by Karen Cole
‘What the hell?’ Tom follows me. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Mum, what are you doing?’ Jack echoes. He’s standing behind Tom. He looks mortified.
‘You can’t just barge in here like this,’ Tom says indignantly.
‘Oh, can’t I? My daughter is missing. And I think you know where she is.’
‘Missing? What do you mean?’ he repeats, staring at me. He’s doing a pretty good impression of being shocked.
Grace obviously isn’t here. Suddenly all the anger leaves me like air rushing out of a balloon. I close the wardrobe door carefully. ‘She didn’t turn up to school today,’ I say. ‘I thought she was with you.’
Feeling confused and foolish, I head back to the living room. Grace, where the hell are you? I think, looking around the room as if it might provide a clue. It’s a large room, tidy and mostly empty. There’s a flat-screen TV on the wall and a modern, gleaming black-tiled kitchen separated by a breakfast bar. There are just two pictures on the walls – a poster of all the different fish you can see in Cyprus and a picture of the wreck of the Zenobia and some other diving sites. On the table next to Tom’s computer are a couple of framed photos: one of him and two other young men in a pub raising beer glasses to the camera and a picture of a little boy holding a tiny baby in his arms. The baby is staring wide-eyed at the camera, its fist stuffed in its mouth, gnawing its own knuckles. Looking at it, I feel a pang of longing and nostalgia. The picture reminds me so much of Grace at that age – the way she would chew at anything with her toothless gums. And for a second, I’m back there in England in my tiny, damp living room with her in my arms.
‘That’s me and my baby sister,’ Tom says, catching the direction of my gaze. ‘It’s the only photo of us together. She died shortly after that was taken.’
‘Oh.’ I’m not sure what else to say. I remember now Grace telling me that he’d lost both his baby sister and his father when he was very young. It’s part of the attraction for her, I think. For some people there’s something romantic about a tragic past. And the fact that he’s damaged goods is irresistible to Grace. She’s always bringing home stray dogs, cats and birds with broken wings. In some ways Tom is just another one of her pet projects. Something to fix.
I’m not sure what it is, maybe the heat or stress, but I feel suddenly dizzy and I steady myself against the breakfast bar.
‘Mrs Appleton? Are you okay? Sit down.’
‘Thank you. I just need something to drink, that’s all,’ I say, sinking onto the sofa. All this rushing around in the heat has made me incredibly thirsty and I’m getting a migraine – pain pulsing behind my right eye. I can’t afford to get one now, not until I know where Grace is. ‘Could I have some water, please?’
Tom pours me a glass of water and gets a Coke for Jack then sits down opposite us, drumming his fingers against his knees. I can smell his aftershave. It has a citrussy tang and is making me feel nauseous. His face, swimming in front of me, is full of what looks like genuine concern. I must admit it’s not too hard to understand what Grace sees in him. He’s a good-looking young man. Twenty years old, square-jawed, with long wavy brown hair, broad shoulders and startlingly beautiful blue eyes.
‘She didn’t turn up to school this morning,’ I say. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘I don’t, I swear,’ he says. ‘I haven’t seen her since Saturday. I’ve been trying to ring her, but she hasn’t been answering her phone.’
Saturday. I press my temples, trying to centralise the pain. I’d rather not think about Saturday. Grace and I had an epic row – one of the worst ever.
I close my eyes, trying to block out the image of her face twisted in anger and to forget the awful, hurtful things she said to me.
I wish you weren’t my mother. You’re the worst fucking mother in the world.
It was over Tom, of course. Always Tom. Curse him. Before Tom came into the picture, Grace and I had a pretty good relationship. We obviously had our differences. Grace was always quite independent, and I know I can be overprotective at times, but mostly we got along great. I’m only thirty-three, young to be the mother of a sixteen-year-old, younger than many of the mothers of Grace’s friends, and we related in a way that they didn’t. We went shopping together, swapped clothes, laughed at each other’s jokes.
But then, just over a year and a half ago, all that changed.
