by Perks, Heidi
Grace shudders. But of course she knows it’s a possibility because she remembers what it is like to get a call from the police when someone is missing. The detectives will want to know what she knows, along with everyone else. The whole town will be mad with panic. She knows because it happened once before.
Grace remembers her mum tightly clutching both her and Anna, who was at their house as usual. Catherine’s fingers gripped into her skin as she held both girls close, while the young policeman with the bushy eyebrows had stood on their doorstep and told them that their friend Heather Kerr hadn’t come home.
But Heather was only a child and the police were doing everything they could as soon as Heather’s foster mother had raised the alarm that her fourteen-year-old daughter wasn’t in the house. Would they do the same for Anna? Just because she isn’t a child doesn’t mean she isn’t in danger.
Ben agrees to let Grace pick Ethan up from school and she’s pleased to have him. Even though Anna isn’t here right now, in some ways it feels like the closest she’s been to her friend’s family since she returned in September.
‘Will you let me know as soon as you hear anything?’ she asks, pausing as she leaves the kitchen, her attention drawn to the to-do list pinned up high on a corkboard.
Order E Lego from Amazon.
Make Xmas Eve box – buy pyjamas from M&S.
The note jolts Grace. So Anna has followed Grace’s mum’s Christmas Eve box tradition for Ethan, just as Grace has with Matilda. It is a thought that warms her – her friend is still living their past Christmases through her new family – but the warmth quickly dissipates as she realises this isn’t the list of someone who has left on purpose.
‘I will,’ Ben is saying to her. ‘And thank you, you know, for having Ethan. I appreciate it.’
‘It’s the least I can do,’ Grace says. ‘We will find her,’ she adds.
October – Seven weeks earlier
Anna
‘We’ve heard from the adoption agency this week,’ I tell Sally. ‘There’ve been some issues with Zadie’s maternal grandparents standing in the way, but they’re hoping things can start moving again now. There’s a chance we might have her by Christmas.’
‘Anna, that’s brilliant news,’ she says.
I nod. My thumbnail has found its way to my mouth and I start chewing on a loose bit of skin. This time I have an overwhelming need to show Sally Zadie’s picture, and so I fish out the photo and pass it to her.
‘She’s adorable.’
‘She really is,’ I say, thinking of her mop of dark hair and big brown eyes, and I feel the tears welling up in my eyes at the prospect that this might actually be happening soon. Ben and I have been picking out paint colours for what will be her bedroom. My Amazon basket is stuffed with little pink accessories, gifts that I am ready to press the button on ordering for her.
‘Nancy says I’m born to be a mother. That I need more children in my life. She’s the only one who knows the adoption might be imminent.’
‘You must be very happy with the news about Zadie?’ Sally says.
‘Of course,’ I tell her, though in truth I feel sick at the thought of it not happening. That something could stop us from getting the child that I already think of as my own.
I force myself to let go of the frown I can feel creasing my forehead. Nancy is always telling me to stop frowning, that I’m giving myself lines I don’t want. I can almost feel the press of my friend’s fingertips as they flatten my skin then pinch up my lips at the corner to turn them into a smile. By instinct my lips twitch now.
‘What is it?’ Sally is asking. She is smiling too, no doubt thinking I have some funny story to tell her, but I don’t. Recently all I’ve been doing is worrying over Zadie and what might go wrong. I’ve been tying myself in knots over it.
‘What if it doesn’t happen?’ I blurt. ‘What if I don’t get her?’
‘Why do you think that’s a possibility, Anna?’
I sigh and turn to look out of the window. My heart is skipping in little jumps. Its beat is erratic, and in turn that makes me feel more on edge. It’s nothing new, this feeling, it’s been with me for a while now.
‘Everything is unsettled,’ I say. ‘It makes me anxious.’
Sally is nodding, her palms splayed on the notebook that is open on her lap. She begins to tell me that grief can do this to you, but my mind isn’t on my dad. It is on what happened in the playground yesterday when Nancy was stood massaging the knot in my shoulders and Grace walked over.
