Tideline (8 page)

‘Mum, it’s me. You didn’t answer my text! Are you OK? I’m coming back in a few days. There’s a reading week. I spoke to Dad and he said he’d be back on
Thursday night too. He wants to talk about moving. Yessss! At last. Oh, and I’m bringing Harry ’cos he’s knackered. I promised him a weekend on the riverbank! Give us a ring
sometime. Byeeee!’

I stand by the phone for a few minutes after she hangs up, and shiver again.

It’s always cold in the living room. I’ve not been able to settle in it since we came back here. For that reason I let Kit and her friends have the run of it. I
encouraged Kit to bring friends to the River House. I wanted her to be like other children in a way I’d never been. My parents didn’t let me bring friends home, or to go to their
houses. Having Kit made me see how islolated my childhood was. I wanted hers to be different.

So I let Kit have the DVD player in here, a widescreen TV, a laptop and CD player. We dragged beanbags and cushions down from her room and I let her stick her posters on the walls and even stock
the old sideboard with cocktail paraphernalia. Kit and her friends bought retro posters and beer mats from the shop up on Creek Road. They had endless parties and get-togethers in here and I was
actively kept out. It suited me. Now that Kit’s gone, the room is not only too cold, but too still. Greg, when he’s here, sits on the sofa in the evenings with the paper, or the TV,
before going up to bed, but he agrees it’s always chilly even with the fire lit and the heating on.

This house has a life of its own. It breathes and fidgets. And it has its particular sounds. The
whooof
as the heating goes on, the
ping ping ping
of the pipes when you run a bath, the creak of
the roof slates on a windy night. But the living room is silent. I spend most of my time in the kitchen. You could say I live there, but the living room, in spite of its name, is dead space.
It’s not that it’s an ugly room. Far from it. Visitors are always quick to comment on its beauty, with the river view at one end, the fireplace, the polished wood floors and large
Persian rugs that have been in here for as long as I can remember. I dislike the sideboard but otherwise the furniture is unobtrusive, tasteful. No, it’s not the aesthetics that make me
unable to relax in here, it’s something else, a shadow in the corner of my eye that slides aside each time I try to focus on it.

I look down at the phone, wondering if I should call Kit back now, or if I can leave it until tomorrow. I decide on the latter. I need to think it through before I can say as I would once have
done, yes, it’s fine to come, bring Harry, darling. Bring whoever you want.

I push open the door to my room and go to lie down again. For a few minutes I contemplate climbing up to the music room to take the scarves off so Jez need never know, will not take fright. But
each time I decide to move, another wave of exhaustion presses down upon me.

The next thing I know, dawn is breaking all over again, a restless grey sky through my windows, and I’ve left Jez all night with his hands above his head, tied to the bed in the music
room, just as Seb trapped me, my love for him intensifying with every attempt I made to wriggle free of his bonds.

Helen

Helen peeled her tongue off the roof of her mouth. Screwed her eyes against the light. Something horrible had happened and she felt ragged. She put a foot out to soothe herself
by rubbing it against Mick’s calf, and encountered only empty space. She sat up. Mick was dressed in his jogging things, doing up the laces of his running shoes.

‘What’s the matter?’ she mumbled.

‘It’s Jez,’ he said. ‘I haven’t slept a wink.’

‘You checked his room?’

‘He’s not there.’

‘Oh, God.’

Mick said last night that they should call the police right away. He spoke to someone, who had asked several questions. In the end he had put the phone down and reported that the police had told
him to phone back in the morning if there was still no word from Jez.

‘You say he’s sixteen, he’s been in and out at odd times all week. So it’s not completely out of character,’ the policeman had told him.

‘Well, that’s a relief, I suppose,’ Helen had said, but Mick had stood up, left the room and gone to bed without speaking to her again.

Now Mick ran downstairs. The windows juddered as the front door banged shut. Helen looked at the alarm clock. 6.45! He never got up this early on a Sunday. It was barely light outside. And
bloody cold. She contemplated getting up for water, or juice, was overwhelmed by fatigue and nausea. In the end she took advantage of the space he’d left in the bed, rolled onto her front and
stretched across the mattress, her arms flung above her head. Ben’s face, suntanned and smiling floated into her mind as she drifted back to sleep.

