In Too Deep (11 page)

Mum doesn’t know that I went to see the university counsellor. What a freak. What a failure. What a fucked-up waste of space I am. We walk through the lobby and I pull Cooper back as he strains at his lead. He’s keen to get out.

But after everything that had happened –
was
happening – I didn’t know where else to turn. Of course, I couldn’t and didn’t tell the counsellor everything anyway – that would be suicide. Which, by the way, was my only other option.

There were posters up everywhere around campus for the free sessions at the Well-Being Centre. In fact, there were posters covering every eventuality in life dotted around the place, making me wonder if all these things were going to happen to me during the next three years. Everything from drugs counselling to coming out as gay, fighting sexual harassment and dealing with STDs. By this time, actual studying couldn’t have been further from my mind, and I’d already fallen way behind.

After thinking about it for days, I finally approached the counselling service, nervous and tentative, unsure which bit of the knot of my life I wanted to untangle first. Just that I needed to do something. My first appointment fell on a Saturday morning, towards the start of the Easter term a few weeks ago.

His name was Gary and he seemed very young, making me uncertain if he could help. I wondered if it was tactical, employing someone who the students could relate to. He was good-looking, in a reserved kind of way. Nothing about him particularly stood out, yet the impression he gave was calming and safe, making me feel not quite so daunted about sitting down opposite him.

‘Hannah,’ he said, smiling briefly. ‘How may I help you today?’ He uncrossed his legs and leaned back. He was trying to be all casual and hip. I felt uptight and ashamed.

My mouth opened. I tried to speak, but my voice wouldn’t work.

I tried again. Despite his kind manner, the safe environment, nothing came out.

I cleared my throat. Still nothing.

‘Would you like some water?’ Gary said.

Over the next fifteen minutes I drank about a pint, but still I couldn’t form any words. In the end he handed me a pad and pen. My cheeks were on fire. Was this it? I’d never be able to speak again?

I tried to imagine myself talking to my flatmates when I got back, chatting with Karen about the tutor she has a major crush on, discussing vegan food with Ant in the
kitchen as he dissected his vegetables, or even just calling Mum for a quick catch-up. I didn’t think I’d have a problem with any of that; reckoned my voice would start working again as soon as I walked out of this building.

Sorry
, I wrote, and turned the pad round to face Gary.

‘Not a problem,’ he said kindly. ‘It happens.’

I smiled awkwardly and took back the paper. For the next half-hour, I jotted down the essence of why I’d come to see him. A couple of times I had to scribble bits out, and I mean really cross them out so they were completely illegible. Meanwhile, Gary busied himself at his computer, leaving the room a couple of times while I spewed out my words – my
confession
. Because that’s what it felt like.

I focused on my fingers while Gary read through my notes. It didn’t take him long.

Afterwards, he looked up at me, removing his glasses. There was a greasy red line across the bridge of his nose.

Then, in a panic, I reached out and took the pad back. Quickly, I wrote,
Is this confidential?
I passed it back, waiting for his response.

After what seemed like for ever, and without taking his eyes off me, he gave a nod. But only a very small one.

‘Cooper, no!’ I scream. ‘Stupid dog, come back.’ I run up to him and reach over into the rose bed, hooking my fingers into his collar. ‘Don’t do it there.’ I drag him off the soil. ‘Go under the tree or something.’ I look around to make sure that no one saw him trampling down the spring flowers that have been carefully planted around
the just-emerging rose bushes. A voice from behind catches me off guard.

‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘Dogs will be dogs.’

‘Oh,’ I say, turning round. ‘Hi.’

Susan is standing there in running gear. Her cheeks are pink and her forehead sweaty. She gives a quick glance at her sports watch and presses a couple of buttons, and then pulls out her earphones. I hear the tss-tss of upbeat music until she silences it on the iPod attached to her arm.

‘He’s got a very characterful face,’ she says, watching as Cooper heads over for some bushes.