Ethan was tugging on my arm to get my attention, telling me he needed his water bottle, while Nancy was digging the heels of her hands into my back – ‘releasing a tough spot’, she was telling me.
I spotted Grace as soon as she entered the school gates. She held up her hand in an awkward semi-wave, as if she were apprehensive about coming over. I wondered if she were as apprehensive as I was though. It was getting to the point that I no longer liked drop-offs. Now, whenever Grace wandered over to us, I felt the tension in the air and I knew I was caught in the middle of it.
‘I haven’t seen you in ages,’ she said, her eyes drifting to Nancy’s hands as they kneaded my back.
‘I’ve been so busy lately,’ I apologised, flapping a hand in the air, arching forward in the hope Nancy might stop.
Grace’s mouth flattened into a small smile and I immediately felt guilty. Always so guilty. Lately I was spending all my time feeling like everything I did was wrong.
‘Maybe we could catch up this weekend?’ she said. ‘Could we do something together, with Ethan and Matilda?’ Her gaze flicked to Caitlyn and Rachel, who stood beside me. She seemed nervous, like she had no right asking for my time, and now I had to let her down again because it was Ben’s birthday.
‘I can’t, I’m so sorry. It’s Ben’s fortieth …’
‘Oh. No worries.’ Grace smiled again and brushed her hand through the air.
I knew she was waiting for me to tell her what we were doing and so I said, ‘We haven’t planned much, just a small dinner party.’ It didn’t help that my small dinner party included the other three women who were standing with us.
I tried catching Rachel’s eye – she was the only one who was looking in my direction – willing her not to speak, and was about to change the conversation when Nancy laughed.
‘Haven’t planned much? It’s all you’ve both been going on about for the last however many weeks!’ She released her hands from my tight muscles. ‘And it’s going to be perfect for him,’ she said as she came next to me and squeezed me into her side.
I wanted the playground to swallow me up. I knew what Nancy was saying – she understood all too well how panicked I was over cooking a four-course meal; she was trying to make me feel better. Only, after her words Grace’s expression was no longer one of forgiving generosity. Her face was blank and closed off as she turned to look over her shoulder, back to the playground, making a pretence of searching out her daughter.
‘Grace, I wish I could have invited you too, but it’s Ben birthday—’
‘Oh, don’t be so silly, of course you can’t,’ Grace said, turning back to me, smiling again. ‘He doesn’t even know me.’
Sometimes I wished Grace would just come out and say exactly what she was thinking. In fact, many times I thought it would be better if we could all be more honest instead of dancing around our fears and anxieties and dislikes. Right then, her pretending not to care when she so clearly did only made me feel worse.
‘Tell you what,’ Grace said, ‘why don’t you come over for dinner one night next week? I’ll do macaroni cheese,’ she said.
‘Macaroni cheese?’ Rachel asked.
‘Anna’s favourite when we were teenagers,’ Grace told her. ‘She made me make it for her all the time, didn’t you?’
‘That would be lovely, thank you.’
Grace carried on smiling, but I saw the way her eyes lingered on Nancy’s arm, which was hung around my shoulder, and
I could see the smile fading.
I wanted to shake Nancy off, prise her arm off me. But I managed only to stand frozen to the spot.
What I really wanted was to walk away from all of them because even this short exchange was draining me. Everything felt fake. None of it real. None of it right.
At last Grace made an excuse and wandered off to find her daughter. Nancy’s arm squeezed me tighter before she eventually pulled away and stuffed her hands into her pocket. ‘What was all that about?’ she asked.
‘All what about?’ I shrugged.
‘You made her invite sound anything but lovely.’
‘No I didn’t.’
‘Yes you did.’ She paused. ‘Anna, if you don’t want to go, then don’t go.’
