had taken the car with their other two children, leaving him alone with Maryam, their youngest. Her pushchair was in the boot; they’d forgotten to take it out.
‘Oh, no problem,’ she said, cheerfully empathetic in the way that only Americans can be. No problem. Two minutes later, she was back with the chair. ‘What would she like?’ she’d asked, gazing in open admiration at Maryam. ‘She’s a lot like you. Her mom must be really beautiful, too.’
He felt his throat constrict and it took him a few seconds to compose himself sufficiently to answer. ‘Mashed bananas. With cream, if you’ve got any.’ It was her older sister’s favourite and had been since she was the same age. The older sister Maryam would never see, never know. ‘And a black coffee for me.’
One look at her. That was what he’d promised himself. Just one glimpse. After that terrible day in Jerusalem where he’d forced himself to walk away – from Rebecca, Maryam, the affair, the Harburgs, everything – he’d tried to put her out of his mind and, for the most part, he’d succeeded. But then he’d seen an article about some society wedding or other in one of the magazines his wife devoured endlessly . . . and it all came flooding back. It took him a few seconds to recognise Rebecca in the photograph. She’d left dozens of messages, saying where they were going. It was a two-hour drive from his home in Connecticut. One glimpse, that was all. He wanted to be sure.