Quarter Past Two on a Wednesday Afternoon (40 page)

‘
What
phone call? Dad, tell me what happened, in order.’

They went into the kitchen, Don telling Anna that he’d spent the afternoon at Kathy and Malcolm’s, helping Malcolm to cut down conifers in their back garden. This had taken some while, but Don had kept an eye on his watch, having promised Sandra to be back in time for the meal with Anna. Malcolm drove him back, and he went indoors expecting to find her busy in the kitchen. ‘But the car wasn’t here. I thought at first she’d taken longer than expected, or forgotten something and gone back to Waitrose. Then I saw the bags of shopping. I couldn’t work out what on earth had happened. I went upstairs and saw the mess in our room – you can see – it looked like she’d been opening drawers, pulling things out in a hurry. At first I thought we’d been burgled, but her bag’s not here, or her keys. No car, either. So then I thought – God’ – he covered his hands with his face – ‘someone had broken in and forced her to drive off at knifepoint or something—’

‘Dad!’

‘– and I was about to call the police, when the phone rang and it was someone from the health centre, a physiotherapist – um, Phil, Phil Goss. He was concerned because he’d met her in the car park and she seemed upset. About two, this was. He’d phoned earlier, left two messages. Wanted to check she’d got home safely. He said something about knowing Roland.’

Anna tried to make sense of this. ‘He told her he knew Roland? That’s what upset her?’

‘I don’t know. He said she was already agitated when he first saw her. He tried to stop her but she ran off crying.’

‘Ran off
crying
? And you’ve no idea what …?’

Don shook his head, unable to speak.

Anna said, ‘Have you phoned the police?’

‘Yes – someone’s been round to take details, a WPC. But, I mean, it doesn’t sound very much, does it? A woman goes out unexpectedly.’

‘What can we do? Have you tried all her friends? The Oxfam shop?’

‘Yes, love. The shop was closed by that time but I found a number for Angela – she’s the manageress – but she hasn’t seen Sandra since last Friday. I don’t know what to do. There’s no point going out searching. She’s got the car – she could be anywhere. I should have gone shopping with her. I offered, but she said no.’

‘Don’t blame yourself, Dad,’ Anna told him. ‘You can’t be with her all the time. Something’s obviously been worrying her.’ She hesitated, wondering whether this was the time to drop the name Rosanna into the conversation, but only said, ‘You’ve tried her mobile, obviously?’

‘Yes,’ said Don, ‘and got voicemail. I left a message saying
Where are you? Phone as soon as you get this
.’

They stood for a moment, looking at the bags of shopping which Don had only half unpacked. He was staring at them hopelessly, breathing fast; Anna looked at him anxiously, afraid he might cry. It was so horribly like the day Rose left: trying to think of every possible explanation, assuring each other that nothing was amiss.

‘Dad,’ said Anna, ‘you finish this, and I’ll have a look round upstairs – see if I can work out what Mum was looking for.’

‘OK, love,’ said Don, with a little uplift of hope in his voice.

Upstairs Anna remembered Ruth’s joking remark that running away was a family trait. Had something tipped her mother into desperation? It’s as if she knew what I’ve found out, Anna thought, and she’s running away from it. But where to? Where would she go? Anna could only think of the unlikely explanation – no, impossible, surely – that her mother somehow knew where Rose was, and was heading for Cornwall.

In her parents’ bedroom a drawer was half open, a sweater thrown on the bed; the skirt and jacket her mother had presumably worn for work were behind the door, the jacket skewed on its hanger, one shoulder and sleeve drooping. In the wardrobe, other garments lay crumpled on the floor. Picking up the black court shoes strewn haphazardly on the carpet, Anna saw that they were crusted with dried mud. All this was so unlike her mother’s usual tidiness that some stranger might have entered the room to ransack her belongings.

Above the main part of the wardrobe was a cupboard space in which her parents stored their suitcases. Anna was looking now for the fabric holdall her mother had recently bought in the John Lewis sale, but it wasn’t there with the cases. In the bathroom only one toothbrush stood in the holder; her father must have missed that. Alarm clutched at Anna’s stomach as she registered this evidence that her mother hadn’t popped out for a minute, hadn’t gone to see a friend, hadn’t simply wandered off forgetfully, but had decided to leave. In a hurry.

It
must
be connected with Rose; Anna could think of nothing else. Had Rose decided to get in touch? Phoned, told their mother where she was? That seemed highly improbable, but maybe she’d done it on an impulse, or at Michael’s suggestion. What else would make sense?

