A Different River

by Jo Verity

  Bing was in the kitchen, whistling and chopping vegetables.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, ‘Hazel and I went for a drink. We were chatting away and I lost track of time. It was noisy and I missed your calls. Sorry.’

  Excuses. Apologies.

  ‘No big deal. I only wanted to know if we had any ginger.’ He raised the knobbly root. ‘Found it in the fridge, behind the cottage cheese. Stir-fry okay?’

  He’d changed into khaki shorts and T-shirt. His hair was sticking up at the back. He looked like a schoolboy. Running her hand up beneath his T-shirt, she grinned. ‘Wonderful.’

  26

  even after Naomi had left school, they’d had no option but to take their holiday in August. Year on year, they’d paid over the odds to sit on teeming beaches and queue for museums and restaurants. Miriam had dreamed of the day when she could potter around the Algarve in May or rent a villa in Tuscany during the grape harvest. Holidaying in term-time was no longer a problem and they booked a week’s leave for September. Bing fancied heading off the beaten track. Iceland or the Shetland Isles. Naomi recommended Budapest. Hazel suggested a long weekend in New York. Miriam didn’t mind where she went – although she had a hankering to swim in the sea.

  Two days before term ended, the weather broke. Wind played fast and loose with garden furniture. A ferry was forced to anchor off Holyhead for hours, waiting until the storm abated. Rain battered her petunias, and cohorts of slugs appeared from nowhere to feast on lupins and pansies. After weeks of hot days and balmy nights, the drop in temperature came as a shock to everyone. Miriam, who had been living in sleeveless dresses, dug out her jeans and sweatshirts, feeling sorry for families who had splashed out a small fortune on what they’d hoped would be a fortnight in the sun.

  The turn in the weather brought more customers into the shop. They made space for additional children’s books and introduced morning story sessions. Once in a while, Hazel asked, ‘Okay?’ and Miriam would nod. ‘Fine thanks.’ They didn’t revisit their conversation but she was surprised how much better she felt as a result of it. Perhaps she’d simply needed to let off steam. Of course Bing wanted to spend time alone with her. Naturally he worried for her safety when she was out alone. He would be a strange lover if he didn’t. And the business with his children? She’d met Pascale a couple of weeks ago when she’d flown down from Edinburgh to attend a friend’s wedding. First uncomfortable moments negotiated, Miriam expected Bing and Pascale to relax into family gossip, questions, laughter or even a row. But they appeared to be keeping each other at a distance, steering clear of personal matters, their conversation focused on travel arrangements and the quality of coffee at various coffee shops. As Miriam watched father and daughter, she was struck by their lack of physical contact. The ‘sorry’ when they inadvertently touched. It was unnaturally civilised. Pascale had barely acknowledged Miriam. She’d not enquired about her family, or how she and Bing knew each other – details which had intrigued Naomi. Perhaps she was trying to hurt her father by snubbing his new partner. From the way she kept checking her phone it was clear she couldn’t wait to be on her way and when they parted there was no mention of another get together. ‘There. I told you it would be fine didn’t I?’ Bing had said as they drove home. If ‘fine’ amounted to negotiating a scant hour without confrontation, yes, it had been ‘fine’. But Miriam was no further forward in understanding how Bing’s family worked or what was causing their standoffishness. She was left feeling the episode had been a box-ticking exercise on Bing’s part. Leon. Tick. Pascale. Tick. Only Camille still to go, and as she’d started a new job in Toulouse there was little chance of their meeting in the near future.

  On her way home from work, she called at Boots. Naomi’s birthday was only a week away and she’d asked for a specific face cream. Miriam could have ordered it online, saved herself the trouble of wrapping and posting it, but it was important to put in a bit of effort when buying a gift for someone you loved. When she let herself in, the house felt chilled after a morning’s rain and while the kettle boiled she went upstairs to find a sweater. Hearing a car door slam, she glanced out of the window. Two female police officers were getting out of a car. Plonking their hats on their heads. They looked comical in their bulging fluorescent jackets. Out of place in this quiet cul-de-sac. One was holding a notebook, glancing between the page and the front door, obviously checking the house number.

