Benedict clutched his stomach. He felt like Charlie had punched him again. “She was pregnant?”
“Uh-huh. I was ecstatic. You know, we were young and all, but that was okay. It was time for me to grow up. After what happened with our parents, I was going to be a dad and I loved that. But Amelia was quiet, cagey about it, and I knew something wasn’t right. She admitted that she slept with you, and she didn’t know whose baby it was. When she had an early miscarriage, I think she was relieved. I hate to say it, but I was, too.”
“So, you never knew?”
“No. I could have maybe forgiven you for sleeping together, but I went through years of wondering if it was my baby or yours. How could I even grieve for it when I didn’t know if it was mine?”
Benedict slumped over farther.
“Amelia said she’d had second thoughts about us moving away together,” Charlie continued. “She was young and wanted to test how she felt, and you were there. I hated you...for a long while.”
“And now?” Benedict whispered.
Charlie glanced at him then looked away. “I don’t know. I tried to forget about you. I blocked you from my head for years, but you always had a way of creeping back into my brain. When you rang and left the message about Gemma, it brought everything back to the surface. I’m not here because of you. I don’t even know if I want you as my brother again. I’ve flown here to see my daughter.”
Benedict clambered onto his knees, then to his feet. The seat of his trousers and knees were caked with soil. “She was feeling unwell today, so I left her in bed.”
“I want to see her.”
Benedict swallowed. “She doesn’t know that I called you...”
Charlie stood up and batted grass from his jeans and shirt. “Well, I figured that from your call. That’s why I jumped on the first plane out here. Gemma runs. It’s what she does. She hated it when I told her about me and Janice, and the baby. I thought that she was staying with friends.” He jerked his head toward the house. “I didn’t think that she’d come here.”
“She told me that you’d agreed for her to stay with me.”
“Ah,” Charlie said. “That sounds like my daughter.”
* * *
The two men went inside and Charlie dumped his rucksack on the kitchen table.
“This old place looks exactly the same,” he said as he looked around the kitchen.
Benedict nodded and listened out, but he couldn’t hear his niece. “I’ll tell Gemma you’re here,” he said.
The studio door was open and Gemma was curled in bed, fully dressed, with her back to him. Her boots were pushed up against the wall and the small white bag of gems lay in the middle of the floor. Benedict stood and watched her for a while, guilt creeping through every pore. “I’m so sorry, Gemma,” he whispered. “I had to tell him that you’re here.”
Back downstairs, he told Charlie that Gemma was sleeping, and his brother sighed with relief. “At least she’s okay.”
“She’s fine. Do you want to wake her up?”
“No. Leave her. Let her rest.”
The two men stood in silence for a while. Charlie picked up his rucksack and threw it onto his back.
“So, do you want to stay for the night?” Benedict offered.
Charlie shook his head. “I’ll get a room someplace else.”
“There are no hotels around here.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about me, Benedict,” Charlie said. “It’s not your job any longer. Call me tomorrow when Gemma is awake, and I’ll come straight over. Don’t tell her I’m here before then.”
“What should I say to her?”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Charlie said. “You must be used to covering your tracks by now.”
32.
EMERALD
equilibrium, patience, honesty
BENEDICT SLEEPILY TURNED his head and glanced at his alarm clock, and then he sprang upright in bed. His eyes opened wide. He had slept straight through the night and it was almost eleven o’clock in the morning. He groaned as he recalled his punch-up with Charlie and flopped back onto his pillow.
Every joint and inch of his body ached, and was sore, from his brother’s punches. The blood had dried tight across his bottom lip, and his forearms were dappled with blue-and-black bruises.
He lay there for a while, wincing with pain each time he tried to move. Through the gap in the curtains, he could see that the weather was as dark and gloomy as his mood. The sky was flint gray and the clouds were bilious and black. He wondered why Gemma hadn’t woken him, but then remembered it was Sunday.
His head was stuffed too full of thoughts. Of him and Estelle, of Charlie and Amelia, and of Gemma. He reached up and rubbed his stiff neck. Should he tell his niece that her father had arrived in England, or should he message Charlie and ask him to just show up? Questions zipped around his head like cars in a Formula One race, and he wanted to wave a checkered flag to stop them.
Wanting to distract himself, he reached out and picked up Estelle’s amber perfume bottle. He sniffed it and closed his eyes, for a moment transported back to their holiday in Greece, but images of Gemma and Charlie kept creeping into his head.
He placed the bottle back on the bedside table. Family was so confusing. It should be a warm, enveloping thing that made you feel safe and secure. But inside that one word, family, were different dimensions and fractions. There were people who loved, and sometimes hated, and those who made mistakes.
Now, after yesterday’s events, he would have to watch everyone leave him again. Charlie would take Gemma back to America, and he was sure that Estelle wouldn’t come home. There had been hope, precious and delicate, and he had stamped on it, because he’d made his wife think it was only children he wanted, not her.
Why had he pushed so vehemently for adoption? Why couldn’t he listen and hear that wasn’t what Estelle wanted? But he kept pushing and nudging, until she felt she had no other option but to escape from him.
