Since You've Been Gone (7 page)

J
ermaine
brought up a good point; I need a plan. In the avalanche of panic I've felt following Mom's disappearance, I haven't even thought to search the flat for clues to her whereabouts.

And it ends up being so easy. In the drawer of her bedside table, I find Mom's brown leather agenda. Inside there's a hastily jotted note about an interview on January 6. The address is scrawled in her handwriting:
Corporate Cleaners, 31b White Horse Road, Limehouse E1.

I sit down on the side of the bed and stare at the notes in the agenda. Mom always uses blue ink in her agenda. I trace the words with my index finger, savouring the way each letter is formed. These words are a link to her. A wet blotch falls onto the page and my vision blurs. I close the book.

Enough. There's no time to sit and cry. After what happened today with the community police officers stalking me outside the flat, I'm positive Mom's in trouble. Serious trouble. And likely I'm in it up to my neck as well. I need to be ready for tomorrow.

I put the book into my bag along with one of my favourite photos of Mom, wash up, and climb into bed. Pulling the covers up to my chin, I look out the window. London lights up the night sky. A light blinking on and off at the top of one of the tall buildings across the river catches my eye. I wonder if it is used to warn low-flying planes like the one that Mom and I travelled here on. The thought of our journey makes me think of all the times we've picked up and moved. Before this move, the farthest we'd fled was from Toronto to Vancouver and back.

Suddenly I realize how tired I am of running. And that's when I decide there's no way I'll be scared into running again. I'm older now. This time I'm ready to fight.

Even though I hardly slept, I get up at seven to give myself time to look decent. After all, I'm heading into London. And I'm going with Jermaine. I try to go for the natural look with my makeup, except I need shovel-loads of concealer under my eyes to cover the raccoon circles I've got from not really sleeping since Mom disappeared.

And, just like he promised, Jermaine shows up at exactly nine o'clock.

“Ready?” he asks, leaning against the doorframe.

“Let me just run upstairs and grab a heavier jacket,” I say, glancing up at the grey blanket of sky. Little rows of goosebumps emerge on my lower arms. “God, it feels colder here than in Canada. Come on in.” Jermaine walks past me into the narrow hallway. I close the door and dash up the stairs, hoping the jeans I'm wearing don't make my bum look wide.

“Make yourself comfortable!” I shout back over my shoulder.

Inside my bedroom, I pause for a moment before opening the mirrored door of my wardrobe. Over the last couple of years my appearance has changed so rapidly, I sometimes barely recognize myself. The roundness of my face is completely gone, replaced by angles and protruding cheekbones. My hair is a darker, deeper chestnut colour now and my body is elongated and filled out. Everywhere there are curves that just three years ago were non-existent.

I tilt my head, noting how my red cotton sweater pulls tightly across my breasts. It looks good, other than the fact that the sleeves are slightly too short so I push them up my forearms. I reach into the pocket of my jeans, take out a pot of deep red gloss and coat my lips so that they shine. Running a hand through my hair, I stand back and take one last, approving glance at my reflection, put on my black winter jacket, and hurry downstairs.

“Where are we?” I ask as we get off the bus. “That was one of the shortest bus rides of my life.” We're standing at a busy intersection. The heavy smell of car exhaust invades my nostrils.

“Deptford Bridge. You said the address your mum wrote down for work was in Limehouse, yeah?”

I flip back through the agenda. “Yep, Limehouse.”

“We'll take the Docklands there,” he says, crossing the street.

I follow him, realizing just how lucky I am to have Jermaine helping me. I wouldn't have the faintest clue about how to get around London without him. Over the past twenty-four hours I began to realize the probability of something really unpleasant having happened to Mom was increasing. I still hoped that there'd been some sort of freak accident and that she was lying in the hospital somewhere, unconscious or suffering from a temporary loss of memory.

“You have an Oyster card?” Jermaine asks.

I snap back to the present. “No,” I reply. “What's that?”

“You'll need one to travel around. Too late to go to the shop so we'll grab a Travelcard for today.” He stops in front of the ticket machine at the bottom of a flight of concrete stairs. A train rumbles overhead.

“Oh,” I open my bag and rummage around for my wallet. I hand him some of the money from the charity fund.