Next to us Rachel was swearing that she didn’t realise the time and she was going to be late for work. She quickly raced off across the playground, leaving only Caitlyn lingering, although she had pulled back from Nancy and me.
‘Of course I want to go,’ I said.
Nancy pursed her lips, her eyes widening. ‘Well, I don’t think you do,’ she told me, and finally I looked away from her because right then I really didn’t want to be having this conversation.
Today the rain splatters against Sally’s windowpane in tiny droplets. It means I can’t see the road as clearly as usual. Every so often a flash of an umbrella appears, whoever is underneath it scurrying past until they are out of sight.
I like staring out of Sally’s window and people-watching on the unfamiliar street; today, with my view blurred, even the rhythmic patter of rain is calming.
Sometimes the hour-long sessions with Sally are a tonic in themselves – just to take the time out and sit here with nothing else to focus on but myself. She isn’t pushing me, but I often wonder if she thinks I’m wasting my money when I’m only prepared to open up halfway.
‘I want it all to go away,’ I admit.
‘For what to go away?’
I give a slight shrug. ‘I don’t feel like myself at all any more. I don’t want to be standing in the playground feeling anxious. I’m beginning to dread the school run.’
I am pushing Grace to the outer edges of my life. She must know I am I doing it, too. I can hear her saying, Do you not need me any more, Anna?
I did once. I needed Grace more than anything when we were young. Even more so when I was a teenager, before she was ripped away from me. But I don’t need her any longer. I don’t need anyone.
I pull myself together, inhaling deeply. ‘Anyway, Nancy says I shouldn’t feel guilty about the party. Grace doesn’t even know Ben, not like they all do.’ I look to Sally for a response.
‘But you do feel guilty?’ she asks.
‘All the bloody time.’
Sally smiles. ‘I think you need to stop beating yourself up. You’re all adults now and all you can do is what feels right for you. But Anna’ – she presses forward in her chair – ‘if you’re not seeing Grace because Nancy doesn’t like her …’ She lets the suggestion hang.
I feel the itch getting under my fingernails, spreading into my hands until they tingle. This deep need to talk to Sally, to try to explain.
Instead I say, ‘That’s not it at all.’ And now, as quickly as that, I don’t want to talk about Nancy any more. Or Grace. And so I change the subject completely. ‘You’ve asked me about my mother,’ I say.
‘I have.’ Sally nods encouragingly. ‘I’d be interested to talk about her with you.’
‘I have no interest in talking about her,’ I mutter, which is half true. I understand the irony when I mentioned her in the first place, but I suppose she’s been there in the back of my head since my dad started talking right before he died.
‘Could you tell me what happened?’
‘There’s nothing much to say.’ I pause and think about my father’s words, how he filled in some of the gaps for me. ‘She walked out when I was four years old and never came back. We didn’t see her again. One day she was there and the next she was gone.’
‘That must have been an extremely difficult thing to deal with.’
I shrug. I remember the time in patches and wonder what is a true memory and what I have since made up. Like the smell of talcum powder that always triggers a vivid image of my mum in my head, the feel of her hair, her smell. Is it a true memory or one I’ve conjured since?
What I do know for certain is that in the days after my mother walked out, I stood in the front garden and waited by the gate. Always looking up the road, waiting to see a flash of the bright coat she would wear as she turned the corner and came into sight.
And then one day I didn’t wait any more. And after that I never waited again.
‘Have you ever tried looking for your mum?’ Sally asks.
I shake my head. My dad never spoke to me about her when I was younger. His way of surviving was to almost pretend it never happened, like she was never there in the first place. ‘Dad tried to erase her from our lives and I kind of accepted it because I was so young. But I felt her absence in the little things that mums do, like coming to watch my ballet, or the Easter egg hunts and Christmas Eve boxes that Catherine always did for me.
