by Jill Childs
Now I was here to see it for myself before we pushed forward to exchanging contracts and then completing. I’d flown in alone and checked into a hotel while the London flat, empty now, was re-decorated for us. Lucy was having her final days with the amah. I had other appointments too, of course. Appointments I need to attend alone.
In the hotel mirror, my skin looked sallow. I caught a side-view of myself in the stark bathroom lighting, as I twisted my hair high on my head and secured it with a comb, then turned to climb into the shower. My body didn’t feel my own. The bones, the curves were the same but the skin sagged as if the flesh inside were starting to melt.
* * *
The Harley Street practice was converted from a large Georgian house. Stone steps, worn at the centre by decades of footsteps, led to a heavy front door with brass handle and knocker, protected by elaborate security.
The floor of the entrance hall was a mosaic of black and white tiles. The young woman behind the reception desk checked my name on her list and ushered me into the waiting room. Arrangements of fresh flowers squatted on polished wooden tables. Sofas, studded with cushions in contrasting colours, were set around a low coffee table on which a series of glossy magazines were artfully fanned. The carpet was thick pile.
To one side, a glass-fronted fridge offered complementary still and sparkling water and a hot drinks machine waited open-mouthed for pellets of coffee, tea or hot chocolate.
Upstairs, the doctor was a slim, middle-aged woman in a high-necked sweater. She was wearing a gold pendant with a whirlpool swirl and a tiny diamond marking its centre.
She sat quietly, one hand on her lap and the other resting lightly on her desk, while I talked her through my symptoms. She spoke only to clarify here and there with questions. Her manner was more that of a counsellor than a doctor and she listened intently, her eyes on my face.
My voice sounded like a stranger’s in the hush of the room. Too loud, my explanations punctuated with an occasional nervous laugh. It was the first time I’d told anyone what had been happening to me. The headaches. The dizziness. The lapses in my memory.
She took my temperature, my blood pressure, traced the contours of my neck with long, cool fingers and examined my ears and throat.
I waited, anxious, my eyes on her face.
‘Any history of migraines in the family?’
I shook my head.
‘How are you sleeping?’
I shrugged, thinking about the times I’d struggled to settle or woken at three in the morning and stared into the darkness, afraid and alone. ‘It’s a bit hit and miss at the moment.’
She sat back and considered me. ‘Tricky things, headaches. It could be any one of a number of things.’ She hesitated. ‘Sounds to me as if you’re under a lot of stress. Young child. Busy life. Uprooting yourself and moving halfway round the world. Any one of those is stressful.’
Her voice was so compassionate that my eyes blurred. We sat in silence for a moment. I felt her eyes on me, appraising.
‘Would you say you’re a bit… depressed?’
I bit my lip and tried to focus on the swirls in the carpet. Was I? I thought about Dominic and Fi and the anxiety I’d been shouldering for so long. I managed a jerky nod.
‘Look, why don’t I give you something to help with that?’ Her voice was soft. ‘Nothing strong. Just to help you through the next few months, until life settles down a bit more. Take one each evening, at bedtime. They should help you sleep as well.’
She turned back to her desk and started to write out a prescription.
‘And the other thing? The lapses?’
She tore the paper from her pad and handed it to me. ‘They could be caused by stress too. If you’re not sleeping properly, your brain can’t get the rest it needs. I think, try this for a few weeks and see if there’s any improvement.’
I hesitated. I was relieved. I wanted her to be right. But I was also unconvinced. Could that really be all that was wrong with me? I was just depressed and mentally exhausted?
‘And what if there isn’t?’
She nodded, her face grave. ‘Try not to assume the worst. But if there’s really no improvement after, say, three or four weeks, then I’d suggest the next step would be to see a neurologist.’ She opened a drawer and flicked through the cardboard dividers, then pulled out a leaflet. ‘But I really think that proper rest and decent sleep could make all the difference.’
