The Truth Club

by Grace Wynne-Jones

  Oh dear God, it’s April. She’s going to say that April has reverted to her old habits and started stealing from shops and getting tattoos and drinking cider in parks. I was the one who used to check up on her; who’s checking up on her now, out there in California?

  ‘What is it?’ I am twitching with anxiety. ‘Tell me!’

  ‘It’s all under control.’ Mum is trying to sound calm. ‘They’re searching for her now. They’ll probably find her any minute. She can’t have gone far.’

  ‘Who?’ I am jumping up and down. ‘Is it April? Has April run off with someone she met in a singles bar?’

  Mum takes a deep breath. ‘It’s Aggie. She’s gone missing from the home – they went into her room after lunch and couldn’t find her. The door must have been off the latch. She’s gone. She’s disappeared.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Where could she be? Mum keeps saying not to worry, they’ll find her any minute, but Dad and the people from the nursing home and the police have been searching for over an hour already. How can she have gone far? She only totters very short distances with her walking frame, and that’s on a good day. She hasn’t used that frame for weeks. Most of the time she’s just been lying on the bed, propped up with pillows.

  Could someone have taken her? I stare at the cars careering by. Who would want an eighty-nine-year-old woman who thinks angels are flying around her room? They’ve already been to her old home – it’s the most obvious place to look, and it’s nearby – and they’ve searched the roads that lead to it. They’ve rung up the local taxi companies to check if anyone has had a very frail and opinionated old lady as a passenger – an old lady wearing a smart navy raincoat over her nightgown. She may still be wearing her slippers. She can’t have gone far. Of course she can’t have.

  But what if someone took pity on her and stopped his car and drove her somewhere – somewhere she and DeeDee used to go? That’s it: she’s gone to find DeeDee. I get an awful lurching sensation in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘I don’t know where DeeDee used to live,’ Mum says briskly, when I ask her.

  ‘Ask Marie,’ I plead. ‘Is she there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, ask her. She’ll know.’

  I hear a whispered conversation.

  ‘She doesn’t know either.’ Mum sounds even more irritated. ‘Apparently DeeDee left home and went to some flat in Ballsbridge before she… she went off. We don’t know where the flat was.’

  ‘What about the family home, then – where Aggie and DeeDee were brought up?’ I suggest desperately.

  ‘They’ve already looked there. Try not to worry so much, dear. Of course she isn’t looking for DeeDee. She probably just decided to go for a walk. You know how addled she’s been lately. They may be trying to phone me this very minute to say they’ve found her. I’ll ring as soon as I hear anything.’ The line goes dead.

  I stare at the phone in bewilderment. I must look very dazed and strange, standing by the roadside, because someone approaches me and asks me if I’m lost. She’s not Irish; I can tell from her expression, the down-at-heel look of her clothes, that she isn’t a tourist, but she knows what it feels like to stand like this, wondering where on earth to go. ‘Thank you.’ I smile at her. ‘Thank you, but… no, I’m not lost. I’m just… worried about something. A relative.’

  She pats my arm gently. I can see she doesn’t really understand what I’ve said. Then she walks on.

  Diarmuid. I must phone Diarmuid. He’ll be home now; around this time on Sunday afternoons, he cleans the mice’s cages. He likes to keep to a routine with them; he says it makes them more secure and comfortable. Diarmuid will calm me down. He’ll state the options, explore the possibilities, get out one of his maps and study the small side roads. He’s good at this kind of thing. He’s very organised and reassuring.

  His phone is out of range again. I can’t believe it. He’s never there any more… Tears of anger spring to my eyes. He’s never been there, not really.

  I can’t bear to think of Aggie lost and alone somewhere, saying crazy things to strangers. Maybe she’s forgotten who she is; even if someone wanted to help her, they wouldn’t know where to take her. Maybe she’s injured, lying somewhere, cold and shivering and desperate.

  I need to sit somewhere quietly and think about the places where she might want to go. I walk in a stupor towards the beach, across the road with the whizzing cars and then along a quieter, smaller road. I look for the small shady cement path that leads to the bridge across the railway tracks and the steps down to the waterside.

