The Missing One (9 page)

I stare at it for a few moments. Mentioning Harry Halmstrom seems like a step too far. Seeing a description of my plans in black and white gives me a fleeting, almost drunken perspective on myself: this is unstable behaviour.

The email sits in the outbox. I snap my phone off and then a poisonous thought lands in my heart: right now, Doug might be on his phone to
her
, telling her that I know – that I've just left, taking Finn. They might be discussing what on earth they are going to do about me. Maybe she is saying, ‘Well, she had to know sooner or later.'

As I shove the wedding photo back into my mother's notebook, and the notebook and phone into my bag, the urge to scream is almost overwhelming. Then suddenly, irrationally, I am furious. Livid. Enraged – with my mother. How could she just die like this? Without the two of us saying all the things that needed to be said? I feel as if she's reneged on a deal or broken a promise. It seems grimly fitting that she should die exactly when everything else is falling apart.

But these are ludicrous thoughts. I have to get a grip.
I never would have turned to my mother for support over Doug anyway. I absolutely would not be sobbing on her breast right now. But still, this loss is awful. It is a disorientating, panicky feeling. I feel as if I'm a small child and she has vanished. I suddenly remember being lost on a rock face – one of my earliest memories. I was about four, I think, in a French picnic spot. I clung to the boulders and the sunlight bounced off the granite around me, and I couldn't see my mother. I howled for her under the hot white sun. I was alone in the world. Then she was calling my name and as she came round the corner I felt a tsunami of relief.

I close my eyes. The plane shudders through turbulence, seatbelt signs ping on. I lay my arm over Finn's heavy body.

I have been incredibly blind. That's really what I'm angry about. I have deluded myself. I am not angry with my mother for dying – of course I'm not. I am angry with Doug. And I am angry with myself for being so clueless and trusting. And so distracted.

I should have known better. I learned all too well from my mother that love is not to be relied on. It is a state of uncertainty. But over the last eight years Doug persuaded me – or perhaps I persuaded myself – that our love was different; it was safe. It was solid and equal and, above all, permanent. I am built on this belief now. What I didn't realize was that Doug lay beneath this conviction of mine, propping it up. And now, apparently, he isn't doing that any more. Apparently Doug's love was never permanent or safe, it was just another thing to be given and taken away.

I have messed up. Doug has messed up. We have both
messed up and the one person this is going to ricochet into is the child that we, above all, are supposed to protect and love, constantly, safely, permanently. I look down at Finn, splayed on my lap.

What have we done?

*

Driving out of Vancouver airport in the hire car, with Finn dazed in his car seat behind me, what I need most is caffeine. The flight has left me parched and blurry and everything feels very far off. The shock of how much the hire car cost didn't help. With insurance, and a ludicrous surcharge for the child car seat, it came to a jaw-dropping sum. But I can't think about money. The expenditure is reckless, but not half as reckless as being here.

As I pull onto the busy southbound highway, it begins to rain hard; I fumble about trying to find the windscreen wipers and for a few shocking moments, I am spinning down a four-lane highway completely blind.

I twist the right lever and the windscreen clears. All I can see is blurry red tail lights and driving rain. It is hard to focus on the lines dividing the freeway lanes. The wipers shove at the rain, but everything still looks watery and far off.

I should never have made the appointment to see Harry Halmstrom the day after a transatlantic flight. What was I thinking? In fact, I should never have made the appointment at all. But I have to show up now. I can't possibly leave a lonely old man waiting for his only visitor in years. Besides, I probably need a destination and purpose more than I need sleep.

I try to remind myself that this trip is a positive choice. I have always wanted to travel. This is me, travelling. I hear myself think this and I actually laugh out loud. The weird, barking sound of my own voice shocks me back to silence. I think of our vanishing savings, and Doug, at home, outraged, talking about me with – her. I fold a hand over my mouth.

A car undertakes and sweeps in front of my bonnet. I grip the steering wheel with both hands again and resist the temptation to slam on the brakes and skid across the lanes. My heart is beating far too fast now. I have to stay alert. There is a metallic taste against my back teeth. I glance in the rear-view mirror. Finn is still and peaceful, eyelids drooping. He trusts me to get him wherever we are going. He doesn't need to know why we are here. He doesn't care about rain or traffic or where we are, or what we are doing. He trusts me to keep him safe.

Wheels swoosh over wet tarmac and rain drums on the car; the wipers thud rhythmically. The road signs are too small and the fonts are all wrong. The road markings are the wrong colour. There are too many expansive lanes, too much traffic, no identifiable fast or slow lanes – the cars all seem inflated and high up; their number plates are diminutive, letters and numbers lost in too many red tail lights; vast gleaming trucks coming out of the gloom. I tell myself that all I have to do is drive straight and then the exit will be marked. This isn't hard. It is just driving in a straight line. I have a B & B booked, not too far from the assisted living facility.

But I need coffee. My brain and eyes are not working well together.

Through the rain I see a sign for a shopping mall. I somehow manage to pull across three lanes to get off the freeway. Blaring horns – the flash of tail lights too close – but I am on the slip road. I glance at Finn again – still relaxed, half asleep. I am in a fast-moving dream over which I have no control. I whisk the car on to the exit ramp to the mall. The wipers thump like angry fists.

