It was a huge, barn-like shed with a high ceiling showing open rafters and above them the arc of corrugated iron which formed the roof. There was a wooden walkway round the perimeter and the whole area was split into squares with other, narrower, pathways joining them. Most of these areas had boats in them, resting on platforms of wooden slats, and on these boats there were men poking and prodding and measuring and taking photographs. We were led right to the end, where enclosing one of the squares there was a screen, about four feet high, made of what looked like flimsy white cotton through which we could make out figures moving behind it. The man in the white boiler suit, our guide, who had taken over from the policemen, introduced Don to someone wearing a similar garment, though his was green. I didn’t hear a word he said. I was looking at the boat in front of us. It lay on its side. There was a big hole at one end and a lot of broken wood visible through it. I could see that the mast had been snapped off and there were torn remnants of sailcloth heaped round its fractured base. I thought I might faint and sat down quickly on the ground.
Don didn’t notice. He was agitating to be allowed to inspect the boat and he was being prevented from doing so. I didn’t seem able to focus properly – everything was blurry – and I kept shutting my eyes. There was an echo in the shed, and a great deal of noise, and whatever was being said to dissuade Don was lost. But the next time I made an effort to clear my head, and looked up, he was on the platform, kneeling beside the hole in the side and peering through it. I watched as he crawled inside, his long legs squirming from side to side and one of his shoes coming off with the friction. I don’t know how long he was on the boat. Next time I looked he was at the far end, where what I took to be the engine was resting on a small, high table. The boiler-suited men were either side of him, looking anxious and tense. Don took a notebook out of his pocket and a biro and began writing things down.
All this time, I was still in a heap on the pathway, my knees drawn up in front of me, my hands clasped tightly round them. Every now and again I let my head fall forward into my lap, burrowing into the warmth of my woollen coat, stretched over my knees, the buttons pressing into my forehead (when we got to our hotel, I looked in the mirror and there was a red circle bang between my eyes, as though I had been branded). Don, when he was ready to go, seemed not to notice that the bundle of clothes on the path was his wife. ‘Where is my wife?’ I heard him say, the first distinct words I had heard at all. One of the men pointed. Don came over to me and said, not unkindly, ‘Come on, Lou.’ He took my hand and helped me up. I said sorry. He said he wanted me to come and look at the boat. He wanted to show me various important things, and for me to check that he had got the numbers and markings on the engine correct. I laughed, a silly, weak little laugh, and said he must be joking, I couldn’t possibly go onto that boat, and he asked why not?
I didn’t go onto the boat. Nothing Don could say would make me. He pleaded with me, going over and over why it was vital that I should see what he had seen, but I shook my head and said that I couldn’t, I wouldn’t. He had to give up. He went back on the boat with one of the men and I saw him showing this man what he had written down and, though I couldn’t hear what Don said it was obvious enough that he was asking this man to verify his notes. The man seemed reluctant to sign anything. Don stabbed his finger at something he’d written, and I saw the man nod. This went on for some time – more pointings of Don’s finger, more nods from the man.
When eventually we left the shed, though Don was reluctant to leave it at all, the taxi, which had brought us there, had gone. ‘We’ll walk,’ Don said, and I was quite glad he’d decided this. But he was told it was too far to the town, a matter of several miles, and then one of the men said he knew someone whose shift had just finished and who was about to drive there and he went to get him. This chap didn’t speak any English, but someone explained to him where we wanted to go. He gestured to us to get into the car which he’d brought round to the shed. We got into the back seat. I said to Don, as we did so, ‘You haven’t thanked them,’ meaning the boiler-suited men who’d let him onto the boat. ‘I don’t feel like thanking anyone,’ he said, so I let the window down and called, ‘Thank you for your help.’ I’m not sure they heard me.
