Zippy sits on the floor outside Issy’s room. Once she’s had a chance to organise her thoughts, she’ll go in and talk to Mum and Mum will listen properly and remember she still has a daughter.
When the key turns in the downstairs lock, she jumps and scrambles to her feet. But it’s only Alma. ‘What are you doing?’ she calls as he steps into the hall, and then it’s his turn to jump.
‘What are you doing?’
He looks up and she notices his mouth. ‘Are you OK? Who did that to you?’
‘I’m spectacularly OK.’ He races up the stairs. ‘This is a game-changer! The tide has turned.’ He pushes past her and dives into his room.
‘Whoop-de-do,’ she mutters. He’s such an idiot but he’s hurt and she’s supposed to be being kind. To everyone. ‘So what happened?’
‘Hang on.’
She can hear him rummaging. It sounds like he’s chucking stuff about, making a mess. He comes out onto the landing holding something.
‘It was just these lads, at the field. They gave me a bit of a battering. Back soon,’ he says.
‘What’re you up to?’
‘It’s a secret.’
‘First Jacob, now you. Have you been secretly resurrecting stuff too?’
‘Something happened this morning – you could say it was a bit of a miracle …’
She rolls her eyes.
‘OK, so it probably wasn’t, but have you ever wondered why miracles only happen to weird people or people we don’t know, like the prophet? Why they don’t happen to normal people? You believe in miracles, but you don’t expect them, do you?’
‘What’re you on about?’
‘Why are you home, anyway?’
‘I need to talk to Mum.’
‘Good luck with that.’
‘I’m not going anywhere until she talks to me.’
‘You can’t make her.’
‘I’ve got all day.’
‘Better get started then.’ He reaches for the door.
‘Stop.’ She puts her arm out in front of him, like a parking barrier. ‘Just hang on.’ She waits, her throat full. ‘OK.’ She gives the door a gentle push and it rolls open.
The bed is empty.
Mum is gone.
The front door is unlocked. Ian hesitates. His guts are watery – he doesn’t think he can stomach any more surprises but Jacob wriggles past and opens the door to reveal Zipporah and Alma, arguing in the hall.
‘But Mum’s an adult.’
‘You know exactly what I mean, Alma.’
‘She can go out whenever she wants.’
‘I didn’t say she can’t, it’s just that she’s –’
He steps into the house, primed to ask what on earth they’re doing, why they’re home from school, when he notices Alma’s swollen, bloody lip.
‘What’s happened?’
‘I was in a scrap with some lads at the field.’
‘Are you – did they hurt you anywhere else?’
Alma nods and lifts his trouser leg to reveal a purple knot on his calf; he untucks his shirt and turns round and Ian can see the beginnings of a bruise on his lower back, shaped like the toe of a trainer.
‘They got my thigh too, but I’d better keep my trousers on.’
‘Yes, you’d better had.’ Ian lifts his arms but they fall back to his sides. He has forgotten how to touch Alma. He tries again and as he raises his arms and reaches out, he can almost see the dividing line he has drawn between touching and not touching, between approval and acceptance. ‘Come here, you,’ he says.
Alma edges closer and ducks, ever so slightly, enough to demonstrate reluctance but not enough to escape the embrace. Ian wraps him up. He’s all angles and bones, sharp and spiky, awkward, irreverent, and his.
Alma pulls away, red-faced and tongue-tied, and Ian turns his attention to Zipporah. ‘And why aren’t you at school?’
‘Everyone’s here, Dad!’ Jacob says. ‘I prayed for it this morning and now everyone’s –’
‘Mum’s not here.’
Zipporah’s words don’t make any sense. Ian waits for her to continue, and when she doesn’t, he hurries up the stairs in an effort to understand.
‘She’s not there,’ Zipporah shouts after him. ‘We’ve looked.’
He pushes Issy’s door open. The bed is empty. He looks around. There’s nowhere else an adult could hide, but he searches anyway; in the wardrobe, under the bunks.
He steps out onto the landing. ‘Claire, where are you?’
‘She’s not here, Dad.’ Zipporah follows him up the stairs. ‘We’ve looked everywhere.’
‘Claire!’ He dashes from room to room, he won’t believe until he has seen it with his own eyes. He even checks the garden, Zipporah tagging along all the while.
Back in the kitchen, he finally concedes the point. Claire has gone. But she’ll be back. Maybe she needed some fresh air, she’s probably walking around the park as they speak. It’s just a matter of waiting until she comes back. Perhaps she feels better and her disappearance is, in fact, a good sign.