*

In Starbucks, after a triple espresso for me, and a cup of warm milk for Finn, it occurs to me that I really am not prepared for this climate. The walk through the indoor car park left me shivering inside my thin coat. I have Doug's thick jumper, but that's about all. I packed Finn's warmest clothes, his fleeces and layers; I remembered his bunny, his sleeping bag, Calpol just in case, his red wellies and Huggies and wipes and his sippy cup, but I packed randomly for myself. Apart from Doug's old sweater, my clothes are far too thin. I didn't even bring the fleece I use on walks, or waterproof boots of any kind. My old coat and Finn's little puffy jacket from Marks & Spencer are clearly unsuitable for January in British Columbia.

Finn is whacking a paper cup with a straw so that it flies off the table. The mall sound system plays a chirpy version of ‘Don't you want me, baby?' and the lighting turns everything a sickly yellow. I glance at my phone. I need to call Alice, but I can't face her incredulity, or trying to explain what I am doing. I send her a quick text.

I go into my emails.

The message I wrote to my father on the plane was sent when I switched on the phone in immigration. It's not beyond him to have replied.

There are three emails from Doug, titled, ‘Why are you doing this?', ‘Call me the minute you touch down!' and ‘We have to talk'. I ignore them. I'll deal with him later. There is my father's prompt reply: two lines, typed at ten past midnight his time.

Finn thwacks the cup off the table, laughs, then kneels down, picks it up and puts it back. Bash. Thwack. Laugh. Kneel. He glances up at me. ‘Dat?' he points at the cup.

‘That's a cup.' I try to smile. ‘Cup. Can you say cup? Are you bashing it?'

Two lines. For my father, that's impressive.

‘Bash!' Finn thwacks at the cup again. ‘Bash' was his first word. I should write that down because one day when he's grown up I might forget it. He comes closer and holds out his hands to my face, then pulls me towards him and kisses me on the lips. Bash: Kiss. The male template.

‘You,' I hug him, ‘are completely daft.' He wriggles off and grabs the cup again.

A text beeps in.

I text back.

Despite the temperature outside, it is airless and sweltering in the mall. Finn is bombing around between the tables now but since we are the only ones here, I let him – he needs to stretch his legs and shriek and let it all out. I realize that I can't remember what return flight I booked. The neon lights hum overhead, and the only person other than the Starbucks barista is a cleaner trudging along with a wide fluffy sweeper. It feels as if this journey is happening to me, not the other way around. It occurs to me that running away is not necessarily a purposeful act of control.

My father's high-handed tone rankles. It is so distant and
peremptory, right down to the lack of personal pronouns. With one eye on Finn, I type a reply with my thumbs:

I click ‘send', feeling as if I've thrown down a gauntlet. Then I get out of my emails.

My father actually has a point. The sensible thing to do is to stop this nonsense right now. I should take Finn to the hire car and head straight back to the airport. But even as I think this a small voice of defiance tells me to press on. Keep running across the playground and don't look back. The alternative – going home to Doug – is far worse.

And besides, this is not random running. I do have a purpose. I am here to find out about my mother. I am here
to work out what went before, so that I can free myself and stop running. It's a brilliant justification. But even I don't believe it.

The Starbucks woman is staring at me, so I gather up my bag, and steer Finn off down the echoing, shiny mall. Half the shops are deserted. We pass the doors to a department store and I hesitate, then guide Finn inside. I let him toddle up and down the clothes rails while I find hiking boots and socks, underwear, and, at the last moment, a huge grey North Face parka that is on sale. It goes down to my shins. I find a bright-red, all-in-one weatherproof suit for Finn, also on sale, and a pair of waterproof mittens and a woolly bobble hat with earflaps.

I do not look at the total on the credit card receipt, I just sign. Given the huge chunk of our savings that I have already blown on flights and hire cars, another couple of hundred dollars is neither here nor there. And these clothes will make the difference between feeling vulnerable and feeling prepared. Suddenly, the clothing seems vital.

Before we go back to the hire car, I take Finn into the mall toilets to change his nappy. Then I peel off my coat and boots and dump them in the bin. I pull Doug's thick, sweater over my head. As I glance in the mirror, I run a hand through my shorn hair, and feel the shock of it again. The silver hoops in my ears look brighter and bigger without hair to hide them and my face has changed shape. It looks more angular. I hardly recognize myself in this stranger with large eyes. But I'm glad. It feels cleaner and more simple like this. I should have cut my hair off years ago.

Finn has stopped, and is looking up at me.

I smile at him. ‘I know,' I say. ‘My hair is really very short, isn't it?' I kneel to his level and he puts both hands on the crown of my head. Then he lifts them, and bashes them back down again. ‘Ow!' I laugh through the pain. He pats my head, more gently, and presses his nose up against mine.

‘You are my lovely boy.'

He thinks about this, then toddles off to pull paper towels out of the dispenser.

I stand up and slide on the North Face parka. The fake fur-trimmed hood feels as if it would keep out even the worst of storms. I zip it right up and tie it tight with toggles, Inuit-style. The sales woman said it will keep me warm in temperatures of minus thirty degrees. I pull the hood off again. As I put my phone in the pocket of the coat, I glance at my emails. Nothing from my father.

I look over for Finn. But he isn't at the paper towels. I spin round. He is there, in the cubicle, pulling the loo roll out of the holder and flinging it skywards, in grand, extravagant ribbons.

‘Hey,' I cry. ‘No. Stop! That's a big old mess.' I shove the phone in my pocket and scrape up the reams of paper, wondering if I should try to flush it, or just ball it all up and put it in the bin. He thinks this is a game, and runs to the next cubicle. I nip in after him, sweep him up, and he giggles, deranged, disorientated. ‘OK, you.' I look at him, firmly. ‘Enough.'