The hotel was the only one Don had been able to find on the Internet. It was in the centre of the small, dreary-looking town, with shops either side, a butcher’s and a cheese shop. The smell of cheese was overpowering as we got out of the car. Don did at least thank the driver, and even tried to give him some money, but he wouldn’t take it and seemed offended. It was rather dark inside the hotel and there seemed to be nobody about and no reception desk. We stood side by side on the black and white tiled floor and waited, helplessly. Don sighed, and the sigh was repeated and sounded like a groan. ‘I can’t be bothered,’ he muttered, as a woman suddenly appeared from behind a heavy maroon curtain to the right of the stairs ahead. She smiled and asked our name and said she was pleased to have us as her guests, and that she would show us to our room. Her English was excellent. She led us up the stairs to a landing and opened the door of our bedroom, hoping it was satisfactory. There was a question in her voice, but we ignored it. Neither of us took in the room – it was a room, it would do. And then, before she left, she said, very quietly, ‘I am so sorry about your daughter. Please, accept my condolences for this terrible accident.’
Don, who had walked over to the window and was staring out of it, spun round as though he had heard a gunshot. ‘It was not an accident,’ he said. The woman, who had half closed the door by then, opened it again. She looked alarmed, but said nothing. ‘Thank you,’ I said, quickly, ‘you’re very kind.’ She smiled again, unconvincingly, and this time closed the door fully. ‘Don,’ I said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t. There hasn’t even been an inquest yet. You shouldn’t say things like that.’ He went into the bathroom and I heard water running. By the time he came back, I was lying under the cover on the bed, feigning sleep. It was only five o’clock and neither of us had eaten that day, but I hoped he was not going to suggest that we went for a meal somewhere. But no, a meal was not what he suggested. What he wanted to do was walk round the town. I let him do it on his own. He was gone for hours, and I think I did sleep some of the time, because I was startled when he returned. The rain was hitting our window quite hard, driven against it by the wind coming off the North Sea, and it was dark. Don didn’t put the light on. There was just enough illumination from a street lamp outside for him to see his way around the room. He’d bought some cheese and bread, and offered me a share. I took it and ate it and felt better for it. There was a coffee machine in the room and he made us coffee. We did not say a word to each other. There we sat, side by side on the bed, munching the bread and cheese, sipping the coffee. ‘Can we go home now?’ I said finally.
We stayed two days. The next morning, Don hired a car and we drove for about an hour to the place where the boat had been washed ashore. There was nothing to see, absolutely nothing. It was still raining, the wind was still fierce, but he insisted that we should both get out of the car and walk on the beach. It was not really a beach at all. The coast was flat, there were no rocks, no cliffs. It was a drab coastline, dreary but without menace. There were no buildings, no shelter anywhere. If the day had been clearer we would have been able to see for miles. But I stayed beside the car, refusing to walk to the exact spot, near a little inlet, where we knew the wreckage of the boat had been found, but Don walked along to it, the mud coming over his shoes. He stood facing the howling wind, his hair whipped upwards in an almost cartoonish way, his arms crossed in front of him. The waves were crashing against the shore and I could see that the spray must be soaking him, but he didn’t move. The sea was hideous that day, spiteful and ugly, a vast expanse of grey and black and white, a heaving monochrome sea. Don appeared mesmerised. I thought, as he stumbled back towards me, that he might be weeping, but he was not. Astonishingly, the frown, which hadn’t lifted from his face since the news came, was
smoothed out. He looked calm. ‘I know what I’ve got to do,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing you can do,’ I said, alarmed. ‘Oh yes, there is,’ he said, but that was all.
*
It is a week since I wrote those last few pages. I have given up making myself sit at my desk every day for at least half an hour, to see if something will come. Today, entering this room, I didn’t feel so reluctant, I didn’t feel as if I were forcing myself to concentrate on a task I don’t properly understand. The point is, I am trying. It doesn’t matter what this trying, this straining, is about. I have convinced myself that sitting here, thinking, sorting stuff out mentally, has to be done. And I will do it. In some peculiar way, it makes me almost happy.
