I check in, struggling with the heavily accented voice of the receptionist, then head to my room. It looks different from what I expected, more ‘Western’, with clean white sheets over the small double bed, a dark wooden table fitted to the wall with a leather-topped stool, a small balcony overlooking the quiet streets. A fan whirs above, my shoes making a clicking sound as I walk across the cream-tiled floor. The wardrobe is the only indication of the country I’m in, made from thick pale wood, two square panels with ornate wooden carvings running down each door. As I move past it, I breathe in the faint scent of eucalyptus.
I take everything out of my suitcase, re-folding each item before placing it on the shelves of the wardrobe. I wonder where Mum stayed last. Did she unpack like I’m doing now? Or, more likely, fling her suitcase into the corner, her clothes spilling out of it as she headed straight out onto the streets – to ‘breathe in the atmosphere’ as she used to say?
After unpacking, I try to call home but it just rings and rings. Maybe Will has taken the girls out. I hope so. I leave a quick message then lie back on the bed, the jetlag catching up on me. But all I can see is Mum painting again, lip caught snugly between her teeth as she swirls pink with white to create her own pale skin on canvas. It’s almost like she’s there, right in the room with me.
‘Don’t look so anxious, Lou,’ she’d say if she were. ‘It’ll turn out all right in the end. And look,’ she’d add, gesturing towards the window. ‘The sun’s shining, there’s no children yanking you about, no husband insisting on his dinner. Make the most of it!’
I smile to myself. Yes, that’s what she’d say. Turn a serious moment into something frivolous.
‘I’m going to find you, Mum,’ I say to her mirage, my voice trembling with determination. ‘I’m going to bloody find you.’
My phone rings and I see it’s Will’s mobile. The image of Mum drifts away. ‘How are the girls?’ I ask as soon as I pick it up.
‘I told them you’ll be back in a couple of days. Jesus, I didn’t think you were serious. Do you realise how stupid you’re being?’
That word again. Stupid.
‘She’s my mother, Will. Wouldn’t you do the same for yours?’
‘That’s different.’
‘Different because Mum doesn’t wear pearl necklaces and attend WI meetings?’
He laughs bitterly. ‘Funny you say all that now considering you were only telling me last week you’d had enough of your mother not talking to you.’
‘That’s unfair to bring up.’
‘Why? Because she might be dead?’
I open and close my mouth in shock.
‘Because let’s be frank,’ Will continues, ‘there’s more chance she’s passed out in some shoddy hotel somewhere than—’
There’s the sound of crying in the background.
Chloe.
He’d said all that in front of her?
‘Let me speak to Chloe,’ I say, voice firm.
‘Why? You’re the one who left her to fly to the other side of the world.’
‘To find my missing mother, for Christ’s sake! Put Chloe on right now, Will.’
He’s silent for a few moments then sighs. ‘Come on, Chloe, your mother wants to talk to you.’
‘Mummy!’
I have to use every ounce of strength I have left not to sob out loud. ‘Hello, poppet. Have you been having a good time with Daddy?’
‘We’ve been at Grandma’s! She helped us make dolls.’
My stomach sinks. So Will drove them all the way to Surrey so he didn’t have to spend time alone with his own children?
‘That’s nice,’ I say, keeping my voice cheerful. ‘Are you staying tonight?’
‘Yes!’
‘Daddy too?’
‘He needs to work, Mummy,’ Chloe replies in an exasperated tone, the same tone Will adopts when he’s using that excuse.
‘Is Olivia there, darling?’
‘She’s sleeping. She thinks Nanna’s in the Nile.’
I press my eyes tight shut.
‘But I told her you’ll bring her back,’ Chloe says, her voice trembling. ‘You are going to bring Nanna back, aren’t you? She can sleep in my room if she wants and draw in my art book again.’
‘I hope so, darling.’ My voice catches. ‘You be a good girl for your grandparents, okay?’
‘Okay, Mummy. I love you.’
‘Love you too.’
There’s the sound of the phone being passed over then Will comes back on. ‘I’m sorry for what I said about your mother,’ he says, his voice contrite. ‘It’s just been very difficult with you disappearing like that.’
