While she did this he rested his elbows on the table and leaned into his hands, rubbing them over his face, emerging bleary-eyed, the flick of dark hair which still fell over one side of his forehead, shoved aside.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m not in good shape.’
‘I can see that.’ She pitied him, relieved to feel so little. ‘So what is it that’s brought you here with Katy? Kate.’
‘Susan’s missing.’
Of all the things he might have said, she had not thought of this. In her surprise she did not even feel the sense of shifting discomfort that always came with the sound of her sister’s name.
‘Missing?’
‘She went away a fortnight ago.’
‘How do you mean went away? Are you saying you don’t know where she is?’
‘She’s done this before.’
‘Gone missing?’
‘Wait. Let me tell you.’
‘Alec, what am I supposed to think?’
‘You said my name.’
‘Of course I did!’
‘No, first time since I phoned. You said it when I phoned.’
Frances swept this aside. ‘What’s going on with Susan?’
‘About three weeks ago she went to the Retreat. It’s a place she goes, for women, a kind of zen-ny place.’
‘Say that again?’
‘Zen. Buddhism. A retreat.’
‘Heavens.’
‘It’s OK, not cranky, really, not more than these places usually are. Nice people. … She always came back a bit spaced, but friendlier, if you know what I mean. More settled.’
‘You mean she’s usually not … friendly? Settled?’
Frances had spent thirteen years not wanting to know anything about Susan, not wanting to hear her sister’s name, or see her face or hear her voice, nor so much as sense the shadow of her, dark across the lives they had now. She was realising for the first time that she might have shut off more than her own agony.
‘No,’ Alec answered, cradling his coffee. He still took it black with one spoonful of brown sugar. Nothing changes, Frances thought, distracted, everything changes.
‘Susan?’ she prompted. Alec put the mug down on the table.
‘She’s had some bad times. Anyway, the Retreat helps. Better than drugs.’
‘Drugs. Sorry, I seem to be turning into some sort of demented echo. You mean medication, she was on medication sometimes?’
‘Anti-depressants, but that was ages ago. She was due to come home the week before Christmas, but she didn’t. I thought I must have got the date wrong, so I rang them but they don’t always pick up the phone if they’re, you know, meditating. At least they have an answering service now so I left a message. One of the women there, Karen, called me back.’
‘So was Susan not there?’ He was going so slowly, she wanted to urge him on to whatever terrible revelation he was going to make.
‘She’d never been there. About two days before they expected her, she rang and cancelled. She said, listen to this, her parents were coming for Christmas and since it was the first time for years she wanted to spend the time at home getting ready for them. Karen knew about the break with her family. She said Susan sounded really upbeat, she said I told her I was so happy for her.’
‘But Mum and Dad – ’
‘I know. They hadn’t even been in touch. They never wavered, did they, after they sided with you.’
‘Oh Alec, that wasn’t – ’
‘I’m just saying they’re consistent, you’ve got to give them that. They sent Kate money, presents … never made a difference there. Well, in that way. Never saw her though.’
‘That wasn’t my choice,’ Frances protested, conscious that of course, it might have been, had she made a choice. ‘Anyway, never mind that. You went to the police, I assume?’
‘Not at first. I rang one or two other people she might have been with. Nothing. Then I started ringing hospitals and after that, the police. Still nothing.’
‘What did the police say?’
‘They weren’t very interested. She’d taken clothes and her passport and cheque book and she’d drawn out money. Two thousand quid. They quite naturally assumed she had left me. When I told them she’d gone missing before, it was obvious they thought she’d turn up again.’
‘Maybe she will.’
‘It’s different this time. She never made plans before, never took much money. What she’d do is kind of disappear and turn up after a few days at the Retreat. Eventually they would persuade her to call me.’
‘I don’t know what to ask here – there seems to be so much. What about Katy?’
‘Well, no hiding it from her this time. I’ve tried not to let her see I think there’s anything seriously wrong.’
‘You think there is, though?’
‘I don’t know.’ He looked up, seeming to plead with her. ‘You can’t imagine what it’s been like – ’
‘No, of course not. To be honest Alec, I don’t want to know.’ She sighed. ‘Sorry. All that matters is finding Susan and making sure she’s safe. She’s probably just gone to a friend or something, don’t you think?’
‘Possibly.’ He hesitated. ‘There was a letter. Came about two days after I expected her, when I was seeing the police, all that.’
‘From Susan?’
‘All it said was not to worry, she wanted some more time on her own. It was a bit scrappy. Then Kate decided everything for me. She said let’s not hang around, let’s just go and see the rest of the family.’ He smiled, rueful. ‘Family. Are you sure, I said, do you know what you’re suggesting? But she was quite definite. I want to go and see them, she told me, they send me presents and money, they don’t hate me. It’s not my fault none of you speak to each other.’
Frances bit her lip, dismayed. ‘That’s awful.’ She got up abruptly from the table then stopped, sharp again,
‘Did you show Katy the letter? What did she think?’
‘The letter!’ He looked startled. ‘Oh no, I tore it up. Ground it up in the waste disposal, actually. I suppose I was angry.’
‘But you told Katy about it?’
