Grace Is Gone

by Emily Elgar

  I feel a new kind of loneliness, staring at Dave’s number and realizing it’s come to this: Dave is my only chance of seeing a friendly face tonight. Dave is a middle-aged policeman I met by chance after a row with Ruth and an angry stomp to the pub. I’ve only ever contacted him when I wanted the inside story on something for an article, but I’m desperate, and Dave’s been through an acrimonious separation so he might understand. Before I can change my mind, I text him: “Pints tonight, mate?” And as I drive slowly away I feel worse than I have in weeks, lonely and very much on my own. Ruth said the meetings with Dr. Bunce would help, but she was wrong this time. Therapy really is complete bollocks.

  3

  Cara

  “You know you can cry if you want to,” Jane, the family liaison officer, tells me as she places a third cup of tea in front of me, the other two poured stone cold and untouched down the sink. She scoops away the ragged tissues Mum’s left littered on the coffee table. I get the impression Jane likes to be in perpetual motion, like she doesn’t want her thoughts to settle. On the sofa next to me, Mum squeezes my hand. Our skin feels damp where we touch. She’s been gripping on to me for over an hour now.

  “Car’s not much of a crier, are you, love?” Mum wipes my fringe out of my eyes with her fingertips. Mum’s face is blotched, swollen, her eyes even bluer than normal with all the crying, mascara streaming down her face in dirty rivers.

  “She’s like her dad. He never cried. Doesn’t matter though. I cry enough for the both of us, don’t I, love?” She kisses my forehead and I let her hold me; I know she needs to feel me close. She becomes still, stares into space as though she could stare herself out of the room, back to yesterday when her friend was still alive. Her lungs heave a couple of times and I know she’s about to start again.

  “Who . . . who could do such a horrible thing to such a good person?” she asks no one in particular. “I can’t, I can’t . . .” but her voice turns to a wail, her tears crash, wash away whatever it was she was about to say. I press my ear against her chest and listen to her heart, imagine little pieces of it breaking away with each racking sob. Jane stands, watches us for a second before her radio crackles and she hurries to answer it in the kitchen. As soon as we got home from my recorded interview at the police station Jane drew the sitting-room curtains so we couldn’t see the journalists and the photographers outside, but we can hear them. Tense voices, the odd cough, and every now and then a laugh, a reminder that this is just another Monday for them.

  In the kitchen, Jane speaks into her radio. “OK, I’ll let them know. Over.” My neck feels stiff. Mum’s arms relax around me, so I take my chance and sit up.

  “DCI Upton and DC Brown are just finishing up next door. They’ll then come over here to ask a few more questions, if that’s OK?” Jane looks at us.

  Mum squeezes my hand one last time before letting it go.

  “Cara told them everything already at the station . . .”

  “It shouldn’t take long. They want to speak to both of you this time, more general questions about Megan and Grace.”

  Jane and Mum keep their eyes fixed on me. They’ve been like that for hours, like they expect me to do something at any moment and don’t want to miss it. I nod, unsure whether I’ll be able to find my voice.

  “If it gets too much at any point or you need to take a break, you just let us know, OK, Cara?” There’s a thin line of coral lipstick around the outside of Mum’s lips. I nod at her, but I know she wants to hear me say it.

  “OK, yeah.” The words are sore in my throat and I stand, unsteadily, as Jane and Mum stare, wide-eyed.

  “Toilet,” I tell them. There’s one just off the kitchen, but I decide to walk to the bathroom at the end of the hall instead. It’ll give me a bit more time alone, free from their staring eyes that make my skin prickle. Our bungalow has the same layout as number 52. Before I can stop myself, I glance at Mum’s bedroom door, the twin of Meg’s. Drip, drip. My mouth tastes like rust, like blood. I see Meg’s dead eyes, open but unseeing. I lean against the cool corridor wall to steady myself, turn away from Mum’s door. I breathe deep and slow, wait for my heart to settle, and let my eyes slide across the walls. They’re bursting with life and memories—Mum’s a sentimental hoarder. I spot an excruciating poem I wrote about autumn when I was ten.

  Red leaves dance to the ground,

  Soft and without a sound . . .

