by Karen Swan
‘I know.’ Gwen’s voice was soothing, understanding. How many times had she heard this very story? How often had she relayed this message to other families? ‘And you’ve done so well, Nettie. You’ve been so strong. I know this isn’t the news you wanted to hear, but it’s not unusual in disappearances of this length of time. Return is very, very difficult and is rarely accomplished in a single visit. But hopefully, hopefully this is the start of the road back.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘No. There are no guarantees.’ Her voice softened further, as though her words themselves were abrasive. ‘We’ve always had to face the possibility that she won’t ever come back.’
Nettie gripped her face, her fingers pressing on her temples so that she saw black spots behind her eyelids. The buzzing in her head was getting louder, a pressure building in her brain. No. No. ‘No.’
‘Net—’
The phone fell from her hand, Gwen’s voice like the distant whine of a mosquito as she looked out onto the bleak landscape – the littered, puddled alley and, above it, moss-infested Victorian rooftops, cracked panes of glass in the sash windows. Her eyes fell to a bottle of gin, half gloved in a brown paper bag by the back corner of one of the bins. The place was neglected and decaying, almost Dickensian in its squalor. For the people living on these streets – the homeless, the forgotten, the missing, her mother – not much had changed.
She had to find her.
Nettie walked for hours, oblivious to the cold pavements transmitting their chill up through her thin leather soles and making her bones ache. The snow was beginning to settle at last – seeping into the suede of her boots and staining them – but that only made her search all the more determined. If her mother was out here, she couldn’t just be left on the streets. Not in these temperatures. Not now she had a location.
She had gone straight to the outreach centre on Shirland Road. Gwen had rung ahead, somehow guessing at Nettie’s plan and authorizing the duty staff to speak to her and transmit whatever information they could. It meant she knew now that her mother’s hair was grey – the auburn highlights long since grown out – and short, properly short, which was going to be disconcerting as Nettie had never seen her mother with anything shorter than shoulder-length hair before.
She’d been wearing dark grey trousers of a track-pant style with a bright pink trim down the sides, trainers and a black fleece. Nettie couldn’t imagine that either: her mother had always worn dresses and skirts and colour. She loved colour – their house was yellow, for Chrissakes! Their garden a riot! And when Nettie had been a child, she’d always stood at the school gates in bright florals, swirling skirts and floaty boho dresses with crochet tops. She wore stacked bangles and hooped earrings and wedged sandals that she could run really fast in. She couldn’t imagine her mother in trainers and black and grey.
This was another reason why Nettie had to find her now. Take her home today. Why did no one else understand the urgency that tomorrow, in all likelihood, her mother would change clothes and these crucial extra identifying characteristics would be halved? Tomorrow she’d just be looking for a grey-haired, short-cropped woman, a stranger.
She searched with frantic eyes, her hands pushing back hedges and bushes, her panic growing as she wandered down narrow side streets and emerged on grand avenues with vast iced Regency villas that held no interest for her – those streets were too clean, too tidy, their outdoor lights too bright, their parked cars too shiny. An aimless drifter would immediately attract attention. Her mother wouldn’t go there.
She tried to keep to the shaded nooks and dark warrens, the rougher areas, but it was harder than it looked. Google Maps didn’t come with a socio-economic listing and she felt like a stranger in her own city, even though she was only two miles along the Prince Albert Road, which ran home. Here, in Maida Vale, everything felt sprawling and Big City, effortlessly leaching into Paddington, Warwick Avenue and St John’s Wood without definition or intention. Primrose Hill wasn’t like that: it wasn’t a district; it was a village, bounded on all sides by the canal, railway and Regent’s Park, and she had grown up within its delineated confines with a distinct sense of seclusion in the centre of the capital city. She had felt safe, locked in by its boundaries, but what if – she realized now, for the first time – what if it had made those on the outside feel locked out?
Had her mother tried to return before? Had she seen her own image on the ‘missing’ posters on the trees and lamp posts, outside the library and community centre and churches, and known there was no way to come back quietly?
