Safe and sound, p.22
Safe and Sound, page 22
Jane holds out her arms. ‘I can reach them,’ she says. ‘I really think I can reach.’
She looks so funny to Prin, balanced up there. In one part of Prin’s mind, she knows very well what could happen. The part that pictures that is the hard, mean part of her, the one that remembers the feeling in her stomach as Daddy carried her away from the shed, Jane crying in Mum’s arms behind them.
And then, with another part of her mind, it all feels so true. The stars, the dancing couple, the dream of flying, the magic of it all. And maybe it really can happen, the flying, if she just imagines, maybe if they both imagine really hard …
When she gets to her own feet, Prin finds she is standing just behind Jane. Her hand comes to rest on her cousin’s elbow. Jane’s skin is soft and dry and warm. The night feels so magic. If she could just have a tiny lift … she really does look as if she can fly. And there are parents waiting for her, up there in the sky, a mum and a dad that Jane can have for her own …
Prin thinks this, but only thinks it, she’s sure. She’s sure the thought never entered her hand …
But one moment Jane is there, on the edge of the roof …
And the next she’s fluttering into the black.
Chapter 30
After my run-in with Freya, I work solidly right through lunchtime, trying to get on top of everything with all my boxes ticked, but somehow the work seems a slippery pile. I can’t quite seem to keep track of where I am up to or what I’m supposed to be doing. It takes such a mental effort to get everything in order.
At twelve o’clock, the school lunchtime, I call and ask for Ms Simmons. When she comes on the line, I tell her I need to check on Charlie. ‘He was a bit … poorly over the weekend. I just need to know if … he seems all right.’
Ms Simmons’s reply is tinged with surprise. ‘He was poorly? Well, today he honestly seems right as rain.’ A little silence hangs. ‘Was there something particular you were worried about?’
I hesitate. Assume things are fine. ‘No … No, thank you, I just needed to check. But you’re saying he’s fine?’
‘Yes …’
I feel stupid, but I can’t not say it. ‘But if there was anything … anything you’d noticed —’
Ms Simmons’s voice is direct now, a tiny bit impatient. ‘We’d always let you know if there were any concerns.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course, thank you.’
Clumsily, I make myself hang up.
At one o’clock, I go downstairs to collect the post, holding tight to the banister as I navigate the steep steps. There are various letters that come in to the office, most of them routine, occasionally one that’s harder to deal with: a complaint, a bill from a plumber that’s ended up far steeper than expected, some government notice of some policy change.
This afternoon there’s the usual collection, plus one addressed directly to me. I carry the whole stack carefully back upstairs and go in to give Abayomi the ones he needs to deal with.
Then I take that one letter back into my and Emma’s office.
It’s a plain envelope, with my name and office address handwritten, in neat block capitals. With my thumb I prise it open. The envelope is thicker than I realized, and the flap slices the edge of my thumb. It’s a small cut, but deep, and it bleeds badly. I should go to the bathroom and get a paper towel to stop the bleeding, but I don’t. I just curl my thumb into my palm and try to stem the blood that way.
The document inside isn’t very long, but it tells me everything I need to know: when the inquest hearing will be and where. It also reminds me to send over what information I can provide. The date is only a few weeks from now, far sooner than most inquests take place. Mike Bernard writes that Sarah’s case has been brought forward, a space opening up in the schedule because of delays in another, more complicated case. I stare at the details, the words blurring in front of my eyes. The inquest. The place where all kinds of questions are meant to get answered.