  It’s framed next to a photo of Granny and Granddad grinning in deckchairs on Ashford Beach. There are countless photos of me, all the way from blubbery baby to unsmiling teen. A couple of cheap watercolors Mum’s had forever and a few framed posters. I’ve never understood why Mum bothers putting stuff up. No one ever sees it apart from her, which kind of defeats the point. But now I take comfort in these simple things. They’re like a stitch holding together the world before I found Meg’s body with the world now, just a few hours later—the safe “before” and the terrifying “after.”

  My eyes stop suddenly. Next to an embarrassing KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON poster is a framed photo of me and Grace. I haven’t looked at it, really looked at the photo in months, maybe years. The photo was taken at Grace’s thirteenth birthday party. The huge helium “13” I gave her is attached to the back of her chair, next to me, where I’m leaning low so our heads are level for the camera. Grace is wearing a bright blue wig; a birthday badge on her chest says TEENAGER! We’re both grinning, but behind her glasses Grace’s eyes are fixed towards the camera while mine are cast sideways, towards Grace, like I’m checking she’s having a good time. Those were still the days when Meg would let me take Grace to the beach. We’d come home with red, wind-burned cheeks, sticky from ice cream, big smiles on our faces, and a feeling that everything was OK because we had each other. Grace loved the beach but she hated the water, never wanted to go near it. I asked her once why she was so frightened and she whispered “Danny” and I knew not to ask anymore. It can’t have been soon after that photo was taken that I met Chris and let my whole world shrink to fit him. Chris teased me for being friends with a disabled kid five years younger than me. At the same time, Grace’s fits got worse, and then it was too dangerous for me to take her out on my own. I started to see less of Grace, and when I did see her, often during one of her frequent hospital stays, she’d be hooked up to cruel-looking machines and an unspoken question in her eyes—Where have you been?—made me feel hollow with guilt, which only made me turn away from her more.

  The doorbell rings and I hear Jane call “I’ll get it!” like we’re at her house. I quietly lock myself into the bathroom before she steps into the hallway and sees me.

  I’ve already met the two police officers. They took my statement and DNA swabs a couple of hours ago at Ashford police station, while I left Mum wailing into Jane’s arms. DCI Upton has a strong face; she looks like the type who runs marathons for fun. DC Brown looks almost withered next to her. A skinny man so covered in freckles they’ve even reached his lips and the insides of his ears, he follows Brown like an apologetic shadow.

  I know I’ll need to face Upton sooner or later, so I head to the kitchen. Jane swiftly clears Mum’s magazines and unopened mail from the table and the four of us sit.

  “Thanks for seeing us again, both of you. I’m sure you’re exhausted so hopefully this won’t take too long.” Upton keeps her eyes on me as she talks.

  Next to me, Mum runs her long nails through her rust-colored hair and rests her elbows on the table, leaning in towards Upton and Brown, not crying anymore. She’s reapplied her mascara and coral lipstick.

  “Oh anything, anything we can do to help. Isn’t that right, Car? Have you got search parties out yet?”

  Upton nods. “We’re doing everything we possibly can to find her but the next few hours, as I’m sure you’re aware, are critical. The more information we have, the better our chances of finding her. Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt the Nicholses?”

  Mum’s eyes start welling up again and she
chokes out a name in a strangled sob.

  “Simon. It has to be him. He’s crazy, unhinged, he . . .” she sniffs and shakes her head violently, steeling herself. “He’s done it before, hasn’t he? Kidnapped Grace? And he was violent before that too. Pushed Meg down the stairs when she was eight months pregnant. That’s why she went into labor early. Meg told me once that the doctors think that’s why Grace had so many troubles.” She whispers “troubles” like it’s a dirty word.

  Brown scribbles in a skinny pad. Upton keeps her eyes fixed on Mum and nods.

  “Yes, we’ve got a record. Ms. Nichols called the police on a number of occasions reporting threatening behavior from her ex-husband. We’ve been told Simon had been calling the house, apparently trying to contact Grace.”

  Mum nods, looking from Upton’s eyes to Brown’s notepad. “Honestly, she changed her number so many times but somehow he always managed to track it down.”