  I used to walk here with Aggie. She showed me this place. It was only minutes from her beautiful, rambling old house. She loved walking by the ocean with Scamp racing along in front of her. The nursing home is near here, too. That’s why she went there; people thought it would comfort her to be in a familiar area. My parents are just a quick drive down the dual carriageway, and my own seaside cottage isn’t that far away either. It’s like we all wanted to be near Aggie, near her warmth and her welcome, her shining, hopeful eyes.

  I sit on the shingle and think. They’ve looked in all the obvious places, so wherever she is, it isn’t anywhere obvious. I feel I should know where she is, but I don’t. Maybe I should just join Mum and Marie. I’m about to get up and head for my parents’ home when, as a last resort, I decide to talk to Aggie’s angels. I know they aren’t there, but I have to talk to somebody, and maybe speaking to them in my mind will help me to calm down.

  The sun is shining fitfully as the clouds scud across the sky. How do you talk to angels? I used to know how, when we lived in California. Astrid used to ask them all sorts of things – what size breasts she’d end up with, whether the turquoise powder eyeshadow suited her better than the purple cream stuff, whether Rory Bennett from the high school football team would ever kiss her. I just used to ask them if Mum and Dad would ever love each other again, and they didn’t seem to have any particular opinion on the matter.

  ‘Look, angel… or angels… or whatever you are,’ I whisper. ‘I’m sorry for bothering you, especially since I don’t even believe in you, but…’ I’m wondering what to say next when my mobile rings. I grab it from my bag. Maybe they’ve found her –

  ‘What’s up?’ It’s Nathaniel’s voice.

  ‘Oh… oh, it’s you.’ Why couldn’t it have been Mum saying they’d found Aggie?

  ‘Your message – you said to drop off the notebook, but you didn’t say where.’

  I stare at the gulls gliding over the waves. ‘I thought I had. I thought I said you could leave it at Greta’s.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I… I must have got distracted.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Sally? You sound strange.’

  ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘I’m just… busy. Leave the notebook at Greta’s, like I meant to say. I’ll collect it tomorrow.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I have to go now.’

  ‘You’re by the sea. I can hear the waves. Are you thinking about DeeDee again? Is that why you’re sad?’

  ‘I can’t talk now, Nathaniel.’ Oh, God, I’m crying. Tears are pouring down my cheeks. ‘I really can’t talk.’

  ‘Why? Why can’t you talk? Why are you crying?’

  ‘It’s nothing. Please…’

  ‘I’m not going to get off the phone until you tell me.’

  It doesn’t seem to occur to him that I could just switch the phone off. It doesn’t occur to me, either. ‘Aggie’s gone missing. She’s… she’s my great-aunt. She’s eighty-nine.’

  ‘The one who thinks her room is full of angels.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Stay there. I’ll drive over and collect you, and we’ll look for her together.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘There’s every need.’

  ‘No, really… a whole bunch of people are looking for her.’

  ‘But you’re the one who knows her best,’ Nathan
iel says. How does he know that? How does he know all these things I didn’t tell him? ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Look, Nathaniel –’

  ‘Where are you?’ he repeats firmly.

  I tell him. I tell him because I don’t know how not to. He’s so insistent, and I need someone like him, someone who cares and wants to be here with me, someone who isn’t out of range or too busy. Erika will have her answering machine on because she’s attending to Lionel’s ankles, and I can’t phone Fiona or Zak for obvious reasons. As I sit and wait for Nathaniel, I wonder how this has happened. How can I know so many people and end up turning to a man who is almost a stranger?

  Minutes later, I hear the crunching sound of his footsteps. He seems so tall and bright, standing with the sun streaming on his face, that I get the old shyness – the wish to hide and be found, all in the same moment. ‘How did you find me so quickly?’ I look into his bright-blue, honest eyes.

  ‘You gave me very specific instructions.’ He smiles. ‘Over the iron footbridge, along the road by the row of old grand houses, the grassy spot and the rocks and the bench… and here.’ He sits down beside me, his lanky, jean-clad legs stretching out on the shingle. ‘I know this place too. I’m staying just down the road with Greta.’

