by Unknown
‘Well what do you mean, lost Bea?’
A protracted ring on the doorbell made Frank jump. ‘Margaret, I have to go. Could you call Katharine on her mobile and tell her we don’t know where Bea is? And keep an eye out for her yourself. She may have taken the train down to see you. She may have . . .’ Frank’s voice trailed off.
MARGARET PUT the phone down and looked out over the great expanse of sea. Bea coming here? To Hastings? Whatever was she coming to Hastings for? On a Wednesday, of all days?
Because
MARGARET WATCHED the deserted beach through the window. The sky was stacked with clouds riding west and the surface of the sea danced and spangled in the October sun. Seagulls floated in the air and a tanker made its way steadily across the horizon. Margaret had watched from this window for fifty years. It pleased her that nothing very much was happening today. Events had a nasty habit of changing everything; she always lowered the blind if there was a storm.
From the cupboard over the sink she took two bottles and poured herself a Dubonnet and lemonade. She added an ice cube, carefully refilled the ice tray and took her drink into the lounge. Beneath the window, Eamon’s stereo stood in its smart teak casing. Its meshed speakers were where Bea used to press her face and see white horses cantering in a ring. Stockinged feet deep in the carpet, Margaret looked steadily at the round mouths of the laquered mesh and tutted. It annoyed her that she could never see these speakers without thinking of Bea’s nonsense. She knelt in front of the stereo and ran her fingers across Eamon’s record collection. All their favourites were there: Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Perry Como.
She slid the Perry Como album out and let the vinyl slip from its sleeve. Opening the lid of the record player, she set the turntable going with a click and held the record between spanned hands as she lowered it on to the spindle. She loved these preliminaries, the small sounds and sensations, like the roll of coins from Eamon’s trouser pockets on to the lino of the bedroom floor.
She took a mouthful of Dubonnet, held the bitter plum taste in her mouth and watched the soothing undulation of the turntable. She closed her eyes at the scratch and hiss of the needle in the liquorice groove, the quiet rip of fabric, the heat of Eamon’s mouth in her hair as they danced. The label at the centre lost its letters in a dissolve of magenta like the giddy spin of her in satin and net, Eamon’s hand at the base of her spine. For the good times.
His fossil collection was on the windowsill next to a photograph of him below the cliffs. She hadn’t walked there in years. That was where he searched for the remains of Lepidotes and Iguanodon, among those boulders and stones. He taught her all the names, showed her the drawings of three-toed footprints as big as bicycle wheels in a rock found along the eastern beach. Eamon loved a storm. After the winter storms, he and the girls would be there with hammers and chisels searching for their very own dinosaur footprint. To be truthful, Margaret doubted that Hastings had been a delta swamp inhabited by giant lizards 140 million years ago. It just didn’t seem very likely. She preferred it as it was, the town laid out below their front door just as a town should be, with its mossed slates, its pretty blue and pink masonry. She was never that keen on the beach, always preferred the clifftop walks where they did their courting – Ecclesbourne Glen, Covehurst Wood, Fairlight, Firehills. Such romantic names.
She would worry sometimes that there would be a cliff fall or that he would be cut off by the tide because that happened to people every year. There were stories of children being swept out to sea, fully grown men dropping to their deaths from the unfenced path near Warren Glen, dogs chasing seagulls off the cliffs and tumbling to the boulders below. But Eamon never came to any harm on the beach, and he never got the chance to find anything more than those few muddled remains of teeth and shell because the bread van took the corner too fast when he was coming the other way on his bicycle that Tuesday afternoon.
Perry Como had stopped singing and the record player had returned the arm to its cradle in a way that Margaret found gentle and considerate. She picked the arm up again, set the turntable going and dropped the needle down heavily so that it popped and crackled. ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news,’ the policeman said with his helmet under one arm. The girls were already in bed and for a moment she thought it strange that he should choose her door to knock on to tell his bad news to. ‘It’s your husband,’ he said. But Eamon had only popped out to collect the balsawood he’d left at work. He was going to finish making a piece of furniture for Bea’s doll’s house. It was a sideboard with tiny drawers you could open and close. The policeman was only young and he had a red rash climbing up his neck. ‘I’m afraid I need you to come and identify the body,’ he said.