Nettie called her name as she checked the garages, inside wheelie bins, behind sheds. She checked in the greasy spoons and coffee shops, stopping only briefly for lunch – a warming bowl of moules eaten standing up in the window of Café Rouge, her eyes checking every single person who walked by – before resuming her search again. She walked past the cricket ground and tennis courts, past the restaurants and bars, past the church halls and estate agents’ offices. She did Little Venice twice – once on each side of the canal – staring nosily into the brightly painted houseboats that had geraniums and poinsettias stacked on the decks, firewood and watering cans, bikes and gas canisters chained to the roofs.
She felt the canal was her best hope. It seemed the place most like home – the Romany colours of the houseboats not so different from their own yellow house, and certainly standing in contrast to the muted etchings of the Farrow & Ball-painted villas, their vibrant and profuse potted flowers jungle-wild in comparison to the clipped and snipped window boxes and front gardens ten feet above on the streets. She was sure her mother would be drawn to these colours, the sounds of music drifting through the windows.
She walked slowly along the slippy towpath as cyclists glided past her, standing on their pedals and correcting their handlebars, dodging pedestrians walking carefully with arms linked or being pulled along by tiny, sniffing dogs. Joggers padded past with soft-footed strides, hats and gloves on, headphone wires dangling down their tops and their breath coming in white puffs. They all had somewhere to be, these people – all had somewhere to go – and she watched them with envious eyes. That was one of the things that had surprised her most when her mother had first gone and she had first started to search – how hard it was just to wander. When you have no money to go to the shops or the cinema or the garden centre or bingo hall, the day contracts down to finding the next bench to sit on, the next bin to raid, the next roof to shelter beneath. At least, that was how Nettie imagined it to be. She had spent so many hours, days, weeks, months, years trying to get inside her mother’s head, to try to understand why, to try to decipher where . . .
But the day wasn’t open-ended like hope. Light faded and the sleet turned to snow as the nip in the air began to bite again. She also had an open blister on her left heel. She stopped against a lamp post, taking a minute’s rest as she wondered where to go next. A white van sped past, wipers on max and its fog lights dazzling her, making her wet eyes shine.
She turned on the spot, unsure of where she was now. She’d lost track of where she’d searched and where she hadn’t; she didn’t recognize this street, but perhaps she had come into it earlier at another junction? Or maybe not. Had she . . . had she passed that letterbox before?
One tear fell as her panic rose again and she pressed her hand to her nose to try to stem her breath, to calm down, but time was passing and the trail was cooling. Her mother had been here, in this very vicinity, six hours earlier. She may even have passed this lamp post, that house, those cars . . . But the weather was getting worse, as forecast. She would be driven to find shelter, if not now, then soon, within the hour. No one could stay out in these conditions without suffering from exposure. She would be hidden for another day.
Some people were walking down the street, their heads up, arms swinging as they headed back to warm homes and the families and sanctuaries they took for granted. She stepped closer to the lamp post, out of their way, dr
opping her head down as they passed. Their eyes slid only very fractionally her way, not slowing down or curious about the girl in the thin coat and wrong shoes, crying in the lamplight.
Except one. She saw the shoes stop – brown leather lace-ups with sturdy rubber soles, ideal for walking in, and non-slip too. Ecco, if she remembered rightly.
She looked up with a hiccup to find her father’s arms already outstretched. His beard was as white as Father Christmas’s as it caught the snowflakes, his pinched cheeks and dull eyes the signal that he too had taken the call and been out all afternoon, searching.
She walked into his hug, all the fight going out of her as he stroked her wet hair.
‘Come on, Button. Let’s go home.’
Jules was sitting on the doorstep when they turned into the square, the giant bunny head on the ground beside her.
Nettie deflated at the sight of her, coming to a stop on the pavement outside the house, pulling her hands out of her pockets and only vaguely aware of her phone dropping to the frozen ground. ‘Not now, Jules,’ she said quietly, with a shake of her head, too tired to fight.