It was still only 8 a.m. when Mick came back up, sweating a little, red in the face. He went straight into the en suite shower room. Helen could see him from the bed, peering
at himself in the mirror, smoothing back his strawberry-blond hair, looking at his face from different angles, then his stomach, holding it in and patting it. Sensing her gaze, he pushed the door
shut and she heard the hiss of the shower. Helen wished he would come back to bed, that they could have the kind of warm, fusty, Sunday morning sex that always helped to assuage a hangover.

When Mick emerged from the shower he didn’t come to her, but walked over to the window, rubbing his head with the towel. He leant on the radiator, gazing out and tapping his fingers. Helen
opened her mouth to ask what was on his mind, but shut it again. She wished they could speak to each other the way they once had done, without thinking, simply voicing any thought that came into
their heads. Helen looked at the man she’d lived with for so many years she knew the moles on his back, the fillings in his teeth, and wondered who he really was.

‘What time did they say to ring back?’

‘Not till ten. At the earliest.’

‘I bet he’ll be here by lunchtime if he’s not back in Paris.’

‘The police could take us more seriously.’ He spoke through the towel so his voice was muffled. ‘How long before they consider someone missing for Christ’s sake?’

There was the chink of crockery as Mick unloaded the dishwasher, the thump of cupboard doors opening and closing. Later Helen found the bin full of packets of chocolate
biscuits, crisps, even cans of beer.

He came back up at last with a breakfast tray just as the phone began to ring. He shot across the room to pick it up. Helen could tell by his tone that it was Maria.

‘No, no. I know. I couldn’t sleep either. Of course she apologizes but . . . Obviously, of course we
both
feel responsible, but she simply thinks he’s old enough . . . No, I
didn’t mean that . . . Yes, of course. I’ll come. See you later.’

He put down the phone and looked at Helen with such misery and helplessness that she held her arms out to hug him. He stayed where he was.

‘He wasn’t on the night train,’ he said. ‘She’s booked a flight and is arriving this afternoon.’

‘Really?’

‘She’s told Nadim. He’s in the Middle East on some assignment but he’s coming straight to London if we haven’t heard anything by tomorrow.’

‘She still blames me. I could tell by what you were saying.’

‘It’s not just you, is it? I’m to blame as well. I can’t believe this has happened. We should have kept closer tabs on him.’

‘No Mick! She’s mollycoddled him! Our kids would never get into this type of trouble because they’ve been given responsibility from an early age. But Jez! He’s been
pushed and overprotected by Maria all his life. If he has got into some sort of trouble she should have a good look at herself before casting aspersions on us.’

‘She asked why we didn’t drive him to his last college interview.’

‘The one in Greenwich? But Barney went to the same one! We didn’t need to taxi him there, did we? They’ve got legs!’

‘You know what I mean,’ said Mick. ‘We should have kept an eye on him.’

‘If anyone gets onto that course it’ll be Jez, not Barney. He’s the talented guitarist and she knows it.’

‘Let’s not get sidetracked by your idiotic sibling rivalry,’ Mick said. ‘This is about the boy.’

At ten o’clock on the dot, Mick picked up the phone in their room and called the police.

‘Well?’ Helen asked when he’d put it down again.

‘They’re more interested now he’s been gone for another night. Said they’d send someone round to talk to us by the end of the day.’

Helen sighed and pushed back the bedcovers. ‘I’d better get up,’ she said. ‘Maria will have to sleep in Jez’s room. If he’s back before tonight they’ll
just have to bloody well share.’

After lunch Mick set off to meet Maria at Stansted. Helen caught sight of herself in the mirror and was shocked. The short hair that she dyed light caramel-brown had gone grey
at the roots, her eyes were puffy, red veins had appeared on her cheeks. How had that happened overnight?

There was no way she could let Maria see her like this. She nipped out to buy a hair dye at the Tesco Express and sat on the bed while the colour developed, wrapped in a dressing gown. When
she’d dried her hair she dressed in a green wool miniskirt, with a cashmere jumper, purple opaque tights and brown suede boots. She felt better.