‘Lopsided, you mean. He’s a good old boy, but a bit dozy too. He’s eight now, and . . .’ I trail off, remembering the day Dad brought him home unexpectedly, a little black ball of fluff wrapped up in a sweater. He whined all through the first night, alone in the kitchen, but not after that because I had him on my bed. Dad said he was the last in the litter; going cheap because he ‘didn’t seem quite right’ was how the breeder had put it.

‘It’s good that you allow dogs here,’ I say, filling an awkward gap.

Susan is studying me – I feel it as I watch Cooper – and it’s almost as if she has something to say but it won’t come out or because she can’t find the right words. I’m reminded of my session with Gary.

‘Your hotel is beautiful,’ I remark, looking back at the building, because the silence is a bit weird otherwise. A swirling black cloud looms over the rooftops, promising rain later. ‘It’s . . . it’s very well kept.’

I realise I sound like my mum, though I don’t feel nearly as confident. That said, these days it’s as though she’s a different person, retreating into her own dismal, empty world as soon as she comes home from work. Drinking too much, jumping if the phone rings, not seeing any friends. I’m not there to witness it much of the time, but when I am, it doesn’t seem healthy. Almost as unhealthy as my state of mind.

Still Susan doesn’t speak. I hear a little sigh, but it could be because she’s out of breath from her run. She’s tracking Cooper as he bounds across the lawn.

Finally she turns to look at me. Our faces are close. ‘Thank you,’ she says, really softly. ‘I have good staff.’

I give a little smile and pull a plastic bag from my pocket.

‘Frankly, I don’t know what I’d do without them,’ she continues. ‘What with Phil away so much.’

She’s still staring at me, more intently now. ‘I guess your mum would be able to relate to that, wouldn’t she?’

I smile quickly then make some kind of unintelligible noise, heading over to clean up Cooper’s mess. When I turn round, Susan is walking back across the lawn to the hotel.

‘I wish you hadn’t mentioned anything to her,’ I say to Mum, who’s nursing a bucket of coffee at our breakfast table. She looks a bit rough, and I think the early-morning swim was more to convince herself that she feels fine rather than because she wanted to.

‘Mention what to who?’

I’m about to tell her of my encounter out on the lawn, but Susan walks into the dining room.

‘Tell you later,’ I say quietly, watching as she walks past our table, chirping a quick good morning at Mum. My phone lights up on the table beside my bowl of cereal. I turn it over, the crack cutting right through the message. I don’t want to read it. They come most days.

‘You must get that screen replaced,’ Mum says. I feel the table vibrate under my elbows as another message comes in.

‘Yeah,’ I reply, thinking how easy it would have been to swap it for the expensive phone I found under the bench. But instead, I went to the lost property office the next day, only to find the desk unmanned. The next time I went back it was closed. I’d wasted enough time on the stupid thing already, so as I was cooking that evening I charged it up to see if it gave me any clues about the owner. Karen had a cable that fitted.

‘Call the last number dialled,’ Ant suggested as he tossed about his stir-fry. He’s stick thin and runs marathons. He’s studying law.

It was a good idea and thankfully the phone didn’t have a password. It somehow didn’t feel right nosing through someone’s personal life, so after I’d left my flat – late for a Drama Society event – I redialled the last number called. It rang a few times and just as I was about to give up to try another number, someone answered.

‘Oh, hi,’ I said, walking into the meeting room. I pinned
the phone to my ear with my shoulder, glancing at my watch. I was really late for my audition. I’d never acted before, and I was doing it for Mum really. She’d said I should get involved with things, make the most of uni life. So that’s what I was doing, even though I felt really nervous and would, at that moment, have done anything to get out of it.

Everyone stared as I went in, shushing me as I stumbled through the door. The auditions were already in progress. Not a good first impression. I felt myself redden.

Dozens of eyes were on me – all except one boy, I should say. He was pushing out of the rows of seats and was walking briskly towards the door, also looking rather red-faced and embarrassed. Like me, he had a phone pinned to his ear and was taking a call.

‘Who’s that?’ he whispered loudly, pushing past me as I blocked the entrance. ‘Dad?’

I heard exactly the same through the phone’s speaker, delayed by a fraction of a second.

‘Hello?’ I said.

He stopped. We looked at each other.

Then we burst out laughing.

