by Nicci French
So I didn’t do any clearing up. I didn’t do any of her packing. I looked at my watch. It wasn’t on my wrist. Where was it? On the side of the bath? On the floor next to my bed? In a pocket somewhere? By the sink? But at that moment a sheep emerged from Charlie’s ridiculous sheep clock and bleated the hour. Eleven o’clock. No rush. So I left the room – except that I took her flip-flops off the floor to pack because she would probably forget them and I’d end up having to buy new ones.
I carried them to my bedroom and tossed them into my suitcase, which was now almost full. Walking down the stairs I almost collided with what looked like a peculiar half-boy, half-robot coming up. It was Jackson, looking through the camcorder Rory had bought for us a year ago and which I’d never even got out of the box. I’d planned to take it to Florida and had already packed it, but Jackson can sniff out electronic equipment just as Charlie can sniff out chocolate.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Filming,’ he said. ‘It’s brilliant.’
‘That was meant for the holiday,’ I said. ‘There’s no point in filming our house. We know what it looks like.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Jackson said.
‘Yes, it does. I charged it up specially.’
‘I’ll charge it up again,’ he said, proceeding on his way, leaving me on the stairs with my mouth open. Holiday films are boring enough without being preceded by a ten-minute wobbly journey round your own house. But I knew that once Jackson had attached himself to something technological, it required major surgery to detach him from it. Besides, I had other things on my mind. Eleven. Charlie deserved a lie-in at the end of what had been a difficult, tiring term at school but she had a paper round to do, she had packing, she had a holiday to prepare for. I picked up the phone from the low table at the bottom of the stairs and dialled her mobile. I was immediately connected to her voicemail but that didn’t tell me much. As I’d found to my cost over the previous year, there were several dead zones on Sandling Island where mobile phones lost their signal. Charlie might have switched off her phone or left it in a drawer in her room or she might have been on her paper round already. I made a mental note to call her a few minutes later.
I stood in the living room, briefly at a loss. I had about eight things to do and there seemed no compelling reason to choose one to do first.
It was my birthday, my fortieth birthday. I remembered the unopened mail and decided that, before anything else, I would have a cup of coffee and look at the cards and intriguing little parcels that lay on the kitchen table. I put the kettle on, ground some coffee beans, pulled out the white porcelain cup and saucer that Rory had given me this time last year. I remembered opening it as he watched me, sitting at this very table. One year ago, as I turned thirty-nine, I was still married, and we had been starting our new adventure together. Looking back with the merciless clarity of hindsight, I could see the ominous signs. Perhaps if I had recognized them at the time, I could have saved us. I could recall the day clearly. Rory had given me the lovely cup, and a shirt that was several sizes too big, and later in the day we had gone for a long walk round the island in the rain.
Now I was forty and single, with the wreck of my marriage smoking behind me. But because of Christian, I felt younger than I had for a long time, more attractive, energetic and hopeful. Falling in love does that.
The kettle boiled and I poured the water over the coffee grounds, then opened the first card, from my old school-friend Cora. I hadn’t seen her for years but we remembered each other’s birthday, clinging to our friendship by our fingernails.
There were about a dozen cards, and three presents: a pair of earrings, a book of cartoons about getting older, and a CD by a sultry young female singer I’d never heard of. I nearly didn’t bother with the large brown envelope at the bottom of the pile, addressed in neat capital letters, because I assumed it contained a brochure. As I ran my finger under the gummed flap, I saw a glossy sheet inside, and I drew it out carefully. It was an A4 photograph of Jackson and Charlie, with ‘Happy Fortieth Birthday’ written in Charlie’s flamboyant scrawl along the white border at the top and their signatures underneath.
I smiled at the faces smiling at me: there was Jackson, rather solemn and self-conscious, his neat dark hair with its widow’s peak, his tentative smile, his dark brown eyes gazing directly into the camera. Charlie stood beside him, her copper hair in a glorious tangle, her wide red mouth flashing a smile that dimpled one cheek, her blue-green eyes in her pale freckled face.
‘Jackson!’ I called up the stairs. ‘This is lovely!’
‘What?’ came his voice.
‘The photo. It arrived in the post.’
‘That was Charlie’s idea. She said it was more exciting to get things by post.’
‘It’s really good,’ I said, looking at the image once more, the two pairs of bright eyes. ‘Who took it?’
He put his head round the kitchen door. ‘What?’
‘Who took it for you?’
‘Oh, I dunno. Some friend of Charlie’s when you weren’t here on the weekend.’
‘On Sunday?’
‘Yeah. I can’t remember her name, though.’
‘Thanks. I’ll always treasure it.’
He wandered off once more, as if he hadn’t heard.
Later I would frame it but for the time being I pinned it to the fridge door with a magnet. But what to do now? What to do first among all the things that needed doing? I mentally tossed an imaginary eight-sided coin. First, I put the bag with the snorkel, the flippers, our bathing suits and towels into the back of the car, to get it out of the way. I put the dollars I’d ordered from the bank last week into my wallet. I wrote a note for the milkman, cancelling the milk for the next two weeks, rolled it up and put it into the neck of an empty bottle, which I placed outside the front door. I washed the dishes in the sink, dried and cleared them away, and swept the kitchen floor thoroughly – I wanted Renata to arrive at a tidy house. I stripped the sheets off our beds and threw them into the kitchen to deal with. At eleven thirteen by the clock on the oven, I rang Charlie again, and once more got a message.
