Stage Fright (9 page)

Joe slipped his glasses back in the breast pocket of his linen jacket.

‘Know when I
really
began to feel middle aged?' he asked. ‘When I realized that I'd overtaken Elvis.'

‘Overtaken Elvis?'

‘He was forty-two when he died. That was always a kind of benchmark for me somehow.'

‘I'm closing on it fast.'

‘Comes to us all.'

‘You've still got your collection of fifties and sixties singles?'

‘You bet.'

A waiter arrived with the wine and mineral water. When he'd gone, I said:

‘Do you remember when John Lennon died?'

‘Yeah.' His face grew thoughtful.

In my mind's eye I saw a tiny kitchen in a flat in Birmingham; I was washing up, Joe drying. The radio was on the windowsill. I reached over and switched it on just in time for us to hear the news. I could see Joe now, standing stock-still, the tea towel in his hand, his mouth open in surprise and dismay.

‘December 1980,' he said. He poured out two glasses of wine. ‘You know, I don't live far from the Dakota Building. Just a few blocks away. Riverside Drive.'

‘You must have done all right for yourself.'

He grinned. ‘I've done OK. But so have you. You're head of department, aren't you? Plenty of hits when I looked you up on the web. Books, conference papers, articles. Short-listed for an award a couple of years ago. You're a big noise in nineteenth-century fiction.'

We chatted about academic life. The waiter brought our main courses.

‘How are you settling into St John's?' I asked.

‘Oh, OK. But it's awfully quiet. Hardly anyone about.'

‘Cambridge
is
quiet in August. Virtually all of my colleagues at St Etheldreda's are away.'

‘And the academics I do bump into seem a little on the reserved side – even to me – and I'm from Boston. I'm finding it kind of lonely.'

‘They're funny places, Cambridge colleges. Do you know the limerick about St John's?'

He shook his head.

‘There was a young man of St John's, Who wanted to roger the swans, “Oh, no”, said the porter, “Make free with my daughter, But the swans are reserved for the dons.”'

Joe laughed.

‘They don't take deference quite so far these days,' I added.

Joe gestured towards the wine, I shook my head and he poured another glass for himself.

‘So you haven't brought your family with you?' I said.

The pause was just long enough for me to realize that this might have been a tactless question.

‘Amy's taken the kids to her parents in Florida. Her folks retired there.' He hesitated. ‘Actually, we're, well, we're separated.'

From the way he said it, I guessed that this was recent.

‘I'm sorry.'

He shrugged. ‘Ah, well.'

An awkward silence was broken by my mobile phone ringing.

‘I'm sorry,' I said, delving inside my handbag, ‘I hate it when people do this, but I think I'd better get it. I'm expecting to hear from Stephen. He's in LA—'

‘LA?' Joe's eyebrows shot up.

But it wasn't Stephen. It was Stan.

‘Cass, we've got a problem. It's Melissa. There was a one-thirty call for a run-through of Act Two. She hasn't turned up. We've tried ringing the cottage but there's no reply.'

‘Her mobile?'

‘Switched off.'

‘What about the nursery?'

‘Kevin's tried there. She was supposed to drop Agnes off at one o'clock but she didn't show.' I heard a murmur of voices in the background. ‘Look, Kevin wants to have a word with you.'

There a moment's pause while the phone was handed over. Then I heard Kevin's voice.

‘Hi, Cass. I don't suppose that there's anything to worry about. Perhaps she went back to bed and fell asleep … she might have unplugged the phone so as not to disturb Agnes. But the thing is I wasn't able to contact her earlier on either.'

I thought he was trying to sound unconcerned, but he couldn't conceal the anxiety in his voice. I began to feel uneasy, too. Melissa was a professional down to her fingertips. Being late for rehearsal was so unlike her.

‘I was wondering,' he said. ‘Could you possibly pop over and see if she's all right?'

‘Pop over?' Across the table from me Joe was pouring himself another glass of wine. Then I understood what Kevin meant. ‘But Kevin, I'm not at home. I'm still in Cambridge. I'm having lunch with a friend.'