  “Was she scared of him, do you think?”

  Mum nods so hard I think she’s about to come off her chair. “Of course she was. Mostly scared for Grace, of course. Stress really isn’t good for her heart or her epilepsy. I’ll never forget, soon after they came down from Plymouth and moved in next door, the girls were playing in Cara’s room and Meg sat right where you are now and told me about Simon. It was the first time I’d heard about Danny, her little boy, how Simon was supposed to be looking after him but he was pissed, didn’t keep a close enough eye on him as he played in the sea, a couple of hours north of here, over at Port Raynor Beach. His tiny body washed up two days later.” Mum starts crying again. I stroke her shoulder; Jane offers another tissue. Upton shifts in her seat like she doesn’t have time for tears as she asks, “And their relationship came to an end soon after their son’s death?”

  “I told you at the station already,” Mum says, dabbing the tissue under her eyes, checking for mascara. “I wouldn’t call it a relationship. Simon was the abuser and Meg was the victim.” Mum squeezes the tissue in her hand before adding, “Look, shouldn’t you lot be out there trying to find Grace instead of asking us the same questions again and again?”

  Upton holds up her hand in apology and says, “I know this is distressing, Susan, but I’m just trying to get the facts straight. I can assure you there are already highly trained search teams working around the clock to find Grace. Now, can you tell me a bit more about what happened after Danny’s death?”

  Mum sniffs, dabs her nose with the tissue before she starts talking again.

  “Simon started drinking more after Danny died and Meg kept on trying to leave him but he begged her to take him back, wouldn’t leave her alone. It took some time, but Meg finally found the courage to leave him once and for all, for Grace’s sake more than anything, and the two of them came here for a fresh start when Grace was seven. Honestly, I remember thinking it was the saddest story I’d ever heard. I couldn’t believe one woman could go through so much and now . . . and now this has happened I . . .” Mum covers her eyes with a tissue, forgetting about her makeup. Her shoulders shake. Jane puts a glass of water in front of her.

  “Please take your time, Susan,” Upton says. “I know how hard this must be.” She turns to me.

  “You were close to Grace, is that right?”

  “Oh, the two of them were like sisters,” Mum says wetly, fanning her hand in front of her eyes to try to stop more tears. Upton looks at me but Mum keeps talking. “It was so sweet: when Grace was about nine and Cara fourteen, they’d play dress up and Cara would push Grace all the way to the beach. They tied balloons to Grace’s chair. Remember, Car? How you used to tie balloons to her chair?”

  I nod, feeling all the eyes in the room on me. Grace had just seen the Pixar film Up and thought if she got enough balloons she’d sail away. She saved up her pocket money for months. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it would never work. Besides, it was adorable how much she believed in magic.

  “But you saw less of her in more recent years, is that right? When you were living in Plymouth?”

  I nod. I’d moved to Plymouth to live with Chris after I dropped out of school at seventeen, cocky and sure I could handle life. I worked in a pub and then got a job as a receptionist in a small local estate agency. I pretended I was happy wishing away the weeks, drinking away the weekends with Chris and his mates. It was when Chris started talking about babies that the panic set in. I felt trapped, knew I had to get out. I had to at least try to do something with my life. So just over a year ago I moved back in with Mum, signed up at college to take my A-levels, and got a job at the Ship.

  “I didn’t see Grace so much when I was living in Plymouth. I was there for a few years.” My voice is small and I feel Mum swell with words next to me.

  “Well, yes, partly because Car was in the city, but also they started doing all those tests on Grace’s heart because of the arrhythmia, and then of course her seizures became more severe and she couldn’t swallow so she became very weak. With all of that, Cara couldn’t take her out anymore in case something happened. It wouldn’t have been fair on Cara to be put in that position.”

  It was just a month ago, a sunny day in May, the last time I went over to see Grace. I was busy studying for my exams and she begged me to take her to the beach. She wanted to go, just the two of us, but I’d heard how bad her seizures were now, how her eyes rolled and her lungs refused to behave like lungs, how she’d spasm so hard she once fell out of her chair, smashing her front tooth on the pavement. Her epilepsy was harder to manage because of her muscular dystrophy. The seizures would strike without warning, at any time. Meg said she’d come to the beach with us, but Grace wheeled herself back to her room, mumbling “Don’t bother” over her shoulder. When I told Mum later, she reminded me Grace was still a teenager, prone to testiness like anyone else, despite being sick.