  Her stomach lurched. Bing? Or the children?

  She ushered them in and they sat in the kitchen, their hats side-by-side on the table like two pudding basins. They were solemn and inscrutable and, as they went through the rigmarole, introducing themselves and checking she was, indeed, Miriam Siskin née Edlin, daughter of Harold and Freda Edlin, she realised, with a sense of relief, that it was her parents. And, after asking if there was anyone she would like them to contact – ‘No. I’m okay but please tell me quickly,’ – they told her.

  It was a car accident. They were coming out of a side road, turning right across the traffic flow. Her father had missed seeing the oncoming car which had ploughed into the driver’s side, killing him outright. Her mother had been injured and was at the hospital undergoing assessment.

  ‘Will she be okay?’ Miriam said.

  The women looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m afraid we don’t have any more information at the moment.’ ‘I’m sure they’re doing everything they can.’

  ‘Where did it happen?’ she said.

  They showed her a map, one of the policewomen pointing to the spot with a nicotine-stained finger.

  ‘They must have been coming back from Waitrose,’ she said. ‘The other driver?’

  ‘Minor injuries. We’ll be taking witness statements, of course, but from what we understand, he did everything he could to avoid hitting them.’

  ‘My husband died in a car crash,’ she murmured as though it might count against her if she didn’t tell them.

  One of them made her a mug of tea, ladling in sugar until it was undrinkable. They kept calling her Miriam, as if they’d know her for years, asking if there was anything she needed. They used language Max would have understood when he was three, repeating everything slowly and clearly as if she were deaf. They were doing their job but they were bloody irritating.

  ‘I need to see my mother,’ she said.

  ‘It might be as well to phone someone?’

  Now that maddening ‘upspeak’.

  ‘My partner’s a doctor,’ she said. ‘He’ll be in the middle of surgery. I don’t like to disturb him.’

  ‘I’m sure he’d want to be with you?’

  She took her phone through to the living room. Bing was between patients and when she told him he said he would come right away. He was calm. Businesslike. He would know what to do. She told Tweedledum and Tweedledee that he was on his way, that she would be fine, that they really didn’t have to stay, but they insisted. ‘Procedure’ no doubt. They sat in the kitchen, trussed up in their roly-poly jackets, talking about shifts and meetings. All the while radios clipped to their collars garbled curt messages which they ignored. Other tragedies, other lives about to change forever. All in a day’s work. It wasn’t their fault but they were sullying her home and she wanted them gone.

  When Bing turned up, he took over, noting down telephone numbers and instructions. Every now and again, he looked at her, raising his eyebrows, silently asking how she was coping. When there was no more to be done, he ushered the police women out of the door.

  ‘Poor love,’ he said, pulling her close.

  ‘All I could think was thank God it wasn’t you, or Naomi, or the children. Isn’t that terrible?’ She puffed out her cheeks. ‘Poor Mum. Has anyone told her?’

  ‘I rang the hospital. She’s sleeping.’

  ‘You mean unconscious?’

  ‘Yes. And that’s a good thing. It’ll make it easier for them to assess what’s going on.’

  She pictured Sam after the accident, broken and bloody, unrecognisable
but for his clothes. But her mother was alive. She couldn’t possibly look as bad as he had.

  ‘D’you think they’ll let me see her? Just for five minutes? Will you come with me?’

  ‘Slow down, Mim. We’ll go soon. But first I’ll make some toast and—’

  ‘Please, no more tea.’ She pressed her palms to her face. ‘What’s the matter with me? I try focusing on Dad, and my mind shoots off in another direction.’

  ‘You heard this news – what? – an hour ago? Of course you can’t deal with it.’

  ‘I’ll have to identify him, won’t I?’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘No. I want to.’ She buried her head in her hands. ‘What is it with this family and cars?’

  He went upstairs to change and, unable to keep still, she followed him.

  ‘This can’t be happening,’ she said.

