The Missing One (20 page)

I finish the last of the bagel and wipe my hands on my trousers. ‘That was absolutely delicious,' I say. ‘Amazing. Thank you so much.'

‘My friend, Maggie, runs the bakery in town.' I dimly remember seeing a bakery sign in the shape of a giant cupcake, looming above me as I drove through the fog. I wish Susannah would stop staring at me. Her eyes are unsettling and I don't know where to look. I remind myself that she has friends who bake and make jam. Friends called Maggie and Annie. There is nothing alarming about any of this. She's right: I am jumpy. But she is still staring at me.

‘I'm embarrassing you,' she says. ‘It's just that you look … ' She takes a breath. ‘Almost exactly as I remember your mother. Apart from the hair.' She touches her own cheeks.

‘Well, yes, people always say how much I look like her.'

‘She was so lovely,' she says, and there is heaviness in her voice. ‘Like you. Same heart-shaped face, but with hair … ' She gestures vaguely, as if stroking imaginary hair.

My hand flies to my head. ‘Actually, I just got all my hair cut off. It was sort of an impulse thing. I'm still not quite used to it myself, I keep forgetting it's gone.'

‘You're into impulse things, aren't you?'

‘No, actually I'm really not, not usually,' I say. ‘Usually I'm quite a planner.'

‘Well, the Audrey Hepburn thing suits your face shape.' She says this without flattery, as a professional judgement, and I feel myself inflate, just a little. I imagine that this is the sort of effect her approval has on her chosen artists.

‘I remember being very envious of your mother's hair,' she says. ‘I wanted her hair and she wanted mine. In those days, my hair was blonde and I grew it right down to the base of my spine. Nobody tells you that going grey changes the whole texture of your hair, but it does. Mine used to be like silk and now – anyway. We were quite a pair, back in the day, me and your mother.'

I can't imagine my mother expressing girlish wishes about hair. I can't quite imagine Susannah doing so, either. But for a second she looks younger, just for dipping into these memories. Two spots of pink have appeared on her cheekbones and her eyes shine like washed pebbles.

‘Well, yes, she did have great hair.' I'm not sure why we're talking in so much detail about hair when there are so many other things to discuss, but I can't seem to stop either. ‘She didn't go very grey.'

‘Did her hair … ?' She stops. ‘When she had treatment … ?'

‘Fall out?' I shake my head. ‘She wouldn't have chemotherapy.'

Susannah nods to herself, as if she'd expect nothing less of my cantankerous mother. Her eyes fade and the line
appears between her brows again. ‘I should have known she was sick.'

‘Were you two in touch regularly?'

She looks at me, sideways, as if I may be messing with her. ‘Did she … ? She didn't … ?'

‘Sorry – she didn't
what
?'

‘Oh never mind. Never mind. How did she … ? Did it … ? Was it very long?'

‘The illness?'

‘Was it long?'

‘Her cancer was quite advanced by the time they diagnosed it. She actually didn't go to the doctor for a very long time after she found the lump. So when she did finally go, it all happened quite fast, really, just a few months.' I have to work hard to keep my tone even, but somehow I manage it. ‘She wouldn't have chemotherapy because I suppose she didn't want to prolong it. I suppose she didn't want to suffer for longer than she had to.'

‘Were you with her when she died?'

The food lies heavy in my stomach. ‘Actually, I was. I got there just a few moments before. But I don't know if she knew I was there, or … ' I stare at my mug. It is almost a relief to be saying this out loud, even to this slightly hostile stranger. I think about my mother, shrunken in her bed. When I arrived everyone was running about fetching towels. I don't know why towels were needed right then, at that last moment of her life. Why towels? I still had my coat on, Finn in my arms. I dropped my bag, and the smell hit me – an ancient smell that I shouldn't recognize but somehow did.
As I approached the bed, my mother's hollow face lit up and just for that second I thought it was because of me.

But she wasn't looking at me. Finn was tucked against my shoulder, but I'm not sure if she was seeing him, either – she was already somewhere else, and then she gasped, like she was sliding under the water, and her eyes widened, as if she'd seen something surprising and longed-for beneath the surface. She died just as Alice rushed back in with an armful of towels.

