Quarter Past Two on a Wednesday Afternoon (21 page)

Chapter Twelve

Cassandra is in reception, making an appointment for a patient. She scans her computer screen while the woman waits, holding her child, a whiny girl of ten or so, by the hand. The girl is kicking her foot against the skirting board below the reception hatch in a bored, irregular rhythm.

‘Don’t do that, Kira,’ says the mother at last, but it’s too late – the thudding has got inside Cassandra’s head. She feels a tightening, a mounting tension that makes her eyes waver and the screen blur.

‘Thursday the eleventh, ten-twenty?’ she says. The words come out in the proper order, measured and polite, but it might be someone else saying them. The woman nods, and Cassandra writes the date on an appointment card. The pen seems to be a living thing, trying to slither out of her grip. As she hands over the card, the woman’s gaze rests briefly on her face, disapproving, unsmiling. Perhaps it mirrors her own expression.

She can hardly breathe. She swivels her chair and looks down at her hands, sees the tremor in them, the uncontrollable shake as she tries to hold them steady. She seems to be looking down on her hands from somewhere high above. If she doesn’t get out of here, fast, she’ll throw up, or faint. There’s a prickling in her armpits; she can smell sweat, smell her own fear. It clams her hands, clams her thoughts.

There are people waiting at the hatch; a peevish-faced elderly woman is looking at her. She can’t face them, can’t get out a coherent word.

‘Jilly, could you?’ she manages. ‘Sorry, I’m—’

She pushes her chair back so abruptly that she stumbles and almost falls. Jilly’s face and Louise’s are pale blobs, floating in mist.

‘Are you all right?’ someone says.

‘Yes. No.’

Regaining her balance, she walks giddily towards the door at the back of the office that leads to the staff loo and outside.

In the toilet cubicle she leans against the wall and fights for breath.

I can’t go back in there. I can’t. I’ve got to get away.

Christina Talbot’s house was a big thirties semi in a tree-lined street a few minutes’ walk from Bromley South station. The large, muscular girl – strapping, Mum used to call her – was now a plump woman with brown hair streaked blonde, and loose clothes that didn’t conceal a bulky waistline. Surely, Anna thought, she’s older than Rose; older than Rose could ever be. Christina had a balding husband, who was outside doing something under the bonnet of an estate car, and three children, aged from about ten down to the baby. Anna struggled with the concept that Rose, by now, could have made a life like this for herself.

The two older children were watching TV in a sitting room, the floor strewn with toys, bits of Lego and building bricks. ‘Sorry about all this.’ Christina was holding the baby in her arms. ‘We’ll go through to the back, it’s quieter.’ She led Anna through to another room, a kitchen/dining room, almost as cluttered.

‘How old is he? She?’ Anna asked, looking at the baby; she hadn’t been interested enough to pick up this most basic information from the latest Christmas card.

‘Six weeks. This is Oliver.’ Christina was smiling, looking at Anna for some further response.

‘He’s lovely,’ Anna said awkwardly. She never knew what to say about babies, seeing them as messy, demanding, cumbersome things. She hoped to feel differently about Bethan’s.

‘If you hold him, I’ll put the kettle on,’ Christina said, handing him over.

Wondering at her readiness to give the baby to a stranger, Anna adjusted to his weight, and smelled milk, lotion and warmth. He was bulky in his nappy and his layers of soft clothes; his breath made small bubbles at one corner of his mouth and his eyelids were the delicate mauve-pink of the inside of a shell. Anna stared, fascinated, disturbed. Illogical resentment flashed through her at the thought that Martin had done this, had held his own baby sons, Patrick and then Liam; he’d done it without her, in his other life, long before he knew she existed.

Christina laughed at the way she held the baby so gingerly. ‘You haven’t got kids of your own, then?’

‘No.’ It still struck Anna as a surprising possibility. ‘Actually, I’ve never held a baby before.’

‘You’ve never –?’ Christina’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You’re – how old? Early thirties, you must be? And you’ve never held a baby?’

‘Thirty-three. No, I’ve always been afraid to. And there aren’t any children in our family.’

