The One Safe Place (34 page)

She didn't know what she expected to find. She already knew why he'd abandoned school; what else needed explaining? She turned the doorknob and fell the door pull stealthily away, as it always did as soon as it was opened. She let the knob slip from her grasp, and saw the shelves stuffed with books, as though the room was an extension of Don's shop. The door crept open further and showed her Marshall's school uniform lying on the bed.

Why was the sight of the sloughed clothes dismaying? Because if he had been home she would have expected him to wait for her or, failing that, to leave her a message. Didn't he feel able to tell her what he'd done? Had she lost that much contact with him? No, the lack of a message implied that he'd expected to be home by the time she was, and maybe he was coming up the street right now. She hurried into her room and past the bed that was twice as wide as it needed to be, and gazed over the balcony at the street, which was deserted. She gazed until she became conscious of trying to magic him into sight, and then she made herself go downstairs to work.

She took her case into the front room and moved a low table in front of a chair from which she could see through the window, and lifted the stack of essays out of the case, and tried to concentrate. "Realistic fiction is a contradiction in terms..." "There are no such things as violent fiction films, only films pretending to be violent..." She wondered if her students had caught a tendency to aphorise from her, and glanced up to see who was strutting down the street, but it was a magpie black and white as Marshall's uniform. "Films showing violence as it really is could never be shown commercially." Her pencil hesitated alongside that until a movement rose above the garden fence—again the magpie, perching on the fence and flying off once Susanne's head jerked up. If she couldn't focus her attention on the essays better than that, perhaps she ought to take them to another room, except she didn't think she could. She drew the essay closer to her and bent her head over it, and the phone rang.

She shoved the pages away, trying not to crumple them, and snatched her feet from beneath the table and jumped up. By now the phone had rung twice, and she was desperate to answer it before it reached the fifth ring and the machine took over, in case Marshall or whoever else was calling thought she wasn't there. It shrilled twice more as she ran into the hall, grabbing so wildly at the receiver that it flew out of her hand. "Hello?" a voice repeated, growing as Susanne clapped the receiver to her ear. "Hello?"

It was a woman, someone she'd spoken to recently—the school secretary? "Yes?" Susanne gasped, feeling and sounding as if she'd just run a race.

"Mrs. Travis?"

"Yes." When that didn't produce an immediate response Susanne added, "Susanne Travis, yes."

"I only ask because the last time I spoke to another American lady. Is it convenient to talk just now?"

The voice seemed to be compensating for Susanne's urgency by slowing itself down, broadening its vowels and pronouncing each syllable almost like a separate word. Perhaps that was why the question sounded ominous. "I—" Susanne said, and made herself ask, "What about?"

"No very significant development, I'm afraid. I wondered if there had been any at your end." The woman laughed, as slowly as she spoke. "Did I forget to identify myself, by the way? My apologies. This is Iris Pendle, the—"

"The bookseller, yes, I know."

"The bookseller, yes," Iris Pendle said, and paused as a further rebuke. "You'll recall we spoke about your late husband's business."

"I do."

"I was wondering whether anyone else in the trade had expressed an interest."

Susanne was imagining Marshall trying to phone her and finding the line busy, and then... "A few," she said, and considered not giving too much away, but just now negotiating the best deal hardly seemed to matter. "Not for the whole of the stock like you did."

"That's often the way. I'd still be prepared to make you an overall offer if I get the bank's approval."

"Oh, you need that."

"Most businesses do in these troubled times. I thought if you're agreeable we might meet to discuss a final price."

Susanne could only answer as succinctly as possible. "When?"

"I was thinking tomorrow, when I'll be on an expedition to Manchester. I know you Americans are fond of lunch. Would you be free for a sandwich?"

"Where? What time?"

"I'll do my best to fall in with your day."

"Say, say—" Susanne was wishing the bookseller would. "Twelve under the University clock, the tower, you know, on Oxford Road."

"I'll be in a pale green Nissan estate."