‘Hey – you don't have to talk about it,' Susannah says. ‘If it's too raw.'

‘No, it's OK. She died at home and she, well, it was … She looked sort of pleased at the very last moment, as if she'd seen someone familiar. I know that sounds weird.'

‘She saw you.'

‘No. It wasn't that. Maybe it was Finn – but really, I'm not sure if she even knew we were there. And we weren't … I wasn't … my sister had been caring for her a lot, and they were very close. It's all much harder on Alice, all of this.'

‘Your sister?' Her eyes flick back to my face as if I've said something else that is confusing.

‘Yes, Alice. She took leave from work the last couple of weeks. The two of them were very close, and I – we – well, my mother and I had quite a difficult relationship. Maybe she told you all this? I suppose I was a bit hesitant to go and see her. But you don't need to know all this. It's just messy family stuff.'

‘Death and guilt … ' She sits down, twirling her silver thumb ring with an index finger. I wait for her to elaborate,
but she doesn't. Then she looks back at me again. ‘My God, Kali. You're so like her. Your voice – you even have her gestures when you talk. It's like she's right here, in my kitchen.'

‘Well, I didn't get her eyes. Alice got the beautiful green eyes.'

‘Yeah. You have your father's eyes exactly.'

‘Really? No. I don't think so, not really. Dad's are more greyish blue.'

Her whole face flames scarlet and she turns her back on me, putting her mug in the sink.

Then I hear a crash coming from the other side of the house, and a dull thud, followed by a long, distant wail.

‘Oh shit!' I leap off the stool, and sprint through the living room and down the corridor to the bedroom. The door is shut and I can hear him crying inside. He must have dislodged the bag and it shut itself. ‘Finn?' I try to open it, but it won't budge. ‘Finn?' I call. ‘Sweetheart? I'm here. It's OK.'

‘Mama!' he howls.

I shove the door with my shoulder, and whatever is blocking it shifts. Finn is standing, with his arms by his sides, looking up at me, eyes wide and filled with tears. Beside him the big white vase is on its side and there is a large chunk out of its rim. The broken-off shard is by Finn's leg. I swoop and pick him up, checking him for cuts. He's fine. But the vase definitely isn't. The suitcase was blocking the door.

‘Oopsie.' Finn looks down at the vase. He has stopped crying now that he's in my arms. He just looks shocked.

‘Just an accident.' I smooth his forehead as if I can
actually stroke away the fear and shock. ‘It's OK, love, it's OK.'

He must have woken up, then somehow knocked the case so that the door clicked shut. Then he couldn't reach the door handle. It looks as if he was trying to climb on to the upside-down vase to reach it. He is nothing if not resourceful.

‘My poor little love,' I say. ‘You got stuck in here, didn't you? The door shut and you got stuck. But it's OK now.' My hand is shaking. Silly. He's fine.

‘Mummy's here and it's OK.'

His face lightens then, and he struggles to get down. I know he'd like to go and tug a few more sharp bits off the vase now, to see what will happen next.

‘Here, look! Over here! Let's get you changed. Breakfast time!' I try to redirect him to the bed. Susannah appears in the doorway.

‘Is he OK?'

‘God, Susannah – I'm so sorry. I'll pay for that – I'm really sorry. Finn got stuck in the room, somehow, and he must have broken the vase trying to get out. I'm so sorry.'

Her expression is closed-off, her mouth small. ‘You shut the child in here?'

‘What? No! What? Of course not. I didn't … The door must have … '

But she isn't listening, I can tell. She goes and bends over the vase, straight-backed as always, picking up the large broken piece.

‘Look, Susannah. Please let me pay for it.' I think about
the Chihuly in the front room – what if this vase is by a world-famous potter? ‘Do let me replace it, please.'

‘It's not a problem,' she snaps, her back to me.

‘Seriously, I'd like to replace it.'

‘I don't care about the vase, Kali.' She looks over her shoulder at me. To my surprise, she doesn't seem angry, just cold. ‘Toddlers break things. The main thing is that the baby is OK. Don't you think?'

I wish she'd stop calling him ‘the baby', ‘the little guy', ‘the child'. ‘But he's fine!' I say. ‘Totally. Aren't you, Finn?'