I decided I would wash my hair before she got home and took over the bathroom: she’s the only person I know who can single-handedly empty a water tank with one shower. I was half-way through rinsing off the conditioner when I heard a knock at the door. I groaned, assuming it must be the man who called round every Saturday morning, selling fish from the back of a van. This was particularly irritating because a fresher and cheaper selection was available at a fishmonger’s three minutes’ walk along the waterfront. But occasionally I took pity on him, which gave him just enough encouragement to keep coming.
The knock sounded again, louder this time. Charlie, I thought. She’s lost her keys again. I stepped out of the shower, pulled on the ratty grey dressing-gown that Rory hadn’t taken with him when he left, and ran down the stairs, rubbing my hair as I went. I opened the door starting to say something like ‘The prodigal daughter returns,’ but stopped, because it wasn’t Charlie and it wasn’t the fish man.
Someone was singing loudly. Several people were singing loudly. I could see at least a dozen faces at the door. I felt a flash of horror of the kind you experience when you know you’re about to have an accident and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. When you have elbowed the vase off the shelf and it hasn’t yet hit the floor. When you have put the brake on too late and feel your car skidding unstoppably into the one in front. I realized that I was the victim of a surprise birthday party.
At the front was Joel, head and shoulders taller than anyone else and dressed in his working clothes of jeans and a heavy green jacket. He was smiling at me apologetically. At least he wasn’t singing. He’d promised never to come to the house again, yet there he was and there – right behind him, not grinning and not singing – was his wife Alix. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, there was the vicar. He was certainly singing. He was leading it, as if he was in
church, trying to rouse a sluggish congregation. Behind me, Sludge was moaning in panic. She was never much of a guard dog.
‘Happy birthday to you-ou-ou-ou!’ they finished.
‘Surprise,’ said Joel.
For one moment, I thought I would slam the door in their faces and lock it. But I couldn’t. These were my neighbours, my fellow islanders, my friends. I made an effort to change my expression of dazed shock into a smile.
‘Charlie arranged it,’ piped up Ashleigh, who was standing beside the vicar, dressed in a trailing black velvet coat over a small, flouncy green skirt. Her face was glossy and fresh: full red lips, arched brows and smooth, peachy skin. Tendrils of dark hair snaked artfully down her neck. Ashleigh is Charlie’s best friend. Sometimes I worried about what they might get up to together.
‘Oh, did she?’ I said. ‘Is that why she’s not here?’
‘She said eleven, but we thought that was a bit early.’
‘Eleven fifteen seems a bit early for a party to me,’ I said weakly. Maybe this was the way they did things in the countryside.
‘Not when it’s your birthday!’
‘Not when it’s Christmas!’
‘Anyway, I think we can be certain it really is a surprise,’ said Alix, drily, as I tugged the belt of Rory’s oversized dressing-gown tighter and tried to look nonchalant.
‘Let us in, then, Nina. We’re getting cold out here.’
I looked at the man who was brandishing a bottle of sparkling wine. Had I met him before? He was familiar, but I couldn’t place him, or the woman his arm was wrapped round.
‘I’m packing,’ I said.
The man – was he called Derek or Eric? – pulled the cork from the bottle and a spume of smoke and froth oozed over its neck. I stood back as the group advanced over the threshold like a small army. Someone thrust a bunch of flowers into my hands.
‘I’m leaving in a couple of hours,’ I tried to say.
As I was about to shut the door on us all, I saw more people coming round the corner, carrying bottles and parcels: Carrie from the primary school and her husband; Ashleigh’s mother; the nice woman who’s a solicitor, Joanna or Josephine or something. Behind her Rick and Karen and, trailing them, Eamonn, who wasn’t even wearing a jacket, just a T-shirt.
I turned to face my visitors. ‘Make yourselves at home,’ I said, although most of them already had. Alix was shaking crisps into one of my serving dishes and the vicar had dug out some glasses for the champagne. ‘Can you answer the door for me? I’m going to get some clothes on.’
‘Take a drink up with you,’ someone called.
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘It’s not even midday and, anyway, I’m driving later.’
‘Just one. It’s your birthday! I’m certainly going to.’
‘I’ll make you some coffee,’ said Joel.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘Go and change. I know where everything is. Sorry to be dressed like this. I’ve got some work to do afterwards.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, meaning that it didn’t matter how he was dressed, it didn’t matter whether he had work to do. He didn’t need to tell me about his life.
I escaped up the stairs and put my head round Jackson’s door. He was sitting on his bed, in an immaculately tidy room, filming his feet, as far as I could see.
‘There’s a horde of people downstairs,’ I said, in a hiss.
Jackson aimed the camcorder at my face.
‘Charlie said something about it. She told me not to tell you.’
‘Yes, I can see that.’
‘Shouldn’t you put some clothes on, though?’
