In Her Wake

by Amanda Jennings

  I miss her so much.

  My mind flips to the day before Henry killed himself. When we sat together beneath the oak tree, when he was unable to tell me what he wanted to say. The pain that haunted him. He wasn’t lying. He wasn’t. They took me. They lied to me. They kept me locked up.

  But I miss her so much.

  I press my fingers into my temples as the tumbling anxiety begins to subside and my knotted stomach eases.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I mumble. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.’

  ‘Had a bit of a turn.’ She stands up and reaches into her bag. ‘A panic attack. My sister-in-law has them. Maybe some water?’

  I drink from the small bottle of mineral water she hands me.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘No bother.’ She sits back down in her seat. ‘You should probably see a doctor when you get where you’re going. And get yourself a paper bag. Paper bags help.’

  I concentrate on breathing slow and deep and watch her as she goes back to the crossword. She looks nice. Kind. I imagine she has a big family. A kitchen table that holds lots of grown-up children, maybe a few grandchildren. There’s joking and laughing. They pass around bowls of buttery vegetables and a jug of gravy, and the lady in the camel coat tells them all to eat up before it gets cold.

  Did she read about the girl who went missing in France twenty-five years ago? Did she give it any thought? Did she watch the news then climb the stairs and check on her own sleeping children? Kiss them gently? Tuck their blankets around them? Thank her lucky stars it wasn’t them?

  SEVENTEEN

  The train eases into Penzance station, and as they stand and stretch their cramped bodies the excited murmurings of passengers fills the carriage. I wait until most have got off the train and then walk back to my original seat to fetch my bag. It’s a relief to find that the man in the suit has already left. I reach up and pull my bag off the luggage rack. I trace my fingertips over it and my mind drifts. I imagine how lovely it would be if I was arriving for a holiday. If this bag held a few books, a bottle of coconut-scented suncream, a beach towel and a swimming costume, and I could unfurl the towel across a wide, flat rock that’s been warmed by the sun, then settle down to read with the heat on my skin.

  A loud call from outside the train jolts me out of my daydream, and surreality resettles itself over me like a leaden shawl as I hoist my bag on to my shoulder. I move towards the door reluctantly, unsure what lies beyond, unsure what my first move will be.

  But when my foot touches the platform, as the smell in the station envelops me, something extraordinary happens, something I can’t explain. Perhaps it’s in my mind, but I feel an immediate connection, like an electric charge running up the inside of my legs and through my body. The hairs on my skin prickle. I have a sudden and vivid recollection of being here before, surrounded by the sounds of the station, the murmur of voices, hundreds of footsteps on the concrete platform. A hand holds mine. Pulls me along. Jerking my shoulder. A voice tells me not to cry. I remember crying…

  And then it’s gone.

  Was that fleeting image real or imagined? I search my head for more, stand motionless for a minute, breathing the salt-water air and train fuel deep into my body, in the hope it returns. But there is nothing and I soon become aware of the last remaining passengers jostling around me, arranging luggage on trollies and greeting loved ones. The whole station is filled with the cries of seagulls from somewhere above the enormous arching vault of the roof. It all feels familiar, yet alien at the same time. My mind is playing tricks on me.

  I am the last to leave the station; I have plenty of time, unlike the others who hurry home for cups of restorative tea and cake, maybe a scone with jam and cream. As I walk I focus on placing one foot in front of the other. I feel the ground beneath each heel. Beneath each toe.

  One, two, three, four, I count. One, two, three, four.

  Each step takes me closer.

  To what?

  I don’t know.

  One, two, three, four.