"I'll be looking for you," Susanne said, and was about to thank her for calling when she rang off, leaving Susanne uncertain whether she should have been quite so prepared to meet tomorrow, although why not? The arrangement she'd just made sounded a little like meeting a criminal, a kidnapper, but there was no reason whatsoever for her to begin to think along those lines—sure, some of the Fancy family had waylaid Marshall on his way home and made him change out of his uniform and then kidnapped him. The thought of him made him seem more present, maybe outside the house, steeling himself to face her. She housed the receiver and hurried to open the front door.

Someone moved—ducked out of sight. Why would anyone be hiding from her? She ran to the gate and was about to call "Hello" when Hilda Mattison reappeared beyond the hedge of the house diagonally opposite, wearing overalls even wider than herself and brandishing a pair of garden shears, whose clipping Susanne became aware of having heard for minutes. "All right, love?" her neighbour inquired.

"Pretty much, Hilda. Just looking for Marshall."

"Give a yell if you like, nobody minds round here. I used to do that with our three when they were older than him, and they'd come quick enough."

"Maybe I'll try that," Susanne said, and hoping this was more of a fib "You won't have seen him."

"I've been in and out most of the day."

"You won't have, then."

"Oh yes."

Hilda snipped an inch off a twig of privet as abruptly as she tended to end conversations, and Susanne felt the gate dig into her midriff. "Pardon me, when was he here?"

"As far as I know, not since he said how are you doing to me or whatever it was he said. Well, I never realised that before. That's what some Americans mean when they say howdy, isn't it? Strange, the things you suddenly understand after you've been hearing them for years. Anyway, that was the last I've seen of him, when I was taking in the milk."

"When he was on his way to school."

" 'Fraid so," Hilda admitted with a tinge of defiance. "Don't go running off with the idea we always sleep in that late. Matt and I had a bit of a knees-up at a Conservative Club do last night and couldn't drive home till some of the pop wore off."

Susanne had never been able to work out whether Hilda's husband's first name was Matt or any version of it, and she was angry with herself for being bothered by the question now. She glanced along the street, and then her shoulders drooped. "Savage creatures, those," Hilda said as though agreeing with her, and the magpie darted away around the corner. "I really think they delight in it. I've seen them tear starlings to pieces and leave them after one mouthful."

Susanne was in no mood to be reminded that anything revelled in violence. "Well, watching isn't going to bring him."

"Like the kettle," Hilda said, and not quite so enigmatically. "Do you want me to keep an eye open?"

"You could. To tell you the truth—" Susanne was less than certain that she wanted to, but she could hardly stop now. "Apparently he's been playing hooky. That's why I'm like this."

Perhaps her state wasn't apparent, because Hilda looked bemused; then she said, "It was only us girls who played that when we were at school."

"Only—oh. Not hockey, hooky," Susanne said, though that sounded even more absurd than the misunderstanding. "AWOL. Skiving, I think you may call it. Playing truant. Something at school upset him and he took the afternoon off."

"He must be easily upset still, poor little, well, not so little, but he'll always be your baby, won't he? I know mine are. Shall I march him in if I see him?"

"Just tell him I'm not mad. No, just don't let him go away."

"I didn't mean actually get hold of him. I remember how I used to feel when any of them didn't turn up, Matt included. Like someone was dragging my nerves over sandpaper." Abruptly Hilda seemed to feel she'd said at least enough, and set about pecking at the hedge with the shears.

She meant well. If Susanne didn't feel as bad as Hilda had described, surely that was because she didn't need to feel that way. She retreated into the house, closing the doors and peering at the answering machine in case it showed a call she hadn't heard. Of course she would have heard the phone ring. What time was it? Well past five o'clock, which had to mean she would see Marshall any moment now—he wouldn't want to worry her, not after everything they had been through She headed for the essays, then made for Marshall's room instead. She ought to have checked if he had taken anything with him—one item in particular.

Three books in various stages of being read were keeping one another company on the floor, one sprawling open on its face, the others protruding bookmarks printed with the name and address of Don's shop. When had Marshall started reading more than one book at a time? She hoped it didn't mean he was losing his ability to concentrate, as she had for a while, but now she'd found what she was looking for: his radio cassette player. Which tape could she see through the plastic window? She lifted the player onto the bed and pushed the play button, and heard a voice saying "... 
Daith of a Bodgie
ond
Socks un Rostoronts.
Thonks." She had never returned the call or written to the Ulsterman, and now it seemed too late. Never mind, she knew Marshall hadn't taken the tape with him, and she was reaching for the off button, stopping just short of pressing it, when Don said, "Hi, Susanne? Are you home? Are you home yet?"

