Mothers & Daughters (32 page)

Clifton turned out to be a place of Georgian terraces set on hills. As we cruised along, counting off street names, I turned my head this way and that, hoping against sanity to catch a glimpse of Jaz and Matty. Was that Spar one she'd been in, buying milk, bread, bananas for Matty? Every young woman we passed had me leaning forward, eyes screwed up for maximum focus. If I could have conjured her through mere wanting, she'd have been there in an instant.

‘We're here,' said David as we turned down a lane of tall pastel houses. ‘Are you all right?'

I'd had my eyes closed for a moment, praying. ‘Not really.'

‘Shall I walk you across?'

‘No, I'll be fine. Watch for me, though.'

‘Of course.' He reached across and opened the door for me.

Tomasz won't be in, I thought. He'll still be at work or with friends or in town or whatever it is young men do these days. The desperation to see Jaz and Matty again was like the heel of a hand pressing against my throat. Let them be there, I thought. I'll do anything. Then: He won't be in, he won't be in. These games we play with fate, as if we have any control over anything.

The building that had looked smart from a distance was shabbier when you got close up, the lawn scraggy and full of weeds. Multiple buzzers and name tags revealed flats, not a single house. I pressed
Ramzinski
, and waited.

He was in. The door opened and a broad, good-looking blond man in an open-necked shirt hung onto the doorframe. ‘Yeah?' he said. An excited sports commentary boomed somewhere behind him.

The words were sticky in my mouth. ‘Is Jasmine in?'

His look told me she wasn't.

‘You are Tomasz Ramzinski?'

‘Yeah.'

‘I'm looking for Jaz Morgan.'

‘Jaz
? She isn't here. Why would she be?'

‘I'm her mother.' Knowing David was across the road, looking out for me, made me braver. ‘Has she been in touch? Do you know where she is?'

‘No, no idea. Don't know. Sorry, I can't help you.' He started to close the door.

‘Could I come in for just a minute?'

Tomasz looked doubtful.

‘Just for a minute, please. I won't keep you. I'm really desperate.'

He backed off enough for me to step up and inside, and we stood in the open hallway, eyeing each other.

‘I'll be blunt,' I said. ‘My daughter's missing and I'm concerned over her whereabouts.'

‘Shit,' he said, with a nod at sympathy. Behind him, the high ceiling was cracked between the coving and picture rail, and there was dust on the skirting, old flyers littering the floor tiles.

‘I know you were . . . involved at one point. When did you last speak to her?'

He shrugged. ‘Not for ages. Since she was going to get married. We used to email, but then she met this guy and it stopped. Nothing since then. We're talking, I dunno, maybe three years. When you say missing, is it, like, you should go to the police or something?'

I shook my head quickly. ‘We had a row. I only want to find her and say sorry. Know she's OK. She has a little boy. My grandson.'

‘Shit,' he said again.

‘Have you any idea at all where she might be?'

‘Nope.'

‘You can't think of anyone she might have gone to? Anyone from Leeds? Anyone you used to email about?'

He folded his muscular arms and leaned against the grubby wall. ‘God, I don't know. She used to hang about with a girl called Sam, ages back; no idea where she is, though.'

‘I know where Sam is.'

All at once I had his attention. He detached himself from the wall and let his arms drop to his sides. ‘Yeah? Holy fuck, where?'

‘She didn't go far. Headingly.'

‘No way! She left – did she come back, then?'

‘Evidently.'

‘Aw, for real?' He grinned and shook his head at the marvellous irony. ‘She doing all right?'

‘Yes, she's fine. She has a baby. But what I need to know is—'

‘A kid? No way.'

‘A little boy, yes. She seemed to be doing fine. But what I—'

‘How did you know where to find her?'

‘In my daughter's address book.'

‘What? Jaz had her address? All that time?' Tomasz's expression changed to one of disbelief. ‘Fucking hell. So when I was emailing her and Sam got mentioned and she said she didn't know – Fuck. Do you know it? Can you remember the house number and the street?'

I took a step forward. ‘What can you tell me about my daughter? What don't I know that might help me find her?'

His lips puckered round half-formed words as he weighed up the deal.