*
The phone rang – the landline, not my mobile – just after six this morning. I wasn’t asleep but I wasn’t completely awake. I was lying there thinking of how to spend the weekend. I got up and answered the phone in a slightly befuddled state, yawning as I said ‘Yes, hello?’ There was silence, and then the line went dead. A wrong number, probably. But something made me dial 1471. The number had been withheld. I went to make some coffee, and the phone rang again. I was quick to answer. This time, after I’d asked who was calling, and repeated my number, the line didn’t go dead immediately. I could hear breathing. It was not heavy, frightening breathing – more a light sort of sighing, as though the caller was holding the mouthpiece very close and trying to be quiet. ‘Hello? Hello? Who is this?’ I repeated. And the receiver was put down, gently.
It is a bright, sunny morning. I can hear my neighbour below singing, and in the flat above the couple there have the Today programme on. There is no need to be alarmed, but that is how I feel. If the phone rings again, what shall I do? How many times shall I answer it? Will it go on and on? Who rings so early on a Saturday morning, anyway? And then it occurs to me: someone wants to reach me to break bad news about Molly.
The phone rang three more times and then Finn came round, just as I was becoming hysterical, convinced someone in Zambia was trying to reach me. He was on his way to do someone’s garden and wanted to borrow some money. I hardly listened to him – I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into my flat and pointed at the phone as though it were alive, telling him incoherently about the calls and my conviction that something must have happened to Molly.
‘For God’s sake, Mum,’ he said, ‘calm down. It won’t be anyone ringing from Zambia.’
‘How do you know? How can you know? You can’t!’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘we can settle this easily. All you have to do is ring that emergency number she gave us, the one at the headquarters out there. Geddit? Come on, you’re Mrs Efficiency! Where is it? Find it. Ring them, or I’ll do it.’
I had the number in my address book, and also pinned on the notice board in my kitchen, but, though Finn pointing out this obvious solution had calmed me a little, I hesitated. ‘I can’t call them,’ I said. ‘If she’s OK, if it wasn’t them ringing, I’ll feel so stupid, I’d be embarrassed, and Molly …’
‘Mum, what do you want to be, embarrassed or reassured? Give me the number, here, give me your address book. Quick. Now, sit down.’
I sat. He rang the number Molly had given us and explained very clearly to whoever answered that his mother had received some phone calls which had not been properly connected and had become convinced someone from Zambia was trying to reach her. Could they check that his sister, Molly Roscoe, working on their aid programme in Nambo, was safe and well? There was a long pause. Finn yawned and looked unconcerned. The waiting went on and on. I began to feel faint, and had to lie down. I kept telling myself to be sensible, sensible, but though one part of my brain was telling me that if Molly was dead these people at the HQ would have known immediately, another larger part was sure they were working out how to break the news.
‘Thank you. Sorry to have troubled you,’ Finn said, and then, ‘What? No, no thanks, no need to. Thanks again. Bye.’
I sat up. I tried to smile. Finn looked at me, frowning and biting his lip. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s just that there really were all those calls and …’
‘Mum, they were just nuisance calls. Nearly everyone gets them at some time. It’s just someone having a laugh.’
‘A laugh? At six in the morning?’
‘All right, it was an odd time, and they aren’t funny, but it’s how sad people amuse themselves. At least they weren’t obscene. I mean, a bit of harmless breathing and you panic. Anyway, can I borrow a tenner? Judith’s run out of cash, and I haven’t time to get to a bank. Dunno if I’ve got any money, anyway. I think I’m overdrawn again.’
Did he say that bit deliberately, knowing it would distract me, make me start lecturing him on his bad financial habits? Did he hope it would make me pull myself together? I gave him the £10. He hesitated, then gave me a kiss on my cheek and said, ‘It’s no good getting in such a state. You’re always expecting the worst.’ I looked at him without saying anything. ‘I know, I know,’ he said, but gently. ‘But just because it’s happened once …’
‘It’s because it’s happened once,’ I said.
He sighed and rubbed his face, and closed his eyes, and then seemed to shake himself. ‘You shouldn’t be on your own,’ he said, ‘you’re not up to it.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said.
And, on the whole, I have been. I went out. I made myself go to an art exhibition at the Serpentine, and then I walked round the whole of Hyde Park. I came home tired but feeling much better. Finn called again. He brought me some flowers, some scented stock given to him by the woman whose garden he was doing. I apologised for my behaviour and told him about my day and he was clearly relieved and went off whistling, glad to be able to get on with his own life.
