After much tossing and turning Becca eventually drifted into a light, uncomfortable sleep on the sofa, jerking awake every time the wind howled in the chimney before her eyes finally cracked open with the sunrise around six o’clock. It took a moment to orient herself – cold, sofa, living room – and then the truth pressed down on her, heavy and unpleasant. She was in Rachel’s house – without Rachel. Still without Rachel. She had slept so fitfully that she was certain the sound of a car outside or the front door opening would have woken her. So where could her sister be?
Fear slithered into the pit of her stomach as an image appeared in her mind: Rachel’s eyes, glassy and still, her body mangled at the side of the road, blood and shattered glass and . . .
Stop. Stop, Becca. Not helping. She ran a hand through her hair and heaved herself up, feeling stiff and achey. No. She mustn’t think that way. They had to hope for the best and try not to dwell on other, worse explanations. For the sake of the children, she had to stay positive.
Talking of the children . . . She became aware of light footsteps outside on the stairs and she yawned and rubbed her eyes, trying to pull herself together. Then Luke’s head poked cautiously around the door. ‘Mummy isn’t here,’ he said.
‘I know, sweetheart,’ Becca replied helplessly. It crossed her mind that she could make up some story to stop him worrying, but she rejected the idea almost immediately. The girls, older and smarter, would see through any fabrications in five seconds. Then they’d never trust her again.
‘Come here,’ she said, patting the sofa cushion beside her. ‘You look like you need a cuddle. And I think your Aunty Becca does too, you know.’
He was such a solemn little thing, she thought, as he slid into the room, all big eyes and wariness. He was rigid in her arms at first, tentative, but then he leaned against her and she felt his warmth and smelled his boy smell. He was clutching a small Lego spaceship in one hand and for some reason, the sight of it gave her a lump in her throat. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said into his soft dark hair. ‘I’m going to make sure everything’s all right. I promise.’ She hoped he didn’t clock that she was crossing her fingers behind her back.
Becca made Luke some breakfast and herself a coffee then padded upstairs to the shower, feeling skanky and ripe after sleeping in her T-shirt and jeans all night. She wished now she’d thought to bring a change of clothes, a clean bra, deodorant and a hairbrush, but she had been so convinced that she’d arrive here to find Rachel already back – and worse, annoyed with Becca for coming out at all – that she had literally only brought knickers and a toothbrush with her. In a carrier bag, because she was that classy. Well, she would just have to borrow something of her sister’s for today – end of story. She was pretty sure even Rachel couldn’t get too arsey about that, given her vanishing act of the night before.
Once clean, she swathed herself in towels and tiptoed into her sister’s room, feeling like an intruder. Rachel had guarded her privacy zealously when they were growing up, seeming to know instantly if Becca had moved or touched any of her belongings left around the house. Twenty years later, Becca still felt the same shiftiness at being in her sister’s space without written permission, as if expecting to be bawled out for it any second. But she could hardly walk the children to school in yesterday’s smelly clothes like a total scuzzer. Well, hello there, just call me Aunty Hobo . . . No. She might be several divisions down the Glamour League from her sister, but she wasn’t that much of a loser. So tough luck, Rach. I’m here, and I’m going to take my pick of your wardrobe for one morning only. If I can find any of your clothes big enough to fit me, that is.
The bedroom was as stylish as the rest of the house: cream walls, glossy white cupboards with opaque glass doors, everything tidied away, bedcovers smooth. It was like being in a hotel room or a display area of The White Company: clean, minimalist, chic. Becca’s room back home, in comparison, was a jumble of scarves and jewellery, nail varnish pots crowding the mantelpiece, photos and postcards stuck around the big mirror, mismatched cushions heaped on the bed, various half-finished craft projects jumbled together on her desk.
An alarm clock began beeping elsewhere in the house and then a radio blared into life – the girls waking up, she presumed – so she hastily pulled open the wardrobe doors. Blouses, skirts, jackets . . . the contents were all very stylish and pretty, and so not her thing – and unfortunately she could tell from a quick rifle through that none of it was over a size 10 either. Wardrobe Says No.
Chest of drawers, then. The pickings were better there at least – lots of sportswear and a couple of baggy tops. Becca pulled on a soft grey T-shirt and some drawstring yoga pants, not caring how daft she might look, dried her hair and dabbed on some of Rachel’s Clinique moisturizer. (Nice.) Then, with a jolt, she realized that the phone was ringing downstairs, so she turned and sprinted out of the room.
Oh my God. Here we go, news at last. Some kind of update. She almost broke her neck skidding on the bottom stair in her haste to reach the kitchen in time, adrenalin pumping. Please don’t let it be bad news. Please let it be Rachel to say everything’s all right.
‘Hello?’ She could hardly breathe as she snatched up the receiver. Please, please, please.
‘Oh, Rachel, hello dear, it’s Rita. Rita Blackwell? I’m meant to be seeing you tomorrow but I’m ever so sorry, I’ve got a doctor’s appointment for the same time, so I won’t be able to come along.’
Disappointment slammed the breath from her lungs and Becca leaned against the cool painted wall as her heart rate adjusted. ‘Oh,’ was all she managed to say faintly.
