Desire Line (6 page)

Mercifully it was devoid of other vehicles. Look, Eurwen! Lawrence of Arabia lived here… and in that house J.R.R. Tolkien got bored with marking exam scripts and began, ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a…' Oxford had been her only home and she could always recite the roll call of its luminaries for comfort. Instead she tried a mantra of routes: make for the Woodstock first, leave via the Wolvercote
Roundabout where the exit for Kidlington had once been Josh's. Keep going north and then west.
After that she would need to…
just drive
, she ordered herself. Another voice said
don't
but she ignored it.

No arguments.
My
starting point's here, the first time Yori set eyes on Sara, a sunny afternoon, the last week in September.

In Rhyl. A strip of Welsh maritime wilderness began developing as a seaside resort in the eighteenth century and for the next hundred years or more it went pretty well so that the sound promised pleasure to the few and only later to the masses. But to Sara it's more like a curse. Because this is 2008 and we're a national joke. Rhyl – UK's First Shanty Town, a serious newspaper christened it. Rhyl – Twinned With Soweto! its graffiti read. Yet it's where she's fetched up and I recognise her instantly from photographs, film clips, the book jacket, etc— and for now all I want to do is watch hoping against hope she'll think
it's not
that bad
. Beach-stuff to start, our major asset, five getting on six miles of it. I bet even she concedes
a fine
stretch
. Screw up your eyes and you could think Bodega Bay where Tippi Hedren in
The Birds
asks us something along the lines of Have you ever seen so many gulls? But that's California. We'll need The Seaquarium for the only glimpse of blue, clean water. Ours is one of those where the exhibits swim over and round the paying customers and the flick of the sharks keeps catching the eye. This being Rhyl though across the road on the main promenade – a choice location virtually anywhere else – there's the remains of a pushed-over, burnt-out building. Wooden props span the gap so the survivors either side can lean on each other's shoulders. Beneath them a couple are settled on plastic sheeting. He's terrible to look at with protruding eyes and a toad's skin. She is fortyish, near Sara Meredith's age, and has the face of Brigitte Bardot. But Bardot at seventy, lined and weary. The woman slides off her rubble heap and into the trippers along the front— and steps straight into the road as if the traffic will miraculously part. A silver hatchback with the sunroof open has to brake hard to avoid her and its driver's shocked expression can just be made out before the car accelerates away.

Two accidents and then nearly a third: heart hammering, Sara checked in the rear-view that the pedestrian had made it all the way across. Only then was she able to exhale and try to concentrate ahead…

Jittering neon and crude artwork combine, a linear carnival that almost overwhelms her thready vigilance. But away from the promenade's bold signage, she was offered hints of normal urbanity. Another turn and here were businesses selling soap and painkillers and food that had not been pre-fried. On real streets carrier bags replaced buckets and spades. Up one, down another
…
to the beach again not meaning to, heat building in the car. Finally she chose her mark and pulled in. That girl pushing a buggy looked a safe source for directions.

That
boy
mumbled
Av'nside
was across the river, the prospect she had turned the car from already once.

Over the bridge, then, this time to find yet more pubs squaring up to each other, caravans almost to their walls… and
this
was where Eurwen had chosen, her father's home. Above, the sky was an immense and hurtful radience. Cowering and peering side to side, she was allowed one glimpse of a promontory sprinkled with birds before a messy boatyard obscured it. Avonside, her destination, was that line of pinkish, meanly-proportioned houses facing across a muddy inlet to open sea, and impossible to reconcile with Eurwen's description: ‘Mum, it's gorgeous. There's the river and the harbour. On a clear day Dad says you see somewhere called The Fylde, that's a sort-of jutting out bit over in Lancashire. A naff name, isn't it? Who'd want to live on
The Fy-ylde
?
But Dad says—'