But there wasn’t war in Jules’s eyes. Wordlessly, she got up and wrapped her arms around Nettie’s neck, the snow sifting over them like statues. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Nettie’s father patted Jules’s shoulder lightly as he passed. ‘I’ll get supper on,’ he said, putting his key in the lock.
The women pulled apart, Nettie struggling to meet her friend’s eyes as Jules handed back the phone she had dropped. The screen had cracked. She clicked it on and stared at the screensaver photo, a picture of her and her mother – cheeks pressed together, eyes bright – that had been taken at a friend’s barbecue, just months before her mother had walked through the door for the last time. The crack split not just the screen, but the photo too, running between them like a seismic fault line and telling a truth she didn’t want to face up to.
Jules put a hand on her arm and Nettie looked up at her. How did she tell her – anyone – about this latest development, this horrid twist: that her mother was alive, but her rejection remained absolute? Was that better than not knowing if she was alive or dead? Whether she was in this country or abroad? What did it say about her that her mother, even after all this time, still couldn’t walk through that door, that she wasn’t enough to return home to? Nettie felt ashamed, inadequate, lacking and insufficient because her mother’s problems were bigger than her love.
Jules missed nothing. She saw the evasion in her best friend’s face, the fresh devastation. ‘Come on, let’s go in – it’s bloody freezing out here,’ she said, taking Nettie by the arm and, picking up the rabbit head, leading her into the house. She saw Nettie flinch at the sight of it as she shut the door. The house felt chilly, and only the lights in the kitchen were on as her father saw to supper. ‘Oh no, don’t worry about this,’ Jules said, patting the rabbit head fondly. ‘I did it today. I’ve just come straight over from doing the skit, that’s all.’
‘W-what did you do?’ Nettie asked tonelessly, leaning into the cast-iron radiator and trying to absorb all the heat. She felt frozen to the bone, her body composed of fifty-five per cent ice, not water.
Jules brought up an image on her own phone. ‘Look, there it is.’
Nettie smiled at the image of the twisted bunny body (a T-shirt straining over its rotund torso) lying on a skate ramp under a graffitied arch, its head seemingly separated from the torso and placed a metre away. ‘Horse-manning?’
‘That’s my girl,’ Jules said, like a proud mother.
Nettie’s gaze fell to the figure standing behind the bunny – it was Jamie, an axe slung casually over his shoulder. His eyes were dark and hard; he looked menacing. She felt her breath catch, her heart snag at the sight of him. ‘Why’s he in it? He’s not been in any of the others.’
Jules looked at her. ‘No, but it sets up the battle. Look at his T-shirt.’
She looked more closely. Jamie was wearing a black T-shirt which read, ‘#teamjamie’. And when she looked more carefully at the bunny’s T-shirt, she saw it read, ‘#teambunny’.
‘Mike’s promised to sell Dave his soul if the wrong song wins, so it’s on. Bit of a shame really that there’s no way we can rig the vote,’ Jules said craftily. Nettie managed a weak smile. ‘Anyway, we’re going large on it for the rest of the week. Everyone went nuts. We got twenty-six thousand retweets in ninety minutes and hit the fifty grand mark just after lunch.’
Nettie blinked, knowing she should feel excited, knowing she should care. But she couldn’t feel anything.
‘Yeah, we went to the South Bank to do it,’ Jules continued. ‘The skaters were cool.’
Nettie nodded. ‘I bet.’
‘Yeah,’ Jules said, but her tone was subdued again and they stood for a moment in silence. She looked at Nettie, still pale, still swaddled in her thin coat and wet shoes. ‘Aren’t you going to take those things off? You’re soaked.’
‘I know. I . . .’ Nettie stared down at her ruined boots. ‘I think I need to have a bath. I can’t seem to warm up.’
‘You’re, like, almost blue. How long have you been out there for, anyway?’
Nettie shrugged.
‘Are you kidding? Since the meeting? Nets, you’ll get hypothermia!’
‘I’m fine. I just had to . . . look.’ The suppressed tears made her voice wobble like a slackline and Jules rushed to her again.
‘What is it, Nets? What’s happened? Tell me.’
