North of Nowhere

by Liz Kessler

  So I tidied up my room, and then I cleaned the kitchen, and by the time I’d done that and helped with the breakfasts, I’d managed to pass a couple of hours.

  Part of me wanted to go down to the harbor again, just in case. But I knew it was pointless. Dee wouldn’t be coming. Distraction was definitely my best strategy.

  “Mom, is there anything I can do?” I asked when I’d run out of things that obviously needed attending to. Gran was upstairs cleaning the guest rooms and Mom was in charge of the pub. There was hardly anyone in, just a couple of fishermen sitting on the tall stools at the bar.

  “You could collect some glasses.”

  “There aren’t any.”

  “Oh. Wipe the counters?”

  “Done it already,” I said.

  Mom looked around the bar and shook her head. “Well, darling, I can’t really think of anything else. Haven’t you got anything to do? Why don’t you meet up with one of your new friends?”

  Yeah. Sore point, Mom.

  But then I had a thought. Maybe there was a way I could meet up with Dee, after all.

  “Mom, we’re not likely to be really busy in the pub today, are we?” I asked.

  Mom looked around the almost empty room and laughed. “I very much doubt it, somehow.”

  “So, why don’t we see if Gran will close up for a few hours and take a trip out?”

  Mom looked at me. “A trip out? All three of us?”

  I nodded.

  “Where would you like to go?”

  I paused and tried to look as if I were having a good think. “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe we could go on a boat trip or something.”

  “I never knew you liked boats so much,” Mom said. “You must get it from your grandad.”

  “Mm,” I replied.

  “I suppose I did stop you from taking a boat trip yesterday, and it might be good for your gran. Anything’s got to be better than moping around here all day, waiting for something to happen.”

  “Exactly!”

  “So, where do you have in mind?” Mom asked.

  I took a deep breath, tried to ignore the thumping, racing feeling in my chest, and said as casually as possible, “I dunno. Luffsands, maybe?”

  At which point, for some reason, one of the fishermen who had been sitting in silence for the last ten minutes suddenly spurted his beer all over the bar.

  “Oh!” Mom exclaimed, and ran out to get a towel.

  As the door swung closed behind her, the fisherman raised his glass to me. “Good luck with that one,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye. He seemed to be laughing at me.

  “Think you might want to come up with another idea,” his friend added. “Somewhere that — how can I put it — actually still exists?”

  Then the two of them both fell forward, laughing and slapping each other on the back.

  Before I had a chance to reply, the door at the back of the bar opened and Mom came back in with a towel.

  Gran was behind her. “What’s happened here?” she asked as Mom wiped up the beer.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but one of the men beat me to it. “We were just talking about the power of the sea,” he said, with a wink.

  Gran raised an eyebrow and looked at me. “Well, whatever it is they’ve been telling you, don’t listen to a word of it,” she said good-humoredly. “These men are the biggest storytellers I’ve ever known. They’d catch a tadpole and tell you it was a shark. Now, what can I get you?”

  And with that, Gran poured the men a pint each and the conversation was over and forgotten.

  I didn’t know what the men had meant, but I was sure Gran was right about them. Most of the customers in this place talked nonsense at least half the time, especially when they had a drink in their hands.

  I was about to ask Gran what she thought of my idea about going out, when a customer asked for a cup of tea and she went into the kitchen to boil the teakettle. As she went out, the front door opened and a family came in: a man, a woman, and a girl who looked about my age. They stood awkwardly just inside the door and didn’t make a move to come in any farther.

  “Brunch, is it?” Mom asked, wiping her hands on a towel. “Table for three?”

  “Er, we were just . . .” the woman began. Her voice trembled and she broke off and bit her lip.

  The man took a step forward. “We’re looking for the owner,” he said. “Is that you?”

  “It’s my mother,” Mom said. “I’ll tell her you want to see her.”