Anna sat on the bed and picked up the mauve lambswool sweater discarded there. Holding it to her face she breathed in the smell of fine wool and a faint trace of light floral perfume. She tried to imagine herself as Mum, to enter into her thoughts, find out where they led. But how well did she really know her mother? She would have said that she knew her better than anyone; but she rarely thought about it, taking for granted that there would always be Mum and Dad, living in this comfortable house, here whenever she felt like returning. This woman who played the role of Mum had secrets, a past she desperately wanted to keep hidden.

How desperately? Enough to drive her to … Anna could hardly frame the thought, but she’d been here before – they all had, speculating about Rose, and the possibility of suicide—

A car was pulling up outside. Anna ran to the front bedroom, hoping to see the Audi with her mother at the wheel, but instead it was a police car. She clutched at the windowsill, her pulse beating in her ears. Two policewomen got out of the car and walked towards the front door. She’s dead, Anna thought: they’ve come to tell us she’s been found. She’s killed herself or smashed the car into a tree. This is the last moment of not knowing.

She went downstairs on unsteady legs, to open the door before her father did.

‘Ms Taverner?’ said one of two smart young women who stood there. ‘Is Mr Taverner here?’

She was half smiling: surely she wouldn’t look like that if—

‘Yes. Come in.’

‘What is it?’ Don was in the kitchen doorway, a hand to his chest, prepared for bad news.

‘Mrs Taverner’s been found! She’s quite all right, only a bit shocked and confused. She’s at Heathrow.’

‘At—?’

‘She was trying to get on a flight to Sydney, to visit her daughter.’

‘Her daughter?’ Don echoed. ‘But this is our daughter, here. Or – no – she couldn’t have meant
Rose
?’ He looked at Anna. ‘Has something made her think Rose is in Sydney?’

The WPC nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what she said – Rosanna. Don’t worry, she’s being looked after, and she can be brought home by police car, unless you’d rather go and pick her up yourselves?’

‘We’ll go,’ Don said at once. ‘Oh, but the car’s not here.’

‘I’ll phone for a taxi,’ Anna said.

‘Or’ – Don was hurriedly picking up wallet, keys and jacket – ‘Martin could come. He said he would.’

‘What? When?’

‘I rang him when I couldn’t get hold of you, earlier.’

There wasn’t time to stop and examine this. ‘No,’ Anna said, ‘it’ll take ages for him to get here. Quicker by taxi. We’ll stop at a cash machine.’

It took several phone calls before she could find a taxi firm able to do the Heathrow run at short notice, but at last they were on the M25 heading west. It was late enough for rush-hour congestion to be over, and the traffic was flowing well; they should be there within the hour. Don had been quite baffled by what the policeman said, as was Anna – but she had to disabuse him of the idea that Rose had been discovered in Sydney.

‘Dad,’ she said carefully. ‘It’s not Rose who’s in Australia. I think Mum was talking about someone else.’

And now she’s not going anywhere. What was she thinking? Why, for a second, had she imagined she could get on a plane and fly to the other side of the world?

Arriving at Heathrow, finding the car park, making her way to the terminal, she thought she’d done it, escaped. She’s got her passport, her bank card, a few clothes in her holdall – all she needs is a ticket.

But, at airline ticket sales, the girl says, ‘No. I’m afraid we have no standby tickets for that flight.’

‘The next one, then.’

‘I’ll check for you. Have you got your visa?’

‘Visa? You mean my bank card?’ She fumbles at the catch of her bag.

‘You need a tourist visa to travel to Australia,’ the girl says patiently.

‘A visa,’ Cassandra repeats. ‘No. I didn’t know. How do I get one of those?’

Had she thought it was like getting on a bus? There are obstacles in her way, obstacles she must somehow get past.

‘You’ve got to let me go,’ she pleads. ‘Please! I’ve got my card, I can pay. Can’t I get the visa here?’

Someone is standing behind her, a man, shifting his weight from one foot to another. He’ll have to put up with it. She’s got to persuade them to let her go.

‘I’m sorry, madam,’ says the girl, behind the mask of a perfectly made-up face. ‘You can’t travel to Australia without a visa. You can do it online and it’ll be electronically linked to your passport. It’s only twenty pounds. It’d be better to book your ticket online as well, then you’ll be sure of getting a seat.’