She put on her mackintosh, pulled her headscarf from the pocket, tied it over her hair, put the key under the mat, just in case he came back while she was gone, and closed the door behind her. She followed the policeman down Tamarisk Steps and over to the High Street where his Panda was parked outside the Washeteria.
When they got there, she was led downstairs and along a custard-coloured corridor, and she thought Eamon wouldn’t have liked it here. He hated hospitals, doctors, dentists, anything like that. It was the smell as much as anything, he said. The room they had put him in had no windows. It was chilly and smelt of his butterfly collection. The policeman said something she didn’t catch and left her alone in there.
In front of her, a high metal bed was covered with a white sheet. She felt very nervous, like a bride.
She only knew what was expected of her because of what she had seen at the pictures on Saturday evenings at the De Luxe where they had first kissed. The sheet at the top of the bed was crumpled and peaked in a strange way that frightened her. There were rusty yellow smears on it. The silence was terrible.
She remembered she had left the pie in the oven and she knew it would begin to burn if she wasn’t back soon, so she looked down the other end where one foot was uncovered and pointing upwards at the ceiling. A brown label was tied to his big toe, she couldn’t think why.
She felt shy lifting the sheet so she could see both feet properly, but when she did, she knew that they were his because, well, she would know those feet anywhere.
The policeman knocked and put his head round the door. He gave her a sad, questioning look and she nodded because her jaw and tongue and lips were slow and heavy as if she were trying to talk in a dream.
‘This way,’ he said, very polite, very kind.
He took her back upstairs where they gave her a paper bag marked Personal Effects. When they asked her to sign for it, the pen was stone in her hand and her signature looked like someone else’s. Inside the bag his clothes were neatly folded. His bicycle clips were there too and his keys, wallet and a small bundle of balsawood tied with string.
It was October, a week before her birthday, and so it was still light in the early evening. She couldn’t understand it. She couldn’t understand why the van hadn’t seen him at five in the evening when it was practically broad daylight.
For ever such a long time after that she hadn’t been able to play his records, but these days she didn’t seem to be able to stop, especially ‘For the Good Times’ because Perry Como sang as if he were in the room, singing just to her.
Six and seven the girls were, and that’s what they all were after that, at sixes and sevens, because even telling them had been impossible.
Well, they wouldn’t believe it and she didn’t believe it herself, because who knows, perhaps somehow or other she had made a mistake with his feet and one day he would walk right back in through that door carrying an ammonite from Kimmeridge and laughing at her for worrying. Always at sixes and sevens, you are, Margaret, and then they’d all sit down to his favourite, a chicken pie, Fray Bentos, because she kept one in the cupboard. Even now, always.
Night
IT WAS much later that night when Margaret rang Katharine to tell her that Frank had lost Bea. After the phone call, Katharine walked into the bedroom, where Rich
ard was propped up against one pillow, chin on chest, glasses on the end of his nose. He looked at her over the pages of the report he was reading.
‘Something wrong?’ he said.
She sat on the bed and eased off her shoes.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Mmm?’ Richard patted the bed beside him and held out an arm without looking up. Katharine saw their reflection in the open door of the wardrobe. Two successful forty-somethings in a high-ceilinged bedroom with antique furniture and heavy curtains. The bed gave a groan as she stood up and stepped out of her sensible brown skirt.
‘Bea’s gone off somewhere.’
‘Hmm?’ said Richard.
She crossed to the wardrobe, took off her cream blouse, folded it over the chair and closed the wardrobe door so that the mirror could not be seen. She did not go so far as taking the running jump of girlhood from the door to the bed to prevent herself being snatched by witches under the bed, but mirrors she knew were not a good idea if one woke in the night. And besides – she padded back to the en suite and ran her toothbrush under the tap – she was old enough now to know that under the bed was not where the witches were.
