by Ruth Dugdall
Cate mulled this over, watching as the only soldiers left were the gnats.
As they sat in the warm night there was a grumble of thunder, some distance away but lengthy, a signal of what was to come. General knew it too; less brave than his namesake, he cowered at Cate’s feet, his nose pushed deep between his forelegs.
She waited. Waited until they had finished the wine, until the evening was almost done and the rain had started, making them move to the living room where Olivier was nursing a stubby bottle of beer as he resumed tapping on his laptop. General was laid out like a rug at Cate’s feet, one black furry paw rested across her toes.
“Any developments today with the Scheen girl?” Cate asked, as innocently as she could though her face was burning. “Has she been found?”
Olivier looked up, sipped his drink. “No, she hasn’t come home yet.”
“You still think she will? On her own, I mean.”
Olivier put his bottle down, the glass clinked on the table, and leaned back in his seat, arms behind his head and eyes closed. He looked tired, and also less certain now.
Cate moved next to him, dislodging General’s purchase on her feet, bringing her knees up and resting them in Olivier’s lap, his arm came down, around her shoulder. She placed her head against his chest, listening to the rapid throb of Olivier’s pulse.
“What if this isn’t just a case of teenage runaway?” She asked, feeling how much she longed for it to be. It was with dread that she said, “What if it’s a kidnapping?”
She felt Olivier’s chin rest gently in the crown of her head. “Mmm. It may not be as straightforward as we first thought. But we’re checking things out.”
“What things?” she probed, thinking the physical closeness was an invite, that this time, maybe Olivier would open up about what was actually going on.
But she felt him shift his position, move her away so he could focus back on his computer screen. “I told you, Cate. Work is not something we can discuss. Why don’t you go and read Amelia a book while I finish off here?”
Ellie had now been missing for seventy-two hours. Cate wanted to talk to Olivier, to know what was going on, and how much the police had found out about Ellie’s disappearance, but what struck her most was that not once in their conversation had Olivier said the girl’s name. As though he didn’t want to invest too much emotion in this case.
Now, before she could stop herself and even though Amelia was close enough to hear she said, “Do you think she’s dead?”
“No! God, Cate, please don’t say such things. What if Amelia hears you?”
“There’s nothing we could say that she won’t have heard at school. Everyone’s in panic, spreading rumours about other kidnappings. Some of her friends aren’t even coming to school until the case is solved. Are you solving it?”
Olivier rubbed the bridge of his nose with both thumbs. “Of course. But I cannot talk about an active police investigation with my girlfriend.”
Girlfriend. He made their relationship sound so trivial.
“But she isn’t dead?” pressed Cate, “You know that for a fact?”
“Cate, what I know is that we are in Luxembourg, not America. She will be alive, wherever she is.”
“So where is she then? With an old boyfriend? Some estranged family member, maybe?”
“Yes, for sure it is something like this. She is somewhere, and we will find her.”
Somewhere. It may as well be nowhere.
There was comfort, though, that Olivier was certain Ellie was alive. He must know something, of course he couldn’t give her details. Whoever Ellie was with, it didn’t have to be the most sinister scenario, not the kidnapping she and every other mother she’d met that day feared and had nightmares about.
She kissed Olivier’s cheek. “I’ll go upstairs and read to Amelia, then I’m going to have a bath. Don’t be late to bed.”
He smiled up at her. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
Cate stopped at Amelia’s bedroom door, and saw her daughter was already in bed, the duvet pulled high to her face so only her nose was visible under the tousled blonde mop of hair. “Goodnight, love.”
Instead of a reply there was a sniff, and Cate went to the side of the bed, stroked her daughter’s hair. Amelia snuffled further into her duvet and Cate saw she was crying. “Amelia, I’m sorry. Were you listening to Olivier and me just now?”
She moved her head so her mouth was exposed, reminding Cate of a baby bird in a nest, and nodded. “Is Gaynor’s sister dead?”
“No, babe. Olivier just said she isn’t.”
“So why can’t they find her then?”
“I don’t know.” Cate moved in next to Amelia, cradling her and giving her all the comfort she could offer, and tried not to imagine how Bridget was feeling right now, seeing one daughter into bed while another one was gone.
When Amelia’s breathing became heavy and steady, Cate gently untangled herself, and went to her own bedroom.
In their en-suite bathroom Olivier and her each had their own sink, with a three-shelved cabinet below. Cate had no right or reason to sift through Olivier’s shaving creams, razors and cologne, only she had heard him, opening the cupboard each morning and night and heard the following sound of a blister pack of pills being opened.
Inside was packed with a pharmacy supply of drugs, various types, some still in their boxes and others in silver strips with several pills already popped. She lifted the nearest box and took out the leaflet, searching for English words. By the time she’d read four different leaflets she understood that the different drugs all treated the same thing: Olivier had a stomach ulcer.
She got into her nightdress and climbed into bed, knowing that any conversation with Olivier would end badly the way she was feeling. She wanted to talk to him, about Ellie, about his stomach ulcer, about why he hadn’t mentioned it to her and about the way he was freezing her out of every possible conversation.