  “So you grew up seeing Grace’s health struggles?” Upton is looking at me, but Mum answers yet again.

  “Oh, Cara was brilliant with Grace when she was little, she’d even help Meg with her medication, remember, Car? That was when you said you were going to be a doctor.”

  I don’t remember that, but I do remember a few years ago, the summer before Grace’s thirteenth birthday, waiting, nervous, in the hall while Meg went into Grace’s room to see if she was awake. Grace had just had a huge seizure and Meg said she was still groggy. It was August, the sun blistered, I was in flip-flops and had my swimming costume on under my shorts, ready to rejoin Chris and his mates for flirting and cheap booze on the beach. The coconut oil I’d slathered all over my skin curdled in the humid air of number 52; I wanted to get out of there, but then I heard Grace crying so I pushed the door open a couple of inches. Meg was sitting on Grace’s bed, her back to the door. The curtains were drawn, summer and all its energy pulsed just behind the thin orange fabric like a heart. An ice-cream van chimed outside, jarring with Grace’s warm room, tangy with sweat and vomit. Meg turned briefly, a small, sad smile on her lips as she tilted her arms so Grace and I could see each other. Grace’s eyes were open, they flicked towards me briefly, but her body looked floppy in Meg’s arms, wasted and strangely without form, like all her bones had withered away. I realized she wasn’t crying, her face was dry, but she let out a whimper, raw and desperate. I felt embarrassed, she sounded so animal. It felt impossible she could be wasting away in this stifling room when half an hour earlier my legs had been wrapped around Chris’s waist in the sea, his stubble grazing my face. Grace’s pain felt so abstract, I couldn’t comprehend it and, being there in her room, I realized my life would be easier if I didn’t try. Meg, sensing my alarm, stroked Grace’s damp hair off her forehead, rocked her broken daughter gently in her arms, and spoke softly.

  “I’m not sure today’s the day for visitors, Cara. I’m sorry.”

  I was already backing away, relief rising in a wave. I ran away from them, back towards summer, towards stolen cider on the beach and more salty kisses with Chris. I wish I could go back to that moment
, shake myself for being so selfish, so shortsighted. My friend was suffering and I should have done something, anything, to make things better for her.

  Across the table, Upton is still staring at me, quizzical, her eyebrows slightly raised.

  “I wanted to ask you both about the journalist, Jon Katrin. He interviewed you, didn’t he, for an article in the Cornish Chronicle?”

  Next to me, Mum snorts with disdain.

  “He came over here for ten minutes, I’d hardly call it a proper interview, but that’s his style of shitty journalism, excuse my French. He asked me what Meg and Grace were like, what I thought of Simon, and that was it. What do you want to know about him for? It’s Simon you need to focus on.”

  “We’re keeping all lines of inquiry open at this stage. What did you think of Jon Katrin, Cara?”

  Upton keeps her eyes on me as Mum says, “Cara only met him after the interview, on his way out. Isn’t that right, Car?”

  Upton’s still looking at me, waiting for a response, so I shrug and mumble, “Didn’t think much of him.”

  I’d been at college all day and had come back half an hour early to meet the journalist Mum and Meg were so excited about, but he already had his coat and Converse on, ready to go, by the time I arrived, Mum visibly wilting with disappointment behind him. He shook my hand and grimaced when he saw the thick book in my hand, and said, “God, I remember studying Middlemarch at uni, almost drove me mad.” Then, with a wave to us both, he was gone.

  “His article was a disgrace. Meg said when she read it she felt like she’d just been chucked down the stairs again.”

  Upton listens quietly, lets Mum vent.

  “She was devastated. I mean, imagine, she lost her little boy and then dedicated her life to caring for Grace only for some bloody reporter—that Jon whatshisname—some man to tell the world he thinks she wasn’t doing well enough because she wouldn’t let the violent bastard near Grace. Honestly, I was seething for her, for them both. Seething.”