  Mom disappeared into the kitchen and left me with the family. I was going to leave them to it, but I was intrigued. The three of them were standing there in silence, not coming in, just waiting for Gran. Who were they? What did they want? Was it something to do with Grandad?

  My heart took a tiny tumble with the thought, but I forced myself not to believe it could be possible. I smiled at them, and we all waited awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

  Thankfully, Mom came back a moment later. “She won’t be but a minute,” she said. “Can I get you anything while you’re waiting?”

  The man shook his head. “We’re OK, thanks.”

  I watched him as he spoke. There was something familiar about him. I didn’t recognize the woman, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen the girl before, although, in all honesty, it was hard to tell, as she’d been looking down at her feet since they’d come in. But I could have sworn I recognized the man from somewhere. Maybe he was famous.

  “Have I seen you before?” I asked him.

  He looked back at me, confusion brushing across his face. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Sorry, I’m . . . we’re . . .”

  Just then, Gran came back. She delivered the cup of tea to the customer at the bar and smiled her bright “pub owner” smile at the family as she came into the lounge. It was easy to see where Mom and I both got our pretend smiles from.

  “Hello, I’m the owner,” she said as she picked up a couple of glasses from a table to take back to the bar. “How can I help you?”

  The woman reached into her bag. “We wondered if we could ask you a favor,” she said. “We’d like to put something up on your bulletin board, if you have one. Or perhaps in your window?”

  “Well, I don’t usually . . .” Gran began. “What is it?”

  The woman pulled out a sheet of paper. “It’s our . . . our . . . ” Then she swallowed hard and stopped.

  The man reached out to hold her hand. He cleared his throat. “It’s our son,” he said soberly. “He’s gone missing.”

  “Oh, you poor things,” Gran said. “Of course you can.”

  The woman held out the piece of paper. Gran went over to take it from her. And then something weird happened.

  Gran looked at the piece of paper. Her smile froze. Her hand stiffened. The paper fell from her hand. The glasses in her other hand fell, too.

  As the glasses hit the floor, Gran looked as though she’d been punched, and she staggered back to lean on a table.

  I rushed over. “Gran, are you OK?”

  Mom was on her knees, picking up chunks of glass, apologizing to the woman. The couple had stepped back and was looking from Mom to Gran. Gran was leaning heavily on the table, staring into space and breathing hard.

  “I’m fine,” she said breathlessly.

  Mom looked up at me. “Grab the dustpan, please,” she said.

  I ran into the kitchen to get the dustpan and brush. As I came back through to the lounge, I ran smack-dab into Gran coming the other way.

  “Gran, where are you going?” I asked.

  She paused for a second and shook her head. “Just give me a minute, Amelia,” she said.

  I let her pass and went into the lounge.

  “Gran’s not been well,” I said to the family. “She’s got a lot going on at the moment.”

  The woman had picked up her piece of paper and was holding it against her chest, as though protecting it. She must have thought we were all crazy. I wouldn’t blame them if
they didn’t want us to have anything to do with them or their son.

  I passed the brush and pan to Mom and pointed to a table near the bar. “Look, why don’t you just sit down here for a moment?” I said to the family. “Gran’ll be back in a sec. I’ll grab you a drink.”

  The woman nodded. “Tea would be lovely. Thank you, dear.”

  I turned to the man.

  “I’ll have a coffee, thanks,” he said.

  The girl looked up briefly. “Can I have a Coke, please?” she said quietly.

  “Coming right up,” I said as cheerfully as I could — which, to be fair, wasn’t cheerfully at all. But I don’t think anyone noticed.

  I went back into the kitchen and put the kettle on. While it was boiling, I got two cups out and filled a glass with Coke.

  I listened to the kettle fizzle and squeak as it warmed up, and I tried to make sense of what had just happened to Gran. Why had she lost it like that? Was she sick? Was it the stress of everything? But why then?

  And then I realized. Of course she’d be upset. Some people had come through the door who had just lost someone — and so had she! It was bound to upset her.

