Days Like These

by Sue Margolis

  “’K… . Did you pack Denise?”

  “Like I would forget.”

  “But I don’t want her.”

  “Why on earth not? You love Denise. You never go to bed without her.”

  “Cybil doesn’t know about her. She’ll laugh and think I’m a baby.”

  “Cybil’s your best friend. Of course she won’t laugh.”

  “She will. And anyway, I’ve got my Star of David now.”

  She puts her hand down the neck of her T-shirt and pulls out the necklace. “I don’t need Denise anymore. The star will look after me.”

  I want to say, “Like it looked after Sam,” but I don’t. “All right, darling. If you’re sure, I’ll get her out of your bag.”

  “I am sure.”

  Tanya is already in the car. I get her to release the trunk lid. Then, while Rosie looks on, I hunt around in Rosie’s backpack for Denise. “I think your end has come,” I tell the carrot as I take her out of Rosie’s toilet bag.

  Rosie wants to hold her one last time. “Good-bye, Denise. Sorry, but it’s time for you to die. I’ve got my star now. Hope you don’t mind.”

  With that she shoves the carrot into my jacket pocket. “You can eat her if you want,” she says as she climbs into the car. After I’ve strapped Rosie into the car seat, I move round to say good-bye to Tanya.

  “Why would she choose now of all times to give up Denise?” I whisper through the open window.

  “Her carrot comforter? Who knows? Kids are weird.” She stretches her arm through the window and takes my hand. “Don’t worry about Rosie. Rick and I will take good care of her. Let me know if there’s any news.”

  After I’ve waved them off, I head back to the house. On the way I drop Denise into the recycling container. I also send up a prayer—to God, to Brian, to all the dead relatives I can think of: “Please let me keep my promise to Rosie.”

  I decide to text Mike. Ashamed as I am to admit it, I do it because I want him to feel as guilty as I do: Sam ran away last night because nobody believes him. Police searching for him. Still think he did it?

  The hands appear to have stopped on the kitchen clock. That’s because I’m checking the time every thirty seconds. I need to contact Abby and Tom, but I keep telling myself that Sam will be back any minute. Why worry them?

  Mum can’t settle either. She’s turning out kitchen cupboards and attacking them with Lysol and a scouring pad.

  A detective arrives. He looks about nineteen. He wants to know if Sam could have been speaking to strangers online.

  “He’s nine. He has no interest in social media.”

  The detective—“Call me Jason”—wants to examine Sam’s computer anyway.

  “So, are there people who visit the house? For example—does Sam have a tutor?”

  “Only Bogdan, his chess coach. He’s a bit weird. But I don’t think Sam is with him. He doesn’t even like him much. Plus he has no idea where he lives.” I also tell him about Bernie.

  The detective takes both men’s contact details. A couple of officers will pay them a visit. Was there anybody else I could think of? There isn’t.

  Six p.m. It’s getting dark. I stand at the living room window, eyes welling up as I imagine Sam alone, lost, cold. Constable Lisa says she’ll stay the night in case there are any developments. I take this to mean that she’s trained to offer support if the worst happens. Mum insists on making her eggs and chips. It gives her something to do.

  By now I’ve left voice messages and e-mailed Tom and Abby, asking them to call urgently.

  Ten o’clock comes and goes. I can’t stop shaking. Lisa says it’s because I haven’t eaten and my blood sugar is low. But I can’t face food. Instead I pour myself a large Scotch. I stop shaking, but alcohol on an empty stomach has made me feel sick. When the doorbell rings I run to answer it. “Sam!”

  Mike is standing on the doorstep, his face crumpled with anxiety. He sees the disappointment on my face. “Sorry. It’s only me. I just saw your text.”

  “Really? I sent it hours ago.” I can’t find it in me to be cordial.

  “I’ve been in meetings. I had my phone on silent. So, is there any news?”

  “Nothing. I hope you and your daughter are pleased with yourselves. Now go home. I don’t want you here.”

  “But I want to be here.”

  “Why? Because you’re feeling guilty? Because you realized you backed the wrong horse?”

  “I didn’t back the wrong horse.”