Downstairs, the receptionist was speaking on the phone in a low murmur. She twisted away as I approached and dropped her voice to a whisper.
I leaned in, my pulse racing, trying to hear. My name. Didn’t she just say my name? She was talking about me. I pressed the palms of my hands on the wooden surface of her desk.
‘I can hear, you know.’ My cheeks felt hot. ‘I’m not deaf.’
She rang off abruptly and turned to face me, her eyes full of guilt.
‘Who were you talking to?’
She didn’t answer, just twisted to check her screen, printed off my bill and placed it on the counter between us.
I glared at her as I handed over my card.
She just punched in the amount to take payment, then presented the card machine to me for the PIN.
She didn’t look me in the face. ‘Do you need to make another appointment?’
I shook my head. ‘Not here.’
She processed the payment and turned quickly away.
* * *
The following day, buoyed by relief and the most solid, heavy night’s sleep I’d known for months, I arranged to travel out of London to view the house. Our house.
The hotel organised a car and driver for me. He opened the door for me, his bearing erect, and sat in silence, his eyes on the road. I was glad. I wasn’t in the mood for small talk. I sipped at the bottle of mineral water in the arm-rest tray beside me, looked out of the tinted windows and let the world pass.
It was a two-hour drive east to the coast. After a while, the driver asked for if I’d like some music and played some soft jazz. As the saxophone and piano surged and ebbed and surged again, the sounds painted the passing streets and turned them slowly from the grandeur of central London to clogged suburbia, then into motorway, then dual carriageway and finally, as the streets rounded into balls of village, the road narrowed further and started to wind and soon all that passed were hedges and lay-bys with gates and farm-tracks beyond.
The air carried the scent of salt and peat.
‘Are we nearly there?’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
I sat up, suddenly excited, and tried to peer ahead.
The surfaces of the roads became less even as he took narrow, rural roads, then picked up a muddy track through a dense copse of trees. A low boom sounded, distant at first, then becoming more distinct. I smiled to myself. We were nearing the sea.
A moment later, he turned off down a sweeping drive. From outside, gravel scratched under the wheels. The house was large and imposing, a sudden interruption to the wide sky. Sunlight glistened on slanting roof tiles.
The driver switched off the engine and came around to open the door for me. The chill of the wind reached in and I wrapped my coat more tightly round my body as I stepped out.
The breeze blew my hair into tangles. Noises filled my ears. A friendly, eternal soundtrack of crashing waves on rocks and the scrabble of stones, rattled by the water. Already, I saw Lucy there, running through the trees, swinging on the gate, pounding up to the front door. There was light here and fast-changing patterns of cloud hanging low over the sea.
I took a step towards the porch. My eyes scanned the windows, took in the square alcove on the first floor, with its picture windows. I was overwhelmed by a sense of life opening up to me again after weeks of suffocation and darkness. A wealth of space. Air. Light.
‘Perfect.’ I was laughing. I turned to the driver. ‘Don’t you love it?’
He just inclined his head, his expression neutral.
We were early. The
estate agent, due to meet us here for the viewing, hadn’t yet arrived.
I didn’t care. I’d been right. I didn’t need to see inside, I knew already. This was our new home, our retreat from the world. Dominic would come. He could use the flat during the week and join us at weekends. Lucy needed him still and we could do this. We could make this work.
* * *
I slept late the following morning and woke feeling heavy-limbed. I had breakfast in my room, then called Dominic. His voice was cool. I imagined him at his desk in Central, looking out of those vast windows towards the harbour. It would already be the end of the day there. The light would be fading into silver streaks across the water.
‘I’ve bought a house. On the coast. You’re going to love it. It’s perfect for Lucy. And it’s only two hours from London. You can come and go.’
He hesitated.
Before he could turn me down, I filled the silence and rattled on. The distance made it easier to say what I wanted to say, the words which had seemed impossible for weeks.
