Half the World Away

by Cath Staincliffe

  ‘They may wish to complete their enquiries—’

  ‘No, that’s not right,’ Tom says. ‘We’re being kept in the dark. And that means that the information we’re using for the appeal is inaccurate. That’s not helping anybody. A week, and they’ve given us nothing. Nothing.’

  I can hear the voice, tinny through the handset. ‘It isn’t very long in the scheme of things. A missing-person inquiry can take many months.’

  ‘Well, we’re not going to sit around on our arses any longer.’

  I flinch at Tom’s rudeness – he sees, and juts out his chin, his eyes hard.

  Nick arrives back from taking the kids to school and walking Benji. He stands in the doorway.

  ‘How many people are on the team looking for her? Exactly what are they doing?’ Tom says.

  ‘I don’t have all those details,’ Jeremy Chadwick says, ‘but I can assure you that they are taking this situation very seriously. Our relationship with the authorities—’

  ‘I don’t want assurances,’ Tom says, ‘I want action. I want results.’

  I’m shaking my head at Tom, signalling with my hands for him to turn it down. Nick watches. I can’t read the look on his face – scepticism, disdain?

  ‘As do we all,’ says Jeremy Chadwick.

  ‘I want to come out there,’ Tom says, ‘come and help search.’

  Nick looks at me, questioning.

  The prospect of travelling to Chengdu has arisen but in a vague way, mentioned as something that might eventually happen, if necessary. But it’s not something that’s ever been thought through. Now, though, I share Tom’s sense of urgency. Inside my fears thrash and churn. Staying put, carrying on as we have been with calls and interviews for the papers, with emails and Twitter, knowing we’re five thousand miles away, is no longer bearable. As soon as Tom says it, I know that he’s right: we have to act.

  I glance away from Nick.

  ‘That’s an option,’ says Jeremy Chadwick.

  ‘Right. Well, that’s what we’ll do. Can you let Peter Dunne know, in Chongqing?’

  ‘Certainly. The consulate will need to issue you with letters of invitation for the visa. They can be sent by email.’

  When Tom’s hung up, he says to me, ‘I’ve got an auction at midday. Can you call Edward and ask for his help arranging flights and hotels?’

  I nod.

  ‘What about vaccinations?’ Nick asks Tom.

  ‘I should be covered – I was in Thailand, year before last.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I say.

  Tom stares at me, his light eyes brightening.

  ‘You’re not thinking—’ Nick stops abruptly.

  Silence sings in the air.

  ‘Yes,’ I say to him, ‘of course.’

  His face flushes.

  ‘I know you and I can’t both go,’ I say to Nick, ‘with the boys . . .’

  ‘But if Tom can . . .’ Nick says.

  Tom busies himself, putting his laptop away.

  We wait until he’s gone, the atmosphere thick with tension. Then I say to Nick, ‘I can’t stay here – it’s driving me mad.’

  ‘But you expect me to?’

  ‘Nick—’

  ‘You just do what you like, don’t you? You don’t even bother consulting me.’

  ‘It’s not what I like,’ I shout. ‘There’s nothing to like about it. For fuck’s sake . . .’

  ‘Maybe I should go. You’ve got work, the boys—’ Nick says.

  ‘You and Tom? That’s going to work really well,’ I say.

  His face darkens. ‘I don’t have a problem with it. If he does—’

  ‘I’m going. I just think it’s best.’

  ‘We don’t even get to discuss it,’ he says. ‘I’m her parent too.’

  I don’t reply. I walk round the table to get the phone.

  ‘Isn’t it a bit premature?’ he says.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say, ‘a week, a month, a year. I don’t know. How can we possibly know if we’re being premature, or if it’s too late?’ The words are loud, raw and dirty. ‘Oh, God, I don’t mean that,’ I say quickly. ‘I don’t even think that. Oh, God, I don’t. But I can’t wait any more. At least we’ll be doing everything we can.’ My mouth is dry and I feel shaky. I fetch myself some water. As I drink it, Nick sits at the table, which is strewn with notes and copies of the press-release flier and typed lists of who has said what to whom. He tidies the papers into piles.