Mabel must have heard the ringing phone too because she had appeared in the kitchen, panda-eyed with yesterday’s make-up, hair all over the place, tugging a cherry-print kimono dressing gown around herself. Her expression was urgent, impatient, a thousand questions in her eyes. What’s happening? Is it Mum? When will she be home?
Becca shook her head dumbly. No news. Not her. I don’t know.
‘Hello?’ The woman’s voice from the receiver was that of an older lady, tremulous and hesitant, and Becca pulled herself together with an enormous effort.
‘Sorry,’ she managed to say. ‘Rachel’s not here right now. Can I give her a message?’
‘Yes, dear, of course. It’s Mrs Blackwell. Rita, tell her. I can’t see her tomorrow, I’m afraid. Doctor’s appointment. Ever so sorry.’
‘Not to worry,’ Becca said, grabbing an envelope and pen from the worktop nearby and scribbling down the details.
‘Okay, I’ll let her know,’ she said, hoping she hadn’t just tempted fate in the worst sort of way. If I hear from her, that is. If it’s not already too late. ‘Thanks, then. Bye.’
Mabel seemed to have shrunk in size with the anticlimax. ‘Was that one of her clients?’ she asked dully. Then she glanced over at the envelope, deciphering Becca’s scrawls to answer her own question. ‘Oh, right, Mrs Blackwell. She’s always cancelling.’
Becca couldn’t get terribly excited about Mrs Blackwell and her cancellations, but it was better than dwelling on Rachel still being missing, she supposed. ‘Is she someone your mum works with?’ she guessed.
‘Not really with,’ Mabel replied. ‘She’s one of Mum’s fitness clients? You know, her boot camps and that?’
Becca didn’t know what she meant. The last she’d heard, Rachel was an area manager for GoActive, a large chain of leisure complexes that seemed to be springing up in every town and city. Becca had only really been hazily aware of what this entailed but she had the impression Rachel was suited and booted for the job, driving around and making sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to, rather than taking on personal clients. But Mabel had already heaved a gusty sigh and gone off back upstairs, yelling, ‘False alarm. Not Mum,’ to the other two.
She attached the scribbled-on envelope to the fridge with a Doctor Who magnet, hoping fervently that she would be in a position to pass on the message at some point to her sister. Today, preferably. As soon as possible.
Then she noticed the letter that the envelope had been covering. A red electricity bill, with FINAL DEMAND written across the top – the sort of bill that frequently arrived for Becca and Meredith, but one she was surprised to see here in serene suburbia. An alarm bell rang inside her head. Was Rachel having money troubles on top of everything else?
Becca bit her lip. Clearly things had been difficult for Rachel recently. She was probably still missing Dad very much too, like Becca did. And to undergo that grief on top of divorce and financial problems . . . Well, it could all get too much for a person, couldn’t it? What if . . .?
She swallowed, not wanting to put the awful thought into words, to crystallize it within a sentence, but the question refused to budge. Sometimes people felt that they just couldn’t go on, children or not, didn’t they? Sometimes things seemed so desperate that there was only one way out . . .
‘Aaargh! Oh no!’
A shriek had come from elsewhere and Becca, glad of the distraction, went to investigate, just as Scarlet hurtled into the room in a scraggly cerise dressing gown, panicking that she’d forgotten about her early-morning Friday violin lesson at eight-thirty and oh God, they were going to be sooo late and her teacher Mrs Brookes was like so, totally strict, she would just go bloody mental!
‘Scarlet,’ Becca said, but her niece was in seemingly unstoppable mid-flow.
‘And I’m meant to be doing my Grade 2 soon and she said if I missed any more lessons—’
‘Scarlet!’
‘– she would be, like, really cross, and—’
‘Scarlet, listen!’
‘What?’
‘It’s only twenty past seven. And it’s Thursday, anyway. Your lesson must be tomorrow. We’ve got twenty-five whole hours before you have to be there.’
Scarlet opened her mouth and then shut it again. ‘Oh! Thursday,’ she said in surprise. Her face relaxed. ‘Okay, cool,’ she went on, sounding more cheerful. ‘Can I have some breakfast?’
Looking after children was exhausting, Becca thought ten minutes later. Luke had had a meltdown, insisting that he didn’t have any school uniform, and then Mabel went off on one too, ranting that there was no butter and she had the worst period pain ever, like her uterus was totally ripping itself apart – and aargh, why had nobody reminded her about the geography exam that was like, this morning, could Becca ring the school and explain that she was really traumatized about Mum and hadn’t been able to revise?
It was mayhem. Carnage. Becca felt breathless with her attempts to firefight one drama after another, none of them with much success. She felt particularly thrown by Mabel’s abrupt mood changes from sweetness the night before to relative civility first thing before plunging into absolute foulness now. Was that normal? ‘And I’m going to Tyler’s after school, all right?’ she yelled as she slammed out of the house at eight o’clock.
‘Bye,’ Becca called, wincing as the door crashed in the frame. ‘Who’s Tyler?’ she asked Scarlet, not entirely sure she wanted to know.