  “My God, even now with Sam gone, you can’t admit you were wrong. What sort of person are you?”

  “One who has come to realize that you were right and this situation is probably more complicated than I thought. I’m here because I want to be with you and because I want us both to get to the bottom of this. Please let me help.”

  He’s standing on the doorstep, beseeching me. I should let him in, forgive him, but I can’t.

  “I don’t want your help. When you turned up at that meeting with Claudia, you made it perfectly clear where your loyalties lay. You sat there while she gloated and patronized me. You made your choice.”

  “I came to that meeting to support Seb.”

  “That’s not the whole story and you know it. You told me you loved me, but it’s meaningless if you’re going to turn against me the moment Claudia snaps her fingers. I couldn’t be in a relationship with you on those terms.”

  “It wasn’t like that. Claudia doesn’t tell me what to do. I’ve shown you that I am perfectly capable of standing up to her.”

  “When it suits you, maybe.”

  “That’s not fair.” He looks wounded, but I still refuse to take pity on him. “So, when it turned out that this Felix kid had accused Sam as well … what was I supposed to think? Be honest, Judy. What did you think?”

  And there he has me. But I’m not prepared to confess to my crime—at least not to him.

  “Go away, Mike. Just go away.”

  “You really mean that?”

  “I do.”

  He turns, heads down the garden path and doesn’t look back.

  I pour myself some more Scotch. At some stage, I fall asleep. I wake several times in the night. In the black, I’m overcome with fear and guilt. I cry myself back to sleep.

  At seven o’clock Mum brings me a cup of tea. “Guess who just called … Bernie. He was in such a state. He offered to come and sit with me. I said no. So instead he’s in his car driving around the neighborhood, looking for Sam.”

  “Wow, what a thing to do. I hope you thanked him. You know, I think you’ve misjudged Bernie.”

  “You could be right. Meanwhile that Bogdan hasn’t even picked up the phone. Can you believe that?”

  “He’s probably pissed off at being questioned by the police.”

  “Jerk … So, could you manage a slice of toast?”

  I shake my head. I still can’t face food. I’m more concerned about why Abby and Tom haven’t called.

  Constable Lisa says the police are trying to find out what the problem is. “They’ve been onto MediGlobal and apparently there’s been another minor quake in Nicaragua. It’s nothing serious, but communications are down where Abby and Tom are.”

  “But I need to get a message to them.”

  “You will. I promise. They’re sorting it out.”

  • • •

  We wait. Another day to be measured in teaspoons. I take a shower and force down half a banana. Constable Lisa looks as if she’s ready to drop. “Don’t you ever go off duty?”

  “The other family liaison officer I work with is off sick. I’ll stay a few more hours, if that’s OK.”

  “Of course it’s OK. Apart from anything else you’re wonderful at keeping my mother occupied.”

  As if on cue, Mum gets out her photograph album. Constable Lisa joins her on the sofa.

  “That’s me with my mother and father in Berlin, just before the war. I was a pretty little thing—even if I do say so myself.”

&nb
sp; Just after midday, Constable Lisa has news. Abby and Tom are in Costa Rica. They decided to take a couple of days’ break. They’re somewhere in the wilds of the rain forest.

  “But why didn’t they tell me? It’s so unlike them.”

  “Apparently it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. They’re flying back to Nicaragua today.”

  “I can’t face them. They left Sam and Rosie in my safekeeping. They trusted me. Look what I’ve done.”

  Constable Lisa says it isn’t my fault.

  “I doubted him. Whose fault is it?”

  I keep on pacing—from the living room to the street—with occasional detours to the loo. Mum tells me to sit down. A watched pot never boils. I go upstairs and put on an extra sweater. I can’t get warm. Mum says I need to eat.

  “I can’t eat… . Where is he, Mum? Where is he?”

  She wraps me in her arms. “I wish I knew, my darling. I wish I knew.”

  • • •

  In the afternoon Bernie calls again to say he’s had no luck, but he’ll go out again after he’s had something to eat. Mum says he must be exhausted and begs him not to. But he insists.