  Outside the sky is dull, the grey of old cotton underwear, with no sign of the sun. It isn’t unpleasant, more of a nothing day, as if whoever’s in charge of the weather has forgotten to paint it in. Across the road is the taxi rank, where a couple of cars with bored-looking drivers wait. Behind that is a wall that holds the sea at bay. There is a boy on the wall, sitting beside a man I take to be his father. At a guess the boy is nine or ten. He’s eating chips from a cone of paper patched with grease. Above their heads wheel a pair of seagulls. I watch as one of the birds takes its chance and dive-bombs the child, screeching as it falls, attempting to grab chips straight from the cone. The boy shouts and his father jumps up, starts flailing his arms as the other gull joins the first, both birds ignoring the man’s attempts to shoo them off. Two more join from nowhere and they hover menacingly around the boy, who in panic throws a couple of chips as far as he can. The gulls are on them in seconds, shrieking and fighting for a share of the prize. The man says words I can’t hear and the boy nods and stuffs a handful of chips in his mouth before hurrying after his father. I watch the two of them settle themselves in the bus shelter. The father glances warily at the sky and seeing no looming thieves, allows himself a smug smile before leaning in to pinch a chip.

  I cross the car park to the wall where the gulls are still scrapping on the pavement. Yet again the sea steals my breath. Here it is different from the gentle brown water lapping the shore by the railway. It is angrier, darker, a gunmetal grey fringed with deep green and white as it crashes over enormous jagged rocks. I am transfixed by it. By the relentless way it pummels the shore and the noise it makes as it strikes the sea wall, sending up a fine mist of water to spritz my face and salt my lips. I used to beg Elaine to take me to the seaside. She had a hundred reasons not to go – sandy picnics, sticky saltwater, gritty toes, uncomfortable pebbles, too hot, too cold, too many people, too unhygienic – so instead our holidays were spent in the Cotswolds. We went for one week every year, setting off on the first Saturday of August and always to the same cottage, thatched with no near neighbours, and with chintzy curtains that were drawn the instant we walked in.

  ‘Why on earth,’ Elaine would mutter, as she unpacked the cooler bag of food, ‘would anyone want to spend precious holiday time meeting imperfect strangers they’ll never see again?’

  I’d been so bored the last few years we’d been, it had taken every ounce of effort to muster my excited smile as we pulled up in front of the cottage.

  ‘Well, here we are,’ Elaine would say, patting her lap with both hands. ‘On holiday.’

  Cue my excited smile.

  Henry would never say anything. He just parked the car and silently unloaded the cases.

  Staring out across the endless expanse of water, knowing what I suspect is true, I wish I’d been more trouble. I wish I’d argued more.

  Stamped my foot and slammed some doors. I should have told them I hated that stupid Cotswold cottage. I should have crept out after bedtime to drink cider in a nearby graveyard with all the other bored teens. I should have screamed at the top of my voice and smoked out of the bathroom window and played punk music at full volume. They stole me. I should have been a little bitch. I should have made them regret taking me every day of their stinking lives. Instead, I did as I was told, did everything I could to make Elaine happy, because when she was happy she was lovely and I adored her, but when she was upset, her unpredictable behaviour – the black moods, her quick anger, the way she hurt herself, scratching and cutting her arms and face – scared me. So I did everything I could to keep her happy. And Henry did the same. Her emotions were the epicentre of our lives. If Elaine was stable the home was stable. And though Henry and I never openly discussed it, this was the unwritten rule between us. Keep her happy, keep her stable.

  I lean against the stone wall and peer down into the heaving swell. I picture the sea floor below, fathoms of cold, murky water between us. I feel it cold on my
skin, the way it makes me tingle, a numbness creeping through my body. I bend to pick up a pebble. It lies in the palm of my hand and I run my fingers over it, enjoying its cool smoothness. Then I close my fist around it and throw it as far as I can, watching it break the surface of the roiling sea with a splash and disappear.

  I reach into my jeans pocket and pull out the letter that contains the Tremaynes’ address. But as I stare at it I know I’m not ready. I need time to prepare. To get my head around what on earth I will do when they open the door. What will I say?

  Hello, so you know your daughter? The one who went missing? Well … surprise!

  I think of David. Am I wrong to attempt to do this without him? I remind myself how he hurt my hand, the look in his eye as he told me to calm down. No. I am better without him. But then I imagine his serious eyes looking directly at me. His voice, unwavering and emphatic, speaking words that make sense, like a well-written instruction manual. I root around in the bottom of my bag for my mobile phone. Maybe if I call him, hear his voice for a few seconds, it will give me strength.