I think of everything people have told me about Sarah, all the pieces of the jigsaw I am trying so hard to fit together in my mind. The pieces are slippery too, though, with edges that slice at my fingers when I try to grasp them. I pull up all the notes I made before, the details and timeline I compiled for PC Delliers. I pull up a new Word document and place my hands on my keyboard, but I can’t seem to think of anything to write. She lied about her parents when they were dead the whole time. I had an email from her but I never kept in touch. She lay in that flat for ten whole months and not a single friend or family member came to her funeral. The picture these pieces are trying to make feels overwhelming. My brain jams, freezes. All I can do is stare at the blank page. I have to stop, pushing myself back from the desk, taking in gulps of air, my heart pummelling my ribs, skipping beats; my pulse is so irregular these days. I want to help, somehow tell Sarah’s story, find some kind of answer to make it all right. I’m trying so hard to tie everything together, but what have I got really? So many disjointed pieces of information. So many questions that still lead to blanks.
The blank page is waiting, the coroner’s court is waiting. It feels as though even Sarah is waiting.
But I have no idea what to say.
But then it is Wednesday. My afternoon off. My chance. The Tube from Brixton to Victoria, then the Gatwick Express that runs every fifteen minutes.
I’m so far into this now, there seems to be no way to turn back; even if there were, I don’t want to. I want to know. As I leave the office, one minute past twelve, I text Chloe to tell her I’m on my way. There’s no text in reply, but I didn’t expect one. If the timings are still right, she will be above me now, flying thousands of feet in the air.
I press on.
I know this train line so well. But it’s been years since I travelled it, or since anyone travelled on it to see me. Victoria to Gatwick. And on to Brighton.
Brighton. So close to where my parents live.
The whole thing feels like some crazy coincidence. But I agreed, didn’t I, to meet her here? I knew that I would have to take this train. So am I setting this all up for myself? I remember calling home the other night, that strange impulse that overtook me. I’m supposed to be finding out what happened to Sarah, but the further I go with that, the deeper I look, the more it seems I’m trying to trace back what happened with me.
It’s too messed up, too weird. I press my forehead hard against the glass window of the carriage. I close my eyes and try not to think of anything at all.
In a matter of minutes, we arrive at Gatwick. The train shudders to a halt and, all around me, people with bags and suitcases stand to get off. I only have my coat and handbag, but I get off and follow them too. I can’t remember ever being to this airport before. There have been only two times in my life that I have flown anywhere, and both times I was a child, and can hardly remember.
As soon as I step off the train, I feel disorientated. I don’t know where to go or what to do. People rush past me, focused, determined. Businessmen and -women who must do this all the time. I search for the signs that say ‘Arrivals’. Chloe has given me the number of her flight, and said that I can meet her there. She’ll come out through the gates, and then we’ll go to some airport café, and order coffees and be able to talk. That’s what we’ll do.
There are long corridors that I have to walk down, bright lights and rivers of passengers in both directions. So many signs, and my eyes don’t seem to be working very well. But I find the Arrivals area at last. There are monitor screens showing the flights and I scan them, the letters blurring. Someone knocks me with their suitcase, clipping my ankle, right on the bone.
I scour the boards until I find it. Flight 128, Edinburgh to Gatwick. The plane is twenty minutes delayed.
I find a seat and shakily sit down. My legs ache these days if I stand too long; it’s as though my blood can’t get round them properly. I know I should buy lunch, but I’m worried that if I go wandering off, I’ll miss her, and we have even less time now, with her incoming flight delayed.
I realize I don’t even know what she looks like. She can’t know what I look like either. I pull out my phone and scroll through my photos; but I don’t have a single one of myself. There aren’t really photos of anything except Charlie. I hold the phone up in front of me and press the button. The click; I look at what I’ve taken.
I hardly recognize the person looking back at me. She’s so thin, the skin under her eyes so bruised. I could take another, try to make myself look better, but I fear they will all come out the same. And Chloe will see me in the flesh anyway, exactly as I am. I send the picture, with the words: This is me.
I check the Arrivals board again. Now her flight is due in just five minutes. Time seems to somehow have skipped. I push myself to my feet and make my way to the barriers. I can see the sliding doors that she’s due to walk through. I hold on tight, feeling as though I’m swaying. I really, really should have bought some food.
