Rachel waits for Edward. It’s now half past twelve and he is never late, so what can have happened? She orders a glass of white wine and tells the waitress she is waiting for her son; he will be along soon.
At one o’clock, sheltering under her umbrella, she crosses Fargate and hurries up Surrey Street. The Yorkshire flagstones outside the library shimmer in the rain. She is not quite sure who to ask. She stands hesitantly in front of a man seated at the Enquiries desk, ‘Excuse me.’
He looks up and smiles, ‘Yes?’
‘I wish to speak to Edward Anderson on an urgent matter. Can you help me?’
‘I’m sorry. Edward’s off sick.’
‘For how long?’
‘I’m not sure.’
She drops her voice and leans forward, ‘Do you know what’s wrong with him? It’s not serious is it? You see, I’m his mother.’
The man breaks into a smile, ‘Well I never! So you’re Edward’s mother. How do you do?’
‘Very well, but you didn’t answer my question.’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t give out details of such a personal nature.’
‘But I’m his mother.’
‘Why don’t you phone him?’ The man asks patiently.
She begins to back away, ‘Yes, I suppose I could,’ then, changing her mind, she moves forward again, ‘Can you tell me how long has he been off?’
The man frowns, trying to remember. ‘At least a week, I think. Most unlike Edward to have time off.’
Rachel stands on the library steps and waits for the rain to stop. She has butterflies in her stomach. She is not sure whether it is because she is hungry or because she feels unnerved by Edward’s disappearance. Is he really ill? Unfurling her umbrella she steps out into the rain. He could be in Henry’s waiting for her this very minute. She will go back and see; have something to eat and try to clear her head.
Seated in Henry’s, Rachel sips at her white wine and scans the restaurant for any sign of Edward. When the waitress comes she orders the salmon, as she had the time before.
‘Excuse me?’ The girl is just turning away. ‘Has by any chance my son been in?’
The girl comes back to the table and smiles, ‘But I don’t know what he looks like, do I?’
Rachel finds her tone rather patronising. She gives her a tight little smile. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘What does he look like?’ The girl persists.
‘It really doesn’t matter.’
‘It would be a shame though if you’d missed him.’
‘He walks with a stick.’ Rachel crosses her arms defensively. ‘He has a hunched back.’
‘Oh. I know who you mean.’
‘So he has been in?’ A sense of relief washes over her. ‘Thank goodness.’
‘He knows Angela, one of the other waitresses,’ the girl adds. ‘He’s been in recently but not today.’
‘And is Angela working?’ Her name sticks in Rachel’s throat.
The waitress pulls a face, ‘Not turned in. I’m run off my feet.’
Rachel waits for her food. She wishes she was sitting where she could see the door instead of having to turn every time she hears it open. She puts her head in her hands and closes her eyes. She is overcome by a sudden sense of overwhelming loss. What does she know of his life? Their lunchtime meetings had kept things exactly how she had wanted them and now, looking back, she realises how much she had enjoyed them, maybe more than she had ever admitted to herself.
She opens her handbag to look for a handkerchief. Tucked in the side pocket she sees the envelope of Edward’s last letter.
80 Hancock Rise
Sheffield
Dear Mother,
Thank you for your letter, I am glad you remembered to buy the crocus bulbs last year. The flowers will give you a lot of pleasure in spring. (If you also remembered to plant them.) When I was little, father never missed taking me to see the crocuses in the park. I always used to find it magical that the sad green winter grass had suddenly been littered with yellow and purple flowers and that the next time we went they would be gone and all there would be was green grass again.
I will see you next Tuesday at Henry’s, for lunch.
Love
Edward
PS I have a really good book for you this time, which I am sure you will enjoy.
No, she hadn’t got the arrangements wrong. As she sees the waitress returning with her food, she refolds the letter and puts it in her bag.
The salmon, although cooked to perfection, is hard to swallow. What can be the matter with him? It must be something very serious for him not to ring. She thinks back to the time when, as a child, he had contracted polio. He had spent weeks in a hospital bed and the only contact she and George had with him was to wave to him through a small window opposite his bed. The memory of Institution Green walls hits her like a bad smell. She can still see him now, clattering down the corridor towards her. The calliper on his leg resonating around them as his foot hit the floor. Strange how his leg had healed and he had been perfectly all right then, until that day when Ruben had brought him back on the train. She had been so glad to see her brother. He visited them so rarely.
‘Haven’t you noticed?’ he had raged at them. ‘Are you blind? Your son is turning into a hunchback and what have you done about it? Nothing!’
And what could they say? Neither of them had noticed anything unusual. Maybe Ruben had been right. Maybe they hadn’t wanted to.
Rachel knocks on the bottle-green door with the round, stained glass window and waits. She hears someone shuffling from the back of the house, then the bolts top and bottom being slid back and the safety chain clanking against the door. The door creaks open. A woman with a floral pinny and a ginger cat in her arms regards her curiously.
‘Hello. I’m looking for Edward Anderson?’
‘He doesn’t live here anymore, he moved out a few days ago.’
Rachel is stunned. ‘But, but this is the address on his last letter.’
‘Must have been before he moved.’
‘Yes, but …’
‘Shall I say who called, if I should see him?’
‘Oh, do you see him?’
‘Ah, no, but you never know, he might call round.’
‘What for, his post?’
‘No, he’s had that forwarded to his new address.’
‘And do you have that?’
The woman shakes her head, ‘Never even left me his address. He’s lived here all these years and then he ups and leaves just like that.’
‘And was he well when he left?’
‘Fine, except for his disability like.’ She nods knowingly.
‘Well, I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’
‘You know, I said to him, why don’t you still come for your Sunday lunch Mr. Anderson, but no, he would have none of it.’
Rachel backs away and puts up her umbrella.
‘Who shall I say called?’ the woman calls after her.
Without answering, Rachel turns away. She waits for the bus, sheltering from the rain under the canopy. So that is where Edward has lived all these years. She can see the house from the bus stop, and that must be the awful Mrs Ingram.
How is she going to find him now? A bus comes but it is not the one she wants. She shivers and pulls her coat tighter around her. She searches her mind for a solution, wipes her gloved hand across the glass of the shelter so that she can look out for the bus. Why would he suddenly cut off all contact? At least it didn’t appear as though he was ill, well not seriously anyway. But why would he want to cut her off just like that. She feels a desolation begin to creep in around her. Desolation she has not felt since her uncle’s death.
She’d felt all right while she was at the farmhouse, helping her aunt sort out his belongings, but when she had returned home this terrible sense of loss had swept over her. It came from nowhere like the mists up on the moors, shrouding her in a misery from which she could not escape. What they’d had was solely between them, and she could share it with no-one else. George irritated her even more than usual and Edward, well, he was his usual sullen self. A boy turning slowly into a man. Once, and only once, she’d attempted to confide in her brother Ruben. She’d cried and told him how much she missed their uncle.
‘I don’t know why. I never liked him anyway. They always said he was a bad egg.’
She looked for solace in many places, but the only comfort she’d found was to sit in the attic and hold her necklaces up to the light. It was not until ten years later, after George died, when she started modelling for the college, that she felt her life begin to come right again. And when the shy boy came to her house, finally things fell back into place.
But where could Edward be? She thinks back to their last meeting. They had not really argued, not badly anyway. Just about him modelling.
The rain sweeps in under the canopy and wets her stockinged legs. Mrs. Ingram is watching from her front room bay.
She wishes a bus would come, and that she could go home.