She knew it would be another hour at least before Mick and Maria came back. She needed to clear her head. She’d have a walk and a coffee, get some organic bits and pieces to make a nice
meal. And she’d buy flowers. It would please the new, health-conscious Mick, and reassure Maria that they looked after themselves and the home they’d invited Jez into.

‘You two in this afternoon?’ Helen asked Barney, who was making a cup of tea in the kitchen, half asleep. ‘In case Jez comes in. I want you to phone me immediately if you hear
anything.’

‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ Barney said, putting an arm around her shoulders. Helen wished he hadn’t, the gesture brought a tear to her eye. It made her realize how alone and
afraid she really felt.

Later, she sat at outside her favourite café in Greenwich Market sipping her cappuccino. It did nothing to shift the hangover and she resolved once again to cut down on
the wine. Weak sunlight fell through the corrugated plastic roof, warming her. She wondered whether the plans to renovate the market were being followed up. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea
of it becoming gentrified. It had become so trendy anyway at the weekends with its craft stalls selling everything from fountains for the garden to velvet corsages, from handmade soap to carved
wooden sculptures. But on weekdays when the trivial merchandise fell away as if it had been sieved, only the old Greenwich locals were left chatting and drinking tea and scraping a meagre living
from the trades they had always plied. Some of them were here today, too, looking as though they were dressed in clothes they’d dragged from the piles of jumble they sold. Many of them, Helen
thought, had probably been here since it started as an antique market, years before, on Sundays in the car park over the road. Their stalls looked more like museum collections, with their shoehorns
and military figurines, bowling sets and old leather-booted ice skates, hogs heads and stuffed things in glass boxes. They were part of local history. It would be a shame to lose them.

As she gazed she noticed Sonia wrapped in a scarf over on the far side of the market, near the food stalls. Nadia was right. She did look amazing. Slimmer than ever with that grey cashmere
headscarf flung about her hair. More elegant than anyone in the bustling marketplace. She was clearly in a hurry, pointing at food and stuffing it impatiently into a large shopper. Helen remembered
that Greg was worried about her state of mind.

She drained her cappuccino and got up. She’d go and say hello. Check that Sonia was alright. She adjusted her own scarf, did up the toggles on her wool jacket, and went inside to pay her
bill. The queue was long and slow, the girl at the counter clearly new, fumbling with the cash register. By the time Helen had paid and emerged into the marketplace, Sonia had gone.

Helen thought of pursuing her, but decided against it. Instead, she sat back down. The shops round the edge of the market were doing brisk business as usual. The one selling T-shirts made her
think of Jez. He and Alicia downloading that picture of . . . who was it? Some seventies musicians? Jeff someone. And Tim? They were father and son, Jez had explained. Helen hadn’t really
been listening. The son had drowned in a river one night with all his clothes on. He was only thirty. Only a couple of years older than his father had been when he had died, too young. Tragic.

Jez told Helen they were going to shrink one of the images and make badges, and Alicia said she was getting it put onto T-shirts for both of them. After downloading the image, Jez had found a
programme where you could morph a photo of yourself onto the body of an elf doing a jig. He and Alicia had found it hilarious. It had been quite funny, but it was more his infectious laugh that had
made Helen join in too. That was on Thursday evening.

But what was it that had been niggling away at her about Jez? That had made her feel so irritable when Alicia had gone on about him, and when everyone had fussed so much last night? Something
about the last conversation she’d had with Jez before all this had blown up. She tried to remember it all in detail. It was Friday lunchtime. She had come in, not expecting to find anyone at
home. Jez was playing his guitar loudly (but rather brilliantly she must admit) through an amp. She remembered the cross way she stomped up the stairs, opened his door.

‘If you’re planning on living with us when you come to college, you’ll have to be more thoughtful,’ she told him. ‘We have neighbours to consider, you
know.’

Her irritation was unreasonable, she knew. Her boys always played loud music in their rooms, it had never bothered her. But Jez was so bloody good at everything, as Maria was at pains to remind
her every night, and Helen had a headache. A stonking hangover, truth be told.