She shoved the button down so hard she was afraid of having broken her fingernail or the player. Maybe she could listen to that another time, but not while it meant so much. She gazed at the black oblong lying next to the flat empty clothes, each as silent as the other, and then she switched it to the local news; the five-thirty headlines were due. The newsreader's voice drained of most of its accent had nothing to report about Marshall or anybody of his age, only a nine-year-old Asian boy set on fire by three of his white schoolmates, and a policeman beaten up by the drivers of both cars involved in a traffic accident, and a gang who'd gouged out a jeweller’s eye to make him tell them the combination of his safe, and a teenager who'd tried to drown his girlfriend's baby in a toilet. She told herself that the way all that affected her had nothing to do with Marshall. Maybe he wasn't even aware of how worried she was growing, maybe he hadn't noticed the time, particularly if he was with one of his friends. She couldn't believe it had only now occurred to her to contact their parents. She ran downstairs to find her address book in her purse.

It opened at the first address she'd ever had for Don. At least that brought her close to one she needed, and by the time she arrived at the phone she'd found the Syeds. She had barely dialled when she was greeted by what sounded like the clangour of a foundry, and thought she'd misdialed until a man said, "Cosmic Video?"

As soon as she identified the noise as the clash of swords it turned into Indian dance music. "Mr. Syed?" she presumed. "Is Ali there?"

"Mrs. Travis, you are? My son is at the mosque."

"Marshall wouldn't have gone there with him, obviously." In case that could be taken as an insult Susanne quickly added, "I mean, there isn't any chance that Marshall's with him, is there, to your knowledge?"

"He seemed not interested in God when I raised the subject with him."

"When was that?"

"Let me see." The pause which this entailed seemed so prolonged that eventually Susanne said, "Today? This afternoon?"

"I suppose it will have been..." Only the slightest of intonations suggested this wasn't the end of the sentence. "Four," he let slip as the music worked itself into more of a frenzy, "perhaps five months."

"But not today. That isn't—" Susanne said, and made an effort to grasp her syntax as firmly as she was gripping the receiver. "Today you haven't seen him."

"That is true, Mrs. Travis. Have you not?"

"Sure, this morning, when he went to school. Only now he's late home, quite late, and I'm trying to find out where he is."

"That is boys. I remember not thinking of my mother when I had a game to finish with my friends, and my father—" He cleared his throat so sharply that Susanne heard the mouthpiece vibrate. "I shall ask God to smile upon you, Mrs. Travis."

"That's—" Of course he wasn't implying that he needed to pray for Marshall, he'd just remembered Don. "If Marshall should by any chance come in, could you give me a ring and let him speak to me? I'm just worried, though I expect I shouldn't be. I just want him home."

"It will be my pleasure, Mrs. Travis."

She would have liked to feel as certain as he sounded. Maybe after her next call she could. She dialled the Warris home, where the phone continued ringing for such a long time that she began to imagine the boys engrossed in, as Mr. Syed had suggested, some game. Indeed, one was in rowdy progress when the phone was picked up. "Hell—" was as much of a greeting as the answerer managed before turning away some of his shout. "Shut up while I'm talking on the phone, will you. Shut up or I'll burst you. Shut up, Dick."

The Warrises were a large family, Susanne gathered, and perhaps this was how members of large families addressed one another. "Trevor?"

"Give him that. Give it him now or I'll thump you. Oh," he said, to some extent into the mouthpiece, "it's, I know, hang on, I'll get my dad."

"You'll do, Trevor. I only want—"But he'd dropped the receiver—into her ear, it felt rather like—and presumably had gone to find his father, since the noises off which denoted his intervention in the squabble eventually included progressively receding yells of "Dad!" A male roar came to join the renewed altercation, and seemed to be at some little distance from the phone when there was a clatter of plastic and an immediate question. "Yes?"