It seemed so innocent at first, when she came back from a school trip to France with the school’s orchestra, radiating the unmistakeable glow of infatuation. How sweet, I thought. A teenage crush. She didn’t try to hide the relationship. She even proudly showed me the photos of him on her phone over dinner that night.
‘Thomas Mitchinson,’ she said, trying to sound casual, but the flush that crept up her neck gave her away.
‘He’s how old exactly?’ I asked, squinting at the handsome face on the screen with a first lurch of unease.
‘He’s only four years older than me,’ she said defensively. ‘Dad’s seven years older than you.’
‘That’s different. We’re both adults. You’re only fourteen.’
‘Nearly fifteen.’
I put my fork down. I’d suddenly lost my appetite. ‘You’re not having sex, are you?’
‘Mu-um! Don’t be gross.’
‘Because if you are, you need to use protection. I don’t want you making the same mistakes as me.’
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I shouldn’t have said them. Grace was staring at me, eyes dark with anger.
‘So, I’m a mistake, am I?’ she said, her voice quivering.
‘No, of course not . . . It’s . . .’ But I didn’t get to finish my sentence. She’d already stalked off in a huff, leaving her vegan spaghetti bolognese half finished.
It’s just a crush, I thought at the time. An innocent crush. It’ll blow over. They never have any staying power, relationships at that age. It’ll be finished within a month.
That was nearly two years ago.
I look over at Tom now, his handsome, tanned face, his frank blue eyes. He’s doing a good impression of looking concerned. Either he’s a good actor or he really doesn’t know where Grace is.
‘She wasn’t with you on Sunday?’ I persist.
‘No. I already told you.’ He sighs, picks up his phone and taps at the screen. ‘What if I try?’ He holds the phone to his ear. Then after a few seconds he says, ‘Nope. Her phone’s still not working.’
So, where was she on Sunday if she wasn’t with Tom?
I think back. On Sunday morning she snuck out of the house early, before Chris and I were up, and she didn’t return until late in the evening. When she got in, she dumped her bag by the door and stormed up to her room without saying a word. At the time, I assumed she’d been with Tom all day. But, if he’s telling the truth, it seems she was somewhere else. Where? With whom? There’s so much I don’t know about Grace anymore, it’s scary. My baby girl has become a stranger.
I sigh and stand up. There’s no point in staying any longer. Tom doesn’t know where she is, or if he does, he’s plainly not going to tell me.
‘Can you do me a favour? Let me know if she contacts you?’ I say as I head to the door.
He doesn’t owe me any favours, but he nods anyway.
‘You too. Can you tell me when she turns up? I’m worried about her now.’ He does look worried. In fact, it looks like tears are welling up in his eyes – a reminder that despite his manly appearance, he’s really not much more than a boy.
‘She’ll be at home, I’m sure. I’ll get her to give you a call,’ I say.
I can’t believe I’m comforting him.
Chapter 3
She’ll be at home waiting for us as if nothing has happened.
This is what I tell myself as we drive home, BFBS radio blasting out music from the eighties. I imagine
Grace’s outrage when she finds out that I went to see Tom. Again.
‘What the hell, Mum, what’s wrong with you?’ she’ll say. ‘Can’t you leave him alone?’
‘Well, what was I supposed to do?’ I’ll answer. ‘You weren’t in school. What was I supposed to think?’
‘I can look after myself, you know. I’m not a child anymore.’
I comfort myself with this imaginary argument, with the thought of Grace’s fury. It’s so much better than the alternative.
Chris’s dusty blue van is in the driveway and Lola, our aging beagle, stands up stiffly and comes to greet me, tail wagging listlessly. But there’s no sign of Grace. Her school bag isn’t by the door and her shoes are not near the shoe cabinet, where she usually throws them. Maybe she took them upstairs. It would be a first, but you never know.
Jack disappears upstairs to hook himself into his PlayStation and I dash up to Grace’s room, knock on the door and open it, without waiting for an answer.