  ‘Oh.’ I don’t know what else to say to him. I don’t know what we’re doing here together. But I don’t have that cold feeling inside me any more, that feeling that I’m lost too and no one will ever find me. Nathaniel is so here, so present. I rest in the warmth of him.

  ‘Where do you think we should look for her?’ he says softly.

  ‘I don’t know. They’re looking everywhere already, all the obvious places. There’s a whole bunch of them. They should have found her by now. I just don’t understand it.’

  He picks up a pebble and throws it towards the waves. ‘And what about places that aren’t obvious?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that, but I don’t know where they are. Aggie’s an obvious kind of person.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She’s straightforward. She’s not complicated like…’ I hesitate. ‘Like me.’

  ‘But now she’s old,’ Nathaniel says gently. ‘So she might be a bit more complicated than she was.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, her mind sort of strays sometimes, doesn’t it?’ He is being very tactful.

  ‘Yes, it does,’ I sigh. ‘She’s very different from the Aggie we used to know.’

  ‘So where is she?’

  I have a pebble in my hand. I don’t even remember picking it up. I grip it so hard that it hurts my palm.

  ‘I don’t know.’ It is a whisper. I feel so helpless, as though I’m somehow letting Aggie down, failing her at the worst possible moment, by not knowing where she is.

  ‘If you were Aggie now, what would you be feeling?’

  I stare at Howth Lighthouse in the distance; at the shimmering sea where there is no land behind it and the water seems to go on forever. ‘I can’t do this.’

  ‘Yes, you can.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  He doesn’t answer.

  I feel like getting up and walking away. This is pointless. We should be in his battered old car, scouring the streets, instead of sitting here talking rubbish. We should be ringing places, checking if Aggie has ended up somewhere and they don’t know what to do with her. The old Sally would tell Nathaniel to feck off… but this Sally, the one sitting beside him, can’t do that. I feel the glimmer of something. Another kind of knowing.

  ‘I’d be waiting…’ The words seem to be wrenched out of me. ‘If I were Aggie, I’d be looking for my old life. I wouldn’t understand why it wasn’t there any more.’ Tears are streaming down my face. Nathaniel hands me a tissue.

  ‘And then, every so often, I’d realise it was gone and I had to stop looking for it. And I’d think about DeeDee and get tired, terribly tired. It would all be a jumble.’

  ‘And…’ He touches my hand, just for a moment. My skin drinks in his warmth. His strength.

  ‘And suddenly I’d know I’d made a mistake, that I shouldn’t have done this. That I was lost and frightened and alone and old, even though I didn’t feel it. I… she doesn’t feel old, you see.’ I look into his eyes again. The light in them is soft and tender. ‘I’d want Joseph, my husband… Aggie’s husband… with all my heart.’

  Nathaniel stares out at the ocean.

  ‘And I’d go to a place where he could find me. A place where we used to meet.’ My breath is quickening. ‘A special place. Our place.’ I get up. ‘The place where I went when I was sad, and where he always found me.’ I walk quickly towards a tiny road you wouldn’t even notice. It’s overgrown; it doesn’t even look like a road. But it is, and at the end of it is an old oak tree and a little mound of grass covered with wildflowers. It is a forgotten place. A special place. And it’s only minutes away from the home. Aggie could have got there, if she wanted to with all her heart. And who wouldn’t, in her circumstances? Who wouldn’t want to turn back time and restore the present to something with love in it – real love, not just pity and kindness? I am almost running. Nathaniel is walking quickly beside me.

  The path is still there. Aggie showed it to me after Joseph died; she said it was our secret. I had completely forgotten about it until this moment. I push my way through the brambles; I stumble over the long grass and beer cans. It isn’t a secret any more. There are sweet wrappers and plastic bags blowing in the breeze. She must be there. She has to be there.

  She isn’t. The old oak tree is still there, brave and battered, its sturdy branches reaching for the sky. So is the grass mound, covered in daisies and discarded condoms. I stare at it. ‘She isn’t here,’ I say, over and over. ‘I was sure she would be here, but she isn’t. She isn’t here.’

  Nathaniel taps my arm and points. ‘Yes, she is, Sally. She’s over there.’

  And she is. Aggie is lying in a heap by the charred remnants of a bonfire. I race over to her. She is breathing.