She shook her head, letting her hair fall forward, one hand pinching the bridge of her nose. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘It’s not nothing. You wouldn’t ever walk out of a meeting and disappear for the day like that without good reason. Something’s happened.’ She ducked down, trying to peer up at Nettie’s hidden face. ‘If you don’t tell me, I’ll just ask your dad – you know I will.’
Nettie gripped the radiator as she leaned against it, inhaling deeply. ‘Mum walked into an outreach centre in Maida Vale today.’
Jules gasped, gripping Nettie’s arm in excitement, slapping her other hand over her mouth. ‘Oh my God!’ she cried after a moment. ‘That’s amazing!’ She saw Nettie’s face. ‘No? Not amazing?’ She frowned. ‘How is that not amazing?’
Nettie rolled her lips and swallowed. ‘Because she’s still missing.’
There was a long silence. ‘I don’t understand,’ Jules said, tense.
‘She wanted us to know that she’s all right. That was all.’
Jules shook her head, like the words were a fly in her ear, something to be shaken out and swatted away. ‘You mean . . . they didn’t hold on to her?’
Nettie looked away.
‘But why didn’t they grab her? Or . . . or sit on her, I don’t know! Whatever the fuck it takes?’
Nettie closed her eyes, remembering the words Gwen had repeated to her over and over in those first, bewildering weeks, four years ago. ‘Because as a sane and functioning adult, she is legally entitled to disappear.’
Jules stared at her, her dark eyes blazing with fury. ‘Bullshit!’ she exploded. ‘That is an utter crock of shit. After . . . after everything you’ve been through in the last four years? What about what you’re entitled to?’
Nettie put a hand on her arm, a plea for silence. As much as she appreciated Jules’s fierce loyalty, it was too much on top of her own emotions right now. She needed to be alone, somewhere she could hide away until she’d pushed, squeezed and jammed her emotions back into a box and could feel less. ‘I’m going to run a bath.’
Jules watched her climb the stairs, feeling helpless, regretting her outburst. ‘Is there anything I can do? I’ll do it quietly, I promise.’
Nettie shook her head but managed a smile. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?’
‘Sure,’ Jules mumbled, listening to the stairs creak, the sound of a door being opened. She sighed, before picking up the rabbit head again by one of the ears. She glanced into the ki
tchen, ready to shout her goodbyes to Nettie’s father, but he was standing by the sink and staring out into the flecked sky. He looked held together by cloth and wishes, his shoulders an inch closer to his ears than they should have been. Upstairs, the sound of water began to whistle through the pipes.
Jules dropped her gaze to the floor. There was no answer to this, no Band-Aid to make it better. Slowly, she walked to the front door and closed it behind her with a click.
Chapter Twenty
‘I thought I’d find you here,’ she said, crouching down by the figure doing rapid press-ups on the hand bars.
Dan lifted his head fractionally but didn’t slow down. ‘Yeah?’
Nettie heard the coolness in his voice and congratulated herself on the fantastic job she was doing of pushing away everyone closest to her. ‘Yeah. You must be mad doing this in the snow,’ she said, resting her chin in her gloved hands. Across the grass, she could see Scout sniffing in the undergrowth, his short tail wagging excitedly at something.
‘Means I’ve got the place to myself,’ he said, panting slightly.
She looked around the outdoor workout area at the pull-up bars, parallel bars, push-up bars . . . There was a bar for every type of torture, as far as she could see. And no one using them.
They were at the bottom of the hill, beside the children’s playground, but everyone else was on the grass, desperately trying to roll meagre balls into snowmen, even though it was the ‘wrong sort’ of snow and their efforts collapsed into powdery heaps.
‘Ha. Well, then maybe I should have a go. See if I can grow me some muscles.’
Dan snorted in reply. Even though there were no rules, as such, it was usually only men who used this facility, although there was never any shortage of women running up and down the paths.
‘What? You don’t think I can?’ she asked, flexing a bicep that was well hidden under her Sweaty Betty layers.
‘By all means, knock yourself out,’ he said, springing himself up and back from the push-up bars and gesturing for her to have a go.