‘No?’ Christina said it sympathetically, though Anna had simply been stating a fact. ‘No, I suppose not, what with—’

She was doing the same as everyone else, stepping delicately around Rose’s name, although Rose was the sole reason for Anna’s presence. Christina busied herself making the tea, glancing at the baby every few seconds. Once, as he stirred, his eyes flickered open, misty blue and unfocused. Anna expected him to squirm and wail as he realized she wasn’t his mother, but he only wriggled against her arm. Tension prickled Anna’s neck. He was too new, too vulnerable; she might carelessly hurt him. There must be countless ways of harming a baby. She saw herself letting him fall from her arms, his bare head striking the table leg, the floor. So easy. What if her arms went limp, her hands released him? By imagining, was she willing it to happen?

‘Take him,’ she told Christina. Her voice came out tight and strained. ‘Take him back, please.’

‘What’s wrong? Is he wet?’ Christina’s voice was calm, no maternal instinct alerting her to danger.

‘No. But …’ Anna’s arms were tense. Now the baby did waken, opening his mouth like a yawning cat; he began to whimper and wriggle, the fingers of one hand curling on her sleeve. His eyes opened. He knows, she thought. He knows he’s not safe with me.

‘OK. Give him here.’ Christina took him, giving Anna an amused look, in which Anna read
You’ll learn soon enough, when your turn comes
.

‘Sorry. I knew he’d cry. I don’t know how to hold babies,’ Anna said. She felt a quite uncharacteristic urge for a cigarette, something to occupy her fingers and calm her nerves. She hadn’t smoked since she was a teenager.

Christina didn’t comment. She soothed the baby, cradling his head against her neck. ‘Tea’s ready,’ she told Anna. ‘If you pour, I’ll take him upstairs and see if he’ll go down.’

‘Right. Thanks.’ Anna’s hands were shaking as she lifted the teapot. Her vision blurred giddily. She wanted to be comforted and soothed; she sipped her tea while it was still too hot. The door to the other room opened, releasing a burst of thudding music. Feet ran upstairs; Anna heard a girl’s voice, Christina’s quick ‘
Shhh!
’ and a toilet flushing. The other child, the boy of eleven, came into the kitchen and took a can of Coke from the fridge, glancing at Anna but not speaking. She didn’t speak either. The calendar on the wall hinted at the demands of being a parent:
Matthew dentist. Oliver clinic 10.45. Ellie gym club.
When did Christina find her own time? Anna couldn’t see a single indication of something Christina might do for herself.

Returning, Christina told the children to turn the TV down and tidy up, and sat gratefully at the table. ‘God, they keep you busy. What about you? No kids, but are you married or anything? You said Anna Taverner, but lots of girls keep their own names these days.’ Her glance flicked to Anna’s ringless left hand.

‘No. I’m single,’ Anna said, wanting this to be true, thinking that she could have spent today looking at flats.

‘Well, you’ve got plenty of time to start a family. People have babies later and later, don’t they?’

Anna suppressed a sigh. Babies, breeding, the unavoidable next item on anyone’s agenda.

Christina offered biscuits from a packet, then took one for herself. ‘It’s a bit addictive, once you start,’ she said, leaving Anna unclear whether she meant babies or biscuits. ‘Anyway. You want to talk about Rose.’

‘Yes.’

‘I really don’t know what I can tell you. I always thought she’d come back, but, well … Still nothing, after all these years?’

‘We don’t know any more now than we did then.’

‘I went through it again and again in my mind, after,’ said Christina. ‘I told your parents everything I could think of, and the police, but it wasn’t much help. I didn’t know that she’d met anyone in particular. She wasn’t on drugs or anything like that. She never talked about problems at home. I was her best friend – I’d have known. You probably remember, I was on holiday the week before she went. If I’d been around – well, maybe things would’ve been different. But it’s no use wishing, is it?’

‘Do you know why she broke off with Jamie Spellman?’

Christina considered for a moment, then shook her head. ‘Not really. I don’t think there was a row or anything. There were other fish in the sea, that’s all I thought it was. She didn’t want to be tied down.’

‘But did you know of any other fish? Did she dump Jamie for someone else? He thought she did.’

‘We went through all that, didn’t we? No. Not that I knew of.’

‘She’d have told you, wouldn’t she?’ Anna persisted. ‘Was there someone she talked about, anyone she fancied?’

‘No, sorry, Anna. I can’t think of anything to tell you that you don’t already know. I’m sorry if this is a wasted journey. Surely, really …’ She hesitated, her glance sliding away from Anna’s.

‘What?’