‘I did tell you I’d be going. Chloe said they’re staying at your parents. It wouldn’t kill you to spend some time alone with your daughters, Will.’
‘Says the woman who left them to find her eccentric mother!’
‘I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.’ My voice is shaking so hard now, I’m surprised I can get my words out properly. ‘Remember Olivia’s cough medicine and Chloe needs new shoes so your mum might want to try the sales tomorrow. Goodbye, Will.’
‘Don’t put your phone down on me or—’
I slam the phone down and the four walls close in around me, making me feel like Alice spiralling down the rabbit hole. I grab my bag, slipping my shoes back on before making my way outside. The heat makes me sweat again, that horrible stench clogging my nostrils.
There’s even more sadness in the air now evening is approaching, people sticking posters on lampposts, Thais huddled in groups in café, heads close together, some of them crying. How trivial my argument with Will seems now.
My stomach gurgles, reminding me I haven’t eaten a thing all day. A lone street vendor shoots me a toothless smile and gestures to his wok. I lean over it then let out a small gasp when I see huge crickets, cooked legs pulled close to their scorched bellies. I stumble away, putting my hand to my mouth as the vendor laughs. Someone grabs me.
‘You want a new bag?’ a Thai woman says, gesturing towards one of just three stalls that are now open.
‘Sorry, I—’
‘I give you good price.’
‘No, please, I feel sick.’
I pull away from the woman and lean against a nearby wall, taking in huge gulps of air. Terror starts working its way inside. Will’s right, what the hell was I thinking, coming here alone? Before I even realise what I’m doing, I’m scrolling through the contacts on my phone with trembling fingers, finding Sam’s number. It rings and rings before eventually he answers.
‘Hello?’ Northern lilt, voice breathless.
‘Sam?’
‘Louise? Are you okay?’
‘Not really. They’re – they’re baking insects. It’s horrible.’ I let out a small sob then cringe with embarrassment. Get a grip, Louise. ‘I’m just being silly,’ I say, pulling myself together. ‘I’m exhausted and hungry and—’
‘You still haven’t eaten?’
‘No. Only insects on the menu, I’m afraid.’ I peer towards the vendor again. He smiles at me and waves. I force myself to wave back.
‘You have to eat,’ Sam says. ‘What hotel are you staying at?’ I give him the name of my hotel. ‘I know a place near there,’ he says. ‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’
I pause. He’s a virtual stranger. And yet my stomach feels clawed out, my nerves shot to pieces and I’m craving the sight of another English face. ‘All right,’ I say.
‘Wait in reception, I’ll come get you.’
I disconnect and notice I’ve received a text from Will. I place the phone into my bag without reading it.
Thirty minutes later, there’s a sound like thunder outside. For a moment, I panic, thinking it might be the sea roaring towards the island as it had a few days ago. But then my eyes snag on something approaching in the distance – a huge chrome motorbike that sticks out like a sore thumb among the tiny mopeds whizzing past it, steered by familiar tanned arms.
/> I pull my bag close to my chest as I step outside, my forehead already growing slick with sweat. I’d showered then changed into a pair of cut-off white trousers and a pink petal blouse, but now it feels just like I’m wearing my old clothes again.
Sam pulls off his helmet, his gold hair standing on end. He looks even more exhausted, face grimy with specks of sand. He clocks the look on my face and smiles. ‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to get on this. The restaurant’s only a five-minute walk.’
Would I have got on the back of Sam’s bike if the restaurant weren’t so close? What would everyone back home say if I had? What would Mum say?
‘About time you had some fun,’ I imagine, that mischievous twinkle in her brown eyes. ‘Look at you, my straight-laced little Lou on the back of a stranger’s bike. Good on you, girl!’
Sam jumps off the bike and gestures for me to join him. I hesitate a moment. The heat’s making me nauseous and what if he takes me to some far-out place with cockroaches and squat toilets? Then I think of my mum again and fall into step beside him.
‘How long have you lived in Thailand?’ I ask him.