He wrestles himself out of my grip and runs, with one trouser leg on, the other flapping, towards the bathroom. ‘Ba' time!' he shouts.

‘No, no bath now.' I hurry after him.

Susannah takes the broken vase away. I wrangle Finn back on to the bed, put a clean nappy on him, and finish dressing him in his warmest fleece and the dungarees with the dinosaur on the pocket, as he wriggles and protests and babbles. The incident is forgotten. He has moved on already.

*

As I walk with him through to the kitchen again, his small hand tucked inside mine, I realize that I've eaten too much too fast. Maybe it was the shock of hearing him scream, or the anxiety about the broken vase, but the bagels are lodged at the top of my stomach now, like big lumps of lead.

‘So, if you want to come for a walk, I'm going to go now.' Susannah is clearing up the kitchen. ‘But I guess you'll need to give him breakfast?'

I desperately want to be out in the fresh air, under that
high bright sky. ‘Actually, we'd love to come for a walk, if you don't mind some company? Finn can have some bagel to chew while we walk – I'll just put him in the backpack, I have one that I carry him in. It's in the car … '

‘Oh. Sure.'

She whistles and the dogs leap to the French windows, wagging their tales and turning circles.

‘I'll just get my coat and boots – and the baby-carrier. Would you mind watching Finn just for a second?'

‘Of course,' she says. I hesitate. She looks at Finn, who is holding onto my leg. Then she peels her lips into a smile. She kneels down so she's at his level. ‘You want a banana? You look like a banana lover to me.'

To my surprise, he smiles up at her. She nods. ‘OK. So. Why don't you come and sit here, on my very best chair, and then you can pick the biggest banana of all?' Her motherly tone is unexpected. But it works. He reaches up, trustingly, and takes her hand. Before he notices, I duck away through the archway and into the living room.

I go out into the freezing morning and get the baby-carrier from the car, then I go to the hall cupboard and find Finn's suit and the parka and my hiking boots. I get into my coat, zipping it right up. It takes me a while to find my hat – she's taken it and put it, folded, on a shelf up above the coat hooks. I still have her wrap around my neck and it feels too tight, but I keep the coat zipped right to the top anyway. I pull on my hiking boots then, and clomp through the house again, wondering vaguely if I shouldn't be wearing my boots inside.

The kitchen is empty. There is a half-eaten banana on the counter. Susannah and Finn have gone.

I haul open the door and rush out onto the deck. The sun blinds me for a second, and then one leg slips from under me on the icy wood. I almost crash down backwards, but I grab the railing and wrench myself upright. I hold onto it with both hands and peer over the edge, my heart pummelling my chest, wind battering my ears. There she is. I see her far below on the rocks, with waves crashing behind her, and Finn standing by her leg, holding her hand. They are both looking up at me. He doesn't even have a coat on. He is standing on the icy rock in just his woolly socks. Vast waves lash the shore, not far behind them.

‘Hey!' I shout. ‘Wait! I'm coming. I have Finn's suit! And the carrier! Wait a second!' He will freeze. I want him in the all-in-one suit right now. He looks tiny on the big rock, and the waves are too close, and too tall.

It is bitterly cold.

I hook the baby-carrier onto both shoulders and spot a gap in the railing, a little further down the deck. I pick my way across the wood so I don't slip again. There are some steps nailed into the rock face with just a thin railing to hold onto as you wobble down them. I can't even think about her getting Finn down here. Did she carry him?

I begin to climb down, hanging on to the banister with both hands. I can't think about them, teetering on the cliff face like this. At least she is strong. She probably comes down these steps every day of her life; she knows every inch of them. The steps are covered in a film of ice and they creak
as I climb down, and I pray that whoever hammered them into the rock face knew what they were doing.

The black and grey rocks shine under a white sun and as each wave hits, foam fans into the air behind them. I slip and jump over the rocks to them. Susannah's mouth is a thin line and her eyes are narrow, watching me. Finn's hair is illuminated on the ends, lifting this way and that. He beams at me, yanks his hand out of Susannah's and starts off in a stumbling run over the slippery rock towards me.

I leap across the gap to him and whisk him up, just as his foot slips and he begins to tumble head first towards the crevice. ‘Wow! Whoopsie! Hello!' I haul him into the air. He laughs.