DORSET, 2010
ONE YEAR LATER
Mid-December. The year has deepened; every day the light becomes quieter. From high up on Eggardon Hill the little fields below us tilt to the coast; the slivers of sea in the distance are white as frost. The only noises in the silent countryside are my footsteps and Bertie’s, crunching through the icy turf.
Bridport sits in a valley near the sea; its wide streets are busy at this time of year. The old stone buildings stand plainly to the road and, despite the garish lights strung about them, they look as they always do, as they must have looked two hundred years ago.
The bookshop door jangles open, but instead of the usual book-scented peace, the narrow spaces are jammed with people; there is a smell of wet hair and banana bubble gum. A broad woman with a disgruntled face steps on my toes and glances angrily at me, while a child nearby pulls books from a shelf and throws them on the floor. Naomi’s books were easy to choose; she loved so many different authors: Lawrence, Kerouac, Mark Haddon, Stieg Larsson. Faced with the crowd in the bookshop, I collect an armful of novels for the boys and put them in a basket. My fingers linger on the spines of other books as I try to remember what Ted had on his bedside table a year ago. The novels I had chosen for him had always remained pristine under a thin layer of dust, so perhaps I never knew what he liked. I buy the books I have collected and leave, crossing the road under the clock tower as it strikes eleven.
In Boots I choose Ted a leather bag and collect toothbrush, toothpaste, washcloth, and soap, then wait in a jostling line to pay. A smear of pink glitters peripherally; turning my head, I see those little pots and tubes of makeup and shampoo that I used to put in her stocking, along with spotted panties, bracelets, tangerines, plastic cookies. It had been fun. I’d forgotten that. That world where fun was an end in itself had vanished with her. The games and silly jokes she played on the boys, the fuss at birthdays and Christmas, which they scorned but joined in—all that went when she did. No, of course it went before that. I stop in the line as that thought catches me again, and two girls behind bump into me, mutter, and laugh. The fun had stopped long before. I hadn’t noticed exactly when; it had been gradual. I’d been busy. Even during the summer holiday before the autumn term began, she’d been quieter.
At the cash register, I snap back to myself, pay, and then awkwardly gather the bags that are around my feet. At least this year I have bought presents. Last year I tried, but I couldn’t. Naomi had been gone just over a month. There were teenage girls and their mothers everywhere, choosing decorations, picking out little gifts, calling to each other for approval. I remember I had to leave my full basket on the floor in a shop and walk out in tears through the pushing crowds. Now, going toward the parking lot, I can just about bear to see the families inside these crowds. I see this mother, that child. Now I can watch them, though I couldn’t before.
Once the shopping is loaded in the car, I drive home along the narrow lanes, past the golf course glimpsed through the tattered winter hedge, and the empty donkey field. The field beyond this has rows of empty trailers and a boarded-up shop, dismal in the dull light, then the first little brick bungalows of the village. I know them so well I hardly see them. That was what happened with Naomi too. I stopped seeing her because I knew her by heart. I drive slowly past the church and up my lane.
As I bring the shopping in from the car and dump everything on the floor, Bertie noses at the unfamiliar mass of plastic bags. In the kitchen, the light suddenly darkens: someone has followed me to the doorway. I swing around, catching my head on the corner of the open cabinet, tearing the scar that had formed after my fall into the tree. It throbs immediately and the blood wells.
I recognize his shoulders against the light before I see his face.
“Michael!”
I am surprised by how glad I feel, but as I move toward him my hands feel weak with sudden dread. What has he come to tell me? The tomatoes drop and the foil-wrapped Christmas pudding rolls under the table. Bertie runs to investigate and pats it farther away with his paw.
“What’s happened, Michael? Say quickly.”
“Nothing. Nothing’s happened.” He spreads his arms wide, opens his hands to show they are empty, no secrets. “I was passing—”
“Passing?” No one ever passes Burton Bradstock.
“I’m on my way to Devon to see my folks. Christmas, remember?” Then his face changes, his eyebrows draw together.
“You’re bleeding. You cut your head.”
He pulls a white handkerchief from his pocket, and his hands are careful as he presses the wound through the soft linen. Close up, I catch that familiar, freshly laundered scent mixed with toothpaste. His mouth, inches from my eyes, is unguarded. My skin tingles with the surprise of touch and I am completely still. I feel him registering that. As his hands drop lightly to my shoulders he looks down at me.
“It’s stopped bleeding now.” He pauses. “You look well.” His eyes are warm as he takes in my face. “I’ve wondered . . .” and he reaches for the right words.
I step back. “It’s good to see you again. Sorry to greet you like a death’s-head.”
We stare at each other; he is taken aback by my words. He looks down and I can see how the brightness in my tone has jarred. What had he imagined would happen when we met? That brief kiss months ago in the kitchen in Bristol had come from a moment of exhaustion. My guard had been down; a mistake, nothing more.
