Diana
From: Mike and Diana Howells
To: CassyHowlerMonkey@gmail.com
Re: How are you?
Darling,
Were you in a bad mood when you wrote that? I’m sure those people seem very exciting, but we think you’ve been there long enough. Of course you will go back to Durham, and you will finish your degree. We aren’t going to let you throw everything away. Please get to a proper phone and call us STRAIGHT AWAY.
Mum and Dad xx
From: Mike and Diana Howells
To: CassyHowlerMonkey@gmail.com
Re: How are you?
Cassy, we’re worried. Just phone, PLEASE, so we can talk to you.
Facebook message from Tara Howells
Mum and Dad r going nuts. For fucks sake fone them just to get them off my back!!! You r coming home aren’t you??
From: Mike and Diana Howells
To: CassyHowlerMonkey@gmail.com
Re: How are you?
Cassy,
Are you sleeping with someone out there—is that what this is about? If so, please see it for what it is. They may call it free love, but I call it cheap love! Your future is worth more. I hope you know that.
Love,
Mum
Facebook message from Tara Howells
CASSSSSSEEEEEEEEE!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK???
From: Mike and Diana Howells
To: CassyHowlerMonkey@gmail.com
Re: How are you?
Cassy, this isn’t funny. If we don’t hear from you straight away we’ll have to take some kind of action. PLEASE PHONE ASAP. We expect to be meeting you at Heathrow next Friday. We will be there!!
•
On the Saturday before Cassy was due home, Becca and Imogen turned up unannounced. Diana was cheered to find them standing on her front step, wearing sundresses and smiles. It made Cassy seem closer.
‘Come in,’ she cried. ‘Ready for the big day, Imogen? Wow, you look all radiant and bridal!’
Imogen and Becca had known each other forever, and met Cassy when she started sixth form at their school. It was a friendship that had carried the three of them through the stresses of A levels and early adult life—and, in Imogen’s case, her on-again, off-again obsession with Jack.
Imogen’s froth of hair seemed unusually blonde that day; Diana suspected some serious money had been spent in one of the posher salons. They talked about wedding flowers while she led them out to the garden table. It was a breathless, yellow-haze evening. Train tracks were buckling in the heat. Imogen said she’d been stranded at Clapham Junction, and getting home from work had been a bloody nightmare, and she hated bloody Southern Railway.
‘Any news on our lass?’ asked Becca, as Diana opened a bottle of prosecco. ‘We’ve not heard a dicky-bird.’
‘Oh dear, I was hoping you could shed some light,’ said Diana, filling their glasses. ‘I don’t understand what’s going on. She says she might not be back on Friday.’
‘She has to be back!’ Imogen looked appalled. ‘She’s my bridesmaid.’
‘I know, I know. I was going to call you. Hang on, you can see what she wrote.’
Diana fetched her laptop, brought up Cassy’s most recent message and watched their shocked expressions as they read.
‘Ouch,’ said Becca, wincing. ‘Steady on, Cass.’
‘She’s sick of living out our fantasy of the perfect daughter, apparently,’ said Diana, who’d been cut to the quick by Cassy’s message. ‘I didn’t know I had such a fantasy. I really, really didn’t.’
‘I always thought she liked being perfect,’ said Imogen. As soon as she’d spoken, she smacked herself in the mouth. ‘I mean … sorry, that came out bitchy.’
‘I don’t recognise this voice,’ said Becca, wrinkling her nose. ‘It doesn’t sound like Cassy.’
Imogen leaned back in her seat. ‘We’ve heard something about Hamish. I don’t know whether it’s true, but …’ She held up her hand. ‘Don’t shoot the messenger, but according to Facebook he’s very matey with someone else already. She’s called Charlotte Someone-double-barrelled. There are photos of them skiing together.’
‘Well!’ Diana took a moment to digest this news. ‘That is a bit of gossip.’
‘I didn’t really know him, but I always thought that man was insincere,’ said Imogen. ‘Too smooth by half.’
Soon after that, the girls downed their drinks and said they’d better be off.
‘We’re not telling anyone about Cassy,’ said Diana, as she saw them out. ‘We’re still hoping she’ll be home on Friday. If you could just keep this under your hats?’