‘Good idea. But where’s Charlie? Has she prepared something else?’
‘Dunno.’
I heard the sound of more knocking on the front door and Sludge barking. The swell of voices and laughter from downstairs grew louder.
‘Please stop filming me,’ I said.
He put the camcorder down on his bed.
‘She’ll be here soon,’ he said. ‘You know what she’s like. She only did it because she thought you’d be pleased.’
I went to my room and rang Charlie’s number again.
‘Where are you?’ I said, leaving a message. ‘Charlie, this is getting ridiculous. Come home now. There are dozens of people drinking downstairs, thanks to you, and we’re leaving for Florida soon. You haven’t even packed and – oh, never mind, just come home.’
Making no concession to the impromptu celebrations going on without me, I pulled on the jeans and top I planned to travel in and brushed my hair in front of the mirror, then tied it, still damp, in a loose bun. I put on the earrings Christian had sent me days before as an early present. I knelt in front of my suitcase and rifled through its contents: light skirts, bright shirts, shorts, sandals. Had I packed enough books, I wondered. I could always get more at the airport. I wished we were there now, just the four of us, loitering together in the timeless, placeless limbo before departure, buying things we didn’t need. On an impulse, I called Christian again on his mobile. This time he was there.
‘Hi,’ I said softly. ‘Me again. That’s all I’m ringing to say, really. And I’m looking forward to seeing you.’
‘Me you too,’ he said. His voice sounded as if he was smiling. ‘Are you all packed?’
‘Not as such.’
‘Where are you? You sound like you’re calling from the pub.’
‘I’ll tell you about it later.’
‘Don’t be late.’
‘I won’t. Unless I can’t find Charlie.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Never mind. We’ll be there.’
I stood for a moment at the window. The tide was advancing now, creeping up the mudflats. Far out at sea, boats floated free at their buoys. It was misty, a fine gauze hanging over everything, but I could still see from where I stood the shapes of the old hulks and, beyond them, the stocky concrete pillboxes. They had been built as a defence against invasion during the war. Soldiers would have hidden inside and poked their rifles out of the narrow slits to prevent the Germans coming ashore on Sandling Island. So much effort, so much concrete, but the Germans never came and here they were, still waiting, cracked, immovable, half toppled on the cliffs and sands.
On the way downstairs, I had to push through a group of young people. I didn’t recognize any of them and they didn’t seem to recognize me.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’m Nina.’ Blank faces. ‘Charlie’s mother.’
‘Is Charlie in her room?’ The youth who spoke was tall and skinny, with a shock of black hair and eyes that were green in the subdued light of the stairwell. Everything about him seemed a bit undone: the laces on his heavy boots were trailing, his shirt was half unbuttoned, his sleeves frayed.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Only Jackson. Where is Charlie anyway? You haven’t seen her?’
He shrugged. ‘I said I’d meet her here. Typical Charlie, to be late at her own party.’
‘My party, theoretically. If you do hear from her…’
But they were gone and I proceeded downstairs to where the party had become an independent noisy organism. I stood and looked at it, feeling like an imposter in my own home. Nearly two years ago I had moved from London. I had left behind an old world and this was the new. But I hadn’t really made it my own, not the way Jackson and Charlie had. This was where their friends were, this was where they felt comfortable. I hadn’t settled in that way. There were people whose names I knew, people I nodded at in the street, people I drank coffee with. And there was one person I had slept with. But even so, as I gazed at these islanders I wondered if they were laying claim to me, if they were asking me for something I couldn’t give them.
They were crammed into the tiny kitchen, and the living room beyond. I knew enough about them to recognize the different strands that connected them. I saw Karen speaking animatedly to Alix, gesturing largely with one hand, pausing only to drain her wine glass, then refill it from the bo
ttle she was holding. They worked together: Karen was the receptionist at Alix’s GP surgery in the town. Rick was in conversation with Bill. Probably about boats. Rick was a senior science teacher at Charlie’s school, a few miles from the one I taught at, but his passions were sailing, kayaking and windsurfing, anything out on the water. He taught them during the summer. And Bill worked at a boatyard. His face was like carved dark wood from years of toil in the sun and wind.
There was a cluster of people round the fridge, and Eamonn was sitting on the rocking-chair by the window. He was wearing a black T-shirt with widely flared sleeves, black fingerless gloves and wide black trousers that came down over high black boots. His hair was tied back in a beautiful green and black ponytail. He looked ready for a night out in some sleazy London club and didn’t seem to notice that he was sitting in a kitchen surrounded by middle-aged men and women, talking about Christmas presents and traffic congestion. I felt a kind of admiration for him. Sludge was wedged beneath him, whining pitifully. I bent down and scooped up the pile of dirty sheets on which Eamonn was resting his boots.
‘You don’t know where Charlie is, do you?’
I noticed the flush that made him look so young and awkward. ‘Isn’t she here?’ he asked.
‘She’s disappeared on me. Unless there’s some extra surprise she’s arranged, the icing on the cake.’ I turned and searched among the crowd. ‘Ashleigh! Ashleigh, you have to tell me now. Has Charlie got some secret plan she’s going to spring on me? Is that why she’s not here?’