  I left the kettle to boil and went upstairs to find her.

  She wasn’t in her bedroom. I checked mine and Mom’s, and she wasn’t in either of those.

  Then I heard a sound coming from the floor above. There was just one room up there. Grandad called it his study, but it was a junk room, really. He was the only one who ever used it. I hadn’t been in there for years. As far as I knew, Gran never went in there. She always said she couldn’t bear the mess.

  But she was in there now.

  “Gran?” I called uncertainly from the landing.

  She didn’t reply. I climbed a few stairs and called again. “Gran, are you up there?”

  This time, I heard something that sounded like a box toppling over, followed by Gran’s voice. “You stupid, stupid man!” she said. Who was she talking to? Was Grandad in there?

  I ran to the top of the stairs and stood in the doorway. At first I couldn’t even see her. All I could see was boxes piled on top of one another, overflowing bags scrunched in between them all, mess strewn everywhere. If I didn’t know what Grandad was like, I’d have sworn we’d been burgled.

  Then I spotted Gran sitting in the middle of the room, cross-legged, with a bag of photographs on her knee. She was clutching her left foot.

  She looked up at me and tried to smile, but there was a big black mascara mark running down her cheek in a wiggly line, which didn’t do much to convince me the smile was real.

  She must have seen me staring, as she quickly looked away and rubbed her sleeve across her face. When she looked back, the wiggly line had turned into a big black splotch. It looked as if she’d smeared a lump of coal across her cheek.

  I picked my way through the mess and sat down beside her. “Gran, what happened?” I asked gently.

  “Darn box fell on my toe,” she said, trying to sound flippant. “Your grandad — he’s such a hoarder. I ought to throw it all out.”

  “Gran.” I reached out and put my hand on her arm. “I don’t mean the boxes.”

  Gran looked down at my hand. She nodded, tightened her lips. Then I think she tried to say something, but it came out as a half-swallowed gulp, and a tear fell from her cheek onto my hand.

  “It’s Grandad, isn’t it?” I asked.

  She turned her tearstained face toward me and opened her mouth to speak. Then she shook her head. “I can’t . . . It doesn’t . . .” she began. Then she stopped and looked down again. She looked so lost and small, and suddenly I felt like the older one, the comforter. I wanted to protect her.

  I put my other arm around her shoulders. For the first time in my life, I felt her relax into me.

  “It’s OK,” I said. “You don’t need to explain. I understand.”

  She looked back at me, a strange expression on her face. Shock. Disbelief. “You do?” she asked shakily.

  “Of course I do. A family comes in, saying they’ve lost a member of their family. It’s bound to upset you, with Grandad gone. It’s set it all off again, made you scared in case he doesn’t come back.”

  Then she half smiled and nodded. Pulling away from me, she reached out for my hand and gave it a squeeze. “You’re right, dear,” she said. “Of course that’s what it is. I miss him so much. I just don’t know what to do without him. Sometimes I think I’m going to go crazy if he doesn’t come home. Sometimes I think I’m half-crazy already.”

  “He’ll come home, Gran,” I said. But I knew it was just words, and I couldn’t hide my own uncertainty. “He will, won’t he?” I added before I could stop myself.

  Gran looked at me. “Of course he will,” she said after a while. She smiled and stroked my face.

  I smiled back, and as I met her eyes, I realized something. Whether or not either of us believed what we were saying didn’t matter at that moment. What mattered was that we understood how much the other one needed to hear us say it.

  “You’re such a good girl, Amelia,” Gran said softly.

  Gran and I had never had a moment like this in our lives. It felt as if we’d finally found our way to the edge of the chasm that yawned between us and realized it wasn’t that big. Right now, it felt as if it were so tiny we could have stepped across it all along.

  The important thing was that we had done it now.

  The other important thing — I suddenly remembered — was that there were people waiting for us downstairs.

  “Come on,” I said, reluctantly moving away from Gran. I stood up and reached a hand down to help her get up. “We need to get back to that family.”