‘Sure,’ said Imogen. ‘But if she doesn’t front up at my wedding, people are going to wonder why.’
Becca stopped to kiss Diana’s cheek. ‘Don’t worry. She’ll be on that plane.’
‘I’m sure she will.’
•
It was one thing to be half rational while sitting in a sunlit garden; not so easy after dark, when the air felt like a smothering blanket. A migraine was gathering. Green-and-red psychedelic balloons floated and flashed in the dark periphery of Diana’s vision.
She lay on her side of the bed and listened to Mike worrying. He turned over. He sat up, threw himself down again. She understood. It was the witching hour, when horrors seemed to crawl out from under the rocks. She imagined sickening things: Cassy kidnapped, chained in a dungeon (did they have dungeons in New Zealand?); Cassy lost in a wilderness, or dead in a ditch.
Don’t be silly. Don’t be so bloody silly. You know exactly where she is.
Yet the images kept coming.
Mike didn’t bother to whisper. He knew she was awake.
‘Why is she doing this to us?’
Diana sighed. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Christ.’ He hit the pillow. ‘I feel so bloody useless.’
She didn’t want his agitation; she had enough of her own. She could hear his breathing, heavy and irregular, as though he’d just run a race.
‘She could be in real trouble,’ he said.
‘Hardly likely.’
‘But we don’t know, do we? We don’t know who wrote those messages. All we know is that she accepted a lift from strangers and we haven’t heard her voice since. Not her actual voice. That’s the truth, Diana. Those are the bare facts.’
She rolled onto her back, blinking at the psychedelic blind spots. ‘Maybe we could write to those people?’ she suggested. ‘To the email address on their website.’
Two minutes later, they were both heading downstairs. Better to be doing something than sweating in impotent terror.
‘Polite and concerned?’ asked Mike. ‘Or angry and demanding?’
‘Polite and concerned. First time, anyway.’
Pesky flopped in through the cat door as soon as the downstairs lights went on. Diana bent to pick him up while Mike searched for the Gethsemane website.
‘Where is she, Pesky?’ she murmured into a twitching ear. ‘Where’s your mistress?’
Dear Sir or Madam,
We are enquiring about our daughter, Cassandra Howells, who we believe has been working for you. There are some matters of family business that we need to discuss with her urgently. We’ve had difficulty communicating with her, and understand this may be because there is no mobile phone coverage in your area.
We’d be grateful if you would please ask her to telephone us. Could she perhaps use your landline, if you have one? We really do need to speak to her as soon as possible.
Thanking you in advance,
Michael and Diana Howells
For the rest of the day—Sunday—they were on tenterhooks, watching their emails like cats outside a mouse hole.
‘I can’t stand that noise,’ said Mike, when church bells began to ring. ‘I’ll take my bike out. I’m meant to be training for the cycle challenge.’
This wasn’t news to Diana. He was always training for one race or another. She watched out of the sitting-room window as he set off—pedalling crazily, as though he had a pack of wolves after him.
•
On Monday, heat melted tarmac in the roads and filled the parks with sunbathers. Diana jumped every time there was a new notification on her phone.
‘Nothing?’ asked Fiona. She was suffering—florid and shiny-faced—and had bought a fan for the office.
‘Nothing.’
‘She’s due home any day, isn’t she?’
‘Friday.’
Fiona parked herself in front of the fan. It rippled the skirt of her flowery dress. ‘Don’t worry. If she chooses to stay a bit longer, it’s because she’s happy.’
•
By Tuesday morning the household was ready to explode. Mike shouted at Tara for refusing to do the washing-up. Tara hurled a pot into the sink—tsunami over the floor—and stormed off to school, tripping over the cat on her way out.
Mike and Diana were left looking at each other.
‘It’ll be okay,’ said Diana. ‘Her plane takes off in forty-eight hours. She’ll be on it.’
‘Christ, I hope so.’
They both heard it: the ping of a message arriving on Mike’s computer.
Mum and Dad,
I hear you wrote to Gethsemane. Please DO NOT do this again. This is between you and me. It’s nothing to do with these good, kind people.
I’ve made a decision. I’ve cancelled my flight.
I’ll be in touch.
Cassy