The Missing One (19 page)

*

I'm desperate for a coffee and I'm so hungry. Finn could easily sleep for another hour or two. I decide to let him – the house isn't huge. If I prop the door open, I'll hear him when he wakes up – he always lies for a bit when he wakes up, singing, ‘Mama, mama.' I'll hear him. I shove the bag between the door and the doorframe and walk in socks down the corridor and into the living room.

My feet don't make a sound. There's no sign of the dogs. I generally like dogs, but these two don't connect in the way that most retrievers do. They're not normal pets. They seem empty and glassy-eyed; watchful.

The sun is brighter in this south-facing room. I look through the enormous windows at the ocean, flexing to the horizon. For a moment I think about the life that teems beneath that surface – shoals of fish, sharks, octopi. When you imagine being under the sea, you imagine warmth – a hangover from the womb maybe – but it must be bitterly cold under there. There will be Alaskan tides and icy currents rushing off glaciers. That sea is certain death.

I shiver. It is cold in the room and my jumper is too thin. This room feels bigger and much chillier than it did last night. There is a mound of ash in the fireplace, and the sofas look paler in daylight; they are more beige than brown. The glass sculpture is less blood-like in this light, too, more orangey-red – but it is still somehow uncomfortable to look at. It reminds me of a blister that is about to burst. It is also dangerously close to Finn-level. If Finn were standing next to it, it would be at his head height and he'd be able simply to reach up and yank it
down. I must keep him away from this corner of the room at all costs.

In fact, Finn loose in this room doesn't bear thinking about. There are beautiful ceramics everywhere – on low shelves, on a sideboard, a grey bowl on the coffee table, a tall vase in one corner, about his size. I will have to watch him constantly in this house.

I gaze up at the watery abstract over the fireplace. It looks more eerie in the pale light, mysterious and vaguely threatening – an underwater scene viewed through half-shut eyes.

I head through the archway and into the kitchen. There's coffee in a percolator next to the range cooker; open shelves stacked with pottery plates and bowls – thankfully too high for Finn; a breakfast bar with a big bowl of satsumas, and two white wooden stools. To the right of the kitchen units there is a circular pine table with four chairs, and on the table there is a glass bowl full of shiny red apples. The tiled floor is covered with a blue-and-white striped rug. There are some photos on the shelves behind the table. There is no sign of Susannah, but she must be up because of the coffee. I go across to the photos.

There is a man standing on a rock, in shorts, with a backpack. He has a beard, glasses and a slightly beleaguered expression as if someone is telling him to stand up straight, move to the right, stop scowling, smile. I pick up the photo next to this: a young boy, six or seven years old, squinting at the camera. He has a chubby, defiant little face and messy hair, and a definite look of Susannah, only softer-edged. I put the frame back, next to the man.

The next picture is a beautiful close-up of a killer whale, in a silver frame. Its vast black-and-white body heaves up out of the water and droplets fall away, like illuminated pearls. Then there is a black-and-white landscape, pine trees and sea, presumably taken around here somewhere. Behind that, unframed, is a photo of a group of women with their arms around each other. I spot Susannah in the centre, younger-looking, with a wide smile. Her hair is blonder, in a ponytail, and she's taller than the other women, somehow the focal point even though she is not in the centre of the group.

There's a cluster of smooth stones in a little bowl. I put the photo back, and run a finger over their surfaces, then over the driftwood sculpture of a whale that is propped up next to them. Something moves out of the corner of my eye. I look up, and squint through the French windows and then, as my eyes adjust, I see her.

She is standing outside, only a few feet away from me, leaning on the railing of the deck with her back to the view. The dogs are by her side. Her pale eyes watch me through the glass.

I raise a hand and let out a half-laugh. ‘Hello!'

After a beat, she nods, just once.

She has a white coffee cup in her hands and her hair is crumpled up off her neck – a mix of steel and faded blonde with tendrils that waver like snakes around her cheekbones. I can't believe I didn't notice her when I came into the kitchen. The low sun made it hard to see out, but really, I was too nosy, too focused on her things to see her standing
there, watching me. It isn't clear why she didn't call out. Or come inside.

