I Do Not Sleep (11 page)

Oddly, I didn’t. I’d been cross when Queenie poked her nose around my door, but Jamie was different. I had spent hours with him years ago, talking and crying. He was a good listener, not like most GPs who wanted to fob me off with Valium and Temazepam. He did give me sleeping pills, but he was there for me whenever I needed him. He visited me every day, listened and comforted when my grief was at its most raw, when I talked to him about suicide. It can’t have been easy, comforting an irrational woman sucked into a vortex of shock and horror, but somehow he did it. When he left me every day, I always felt a little calmer; I felt more practical, more able to discuss the necessary next step with Adam. Adam was convinced Joey had drowned, even then. His certainty made me angry. We had to
look
for him, I told him.

‘Where, for God’s sake?’ he’d say in despair. ‘At the bottom of the ocean? They’ve had professional divers down there for days. They haven’t found a thing.’

But by looking for Joey I didn’t mean searching the seabed. He wasn’t there, I knew it. He was somewhere else. I was certain of it. And I knew where, I did; it’s just that I couldn’t remember.

Jamie Torrance had witnessed all this back then. His patience was inexhaustible; his gentle warmth soothed us both. So now, in my bedroom at Coombe, my poor tortured brain relaxed a little, reflexively reacting to his presence with memories of the comfort he had brought me when I was most in need.

I poured out my heart. I told him how coming back to Cornwall had precipitated a spiral of hysteria that I couldn’t control. I told him about hearing Joey’s voice begging me to find him, about my visit to Jamaica Inn and the evil vision that had sprung upon me in the neglected little field.

‘Adam says he wanted to take you home to Manchester because he could see how upset being here was making you. But he told me you don’t want to go. You want to rent a holiday let in Polperro by yourself?’ Jamie’s voice was gentle, but questioning. ‘Why, Molly?’

‘I just need to. I don’t know why, but something is telling me to do that. Or someone. I think it’s Joey.’ I looked at him desperately, aware how loopy I must sound.

‘And what if you do stay all on your own in the place where such a terrible thing happened to your family?’ he asked gently. ‘Don’t you think that being alone with your thoughts and sadness, without the others to talk to about ordinary things, and without that gorgeous baby to cuddle, you will feel pretty bleak? I think I know you enough to feel you need at least some warmth and normality in your life.’

Like a red rag to a bull, I thought. All my warm feelings towards him disappeared in an instant.

‘You don’t know me at all, Jamie. You treated me briefly for – what? A few weeks until the inquest was over? Weeks when I was going through the worst time of my life? You only ever saw me as a bereaved mother, and that’s how you see me to this day. You don’t know the real me at all; you only see the broken husk that Joey left behind. I’ve coped for five years, you know. I will certainly cope in Polperro. It’s what I want.’

Jamie looked unconvinced. ‘Molly, I know I’ve asked you this before, and I well remember what you said, but I really do think you need to see someone —’

I interrupted rudely. ‘A psychiatrist, you mean? No, actually, I suppose you’re thinking of a “counsellor”or a “grief therapist” who’s probably twenty years younger than me and doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. I told you then and I’m telling you now, I don’t need that kind of help. I don’t need anything except to find Joey.’

I stopped for a moment, desperate to straighten my head, to try to tell Jamie about the deep conviction I felt about Polperro. I had to unlock some secrets there – I didn’t know what. But they were there, and those secrets were hiding Joey, shrouding him, keeping him away from me. Ben could help, I knew, but it would be hard to get him to talk to me. In Polperro, on the spot, living so close to him, I had a greater chance to wear him down.

Secrets, conspiracies even. They were teeming in that magical little village, clustering invisibly around the self-consciously come-hither shops selling twee little good-luck charms. Plots and sinister plans, breathing thick as cigarette smoke from the wonky old walls of local alehouses: boiling, as busy as the teeming narrow rivers rushing beneath ancient pubs perched picturesquely on stilts, their wooden doors adorned with fantastical pictures of pirates and wizards. Secrets swirling round the chocolate-box white cottages, eddying in a vortex above Merlin’s Land of Legend, and clinging like golden dust to the children who swarmed the summer lanes, heading down to the rocky harbour beach, uplifted by the enchantment which held its guests in thrall each year; thrilled by romantic stories of bloodthirsty pirates and desperate smugglers, their lanterns highlighting ashen faces, men who daily risked their lives for lucre.

