A Surrey State of Affairs (27 page)
Read A Surrey State of Affairs Online
Authors: Ceri Radford
Still no postcard from Gerald. I suppose he has paid attention to my request, which is more than can usually be said for Jeffrey.
While giving the utility room a bit of a spring cleaning I found a pair of Sophie’s purple leggings, coiled up like an exotic snakeskin, in the corner. I thought of her wearing them with her funny little dresses over the top and felt that sudden, achy sensation of missing her, which can occur at the oddest of moments. I decided to call, and by withholding my number managed to get her on the first attempt. The line was bad. Sophie sounded muffled and there was a rustling like the lapping of waves on a beach in the background. I asked her if she was okay and she said that she was “thfine” and talking funny only because she had been practicing her French so hard. Just as I was asking if she wanted me to send over some Buttercup syrup from Boots she said that she had to rush off to hold Daisy’s bucket and hung up. I hope she will get better soon. French is indeed a language to mangle any Englishwoman’s vocal cords.
THURSDAY, JUNE 12
Reginald popped around in a positively effervescent mood today. “Constance, you are a genius,” he said over a cold Pimm’s in the garden, with a grin as broad as his sun hat. “It’s all going swimmingly.” By this I presumed that he meant the situation between David and Ruth, and I was right. It would appear that David has not attempted to persuade his father that he needs a psychological “audit” for more than a week, that he has started to wear Lynx deodorant, and that yesterday he took Ruth on a date to play mini golf. In short, he was showing all the hallmarks of becoming “normal.” Pru confirmed that this happy transformation was a two-way affair at Church Flowers when she told me
that Ruth had had a haircut for the first time in eighteen months. I tried to savor my triumph and not to reflect on the fact that had things been different, my own son would have been benefiting from Ruth’s sudden swing toward neatly coiffed conformism. I comforted myself with the thought that I wouldn’t in any case want Pru to be mother of the bride at Rupert’s wedding, as she would no doubt want to have a say in all the organization. Judging by what she did with the freesias today, she is much too slapdash to be trusted with the table arrangements. It’s a good thing that Reginald is the rumpled, forgiving sort.
FRIDAY, JUNE 13
Friday 13: unlucky for some, including one of Sophie’s dim-witted “friends.” I have just received the following e-mail:
yo momma k how ru and dad? could u ask ur friend whoz a nurse what to do bout an infected tongue? my m8 got it peerced last wk an she still cant eat. really sore. and has this wierd kinda puss coming out. anyhoo, gotta go…love ya lots
soph xxx
I thought for a long time, and then I replied:
Dear Sophie,
When you left primary school seven years ago you appeared to have a firmer grasp of the English language than you do now. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt and presuming that the French sun has addled your brain (are you wearing sunscreen and a hat?), but just in case I’m going to pop a copy of
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
in the mail for you along with that Buttercup syrup.
Now, as to this friend of yours, the first thing I want to know is why you’re spending time with someone who would do such
a disgusting and tasteless thing to herself. A pierced tongue? I thought that was
the preserve of deranged, bat-eating heavy-metal fans.
But I digress. Unfortunately I’m no longer in touch with the nurse Natasha (
who hasn’t returned my Christmas cards since the time I asked her to take a look at Grandma’s varicose veins), but I do remember that Grandma’s cat once had an infected tongue abscess, and I think the treatment would be similar. She needs to bathe it in a strong salt solution. It will sting, but the pain may make your friend think twice about being such an idiot in the future.
I hope you’re well and having a nice time. Not long now until you’ll be home for the holidays!
Lots of love,
Mum
SATURDAY, JUNE 14
Mark and Tanya have gone. They were here for only two months, but it feels like the end of an era. At ten o’clock this morning I heard the diminutive crunch of Smart car tires on gravel as Mark pulled up in their brand-new lilac-colored company car, emblazoned with Idle Hands in a black curlicue font on the side; three hours and nineteen carloads later, they and their meager possessions had vanished. The house had that same big, immaculate, empty feeling it gets when Sophie has just left. I called Natalia to make some lunch, longing for a little bustle of any sort, but she was nowhere to be seen. I called Jeffrey, but in a strained voice emanating from his study he said that he was just in the middle of something and had his hands full. I went to talk to Darcy instead. He cocked his head and looked at me with his black, depthless, wise eyes, and said, “You’re fired!”
SUNDAY, JUNE 15
Jeffrey came to church, and to see Mother, without complaining once. I can’t keep up with him, I really can’t.
MONDAY, JUNE 16
Dreadful news. My fingers are shaking so much I can hardly type. The director of the eco lodge just called. Sophie has not returned from a field trip to study the newt population of the Loire. He tried to reassure me. The lodge staff has checked her room and it seems that her passport and most of her clothes are missing. Perhaps she is homesick and on her way back? I told him that she would never have done such a thing without telling me. How else would she pay for the ticket?
He said there was one other thing I should know. Her friend Daisy has disappeared too. Perhaps they had gone off on a little trip together? I swallowed hard. It was possible, but so were many other scenarios. What if she has been abducted by drug smugglers to be used as a human mule? Or worse—by Parisian pimps? If only she had let me persuade her to keep a can of mace spray in her handbag at all times.
I feel ill. Jeffrey is on his way home. I hope he gets here soon.
TUESDAY, JUNE 17
Relief, of a kind. Sophie is safe, if a little woozy due to the effects of a piercing-related infection. I am too angry to say much more. Besides, I must book my flight to Ibiza.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18
I will have to keep this brief. Tanya is coming around to drive me to the airport in fifteen minutes for my flight to Ibiza Town. Jeffrey left for work as usual this morning, as if for all the
world his only daughter were not holed up in some latter-day, sun-baked version of Gin Lane with a bolt of metal through her tongue. Just writing these words makes me shudder. I feel numb with shame and trepidation.
Sophie finally answered her mobile at three
P.M.
yesterday afternoon, after I had made the eco lodge director alert the French police, contacted Interpol, taken out an advertisement in the classified section of the
Daily Telegraph,
and wrenched approximately thirty-two hairs out of my head in desperation.
When she said hello she sounded as if she had a damp sock in her mouth. Her tone was dazed, then sheepish, then emotional. My relief was quickly subsumed by anger. She was not in the Ardèche valley. She was not even in the Loire, or the Tarn. She was in a flat in San Antonia, on a small, and by all accounts rampantly hedonistic, Spanish island that is not renowned for the rigor of its stickleback monitoring.