“Coffee?” I turn, hands hovering over the mugs, waiting for the moment to pass.
“Yes. No. I thought we might go for a walk . . . I’ll buy you lunch. When I was driving into the village, I saw signs to a restaurant on the beach.”
I pick up the dropped food and push it into the fridge, then put Bertie on his lead. I check quickly in the mirror. He said I looked well. How is that possible? My hair is a wild black tangle and I never wear makeup now, but my eyes are blue against skin turned brown from walking by the sea. The fresh air and simple food have made my face recover. The mirror gives me back my curious glance, as though I am looking at someone whose face I recognize but can’t quite place.
We go out together through the garden gate into the field.
“I’ve thought of you down here so often,” he says, turning to me, smiling slightly. “It looks completely different from how I imagined it.”
Did he think there would still be blood on the floor and dirty wineglasses? Desiccated flies on the windowsill?
“Are you all right, mostly?” His voice is careful; he wants to know but isn’t sure how to ask.
Am I all right? As we walk through the field, then cross the road to the beach path, I think of the evenings in front of the fire, sketching memories. The stack of paintings behind the chair getting thicker. Dan calls after school sometimes to help with odd jobs. He’s painted a room for me. We’ve become friends, though we don’t talk much. I look forward to his company; he reminds me of my boys. There are cups of tea with Mary, and I’ve been to the library with her twice now. Theo phones from time to time and I visit Ed. Ted sends the occasional postcard or text when he leaves the country for meetings. But there is never a moment without pain at the back of it: her face is everywhere. Sometimes the need to know what happened is stronger than I can bear. When I first came to the cottage, I would stand on the pebbles, with the icy water frothing around my legs, holding Bertie to stop me from walking into the sea.
“ ‘All right’ doesn’t quite . . . it’s less than that, but—”
“Tell me.”
And then we are talking, at least I am. He is listening. I am talking and crying; it feels dangerous to let the words flow unchecked but I can’t seem to stop. The despair and loneliness of these last four months flood through me and he puts his arm around me. He lets me tell him everything until I feel emptied out and the tears have stopped. We walk up and down the beach while the wind catches the edges of the pounding waves, tears off bits of foam, and blows them at us.
The Beach Hut café is open. I haven’t been inside for years, not since the children were small, when we would come in for fish and chips. In the summer there are noisy crowds eating out under a new awning, but today it’s quiet. A few of the tables are occupied by old men reading the Dorchester Chronicle, dogs by their feet. The place smells of tea and wet dog. Michael orders fish and chips for us and within minutes we are given fresh slices of flaky haddock and piles of hot salty chips on thick white plates. We take them to a table by the window. I rub a clear patch on the steamy glass and watch the breaking waves crash on the empty beach.
My eyes feel sore with crying but I’ve let something go and I feel better. It’s good to be here with Michael. With the sea outside it reminds me of being on a boat. No one can reach us, different rules could apply.
Michael says quietly that he’s been promoted at work and then, looking outside, tells me that his wife left him six months ago.
I feel guilty; he has listened to me for so long. “You never said. I’m sorry.”
“Should I have? Should I have let you know?” He looks at me and I look away quickly.
A year ago we had reached for each other one night in the kitchen in Bristol. Ted had gone to bed without a word; Michael had come by on the way home. I was tired and tearful, angry with Ted for being able to retreat into sleep. Michael’s kindness had been something to hold on to.
Michael is looking out of the window again; the clouds are reflected in the gray of his eyes. The words come slowly.
“We married young.” He stops, shrugs. “I don’t want to bore you with my stuff.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t talk about it much. It’s over now.”
“Tell me.”
He hesitates a moment longer. “We got married at eighteen in Cape Town; she was pregnant. She miscarried after a few weeks . . .”
I should be able to hear these words, pregnant and miscarried, by now without an answering sharp stab of pain. Naomi’s child would be nearly six months old. I count the months as they go by. If the pregnancy had continued and the baby survived. If she had. I clench my teeth together, and the sharpness fades a little. Michael hasn’t noticed; he has carried on.
“. . . thought England might be different, with less pressure from our families, better medical advice—but she didn’t get pregnant again.” He looks at his hands, then back at me. “I had to make a career, but the hours were long. It was hard for her. She was so alone.”
I know how it would have been. By ten at night she would scrape his waiting supper into the garbage can. Another night she might arrange something, a movie outing or a play, and sit ready, waiting with her coat on at home until after the performance had begun, then she would sit on, simply holding the white envelope with the tickets inside. Days on her own, though the nights would be worse. Every month she would cry when her period came.
Michael continues. “She started volunteering for the Citizens Advice Bureau, then she got pregnant and this time she didn’t lose it.”