‘Grace?’ I say, steeled for battle. But she’s not there, of course, and my heart plummets.
Her bedroom is a mess as usual. Clothes are strewn across the floor, along with pyjamas and dirty underwear draped over her guitar. Books and papers are piled everywhere, as are old cups and mugs with God knows what congealing at the bottom. A trail of ants is making its way up her desk. You can’t leave food or drink out anywhere in Cyprus without attracting an army of insects. I think about Tom’s fastidiously neat apartment. Maybe I should have encouraged her to live with him after all, I think wryly. A few days in Grace-created chaos might have put him off for life.
‘Where are you, Grace?’ I say out loud, rifling through the papers on her desk searching for a clue.
There’s a maths book open on a page of algebra. Grace has doodled on the side, a picture of a bunny rabbit and someone – not Grace – has written ‘fuck you’ underneath.
Under the maths book there’s an essay about Romeo and Juliet, written in Grace’s neat, curling handwriting. The title is ‘What is the role of fate in Romeo and Juliet?’
Grace has written the first three lines then stopped abruptly mid-sentence.
The role of fate is crucial to the story of Romeo and Juliet. From the beginning their love is doomed, thwarted by their families, who care more about their own petty squabbles than . . .
Oh God, I groan inwardly. She really sees herself as Juliet – and I suppose I’m Lady Capulet in this scenario. Why do they have to study this stupid play at an age when they’re so impressionable? I remember an argument we had when she first met Tom and I was trying to persuade her she was too young to go out with him.
‘Juliet was fourteen when she met Romeo,’ she said.
‘Yes, well, that’s a story and it was a long time ago,’ I countered. ‘Nowadays Romeo would be arrested as a paedophile. So could Tom. You know we could have him arrested. You don’t want that, do you?’
We didn’t go to the police. Chris was against the idea from the start and I had my own reasons for not wanting to get them involved. Instead, we emigrated here, to Cyprus, to put a bit of space between them. A bit drastic maybe, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
I’d lived here before, when I was a teenager and had fallen in love with the place. It wasn’t hard to persuade Chris that moving was a good idea. He remembered Cyprus with fondness from his days in the army, stationed at Dhekelia, and he’d been wanting to come back for a long time, fed up with his job and the endless grey British winters. Jack was resistant at first because he didn’t want to leave his friends, but he soon came around when we told him he’d have a swimming pool. Grace, of course, was incandescent with rage, but we thought she’d accept the idea too, eventually. We thought that with time and distance the relationship with Tom would gradually fizzle out.
At first, it appeared that our plan was working. She made wholesome new friends like Maria and even seemed to be taking an interest in some of the local boys. But we didn’t allow for the intensity of her feelings for Tom, or for modern technology. At Christmas last year, we found out that she had been Skyping and messaging Tom behind our backs all the time. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, four months ago, Tom decided to drop out of university and move here to Cyprus. It’s not that I have anything against him personally, but Grace is way too young to be involved in a serious relationship and I know all too well how easy it is for young girls to throw away their future on older men.
I sigh and place the essay carefully back under the maths book where I found it. Grace will go ape if she thinks I’ve been nosing around in her stuff. Next, I try her laptop. But, of course, it’s password protected. I know the password for her phone, having borrowed it about a month ago, and I try that, hoping it’s the same. No luck. Then I attempt several different passwords: the name of our dog, her favourite band, Grace’s birthday in various combinations, but it’s all hopeless. Nothing works. My headache is getting worse. Grace still hasn’t forgiven me for Saturday, I think. She’s doing this deliberately to punish me. Anger twists in my belly. I feed it. Anger is so much better than fear.
Downstairs Chris is in the swimming pool doing laps, his head sleek and wet, like a seal. I watch his powerful arms slicing through the water. It takes him about four strokes to get from one end to the other. He doesn’t notice me, his head down in the water. How can he be calmly swimming now? Why isn’t he looking for Grace, panicking like me?