A few moments later they announce her flight. Streams of passengers begin to pour through the doors. I scan every one, looking for anyone whose appearance might match her voice on the phone. There are so many people, surely more than can have all been on one flight. Beside me, there is a family, hugging, reunited after who knows how long. I hold the edge of the barrier more tightly, my palm slippery on the greasy metal.
A woman is coming towards me now. She is scanning the crowds as well. She must be around my age, younger probably, but her dress, her style somehow makes her seem older. She wears a boxy skirt suit, and I can see a work badge pinned to her lapel. She is wheeling a squat, black suitcase behind her. I didn’t picture her quite like this but I think this is her; I think this is Chloe. I raise a hand and she catches my eye. She recognizes me from the picture I’ve sent.
‘Jennifer Arden?’ She stops opposite me, on the other side of the barrier.
‘Chloe?’
I have found her. She is here. I know we don’t have long.
Her flight was delayed, and it has taken up even more of her time coming out into the Arrivals lounge to meet me. We head to a café where I buy myself a flapjack, dense with dried fruit, a cup of decaf tea and a bottle of juice. More calories in one go than I can remember eating in a while.
Chloe hesitates then orders a black coffee. Then a sandwich. Then a piece of cake too.
We sit down on bright plastic chairs, Chloe’s squat suitcase pushed in beside us. Her movements are heavy, awkward, like she isn’t comfortable in her own skin. Our bodies, our looks, are very different, and yet I can relate to exactly how she feels. I tighten the band in my hair, the ponytail high on the crown of my head and, as I lift my arms, I catch the smell of myself: sharp, vinegary. Sweat under my arms.
I run through it again, the reason why I’m here. It feels like a well-rehearsed script by now; I have said it to Marianne and Alastair before, and I’m repeating myself now again for Chloe. Maybe I’m rushing her, but I’m just so aware of the time.
‘If you could just explain how you knew her. Anything you remember about her, no matter how small.’
Chloe toys with her sandwich. Perhaps she’s uncomfortable eating in front of me. I try to take the lead, twisting the cap off my orange juice. The smell is strong: citric, sharp. I press the bottle to my lips and make sure to take a sip.
‘I knew her from high school,’ Chloe says. ‘I would have been twelve, thirteen. She joined halfway through the year.’
‘And you … became friends?’ I do try to tread carefully, not say the wrong thing.
‘Yes. I didn’t … have many friends back then. So I suppose I was grateful for her attention.’
‘You hung out together?’
Chloe shifts in her chair, pushing the palms of her hands down the length of her coarse skirt. ‘Only in school. Our backgrounds were different.’
‘How do you mean – about your backgrounds?’
‘Well, she came from a very privileged home. She had a horse that she rode at weekends. She went on dozens of holidays abroad.’
Chloe looks up at me, something pained and sad in her eyes. ‘I, on the other hand … didn’t have a happy home life.’
From across the table, I can now read her name badge. Managing director, it says, and the logo is for a huge company that even I have heard of. I recognize something in her then. She is high up, successful. But personal life and professional life: I know so well how they don’t always match up. Despite the smart work suit, the professional competence she so clearly has, I can see the struggle to keep things together.
I fumble in my bag and pull out the postcard that Alastair gave me. I slide it across the small table to her.
Chloe picks it up, turns it over.
‘Do you recognize it?’ I ask.
She nods slowly. ‘Portsmouth, my God. I had to stay there, with my dad. Three months before my mum got custody back.’ She stares down at the words she wrote years ago, the ones I’ve read too, again and again. Missing you. Really wish you were here. And the telephone number, so Sarah could call.
‘You can keep it, if you like,’ I say, but she shakes her head.
As she hands the creased card back to me, I catch sight of the watch on the inside of her wrist, the seconds ticking past. The second hand seems to move much faster than it should.
‘And – back then,’ I press on, ‘as a teenager … what was she like? What kinds of things do you remember?’