After purchasing a card, Jermaine bounds up the long set of stairs with me following, trying to keep up as best I can. A train is approaching the platform as we reach the top of the steps. Jermaine runs to the first car, his long legs propelling him forward effortlessly, and punches the button on the side of the carriage with a closed fist. He slips inside as soon as the doors open.

We take seats at the very front of the train. Despite my worry about Mom, I can't help feel an electric current of excitement dance up my spine as the train pulls away from the platform and begins slipping toward Greenwich.

“You ever been on this ride?” Jermaine asks.

“No. I haven't actually been in London very long,” I admit.

He glances at me. “When did you get here?”

“Just a day or two before school started after the break. Our move was kind of … rushed.” An image of Peaches curled up at the foot of my bed jumps into my mind.
Rushed
. What an understatement.

We sit in silence for a few minutes after that. I can feel Jermaine wanting to ask me more. It's one of the things I like about him; he can tell I'm holding back information about my situation but isn't nosy enough to ask about it.

I look around at the people on the train. Like Toronto, the passengers are from all the corners of the world. A beautiful Muslim woman sits with her little boy on the seats across from us, a silver-and-blue hijab thrown loosely over her head, allowing wisps of dark hair as shiny as silk threads to peek out from either side of the fabric. The little boy, who looks like he's around four or five, claps his hands together and whoops raucously as our train swoops underground into darkness.

I smile at the little boy. The mom and her son remind me of Regent Park. Most of my friends, including Rume, were Muslim. I loved being invited to iftar at her house during Ramadan. Somehow, even though we were all different in the Park, it always seemed like everyone was accepted and part of something bigger. I never really knew what being lonely or feeling left out meant while I lived there. I definitely know what it feels like now.

“You know what the
Cutty Sark
is?” Jermaine asks me as the train makes its first stop.

I shake my head.

“It's one of the most famous ships in the world. It's a clipper; it was used as a tea ship. I'll take you to see it after we find your mum.”

As the doors close and the train lurches away from the station, I smile to myself. I like the way Jermaine said he'd take me to see the ship. Though I don't care about old ships, I have a feeling I'll find this one a lot more interesting with Jermaine showing me it. I can't understand why the teachers at Windrush don't notice how smart he is. It's like they've already written him off and no amount of evidence showing them they're wrong will ever change their minds.

“We're under the river now,” Jermaine says, interrupting my thoughts. “We'll be on the north side in just a few moments.

“Really?” I think about how crazy it is to be zipping along in a train through a little tunnel under massive amounts of water. Just one random crack and all that water could come crashing down on us. So many random events change people's lives in just the blink of an eye. Earthquakes, cars losing control, planes crashing … and people going to work and disappearing into thin air. I grimace. Somehow I always manage to think of the worst-case scenarios for everything.

“North side of the Thames now,” Jermaine says. The train pulls up alongside a platform. I glance out the window, watching passengers disembark.

“Why do the teachers give you such a hard time at school?” I ask.

He doesn't answer for a moment and I immediately regret having said anything. If I could, I'd stuff my whole size-seven shoe down my throat until it came out my bum to be able to take the question back.

“Sorry. It's none of my business.”

Jermaine shrugs. “It's okay … I don't know why they do it. 'Cos they're all wankers and twats?” he says, giving me a lopsided grin.

“Seriously. I mean I hate it when teachers think they know everything about me. They don't know anything.”

He nods. “You got that right.”

We sit in silence for a few moments. I want desperately to ask him what he's thinking, but that would make me a big, fat cliché of a girl, so I don't.

I glance over at the platform. “Mudchute? Is that seriously the name of the station?”

Jermaine laughs. “Yeah. What of it? I'm sure you have some funny underground station names in Canada.”

I think for a minute. “There's Broadview. I don't know why, but I that always struck me as a strange subway stop name.”

“Probably some bloke named it after his girl,” he replies.

I shoot him a puzzled look.

“You know … he was probably like, ‘Mhmmm, girl. I like your booty. That's one
broad
view.'”

I punch him in the arm. “Pig.”

He reaches over and grabs me around the neck, putting me in a mock headlock.

“Take it back or beg for mercy.”