‘Please, Dominic. Please. We need you. Lucy and I. Do this for me. For her. I’ll make it up to you.’
His sigh was heavy down the line. ‘I’m working on it.’
‘You are?’ My heart soared.
‘I need more time.’
My shoulders relaxed as if I’d set down a heavy load at last.
‘As long as you need. Just come with us. Thank you. Thank you so much.’
Once we’d ended the call, I told reception not to disturb me and crawled back into bed. Cool, clean sheets and soft pillows. I lay still and listened to the pulse of blood in my ears and felt the sound slowly transform, as I relaxed again into sleep, into the rhythmical pounding of waves on the shore of our new home.
Nine
Sophie
How could someone’s signature change so dramatically?
I stared. The letters were formed differently. The slant was at a different angle. Not even the pressure on the page was the same.
My face felt hot. Was this something to do with her health problems? I didn’t understand. It had been years since I saw her handwriting. If it had changed, I had no idea when.
All we’d exchanged for years were emails. E-cards on birthdays and at Christmas. No-one used the physical post anymore, especially from halfway across the world. Why would we, when we could type a message and send it in a second, at the press of a button?
I sat very still. My body curled into itself. Suddenly, I thought about Lucy and how silent she had become. How grief-stricken. I thought about the way she ran through the beach house, searching, and collapsed in sobs when she found the rooms empty. I thought about Caroline’s neglect of her own daughter and her inability to remember the past.
I sat very still for a long time, hardly daring to let myself think what it might mean.
I bundled the note and book into my bag and ran through to Caroline and Dominic’s bedroom. I stood in the middle of the room, looking round. What had struck me as strange here?
I went across to the mantelpiece and ran my eye along it. I examined the framed photographs on the walls. Lucy was there. And Dominic. I blinked as it hit me. Not Caroline. It was the same all over the house. In the sitting room. In the dining room. Not a single wedding picture. There were framed pictures of Dominic holding Lucy as a new-born, then posing with her on The Peak as a toddler. But not of Caroline. She was nowhere to be seen.
I swallowed and steadied myself, then ran across to the dressing table and began to rummage through the drawers. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Just searching. I’d know when I found it. I needed to know more.
The dressing table drawers were filled with perfumes and lotions, pots and tubes of half-used cream. In the middle drawer, she had a mess of odds and ends. Old coins, hairclips, a battered hairbrush. A new wallet, still in its wrapping. A packet of make-up remover pads.
The bottom drawer was full of stockings and tights. I ran my hands through them – fine, good quality. My fingers scraped against the rough wooden sides of the drawer. Nothing hidden underneath.
I pushed everything back and turned around. The drawer of her bedside table opened easily. An old packet of tissues. A phone charger and some other stray wires. A dog-eared women’s magazine. Debris from a busy life. Nothing to interest me, nothing to help.
A noise. Was it them? I ran out onto the top landing and stood very still, my ears thumping with my own pulse. No sound from the hall below. Not yet. Soon.
I headed next to the fitted wardrobes. Caroline’s was filled with smart dresses and suits. High-heeled boots and immaculate pumps. A professional woman’s wardrobe, not the comfy jeans and long cardigans of a hands-on mum. I pulled away the clothes. Nothing was hidden there, either.
I had to stand on a chair to reach the overhead cupboard. It was filled with plastic storage boxes. Out of season clothes, perhaps. The first was light and densely packed with clothes. The second was much heavier. I staggered as I lifted it down and it fell with a bang onto the carpet. I jumped down and started to rifle through the contents.
Keepsakes. Old birthday cards. Scribbles and splashy paintings, presumably by Lucy. A tiny set of white, hand-knitted mittens and bootees, wrapped in tissue paper and sealed inside a plastic bag. On the far side, there were other papers. Bills. A bundle of old cards. An address book, bulging with added sticky notes and scraps of paper.