She recognised his back before it was necessary to begin picking out numbers, Josh, caught off guard for once in his life, surprised in the act of opening his own front door. It had been how long? Her mind rebelled at the calculation as his tall figure swivelled loosely from the hips, youthfully. But the tanned forearm in torsion seemed older, veinier and strung with copper wires. The opportunity to see him as a new person came and went in a flash, then the familiar profile tilted at her and she almost moaned aloud. His deep, widely spaced eyes under thick brows slid off their current task. Suddenly the full face happened: symmetrical, handsome and affecting as ever. Grey lightened his hair, yet nothing could lift Josh's basic look, that of a man who would hang your pet spaniel in the orchard. His jaw jutted alarmingly… so much so she felt moisture spread through her scalp. Strength of maternal fear, her alibi, was going to be inadequate but… but Eurwen
could
be back. This very hour. Innards clenching, ‘Josh!' she called as he spun on his heel, some sixth-sense alerting watched to watcher… and she knew by his expression. She got out only because he would be at her wound down window next.

‘Oh. Right.
Brilliant!
' Her fumbling attempts with the key fob brought on, ‘Just press the bloody thing, will you? It does it itself.'

‘Yes. I'm… very tired.' At least she had parked with the unmutilated wing toward him.

They glared at each other across the car's snub nose. When she made no attempt to come closer he (too obviously) forced himself to moderate his tone, patting the air. ‘Ok. Leave the roof. I'll come back and do it.' Then his fingers transformed into an
Inside!
gesture. The house had a nominal fence and no gate. She was ushered over flags skirting a green mat of lawn that was more sand than turf anyway.

‘You haven't found her?'

‘There's been nothing.' His expression hardened again. ‘I mean, d'you think I wouldn't have called you straight away?'

‘Nothing,' she repeated. ‘I… if I'm honest, well, straight away? I don't know.'

He pulled her in after him and slammed the door. Tears were coming and she sanctioned them because at least their cause was irrefutable. But that moment of confusion on seeing Josh sprang from deep feeling stored elsewhere. Her secret censor hinted true maternal terror should be different, cleaner cut: if she were tenderised and plagued with nerves it was now partly for herself. What would happen next? Early in the relationship she had come to terms with the fact that her husband could be all that men are not meant to be any more, unrelenting, illiberal, combative and so long as nothing splashed back, she would not react…
no
, if she cared to strip off yet another layer, she would admit to being excited by it. Whereas a
mote
of his vexation landing on herself…

‘Sara, don't!' Already close in a hall the size of a phone booth, suddenly his arms were around her, his body-heat seeping into hers, his sharp male aroma all-enveloping. ‘Stop. I'm sorry – all right?' The pattern of stubble-growth along his collar-line filled her vision and was instantly known. For a moment she could almost believe he was about to kiss the top of her head… then he pulled away and steered her into the next room and into a seat. ‘D'you want a drink?'

‘A
drink
?'

‘Coffee? Water?'

‘You think it's my fault don't you? About Eurwen? Yes?' She put her forehead in her hands, trying to squeeze out the ache by hurting herself more and knowing exactly what she was up to and what the old Josh would do in response. But he walked away, kept her trapped in a childish attitude, wanting to break it… until a thrilling new fragrance told of his return. He was offering a heavy tumbler and she took it, took the tiniest sip she could manage: a blended malt but not too fiery or cheap. Took a gulp, groping with her tongue for its simple hit.

‘How many?' he asked.

Once it had been
Why, for God's sake, Sara?
But,
How many?
stood in now.

‘This is the first. As you might expect since I've just driven up from Oxford. A
dreadful
journey even before I got lost and…'

‘So how many?'