Christina sounded apologetic. ‘I know there’s never been a – a body, but, I mean, we’re sort of assuming she chose to stay away, aren’t we? Surely the most likely thing is that she’s dead. I said just now that I kept thinking she’d come back, but that was then. Not now. I’m sorry.’ She looked at Anna, then away, towards the window. ‘Poor lovely Rose. She had so much to look forward to.’

‘No,’ Anna said, too loudly. She wouldn’t hear Rose spoken of in the past tense. ‘She’s not dead.’

‘But how can you know?’

‘I just do.’

Christina looked at her warily. Anna saw her struggling between a desire to humour and the urge to express common-sense logic. Common sense won. ‘But – d’you really think she could have left home of her own free will and not got in touch, all this time? I mean, we all have rows with our parents, at eighteen. They don’t usually last twenty years.’ She was sitting with an ear turned towards the stairway in case the baby cried. ‘Wouldn’t you do better to accept it – move on, get on with your life? You can’t wait for ever.’

‘Accept what?’

Christina wouldn’t say it again. She made a
you know
gesture, a small tilting of her head.

Anna looked down at the table.
Move on
– meaningless, grating, with its implication of criticism.
Get on with your life
.

‘Tell me about Rose,’ she urged. ‘I don’t just mean about her leaving. Anything you remember. What was it like, being her best friend? I want to know.’

Her belief in Christina was wavering; she noticed the beginnings of lines around her mouth, the carefully styled hair, the pearl ear-studs. What could she possibly have to say about eighteen-year-old Rose, from this distance? She was too old to be Rose’s friend, almost middle-aged; a mother, respectable, dutiful, a church-goer. Anna tried to recall the teenager with the loud laugh, the sixth-form tennis star with the powerful double-handed backhand. This matronly Christina was pushing the younger version out of view.

‘Well,’ Christina said, ‘she was so pretty I was jealous – she didn’t even need to try. Clever. Artistic. Moody sometimes. Still, I suppose we’re all moody sometimes.’

She smiled, offering the biscuits again. Anna couldn’t imagine Christina being moody – she struck her as permanently cheerful, straightforward. Anna realized that she disliked Christina, maybe always had. Ever-reliable, ever-practical, always right, Christina had been a foil for Rose; deliberately chosen, perhaps, to highlight Rose’s dramatic tendencies.

‘Yes, I know that.’ Anna tried not to sound impatient. What she wanted was specific memories. Arguments, incidents. Insights. Christina wasn’t going to be much good at that; she was frowning, in the way of someone not much used to analysing.

‘When you think about Rose, what do you remember?’ Anna prompted.

‘I remember she did my biology drawings for me,’ Christina said. ‘I did biology A-Level but I was hopeless at the diagrams. I used to give Rose whatever I had to copy and she’d do lovely clear drawings, really quickly, while we chatted at break or lunch time. Alimentary canals, that sort of thing, or heart valves, all just right. My teachers never knew, but they must have wondered why I couldn’t do it in tests.’

This was better. Anna smiled encouragingly.

‘I remember how she was with boys,’ Christina said. ‘With her looks, she was never short of them. She’d go out with someone and be keen, then suddenly it was finished. She’d never say why. Just, “I don’t like him any more,” when she’d been all over him yesterday. She could take them or leave them. That’s why I don’t think she ran off with someone. She wasn’t in a hurry.’

‘What did she talk about doing, when she left school?’ Anna asked. ‘She had her place to do art foundation. But after that – did she say?’

‘Yes. I remember the police asked me, but I wasn’t much help. She said so many different things. She talked about art college in London, or sometimes it was Glasgow, or Paris. Or she’d just paint, or travel, or get a local job and save some money. It was different from one week to the next.’

‘What else? What else do you remember?’

Christina thought for a moment. ‘I remember how she used to get upset about things. Work herself up into a real state.’

‘You mean the hyperventilating? What things?’

‘There was once in history. It must have been when we were in the fifth, because I didn’t do history A-Level like she did. Our teacher was showing us a video about the concentration camps. The gas chambers and the experiments and all that. It was grim. We all sat there stunned and quiet. I was sitting next to Rose, and suddenly she jumped up and ran out of the classroom. She knocked a chair over and the teacher shouted at her to come back, but she didn’t stop.’

‘Then what?’

‘The teacher told me to go after her. It was Mr Evans – did you know him?’ Anna nodded, and Christina continued, ‘I thought she’d be in the girls’ loos, crying. She wasn’t, so I looked in the field, and the library, all round the place. Couldn’t find her anywhere. It turned out she’d run out of school.’