“So you do have a child . . .” His eyes are so serious that I falter. “Was it a boy or—”
“A boy. Not mine. The father is a lawyer she met in the bureau. Married, but he’s left his wife.” He pauses. “We should never have gotten married in the first place.”
How could he have known, though? How could I? When you are young you have no idea what you will need as time passes or how strong you might have to be.
“Don’t look so worried.” He smiles. “It’s history now. I’m sorry I took advantage . . .”
He’s sorry he let himself say anything? Or maybe he’s thinking back to the evening in the kitchen a year ago, and so I think myself back there too. His hand had been warm on my back, his mouth had held mine. After all, it had had the rough edge of something real, when nothing else had.
Outside, the air has darkened. The white surf glows through the rain; the waves farther back have merged with the mauve of early evening and have become invisible. It’s colder than before, but the food and talking have warmed me. We walk back over the fields, hands bumping. Inside the cottage I feed Bertie, Michael makes the fire. It pulls at my heart to see him here now, quietly making my fire, bending seriously to the task. The kindling catches and flares. Then he turns to me.
I walk into his arms and we begin kissing as though we had never stopped. It is like the heat of sun when it’s been cold and dark for a long time. He leads me to the fire, and takes off my coat, takes his off. We undress by firelight. He pulls the thick blanket from its place on the sofa, and covers us both. We lie together, touching along the length of our bodies; his skin feels familiar and new at the same time. Safe and dangerous. He has sensed my unease, and pulling slightly away he strokes my face in the dark.
“What is it?” he asks softly. “Tell me.”
“How will this work? Are you allowed to do this? I mean—”
“Don’t worry.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “It’s our secret.”
Our secret? Should we have one? His arms are close around me, comforting, and my unease dissolves. His hands move slowly over me, and as my skin begins to heat I turn into him, pulled in by the warmth, wanting this now. Into my mind comes the thought that Naomi did this too; she must have been pulled into something secret before it changed into something dangerous. Then his mouth covers mine and we begin to move together as though we have been waiting for this for a long time.
BRISTOL, 2009
FIVE DAYS AFTER
“I’m sorry.”
Michael looked stricken. His hand dropped to his side.
“It’s okay.” I felt too tired for this; I could hear the impatience edging my voice. “Don’t look so guilty. It doesn’t matter.” I didn’t want this to make any difference, because we still had to work together.
We were in the kitchen, Ted was upstairs.
After the television appeal in the morning he had gone straight to work. He had been there; he said it grounded him to carry on. It worked for him, but for me there was no ground, it had ceased to exist. I lived in a black space across which I saw him distantly. I felt sorry and angry from far away. I couldn’t understand how he could go out, greet patients and colleagues. When he came back he ate quickly, standing up, then went to bed, gray with exhaustion.
Michael had come by late. The boys had gone to bed.
I was telling Michael how worried I was for the boys when I had started crying. He had put his arm around me. We had moved closer, he had bent his head to mine, and then, for a second, our mouths had met. I’d pulled back; it had instantly felt wrong. I was exhausted and he must have been too. A momentary reflex, that’s all, created out of despair and loneliness. No one was to blame. We needed to get back to where we had been, so I told Michael about Jade. It seemed to work: as I talked I could see him settling into himself again, taking charge.
“I went to see Jade again today. I’d promised I would. I thought people would stare at me because my eyelids were so puffed up, but no one took any notice.”
I realized as I spoke that when I had worked in the hospital, I had ignored them too, the army of the grief-stricken sleepless who sat invisibly in the wards, watching and waiting. “Her father was with her. He stood up when I got there. He’s big. I’d forgotten.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” Michael asked. I heard annoyance in his voice. “I could have come with you. It might have helped. I’m supposed to be supporting you; it’s my job, remember?”
“I wouldn’t have expected you to come along; it was my mistake,” I told him. “I’d got the diagnosis wrong. I had to sort it out.”
“How did it go?”
“I took her some old books of Naomi’s and she thanked me. She seemed glad to see me. She was fatter. The chemotherapy contains steroids, so it’s an artificial sort of fatness, but she looked better all the same.” I could feel the tears spilling out again. “But the most difficult thing was what happened with Jeff Price.”
“What did he do?” Michael sounded angry.
“Nothing. He said sorry.”
“What?”
I thought back to the moment Jade had taken the books and opened one.
“Whose writing is that?” She had turned to her father, showing him the pencil marks scrawled across the sky on the first page.
“ ‘Naomi Malcolm,’ ” he read. “ ‘My bed. My bedroom. Number One, Clifton Road, Bristol. England. The World. The Universe. Outer Space.’ ” He paused, then added, “That’s the doctor’s little girl, Jadie.”
“Won’t she mind?” Jade turned her face toward me.
“No,” I said. I had forgotten about the writing. “She’s . . . bigger now.” I tried to smile.
