Tideline (34 page)

‘It was his album, the Tim Buckley, Jez was going to pick up the day he went missing,’ says Mick.

‘I introduced him to Buckley of course,’ says Maria. ‘Though he likes to think it was his discovery. The arrogance of youth.’

She looks at me, her thin smile seeking some kind of connection. ‘It’s funny how teenagers think our music’s cool. He even plays my old LPs at home! I never liked my
parents’ music at that age. I guess we were the generation, we had it all. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. They’re envious. So they mimic us. But they don’t really understand it
the way we do.’

Tim Buckley. What was it Jez said about his music? The day he came to the River House? The day he played guitar to me as the afternoon grew dark, as he drained the red wine I should have saved
for Kit. How for him playing music was ‘just like talking’.

‘It’s like that for me too,’ Jez had said. ‘You teach people to express themselves with their voices. I play the guitar for the same reason.’ It was Jez’s way
of connecting with me, of acknowledging the uncanny way we understood each other. Maria’s got him wrong. Mothers never know their own children. Only I know the true Jez.

‘Maybe I should bring Maria round one day,’ Mick’s saying. ‘You’d like to see Sonia and Greg’s house, wouldn’t you, Maria?’

‘Of course. That’d be lovely,’ she says addressing me as if this were my idea. ‘Helen loves it too. She’s seen a bit of you lately, hasn’t she? You
didn’t see her last night, did you?’

‘I’ve already asked her,’ says Mick.

‘I’d say she was bloody thoughtless, going off like this on top of Jez,’ says Maria, ‘if we weren’t all so ragged with worry. You know Sonia, it’s a living
hell not knowing a thing. There’s a name for this . . . this grief. “Ambiguous loss”. There’s no closure. You don’t know when it will end. You keep on hoping, every
morning you awake thinking perhaps it’s over. Perhaps it was a dream. He’ll be there, in his bed. Then the slow realization, the fear, the dread in the pit of your stomach, it all
begins again.’

I can only nod.

‘Helen didn’t talk to you about him, did she? Because we’re seriously beginning to worry that perhaps . . .’

‘No, we’re not,’ says Mick.

‘But that text . . . and where was she last Friday? She won’t tell anyone. But that’s the day he disappeared!’

This is my chance. I swallow.

‘She told me she’d been going through a kind of crisis of confidence lately,’ I say. ‘Said it’s why she’s been drinking so much. Not feeling good
enough.’

‘That’s exactly what the police are worried about!’ Maria says. ‘It is, Mick! She’s been behaving very oddly. Thinks people are talking about her, criticizing her
at work.’

‘And you and I have agreed that one does look for someone to blame in these circumstances,’ says Mick. ‘We want an answer. People grasp at straws when they don’t have
anything to go by. That’s what the police are doing. And now you.’

‘Oh!’ Maria cries. I see that she’s volatile, her emotions seem to change by the minute. ‘Please try and see it from my point of view! How can you imagine I want to
suspect my own sister? It’s more painful for me than anyone. But when you add it all up, Helen’s always tried to compete with me. Jez’s interview was at the same place as
Barney’s and she knew Jez would get in. She’s so jealous, so competitive. And with the drinking, not always rational. I know how hard it is for you. But you have to face it,
Mick.’

‘I know, and you know, she’s got nothing to do with Jez’s disappearance.’

‘There’s a kind of sibling rivalry that’s always gone on between us,’ Maria says to me as if I couldn’t have worked that out for myself. ‘It goes back a long
way. You’d have to know the background. It’s not unreasonable to wonder whether having Jez to stay brought it all up again. The police may have a point. Ghastly though it is to think
about.’

‘We’ve hardly been behaving perfectly ourselves,’ says Mick glaring at her.

‘No one can be expected to behave perfectly when put under this kind of strain,’ Maria persists.

I’m aware of time passing, that I’ve left Jez alone in the music room for longer than I like to. I need to finish what I came to do after all.

‘All I can say, and I don’t know if it’s relevant, is that she asked me to lie about being at the Turkish baths with her that Friday.’

‘She asked you to lie?’

‘Yes.’

‘So she wasn’t at the baths. Did she tell you where she really was?’

I shrug. Helen would not want me to reveal that she was in a pub. So I don’t.

‘Oh God,’ says Mick. ‘This gets worse.’