Scarlet looked gleeful. ‘Her boyfriend. Who Mum doesn’t like because she caught them kissing.’
Oh, great. Wonderful. ‘So I take it her going to Tyler’s house . . .’
‘Is totally not allowed. Like, no way. Because his parents don’t get back till late, Mabel says, so there are no “responsible adults” around. Last time Mum said, I’m laying the law down here, young lady, it’s not happening, so you just get that into your head right this minute.’
The imitation was spot-on and Becca floundered for a moment, not least because she had the horrible feeling Rachel might not class her as a particularly ‘responsible adult’. Now what was she supposed to do? ‘Well,’ she said, thinking fast, ‘I’m sure your mum will be back by then anyway, so I’ll leave that for her to sort out.’ It was a cop-out and she wasn’t sure of any such thing, frankly, but it was the best she could manage.
Scarlet smirked. ‘She’ll go bloody nutzoid,’ she said with relish.
‘Where is Mum, anyway?’ Luke asked, sliding down the banister in a Darth Vader costume.
‘She’s gone to fight the evil Sith,’ Scarlet said, grabbing his lightsabre and clonking him over the head with it.
‘Ow. Has she? Really?’
‘No, you moron, of course she hasn’t. Because Star Wars isn’t real. Derrrr!’
Deep breaths, Becca thought as she broke up the resulting scuffle, sent Luke to get changed and cobbled together some packed lunches. ‘We’re definitely allowed crisps, aren’t we, Luke?’ Scarlet had said, eyes wide with innocence. ‘Only on Fr—’ he had begun replying, before a surreptitious kick made him change this to an unconvincing ‘Oh. Yes. We are.’ ‘Because you see, potatoes are vegetables,’ Scarlet had added cunningly, like that was going to persuade anyone. Becca decided to cut them some slack, though. They were just a little on edge, that was all, and it was completely justified given the circumstances. Besides, it sounded like her step-sister was something of a stickler on the health and nutrition front. A bag of crisps and some jammy pancakes weren’t about to kill anyone, were they?
As she ran around searching for hair bobbles in order to plait Scarlet’s tangled brown hair – a brush would help, too – she couldn’t help ruefully harking back to her usual morning routine: savouring a quiet coffee in bed with the radio on before calmly getting ready for the day, without anyone screaming down the stairs about exams and the state of their ovaries, let alone playing migraine-inducing violin tunes about beloved dogs and terrible parents so loud and frenziedly that Becca feared for the safety of every window and wine glass in the house. Violinageddon, Mabel had called it. She wasn’t far wrong.
An old song, beloved of her mum, slipped into her head as she loaded up the dishwasher with cereal bowls and mugs. Sometimes it’s hard . . . to be a woman . . .
Yeah. Especially when you had three children to get out of the house first thing in the morning. I hear you, sister.
Despite Becca’s best attempts, it ended up being ten past nine before she, Scarlet and Luke actually managed to make it to their school. She had to press a buzzer and explain herself to an intercom before they were permitted to enter and do the walk of shame up to the office, where she had to enter their names in the ‘Late’ book. ‘Whoa. We’ve never ever been late before,’ Scarlet said, looking vaguely panicked at the prospect, and Becca just about managed to bite back a retort that if she’d brushed her teeth a bit faster and stopped teasing her brother, they might have been on time.
‘Never mind,’ she said bracingly. ‘It’s not the end of the world, is it?’ A sniff came from the po-faced secretary, who clearly disagreed, and Becca gave her a frosty glare in response – well, as frosty a glare as she could manage when the slightly-too-tight yoga pants were going right up her bum crack. ‘Have a brilliant day, both of you,’ she said to the children. ‘Be good! And don’t worry. I’m sure everything will be completely back to normal again by hometime, all right?’
‘And Mum will be back again?’ Luke said anxiously.
‘Probably. Almost certainly,’ Becca replied, doing her best to sound reassuring. I really hope so, anyway, kid.
‘Oh shit,’ Scarlet said just then, slapping a hand to her forehead. ‘Football kit. You forgot our football kit, Aunty Bee. We have a club after school on Thursdays.’
Becca counted to ten under her breath to prevent herself from arguing that she was not the one who had forgotten, seeing as she knew nothing about this football club. Instead she apologized for the random kit she was supposed to have known telepathically about, hugged both children tightly and sent them on their way, hoping they would be okay.
‘Is everything . . . all right at home?’ the secretary ventured as Becca stood there a moment longer, watching them troop into the building.
‘Um . . .’ Becca hesitated, unsure how to reply. Rachel had always been so proud; she would probably hate anyone knowing there was a problem at home. ‘Not really,’ she replied truthfully in the end. ‘But I’m on the case.’
A disappearing mum was not good for anyone, she thought as she walked back through the school gate a few moments later. Her nieces and nephew might all be handling the situation in their own ways – rage, denial, fear, quite a lot of inappropriate swearing – but sooner or later there would have to come some form of resolution, some answers, otherwise the not-knowing would start to become unbearable. Today, she would begin the search and see what she could find out.