  Gran looked at me and took my hand. “I’ll just wash my face,” she said. “You go down. Tell them I’ll be there in a minute.”

  I nodded and turned to leave.

  “Amelia,” Gran said softly. I turned back. She smiled at me, and for the first time all week, the smile was genuine. It was a smile I’d never seen from Gran before. Open, warm, soft. “Thank you,” she said simply.

  I gave myself a moment to take in her words. I know they were quite simple and there were only two of them, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard her say them to me with so much feeling.

  I smiled back at Gran. “You’re welcome,” I said. And as I headed downstairs a shiver of anxiety whipped through my body. I didn’t know why I felt it, but something about the family waiting in the pub was making me uneasy, too.

  By the time I took the drinks through to the lounge, Gran was behind me, and we went in together.

  “I’m so sorry about that,” Gran said breezily as soon as she came into the lounge. “I’ve been having a few dizzy spells recently. Think it’s a bit of a bug. Now, let’s see what we can do to help you. Where are you staying, first of all?”

  Gran was all brisk business. It was as if she were a different person from the one who had been sobbing in my arms only moments earlier. She was back to being the one in charge, the one who looked after others, the one with no emotions.

  “We’re at Seaview Place,” the man said. “But we have to be out this afternoon. We’ve been here a week.”

  “Our son didn’t come back last night. We got in touch with the police first thing this morning, and they’ve got a team on it. They said they’re sure he’ll turn up today,” his wife added, “but we’ll obviously stay as long as it takes.”

  Gran glanced at Mom and me, nodded briskly, and said, “Well, you’ll move in here for a few days.”

  The couple stared at Gran. So did Mom. The girl bit her lip and looked at her parents.

  “I . . . I don’t know if we . . .” the woman stammered.

  Gran broke in. “No ifs,” she said. “Most of our guests either checked out yesterday or they’re leaving today. We’ve got plenty of rooms. You need to find your son.”

  “I think that’s a great idea,” the man said. “How much do —”

  “And I don’
t want you paying,” Gran said, before he even finished his question.

  This time we all stared at her. “Your son has gone missing,” Gran said firmly. “You need all the help and support you can find. You’re staying here as our guests, and that’s that.”

  Then she folded her arms and looked around at us all, challenging us to argue with her.

  “Of course you must stay,” Mom said, reaching out to touch the woman’s arm. “We’ll do everything we can to help you.”

  “You’re very, very kind,” the man said. He glanced at his wife and she gave a quick nod. “We’d love to stay here. Thank you.”

  The woman got her poster out of her bag again. “Before we go to get our things, could we put the poster up?”

  “Of course you can,” Gran said. “Amelia, fetch some tape and we’ll put it in the window.”

  I ran to the kitchen and opened the junk drawer. Anything that didn’t belong anywhere else usually ended up in there. Which meant it was always jam-packed with a hundred odd things you’d probably never need. I scrabbled through paper clips, lightbulbs, a folder full of kitchen appliance pamphlets, and finally found a roll of tape. I grabbed it and walked out.

  I came back into the lounge and held the tape out to the woman.

  “Why don’t you just hang it up for them?” Gran said. “I’ll show them their rooms.”

  The woman smiled at me. “Thank you so much,” she said, almost in a whisper. Her eyes were brimming with tears she seemed determined to hold in.

  I took the poster from her and was heading to the window with it when three things happened in quick succession that stopped me in my tracks.

  The first thing was that the girl said, “I’ll go back to the apartment and get Mitch.”

  The second thing was that Mom said, “Who’s Mitch?” and the girl replied, “Our dog. He’s a West Highland terrier.”

  The third thing was that I stopped breathing.

  Mitch.

  The piece of paper in my hands suddenly felt like it was on fire. I didn’t want to hold it. And I certainly didn’t want to look at it.

  But I had to.

  I could feel my heart thumping hard as I closed my eyes and turned the poster around.