  “He’s a good man, a mensch,” Mum says before she goes upstairs for a snooze. The only other person she has ever referred to as a mensch is my dad.

  Constable Lisa suggests I get some air.

  “I shouldn’t leave the house.”

  “Go for a walk. It’ll do you good. You’ve got your mobile. If anything happens I’ll call.”

  So I go. The sun is warm on my face. I take off my coat. A few men are in shorts, showing off winter white legs. I head for the Heath. I feel separate from the world. I am stranded on my island of grief, just like I was when Brian was dying. Anguish is so isolating. I remember popping out to pick up groceries and being reminded that a world existed outside Brian’s sickroom. I would watch people going about their business, leading their normal lives, and feel jealous. I judged them. What did they know about suffering, these people who fretted about the deli running out of quince jelly for their manchego?

  I change my mind about going to the Heath. Instead I take a detour and head to Edith’s house. It occurs to me that she’s out of hospital and that Ginny has probably moved in.

  Ginny answers the door in yellow rubber gloves. When she sees me, alarm shoots across her face. “Judy, what on earth are you doing here? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing. I just needed a break.”

  “Oh, sweetheart. Of course you do. I should have called to ask you over. Come in. Come in. Emma and Tanya are here.”

  As she leads me down the dark hall into the kitchen, she confirms that she’s pretty much moved in and that she’ll probably let her place go.

  Tanya wraps me in a hug. Emma hesitates because she doesn’t know me that well and then gives me a bear hug, too.

  “I’m so sorry about Sam. He’s such a great kid.”

  “Oh, and before you ask,” Tanya says, “Rosie’s fine. She wanted to go to school today. Rick’s working from home, so he’s picking them up in a bit and they’re going to the movies.”

  I want to know if she’s fretting about Sam.

  “From time to time, but being with Cybil is keeping her spirits up.” She says they’re happy to have her for as long as necessary.

  Ginny wants to know who’s for a cuppa.

  “Not for me, thanks,” I say. “I don’t think I can manage another drop. I’ve been drinking tea by the gallon.”

  “Still no news, I take it,” Tanya says.

  I shake my head.

  “They’ll find him. You’ll see.”

  “Of course they will,” Ginny says in that hearty, chin-up, chest-out voice of hers.

  Emma says that a boy in Mason’s class ran off a while back. “The police found him in the cinema, curled up on a seat. He’d slept through three showings of Fifty Shades of Grey. Heaven knows how he got in.”

  We all laugh. Then the atmosphere gets awkward. Nobody dares to say the unsayable: that Sam could be dead.

  “So … we thought we’d give the house a bit of a spring clean,” Ginny says, making jazz hands in her rubber gloves. “It’s amazing what can be achieved with a bit of elbow grease. My mother is supposed to have a cleaner, but Lord only knows what she does. Rearranges the dirt by the look of it. I’ve already let her go.”

  “It needs more than elbow grease,” Emma says. “If you ask me this place needs a flamethrower.”

  Emma and Tanya make odd-looking cleaning ladies. They’re both in full makeup, Tanya with her dreads and Emma in a flared tea dress and frilly pinny, looking like she’s stepped out of a Tide commercial circa 1959.

  “I have no idea why Edith is still living here,” Tanya says. “It’s vast and dark and cold. It would give me the willies.”

  “Tell me about it,” Emma says. “But the boys love it. They’ve decided it’s haunted. At night they turn off all the lights and go around hunting for ghosts. But mostly they love the garden.” Emma nods toward the kitchen window. I peer out through the film of grime.

  The garden is wild and scruffy. Bits of fence are falling down. But it must be half an acre—almost unheard-of in London. The boys have found a load of old wood and appear to be building a den. “And not a thug or ruffian in sight,” Emma says. “The house is grotty and my grandmother may be a pain in the backside, but being here with the boys, I feel like I’ve won the lottery.”

  Ginny is beaming. “You’ll feel even better when we get the place shipshape.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Tanya says, pulling a face and getting busy with a palette knife. She’s attempting to scrape a layer of thick yellow viscosity off the cooker hood.