  ‘I have to go,’ I say.

  There’s a pause. Then, ‘OK,’ he says quietly.

  ‘I’d better ring Edward,’ I say. Nick catches my wrist. He gets up and puts his arms around me. I’d like to let go, to weep in his embrace, but I don’t because I need to stay in control: I need to walk and talk and get things done. I rest my eyes a moment and breathe steadily until the danger is past. Then I make the phone call. The prospect of going to find her gives me something to cling to, like a guide rail to help me on a swaying bridge over a bottomless gorge.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I’ve arranged to drop Finn and Isaac off for breakfast club, and Nick has a meeting with the friend who’s designing his website. Nick’s plans have been shoved aside in the upheaval but the friend has carried on with the work and has mock-ups ready for Nick to consider.

  I’m seeing Grace.

  She’s already in her office and there is a rich smell of coffee from the machine she uses.

  ‘Jo!’ She gets up, gives me a quick hug and offers me coffee, which I accept.

  ‘Any news?’ she says, pouring it, adding milk.

  ‘No. So we’re going out there, Tom and I, to help with the search.’

  She nods. Puts the cup in front of me and goes to sit at the other side of the desk.

  ‘We leave Thursday,’ I say, ‘if everything goes smoothly.’

  ‘Oh, Jo, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine . . .’

  ‘I know. It still feels unreal.’ As if I’m in a play that I never auditioned for and I’m making up my lines as I go along, waiting for somebody to clap their hands together and tell us the performance is done, and we can all go now and resume our real lives. ‘And then you read about the girls missing in Nigeria.’ Over two hundred of them abducted from a school by a militant group called Boko Haram.

  ‘God, yes,’ she says, ‘and no one seems to be doing anything about it.’

  I take a breath. ‘We do know that Lori hasn’t left the country. It doesn’t narrow it down much, though, the size of the place.’

  Grace runs her fingers over the folder on her desk. I drink some coffee. Feel a rush of nausea.

  ‘We’ve booked for three weeks,’ I say.

  ‘As long as it takes, and don’t worry. We’ve sorted out cover – Andrea. A lot to learn but she’s quick on the uptake.’

  ‘How’s everyone else?’ I ask.

  She blinks quickly, and her hand stills on the folder.

  ‘What?’ I say.

  ‘Zoë,’ she says. ‘She’s just been diagnosed.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ On top of the miscarriage.

  ‘Bowel cancer,’ Grace says. ‘She should hear about the treatment plan tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ I say, ‘you should have told me.’

  She throws me a look. Don’t be daft. ‘On a brighter note, I’m going to be a grandma. Patsy’s pregnant.’

  ‘Really! Brilliant.’

  ‘Twins, actually.’

  ‘No! Grace, how amazing. When are they due?’ Suddenly I feel like crying, so I force myself to drink more coffee and concentrate on that.

  ‘November, but they’ll probably induce her a few weeks early – it reduces the risks apparently.’

  ‘We didn’t make parents’ evening,’ I say.

  ‘You got their reports?’

  ‘Yes, Finn’s was fine but Isaac’s . . .’

  ‘Not found his niche yet,’ Grace says. ‘Give him time.’

  ‘But the biting, the tantrums.’

  ‘We’ve a strat
egy, and I’ve told Sunita to come to me if she needs more backup. We’ve dealt with much, much worse,’ she says darkly, making me laugh.

  It’s true. There have been some seriously disturbed children in school over the years, children with challenging behaviour, needing one-to-one care to cope with the school environment.

  ‘Me being away won’t make things any easier for him,’ I say.

  ‘Maybe not, but kids are resilient. He’s in a loving home, well cared for. You can’t not go.’

  We embrace again as I leave and she wishes me luck, adding, ‘Please ask Nick to let us know when there’s any news.’

  ‘Of course,’ I say.

  ‘Lori’s a great girl,’ Grace says. ‘I do hope everything’s OK.’