‘What difference does it make?' In an attempt at sangfroid she glanced around the small square room for the first time and raised her eyebrows. It was a shop-display. The walls were a flat cream, bare as sheeting. Two beige sofas, the faux-wood floor, a rug patterned on a migraine and the glass coffee table all appeared new or unused. As was the slim TV on a shelf. What the room lacked was a single recognisable artefact. Three years ago the entire contents of their lovingly assembled Tackley Close interior had been spurned, (wingback chairs, the restored peacock velvet
meridienne
that she had coveted to the edge of ridiculousness as perfect partner to eighteenth century Florentine lithographs:
good God, she had obsessed about losing a piece of furniture in an auction whereas now…)
Her heart was slipping in extra beats. She said, ‘If you must know, I had just one.'

‘That big, was it? Yeah? Bigger probably. Definitely. You'll be well over the limit… and I mean that's before what you started with. I
knew
last night on the bloody phone…' He reached for the glass but, rocking backward, she managed to preserve the contents. ‘You shouldn't have come. It's so—' At least Josh was in control of his expletives still. Flinching from his obscenities was another of her frailties, one that would enrage him further. An early discovery: their shared language was not his first but an acquired one, solely for use with herself, her father and stepmother, even her friends. Obscenity-spouting Josh made milksops of student cursers.
No perhaps it shouldn't matter but it does.
‘Bloody stupid!' he ranted on. ‘What if you'd killed somebody? You could've killed yourself.'

‘As though you would care.'

‘Care? Of course I'd care! You're Eurwen's mother.' His own words seemed to strike home, where hers could not, and woundingly so. ‘I'm sorry. I'm not trying to… ah, I don't know what I'm doing. Sara, see me? I'm totally screwed with this… this…' Then refuting himself, ‘It'll be all right,' he said. ‘We'll find her. I promise.' A pause while she had to endure further critical examination. ‘You look exhausted. You'd be better off lying down.'

‘No.'

‘Suit yourself!' Eyes hardened, he put distance between himself and her.

They seemed to have arrived at fully hatched aggression with the speed of a spillage. Surely it was permissible not to cosset oneself? Laudable even? But an important lesson to relearn was they had never found a safe way to disagree and an irate Josh was momentarily silhouetted against an arch beyond which the kitchen seemed spitefully white and reflective. Then he was gone.

The drink went down. She felt her head tip to one side, all the better for the sofa leather to salve her burning face. Every movement caused a friction-whisper to accompany her body's protests.
Eurwen!
The next instant she couldn't be sure if she had said it… this was a small oddity but becoming more frequent.
Eurwen!
Definitely only a thought this time, Eur as in Ireland, wen as in when…

Her eyelids drooped.

Discounting instances of infant naughtiness in public places, the first time her daughter had run away was at thirteen-and-a-half. Sara would qualify it further by appending, ‘without warning' and occasionally by rounding Eurwen's age up to fourteen. Certainly they had not argued in preparation. In fact, perfectly amicable interchanges were happening right up until the afternoon Eurwen failed to materialise after school. Irritation… then sunshine beyond the windowpanes took on a sickly florescence as attempts to reach her daughter, or anyone else who had seen Eurwen during the day, proved futile. She was still on the phone to Fleur, her stepmother, demanding Geoffrey should be fetched, the police called, that Fleur should be there,
please, now
, when the text arrived: Hd2 b at Radle Pools Sty nite. C U 2moro Luv E

The Radley Pools Protest was against the dumping of power station ash beside the Thames into extinct gravel workings. But ‘full of wildlife, Mum!' Surely she should be allowed to skip Friday English to join in?
No.
Eurwen by this stage in her education needed a book, any book, glued to the palm to make her read it. Of course, no. And it could easily turn into The Battle of Radley Pools, she had explained.

‘Fine,' Eurwen had shrugged, though…

‘Sara!'

But she was already made aware by Josh's tread. ‘Do you know I was afraid it would be a police car bringing her home? Their telling me she'd done this or that thing and I'd have to sort it out, somehow,' she almost sobbed. ‘Some misdemeanour. Then the disgrace of Fleur and Daddy thinking I was… and then… That's what worried me! As if… Now I'd give anything—'