He understood now that it wasn’t a new family that he was desperate for; it was for his existing one to be whole again. He wanted Estelle back so badly, but had he broken things beyond repair?
More than anything, he needed to hear her voice so he could apologize once more. He picked up his mobile phone from the bedside table, dialed her number and screwed his eyes shut. To his surprise, she answered the call.
“Please don’t hang up,” he said. “Please listen to me...”
“I’m so tired of this, Benedict...” she whispered.
“I know. And I wanted to say that I’m sorry, again. I’ve been a total idiot. What I said in the Crags and Cakes, about adoption... I didn’t mean it.” He stared at her empty side of the bed. “They were words of desperation, a last-ditch attempt. We’ve been married for almost ten years, and I don’t want that to end. My words slipped out and I’m so sorry for making you feel that way. You’ve always been enough for me...”
Estelle’s voice was small. “I appreciate your call, Benedict.”
“Do you believe me, though? I couldn’t bear it if you didn’t believe me.”
“Yes, but...” Her voice cracked.
“But...?” he asked.
There was a click and the phone went dead.
* * *
Benedict eased himself up into sitting position on the edge of the bed and slipped on his loafers. He pressed a hand to his stomach; it felt hollow, but it was an emptiness that he could never satiate with food. He maneuvered his sore arms into his dressing gown.
He paused outside the studio, ready to rap on the door. It was ajar and he could see that it was dark inside, the curtains still drawn. There was no sound and he lowered his hand, deciding to let Gemma sleep for a while longer. She would feel more refreshed for when Charlie came o
ver.
He tied the belt on his dressing gown and trudged downstairs.
In the dining room, Lord Puss lay on the windowsill and raised his head drowsily. Benedict stroked the cat’s back and tried to convince himself that Gemma would be okay about Charlie’s arrival. She’d surely be pleased to see her father.
He opened the top drawer in the freezer, ready to take out two slices of bread to make some toast. Then he closed it again and opened the fridge door instead. He wasn’t hungry but had the urge to eat something, to fuel his body. Gemma had made a fruit salad and put it in a plastic pot. He took a spoon and carried it over to the window to look out at the gem tree. He took off the lid and ate the fruit directly from the container. The cherries were juicy and sweet, and a trickle of juice ran down his chin.
At first Benedict thought that the sparkles on the grass were morning dew, but then he squinted. They were too big for droplets of water. He lowered the fruit salad and set it on the windowsill beside Lord Puss. The sleepy cat smacked his lips. Marching into the hallway, Benedict took the front door key from his dressing gown pocket and slid it into the lock, but the door was already open.
The first thing he spotted on the lawn was a pair of scissors. The orange handles stood out in contrast against the green of the grass. He picked them up and studied them for a while, wondering what on earth they were doing out here.
He narrowed his eyes as he spotted threads fluttering up from the grass like fine jellyfish tentacles. Then he realized there were more and more. There were strands and strands of gemstones strewn on the grass.
He snatched one up and studied it, noticing that the end of the thread had a neat, sharp edge, as if it had been cut. It didn’t have the curl of a knot tugged undone. He stared at it for a moment then strode toward the tree. He pushed his way through the branches and looked up.
Hundreds of trails of short lines hung down like silkworms. All snipped.
He reached up and ran his hand through them. Every strand of gems had been cut down and all that remained were knots and short threads. The tree had been butchered.
Benedict pushed back out from under it and rubbed the back of his neck. He blindly looked around him. The gems had all been hanging when he fought with Charlie last night. A stranger surely wouldn’t have done such a thing. And he couldn’t imagine that Charlie or Estelle had returned to attack it.
That just left Gemma.
Benedict almost threw up as he began to pick up the gems. Doing so brought back memories of his mother and father, of his childhood and of Charlie. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he relived the morning he had to tell his brother that their parents were dead. He pictured Charlie’s eyes, wide and scared. It’s not true, Benedict, is it?
He stooped, picked up the strands of gems and carried them back to the house. He laid them neatly in the hallway, and they looked like hundreds of tiny, glittering fish caught in a fisherman’s net.
He stood on the front step with his hands on his hips, choking back his sobs. The tree looked naked without the gemstones hanging between its yellowy-green leaves. No longer a family tree, just a normal one. He gulped and hung his head. What had Gemma done?
He turned and looked up the stairs. He couldn’t wait any longer to speak to her.
He pounded upstairs and stood outside her room before knocking loudly on the door. When she didn’t answer, he slowly pushed it open. “Gemma?”
Her blankets were screwed up in a heap on the floor, as if she’d thrown them off the bed.
Damn, where was she?
Benedict walked briskly from one room to the next, opening doors and patrolling around. He sped downstairs and into the front room, where Lord Puss sat up on the windowsill. “If only you could talk. Have you seen Gemma?”
Lord Puss turned to look into the garden.
Benedict marched around the kitchen. He went out into the garden and opened the shed door, but she wasn’t there, either.
He conducted a full circuit of the house again, this time flinging open wardrobe doors and peering under the beds. He checked her wardrobe, and some of her clothes hung there, but he couldn’t see her denim jacket, or the blue dress she’d arrived in. He peered up at the hatch to the attic but it was firmly shut.