‘Oh, I see.' He sounded downcast.

I looked at my watch. ‘Look, I've got to pick Grace up from the nursery soon anyway. I can be back there in, oh, say three quarters of an hour.'

‘You angel. You're sure? I mean, more than likely, she'll turn up here before long, but if you're going home anyway…'

‘I'll ring you when I get there, OK?'

I put the phone away. Joe was looking at me sympathetically. ‘Trouble back at the ranch?' he said.

I screwed up my napkin and put it on the table. ‘It's probably nothing, but Melissa, she's taking the leading role in
East Lynne,
she hasn't turned up at the rehearsal and she lives near me, she's got a baby the same age—'

‘Hey, you don't have to explain. You need to check it out. You go right ahead.'

‘You don't mind? I'll have to show you the theatre another time.'

‘We're old friends, aren't we? Of course I don't mind. I'll have a coffee and read the paper.'

I gathered my things together and got up from the table. Still I hesitated.

‘You're sure?'

He spread his hands. ‘Of course. There's plenty of time. I'm here until Christmas. And my diary isn't exactly full.'

‘You must come over and have a meal.'

‘I'd really like that.'

As I pushed past his chair, he took hold of my hand to delay me for a moment. ‘It's been great seeing you, Cass.'

‘You, too.' We smiled at each other.

With a little sigh he released me.

*   *   *

The crunch of my tyres on the gravel was loud through the open window. I pulled up outside Melissa's cottage and got out of the car, leaving Grace asleep in the back. I rang the door bell and listened to the sound reverberating inside the house. No one came. I tried the door. It was locked. There was only one small window on this side of the house and the curtains were closed; the glass panel in the front door was covered by a blind.

I walked back along the drive and through a gate into the garden. I crossed the lawn to the french windows. Putting my hand up to shade my eyes, I peered in through a crack in the curtains. I couldn't see much. I went further on round the corner of the house and tried the back door. That was locked too. The dustbin was lying on its side and rubbish was strewn around: coffee grounds, tea-bags, potato peelings. Odd that Melissa hadn't cleared that up.

I went back to the car. Grace had fallen asleep on the drive over, but she was stirring now and she would soon want feeding.

I picked the phone off the passenger seat and rang the theatre.

‘She's not here,' I told Kevin.

‘She hasn't shown up here, either – and her mobile's still off. Oh God, where can she be? Has her car gone?'

‘Well, it's not in the drive.'

‘Have you checked the garage?'

‘I'll do that now.'

I made my way along the drive, my feet sinking into the gravel. The garage was a few feet beyond the end of the house. It was the old-fashioned sort with a corrugated iron roof and double doors. I turned the handle and pulled one of the doors open. There was a fresh oil-stain in the middle of the concrete floor and there was a shelf on which rested a set of spanners and a petrol can. But that was all.

‘It's empty.' I told Kevin. ‘What now?'

‘I don't know what to think…'

‘Perhaps she's had an accident on the way into work.'

‘I'll ring the hospital…'

‘Wait a minute. I thought I heard something.' I held the phone away from my ear and turned my head towards the house. The house and the garden and the car with Grace in the back lay silent in the heat. A single fluffy white cloud drifted across the vault of the sky. There wasn't a soul in sight, but it's never completely quiet in the country. The rustle of the breeze in the beech hedge and the distant rumble of a train served simply to emphasize the cottage's isolation.

‘It's nothing,' I said.

And then I heard the sound that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

It was the thin, high wail of a baby. And it was coming from inside the house. For a few seconds I just stood and listened, waiting for the crying to change and subside, somehow expecting that someone would go to her. From the phone close to my ear Kevin was saying:

‘Cassandra, what's happening? What is it?'

The crying continued; it settled into a rhythmic bawling, as if Agnes was pausing only to catch her breath.

‘There's something wrong,' I said. ‘It's Agnes. She's inside the house and she's shrieking her head off.'

‘Agnes is in the house? On her own?'

‘Can't you hear her?'