Children
, I thought.
Yes, there is something about children connected to Joey
. All this I knew absolutely, and with a shiver I locked it tight inside my heart. There was no point in trying to explain to Jamie. This was a vision for me alone; a vision not for sharing, lest it evaporate on the sea breeze.

I looked up and shook myself, aware that I’d been in a daze. Jamie was staring at me speculatively.

‘Molly,’ he said briskly, ‘I’m sorry, but you do need help. The therapist I had in mind is actually a very nice woman, a little older than you, professionally trained of course but with a lot of life experience. As a matter of fact she lost a child herself, to illness. That’s why she took up counselling. I think you’d like her a lot.’ He smiled and looked at me encouragingly.

I shook my head. ‘No, Jamie. I know what I need to do.’ I hesitated; then, trying to placate him, said, ‘Listen. I’m sorry I was so rude about shrinks. I promise that if I do strike a blank in Polperro I’ll see your lady. Just give me some time first.’

But I won’t strike a blank
, I thought, hugging my secrets to my chest. I was suddenly excited. I had a plan.

‘How long?’ Jamie asked.

‘How long what?’ I asked, knowing perfectly well what he meant.

‘How much time do you want before you’ll see Thelma?’

‘I have no idea. A couple of weeks, maybe. That’s how long I’ll rent the cottage for.’

He sighed. ‘OK. Well, at least that’s something. Do you mind if I tell Adam?’

‘No, that’s fine.’
In fact, it’s perfect
, I thought. Thinking Jamie has persuaded me to see a therapist would be music to Adam’s ears. It should get him off my back.

‘All right, Molly. I’ll go now. Will you let me know when you’ve found a holiday let? I’d like to come and visit you, if I may?’

‘For professional reasons, or just to be sociable?’ I asked, almost flirtatiously, so light was my heart now after my sudden Polperro epiphany.

He laughed. ‘A bit of both, I hope,’ he said. ‘I do need to keep an eye on you though,’ he added, more seriously. ‘Give me a call when you know your new address.’ He smiled, and left the room.

I could hear low voices as he talked to Adam downstairs. I felt relieved and glad Jamie had come. He would convince Adam that my plan to move to Polperro would work out OK, that he would visit and watch out for me. I’d stopped crying now. I felt fired with excitement and enthusiasm. I was on my way to find my son.

Chapter Twenty-One

I slept like the dead for twelve hours, then rang the local letting agent first thing and told him what I wanted; he said he had a couple of places he thought might suit, and I agreed to meet him outside the Crumplehorn Inn.

Adam had told Danny and Lola about my plan. It was clear that Adam was deeply hurt, and Danny was upset and confused. Nevertheless my son announced he would drive me to the Crumplehorn to meet the letting agent. I was at once glad and dismayed. Of course I wouldn’t have a car in Polperro, not that I expected I’d need one. The village is tiny, and I didn’t have any intention of leaving it. I had been going to ask Adam if I could take the Volvo to meet the agent, but he, distant but courteous, had said at breakfast that he was going to play golf with one of the men he used to hang out with here when the children were small, one of the holiday friends we met up with every year. He and his wife had lived in Hertfordshire, but now, retired, they’d moved down to Cornwall permanently, living in a beautiful house in Fowey. Perhaps, I thought, if the boat had never been wrecked, Adam and I might have one day retired to Fowey. Danny and Joey would visit us, and hordes of grandchildren would romp through our sunny garden every summer, running down the steep lanes to paddle on Readymoney Beach.