I walk quickly across to the kitchen area, listening for Finn as I pass the archway into the living room – silence. The French doors open onto the deck. The freezing wind slaps my face as I step out. The sea roars below. I gasp in a breath. The air is so cold it feels as if it's burning into my lungs. The dogs look at me, ears pricked, but they don't move or wag their tails. The deck is as slippery as it looks. I step gingerly towards her, hugging myself. Seagulls caw and the waves thud. She turns her head away to look at the ocean.

‘Well.' She gestures vaguely out to sea. ‘The fog lifted for you.'

She doesn't sound angry.

‘Wow. It's a stunning view.'

She turns back to look at me. Her eyes are sunken, with dark shadows under them, as if she hasn't slept at all. Then again, maybe she always looks this way in the morning.

‘Baby still asleep?' she says.

‘Dead to the world.'

The sea is more green than grey, and is quite rough, with curls of white surf. There are a couple of pine-covered islands in the distance, and one or two boats far out. There is a huge drop below us, maybe sixty feet or more. Dark rocks glisten down there, as the waves thud and pull across them.

I glance back at the house and for a second I feel sure that I'm going to see someone standing inside, watching us. But of course there is no one else here, no one except Finn. I
have to make sure – at all costs – that Finn does not get out onto this deck.

The kitchen is perfectly visible. She would have had a clear view of me, nosing around. I should say something about the photos to defuse the situation – but somehow anything I could say about them would seem even more intrusive. So I say nothing.

The house is single-storey, built in unpainted wood. It feels organic, as if it's formed itself from the forest of pines that surround it. We are positioned above the sea on a triangular patch of rocky land. The house must have a view of the ocean from both sides. The wind is brutally cold. I'm shivering as I lick the salt off my lips and hug my inadequate sweater tighter round my body. The insides of my ears begin to throb.

She's wearing a thick brown fleece and yoga pants, and a huge grey scarf, but her feet are bare – red and bony and strong. The cold clearly does not bother Susannah.

‘So, who was Isabella?' I ask, stamping my feet. The freezing damp soaks my socks. ‘This is Isabella Rock, isn't it?'

‘Isabella Point. It's kind of a sad story, actually. She was the young and beautiful wife of an early settler. She died soon after childbirth, leaving a little baby. Then it died a few weeks later.'

‘How awful.'

‘Yeah, well, there's also a story that her husband murdered them both in a drunken rage.'

‘Really?' My voice sounds very English, suddenly, and prim.

‘The place names up here are one long trail of tragedy.' She looks sideways at me. ‘Those British sailors were pretty overwrought by the time they got this far – you can hear their fear in the names: Desolation Sound, Danger Cove, Cape Caution, Strangers Strait, Hope Channel, Blind Channel … ' She pauses, looks at me. ‘Alert Bay.'

‘Yes, well, it does feel pretty remote here, I have to say.' I jiggle on the icy balls of my feet and hug myself tighter, trying to stop my teeth from chattering. ‘And huge. Everything is just so unbelievably huge here.'

‘OK. You're freezing. Coffee.' She starts to walk back to the French windows.

She pours coffee into a squat pottery mug.

‘Did you make this mug?' I hold it up. ‘It's really pretty.'

‘I don't do mugs.' She turns away.

‘Oh.'

‘My friend Annie made it. She lives just down the road. She's a potter too. She's the one standing to the right of me in that picture you were looking at a moment ago. Short hair, big smile, overalls.'

I feel myself blush, so I sip the coffee. It tastes strong and dusky, but not bitter. Clearly, gourmet coffee beans have made it to the island. This feels reassuring. So does the fact that Susannah has an artist friend named Annie who makes pretty mugs and lives just down the road.

‘Sit.' She points at a stool. I watch her opening cupboards.

‘Bagels? Fruit?' She doesn't stop to hear whether I want them or not, but takes a kitchen knife and slices into a
sesame bagel. Little seeds scatter. Her wrist is smooth and hairless, lightly tanned despite the season. She doesn't look pale at all now. In fact, her face is quite golden, as if she has recently been somewhere sunny. She really must have been in shock last night. I wonder what my mother meant to her.

