Together by Christmas

by Karen Swan

  He watched her. ‘No one could tell it was you, you know – on the telly, I mean. Only those who actually know you both. The cameraman missed the worst of it, luckily. He had switched to Langen and I think by the time he caught on there was an accident, you had turned in the other direction. I just happened to recognize your coats.’

  ‘I hope that’s true,’ Lee sighed, though in truth, her horror at their highly public pile-up had rapidly paled into insignificance compared to what had happened to Harry. For several days after the race, the Dutch press had been at pains to uncover the identity of the mother and child ‘on the ice’ on the final stretch to the Elfstedentocht finish, but the aerial footage hadn’t captured their faces and no one had offered any information. ‘The last thing Jasper needs is some fanatical idiot yelling at him.’ Or some other fanatical idiot, rather.

  They both looked over towards the little boy sitting cross-legged on the floor and watching Ben 10 cartoons.

  ‘Hmm,’ Pabe sighed sadly. ‘He’s not himself, is he?’

  ‘Hopefully he’ll perk up in a couple of days when he gets to open the mountain of presents under our Christmas tree.’ She had already ordered the outlandish super-blaster megatron Nerf gun of his dreams. To hell with her principles; she just needed her son to smile again. ‘I’ll go and get another load of logs in and that should keep you going till tomorrow evening. Have you got any Christmas Eve plans?’

  ‘Dinner for thirty. I was thinking haunch of venison.’ His eyes twinkled and she chuckled as she went through to the kitchen and outside again.

  She jogged down the steps, taking care on the slippy moss, and walked over to the covered log store against the back of the house. It was over half empty now; he would need to place another order soon. She loaded the logs into the sack carefully and replaced the felted lid, her eyes catching on something bright in the long grass as she walked back to the house. She walked over and picked it up – a key. Not a Yale, not a front door one, but smaller, finely toothed, with a red dot on it, like nail varnish.

  She frowned as she pocketed it.

  ‘Pabe,’ she said as she re-entered the living room a few moments later, he and Jasper watching the cartoons in companionable silence together. ‘I just found this on your lawn.’ She held out the key for him.

  ‘Mine? In the garden?’ Pabe examined it as best he could without his glasses. ‘But how did it get down there?’

  ‘No idea,’ she shrugged. ‘Could it have fallen out of one of your pockets perhaps?’

  ‘I haven’t been down there for months. Certainly not since summer.’

  ‘I guess it could have been there since then. It looks tarnished and it wouldn’t rust easily.’

  He reached for his glasses on the side table and turned the key between his fingers. ‘Oh. No. Look.’ He pointed to the red dot. ‘It’s from downstairs. All the apartment keys have a red dot on them. My granddaughter let me use her nail polish to identify them so I wouldn’t get confused. I did once spend forty-five minutes trying to get in here with one of the downstairs keys.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’ Lee began unloading the final rounds of logs. She gave a small gasp as she suddenly remembered something. ‘Wait – it’s not for the back door, is it?’

  ‘I couldn’t say,’ Pabe shrugged. ‘One key looks much like all the rest to me.’

  ‘Because Gus was saying a while back that their back-door key had been lost and he was worried because it could constitute a fire hazard.’

  Pabe jerked agitatedly. ‘Why does he keep saying that? I must have replaced that key five times already. He makes me feel like I’m going dotty. If they’re going to keep losing them, it is hardly my fault.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Pabe,’ she soothed, feeling bad for having upset him. ‘Jazz and I will stop and hand it back to them on our way past.’

  ‘No!’

  Lee looked up at Jasper’s pinched face. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not going back there! I didn’t like it!’ he protested forcefully, angrily almost.

  Lee frowned. When had he been—? ‘Oh, you mean when they babysat you?’ She had all but forgotten about that.

  ‘I didn’t like it.’

  ‘Well, I know it may not have been . . . like home,’ she said diplomatically, remembering the black bin bag in lieu of a curtain. ‘But Lenka and Gus were kind to you, weren’t they?’ Her heart had begun to pound at the mere thought they hadn’t been.

  ‘She wasn’t Lenka.’

  Lee felt a little chill ripple down her back. ‘. . . She wasn’t?’

  ‘Her name’s Natalia.’