‘Her wellies aren’t here, Dad.’
‘She’s probably gone to the beach then. Let’s try not to worry,’ he says as he opens the top cupboard, finds the Gaviscon and swigs it straight from the bottle.
‘Dad?’
‘Yes?’
He fills a glass with water and knocks it back to get rid of the taste.
‘I had a look for her nightie because I wondered, after the other night with President Carmichael and Brother Stevens, whether she would think to get changed.’
He puts the glass down on the worktop, slowly, and watches the remaining water sway then settle. ‘And?’
‘I can’t find it …’
He looks up, Zipporah is chewing her lip.
‘I think … I think she’s still wearing it.’
The telephone breaks the hiatus and Jacob runs to answer it. ‘It’s for you, Dad,’ he says.
Ian thinks it’s Claire, which makes no sense because she doesn’t have a mobile but he thinks it anyway and that makes it particularly disappointing – no, infuriating – when he puts the phone to his ear.
‘Oh, Bishop Bradley, it’s an answer to prayer that you’re home – I tried your mobile but you’re not good at answering it during the day, are you? I hate to be a nuisance but Brother Anderson wants to come home and he’s just not well enough, his blood count’s –’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘– a bit low and I don’t think he –’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Thank you, Bishop – and I don’t think he –’
‘No, I’m sorry because I’m busy.’ His voice trembles; he’s setting a terrible example as the children look on. ‘I can’t come, I’m not a doctor. Brother Anderson needs to listen to his doctors. I have to go now, goodbye.’ He ends the call and puts the phone down on the worktop.
Zipporah and Alma don’t move but Jacob takes his hand. ‘Don’t worry. Even Jesus got cross sometimes. Shall we go and look for Mum now? I haven’t been to the beach for ages.’
He glances at the phone and then at the children. ‘Yes, come on. We’ll all go. Together.’
As soon as they get in the car, Dad says, ‘Let’s have a prayer.’
Zippy, Jacob and Dad bow their heads and close their eyes. Dad speaks quietly and humbly. He says thank you for his many blessings. He says please. Please this, please that, just as he must have done when Issy was dying.
Al stares at Dad in the rear-view mirror. His forehead is creased and he looks like he’s on his best behaviour – like the little dog in the park; arms folded, eyes squeezed shut; hoping for a reward, convinced if he’s good one more time, he might actually win something. And although it’s tempting to take the piss, Al closes his eyes and pulls the same face, just in case.
Dad drives past the park, towards the coastal road. Jacob looks out of the window for Mum. Her wellies are pink, so she will be easy to spot. Dad doesn’t slow down when he turns onto the Bumpy Road and it feels as if the car might take off as it gallops over the bumps.
‘Faster, Dad, faster!’ Jacob calls.
No one is walking along the Bumpy Road, there’s just the marsh and the birds. At the end of the Bumpy Road, Dad turns right and pulls into the car park, where there are a few other cars and some cocklers’ vans. Jacob can see a couple of dog walkers on the path that cuts through the marshy bit of the beach. He thinks he can just about see a pencil line of sea, but he can’t see Mum.
Dad pulls the handbrake up and stares through the windscreen. ‘Where is she?’ he says, tugging off his tie and unfastening his top button.
After the marshy bit ends, the beach stretches on and on. Jacob tries to spy Mum. He has spent all these weeks praying for huge, difficult things. Finding Mum shouldn’t be difficult; she’s bigger than the apostle’s rabbit and much more important.
Dad drops his tie in Zippy’s lap and scrambles out of the car but he doesn’t head down the path to the sea, instead he jogs in the opposite direction and crosses the road.
‘He’s going the wrong way!’
‘No, look, he’s just asking that man …’ Alma points.
Dad talks to a birdwatcher. They wait as he borrows the man’s binoculars and scans the horizon. Dad gives the binoculars back and sprints over the road. He runs through the car park and past the warning sign at the start of the path; he isn’t running in the embarrassed, careful way grown-ups usually run, he’s running properly, palms flat, arms slicing. Past the cocklers’ vans and the dog walkers, down the incline to the track that runs through the marshy grass.
‘I can’t see her,’ Zippy says.
‘Shall we –’ Alma begins.
Zippy and Alma open their doors and step out of the car. ‘You can run fast, can’t you, Jacob?’ Zippy asks.
He nods and follows.
‘Ready, then?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Mum’s good, isn’t she?’
Zippy and Alma agree that she is.
‘I know something about being good,’ he says. ‘If you’re good and you get lost, someone you love comes and finds you.’