‘A month before he died, Dad told me he always expected she would leave one day. Apparently, she was always threatening it when things went wrong and she couldn’t cope. He told me it was easier when she finally went because he didn’t want her dipping in and out of my life when it suited her. He didn’t have to worry about the worst happening because by then it already had.’ I suck in a deep breath before adding, ‘He kept tabs on her sporadically through someone they both knew. She had another child, he believed, another family, but I don’t know what became of them.
‘She died five years ago,’ I tell Sally. ‘So now I never can ask her how she could have left me. Because a mother doesn’t do that, does she? After Ethan was born I knew I’d never be able to forgive her for what she’d done. Nothing excuses it, does it? Not one reason on earth can justify you walking out on your child.’
Chapter Five
Grace
Grace leaves Ben’s house and climbs into her car. She can see him watching her through a slit in his curtains. He is pulling them aside and peering through the gap. He won’t call the police. She knows this by the way he has ushered her out of his house, how he questioned her about other men and how the thoughts of what questions would be fired at him are as much of a deterrent.
She pulls out her phone and stares at its screen. If this is the case she needs to call them herself.
When she glances back at the window Ben has vanished and the curtain has been dropped into place. Possibly she should give him a chance to do what he’s promised, though she has every desire to take control of the situation, rather than leave it to him and Anna’s three friends, who are no doubt together still. She wonders how much they are telling each other their own truths right now, if they all know exactly what the others know, or if they are merely dancing around their own versions of a story.
Her thumb rolls down the screen of her phone, tracing over its contacts, as she starts the engine. Grace has Nancy’s number, Rachel’s and Caitlyn’s, too. All of them were added at the start of term when she joined the year-four WhatsApp group.
The thought of them all huddled together, sharing and plotting, knowing more than she does, tugs at her. She hovers over the number for Caitlyn, the one woman out of the group she is most likely to get the truth from, and before thinking about what she is doing, presses down. The phone diverts to the car speaker and Grace rests her head back as she listens to the ring tone and then the answer message click on. She hangs up, cradling the phone in her lap before she tries Caitlyn again. But once more it rings out. She imagines the panic on the woman’s face as Grace’s name flashes up on her phone. Is she too nervous to pick up? Maybe she even has Nancy lingering over her shoulder, telling her to disconnect the call.
But Grace needs answers. Ben has nothing to give her; Caitlyn isn’t answ
ering her. With every door that closes she is getting more panicked that the people close to Anna are hiding something.
She scrolls through her phone again and presses on Rachel’s number now, but this time it doesn’t even ring before going to straight to voicemail. Which leaves only one option: Nancy Simpson.
Grace hesitates. Nancy is the last of the three she wants to talk to and yet if any of those women know more than they are telling her she needs to get it out of them. She is about to press down on the number when the phone ringing startles her: Graham’s name flashes up on the satnav screen. Grace taps to answer it.
‘Hello,’ she says curtly. Graham hasn’t called her in – she counts out the days in her mind – what is it now, four of them?
‘Hello, my love,’ he says, his voice smooth as it fills the line. She had once found it sexy, but now it sounds weak and pathetic, and does nothing more than irritate her. ‘How are you?’
‘Matilda is good,’ Grace says. How is his daughter not the first thing he asks about?
‘Good. That’s good. Sorry I didn’t manage to call you back the other night,’ he replies as she shifts on her seat, flicking on the indicator, ready to pull away. ‘I’m trying to figure out when I can next get back.’ There’s a pause. ‘Actually, it might not be until the twenty-third now.’
‘Two days before Christmas?’ she mutters. She’d laugh out loud if there was anything remotely funny about it.
‘Yes. I’m so sorry; you know I want to be there sooner but there’s a major crisis going on here. Everything’s hit the fan at the same time, and I can’t even rely on half the guys to—’
Grace’s mind cuts out his voice as she shakes her head and pulls away from Anna and Ben’s house, focusing on how to get out of the labyrinth of roads that lie ahead and make her way to the police station. She doesn’t believe Ben will call them, and if she cannot get some answers from the women, she will go to the police herself.