Katharine came back into the bedroom brushing her teeth fiercely. She paced the room picking up clothes and straightening things. Richard watched her angular body in the no-nonsense underwear. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to see Katharine in the kind of clothes Claudia wore, where the cut and the colour spoke of the female form moving beneath. She padded off into the bathroom and he heard her spitting and rinsing into the sink. She stood in the doorway and undid her bra.
‘Bea’s disappeared,’ she said.
It sounded so improbable, spoken out loud like that. She shrugged and turned back to the bathroom, where she finished undressing and stepped into the shower.
The phone call from her mother had been more than usually confusing, she thought as the water streamed down her narrow body. She squeezed her eyes tight and rubbed soap rapidly all over herself. Her mother’s words were slurred and slow and asked whether they had found Bea yet. It took a while to get the story straight, for everything had to be repeated, asked again, checked, rewound and waited for. Even now, Katharine couldn’t be sure what had actually happened.
She turned the water off and reached for a towel. Katharine never spent long in the shower and she spent even less time getting dried. A childhood habit from the days when their bathroom in Hastings was so cold that she and Bea would pull on rough vests and jumpers, shaking and shivering, before their skin was properly dry. When she emerged from the bathroom she was in blue checked pyjamas and rubbing night cream into her face with speed and vigour. Richard didn’t much like the old-lady smell of it but hadn’t the heart to tell her.
She straightened the curtains, set the alarm and threw back the duvet. He held his arm out for her again and she allowed herself to be gathered briefly up against his side. She waited for the throat-clearing that always followed and felt his heart against her temple. Richard slept naked except at weekends when the children sometimes came into their room in the mornings.
‘Disappeared? Really? Good for her.’ He turned a page and marked a paragraph with a highlighter. He had a stack of market reports on the table beside him. They weren’t essential reading but he liked to feel he was ahead of the game, and most nights he worked his way down a pile, marking sections in fluorescent pen.
Katharine disengaged his arm from around her and sat up. ‘Something doesn’t feel right,’ she said and got out of bed again. She took her mobile out of her bag and checked it. ‘I mean, why didn’t Frank ring me himself?’
Richard turned to look at her and took his glasses off. He was calibrating the seriousness of this conversation. Perhaps he needed to give it his full attention.
‘Frank’s terrified of you, darling. He’s probably feeling a bit of a fool. I mean, what exactly happened? Did they have a row?’
‘I’m going to ring him now.’
Richard watched as she spoke into the phone. ‘Why the hell didn’t you call me?’ was her opening line. ‘I’ve only just heard,’ was the next. ‘The police?’ made him put his pen down. When she finished the call she shook her head in disbelief.
‘Christ knows what she’s doing married to that man,’ she said. ‘Apparently he rang Mum in Hastings this morning and asked her to ring me, which of course she forgot to do until just now.’
‘And the police?’
‘That was her friend’s idea.’
Richard looked at his watch. ‘So Bea didn’t go to work today and hasn’t been seen for about sixteen hours. Hardly an emergency yet, I’d say. It isn’t illegal to take yourself off, after all.’
‘No. But all the same, it’s not like her. I mean, if she was planning a trip . . . She didn’t say anything to me yesterday.’ She turned and plumped up her pillows, lay down and then sat up again. ‘I told him that if there’s no news tomorrow morning I’m going to her office first thing. No point relying on Frank. “Neither use nor ornament,” as my mother would say.’
She lay and blinked up at the room. The wardrobe door had swung open again as it always did and Richard’s family wealth was reflected back at her in mahogany and oak. She sat up and wrote a note to herself to get it all valued – the wardrobe, the tallboy, the bureau, everything. In their new house they would have different furniture. She’d talk to Richard about it in the morning. He said himself there was too much of it. She put her earplugs in, adjusted the eye mask round her head and lay back down. Then she sat up and kissed him blindly on the cheek. ‘Night night.’