  I hold the phone and picture him answering my call. He’ll be in his office at this time of day, most likely in the middle of a tutorial. I see him sitting at his desk, surrounded by books on floor-to-ceiling shelving, more on his desk, more on the windowsill. I found his love of books reassuring that first day I met him, after I’d walked with him from the lecture theatre to his office, listening to him tell me about the café and the coffee and the cake to die for. In my mind, there’s a student with him. He’s trying to concentrate on what she is saying. But he can’t. He’s staring at the framed photograph of me, tapping a pen rhythmically against his desk, his lips tight with worry. Then, as I watch him, he glances up at the student. I see her clearly now. She is a first year, and pretty, no, more than pretty, she is beautiful, with dark, shiny hair and a T-shirt that’s a size too tight stretched over her full, rounded bosom. She looks at him through her eyelashes, smiles a lopsided smile through parted lips that betrays her infatuation. He smiles back at her and then lays my picture face down.

  I turn on the phone and I look down at the screen. Thirty-six missed calls and fifteen texts since I turned it off this morning. As I debate whether to read the texts, the phone rings and startles me. David’s name flashes up. I hesitate, my finger hovering over the keypad for a moment before I answer the call.

  ‘Bella. My God. Where are you?’

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘Bella, can you hear me? Please say something, for crying out loud. Where are you? Are you back at home? Christ, I can’t believe you’ve done this. I’m worried. You’ve made me so desperately worried.’

  I bite my knuckle to stop myself from speaking. If I speak, if I connect with him, I know I’ll falter. I know I’ll sit down, right there beside the sea wall, and wait for him to come and get me. And if he comes for me I will have to tell him and then it will be out in the open, and before long it will be in the newspapers, on the television, on social media. It will be hashtagged, discussed, devoured and spat out before I even know what’s fact and what’s fiction.

  I turn the call off. My heart pumps blood around my body. I stare at the phone.

  I need to do this on my own. For the first time in my life I must take control of myself. So I set my mouth, fix my look straight ahead, and cross the car park in the direction of the taxi rank. As I pass a bin, I drop my phone into it and a burst of exhilaration floods me.

  One, two, three, four.

  ‘You’re OK,’ I whisper. ‘Small steps, one after the other.’

  One, two, three, four.

  ‘You can do this.’

  EIGHTEEN

  The taxi driver folds his paper neatly and lays it on the passenger seat as I bend to talk to him through his window.

  ‘St Ives, please?’

  He nods and turns the ignition key.

  ‘Got an address?’

  ‘No,’ I lie. ‘You can drop me anywhere. Somewhere in the centre, maybe. Wherever you think best.’

  I rest my head on the back of the seat and close my eyes. My lids meld together and I realise how badly I need to sleep.

  ‘I’ll drop you on the front.’

  ‘We’re here already?’

  I sit up and look out of the window, stifling a yawn as I watch people milling about in the middle of the narrow road, pointing in shop windows, chatting casually. They are relaxed and happy, most of them on holiday, I assume, and all of them seemingly oblivious to the huffing and puffing of my taxi driver as he negotiates a way through them.

  He drops me on the corner of the harbour on the edge of a cobbled street that disappears up a hill in another throng of people. I pay him from the stack of notes I’m carrying in a bag hung around my neck and inside my jacket. I emptied our joint account before I caught the train. I’m not proud of it but I need money and David would find me if he was able to see where I was withdrawing money. I was terrified walking into the bank. My palms sweated so much you’d think I was about to rob it at gunpoint.

  Nobody else knows anything. Keep pretending everything is normal. This is your account, your signature, your PIN…

  ‘I’d like to make a withdrawal,’ I’d said, my voice quivering horribly.

  ‘How much would you like to take out?’ asked the softly spoken woman behind the bulletproof glass. She smiled at me and I forced a smile back, convinced that at any moment the doors would lock tight and the lights would flash in time with an ear-splitting alarm.

  ‘What’s the balance, please?’