  ‘Aggie!’ I shake her gently. ‘Aggie, are you all right?’

  Her eyes open. ‘Joseph…Joseph, is that you?’

  ‘It’s Sally,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry, Aggie – it’s not Joseph. It’s me. Sally. You know me, don’t you?’

  She rubs her eyes sleepily. ‘Of course, dear. Of course I know you.’

  Nathaniel helps her to sit up. She looks at him but doesn’t comment. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Why are you sorry, Aggie?’

  She looks at me. ‘Because I’m a stupid old woman. I can’t believe how stupid I am.’

  ‘Are you hurt?’ Nathaniel asks gently.

  ‘I fell over. That walking frame is no use. I’ve been so stupid.’

  ‘Stop saying that, Aggie. You’re not stupid. You’re not stupid at all.’ I am brushing the wispy grey hair from her face, rubbing the bits of charcoal from her cheeks. Her legs are covered in scratches. I hug her to me. ‘Oh, Aggie, I’m so glad we found you. I was so worried.’

  ‘Can you move, Aggie?’ Nathaniel asks. ‘Are you in pain?’

  ‘No. I just fell over. I often fall over. It’s like being a kid again.’ She manages a little smile. ‘Old age is a bugger. A real bugger.’ Nathaniel smiles too.

  ‘You’re not old, Aggie,’ I say, cradling her in my arms. ‘You’re not old where it matters. You’re not old in your heart.’

  ‘I thought I could go back.’ There is a faraway look in her eyes. ‘I thought I could go back to how it was. But I can’t, can I? I know that now, but I mightn’t tomorrow. That’s how I am these days, Sally. I’m sorry.’ Small, tired tears trickle down her face.

  ‘We understand.’ Nathaniel says it for me. ‘We understand, Aggie. We’re just pleased we found you.’

  I see her studying him. ‘He’s called Nathaniel,’ I tell her. ‘He’s a… a friend. Diarmuid would be here, only he has exams. He’s been very worried about you too.’

&nb
sp; ‘Diarmuid,’ Aggie says. ‘Dear Diarmuid…’ She looks at Nathaniel more closely, her eyes bright and curious, and then at me. ‘I suppose we have to go now.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nathaniel agrees. ‘It’s getting late, and it looks like it might rain.’

  ‘And I must phone Mum,’ I say. ‘Right now.’

  ‘You bring me back to… to that place. I don’t want them all here,’ Aggie says pleadingly. ‘I’d just like a little time with you and…’

  ‘Nathaniel.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t want a fuss. Tell them to visit me later. Tell them I want a little nap first.’

  I follow her instructions. Mum and Marie sound extremely mutinous at this message.

  ‘It’s what she wants,’ I whisper.

  ‘What about what we want?’ Marie demands. ‘We’ve all been crazy with worry.’

  ‘And, if you really love her, you’ll respect her wishes,’ I say. ‘It’s hard for her too.’

  ‘How are you going to get her home?’

  ‘A… a friend is going to drive her.’

  ‘Where’s Diarmuid?’

  ‘I couldn’t contact him. He has exams.’

  ‘On a Sunday?’

  ‘I couldn’t get him on the phone. He must be studying.’

  Nathaniel whispers in my ear, ‘Tell them she won’t be back at the home for an hour or so. She wants to go to the pub for a sherry first.’

  I repeat this message.

  ‘Sherry!’ Marie splutters.

  Mum grabs the phone. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Sally. Take her back to that home right now.’

  ‘She doesn’t want to go.’

  ‘She’s a very frail old woman. You can’t go gallivanting off to pubs with her.’

  ‘That’s what she wants,’ I say firmly. ‘And tonight we’re going to do what Aggie wants, not just what makes everyone else feel more comfortable about her. I understand your concerns, but please don’t let’s argue about this.’

  ‘Sally!’ my mother protests.

  ‘See you soon, Mum.’ I turn off the phone.

  Aggie sits on a low wall by the roadside while Nathaniel goes off to get his car. When it arrives, I have a sudden surge of panic. How is Aggie going to get into it? She can’t scoot across the driver’s seat like I did.