Joe kept sociable hours for the most part. At times he was able to see the boys off to school and be home for their dinner. Both boys were at crucial stages in their education. At fourteen, Connor had just chosen his GCSE options and, at that age, it seemed like those few momentary decisions would dictate the rest of his life.
‘Nothing is set in stone,’ Joe reassured his son, but it fell on deaf ears. Connor was a worrier.
‘But what if history clashes with art?’
Everything with Connor was fatalistic and he was the family’s pessimist. On the other hand, Callum, who was embarking on his first year of A-levels, was the family’s horizontal barometer. His was the ‘slide and see’ method of future planning and preparation. He’d chosen design and science based topics for GCSE and now he was trying his hand at business. Not that he was business minded. Indeed the opposite was true: Callum was a philanthropist (albeit an armchair one) and the cut-throat world of economics and world corporatism was a millions miles away from his altruistic ideals. Still, he understood the importance of earning, and every company in the world needed an accountant.
Joe let it go. It was Annie who was constantly on their backs. Joe’s wasn’t a grand wage, and Annie essentially paid the bills. She was a HR boss at the Penrith and Lakes Hospital and it was her income that supported them. As Joe rolled out of bed, pulled on a sweater and jogging pants and cooked himself eggs, Annie had already made sure that the boys knew their schedule for the day, fixed her packed lunch, made breakfast, cleared away, put a load of washing on, and left on time for work. Connor had revision sessions at school until gone five this evening, and Callum was trying a taster session at the new climbing wall in Keswick. Both boys went to school in the town and Annie dropped them off each morning, at the end of the long farm track, to catch the one school bus.
Annie’s seniority at the hospital meant that she could take advantage of her position and enquire about the woman they’d found at Castlerigg. It was the main topic of gossip at the Penrith and Lakes this week. The woman – who seemed more like a child – had vanished, and concerns for her wellbeing were mounting. Annie knew before the press and had called Joe to tell him. Her husband seemed still to be in shock and she put it down to his gentle nature.
Everybody at the Penrith and Lakes had their own theories. She was a runaway, a hitcher, a foreign illegal, a drug addict, and she was a nobody. To Annie, the girl was a lost soul, she’d told Joe: she’d looked into her eyes. She’d seen the torment. But, at Castlerigg, she’d also seen the way the girl looked at Callum.
A shiver went down her back as she dropped the boys at the end of the track that morning, the start of a new autumn term, and then made her way to the A66 and on to Penrith. She looked in her rear-view mirror and watched them stand at the side of the road, hands in pockets, occasionally speaking to one another, waiting for the bus. It wouldn’t be long before snow started to fall, around November time, and the buses would struggle to make it on time. But that was a source of excitement and anticipation for all the school children in Keswick in the winter: snow days. Annie reflected that when she was a child, snow days weren’t a thing. It seemed that suddenly nowadays, teachers found it difficult to negotiate a little snow drift in their four-by-fours, whereas when she was at school, a tiny Ford with a screaming engine and flimsy tyres fared better against the elements.
Character was everything.
The memory of the girl in the field at Castlerigg came back to her as she found a gap in the traffic and pulled on to the busy A road. She’d ushered her boys away from the sight of the naked woman. Joe had taken over and his survival instincts had kicked in. They couldn’t get her to the car because every time they tried she’d struggle and cause a fuss, so they threw clothes and blankets over her, with Annie insisting that the boys go and wait in the vehicle. They refused. Understandably they were scared to leave their parents, but it had come as a surprise to witness the boys’ vulnerability.
The young woman was all Callum had talked about since they’d found her. He’d bombarded his mother with question after question: did she know anything? Was she all right? Who was she? Had the police made sure she was safe? What was being said at the hospital?
He’d had nightmares. She knew he had because she’d peeked in the bedroom after hearing him thrashing about in bed, though he denied it. This morning, he’d been quiet. It had been on the news last night, that the police were looking for her, and Callum wasn’t stupid. He was a mature sixteen, as were many of the children who lived in the outlying villages, and had to be self-sufficient at an early age. He worked out that she was no longer at the hospital. He’d also seen her picture online and on TV. He knew, also, that the police were concerned because they’d released photos of her clothes. Annie saw, as the days passed, that his frown deepened and shadows cursed his eyes.
‘Do you know what, Callum? She’s probably got herself drunk at a party and is now safe at home, burning with embarrassment at the trouble she’s caused.’ She’d tried to reassure her son but knew that Callum hadn’t fallen for her theory, but it sounded comforting anyway.
The cottage was their warmth and succour, and she hated leaving it every morning at this time of the year, when the cool air seemed sharper and the sun dropped further in the sky. She looked forward to getting home every night and had no more ambitions than to provide for her boys and care for her family. She envied Joe his casual hours and outdoor existence; though when the snow hit, she’d rather be tucked away in her office in the bowels of the hospital any day.
She spotted the school bus travelling in the other direction as it made its pick-ups in the villages between Penrith and its final destination. Callum was talking of attending sixth form in Kendal: that would present a fresh transport headache. His other option was Penrith or Workington, or even Barrow-in-Furness. Annie had an aunt in the large town on the south coast of the Furness peninsula but she’d rather Callum came home every night. It was a conversation for next year.
For now, she was keen to find out if anyone knew if the girl had been found yet.