  ‘A feeling of detachment is normal. It’s a—’

  ‘I know all that. I’m fed up with being told everything I feel is normal. My father dying isn’t normal. My mother lying in a coma isn’t normal.’ Her word came out in gulping sobs. ‘And don’t say a good cry will do me good or I’ll scream.’

  Naomi took the news better than Miriam had feared. She must have known the call would come before too long – her grandfather was, after all, a very old man. And the circumstances, although shocking, didn’t alter the fact he was dead. When all was said and done, he hadn’t suffered. She was more distressed about her grandmother, wanting to come right away, but Miriam dissuaded her, advising her to wait until the situation became clearer.

  When she got around to ’phoning Danny, she got a chirpy this number is no longer available and her emails bounced back from every address he’d ever given her.

  Her mother lay on her back, enveloped in the sombreness of the ICU. Apart from a few tubes and the bouncing traces on the screen, all to indicate anything was wrong were the bruises on her cheek and arm. Seemingly the collision had been not much more than a bump. But when you’re old and frail, it didn’t take much. She stayed with her mother, holding her hand, talking, singing to her, only leaving to sleep and to set in motion the formalities associated with her father’s death. Naomi came as soon as she could organise childcare, going to pieces when she saw her grandmother. Miriam spent all her time consoling her, but having a diversion – something practical to do – was better than sitting there, waiting.

  On her way home to shower and change, she called at the house, bracing herself against the sight of crockery stacked next to the sink, waiting to be washed up when they returned from their shopping trip. A skim of Oxtail soup – their last meal together – had congealed in the white china bowls but she couldn’t bring herself to wash them.

  She dug out the document box her father had mentioned. Screeds of instructions, set out in his looping script, raised a smile. Good old Dad. Micro-managing from beyond the grave. But ‘the grave’ was a problem. He’d requested a traditional funeral which stipulated burial should take place within twenty-four hours of death – impossible as there had to be an inquest. ‘He’d understand,’ Bing said.

  Her parents’ solicitor and her fellow executor was a family friend. She’d known Simon Newman for years and it was a comfort having him there, reducing what seemed insurmountable problems to minor glitches. There were things needing immediate action and, as surviving spouse, the responsibility for these would normally have fallen to her mother, but he assured her there were ways of working around the difficulties which her condition presented.

  Bing was a star. He checked her parents’ house, saw to their mail, fended off enquiries, kept up with the washing and made sure she ate regularly. More importantly, he used his influence to find out whatever medical details were to be known.

  Her mother clung to life for five days, finally slipping away painlessly (Bing assured her), quietly following her beloved husband wherever he had gone. The redeeming feature of the tragedy was that Harold and Freda Edlin were laid to rest on the same day, in the same place. Miriam was astonished and moved by the turnout. Most of their contemporaries were dead and she’d expected the mourners would be limited to close family and a few neighbours, but Bing had done sterling work getting the word out. Frankie was there, and Hazel, and several of her father’s surviving work colleagues. Even a second cousin she’d not seen since her parents’ silver wedding (the day Sam appeared on the doorstep). The double funeral of the old couple captured the public imagination and the story made the front page of the local paper.

  ‘It’s as if they planned it,’ Naomi said when everyone had gone.

  This possibility had crossed Miriam’s mind. But no, they wouldn’t do that to her, not after Sam, and certainly not with thirty-six pounds-worth of groceries in the back of the car.

  27

  There was much to sortout. Banks, pensions, tax, insurance, utilities – the list went on and on, every step of the process made more complex by the five days Freda Edlin had survived her husband. Simon steered her through the maze of paperwork and, on the whole, everyone she dealt with was patient and helpful. Her greatest cause for anguish was her continuing failure to make contact with Danny. Simon told her there were firms who specialised in tracking missing people. At her request, he contacted Denton and Ryde who had a good reputation in that field and they set a search in motion.

  Bing pressed her to abandon her job to allow herself ‘time’ – whatever that meant. She refused. ‘I’ll need something to do after this is finished.’ Hazel solved it by finding a student who was looking for summer work and was delighted to step in until autumn term started.

