The Missing One (17 page)

‘Then,' she raises her chin, ‘how did you find me?'

‘Oh. I came across your name and – well, I was on a sort of trip to Vancouver and I just thought I'd … it was a bit of an impulse really. I meant to speak to you first, of course.'

‘An impulse?'

‘I'm really sorry. Look. You're completely right, I only came tonight, like this, because I was stuck. If I could just borrow your phone … My phone's run out of battery.'

She holds up her hand. ‘It's all right, Kali,' she says. I want to ask her to call me Kal, because nobody calls me Kali, but it seems unwise to correct her at this point.

She turns and walks down the corridor. She opens a
closet and I watch her hang up my coat, then hang Finn's red suit on a peg. She rests both hands briefly on the downy fabric of his hood. Then she bends from the knee, keeping her spine straight, to put my boots on a shoe rack. She stands back up, and kicks the door shut with one leg.

She seems less frosty now that the coats are dealt with, more relaxed, as if she's decided to be nice. ‘Well. This is kind of a surprise, Kali, I've got to tell you,' she pauses. ‘Your mother is a long-ago friend.'

I try to smile.

‘OK, so you're here. You're here. And of course you're exhausted. What can I get you? Is the little guy hungry?' She looks right at Finn, and smiles, but only with her mouth. Then slowly she reaches out a hand towards him. He sees it coming, and shrinks into me, burying his face in my chest.

‘He's a bit shy,' I say. ‘And very, very tired.'

‘Would he like a cookie?' she asks. ‘Some milk?'

‘I'm sure he would like milk, wouldn't you, love?'

But again, she just stands, without moving, her eyes fixed on Finn now. She is tall, erect and broad-shouldered. Her irises really are disconcertingly pale.

‘What did your mother tell you about me, Kali?' That harder voice again.

‘Actually, she didn't say much at all.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes, nothing really.'

‘But she told you where to find me.'

‘Actually, I just googled your name.'

She seems confused by this; her brows knit as if she's
thinking hard. I stroke Finn's hair out of his eyes. Maybe I should just come right out with it as she clearly isn't going to let it go.

‘Well, I don't get many visitors out here in January. No one comes to this island in January. Most of the locals aren't even here in winter. You can come here for a whole week at this time of year and not see further than the end of your nose. But you're here. You're here. So, hey, Kali, sit. Sit. Don't mind the dogs – they won't hurt the baby. Sit. Right there, you sit on the sofa. I'll get cookies and milk, and a glass of wine. I guess we could both do with one, huh?' She looks at me intently. ‘This really is kind of a shock.'

The dogs stand and watch her as she goes into the kitchen. They smell of seawater, almost fishy, and they pant rhythmically as if they've been running. They are indistinguishable, twins with amber eyes and matching blond coats. I realize they are guarding me, like two shiny gaolers, keeping me on the sofa but watching the archway into the kitchen, where Susannah is moving around.

I can see hanging pans and a white range cooker, but she is out of sight. I hear a cupboard open, then shut. Finn wriggles himself into a more comfortable position on my lap and I kiss the top of his head, ‘There, love, you get sleepy now. It's OK.' I need to get the number of a B & B before it's too late to call. And I need to charge up my phone. But the charger is in my bag in the car outside.

A gust of wind comes down the chimney, making the fire flicker and smoke billow briefly into the room. I stroke Finn's hair again. He has relaxed a bit now she's gone. The
warmth from the fire is calming and I can feel from the way he holds his head, as if the muscles in his neck can't quite do their job, that he is not far from sleep. Gently, I ease it against my shoulder, and he doesn't resist.

I think about the ocean stretching and heaving out there beneath the fog, thousands of miles of it. I remember the magazine article saying how exposed this house is, perched on a high rock. I cup Finn's cheek in my hand, and decide to focus on the room rather than on what's outside it.

Art books, newspapers and magazines spill over the low table –
The New York Times, The New Yorker
, the
Vancouver Sun, Time
magazine,
National Geographic
, a coffee-table book about Dale Chihuly, a Seattle glass artist; another about whales.