After another few laps, he stops at the edge, takes off his goggles and rests his elbows on the side.
‘No sign of Grace?’ he asks. There are red circles around his eyes from where the goggles have been.
I shake my head. ‘No, she wasn’t with Tom. Should we phone the police?’ My head is spinning. My instincts tell me I need to act decisively, but I could just be worrying over nothing – being overprotective as usual. After all, she is sixteen. She can look after herself, as she keeps reminding me.
He shrugs and pulls himself out of the water, wrapping a skimpy towel around his thick waist. ‘Let’s give it a few hours. She’ll be back when she’s hungry.’
‘She’s not a dog,’ I snap. Usually I value Chris’s calm, unflappable approach to parenting. Right now, it seems like a terrible, unforgivable flaw.
He’s right, though, she’ll be back. He’s got to be. Anything else is unthinkable.
But hours pass and there’s still no Grace. I go through the motions, feeding the dog, making walnut and lentil burgers for dinner, her favourite. But all the time I’m getting more and more agitated. What if something terrible has happened to her? The possibilities scurry in my mind like an infestation of cockroaches. What if she went swimming in the sea and drowned? What if she was knocked over by a car? What if she’s been abducted and murdered?
We eat dinner, picking at our food in silence. Grace’s empty place screams her absence.
‘Have you checked Facebook?’ Chris suggests as he stacks the dishwasher. It’s a good idea. Glad of something positive to do, I switch on my computer and log into Facebook. In the search box I type in ‘Grace Appleton’. She hasn’t de-friended me yet, amazingly enough. Though I strongly suspect that this account is a decoy – that she has another account under a different name. I read an article about it only last week – how teenagers often have one acceptable social media account for their parents to see and another under a different name where they post naked selfies and other alarming things. Not that Grace would ever do anything like that. Surely.
She has 253 Facebook friends, many of whom I’ve never heard of. I look at the posts. Her last share was two weeks ago – a picture of an abandoned hunting dog that needs rehoming. More recently she’s been tagged in someone else’s picture, a group photo of her and some of her drama friends at a rehearsal for their play. I scan the comments – a mixture of mystifying in-jokes and sweet, supportive statements. I contact as many of the people who have commente
d as possible, informing them that Grace is missing and asking if they know where she is. I receive a couple of replies almost immediately saying sorry and hoping she turns up soon, but nothing helpful.
I keep my phone close, so I can see if anyone else responds, or in case Grace tries to contact us, while I sit on the sofa watching the news with Chris, but I can’t focus. I’m too worried. Why do none of Grace’s friends know where she is? What if she isn’t just staying out late to punish me for the argument the other day? I’m remembering myself at her age, the mistakes I made, and I shudder to think of all the things that could have happened to her. What if she hasn’t run away at all? What if she’s had an accident of some kind? What if she’s been abducted, or worse?
By the time it’s getting dark I’ve worked myself up into a state, convinced that something terrible has happened to her, and I persuade Chris that we should call the police. But there’s no answer at the local police station, so I ring emergency services and choose the English-speaking option. To my relief, they respond immediately, and the woman who answers speaks perfect English.
‘We’ll send someone round straight away,’ she says briskly. ‘Can you give us your address?’
While we’re waiting for the police, I realise we’ve forgotten about Jack. It’s way past his bedtime and he’s probably still playing Fortnite, or whatever it is he’s playing nowadays. But when I go upstairs the light is already out in his bedroom and I find him washed, changed and curled up on his bed, crying as if his heart is breaking.
‘Oh, Jack, baby. What’s up?’ I say, turning on his bedside lamp. I can never bear it when Jack is upset because he’s usually so stoical.
He turns a tear-streaked face to me. ‘Grace is going to be okay, isn’t she?’ he says between sobs.
‘Of course she is,’ I say, stroking his head like I used to when he was little. ‘She’s probably just out with her mates somewhere. She’s going to be in so much trouble when she gets home. She’s going to be grounded for about a hundred years.’