  I’m glad she hasn’t told me everything will be OK and pretended false hope. I wake each morning and there’s a new number in my head, so many days. Today it’s twenty-four. I’d be a total idiot to imagine everything is all right.

  So we have to fly to China but perhaps, if we’re lucky, it will all come right again.

  The nurse at the travel clinic checks my destination on the computer and tells me I need hepatitis A and a booster for diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus.

  ‘Is it a holiday?’ she says, as she cleans my skin with a special wipe. ‘That’s where they have pandas, isn’t it? My neighbours went there.’

  I swallow. ‘No, my daughter’s gone missing out there.’ It sounds so blunt in the small, neat room.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she says. ‘I am sorry.’

  At this moment all I want is for her to give me the jabs so I can escape. But I have already learned to talk about Lori at each and every opportunity. Word of mouth, the best publicity. So while she prepares the vials and administers the injections, I go through it all and ask her, please, to tell people about it. She gives me the travel medical card, which lists what I’ve had done, and wishes me luck, her manner subdued.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It’s something I’ve read online, my eyes skimming over the columns of advice, what to do next, the bullet-pointed lists of What We Can Do, What We Are Not Able to Do but I must barely have registered it because when Peter Dunne, from the consulate in Chongqing, speaks to me on the phone, when he says it near to the close of our conversation, adding, ‘Just in case,’ I feel as though I’ve been electrocuted. A jolt that sears my heart and sends currents fizzing through my veins to the tips of my fingers and the backs of my thighs.

  I grit my teeth and agree I will do as he suggests. After that I put the phone down and rest for a few seconds, arms braced on the table, eyes shut. I stir, pick up a pen and add to the growing list of things we need for our trip to China: bring something with Lori’s DNA on.

  It is macabre, sorting through the boxes that came out of Lori’s room for something that will carry strands of her hair or skin cells or whatever else they might use. I’m looking through scarves and belts, bags and necklaces. I stop and say to Nick, ‘Does that mean her toothbrush isn’t there? At the flat?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says.

  ‘If it were there, we wouldn’t need to take anything. But if it’s not, that would fit with her going on holiday, wouldn’t it? She’d take her toothbrush and her hairbrush.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agrees, ‘but maybe they’re just covering all the bases.’ He holds up a joke tiara, black and silver with feathers attached and pointy black ears. Part of a Hallowe’en outfit Lori wore a couple of times. I’ve a picture of her in my head, like some punk imp, rowdy with her friends, drinking cocktails before setting off to a party.

  ‘That,’ I say, ‘and this.’ I lift up her black beret. ‘She’s worn this for ever, there must be . . . well . . .’ I don’t need to spell it out.

  Isaac comes in asking for a drink and sees the jumble. He picks up a scarf and Nick tells him to leave it alone.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘You can have a play as long as they all go back in these boxes after.’

  ‘And them?’ He points to the things I’m holding.

  ‘No, I need them,’ I say.

  ‘Why?’ he says.

  ‘I just do. Where’s Finn?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘Isaac?’

  ‘On the trampoline. Why?’

  ‘He might like to dress up, too,’ I say.

  Isaac drapes Lori’s scarf around his head and goes to peer in the hall mirror. I put the beret and the tiara in freezer bags and take them upstairs.

  Nick follows me. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Undermine me. I just told Isaac to leave stuff alone and you say the opposite.’

  ‘But why should he leave it alone? What harm can it do?’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ he says.

  ‘So if you say something stupid and illogical I’ve got to agree to it?’ I sound like a bitch so I start to back-pedal. ‘Sorry, I just think we have to pick our battles.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ he says, and walks away.

  I stare at the suitcase I’ve started to pack and hear Finn’s voice drifting up from the garden, some little chant, and realize my hands are aching because I’m gripping the freezer bags so very tightly.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I have the address of the visa office. Tom and I walk up and down Mosley Street among the office buildings trying to find it. I check the street number again and we retrace our steps. The only sign that this building is the right one is the scrap of paper stuck next to the intercom button with Chinese Visa scribbled on it. When Tom presses the buzzer, a voice tells us to come to the first floor.