And across the channel, her father’s trial would be progressing.
She tried to lose herself in a book, a family guide to moving to Luxembourg, but the descriptions of nearby forests and parks couldn’t keep her thoughts from the darker themes already established in her thoughts.
Olivier eventually came to join her, placing his phone on the bedside cabinet and disappearing into the bathroom. She heard him lock the door, heard the cupboard opening and wondered how he decided which tablet to take. His prescriptions had looked random, prescribed by different doctors, and she couldn’t see a set regime being followed.
She heard the water running and Olivier began to brush his teeth, a process that always took a full four minutes and was followed by careful flossing. On impulse she flung back the duvet and left the bedroom, walking swiftly to the lounge where his laptop sat, still open but with a black screen.
General padded over to her, sitting at her feet and gazing up as if asking what she thought she was doing. Then whining, head on paws, as a rumble of thunder preceded a crack of light in the sky. Cate went to the balcony to watch the start of the storm.
“Dogs die on days like this,” Eva had said that morning, when the August heat was stifling, but it was the fox that was suffering now. Cate saw him, a long red animal, seeking hither and thither, as if disorientated by the storm, his body damp and low to the ground, as if his wet fur made him sink. He was by the entrance to the carport, then up on the path, crossing the road a few times before jumping into the undergrowth. Cate watched with sympathy, she knew how it was to have the weather make you lose your sense of place. Her weather was Olivier, was Ellie’s disappearance. In England she knew the route, but in Luxembourg she was confused, unsure of the rules that operated here.
She turned back, considered the computer again, but realised that she hadn’t the time to start scrolling through emails, she didn’t even know his passwords to access them. But then she remembered the phone.
Quickly, she returned to the bedroom. She told herself that if he would
only talk to her, she wouldn’t need to do this, he was giving her no choice. She unlocked Olivier’s phone, wincing at the guilty beeping as she scrolled to his messages.
The water stopped running and she froze, listening. She heard a click, then a gargle. She still had time.
She opened the most recent text. It simply said Beauty Asiatique.
She wanted to read the preceding messages, but they were in French and she didn’t have time to translate, she wasn’t even sure this text pertained to Ellie’s disappearance but it must, surely, there was only one case that Olivier would be actively working on. She could hear him in the bathroom, the sound of clothes being dropped, and she knew he would soon be finished. Cate had only just placed the phone back on his side of the bed when the bathroom door opened.
Amina
Amina is woken by their voices, muffled and low at first, but becoming increasingly louder, as though whatever control was there has now gone: Auntie and Uncle Jak are arguing.
She can hear Fahran’s name, again and again. At one point the shouting stops and all she can hear are the sobs, the crying sound a grown woman makes when she has succumbed to despair, it was a sound she heard after a martyr had been named, though always from behind a closed door. Wondering why Auntie was grieving, Amina can’t stop herself from listening. Jodie is seemingly oblivious, as she begins to get dressed, readying herself for the day ahead.
“It won’t do any good, Amina,” Jodie says, as she combs her hair. “We just here to learn and get some money, we shouldn’t get involved.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Amina answers, irritated that Jodie was once again telling her what to do.
“Yes, you are. You are caring, and that could be a big problem for you. There is nothing to be done but to get dressed. Auntie will be expecting us downstairs very soon.”
Amina moves closer to her and snatches the comb from the other girl’s hands.
“You know something,” Amina accuses, surprised at her own anger.
Fleetingly, Jodie looks like she is deciding whether to slap Amina for snatching the comb, but then she softens. “These few days I have come to know Uncle Jak, just a little. Often he is silent, and he disappears sometimes without saying. But sometimes he is very thoughtful and if I make myself stay very quiet, I can listen when he talks to Malik. He tells Malik most things.”
“So you do know what’s wrong with Fahran?”
“Mmm.” Jodie begins to clean her face with some of her oil, using a cloth she brought from her home. She crosses her legs, sitting so that the window can be used as a mirror.
“Tell me, then.”
She can see that Amina won’t give her any peace until she does.
“The boy had cancer. A tumour in his head. You know what that means, village girl?”
Of course she knows cancer, people in the commune had it too, in all sorts of places. The elders can’t cure it with their herbs, and the body is eaten away from the inside. But she knows they can cure everything in Europe.
“If the eye is gone, then so is the cancer,” says Amina, sensibly. “Why do they not get him a false eye?”
“I ask Malik this. He told me that Fahran needs to heal where the tumour was before they can put one in. But that is not the big problem, it is not why they are shouting. It is because though the tumour has gone, Fahran needs other treatment. To stop the cancer returning.”
“Then why don’t they go to the hospital and see a doctor?” she asks for the second time that day. “Is it because they are illegal?”
“This is Europe, village girl. Here, even illegal people can get medicine. It is why they came. The tumour was removed in Algiers, and they came to Europe because here is better treatment. But it is expensive, and must be paid for in advance. For those with papers it would be refunded, but that is not the case for the likes of us. It is more expensive than they dreamed, and so now they are shouting.”
Amina is now more confused than ever, that Uncle and Auntie are in Luxembourg for health care, but getting none. She asks Jodie, again and again, but she says she knows nothing more.