The fabric of his sweater feels soft and inviting against my cheek and I inhale deeply, taking in the faint smell of lemons and wool. I don't want to take it back because that means he'll let go.

“Did you just smell me?” he asks.

I wiggle out of his grasp and bolt over to my seat, sitting up as straight as my back will allow. My face is hot.
Don't blush, you fool
, I think to myself, willing the blood in my face to somehow instantaneously drain to my feet.

“No! Are you sick? Why would I go around smelling
you
?”

He laughs. “My mum is always saying to me, Boy, you must be smelling yourself.”

“What does that mean?”

“That I'm about to get my head cuffed.” He stops laughing and his eyes darken. “She's not well. She hardly notices anything I do right now.”

I don't know how to reply. An uncomfortable silence spreads between us as the train surfaces out from the tunnel and into the light again.

S
alty
sea air, the faint smell of dead fish and exhaust fumes all cling to the air as we walk down the stairs at Limehouse station.

“Where now?” Jermaine asks.

I pause. “I have no idea,” I admit. “The place is on White Horse Road.”

We walk onto a bustling street. This place is a way nicer version of London than New Cross. Modern condo buildings intermingle with well-kept, older brick houses that show off carefully tended flowerboxes and brightly painted doors.

“Hold on,” Jermaine says, stopping and removing the straps of his knapsack from his back. He unzips it and pulls out a book.

“If you haven't been in London long, you need to get one of these.” He holds up a white-jacketed book.
A–Z London
is written across the front cover. It turns out to be a novel-sized map book.

After finding the direction we need to go in to find the cleaning company, we begin walking with purpose. My stomach feels like a wet towel that's twisted into tight knots. This all seems like such a shot in the dark. After all, I can't even be sure Mom made it to work at all on her first day.

Jermaine gives a low whistle. “Blimey, this is a bit of nice.”

I look at the building we've stopped in front of. Cristina's Cleaning Company is located above a quaint flower shop. Displays of almost every colour and shape of flower imaginable are set out in shining, silver metal buckets on the sidewalk in front of the shop.

“31b, yeah?” Jermaine asks, walking toward a blue door located just beside the flowers. A large brass knocker shaped like a lion's head stares out at us from the middle of the door.

I nod, reaching into my pocket and taking out the piece of paper I'd torn out of Mom's agenda. I double-check the address again:
31b White Horse Road
. This is definitely it. I carefully fold the paper up and place it back in my pocket. This address is one of the last things Mom wrote before she disappeared.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” I say, though Jermaine's finger is already pressing down on the entrance button as the words escape my lips.

After a few moments, a voice crackles through the small speaker above the buzzer.

“Yes?” It's the voice of a little kid. Jermaine and I look at each other.

“Is your Mummy in?” he asks.

A buzzing sound comes from within and the door clicks to unlock. I pull on the handle and we step inside. The front hall is dim and heavily carpeted. A huge bouquet of flowers sits in a silver vase on top of a small, dark table against the wall.

“Angel, qien es?”
a woman's voice asks from the top of the stairs.

“Some people to see you, Mummy.”

“Haven't I told you never to just let someone in?” The mother's voice is suddenly sharp and angry. I look over at Jermaine. The bad feeling is threatening to suffocate me. He doesn't take his eyes off the landing above us.

A woman appears at the top of the stairs a few seconds later. She's tall and curvaceous and, though it's hard to make out the features of her face in the dim light, my gut tells me she's quite beautiful. I wonder if Jermaine is noticing as well.

“Why, you're only children,” she says, the anger dissolving from her voice. “Can I help you? Come up, please.” She waves for us to come up the stairs.

Jermaine starts up before me. I follow closely behind, trying to force back my feelings of foreboding. This woman might hold the key to finding Mom: so why am I feeling like I want to turn and run as far away from here as I can get?

Just as I expected, she's really beautiful, with sky-high cheekbones and large, dark eyes that examine us closely as we reach the landing of the stairs. Her eyes scan Jermaine and the welcoming smile disappears briefly.

“Come and sit,” she says, motioning us toward a blood-red velvet sofa. “Are you selling something for your school?”

“Not exactly.” I reply, sitting down on the edge of the sofa. Jermaine is quieter now and seems to expect me to take the lead. We sit side-by-side with Cristina in a chair across from us.