I remember seeing an exhibition of Chihuly once at the Tate Modern, absurd glass concoctions in gruesome psychedelic colours. There is a globular sculpture behind the sofa opposite me; a striking deep-red glass orb, like something from a dream of blood. I wonder if it is a Chihuly. It looks familiar, as if it has materialized from my own subconscious.

Then something whacks against the windows behind me with a thud. I jerk and spin round. Finn's head flies up, and, wild-eyed, he lets out a cry. The room reflects back at us and it is a moment before I realize that I am looking at a pair of hungry yellow eyes, pressed to the glass, fixed on us. I scramble to my feet, clutching Finn against me. The dogs jump up.

‘You OK?' She comes back in, carrying a glass of red wine and a small plate. ‘Down!' she growls at the dogs. They lie down.

‘I … I saw … ' I point, wordlessly, towards the window and a sort of hissing sound comes out of my mouth. Finn starts to sob. I search for the eyes again, but they have vanished. And then I realize that – of course – it must have been the reflection of one of the dogs. The noise was a gust of wind. I hold Finn close, swaying gently side to side. I really do have to calm down. ‘Shhhh, it's OK. Silly Mummy. It's OK. Just the wind. Everything's OK.' His cries subside quickly.

Susannah hands him a cookie. He slowly reaches out a hand and takes it from her. His face is blotchy, and his eyes are red-rimmed. His fleece, I notice, is stained from the ketchup he splattered over himself at the ferry port. His hair is knotted and wild at the back. His fingernails are filthy. I see Susannah notice all this, as he takes the cookie. A look of profound sadness, perhaps longing, passes across her face as she watches him nibble. I remember the article mentioned that she has a grown-up son.

I look down at the dogs, and they both turn their eyes up at me without moving their heads.

‘Pretty cruel weather, huh?' She hands me a glass of red wine. I put it on the coffee table, and then sit down again, positioning Finn on my lap. ‘We get crazy wind storms up here.'

She goes back into the kitchen and comes out with a mug and a glass of wine for herself. She hands me the mug. ‘I warmed his milk up just a little,' she said.

‘Thank you.' I hesitate. ‘Actually, I should just probably put the milk into a sippy cup.' I rifle through my bag. ‘I have one – he'll make a terrible mess if I give him milk in a mug.'
I am not sure how I'm going to pour the milk from mug to sippy cup with one hand. Plus, the sippy cup really needs washing, it's been at the bottom of my bag all day and has old milk in it, or juice, I'm not sure which – maybe both.

‘Oh. Sure. Of course,' she says. ‘It's been a while since I had a little one in the house. Here, that thing needs a wash. Give it to me.' She thrusts out her hand for the sippy cup and mug, and takes them back to the kitchen. I hear her washing the cup. I wish I had done it myself – she'll think I'm negligent to have such a filthy cup. I wonder if I should go through and help, rather than just sitting here. But Finn is getting very sleepy and if I move he will start to complain.

‘Thanks!' I call after her. ‘Thanks a lot.'

A few moments later she comes back, and hands the clean cup of milk to Finn.

‘So, welcome. Welcome to Spring Tide Island.' Standing above us, she lifts her glass. ‘Cheers.'

I take mine from the coffee table. The wine smells like vinegar.

‘Have you lived here a long time?' I ask.

‘Thirty-odd years.' She sits, at last, on the sofa opposite mine with the red orb behind her. ‘Almost your lifetime, I guess. How old are you now? Wait … thirty-nine in February, right?'

‘Yes, actually, wow, that's right.' I can't imagine how she would remember my birthday.

‘I can't believe it's been thirty-eight years.' She blinks. ‘It doesn't feel any time ago.'

I want to ask her more, but it is too soon, of course, to go into any of that. I want to ask why my mother was always so unpredictable on my birthday – was my birth that traumatic? My birthdays seemed to make her so sad and withdrawn, even when she tried to be cheerful. Alice's birthdays, in contrast, were uncomplicated and joyful. Susannah is watching me. It's too soon to roll out my own psychodrama.

I pick up the wine again. My body feels a bit odd, as if my cells are all beginning to tilt the wrong way. A shiver trails across my back like the fingertips of a ghost. I am, I realize, profoundly tired. I put the wine down again.

Susannah has tucked one leg under her. She sits upright, and the hand holding her glass rests on the arm of the sofa. Nestled in my lap, Finn sucks loudly at his milk cup.