  She referred to her screen then wrote something on a piece of paper, which she slid beneath the glass barrier.

  Eighteen hundred and thirty-two pounds, fifty-three pence.

  ‘Could I take one thousand eight hundred out? If that’s OK?’

  She laughed a little. ‘It’s your money, Mrs Bradford. You can take out what you want.’

  I tried to smile back but the corners of my mouth wouldn’t move. David would be furious. He had full control of the bank account. My name was only on the account so I could pay for the weekly shop. Other than that, I wasn’t allowed anywhere near our finances. My paltry salary from the library went directly into another account from which I assume he paid the bills or mortgage, and he gave me a small sum every Sunday night. My ‘pocket money’ he called it. But, I reasoned, as the lady counted out the notes and sealed them into a plain white envelope, even though I knew he’d be angry, I also knew he’d want me to be safe, and when things are settled I’ll pay it all back, every penny. I haven’t stolen it; I’m borrowing it.

  The taxi pulls away from me, and despite being surrounded by people, I feel very alone. I stand and watch those around me. A group of girls laughing hysterically, a few people sitting on the wall eating ice creams; there are a couple of families on the harbour beach, and lots of others walk languidly with nothing more on their minds than what souvenirs to take back to those left in grimmer parts of the country.

  The salt air is mixed with a thick smell of warm fudge and fried fish that wafts over from the parade of shops and cafés on the seafront. The tide is out and a large number of beached boats lean sideways on the exposed sand, waiting calmly for the water to return. A handful of children, some clad in wetsuits and others, tinged purple, in not very much, poke about together in the sand. I look up and see a large number of gulls patrolling the sky in sweeping circles. They call to each other and I watch as one of them dives, falling like a lead weight on an ice cream held in a middle-aged woman’s hand. Unlike the chip thieves outside Penzance station, this bird is gone before the woman even knows what’s happened. She turns to her companion, her alarm quickly replaced by laughter, and I allow myself a smile. I like St Ives.

  I haul my bag onto my shoulder and head up the cobbled street in front of me. I amble, enjoying the beat of the sun on my back as I window-shop. There are wooden toys next to surf shops, next to bakeries with enormous golden scones on wooden trays, beside galleries sell
ing trite paintings of white-sanded crescent coves and moody photographs of fishermen pulling in nets, next to shops selling mother-of-pearl jewellery displayed on kaleidoscopic sprays of coral. There are baskets lined up along the pavements, filled to the brim with cuttlefish bones, shrivelled seahorse corpses and shells of all sizes, some white, others pink, their insides splayed like blooming orchids. I fit in well with my bag and my curiosity, and quickly become camouflaged, another early-summertime visitor at whom nobody looks twice. To them I am normal. I am anybody and nobody. It doesn’t matter where I’m from or with whom I grew up or what dead body I’d recently discovered. I am simply a face in the crowd.

  As I walk I allow my thoughts to wander. I think about why I’m here, the people I will soon be meeting, the house where they live. I imagine it’s on one of the narrow streets that run off the waterfront. There’s a gnarly old fisherman watching as I knock on the door, the scent of mackerel hanging on to his thick woollen sweater, his fingers calloused from years of tying off nets. I will wait for someone to answer the door and I will smile at him. He will remove his pipe and run a hand through his snowy beard.

  You’re back then, he’ll say in an accent so thick it will be hard to decipher his words. That’ll please your parents. They’ve missed you.

  Later my new parents, beaming from ear to ear, will show me up a creaking staircase to the beamed bedroom I had as a toddler. The room has pink candy-stripe wallpaper and a crowd of soft toys on the bed waiting patiently for my return.

  A woman comes out of the shop to which I am nearest and begins tidying away the bits and pieces laid out on the pavement. I look around and see the rest of St Ives is beginning to shut for the day. It dawns on me then I have nowhere to sleep. I walk back down to the harbour where I remember seeing a pub on the corner. I search the front of it for information and, sure enough, they have rooms. I hover outside, intimidated by the hum of voices inside. Despite my nerves pooling, I open the door and force myself in.