  Ginny shows me the fridge. It’s filthy and sprouting mold. There are soggy black salad leaves and unidentifiable ends of meals wrapped in plastic. The yogurt is growing green fur.

  “And the oven and stove look like they haven’t been cleaned since before the Blitz.”

  “Right,” I say, taking off my jacket. “What can I do?”

  Nothing. Ginny says I’m not to lift a finger. “You just sit down and take it easy.”

  “But that’s all I’ve been doing. I’d rather be busy. It’ll take my mind off things. The police will call if there’s any news.”

  Ginny relents. If I really want something to do, I can take her mother a cup of tea.

  “So, I take it that you’d rather not?”

  “You take it correctly.”

  I ask her how things are going with Edith.

  “She’s very weak physically. But she’s still ruling the roost. She loves the boys, though. I would never have predicted that. She says their noise has brought some life back into the house. And she talks to Emma about the fashion business. I think she’s trying to make a connection with her that she missed with me.”

  “And have the two of you talked?”

  “No, and I’m not sure we will. I’m not expecting my story to end the way your mum’s friend Estelle’s did. I can’t see my mother’s stiff upper lip starting to tremble anytime soon.”

  “All you can do is keep trying.”

  • • •

  Edith is sitting in a high-backed velvet armchair that has seen better days. At her feet is an ancient electric bar fire. A knitted patchwork blanket has been placed over her knees. Her head has slumped forward so that her chin rests on her chest. For a second I think she’s dead. But as I approach, she lifts her head and squints up at me.

  “I know you… . You’re Ginny’s Jewish friend. It’s Julie, isn’t it?”

  “Judy.”

  “Ah. I knew it began with a J.”

  I place the cup and saucer on the walnut occasional table beside her.

  “No. No. Use a coaster. Use a coaster.”

  I slip a mat under the saucer. I can’t think why she’s so insistent. The tabletop is covered in rings and stains.

  “I was so sorry to hear about your young grandson. Have they found him?”

  �
�I’m afraid not.”

  “He’ll turn up. He’ll soon get bored. Mind you, from what I hear he’s a spirited lad—stands up for himself. That’s what you want in a boy. He’ll go far. Mark my words.”

  “I think girls should stand up for themselves, too. Don’t you?”

  She doesn’t reply immediately. I wonder if she thinks I’m goading her—harking back to when Ginny stood up to her. Maybe I am.

  “Girls are different,” she says after a few moments.

  “In what way?”

  “Even in this day and age, you have to protect them. Men prey on them. I don’t know what Ginny has told you about our estrangement, but I was only looking out for her. And I was right. That excuse for a husband abandoned her and the child and left her without a bean.”

  “But you wanted her to have an abortion.”

  “Quite right. It was the only sensible option. Ginny thinks I was worried about what my friends would have said and I admit that was partly true. It was shallow and small-minded of me. But it wasn’t just that. I wanted her to have a future. I wanted her to make the most of herself, to have a career … to be somebody. I wanted her to have the things I didn’t have.”

  “But then there would have been no Emma … no Mason and Tyler.”

  “Why are they called Mason and Tyler?” she says, sidestepping my remark. “Such nasty, common names. Lovely boys, though. Very robust. Full of life.”

  “That they are.”

  Edith picks up her cup and saucer with a knotty blue-veined hand. “Lovely girl, Emma. Good brain. Very focused on her business. And boy, she puts in the hours. I admire that. I’ve never been one for fashion, but I can see she looks very stylish. I have high hopes for her.”

  I slide a dining chair out from under the table and sit myself down opposite Edith. “Look, I know it’s none of my business and feel free to tell me to shut up, but you need to talk to Ginny. Tell her what you’ve told me.”

  She plays for time by replacing her cup and saucer on the table and fiddling with the coaster to make sure it’s in the correct position. She hasn’t so much as sipped the tea. “There’s nothing to talk about. The past should stay in the past. Neither of us can change it. All we can do is move on and make the most of whatever time I have left. I suppose Ginny has told you I’m dying. She thinks I don’t know, but I’ve spoken to the doctors. I know the score … a year at best.”