She looks younger than sixty, if that's how old she is; solid and toned. My mother, who gardened and walked in the countryside every day, was fit until the cancer hit, and always strong, but Susannah's edges are somehow harder.

‘I've got to tell you, Kali, it's kind of a shock to have you just turn up on my doorstep – with this … this child.' Her pale eyes meet mine. ‘Why didn't you call? Did you think I wouldn't see you?'

‘I did call,' I say, yet again. ‘I just suppose you never got the message. And then the B & B was shut and—'

‘Yes.' She cuts me off. ‘You said.'

We look at each other for a moment or two and I am sure she thinks I'm lying about the B & B – though I have no idea why. The wind slams against the windows again and I jump.
Finn's head jerks up. ‘It's OK,' I murmur. ‘Shhhhhh. Just the wind.' I want her to stop staring at us.

‘It's a long way to bring such a small child.'

‘I know. Look, I really didn't plan to be doing this – coming here like this, I mean. If you had the numbers of some B & Bs … I should call one.'

‘Kali,' she interrupts. ‘Why don't you just tell me why you brought … the … him here.'

‘It's just Kal, people tend to just call me Kal,' I say. ‘I've never really been Kali. Anyway – well, I just – I think I already said this – I came here because I was in Vancouver. I wanted to meet you and thought it would be fun to see the island. I'm … I'm curious. I was hoping to find out more about my mother, and who she was before she had me and I thought the two of you were probably good friends at one time.'

‘Oh.' She nods. ‘We certainly were.'

‘Well, great.' I feel a rush of excitement. ‘That's great. She never said much about her time in America. And I'd really like to know a bit more about that, and her childhood, and what it was like, when she had me.'

She narrows her eyes. ‘You came because you want to know about your
birth
?'

‘My birth? Well, yes, among other things – I suppose so.'

‘And you can't ask your mother about any of this?'

We look at each other and I feel my face get very hot. She tucks her chin in, as if she's been slapped. She nods to herself, sharply, twice. As she looks at her wine glass the corners of her mouth drop.

‘Elena died,' she says, quietly. ‘Didn't she?'

I nod. Then out of nowhere, I think I might cry. I straighten up and look down at the top of Finn's head. I can't allow myself to fall apart. Not here. Not with this woman.

She holds herself upright and her expression is glassy. I can't work out whether she's also struggling to keep herself together, or whether this is just a routine sadness at the loss of someone she was once close to.

Eventually she looks at me. Her pale eyes glisten. ‘I'm sorry for your loss, Kali. And for Graham too … ' She forgets to mention Alice.

The dogs get up and go to her. They settle, one on her foot, the other alongside the sofa.

‘I'm really sorry – I honestly didn't intend to just blurt it out like that. I wasn't planning to … '

Her nostrils flare. ‘So you came because you wanted to break the news in person?'

I wonder why she'd think that I would bring my toddler five thousand miles to tell her, a complete stranger, that a friend she hasn't seen in thirty-eight years has died. ‘Well, no,' I say. ‘I just thought it would be interesting to meet you.'

‘Interesting?' She looks as me at if my word choice is preposterous. ‘How did she die?' she snaps.

‘She had breast cancer.'

‘Oh.' She strokes a dog with her foot. ‘I have three friends with breast cancer right now. How is Gray doing?'

‘My father? Oh, he's OK. He's very sad, obviously, and quite lost, but he isn't one for talking about his feelings much so … ' I hesitate. ‘Do you know my father well, then?' I have never heard anyone call him Gray. Not even my mother,
who always called him Graham, though I remember that he signed himself Gray in that letter.

‘I knew Gray a long time ago, in California, but I haven't spoken to him in years. But you know all that, right? That's why you're here.' There is that icy tone again. She takes a gulp of the wine. ‘Shit. She was so young.'

I nod.

She launches herself from the sofa, and goes to the fireplace, bending to chuck another log on the fire. Sparks fly but she doesn't brush them off herself. She leans one hand against the fireplace. I can see her taking long, slow breaths.

‘My husband died of lung cancer.' Her expression becomes momentarily wild, her eyes too round, straining in their sockets.