‘But where's Melissa? She must have been taken ill or something, she'd never leave Agnes—'

‘Is there a spare key somewhere?'

‘Oh, God, oh, God, yes, there is. Let me see … where exactly? Yes, go into the garden shed. There's a row of jamjars on a shelf. One of them is full of nails. Look in the third or fourth along. There's a key to the back door buried in it.'

‘I'll ring you when I'm in the house.' I closed up the phone.

Grace was beginning to grizzle. I thought of leaving her alone in the car, but I didn't want to do that. The crying baby, the lonely countryside, the locked house: it was all giving me the jitters. I wanted Grace with me. I unbuckled the car seat – it was heavy but at a pinch it could be used as a carrier – and went back through the garden, past the french windows and round the corner of the house.

The shed was opposite the back door and shared a paved area with it. It was cool and dim inside and very neat: implements hung on the wall, plant-pots were arranged according to size. I tipped the nails out of the jamjar on to the floor and spread them out. The key was one of those old-fashioned ones with a long shank.

I stepped out into the sunshine, squinting in the glare. I struggled for a few moments with the key. There was a click, but even then the door didn't open. I shook it. It rattled but held firm. Bolted from the inside, I guessed. I didn't bother ringing Kevin. I went back into the garden shed and looked around for something to wrap round my arm. There weren't any sacks, so I made do with half a dozen black plastic bin-liners. I put Grace in the middle of the lawn well out of the way, and pulled the wooden garden-bench up to the kitchen window. When I broke the glass, the sound startled me – and Grace, too. She let out an indignant yell. I opened the window and climbed through. There was the sound of breaking glass again as my foot caught a tumbler on the draining board and knocked it on to the tiled floor. Ten seconds later I was standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, breathing heavily. I brushed myself down and looked around.

The washing-up from the night before hadn't been done and the kitchen smelt stale. I went to the back door and unbolted it. Grace was crying now and my breasts were aching in sympathy. I'd have to feed her soon. I collected her from the lawn and went through the house into the sitting-room. The sight of our tea mugs still on the coffee table in front of the sofa added to my sense of unease.

Over my head Agnes paused for a moment in her wailing. She resumed it on a slightly different note.

I put Grace in her carrier in the middle of the floor. When she realized that I was leaving her there, her face crumpled up and she began to yell. The stairs were steep and dark, lit only by a shaft of sunlight that came from the partly open door of the main bedroom. I was half-way up when my telephone rang. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I fished it out of the pocket of my shirt and answered it. It was Kevin.

‘Cass, what's happening? Are you in the house? Is Agnes all right?'

‘Oh, Christ, Kevin. I've only just got in. I had to break the window. Hang on.'

I went into Agnes's room. When she saw me the yells subsided into hiccuping sobs. She was red in the face. She lifted up her arms and whimpered. I went over and lifted her out of her cot. She grabbed my shirt with both hands and nuzzled into me. Holding the hot little body close against my shoulder, I went into Melissa and Kevin's bedroom. The duvet had been thrown back as if Melissa had just got out of bed. A faint scent of roses hung in the air. I went back on to the landing and opened the bathroom door. That room was empty, too. I put my hand on a bath towel that trailed down from the towel-rail. It was dry.

I went back into the larger bedroom and sat down on the bed. I got out the phone again.

‘Kevin. I've got Agnes. I think she's OK. But Melissa's not here.'

‘You mean – she's left Agnes on her own?' Kevin sounded incredulous. ‘She wouldn't do that! She must be there somewhere. Have you looked?'

‘Of course I have!' Agnes had got hold of a fold of my shirt and was mumbling it in her mouth. Downstairs Grace was bellowing with rage.

‘But where is she?' Kevin persisted.

‘Stop asking me that! I don't know where she is! It's like the
Marie Celeste.
You'd better get over here.'

Chapter Seven

I was sitting on the sofa in the sitting-room with Grace at my breast and Agnes propped up beside me asleep, when Stan's car drew up. A door slammed and a moment later Kevin erupted into the room. Stan followed more slowly.

‘She hasn't come back,' Kevin said.