  Every couple of days, Miriam drove to the house, surprised to see how well it was surviving without them. Usually it was a flying visit to pick up mail and check nothing was amiss. Occasionally she stayed longer, sipping a coffee and allowing herself to remember. Standing in the kitchen she felt them close by, heard them chatting upstairs, smelled her mother’s Kugelhopf – hot and fragrant. Glance out of the window and she and her father were sitting in the garden, forgiving each other. Within the space of one week, she’d been orphaned. No warning, no time to prepare – although their age should have prepared her. As memories surfaced, she processed them like Kodak film, adjusting focus and brightness, fixing each one to prevent its fading. Her parents had vanished so quickly and she couldn’t risk losing the fine detail of their lives. She took to cutting flowers from the garden and putting them in vases in the living room and on the kitchen windowsill. Flowers in this house – their home – made more sense than those she left at the cemetery.

  Four weeks after the accident, she went to look after the children, grateful for five days’ respite from the sea of papers that littered the dining table. Naomi said if it proved too much, David’s parents would take over, but being with the youngsters, a hundred miles away from the memories and dreary legalities, was the best antidote to the melancholy which was suffocating her. Naomi had talked to Rosa and Max, explaining what had happened and why Gamma might be ‘a bit sad’. But their great-grandparents had lived far away. They’d seen them infrequently and, when they did, they’d been forced to be on their best behaviour. The two wrinkly old people had been less interesting than the exhibits in the ‘museum of odds and ends’. If they felt any sorrow at all it was for her – Gamma – and that was soon forgotten.

  Their September break amounted to a week in the Lake District. The sun shone. Their room looked out across Windermere. They ate good food, went on walks, took boat trips and made love. Bing told her she was looking better. ‘Fresh air. Peace and quiet. Just the ticket.’ But she found it difficult to engage with any of it, unable to shrug off the feeling that she was treading water.

  Despite supplying them with a list of Danny’s various addresses and phone numbers, Denton and Ryde had so far drawn a blank. ‘D’you think he’s dead?’ she asked. They said if he were, they should find records. That it was almost as if he were doing everything he could to cover his tracks.

/>   ‘If he doesn’t want to be found, isn’t it time to let go?’ Bing said.

  ‘Maybe he’s ill. Or in trouble. What if he’s destitute? I’m going to have more money than I need.’

  ‘Your parents made their wishes clear enough. You don’t intend overriding them?’

  ‘Dad made his wishes clear but I’m not sure it’s what Mum wanted. She never went against him. If she’d recovered, she might have changed her mind. Danny’s not knowing they’re dead – that’s what’s getting to me.’

  ‘He never considered you, or your feelings. Not once.’

  ‘I’m not pretending this is rational. I’m simply telling you how I feel. I realise it’s costing a lot but I’m not ready to give up.’

  He assured her money had nothing to do with it. He said that instead of frantically searching for her brother, she should be grieving for her parents. ‘The two things aren’t mutually exclusive,’ she said.

  Although she was loath to admit it to Bing, she knew that sooner or later she would have to give up. But it was a well-known fact that spells, wishes, quests took a-year-and-a-day to reach fruition. And that’s how long she would give Denton and Ryde to find Danny.

  Probate came through. Papers were sorted and filed away and the dining table reclaimed. After three months spent tying up the loose ends of her parents’ lives, Miriam decided it was time to address her own. The main issue was the house. She’d received enquiries from several neighbours ‘asking for a friend’ if she was planning on putting it on the market, and more than a few notes had been pushed through the letter box, registering an interest in the property. It was reassuring to know the house would sell quickly but the very fact that so many strangers were aware that it was unoccupied, made it vulnerable. She’d removed anything of value and also the things most valued by her (not the same). Nevertheless knowing how easy it would be for someone to break in and trash the place made her anxious. To give the impression of occupation, she set lamps to come on when darkness fell. She moved the curtains, sometimes leaving them open, other times shut. It wouldn’t deter a determined mischief-maker but it was the best she could do.