‘Four years.’ He looks around him at the debris and exhausted-looking Thais. ‘I’ve grown to love the place so it’s difficult seeing it like this.’
We’re quiet for the next few minutes, watching as the sea shimmers under the dying light in the distance. I imagine it rising and arching towards us, just as it did a few days before.
Did Mum see it rise?
After a while, we approach a small restaurant with a sign outside in Thai, a yellow flower painted on it. I breathe a sigh of relief: it looks quite normal, not the type of place with squat loos anyway. The entire building is made from light brown wood with exotic-looking trees and flowers entwined around it. It makes me think of Mum’s tiny beachside house in Brighton. It was right in front of the roaring sea and even had its own piano. Mum would play it, and we’d dance and sing and put on shows, the seagulls outside our only audience. We’d buy chunks of cheese and bread and chocolate, lots of chocolate, and watch films I’d never let my girls watch on the banged-up old video player.
Then there are the other memories, darker ones. Like the time I woke in the night to find Mum standing barefoot outside, sobbing. Or the time I accidentally broke the bracelet Mum’s best friend had made for her. I still remember the look on her face, the way she’d run from the room then not talked to me all day.
‘I gave them a call to check they’re open,’ Sam says, opening the door for me. ‘Not many restaurants are open around here after what happened. No tourists means no business.’
‘I guess that’s another thing too, the effect it’ll have on tourism and the Thai economy.’
‘Yep,’ he says sadly. Then he plants a smile on his face. ‘But at least we’ll be contributing something here. You’ll be pleased to hear this place does good English food. But seriously, you should try the Thai food, it’s delicious.’
‘Oh, it’s not that I don’t like Thai food. But after seeing the stuff the street vendors were serving, I wasn’t sure if my version of Thai food is different from the real thing.’
Sam raises an eyebrow. ‘They don’t serve insects here, I promise.’
When we get inside, a pretty Thai woman greets us, placing her hands together and bowing her head. Sam does the same but I don’t, embarrassed. The place is deserted, no surprise considering. We follow the woman through to a table at the back. It’s a small restaurant but the chunky mahogany tables are set out in a way that makes it look spacious. Paintings of the local area line the walls and I wonder if any of the scenes depicted have changed because of what’s happened.
The waitress comes over and Sam orders his food. I cast my eye down the menu and am relieved to see there are items I recognise on there alongside the more strange-looking stuff. I think about ordering steak and chips then remember the way Will had looked at me as I’d tried to squeeze myself into that black slinky dress on Christmas Eve. ‘Caesar salad, please,’ I say.
The waitress scribbles the order down then walks away.
‘So all set for meeting Jay Hemingford tomorrow?’ Sam asks, stifling a yawn. He can’t have had much sleep lately and I feel bad for dragging him out.
‘I think so.’ I unfold my napkin and spread it out on the table. ‘I need to return Claire Shreve’s atlas to him too, I took it by accident. It’s just so strange Mum had it in her bag … and that Claire Shreve had Mum’s bag.’
‘Maybe they became friends out here? Or maybe Claire Shreve just found your mum’s bag and was meaning to hand it in?’ He pauses. ‘Or she stole it.’
I shake my head. ‘Judging by the way Jay Hemingford was dressed, I doubt she’s the type to steal something.’
‘Don’t judge a book by its cover.’
‘True.’ I sigh, raking my fingers through my hair, which is already sticky with sweat. How can people live in countries like this? ‘I don’t know, I guess I’ll get some answers when I speak to Jay tomorrow.’
Sam leans back in his chair, contemplating me. ‘So what do you do back in the UK?’
‘Full-time mum.’ I brace myself for the ‘is that all?’ look I always get, usually from Will’s work colleagues. If only they knew how many miles I put in running after those kids of mine.
But instead, Sam smiles. ‘That must be hard work! I nearly had a heart attack looking after my niece when I was back in the UK and that was just one child for one afternoon. It’s important for spiritual growth that children spend time with their parents.’