“What are you here for then?”

“We're actually here because my mother works for you,” I say, hesitating for a just a second. It's difficult to know how much to reveal. My eyes drift downward to my hands, which are folded limply in my lap like a couple of dead, albino fish.

Cristina sits back and regards me silently for a moment. “Really?” she asks flatly. “And just who might your mother be and why do you need to see me?”

“Um, her name is Sydney Fraser. She's Canadian. Well, she does have a bit of an English accent.” I'm rambling now. “And she only began working for you a couple of days ago.”

Cristina nods, her face relaxing into a smile. “Sydney! Of course I know her. Not like my other girls. Very well-educated.” She pauses. “Is she not well? I only ask as she hasn't shown up for the past two days.”

“She's fine,” Jermaine interrupts.

Cristina turns toward him. “And you are?”

“A family friend. A
close
family friend.”

“Very well,” she replies dismissively. She turns back and stares hard at me. I feel like an insect under a microscope. “You do look so much like Sydney. It's odd. She never told me she had any children here with her in London.”

Jermaine tenses beside me. I know what he's thinking. It doesn't seem like just an innocent observation. The uneasy feeling I had when we first entered the flat is suddenly back. I need to word my questions about Mom carefully.

“I was just wondering where my Mom's last shift was,” I say. I try frantically to think of something to say that would make it seem logical that I'm here, asking her this question, rather than just asking Mom.

“Why?”

Good question. Now I have a few seconds to come up with a halfway decent answer that doesn't make me sound insane.

“Mom left her reading glasses there. I guess she's embarrassed about being sick in bed and all … when she can't even read the paper.”

Cristina stares hard at me again and then her gaze wanders. Something behind me has caught her eye. I turn and see a slim, young boy leaning against the doorframe for the kitchen.

“How impolite of me!” she says. “Would either of you like something to drink? Maybe an orange squash or a fizzy drink?”

I shake my head.

“So your mother has been ill, love,” Cristina says, waving her son away with her hand as if he is nothing more than an annoying insect. “Why did she not call in sick? Does she not want her job any longer? I would think it's nearly impossible for a woman in her position to find other employment.”

Dizziness sweeps over me like a tsunami. Mom must've said something to her about our situation. What does she know? Or is she just saying it to see how I'll respond?

“She told you why we're in London?” I stammer. Jermaine shoots me a quick glance.

Cristina leans forward, resting her chin on her hands. She smiles at me, with the kind of look people give stray puppies. I don't want her sympathy and feel myself tensing up.

“Yes, Edie, she did. I insist on knowing the women I'm hiring, especially when they ask to be paid under the table.”

“My mom didn't return home from work after her first shift,” I say. “Do you know where she was cleaning that night? I need to know.” My heart is beating so rapidly it feels like it's going to leap out of my chest.

Cristina's eyes darken with concern. “She didn't arrive home? That's not good, is it? I know she finished her job that night without incident because she signed out after her shift that morning.”

“But she didn't make it home after that,” I say. “Would anyone else have seen her leave? Other cleaners, maybe?”

Cristina nods. “Sylvia, a long-term employee of mine, was on shift with her at the Camden film office.” She stands up. “Excuse me for a moment. I need to see what Angel is up to. Boys can get into such mischief, you know.” She glances at Jermaine as she speaks.

“Actually, I'll take that orange squash after all. Please,” he says.

“Of course. I'll be just a minute. Please, make yourselves at home.”

As soon as Cristina is out of sight, Jermaine grabs me by the fleshy part of my upper arm.

“Ow! What are you doing?” I snap. “Playing lobster?”

“Shhh,” Jermaine says, placing a finger to his lips. He leans in closer. “We gotta go. You told her way too much. This lady is already concerned that your mum needed to work under the table 'cos that's illegal. And now she finds out your mum's disappeared and you've turned up at her flat.”

“So what?” I say, rubbing my biceps. I'm still angry about my arm and the news I've received from Cristina has only convinced me more that something terrible has happened to Mom.

“So, this woman might already be in it up to her neck for employing illegals like your mum and then if the police find out she knew about you and didn't do the right thing by telling them or social services, she'll get it even worse.”