The look he gives me is so forlorn I want to reassure him. But they need an explanation for Jez. And Helen is the perfect suspect. Only I can offer them the closure they so badly crave.

‘She was obsessed with the fact Jez’s ability on the twelve-string guitar would have given him an unfair edge over Barney for the music school,’ I say, warming to my task now.
‘Kept mentioning it. As if she couldn’t get it off her mind. She said Jez would have ruined Barney’s future. As if she was justifying something.’

I feel Maria’s eyes on me.

‘That’s very odd,’ she says. ‘Helen didn’t know about the twelve string. It was our secret trump card. For his interview. I made Jez promise me he’d keep it
secret.’

My mind whirrs. I’ve said too much.

‘Barney might have told her,’ suggests Mick.

‘No way,’ says Maria standing up, keeping her eyes on me. ‘There’s no way he would have let anyone, but especially Barney and Helen, know his plans on that
score.’

‘Well I’m afraid it’s what she said.’

She stares at me. ‘Did she tell you he’d actually started to learn it? When did Helen mention this?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘No, really. I need to know.’

I stare at her, speechless, willing myself to come up with something, anything. I try my best to conjure a voice to get me out of this. But I seem unable to form a word.

Then Maria speaks again. ‘Jez was going to borrow the Tim Buckley album from you that very day, wasn’t he? Forgive me for asking, Sonia, but why did you come here today?’

‘She’s concerned about Helen,’ says Mick.

‘Look.’ I find my voice at last. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sure Helen will turn up. I must go. Like I said to Mick, let me know if I can help.’

Back at the River House I go straight up to see Jez. Sit on his bed. Stand up again and pace the room. I pick up the twelve-string guitar.

‘You do play it, don’t you?’

‘I’ve only just begun to learn.’

‘It was a secret? Helen didn’t know?’

‘Ah. No. Mum didn’t want me to tell her. I promised her I wouldn’t, Sonia. What’s going on? Are you going to let me out? I’m better now. I could go.’

I go to the book-lined wall, stand on the footstool, look out of one of the high windows. Boats leave furrows on the water down below. A pale wooden sailing boat, its mainsail keening against
the wind, races across the river and I see Seb, one hand on the tiller, standing at the stern, perfectly balanced in spite of the rocking of the boat, leaning forward to sort the jib sheet. His red
T-shirt and amber life jacket blend with the sail that points to a crimson streak in the sky above us, and I am speechless as I watch him. Three shades of red merging and reflecting back up from
the water. Seb’s capable arms, the river doing its best to defeat him. But it never could, I thought, it never would.

‘Sonia?

‘You love the view, too, don’t you? You wanted to stay when you first saw it. Tell me you did.’

‘Don’t cry, Sonia. Listen. You can open the door and let me go and I won’t tell anyone. I’ll say I needed time to myself. Please stop. It’s alright.’

I do not want his sympathy. I didn’t plan to do this and I’m angry with myself for it.

I’m not weeping for Helen or any noble reason. I’m weeping because I can feel him slipping away from me. The rope sliding between my fingers, my arms growing weak. I’m holding
on, but to all the wrong things.

Sonia

The doorbell rings. I consider ignoring it, but the fear of who it might be compels me to check. I peer out of the living-room window. No one. I wash my face, go out across the
courtyard, and push the door in the wall open an inch.

‘We’ve been trying to phone but there was no answer. We wondered if your phone was out of order. And we’ve no mobile contact for you.’ It’s one of the wardens from
my mother’s retirement home. She’s started to speak before I’ve had a chance to say I’m busy. She’s ticking me off, huffing through her puffed-up face, her fierce
little eyes narrowed in accusation.

‘Your mother’s had a stroke. She’s alive, she’s alright. You’re not to panic. But she’s been admitted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich and we think
you should go to her.’

I stare at the warden. A small tight mouth. Only just big enough to squeeze words through. ‘Alive . . . alright . . . not to panic.’

Helen is not alive. Nothing’s alright. Of course I’m panicking.

The nausea that has swept over me recedes and is followed by an eerie numbness. For a few seconds I’m afraid I’m going to confess. Say I cannot possibly visit my mother because
I’ve just killed someone.

‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.’

‘You said she was OK?’

‘She’s talking. It was a mild one. But all the same . . .’

‘Thank you.’