  Natalia? Could that be the woman Lee had seen with Gus on the bridge?

  ‘She was mean.’

  Lee thought her heart was just going to stop beating and fall into her boots. ‘Mean how?’

  ‘She thought I didn’t hear but I did. I heard her shouting at the others.’

  ‘. . . Others?’ Lee looked at Jasper’s downturned mouth; at Pabe, who was looking bewildered, as though Jasper was suddenly talking in another language. ‘Just wait there.’ She got up and went back through the kitchen, leaving the door open as she ran down the steps. She went and stood in the spot where she’d found the key and looked back at the house.

  The concrete well down to the basement apartment was damp and covered in lichen, a crisp packet and a crumpled packet of cigarettes in the corner at the bottom of the steps. The black bin bags were still crudely taped up to the windows – a poor man’s curtains option, she’d assumed, but looking closer now, she saw they were commercial grade plastic, and that there were thin rows of baggy ripples in the plastic.

  There was a small frosted window to the left, with a narrow opening aperture at the top. It was situated below Pabe’s downstairs bathroom so she guessed it was the basement bathroom too. The opening was far too small for anyone to climb through, but an arm could certainly extend through, certainly far enough to throw something out – something like a key . . .

  She caught her breath as the questions began coming, one after the other, the answers stacking up behind one another in a rush.

  Why throw away a key – if not to stop anyone using the door?

  Why throw away the key to ensure the door could never be opened?

  And why pretend it had been lost?

  She stood staring at the window, at the black bin bags, thinking back on her past interactions with the people who lived there. Gus, a friendly, charming, safety-conscious tenant dealing with an elderly landlord: a man in his nineties, a man he portrayed as set in his ways, embittered even, always complaining about noise, losing things, failing on upkeep. And yet that wasn’t her experience of Pabe. He was frail, yes, but neither dotty nor cantankerous. So why discredit him like that? Was the discord between Gus and Pabe a simple clash of personalities – or something more deliberate? If accusations were to start to fly, who would be the more reliable? Who would believe the man in his nineties making wild claims about the friendly, safety-conscious tenant? An unreliable landlord made for an unreliable witness, surely?

  Her heart was beating faster and faster as she tried to remain calm, to still her racing thoughts, to apply logic over emotion. She stared again at those ripples in the plastic; claw marks that hadn’t quite broken through.

  And she saw it: the painful, hidden truth. The others, the people on the other side of those bags weren’t supposed to see out. Get out. Be out.

  She remembered Lenka’s withdrawn demeanour, her inadequate clothing, her lack of familiarity with her own city. She remembered how every single time she tried to talk to her, Gus would suddenly appear: chatty, friendly and yet watchful too, always taking over the conversation, always quickly bringing it to a close with a smile. She remembered his passport still in her jeans pocket on her bedroom floor – she had forgotten to cut it up and throw it away properly. She remembered too the drawing Jasper had drawn for her in there – a house with a family (she had thought). In purple felt tip pen.

  Purple felt
tip. Just like the message in the book, found in the bicycle basket, right outside this building. Two words she could never turn away from. Help Me.

  She ran back up the steps and into the house, wide-eyed. ‘Pabe, where’s your phone?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We need to call the police. Right now.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The lift doors opened with a pretty ‘ping’ and Lee stepped out, shopping bags hitting her knees as she walked. She went straight to the ward she had left last night, Gisele laughing in surprise at the sight of her coming through the door, a yellow helium balloon attached to her wrist.

  Gisele was pale, her face puffy and hair scraped back in a bun, still wearing the unsightly surgical pressure stockings, a butterfly cannula in the back of her hand. It was the most dishevelled and imperfect Lee had ever seen her look – and also the most radiant. She was sitting up and holding her newborn son to her chest, skin upon skin. He was so tiny, it was like clutching a bag of marshmallows – only less squidgy.

  ‘Hey, you’re up.’ Lee kissed her lightly on the cheek and quickly sank into the chair beside the bed to preserve her modesty. ‘Thought I’d pop in and see how your night was. It’s great to see the two of you together.’

  Gisele looked down at her son with the universal look of the Madonna, but Lee could see her lashes were wet and that she’d been crying. ‘He’s doing so well,’ she smiled, almost as though surprised by it. ‘He’s had a feed already and I’ve changed two nappies.’