Her rucksack seemed to be missing and half her belongings had disappeared, too, from the top of the chest of drawers. Her teddy bear and notebook had gone, but her hairbrush remained.
He thundered back downstairs and into the front room. The black sequined purse had vanished from the coffee table. “Where are you, Gemma?” he hissed to himself.
Then, on the coffee table, he saw a scrawled note. With a shaking hand he reached out for it.
Uncle Ben
I saw what happened last night.
You and Dad are better off without me.
Gemma
33.
SUGILITE
integration, spirituality, forgiveness
BENEDICT PHONED CHARLIE and told him that Gemma had gone missing. He tried to keep his voice calm. “I can’t find her in the house and her purse has gone.”
“I’m staying at a hotel in York. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Charlie said. “Wait for me and we’ll look for her together.”
When Charlie arrived, the two men strode into Noon Sun. It was raining again, and the puddles on the pavements shone like mirrors.
“It’s Sunday, so there are no buses out of the village. She can only travel by hitching a lift or on foot,” Benedict said.
“Or by cab?” Charlie suggested. “When did you notice that she was missing?”
“When I got up this morning. I woke up late and she was gone.”
Benedict took out his mobile and rang Applethorpe Cabs, immediately recognizing Toby Entwistle’s lisp. The two men used to go to school together. Toby confirmed that he didn’t have any bookings penciled in for the day but would let Benedict know if an American girl called.
Benedict and Charlie pressed on past Deserted Dogs. The clothes in the window were all orange, yellow and red, hung around a makeshift bonfire constructed from cardboard and colored cellophane.
“If we argue, Gemma usually heads out for a long walk or to a friend’s house,” Charlie said.
“Does it happen often?” Benedict asked, thinking of Gemma’s temper flares.
“If she doesn’t get her own way or when things are rocky, her first instinct is to get real mad or run. She squats at a friend’s house, and then shows up after a day or two, as if nothing has happened. I try to reach out to her, but it doesn’t work. I suppose she gets her stubbornness from me. She’s been hanging around with these older kids and got kinda attached to this boy called Daryl.”
“She wrote the initials DJ in her notebook.”
“Yeah, Daryl Jones. I think she was more interested in him than he was in her.”
“Do you ever call the police when she runs away?”
“Gemma’s not your normal sixteen-year-old girl, so we don’t treat her like one. She’s vanished a few times and always comes back, but never for as long as she’s been staying with you.”
“But there’s nowhere for her to run to from here,” Benedict said. He tried to think straight, not to panic. “She’s taken her rucksack, and we don’t know if she wrote the note last night or this morning.”
“Do you think she saw and heard everything?” Charlie asked. “Her dad and uncle fighting like stray dogs on the lawn?”
Benedict dipped his chin. “I hope not.”
They tried Crags and Cakes next. Benedict scraped his knuckles on the wooden white rabbit’s stopwatch as he reached out for the doorknob. He prayed that Gemma was sitting inside. She’ll be sipping a cup of tea or eating a bowl of soup, he told himself. She’ll raise her pointed eyebrows and ask what the fuss is about.
Charlie followed close behind.
Each of the tables was occupied and no one turned to look at them. Benedict brushed his wet hair off his forehead and quickly scanned the room.
Nigel and Josie sat opposite each other at the table nearest to the door. They both wore Guns N’ Roses T-shirts and were examining a bag of crisps. “Ham and mustard seed,” Nigel said, his yellow citrine bracelet glinting in the daylight. “I’m not sure about this flavor.”
“Far too exotic,” Josie agreed.
Ryan and Diane occupied the table in the window. They held hands over their cheese sandwiches, and Diane wore her kunzite pendant.
Benedict asked Ryan if he had seen Gemma.
“Yes, she was walking through the village this morning.” He nodded.
Benedict felt a brief whoosh of relief. “How long ago?”
“A couple of hours. Is there a problem?”
Benedict didn’t want to raise an alarm if there was a chance that he and Charlie might find Gemma quickly and easily. “No.” He stood up straighter, to compose himself. “No problem.”
They headed next to the Pig and Whistle. Nicholas was chalking on his blackboard: Bonfire Night Special—honey and herb sausages, hickory-smoked mash and minted mushy peas. “Alright, Benedict. Are you coming to the bonfire tonight?”
“I don’t know. Where are Alexander and Alistair?”
“What have they bloody well done now?” Nicholas folded his arms.
“Nothing,” Benedict said, not wanting to tell the chef about the kids in the garden. Finding Gemma was more important. “We wondered if they knew where Gemma is.”
Nicholas cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted up to the top floor of the pub. “Alistair. Alexander. Get out of bed, now.”
Two faces appeared at the window. It pushed open. “What?” Alistair said, rubbing his eyes. Then he spotted Benedict. “Oh. Hello, Mr. Stone. Sorry about the other night.”
“What did you do?” Nicholas yelled.
“Nothing,” Benedict said. “The kids were a bit boisterous, that’s all.”
Rise and Shine, Benedict Stone Page 25