I lifted it out. Caroline’s writing. Unmistakeable. The adult version of the writing I remembered from school. I flicked through. My details were in there, of course. My old London address had been scribbled out and my parents’ address written beneath. Many names, I didn’t recognise. From university, perhaps. Addresses in New York and Chicago, in Hong Kong and Singapore.
I reached her mother’s name. Her old address in Singapore was scored through. The last address, written in neat black letters, changed her mother’s name to Mrs Griffiths, her new married name. It listed her address in Toronto and the telephone numbers there too.
‘Hurry up, slowcoach. Don’t drop your coat on the floor. Hello? Hang it up please!’
I jumped. Caroline’s voice, sudden and piercing, rose from the hall. I leapt to my feet, scalded. I’d been so absorbed in what I was doing, snooping in someone else’s room, that I hadn’t heard the car draw up or their footsteps on the gravel or the rattle of the key in the front door.
I stuffed the address book into my pocket and slammed the lid on the plastic box, then heaved it up, balancing the edge on the top of my head, as I climbed onto the chair to thrust it back into the high cupboard.
‘Well, show me! What do you normally have?’
Her voice, impatient as always, seemed muffled now. She must be in the kitchen. I managed to get the box into the right position and put my weight behind it, pressed it forward with a rush into place, then shut the cupboard doors.
‘Well, go and get it. Quickly.’
I froze, straining to listen. Footsteps came hurtling up the stairs towards me. Light and fast. I grabbed the back of the chair and put it back into place on the other side of the room. My panic made me clumsy and one of the legs banged against the skirting board. A small sound but it sounded like an explosion in the quiet. I spun round.
Lucy was standing there in the doorway, staring. Her eyes were focussed on me, puzzled. I shook my head, put my finger to my lips. For a moment, she didn’t move.
I beckoned her into the bedroom and put my arms around her in a quick hug, then drew back and took her face in my hands, so close to mine that the tips of our noses almost touched, our eyes reflected each other’s. She looked wary, withdrawn into the same closed, hurt place I’d often seen in her eyes since we met.
I whispered: ‘Lucy. What happened?’
Her eyes widened – was it shock or fear? Her lip trembled.
‘Tell me. It’s ok. Maybe I can help.’
Her eyes brimmed with tears and she pulled away from me, herself from my grasp, turned and fled across the
landing.
Caroline’s voice boomed out from the stairs, threatening and moving closer.
‘Where are you? Have you got it? I’m coming up right now.’
Lucy’s feet were light and quick on the stairs. The door to the nursery banged behind her on the floor above as she rushed in.
Moments later, Caroline’s heavier tread. Her breathing was hard as she took the final flight of stairs. It was too late to hide, too late to duck under the bed or dive into the alcove. She was close enough to hear the slightest movement. I held my breath and closed my eyes.
Her footsteps passed, hurrying up the stairs. Again, the nursery door banged.
I seized my chance, ran to the door and peered out. The coast was clear. They were both upstairs, the door closed, but judging by Caroline’s impatience, they wouldn’t be there for long.
I ran as quickly as I could, the pocketed address book banging against my hip, down the first flight of stairs to my own room, grabbed my jacket and bag and then took the final stairs down to the hall, two at a time.
‘I told you to be quick. You need to learn to do as you’re told.’
Caroline’s voice on the top stairs reached me as I eased open the front door and closed it behind me, then ran.
* * *
Inside the beach house, the phone signal was poor. I punched Caroline’s mother’s phone number into my mobile and went outside. If I stood with my back to the building, facing the cliff-face and the billowing sea beyond, the signal might just be strong enough to make the call.
I counted back on my fingers. It was half past one here. That was half past eight in Toronto. It might work, if she was an early riser. I pressed green and listened to the electronic tone as the numbers pulsed through. The ring tone sounded impossibly distant. I stared at the horizon and waited. The breeze whistled across the microphone and I pressed the phone against my ear.