She pushes up the sleeves of her fleece – chunky veins run up her forearms. She puts both halves of the bagel into a clicking toaster that shunts them along on a treadmill then pops them out at the bottom, perfectly browned.

While this happens, she is slicing bananas. There is a calendar above her, with a Rodin sculpture on it, and though I can't read any of the scribbles it's clear that she keeps busy out here, even in winter. I notice the clock above her head. It's 6.45 a.m.

‘My God, it's early.'

‘I generally get up around five,' she says. ‘So this isn't actually particularly early for me.' She pushes a plate at me. ‘Butter there, blueberry jelly – Annie's again – there.' She points to the pots in front of me.

I bite into the bagel and it's so delicious – fresh and soft inside, with a chewy crust and nutty seeds that stick in my teeth. The buttery jam oozes over my fingers and I lick it off. I could eat and eat and never stop. I have to force myself to slow down, to breathe and chew.

I think about what Finn and I ate yesterday – fries and ketchup and greasy grilled cheese that tasted like plastic. No wonder I felt ill. I imagine what the mothers at Finn's playgroup would say about that particular festival of chemicals. It occurs to me that I can't stand Finn's playgroup. I really
can't. Why do I do it to myself? I can't stand all the snack boxes of rice cakes and the multi-pocketed nappy bags. The other mothers and I have nothing in common except our babies. I will never, I decide, set foot in that church hall again. It is surprising how clear things become when you step outside your boundaries.

‘Will we hear the baby?' Susannah asks. ‘If he wakes up?'

‘Finn?' I say his name, pointedly, between chews. ‘We'll definitely hear Finn. He isn't quite as docile as he probably seemed last night. In fact, he's very active and extremely loud most of the time.'

She slides another half-bagel on to my plate. ‘Well, eat up while you can, then. I remember when my son was that age it was a luxury just to sit down.'

I feel myself relax. Friends who make jam. Chats about motherhood. This is all perfectly safe.

‘How old is your son now?'

She turns away as if she didn't hear me, though I think she must have. I take another bite. My jeans are digging into my stomach and while her back is to me I undo the top button and pull my jumper down to hide it. My body is slowly warming up, but my hands still feel stiff from the cold wind. She pours more coffee for herself, but doesn't sit down. She unwraps her scarf and walks round the breakfast bar towards me. As she thrusts a hand at me I flinch.

‘Here, I won't bite you. Take this – you're still cold.' But she doesn't put the scarf into my hands, she wraps it round my neck, once, then again, tighter.

The scarf is so soft and I know the smell now, the scent
I noticed in the living room: it is jasmine, my mother's favourite scent, mixed with something else, slightly acidic, with damp dogs and clay. I mutter a thank you through a mouthful of bagel. I want to tell her that the jasmine smell reminds me of my mother, but it feels too intimate to have noticed her scent, so I keep quiet. And I don't want to bring up my mother, not yet. Not until I've eaten properly. I drink some more coffee.

‘So, I'm going to walk the dogs.' She leans back against the range, holding her cup with two hands and watching me eat. ‘Then I'll work. You guys can hang out here, then we'll have lunch.'

She seems to assume we are staying.

‘I'd love a walk,' I say.

‘Yes, well, I need to get moving,' she says. ‘I'd like to be in my studio by 7.30.'

‘Sure. OK. But I should head off when Finn wakes up. You've been very kind, but … '

‘All you've talked about since you arrived, Kali, is leaving. Are you always this restless or do I make you jumpy?'

‘No, God, no, not at all. I just didn't mean to impose on you like this, that's all. You have to work.'

‘If you want to go, go.' She doesn't take her eyes off my face. She knows I won't go. We both know that she has something for me.

‘Well, maybe I should charge my mobile up first, so I can make a few calls.'

‘There's no cell reception up here.' Her voice is even. ‘No internet either.'

‘Really?'

‘I like to keep the house clean of all that.'

‘Oh, right.'

‘You can use the landline, though. And I have broadband in my office at the gallery, if you need to get online.'

‘No, no. It's fine.' I sip the coffee again. ‘I'll be fine.'