I must not become a burden to my son. He said before he left that I shouldn’t be on my own. Did he wish his father were with me, to shoulder the responsibility? I must show him I am fine on my own. I am.
*
Paige had a tube of sweets in her pocket today. She was hiding them, so she was aware she should not be eating them in class. It was the smell which gave her away, a strong fruity smell, which Hussain immediately identified as his favourite sweet and shouted out ‘Starburst! Give me one!’ I took them off her, saying she could have them at the end of the day but that she mustn’t bring them to school again. When she did come to collect them, I gave them to her, but couldn’t resist a little gentle lecture on how bad they were for her teeth. ‘These are very sticky sweets, Paige,’ I said. ‘They aren’t good for you, you know.’ I was going to go on about her teeth, and what we had learned in our Healthy Eating week, how these sweets would cause decay and instead of pretty, strong white teeth she’d end up with decayed ones, full of fillings. ‘But they are good for me,’ Paige said, ‘they make me happy, and it’s good to be happy. When you took them away, Miss, I was unhappy.’ And she promptly opened the tube and took out another sweet and popped it into her mouth. ‘See,’ she said, mouth wide open and the bright green sweet in the middle of her pink little tongue. She closed her mouth, closed her eyes, sucked hard, and then said ‘Happy.’ It was very hard not to laugh. I didn’t bother making a fuss with her mother, who would only have flared up at the idea of her child, and therefore herself, being criticised.
*
A postcard came today, forwarded from our old address. It was of Durham Cathedral. The writing was so very neat and small that I felt it had been practised first. The message had an equal care about it.
We were probably unfair to Alexander. Certainly, Don was. None of us, especially Molly, had really cared for him, though I hope we hadn’t shown it. But Miranda was quite in awe of him, or that is how it appeared. She thought him very clever and very attractive. His family lived near us, at the top of our hill, but in a side road where there were large detached houses. They are well off, I think. They must be. They have a country cottage in Suffolk, and a boat moored there. Alexander was given a car the day he pa
ssed his driving test, on his seventeenth birthday. He said it was ‘only’ a second-hand Vauxhall, but we all thought this was irrefutable evidence that he was spoiled rotten. He wasn’t at our children’s comprehensive – he was at the City of London School – though he had been at their primary school. Miranda met him at the tennis club, though she’d also by then seen him at plenty of parties. He was apparently a brilliant tennis player, and even Miranda didn’t seem to mind being thrashed by him. He was a year older than she was, and in his gap year he had sailed a lot, I’m not sure where or with whom. Sailing was his passion and he was keen to introduce Miranda to it. He was teaching her to sail during that summer, after she’d finished A levels. They went to Suffolk regularly. And then he invited her on a sailing party, with him and six others from Durham. He would have his parents’ boat and the others would hire dinghies. They were all experienced sailors, except for our daughter, the novice.
I knew nothing about boats. Neither did Don, though he knows a great deal now. But he questioned her closely about this boat. It was a Contessa 32, she said. He asked how big it was, since that description was meaningless to him. She said it was small, but not very small. What did that mean? Don asked. She sighed and said, did he want actual measurements, what was his point? He said, yes, in fact, he did want measurements. She rang Alex and we heard her say her Dad was being ‘embarrassing’. She clearly felt rather foolish being told and having to report to Don that ‘32’ meant it was 32 feet long. More questions followed. Yes, they would be sleeping on it; yes, it had an engine as well as sails; yes, she would wear a lifejacket at all times. She would only be crewing for Alex, who was very experienced. Do you think, Miranda said, cheekily, his parents would let him sail their boat if he wasn’t? It cost thousands, you know – they aren’t mad. Don had done his best. Finally, he had to admit that it sounded exciting. Finn was envious, he wished he had friends with rich parents (he always referred to Alex as ‘posh boy’ to annoy Miranda). Molly wasn’t bothered. It wasn’t her idea of a holiday, pulling ropes, being shouted at and having to obey Alex.
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