‘Did your husband suffer from any kind of mental illness?’ PC Kath Lane asked. It was just under forty-eight hours since Rick had gone missing. It seemed like forty-eight years.

I looked at her, unable to comprehend what she’d just asked.

I should have been at work, but I’d called the office in a daze, pretending to be sick. It was Steph who’d answered as Tina wasn’t in yet. I don’t think she’d believed I was ill – her slow, curious voice had seemed to sense it was more than that – but I hadn’t been able to face telling her what had happened, not when it hadn’t even sunk in with me at that point.

I still half expected to wake up from a bad dream, reckoning that Rick would be back by dinner time. No one need know that he’d had a temporary blowout. By that time the following week, it would all be forgotten.

I shook my head in response to the officer. ‘No. No, he doesn’t have any mental issues.’

I considered each and every question carefully, making sure I answered correctly, saying the right thing. I didn’t want to mislead her, yet I didn’t want to reveal anything that would make us seem like a dysfunctional family. We’d already lost a child. Rightly or wrongly, the stigma was there.

I should have been a better mother . . . If only I’d picked him up from school . . . Why didn’t I listen to him more . . . ?

To lose another family member was unthinkable.

I’d reported Rick missing on the Saturday afternoon, two days earlier. He’d only been gone a few hours when I made the call, but it was totally out of character. I felt like a fraud when I phoned the police, wondering if the officer who took my call thought that we’d just had a row and that he’d be back by evening.

He wasn’t.

On the Sunday morning, I’d had a follow-up call after the previous day’s report and a basic risk assessment. I was asked a few personal details about Rick and his lifestyle. They’d clearly decided he wasn’t a particularly urgent case, yet not one that could be ignored entirely. Hannah, who’d already seemed upset about something, was in pieces. I wasn’t much better.

So by Monday morning, the sight of two uniformed officers on my doorstep simultaneously made everything seem better and worse – it was a relief they were finally there, that they would find Rick, but it was also terrifying because it was obviously serious enough for them to come.

Whatever
it
was.

PC Kath Lane had introduced herself and her colleague PC Dan Boyd, and I’d invited them inside the house. It didn’t occur to me in those early, blurry days that were filled with raw hope and the belief that everything would turn out fine, but looking back, what I learned is that you can’t solve a problem until you know what the problem actually is. Four months on and we still don’t have a clue.

PC Lane’s hair was short and red, her skin pale and lightly freckled. Her dark uniform made her appear frail, even though I could see she wasn’t. She had an athletic body, looked as if she’d give chase or put up a well-trained fight if needed. By comparison, PC Boyd was swarthy, even at his youthful age, and his mass of dark hair made me wonder if he was part Italian or Greek. They’d sat down on my sofa, side by side, and I’d made them a cup of tea.

‘There’s a process we go through,’ PC Lane had explained, although I don’t recall what she said in much detail. Words washed around me in those early days, and I was too numb to take them in. But just having the police there was enough to virtually drown me in endorphins. They would find my husband soon, I felt sure of it. They were the police, after all.

Until then, it had been two days of Hannah and me fretting alone, phoning Rick’s friends as well as a few distant relatives, while trying not to tell them the full situation or worry them.

He didn’t have a large family and saw his parents rarely.
That was a sore point with me to say the least, and unless the worst was confirmed, I had no intention of contacting them. I made sure the police were clear on this.

Occasionally Rick would make the trip up north to visit them, very often over Christmas. I swear they invited him at that time of year just to cause trouble between us, though I made sure it didn’t. Rick and I were far too good for that, and managed to keep resentment out of our marriage. As their only son, his visits were borne out of duty.

‘They’re old, Gina,’ he would tell me. ‘They’ve not got long, so I should go.’ I could see the regret on his face, how torn he was. I didn’t want to add to it by telling him no.

‘They’ve been old for ever,’ I’d reply, laughing, recalling the handful of times I’d met them right at the start of our relationship. As far as they were concerned, he’d married way beneath himself, and Rick couldn’t convince them otherwise. They’d determined me unworthy of their son, making their disdain for me and, years later, my children obvious.