Richard put his glasses back on. ‘Sleep well, darling.’
IN THE silent stillness of night, Katharine sat bolt upright in bed. She pushed with frantic movements at the darkness. Her eye mask had dropped down to her neck and she fixed her stare on the cornice above the bathroom.
‘Oh, no . . . Oh, look!’ Her movements were slow and deliberate, like a mime of terror, her voice small and pitiful like a child’s.
She twisted her head back and forth at the blackness high above their bed. She cowered against the wall, raised one arm in a sweeping arc before her face and ducked her head away. ‘No . . . Oh, no . . .’
Richard stirred, reached one arm to the space where she had been, found nothing and tried to speak before sinking back down into deep and thoughtless sleep.
So
THE NEXT morning Katharine woke early, thought instantly of Bea and got out of bed. She heard Richard in the shower and wondered how long he had been awake. Downstairs, when she checked her emails and phone, she found no messages or missed calls. She hurried upstairs to find Richard standing naked in the room with his socks on and rubbing his hair with a towel.
‘Good morning.’
‘I’m phoning Frank,’ she said, dialling his number.
‘What, now? It’s six thirty in the morning.’ He yawned. ‘I hardly slept a wink. Dreadful night’s sleep.’
Frank answered immediately, his voice hesitant and careful. Katharine told him she was going to contact the police and file a missing person report. Someone had to get a grip on the situation, and as usual, it was going to be her. Frank explained that all that had been done. He added that the police had come to see him yesterday.
‘You didn’t tell me that.’
‘Nothing to tell. All very routine. Name, address, age, et cetera. It would seem this happens quite a lot. They didn’t seem unduly concerned. But the Missing Persons Unit is coming round later today.’
‘Well I will go and see them this morning.’
Frank said nothing. He was infuriating. He was Bea’s husband, for God’s sake. He must know what was going on.
‘Are you still there?’ she asked.
There was a pause and then he said, ‘Yes.’
‘Look, are you sure there’s nothing you can think of that might have made her go off like this?’
Frank sighed. ‘Last time I saw her she was fed up about work. She said it d
idn’t matter how much she prepared for the inspection, it wouldn’t be enough.’
‘But apart from work? Did you have an argument or something?’
‘Well, she was a bit upset about your move being brought forward . . .’
Katharine turned to see that Adrian and Laura had slid silently into the room. She told Frank she would ring him back and hurried them downstairs. It was a school day today and she needed them out of the way if she was going to have a hope in hell of getting everything done.
Downstairs she made toast and coffee and began writing lists.
‘What’s happened?’ said Adrian.
‘We can’t find Bea.’ She kept her voice level and brought cereal boxes to the table.
Adrian opened his eyes wide so that his hair moved. He sat down and poured sugar puffs into a bowl. Katharine wanted to press her face into his hair but she didn’t. She didn’t touch either of her children now. Laura appeared in her school blouse and tights. She dipped a breadstick into the Nutella jar and held it between her fingers like a cigar, sucking the end.
‘Laura, where’s your skirt?’
‘I left it at Bea’s.’
Adrian said, ‘Bea’s disappeared.’
Laura stopped eating and sat completely still.
Katharine moved backwards and forwards between the dining-room table and the kitchen. Keep moving, she told herself. Keep things on an even keel.
‘I expect she’s got the dates wrong and gone on a course, lost her mobile or something. You know what Bea’s like.’ Katharine searched through the pile of letters by the phone. She checked the answering machine again for messages.
Richard came in doing up his tie. He poured coffee and touched Katharine’s shoulder as he handed her a cup. Adrian chewed and watched them as they began talking in whispers at the other end of the kitchen. That was the trouble with grown-ups. They thought that children knew nothing when the reality was entirely the opposite. Children saw everything and knew far more than parents could ever imagine. Parents, on the other hand, knew less the older they got. They had no idea what went on in their children’s world, or anyone else’s as far as he could tell.