Go, will you. Go!
The warden doesn’t move. She stands panting, her face highly coloured, as if the strain of walking the few yards down the alley has almost finished her off.

‘’Scuse me, love.’ It’s the postman. He hands me a package, smiles, holds out his gizmo with its special pencil. I sign and he goes off whistling. It’s an ordinary
day out there. The warden hasn’t moved.

‘Thank you for letting me know. I’ll check my phone lines.’ I shut the door in her face.

‘You should go as soon as you can.’ She wheezes through it. ‘You’ll never forgive yourself if you were to miss her. You don’t know with strokes.’

I take the package indoors, place it on the kitchen table and watch from the kitchen window as she hobbles away down the alley.

I’ll carry on as I would have done before. I’m going to the hospital to visit my mother. I’ll buy flowers on the way. Thank a porter in the lobby as he opens
a door for me. I’ll exchange pleasantries with the staff at the nurses’ station. Smile at the other women on the ward. And they will smile back. I’ll even have a conversation with
the nice young doctor about my mother’s prognosis, and thank her profusely for her time. But I will still have killed Helen.

My mother’s ward is lined with white-haired old people. I think I’ve found her several times, then realize that the face doesn’t fit. When my eyes do alight
upon her I’m overcome by childish relief. My mummy. She may just be another old person as far as the nurses are concerned. One more husk of a woman whose essence has long since drained away.
But for me, she’s so much more, as if the layers of her that went before this version are still visible through the translucent outer skin. There she is, dressed in a sixties shift dress
wheeling the Silver Cross pram along the river path. Bending over me in my bed late at night smelling of gin and Chanel. Then, her hair in a seventies perm, making marmalade in the kitchen, the
mordant aroma of Seville oranges permeating the air. Later, versions of her in a suit, marching off to her job at the private school. When did she stop loving me?

I want her to take me in her arms, rock me, tell me everything’s alright. Be a proper mother. Now I’ve almost lost her for ever, I want more of her than she was ever able to give
me.

I lean over her, stricken by a mix of fury and pity. How dare age do this to a person? She opens an eye. Takes a while to focus. Then she speaks through one side of her mouth. Her speech is
slurred. For some reason she’s obsessed with having some old school reports that are stashed away in the River House somewhere.

‘I took the wrong case. The Revelation. When I moved from the River House. I won a . . . oh, you know. In fifth year, I need to read the report. It says such nice things.’

‘Mother, I’m not sure I can find that now. You don’t need it. You should relax.’

I look helplessly up at the nurse who’s filling her water jug.

‘It’ll give your mum a sense of security if you play along with her. Find the things she wants, help her feel at home,’ the nurse advises.

So, off I go again. Sonia the grown-up, caring for her sick mother. Doing as she’s told by the warden and the nurse. A good daughter. When I’m done, I remind myself, when I’ve
performed my duties, I can return to Jez.

I take the ladder from the courtyard, carry it up to my bedroom and stand it up against the trap door in the ceiling.

It’s impossible to get into the tiny loft space. All I can do is poke my arm through the hole and feel about in the dark with my hand. I grasp at the air. There’s the gentle tickle
of cobwebs on my wrist. A sprinkling of dust as my knuckle bumps the roof. At last, my fingers curl round a chunky leather handle. I drag the suitcase out, balance it at the top of the ladder and
slide it down.

The case gives off a familiar whiff of beeswax as I open it – the smell of the River House as it was in my mother’s day. The stuff she’s kept! Theatre programmes, recipe books,
bank statements, postcards. A birthday card made by Kit when she was little. I stand for a moment and examine this. It’s been stored in an envelope addressed to my mother at the River House,
along with a plastic necklace of pop-together beads arranged in a repeating pattern: pink, orange, blue, pink, orange, blue. A child’s depiction of a girl in a triangular pink dress wearing a
similar necklace. It transports me back to Norfolk, to Kit coming out of nursery, holding another creation in her hand. My automatic words of praise. How I’d sit with her when we got home and
pencil words on her pictures for her to trace over.

I tried to win my mother’s love through Kit. I don’t know whether she was moved by her granddaughter’s affections. If she was, she never revealed as much to
me. Yet now I find that after all, she kept the cards, the letters. She cherished my daughter’s overtures even if she rejected mine. This knowledge produces a tiny flicker of warmth, of hope
maybe, far off and deep within me.