  Through the double doors a receptionist is poised at a high desk. She asks our business, then gives us a ticket and tells us to wait our turn. All the twenty or so seats are full, and more people stand around the edges of the room. At the far end there is a row of booths behind glass screens. The room is stuffy, smells of too many people, and I feel queasy as we find a place to stand.

  It’s a functional space: grey carpeting and chairs, white walls, flashes of red from the large Chinese good-luck charms of knotted string suspended by the booths.

  After half an hour we get seats. Tom occupies himself with his phone, answering emails, but I can’t shake off the sense of unreality: any minute now I’ll get a text from Lori – So sorry Mum, just bin havin the most awesome time w no internet Lxxx

  Conversation from the brief interviews up at the front washes over me. Two-thirds of the people waiting are European, mostly English. There’s a man whose passport has been lost in the post and he’s panicking about getting the visa in time to start his job in Beijing, then a young couple, who are sent away because they’ve not brought proof of their return flights. There’s an old woman, who is going to visit her newborn grandson, and a student, who has a place on a master’s degree course in Shanghai.

  Penny messages me. Anything I can do? When u go? Thinking of u. Px I know she means well but I hate that last phrase. Trotted out for bereavement and terminal illness, whenever it’s hard to know what to say. It makes Lori’s absence and our plans feel more sinister.

  Go Thurs, I text back. Will keep in touch x.

  Our number flashes up on the kiosk at the end to the left. I hand over the visa forms, the letter of invitation from the British consulate, the hotel confirmation, the flight details – all arranged by Edward at Missing Overseas – and our passports. A small sign in the corner of the screen shows the prices for the visa service. Three rates. Rush, Express, Standard. We are Rush, next day pick-up, the fastest possible way to get the documentation. The highest fee. The clerk reads carefully through Tom’s application and checks his passport. Then she picks up mine. My mind is dancing about. I need to buy hand wipes and medicines to take, organize after-school club for the boys for the next three weeks, get some Chinese currency.

  The clerk looks at my passport and the form, then says, ‘The photo here on passport is more than six month old and you have same on visa applic
ation. You need more recent one. Less than six month.’

  Oh, God. I’d hoped to save time using the spare photo left over from last time I renewed my passport. The whole edifice of plans teeters. The office shuts at three for applications. Coming back tomorrow will mean . . .

  ‘You can do one here.’ She points. At the back of the room is a photo booth. Tom has change. I sit in the booth and follow the instructions on screen. No smiling, no hair over the face, no glasses obscuring your eyes. How about crying? I am past caring and choose the first image, even though I look like a serial killer.

  The clerk cuts one of the pictures off and places it on my application, giving me the old one. She hands Tom a receipt and clips everything together.

  Outside, the wind funnels down the street, sharp and cold, making my eyes water. I zip my jacket up, stick my hands in the pockets.

  ‘I’ll see you Thursday,’ Tom says.

  ‘You need to be here before four o’clock tomorrow to collect the visas,’ I say.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Let me know if there’s a problem,’ I say.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ he says, an edge to his voice. ‘See you.’ He walks off, the breeze blowing his hair, his coat flying out.

  I make for the tram stop and, as I turn the corner, see one pulling in ahead. Running as fast as I can, I dodge shoppers and people in office clothes, the buskers and hawkers who fringe the square. Breathless, a pain behind my breastbone, I reach the platform just as the tram gives a mournful hoot and moves off.

  ‘Shit!’ I attract glances from other passengers.

  It shouldn’t matter that I missed it, there’ll be another before long, but it feels like everything is stacking up against me. I stand there, fed up, sweaty and shivery at the same time, and tense with frustration.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Our flight is from Manchester to Chengdu with a change at Schiphol, Amsterdam. We leave at 17.40 and I’ve caved in to the boys’ pleas to be allowed to come and see me off. Of course they were less than happy when we told them I’d be going. They begged to come as well, and then Isaac, who had been kicking the chair leg harder and harder as we talked, finally kicked me on the shin and told me I was a horrible pig and added, ‘I hate you,’ as Nick jumped up to remonstrate.