  Lee grinned. ‘Oh, well, that will become infinitely less charming by the end of the day, believe me.’ She pointed to the bags by her feet. ‘I stopped at some shops on my way home last night and got some things that will hopefully fit him, until he’s in his proper clothes.’

  Tears filled Gisele’s eyes again, her bottom lip wobbling. ‘Oh God, I mustn’t cry again. I can’t stop crying!’ she laughed, but not really, as a sheet of tears raced down her cheeks.

  ‘It’s completely normal,’ Lee said, grabbing a tissue from the side table and dabbing them for her. ‘I was the same. Cried buckets the first five days after Jasper was born. The doctors were worried I was going to get dehydrated.’

  Gisele laughed again, more sincerely this time. She tipped her head as she looked back at her. ‘I just don’t know how to thank you, Lee. Everything you’ve done for me . . .’

  ‘Oh it’s just some sleepsuits and nappies,’ she pooh-poohed.

  ‘Not just that. There was St Nicholas’ Eve. And if you hadn’t come over yesterday when you did . . . he might not be here right now.’ Her voice caught on the very idea of it, fresh tears falling as she gazed down again at the tiny bundle in her arms, as though to reassure herself he really was there.

  But Lee knew she was no Florence Nightingale figure. ‘Don’t thank me. I should have come over a lot sooner than I did,’ she said ashamedly. ‘I knew you must be struggling, but I just . . . I just didn’t take the news about Harry as well as I might have thought I would.’

  Gisele squeezed her hand. ‘I could have come over to you too. It’s been rough on you, I know that.’

  ‘I didn’t have the world’s press camped out on my doorstep.’

  ‘Maybe not, but Harry going out there has raked up skeletons for you.’

  Lee watched her as she tucked the blanket under her son’s tiny pointed chin, knowing it was time. ‘. . . Gisele, what do you actually know about Harry and me?’ she asked. ‘Has he told you why we . . . fell out?’

  Gisele’s shoulders slumped. ‘No – he said it was your story to tell and that only you could tell it.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lee swallowed, feeling a lump of emotion that he had protected her privacy at least.

  ‘Believe me, though, I tried everything to get it out of him. When we first got together and I realized there was this . . . rift in the middle of his life; when we’d end up walking past your house, when I found out the only reason he was in Amsterdam at all was because he’d followed you here . . .’ She closed her eyes for a moment, the corners of her mouth pulled downwards. ‘I was convinced he must be in love with you – even though things were so good between us, all I ever heard was how brave you were, how talented, how kind . . .’

  Lee looked down at her feet, knowing she was all those things – and much worse besides.

  ‘He would try to reassure me. He said you were his best friend but that he’d betrayed you. He didn’t say how, but I knew it was bad. He’d wake up in the morning with a look of peace on his face, and then I would see the memory of whatever it was literally climb into his mind and he would change. I used to find him just standing in the garden at dawn, pacing the kitchen in the middle of the night. His spirit was so . . . restless, it was eating him up inside. But I couldn’t help him, he wouldn’t let me in.’ She sighed. ‘So when he left for Syria, and asked me to give you the letter, I knew it was bullshit that he was going for a news story.’

  Lee looked down at her words. This was everything she had wanted – wasn’t it? To hear of his torment, his ongoing anguish and guilt for what he’d done and, more crucially, what he hadn’t? But there was no victory here, no jubilation in her bones. Her suffering wasn’t diminished for knowing that he’d suffered too. ‘Did you read the letter?’

  Gisele hesitated, then shook her head. ‘But I wanted to. I spent days just staring at it, knowing the answer to the questions I’d been asking for years was right there. Several times, I so nearly did it, I’d boiled the kettle . . . But then when you came over to check on me, and then had me over for Pakjesavond . . . You were so kind to me. Suddenly it wouldn’t just be his trust I was betraying but yours . . . I realized that if this thing between you was so bad he had to go back out there to make things right, then I had to let it happen and trust that he’d tell me when he got back.’

  If he got back. He’d been held for nine days now.

  ‘You must hate me,’ Lee said simply.