‘Come up,' he said.

What I saw first as I walked into his flat was a huge black and white photograph. It hung above the marble mantel, dominating the room: Tomasz, during a game of rugby, mid-pass. His fair hair flicked out as he turned to grasp the ball, and his jaw was set, the cords in his neck standing out. The thighs were rounded, straining against his shorts, and his boots dug into mud, a sliding pivot before his blurred team mates. It was a moment beautifully captured; when your own muscles react in sympathy, that's a good action shot. He saw me looking, and smiled briefly. He just likes the photo because it's of himself, I thought.

The rest of the room was decently furnished, but messy. He'd spread all the sections of a weekend newspaper across the floor, and there was a plate of crumbs beside it. Golf clubs leaned against the chimney-breast and a series of trophies lined the mantelpiece. The rest of the clutter was mainly magazines
and mugs and items of clothing. The sweater draped over the back of the chair was surely a woman's.

Tomasz muted the widescreen TV while I sat on the edge of his man-size sofa.

‘So how was she?' he said. ‘Is she married?'

For a mad second I thought he meant Jaz. ‘I'll give you Sam's address and you can see for yourself,' I said coldly, struggling to contain my temper.

He was scrabbling for a pen almost before I'd finished the sentence.

‘I can't believe Jaz never let on they were still in touch. I can't believe she kept it from me.' Then he paused, Biro in hand. ‘Actually, yeah, I can.'

I said: ‘You must know you hurt my daughter very much.'

‘We split up. People do. It's shit, but there you go.'

I was imagining myself unsheathing one of his golf clubs and swinging it full pelt against his TV screen, his portrait, his pretty face. ‘Sam told me about the abortion.'

He looked sick then.

‘What can I say?'

‘You can tell me why you didn't give her the support she needed. Why didn't you go with her?'

‘Where to?'

‘The clinic. It was your baby.'

‘She didn't want me to.'

‘I find that hard to believe,' I said. I watched his neck grow pinker, his eyes flick away from me.

‘She went with her personal tutor. That's who she wanted.'

‘Jaz wasn't on her own, then?'

‘No. She stayed with him and his wife afterwards.'

‘What: in his house?'

‘Yeah.'

‘How long for?'

‘A couple of days.'

‘What was his name? Where did he live?'

‘Dunno. Can't remember.'

I hate you, I thought. I hate you so much it's all I can do not to leap up and attack you. ‘How was she?'

‘OK.'

‘OK
? You're telling me that my daughter went through an operation as traumatic as that and she was
perfectly fine
with it?'

He shook his head in irritation. ‘I'm not saying it was nothing! I mean, it wasn't something she'd have chosen to go through, obviously, but she really wasn't that cut up about it. I think she saw it as something she had to get done. Like, like going to the dentist.' He saw my face, forestalled me. ‘Just, don't, yeah? Don't even say it. You might not want to hear all this, Mrs Morgan, but it's how it was, that's how it was for her. I was there, I saw. I fucking saw, right? She was strung out and pissed off, but she wasn't running round in tears.'

‘Some people show grief in different ways!'

‘Sure, but – honestly, Jaz wasn't that affected.'

‘So not affected she had a breakdown when she came home.'

‘Did she?' He looked properly taken aback then. ‘Shit. She never said. I didn't know that.'

‘Well, you wouldn't, would you? I presume you didn't bother contacting her in those months after she left Leeds, or you'd have known.'

Tomasz shifted, and hooked his thumbs defensively in his jeans pockets.

‘Look, don't try and pin that on me. None of us were in touch at that time. I don't know what Sam told you, but the three of us got blown apart. It all just went – it was a fucking mess. Jaz didn't want to see me. Boy, did she not want to see
me. Then Sam disappeared off the map. Then I start getting emails from Jaz again, then a couple of years down the line she meets this bloke she wants to marry and I'm dropped again. Seems to me like she was the one calling the shots. Took me all my time just to keep up with her.'

‘Then why was she so desperately upset? Why did she lie in bed for weeks and need me to help get her up and dressed every day as though she was some kind of invalid? Tell me that!'