I stifle a smile. Maybe he was a bit of a hippy? ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I have friends who are working mums and their kids are fab. As long as you love them and feed them and let them watch Dr. Zitbag’s Transylvania Pet Shop they’re happy.’ Sam raises an eyebrow. ‘Don’t even ask,’ I say.
He laughs. ‘I won’t. How many kids do you have?’
‘Two. Chloe’s seven and Olivia’s four.’
I hand him a photo and he smiles. ‘They look like you.’
‘Everyone says that. They have their dad’s brains though, thank God.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He’s a recruitment director. That’s how I met him; I was the office manager at the headhunting firm he works for.’
Will had been so charming then, the handsome clever graduate taking me under his wing. That all changed, of course.
‘Do you miss office life?’ Sam asks.
‘No, I was only there while I tried to figure out what to do with my life. By the time I realised, I was pregnant with Chloe and Will wanted me to be at home with her.’
‘What did you realise you wanted to do?’
‘It’s silly really but I wanted to make wedding invitations. I did my own when Will and I got married, and I loved it. But Will was quite right when he said I’d get little financial reward for all the hard work.’
‘You’d have been rewarded in other ways though, like seeing your invites used by happy couples.’
‘Too late for all that now. What do you do?’ I ask.
‘I sing. I figured that out halfway through a theology degree.’ He nods towards a small stage at the back of the restaurant. ‘That’s how I know about this place. I do gigs here sometimes.’
‘Wow, I had no idea,’ I say as the waitress brings over our drinks.
‘Your mum came to one of my gigs in London with my mum actually. But I never got a chance to meet her, she had to rush off to get a train. She was a godsend, dragging my mum out, making sure she wasn’t stuck indoors all the time.’
I smile to myself. ‘Sounds like my mum.’
‘What about your dad, is he an artist too?’
‘He’s an accountant.’ Sam looks surprised. ‘He met Mum while doing the accounts for a local art gallery she exhibited at.’
Our food is brought over then. My salad looks lame compared to Sam’s curry, the fragrant smell of its spices drifting towards me and making my mouth water.
‘Do you like your mum’s paintings?’ Sam asks in between mouthfuls.
‘They’re not really my kind of thing. But then what do I know? I’m not creative like her.’
‘You made your own wedding invites. And you’re not half bad at origami.’
He stares at the little swan I’ve finished creating with my napkin. I quickly unfold it, smoothing the creases out with my hand.
‘What sort of stuff does she paint?’ Sam asks.
‘She used to paint scenic stuff,’ I say. ‘But then she had a massive argument with her best friend Erin when she came to stay with us once and all she painted after were images of them both together. It’s become her trademark.’
‘Why did they argue?’
I sigh. ‘I think it was about some man Erin was obsessed with – not her husband. Mum never heard from her again. Mum tried to find her, even went to the police to report her missing. It really got to her, losing her friend like that.’
The memories come in a rush then. The sound of her angry brush strokes in the weeks and months that followed, the sight of her bloodied fingers the mornings after. Then the spectacle of her night’s work: her mouth, grotesque and mid-scream on canvas after canvas, with the image of Erin watching in the background.
The pain Mum felt at losing her friendship had been so palpable, it had seared every minute after, every hour, ever day. And yet any pain Mum might feel at not talking to me and her own grandchildren for two years seems non-existent. How could she not pick up the phone, send an email, even a bloody postcard?
‘They must have been very close,’ Sam says.
‘Yes, Erin was like a sister to Mum. After my grandparents died, Mum was sent to live with her aunt in a tiny seaside village in Ireland when she was just seven. The first week there, Mum found Erin playing with a dirty old doll in a cave near the sea. Mum’s aunt had told her an unusually high tide would be coming in so Mum persuaded Erin to come out from the cave. They became firm friends after, creating their own lives in that little cave.’
‘Shame their friendship ended.’
I nod. ‘In a way, that argument broke up my family.’
‘How so?’ Sam asks.
‘Mum didn’t pick me up from a party when I was twelve because she’d driven to Oxford after hearing Erin had been spotted there. I got moderate hypothermia trying to walk home alone. Dad went mental.’
The Atlas of Us Page 10