Cassandra’s mind blurs. Panic trembles through her, clutches at her chest.

‘All right, madam?’ The girl gives her a bland smile and a flash of white teeth. Already she is looking, with a bright enquiring expression, at the waiting man, who gives Cassandra a scathing look and then a huff as, instead of moving out of his way, she stands there with tears rolling down her cheeks. The airport is a gateway through which she must pass, and she doesn’t know the rules, the password. She gives a loud sob, and covers her face with her hands.

Next moment someone has appeared beside her, taking her arm and moving her to one side, asking what’s wrong. It’s another of the smart girls, so immaculately made up that she looks like a Barbie doll, but this one has kind blue eyes and a gentle voice. Cassandra is trembling as she tries to explain. ‘My daughter’s in Sydney,’ she keeps repeating. ‘Zanna. I’ve got to get to Sydney,’ and this girl listens intently, and nods, and says, ‘I see.’ Something about her sympathy makes Cassandra’s tears flow unchecked. They’re moving off somewhere now, and people are staring, but soon they’re away from the concourse and in a room with high windows and low chairs and a water-cooler. The girl brings a cup of iced water, which she gulps gratefully; soon someone else comes in, an older woman in a different uniform, and asks her a great many questions.

‘So – Cassandra, is it? Are you on your own? Did anyone bring you? How did you get here? You’ve got a daughter in Sydney and you want to go and see her. Is she expecting you?’

‘Yes!’ Cassandra snatched gratefully at the mention of her daughter. ‘I haven’t seen her for ages, but we email each other. I told her I’d get there somehow. She’s expecting a baby, you see. I’m sorry to cause such a lot of trouble.’ She is shivering now with the sense that she’s behaved idiotically, embarrassingly.

The nice blue-eyed girl leaves, and someone else brings tea and biscuits, and the policewoman – is she a policewoman? – talks into her phone. Soon Cassandra feels her eyelids dropping with weariness, and the woman finds her a cushion and a blanket, and helps her to get comfortable.

When she wakes, Don’s beside her, saying he’s come to take her home.

Oddly, it’s begun to seem quite normal: a matter of practicalities, of getting themselves back to Sevenoaks. It’s taken some while to find the car, but they’re on their way, Don driving, Anna in the back. Cassandra, in the passenger seat, looks at the motorway in darkness, white headlights curving towards them, red lights streaming away: a double necklace of light around a wide bend.

They haven’t talked much. ‘You have a doze, love,’ Don told her as they set off. ‘We’ll soon have you home.’ For a while she did sleep, nodding against the clutch of her seat belt, but she woke with a crick in her neck and now she is wakeful but silent, registering that Don is driving her home, and he doesn’t seem angry with her for acting as if she’s completely deranged.

‘Are you warm enough, love?’ he asks, and she nods.

‘I’ve been so stupid, haven’t I? I’m so sorry. I don’t know what got hold of me.’

‘I know about Rosanna. Anna told me.’ He inclines his head towards the back seat. ‘I’m glad she did. Oh, love, if only you’d told me years ago.’

She sits silent for a few moments, then, before she’s decided to speak, words burst out of her. ‘I’m fed up with it! I’ve put up with it for too long, and I’ve had enough!’

‘I know, love. It’s been a strain, we know that—’

‘Don’t patronize me!’ The voice doesn’t even seem to be hers; a loud, strong voice, vibrating with fury. ‘Don’t talk in that maddening soothing way! What century are we in, for God’s sake? Why should I be made to feel like a fallen woman in a – in a Victorian melodrama? What did I do that was so terrible? I’ve been paying for it all my life, all my
life
—’

‘Mum, Mum—’

She has forgotten Anna’s with them in the back, so quiet till now.

Don shoots her an outraged look, flickeringly illuminated by sweeping headlights. ‘No one’s saying any of that! How could I, when I didn’t know? How could I understand, how could I help, when you kept everything to yourself?’

‘You know now!’ she yells back. ‘And you’ll have to get used to it, because this is me.
This
is
me
! Whether you like it or not—’

Don swerves over to the hard shoulder and stops. She hears the
click, click
of the warning lights, and sees the flashing red triangle on the dashboard.

‘I can’t drive with you screaming at me,’ he says, in a tone of infuriating calm.

‘Mum, it’s all right,’ says Anna, leaning forward from the back seat. ‘Let’s get home – then you can rest. There’s plenty of time to talk. We love you, you know we do.’