“Uncle Jak gets upset, talking about Fahran,” she explains. “I have no wish to make it worse.”
And then Amina begs her. “Please, Jodie,” she says. “Ask Malik. Please find out why they are not getting this help from the hospital, how much it is they should pay. If you do I’ll steal you a nail polish from the shop.”
Jodie looks at her nails, which are strong and long but not very pretty.
“We have gold and purple. We have pink with white stars, and we have red like film star lips. We have…”
“Okay, Amina,” Jodie says, desperate to stop the flow of tantalising beauty treats. “I’ll find out what I can. And then I’ll take the pink. And you better not be lying when you say it has white stars. Now, we must go downstairs or Auntie will be angry.”
The white van leaves soon after, this time driven by Malik, with Uncle Jak sitting beside him and Jodie again in her red dress, on the wooden bench in the back. Amina busies herself about the kitchen, and has already been upstairs to check on Fahran who is watching his cartoons. Satisfied that all is straight in the house, Amina goes into the shop. She wants to get the nail polish for Jodie, before anyone else is around. Also, she had noticed the day before that the cotton wool was low in the dispensers and Auntie had told her that it was very important to keep the cotton wool stocked. Without cotton wool, nails cannot be cleaned and made ready for the gel, which is what all the Americans and British want so much. Nail polish that will last for as long as possible. It is a mystery to Amina who does not know why they think it is so hard, to paint their nails every few days. For her it would be a pleasure, especially if she could choose a different colour each time and these rich ladies could have as many as they liked, the salon prices are nothing to them.
Amina had noticed yesterday how new customers looked around at the salon, sniffing with a sour expression that said it was beneath them to even be inside such a place and not nearly so fancy as they deserve, but when they handed over their money from fat designer wallets they checked they heard right. The fee the salon charges is small compared to the local and French salons, Auntie had told her, so the customers return.
“You will see, Amina, they are less sniffy on the second visit.”
Amina was going to the stock room, but when she opened the door she let out a small scream because a person was there, in the dark. It scared her.
“It’s me.”
So small, these words. Spoken in such a sad voice.
Amina started to back away with a hundred apologies, but Auntie said, “What is it you need?”
“Cotton wool pads, Auntie.”
And then she put the light on and said, “Well, there they are.”
But Amina hesitated to take the packet because she was staring at Auntie, at her tiny eyes and the puffy skin around them.
Auntie started to cry again, but she didn’t push the girl away and shut the door, she pulled her forward, Amina’s face was pressed against her bosom so she could barely breathe.
Eventually she seemed to stop, though she still held Amina tightly.
“I’m sorry, Auntie.”
“Why, Amina? What have you done?” Despite the tears and the puffy eyes, the woman’s tone was fierce.
“N… nothing. I mean I am sorry that you are so sad. Is it because of Fahran?” Although she had not said his name before it seemed wrong to say “your son” when she had been thinking about him so much. It was as though he had only existed as an attachment to Auntie before, but now Amina knew about his brain tumour, he seemed more real to her.
Auntie didn’t know she was thinking all of these things, but even so her face widened when she heard his name, as if it would once again melt into hot tears.
“I am always thinking about my sweet boy,” she said. “Tell me, Amina, when your mother sent you here, was she frightened?”
“I was frightened, but I don’t think
Omi was. She was sad to say goodbye. But why should she be frightened?”
“She was sending you to another country, many miles away. With people you did not know.”
“We know Uncle Jak,” Amina protested. “He has been to my town before. We all know that he saved a baby once, who would have perished. He is a good man.”
“Maybe,” the older woman conceded. “But you don’t know me and I may not be a good woman.”
“Omi doesn’t know you,” Amina agreed, “but she knows me. And she knows I am a good girl, and so the world will be good to me. If you want an object to be solid, make it from your own clay. This was a favourite saying of hers. And I am of her clay.”
“And so it goes,” said Auntie, nodding as if the girl had spoken a great truth.
Just before nightfall the white van returns. Amina is impatient to see Jodie and to hear what more she knows. All day Fahran has been in his room, playing but also sleeping, and Amina has had no chance to speak with him. But she will, once an opportunity arises. She is resolved to befriend him.
Jodie waits until all is quiet in the house below, and still she whispers, serious over all that she has learned.
“Uncle told me that Fahran started falling over,” she tells her. “He told Auntie that the boy, he say that his world was spinning and Malik said this was the same thing he said before the tumour was discovered two years ago. The elders tried many things and finally Auntie took him to see a doctor, then to a hospital in Algiers. That is when they were told that Fahran has brain cancer and they took out his eye. As soon as he was well enough, they decided to travel to Europe, to get medical help.”
Amina thinks about how desperate they must have felt, to make that terrible journey with a sick child.
“And now?” she presses.
“Wait, Amina, I have not finish with this part of the story. After they arrive here, Uncle saw that he need money to live and that is when he returned to Algeria, started the collections, of girls like us,” Jodie says. “It was supposed to pay for the medicine, the special treatment that Fahran need, to stop the cancer from coming back.”