‘Oh yes.’ His eyes slid away from her. ‘After a while … I began to think she was right, we should come. So here we are.’ His voice dried up and Frances saw Kate was standing in the kitchen doorway.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I just wondered – could I get a towel?’
5
When they sat down to a lunch of leftovers at half past one it was impossible not to picture the parallel life they had not had, Frances and Alec: the two of them, their sons, their daughter, eating cold turkey and salad after the relatives’ departure, finishing the Christmas pies and the box of chocolates. If they had stayed together there could have been another child. We might be any normal family, France thought, catching the reflection they made in the kitchen window as the day darkened early outside, the sky heavy with snow.
Then, turning with a fresh pot of tea in her hands, she saw Katy raise her head, which was usually dipped down, avoiding contact. Her face, luminous with the past, was Susan’s face. Frances moved the hand that balanced the spout, it slipped, and recoiling from the sudden heat on her fingers, she let go. The teapot, narrowly missing her feet as she leapt back to avoid the splash of scalding water, smashed to the floor. The pool of hot tea seemed to spread for yards around her.
Alec jumped up and Jack shoved his chair back out of the way. ‘You all right Mum? What happened?’
‘My hand must have slipped – stupid thing to do.’
Andrew and Kate went on sitting at the table while everyone else mopped up, and retrieved scattered shards of china. Covertly, the two of them glanced at each other; Andrew looked away first.
Later, alone in the kitchen, Frances wondered what had shaken her most: the sight of them all round the table, Alec at the head, or that terrifying glimpse of Susan at fifteen. She prided herself on her composure. This is different, she thought, excusing herself
for once as she smoothed a damp tea-towel over the radiator. But if anything had happened to Susan. …
‘What about a walk?’ Alec asked from the doorway.
‘I think it’s going to snow.’
‘We’ll go now, then, before it does. It’s just – there’s more.’
‘More what?’
‘To tell you. Ask you.’
‘All right. Let me get my things.’
She looked in on Andrew and Kate in the living-room.
‘Where’s Jack?’
‘On the computer.’
‘Is he doing any work?’
‘Don’t ask me.’
‘I’m just going for a walk with your – with Alec. We won’t be long.’
‘Ok.’ Andrew was hunched over the table in the bay window, gazing at this year’s giant jigsaw. His grandfather brought one every Christmas. This year, it had been a godsend. For two impossible days, there had always been something to talk about, do, share. It was not quite finished, despite Jim Douglas’s urging: blue sky and green field were still patchy. Kate was curled in a chair with a book.
‘What are you reading?’ Frances asked.
‘Jane Eyre.’
‘Oh, I loved that at your age.’
‘I think it’s crap,’ Kate said. ‘You can’t understand half she’s on about. But I couldn’t find anything else I’d heard of, and I read all my magazines yesterday.’
‘There’s another bookcase in my room,’ Frances offered. ‘Thrillers and so on are mostly there. Why don’t you have a look?’
‘I’ll just read this. I might as well.’
Perverse girl, Frances thought as she unhooked her jacket from the hallstand. Alec was waiting by the back door.
‘All set?’
‘Haven’t you got gloves? You’ll freeze.’
‘In the car, maybe.’
‘I’ll get you some.’
Jack’s gloves looked large on his elegant hands. He gazed at them for a moment.
‘Up the hill? Frances asked.
Below them the lights of the town were pricking like glow-worms already, turning the air to dusk. The sky glowered slate grey and there was a scent of snow. The ground was hard underfoot, the morning’s frost, which had never dissolved, crunching faintly. They walked side by side along the track to the wider, smoother road which led to the farm if they turned uphill, or down into Dingwall, if they turned left.
‘We’ll go up to the Ramsays,’ Frances said. ‘There’s another path takes you behind the farm and back to our house.’ She glanced at Alec’s shoes. ‘Ground’s quite hard so it shouldn’t be muddy.’
‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘Whatever you think.’
He did not care where they went, wanting only to be on his own with her so that he could say what he had come all this way to ask. For a moment or two they walked in silence, and she slowed her usual pace. He was not used to exercise.
‘Could I ask you to do something for me?’ he began. ‘Not really for me. I wouldn’t ask a favour for myself. It’s Kate – ’
‘You said she knows about Susan. You don’t want me to tell her something about her mother?’
‘No, no. She’s had to cope with her mother for years, so she’s not as upset by it as you’re probably imagining.’
Again, Frances had a glimpse of someone else’s past, like a wound opening up. ‘Do you want to talk about Susan? I don’t mind. I’m not saying I was wrong then, but so much time has gone past and I have a different life now. I’m happy, I’m all right.’
‘I can see that. I could tell you plenty, God knows, but I’ve talked enough. It’s a wonder I’ve any friends left, frankly. No, I wanted to ask if you would have Kate?’
Frances said these words over to herself but they made no sense. ‘Have Kate?’ she echoed. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Just for a week or so till I get something sorted out. See the police again, see if I can bloody find her.’
‘But Kate will want to go home, won’t she?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
‘What’s going on? Is there something I don’t know about Kate?’