As I sat looking up at him, trembling with rage, he only shook his head pityingly. ‘You really don't get your daughter at all, do you?' Then he walked away from me so he was standing in front of the hearth, underneath his own vast image.

‘It was Andy Spicer dying,' he said. ‘Did Sam fill you in on that stuff?'

‘But that wasn't Jaz's fault!'

‘Not that Sam knew, really, not the whole story. I'll tell you why Jaz was wrecked over it: because she thought she was responsible.'

I tried again to protest, but he spoke right over me, his tone low and dangerous.

‘And she was responsible, in a way. Those two, her and Sam, teasing him and drawing him in. Big old joke that was. Then – and this is the bit Sam doesn't know, God help her – Jaz went round to his flat and spun him this lie about how Sam really did love him, and if he went back and crawled to her, she'd be his for the taking. Totally set the poor bastard up. 'Cause he was like, he was really into her – into Sam, I mean. Then afterwards, the two of them were laughing about him to his face.
To his face
, Mrs Morgan. Within his hearing, anyway.'

‘They didn't know he was going to—'

‘No, none of us did. None of us did.' His face creased up in
disgust. I could only guess what scenes he was playing out in his head.

‘And you didn't tell anyone about what Jaz had said to this boy?'

‘For fuck's sake, it was enough of a mess!'

I was floundering, trying to imagine why she'd have done something so cruel. Whatever I didn't understand about her, I knew she was never like that. It must have been Sam's fault, or Tomasz's, or maybe she thought this Andy really did stand a chance. His parents standing in a courtroom to hear how he died. Maybe the whole tale was all lies, from start to finish.

‘Did Jaz love you very much?' I heard myself say.

Tomasz exhaled raggedly, the breath of someone struggling to contain themselves in the face of unbelievable provocation, and for a moment I experienced a flicker of fear. But then he shrugged and half-turned away towards his row of shiny trophies. He said, ‘We were really young, everything was weird – you could never tell who was being serious.'

Did you love her
? I wanted to ask, but I didn't dare. I think I knew the answer.

‘Anyway, that's all there is,' he said, facing me again, straightening his back aggressively. ‘I've told you everything I can think of, whether you like it or not. Can I have Sam's address now?'

Your version, I thought, that's what you've told me. I took the pad of paper he'd placed on the sofa arm and scribbled something down off the top of my head. There was no way I was letting him near Sam's little boy. I'd have liked to tear the page out, screw it into a tight ball and throw it at him, but I was afraid that once I gave full vent, I'd not be able to stop. The moment I'd put my pen down, Tomasz lunged and snatched the pad off me, scanning it greedily.

‘Are you sure this is right?' he snapped.

‘Quite sure.'

I wondered whether he could tell I was lying, and what he might do to me if he guessed.

‘Good. Get out, then.'

I stood up, and tottered towards the door.

‘Oh, and Mrs Morgan,' I heard him say behind me. ‘One last thing. When you leave here, yeah, go to the end of the street, turn left, and then
fuck off out of my life
.'

‘Drive,' I said to David as I closed the car door. He revved the engine the way they do in cop shows, and the car shot forward.

‘Where?' he said.

I didn't answer.

We travelled through wide and gracious streets that took us gradually upwards. On another day it would have been pleasant to look out at the cream-coloured houses with their balconies and hanging baskets, the shops with their striped awnings, but my vision was all poisoned with Tomasz.

After a few minutes, David pulled in under a line of trees, braked, and switched off the engine. ‘Come here,' he said, turning in his seat. I leaned across and he gathered me in against his chest.

‘She wasn't there,' he said.

‘No.'

‘Have you found out where they are?'

‘No.'

‘Do you want to tell me what happened?'

‘I can't, not all of it. He's a horrible man. Let me just—'

His grip tightened. ‘I'm sorry, Carol.'

‘For Ian, you mean.'

‘For all of us. For you.'

He went on holding me, and I imagined a pair of satellite
beams coming down, one on our car and one fixing Jaz wherever she was, like a mathematical compass. All it came down to was two points on a map; a simple straight line could connect us, if only I had that knowledge. Sometimes it's the straightforwardness of a situation that drives you mad.