Perhaps Jade read my expression. “I’ll give it back when I’ve finished,” she said.
I nodded, unable to speak. Jeff Price walked down the aisle of beds with me. Children were lying in hot little heaps, faces flushed and stupefied with boredom. They were as silent as ill animals, swamped by layers of relatives who sat around them, watching television.
He stopped in the corridor outside the plastic doors of the ward.
“I saw you on the telly earlier. I’m sorry about what’s happened. Not right. I know we had words but that’s not right.”
“Thanks.” I paused. “The police are interviewing everyone. Even my patients . . .”
“Fine by me. Bring it on. Anything I can do to help. I’ve been here twenty-four seven, the nurses will tell them that.”
He touched me on the shoulder and walked back, seeming to fill the corridor as he walked, lurching slightly from side to side, his feet in their huge white sneakers sucking noisily at the shiny blue floor.
The plastic doors had slapped shut behind him.
Michael was waiting patiently for my response.
“Jeff Price was sorry about Naomi,” I told him again. “Perhaps you don’t need to interview him after all.”
“Well, it shouldn’t take long.”
It didn’t seem as if I could stop what I’d started, even if I was sure Jeff Price wasn’t involved.
“You were great on television.” Michael smiled, changing the subject.
The lights had been hot and bright. They had made my eyes water but I didn’t want people to think I was crying. I didn’t want Naomi’s abductor to know what he was doing to us. We were warned that if you show your distress it can make it worse. Parents become victims to be manipulated. At the same time, we had to do it. We had to reach out to the woman who might have glimpsed her blurred face in a car window in an unknown city and seen her open mouth calling for help. We had to grab the attention of the man serving in a corner shop, who might have noticed that the quiet man who normally just bought cigarettes was now buying extra things: food, tape, sanitary napkins for the bleeding. We had to tell the child on a bike ride to pick up the gray hoodie that was caught at the bottom of a hedge down a country lane, the one she had thrown out so someone would find it. I wanted the woman by the lights, the shopkeeper, and the child on the bike to be on my side.
“You were really great,” Michael said again, when I didn’t reply. “So was Ted. We’ll need to see him again, by the way.”
“I think he’s asleep now. It’s funny—he can hardly seem to keep awake but I can’t sleep at all.”
“Just a few questions; tomorrow would be better.”
“I can probably answer them now.”
“No. We need to ask him the questions.”
He sounded serious, almost regretful. I didn’t understand.
“What questions?”
“Not everything is adding up. We need to straighten a few things out.”
I felt sick. Did we have to go over it all again, separately? Did this mean the police had decided not to believe what we were saying?
“Michael, please. Time is going by and every second—”
“That’s why we’ve got to get this straight. Could you tell him he needs to be at the station in the morning? We’ll collect him.”
It sounded so ridiculous, like some television police drama, where the husband is needed for questioning and the wife becomes hysterical.
“If I can answer for him, it will save a lot of time.”
Michael sighed quickly. “All right. Do you happen to know where Ted was the night Naomi went missing?”
I got up and started walking around the kitchen, picking up the glasses and cups that seemed to litter every surface. They knew the answer to that already. I was tired; I wanted to go to bed now.
“I know exactly where he was. At the hospital. His operation was running late. He had a difficult case—it happens all the time. If anyone doesn’t believe that, it’s easy enough to check with the staff at the hospital.”
Michael stood up as well. His face was expressionless and it was as though he hadn’t heard me.
“I’ll let myself out,” he said, and his voice sounded oddly formal. “Please tell him he’ll be collected in the morning.”
Once he’d left, I sat at the table, my eyes closed. Michael’s words seemed to echo on in the silence. After a while I went to the phone and rang the hospital. I asked to be put through to the neuro operating room. Though it was late, a male assistant answered immediately. He sounded very young. I told him who I was and that Ted had asked me to check on the time he’d started in the operating room the previous Thursday evening. He had forgotten to record the length of the operation and needed it for a GP letter. The words came so smoothly it was as if I’d been rehearsing them rather than plucking them from the tumult in my mind. He left for a moment, then returned.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Dr. Malcolm. Had to double-check. Sure you didn’t mean Monday?”
“I am certain he said Thursday,” I replied, my heart thudding.
The young voice sounded apologetic. “It’s just that it was only Mr. Patel in neurotheater on Thursday. Mr. Malcolm’s case was canceled. I can find out how long the operation took on the Monday if you want to phone me back?”
“Thanks. He’ll be in touch if he needs to.” I replaced the receiver and then I went upstairs and sat on a chair next to my sleeping husband. I stared at him for so long that his face changed and seemed to dissolve, in the way that your own identity does if you say your name over and over to yourself. In the end he looked like any man lying there, a stranger who I happened to have met, by accident.