‘We’ve had a few problems,’ he said, picking his way across a stony part of the track, a minefield of words.
‘She seems all right to me. Teenage girls are often a bit sullen, aren’t they?’
‘She’s been skipping school.’
‘I see.’
‘It’s a good school, we’ve made sacrifices to send her there.’
‘But she doesn’t like it?’
‘She used to come home on her own. Susan left work at lunch-time one day, feeling ill, and found her there. There’s a crowd of them now, some from another school, the comprehensive. They go into town, hang about. Go to somebody’s house if it rains.’
‘Have you contacted her school?’
‘We threatened to speak to the Headmistress after we discovered Kate had intercepted a letter from her. It’s an all-girls school, we were so careful.’
‘You’ve got to tackle the school. What on earth could I do?’
‘It’s this business with Susan. All things considered, I think she’s better here for a while – at least till the end of the holidays.’
‘I’ve no experience of girls. None past puberty, anyway. The ones I teach are into Barbie dolls and making friendship bracelets out of coloured thread.’
‘Sorry. It’s not your problem. I shouldn’t have asked.’
After a moment Frances said, ‘She can stay here for a while, of course she can. On one condition.’
‘What?’ His air of anxiety deepened.
‘She must agree herself. No coercion. That’s all.’
‘It was her idea to come.’
‘Ask her.’
‘I will.’
They walked on in silence but Frances guessed Alec wanted to say more. As they came down the last part of the track to her house again and saw the lights in the uncurtained windows, he said,
‘I’m bothered about the people she goes around with.’
‘Oh, bad company,’ Frances scoffed. ‘I thought that was essential at fourteen. A way of asserting your independence.’
‘Like taking drugs?’
‘Ah. Are you sure?’
‘Pretty sure.’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘Oh God, how would I know? It was cannabis and a bit of LSD when we were at uni, wasn’t it?’
‘Speak for yourself.’
‘I was. It could be ecstasy. Not sure what else. Not often – or maybe it’s just the effect of too many vodkas with lemonade or blackcurrant – these drinks with silly names – breezer, hooch, whatever. She’s come home with her eyes blurry, unfocused. Been sick.’
‘I’d have thought you’d find it easy to recognise the effect of alcohol.’
‘I don’t drink much now.’ He sounded defensive. ‘That’s a whole different thing and she’s young, not used to it. She’d have no idea if someone had slipped something else into the glass.’
‘What are you really worried about?’ Frances asked, pausing as they reached the house.
‘That I’m losing control here, if I ever had it. And if I let her drift away now – what if she turns out like her mother?’
‘Oh, Alec.’
‘Susan hasn’t taken drugs for years of course – or only the prescribed kind.’
‘Are you saying she’s mentally ill? And you’re afraid Kate could end up like that too.’
Alex hesitated. ‘I suppose that’s what I meant.’
Frances put her gloved hands over her face. ‘I need to think,’ she murmured. ‘I must think.’
He put a tentative arm round her shoulders, but she took her hands down and moving away, opened the door.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘I’ll have her here, but she has to agree. All right?’
‘I really appreciate this, Frances. I’m sorry.’
He followed her into the warm kitchen.
In th
e living-room, left on their own, Andrew and Kate had remained silent for ten minutes, Andrew leaning over the jigsaw, Kate pretending to read. Eventually, she shut the book with a sigh.
‘Should I put more logs on the fire?’ she asked. ‘It’s going out.’
‘Yeah, go on then.’ Andrew did not look round. Kate got up and took a couple of logs from the basket beside the fire. She dropped them on the red ashes, then jumped back at the show of sparks.
‘My God, that’s dangerous.’
‘It is if you do it like that.’
‘All the flames,’ she went on after a moment, watching them curl greedily round the new wood, ‘they’re different. Keep changing. We have this gas fire at home that looks real but it’s not. The same flame comes up, the same shape, all the time.’
She drifted across the room, arriving beside the jigsaw as if by accident.
‘You’ve nearly finished the field,’ she said.
‘There’s a piece missing. Where it joins the plough handle. See?’
‘I think so.’
‘Should be brown on one corner. But there’s not a bit like that lying here.’
Kate shuffled the loose pieces that were left. ‘Maybe it’s fallen on the floor.’ She dropped suddenly to her knees and looked under the table, lifting the edge of a rug and peering round.
‘See it?’
‘It’s all the same colours as that down here. The rug’s brown and green. It wouldn’t stand out. Hey – here’s a bit of sky though.’ She brought it up to him, flushing with the effort.
‘Is your mother working or what?’ Andrew asked suddenly.
‘She had to go away.’
‘Oh.’
‘She does that sometimes, just for a break. You know.’ Kate was leaning over the jigsaw and he could not see her face.
‘So where does she go?’
‘This place called the Retreat.’
Andrew had found the place for Kate’s piece of blue sky. ‘Magic – I’ve got the whole of this bit now.’
‘It’s just a place for people to go for a rest. It’s totally, like, quiet. No music or TV or radio. Hardly any talking, even.’
‘Sounds boring.’
‘It’s for people who’re stressed out.’
‘Freaked?’
‘My mother doesn’t freak. She just gets tired.’
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