  ‘No. Well, not any more.’ She gave a rueful grin. ‘I’m just sad for you both. I think you’ve both been grieving for a long time.’

  Lee bit her lip, feeling her heart gallop and tears threaten, but she knew she had to be brave now, to do the thing she had sworn never to do. ‘. . . Gisele, the reason I came over to see you yesterday was because I wanted to tell you everything. You should know what happened; you’re Harry’s wife and the very least you deserve is to know why your husband is missing.’ She stared at the tiny child, fast asleep against her, deprived of his father. She looked at Gisele again. ‘. . . But I don’t want to upset you either. I don’t want to ruin this for you – it’s your first morning of being a mother. These are special moments. It can wait for another time if that’s what you’d prefer. I promise I’ll tell you everything whenever you’re ready.’

  Gisele swallowed, looking nervous. ‘Is it bad?’

  Lee nodded. ‘Yes. It is.’ She had to be honest. There was no sugar-coating what she had to say.

  ‘But it will explain why Harry’s gone?’

  Lee nodded. ‘Only – he doesn’t know everything. I’ve never told anyone the full story.’ She blinked. ‘It will be hard for you to hear. Probably you more than anyone. I’m sorry.’

  Gisele was quiet for a long time, staring down at her sleeping child. Harry’s son. He might never come back. He might never meet him. Surely she had to know why? She looked back at Lee with tears shining in her eyes again as she reached for her hand and squeezed it tightly. ‘Well,’ she said, taking a deep, steadying breath. ‘I’m ready if you are.’

  Lee cycled home slowly, shopping bags balanced carefully on her handlebars and the turkey wedged in her basket, prompting laughs as she cycled past. She didn’t care. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve and she was going to make sure her son had the best Christmas ever. She was quietly hopeful that she’d got him the best present.

  She pedalled past the frozen canals, the spectacle of ice-skaters gliding up and down now almost routine, the city’s newly restored old habit. The windows of
the coffee shops were all steamed up with gentle warmth as it tried to snow outside, but just a few flakes dusted the cobbles, not settling. She passed by elaborate shop windows, beneath the exuberant light displays that lit up the entire city, feeling her heart swell. But for the crack through the very middle of it, she might have said she felt happy; but ‘at peace’ would do too. She would gladly take that. Gisele had been remarkable – stoic, kind, understanding, even though what Lee had done deserved none of those responses and they had both cried and hugged and cried some more. She no longer had a rock in her stomach. She no longer had a secret to carry.

  She passed through Spui Square on autopilot, lost in her thoughts and only clocking where she was as she saw the bronze statue of the urchin boy on his plinth. She stopped pedalling and stared at it, remembering that day with Sam when everything between them had started to shift, the gears beginning to move – only to crunch to a halt again as her past tapped her on the shoulder and eyeballed her. Everything between them had been stop-start, effortless and yet turgid – one-on-one, the energy flowed, but life seemed to keep getting in the way, pulling them apart again. Keeping them apart.

  Kicking her leg over the bike, she walked over the cobbles and put a hand to the boy’s feet. The questions that had been thrown up by the message in the book – his book – had brought her back into his orbit; but now, she had the answer and it was another lock turning on their brief interlude in each other’s lives. At the time, a part of her had wanted to believe that the book – and the message in it – had brought Sam into her life because he was her happy ending; but she understood now it was quite the reverse. Sam’s book and the message in it had been the means by which Lee stumbled into Lenka’s life and found for her a happy ending.

  Somehow, against the odds, she had found the stranger in a city of almost a million, the prisoner – prisoners – living in plain sight, right under her nose the whole time: young women smuggled into the country illegally and forced to work without pay, for inhumane hours, to live in cramped and squalid conditions, their families back home threatened should they speak out or try to escape . . . She didn’t think she would ever forget the image of those young women being led up the steps by the police officers – their pale, malnourished faces, blank eyes, thin legs . . . Lenka turning to stare up at her window and mouthing ‘thank you’ as the police car took her away for her witness statement. Natalia, the blonde woman she’d seen with Gus on the bridge, had been one of the traffickers – the woman who would meet the girls off their flights into Schiphol airport and extend for a few minutes more, until they were in the van, the illusion that this was the start of an exciting new life.