A look crosses Chloe’s face. A sort of pained nostalgia. ‘I mean, it was great. For a while, at least. I’d never had a friendship like that. She had a way of making me feel … very special.’
‘What about her family?’ I say, doing my best to keep my tone casual. ‘Did she talk about them?’
Chloe laughs, that barking laugh I remember from our phone call. ‘Her daddy was a great success and very handsome and her mummy was beautiful and the best in the world.’
It sounds as if she is quoting word for word. ‘Is that what she said? That’s how she described them?’ The saliva glands in my mouth cramp up. I put the juice bottle down again.
Chloe shrugs. ‘That was sort of the way she described everything.’
Do I tell her the truth about Sarah’s parents? Why do I get the feeling she already knows?
‘There was another relative too,’ Chloe goes on, ‘a stepsister? No – wait – a cousin. I’m trying now to remember her name; maybe it would help you. Sarah talked about her all the time; she carried around this photo of the two of them together.’
A photo? So … could this person be real?
‘So … so what happened between you?’
Chloe pushes her sandwich aside, reaches for her coffee instead. ‘You have to understand how much I believed in Sarah. How much I believed – full stop. She made me think there was such a thing as a happy home, a happy family. I suppose I dreamed that, one day, I’d be invited along. I would get to do all of those things too. That was so much of what got me through. And in the beginning, I had no reason to doubt her. I’d read books, I’d watched TV shows. I knew there were kids who had all of those things. And, like I said, I wanted to believe her. But the more time I spent with her, the more I started to notice … Little things. Her stories got more exaggerated over time. And there were little errors she sometimes made. I made the mistake, once, of catching her out. She said she was going on holiday to Spain, but I bumped into her at the bus stop when she was meant to be away. She yelled at me then. She was furious. I quickly learned not to do that again. And she could be so quick to explain things away. So I noticed it, but I just … ignored it. I didn’t want to look at what was really going on.’
Chloe pauses, takes a breath. She has said so much all at once. I take a sip of tea, the liquid scorching my mouth. ‘And what was that?’
‘I just … there was something really wrong with her, I think.’ Chloe looks down and shakes her head. ‘She was lying, Jennifer. All the time. This whole life she was supposedly living. The parents, the holidays, the horse. She’d made them all up. She was always pretending. And I went along with it. I just let her lie, until …’
The tea and orange juice curdle on the floor of my stomach. ‘Until, what?’
‘Until one lunchtime when I couldn’t find her. We had a place we usually hung out, outside. But that day, we’d had another falling out and she’d sneaked off to the art room. Our relationship was sort of … unravelling by then.’
I don’t say anything. I don’t want to interrupt.
Chloe coughs into her hand. ‘Someone told me where she had gone, so I went looking. I still didn’t have … anyone else to hang out with. When I got to the art room, I could hear voices. There was a group of popular girls who often hung out in there.’
Above us, there’s an announcement over the airport Tannoy. The flight to Dubai. Chloe’s flight. I can feel the pull of it, pulling her away from me. I want to put my hand around her arm, hold her back until she gets to the end.
‘Voices?’ I prompt.
‘Behind the door. There was Sarah’s … and these other girls. Three, four of them, I wasn’t quite sure who.’
‘Did you go in?’
‘I couldn’t. They were … talking together, giggling.’
My chest aches as I picture her. Awkward. Alone. ‘So what happened?’
Chloe gets to her feet, heaving her luggage up off the floor. I get to my feet as well, my head spinning from the effort.
‘I stood out there in the corridor until the bell went, waiting for her and the girls to come out. I suppose I was going to beg her to take me back.’
They call Chloe’s flight again, and I steady myself with a hand on the back of the cold plastic chair.
‘She was shocked, of course, to see me there. But then she smiled. Told me she was ready to make up. Maybe she didn’t realize how long I’d been standing there. Maybe she didn’t realize what I’d heard. And seen.’