“Mom isn't an illegal immigrant. She's got a British passport.”

“Don't be daft, Edie. Who cares about that? That woman is likely on the phone right now,” he says. “Let's go!”

Jermaine pulls me up from the sofa and this time I'm more than happy to follow. If he is even half right in his predictions, we're in trouble. It was stupid of me to have said anything about Mom going missing.

Cristina's son appears in the doorway to the kitchen again. This time he's clutching a glass of orange drink in his small hand.

“Where are you going?” he asks, his voice filling with disappointment. “I made this for your friend.” He holds out the glass.

“Sorry, just remembered that we're supposed to be somewhere,” I say, over my shoulder. Jermaine is already at the stairs, descending them two at a time.

“Mummy! They're leaving!” Angel cries.

I begin to leap down the stairs, keeping my eyes locked on Jermaine's back, praying my feet don't miss a step. Jermaine has already reached the front door and is fumbling with the latch, his fingers clumsy with panic.

I hear commotion above us. Angel's cries of dismay mix with his mother's angry voice. Blood pounds in my ears.

Suddenly the latch clicks and Jermaine twists the door open with his left hand while grabbing my wrist with his right.

“Wait right there!” Cristina shouts from behind me. I can't tell if she's already on the stairs.

Jermaine pulls me through the door then slams it shut with a single, backward kick. We immediately break into a frantic run, our trainer-clad feet slapping up and down on the sidewalk.

A curtain of misty rain wraps itself around us as we continue running without saying a word for what seems like forever. My chest burns and I feel faint, but continue following Jermaine. We reach the high street and continue our mad dash: weaving in and around hand-holding couples, mothers pushing their newborns in strollers, and red-faced joggers. Jermaine leads us back past the Docklands station and down toward the water where we finally slow our pace.

“Just to be safe, let's hang here for a few minutes,” Jermaine says, making his way down a set of stone steps to the locks. Below the locks, the murky waters of the Thames wind their way toward the heart of London.

The rain begins to fall harder, making the steps more slippery and treacherous than I would like. A sign posted on the black, wrought-iron rails warns pedestrians about the dangers of walking along the water's edge. That makes me slow down even more.

“You okay?” Jermaine asks from the bottom of the stairs.

“I'm just being careful,” I retort. “It's not exactly the safest thing in the world that we're doing, you know.” Hopefully he can't tell I'm completely terrified.

Jermaine shrugs his shoulders and watches me continue my snail-like descent, a small, amused smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

I join him a few seconds later, both of us leaning against the railings, me still breathing heavily from both the run and the sheer terror of navigating the stairs.

I look down the river at the boats scurrying along and the tall wharf buildings that dot the waterfront and suddenly feel so tiny and insignificant standing there. A wave of sadness mixed with anger sweeps over me and I back away, tears threatening to race down my cheeks.

“What's up?”

I shake my head. I can't speak. It feels as though someone has sucked my voice away. If I open my mouth, tears will follow. And tears are the last thing I need at this time.

“Hey, don't worry. There's no way that lady will be able to find us, even if she decides to try.”

“It's not that,” I say. My voice cracks and I pause for a moment. “It's just … I'm positive something terrible has happened to Mom.”

And that's when Jermaine puts his arm around me. That's right — his arm goes around my shoulders and for a split second I forget about everything else except the electrical feeling I'm getting from our bodies touching.

“Naw, couldn't be. If something really bad happened to her, we'd be seeing it on the front of the papers and on the telly and everything.”

I appreciate his attempt to make me feel better, but every time I shut my eyes, all I see is my dad's angry face the night we left and all I remember is the feeling of his fingers wrapped around my arm like a boa constrictor.

“C'mon. We're going to find her. You'll see.” The concern in Jermaine's voice pulls me back to the present, back to the seemingly constant rain of London and the pleasant heaviness of his arm around my shoulder.

I nod. Tears are forming in my eyes, blurring my vision. I wipe at them with the sleeve of my coat, feeling like a little kid.

“Sorry,” I say. “I guess the worry is getting to me. I haven't been able to sleep well since she's been gone.” My nose is running and I'm in need of a tissue badly. Mortifying. Now he's going to see me with a drippy, snotty nose: definitely not my most attractive moment.