With an effort, I shifted my attention to Danny. It was nice of him to give me a lift, but I knew there was an ulterior motive. He wanted to talk to me. Although he knew I was looking for a place in Polperro, I hadn’t told him why I needed to be alone, and when Lola declined to come with us, saying she and Edie would stay behind at Coombe to watch CBeebies, with the feeble excuse that Edie was tired, even though she was currently rampaging round the house in her usual Formula One crawl, it was obvious Danny’s gesture was an ambush, although with the kindest and gentlest of motives. I can’t say I looked forward to it, but I owed him this conversation, and was at least grateful I didn’t have to have it in Adam’s presence.

We got into the car, Danny driving. Edie’s car seat looked oddly forlorn in the back seat. We turned out of the pretty little courtyard and headed towards the coast. The May bluebells and cow parsley were long gone, along with the cool colours of spring. Wisteria, lilac and pale clematis had given way to the vivid blooms of summer. Red-hot pokers soared like flaming torches in the hedgerows, purple foxgloves and hollyhocks nodded knowingly in the breeze, and luscious fairy bells of fuchsia, pink, red and deep mauve glowed like tiny gems beside our path. They were beautiful, these cultivated plants, which had somehow escaped their orderly well-tended gardens, flown over the hedges and come to rest magically beside us like gifts to brighten our journey. I sighed with pleasure, handing my brittle sadness briefly over to some other universe, overwhelmed with the sheer glory all around me, unable to fight a delighted response to nature’s gorgeous flowering. I let the beauty enter me. Fragrant tendrils delicately massaged my neck. All the aromas of this small piece of paradise filled me, and brought me peace.

I opened my eyes when Danny spoke to me. He was smiling. ‘Gorgeous, isn’t it, Mum?’ I could sense the relief in his voice. ‘It’s so good to see you relax.’

‘Oh, Danny,’ I said. ‘It breaks my heart to think of you worrying so much about me.’

He was serious now. ‘I have been worried about you, Mum. More worried than I was five years ago when Joey’s accident had just happened.’

‘You think I’m worse than I was when I first found out?’ I was astonished. How could my admittedly odd behaviour this summer possibly have upset Danny more than the overwhelming grief of that horrendous Easter?

‘It’s not really that, Mum. It’s just that the way you were back then, when it first happened, well, that was natural. But now, the way you’ve been acting, it seems so strange. It’s come out of the blue.’

Out of the blue? What could he possibly mean? Surely he knew, they all knew, how deeply my grief was buried? Surely they hadn’t thought that I’d all but recovered, barely five years after I’d lost my child, the most eviscerating event that could ever happen to a woman?

And then I remembered my determination to ‘keep calm and carry on’. My achievements at work, my solid reputation as an inspirational teacher, my kitchen suppers, my steady demeanour. I knew that Danny felt he couldn’t talk to his father and me about Joey, but suppose he didn’t want to? Suppose he found our lack of drama, our sheer normality, comforting? And he had Lola to share his deepest emotions with. He was twenty-three when Joey disappeared, not a child, not a small boy to be cuddled and comforted. I suddenly realised that he couldn’t really express his grief, except to his girlfriend. There was only one time he totally broke down with me, and that was the night Edie was born, when he had told me how desperately he wanted his little brother to see his firstborn, how guilty he felt for being so happy to have a brand-new family when Joey was dead, and would never share this joy. Joey would never have his own family, his own baby; how could he, Danny, exult in his good fortune when his brother lay lifeless at the bottom of the sea?

And I’d embraced him, told him not to feel guilty. I told Danny I believed Joey knew about Edie. I wasn’t just trying to comfort my eldest son; at that moment I truly felt my youngest was aware of the baby’s birth. I had a strong intuition that Joey, in whatever form he had now taken, felt his brother’s joy. In that moment I began to see Edie as a kind of bridge that would take me to Joey, and that feeling had persisted ever since.

Danny soon forgot his small meltdown, lost in the happiness of new fatherhood. He and Lola revelled in their ‘babymoon’ and he never again mentioned his feelings of guilt.

So, Danny’s life found its balance once more. He was happy. He thought I was too, my aura of calm deceiving him that I’d ‘got over’ Joey. Adam, of course, played along with this. It suited his undemonstrative nature. If he worried about the fact that we never made love any more, he didn’t show it.