On Your Doorstep: Perfect for those who loved Close to Home. Laura Elliot
Throughout the meal she drank too much wine. Carla caught Leo’s eye. Christmas Day, under normal circumstances, was always difficult when Janet drank too much and they recognised the signs, her flushed face growing more belligerent, her harried movements as she played with her food, her slurred voice insisting on everyone having second helpings. Unable any longer to control her fury, she glared at Robert.
‘Who is she?’ she demanded. ‘Who is the evil bitch who stole my grandchild?’
‘Janet…please let’s finish our dinner in peace.’ Gerard’s voice was already laden with resignation.
‘Peace! How can there be peace in this house?’ She pointed her index finger at the remains of the turkey and curled it back. ‘God help me, I want to shoot her. I want to shoot her right between her evil eyes.’
Gina, unable to cope with the naked emotion on everyone’s face, moved awkwardly around the table and cleared the dishes. Gerard and Leo skilfully guided Janet from the dining room and up the stairs where she took a sleeping tablet and drifted into a peaceful sphere where the sky was secure and eternally blue.
As soon as Leo reappeared, he handed Gina her coat and helped her into it.
‘We promised my parents…’ She glanced apologetically at Carla and hugged her. ‘We’re already late.’
Gina’s parents would plump cushions behind her back, place a footrest under her feet. They would fuss over her and talk about baby names and ask about the last scan and whether she was still suffering from heartburn. Carla sucked in her breath. If she was to continue to stand upright she must acknowledge her sister-in-law’s reality. She slipped her hand under Gina’s coat and pressed her palm against her taut stomach. The baby kicked. A heart thud, same beat.
‘You’ll find her, Carla.’ Gina struggled not to cry. ‘You have to keep believing. Promise me you’ll keep believing.’
Gina’s baby was born in the second week in January. A baby girl, Jessica, eight pounds, six ounces; one pound four ounces heavier than Isobel. Robert grasped Carla’s arm as they walked along the hospital corridor. His grip hurt but she welcomed the discomfort. It kept her walking in a straight line towards the ward where balloons with congratulatory messages bobbed above the beds and bouquets of flowers scented the air. Gina’s family were already in the ward. They fell silent when Carla and Robert entered. The weight of all the unspoken thoughts gathered together in the small ward was almost too much to bear. Carla was acutely aware of the discomfort of Gina’s family, the sympathy they longed to express if they could only find the right words. Tragedy had turned her and Robert into pariahs, doom-laden victims of an unsolved mystery. The visitors began to talk again but their voices were hushed, as if an inadvertent word would break the brittle calm. Carla bent and stroked her niece’s cheek. Jessica rested in her mother’s arms, cocooned in a pink sheet, a tiny, red-faced chrysalis with a shock of black hair. ‘We’re meeting friends so we can’t stay,’ Robert said and Gina nodded, accepted the excuse along with the baby present in bright wrapping paper. She did not order Carla to have hope. The time for platitudes had passed. Words were no longer an adequate response for people consigned to limbo.
By the end of January, the decision was made to wind down the Garda search. Isobel’s file would remain open but the team was being disbanded and assigned to other, more pressing cases. Another unsolved mystery. There were so many of them. The great void where the ‘missing’ existed. Isobel would become past history, someone who would feature sporadically in the media when she was tagged to a similar tragedy. Not that Carla could imagine anything remotely similar but children disappeared all the time. She had read about such disappearances, tug-of-love children, kidnapped children, slave children, and, sometimes, disappearing mothers who abandoned or killed their babies. She no longer wanted to hear such stories, nor read comparisons. Any extra strain would send her over the edge. She felt herself stepping nearer to it every day; the smooth perimeter of a deep black hole.
Detective Superintendent Murphy broke the news as gently as possible. He had been in regular contact with them throughout the search, his reassurances ringing with less conviction each time. On this occasion, Carla watched his eyebrows moving as he detailed all the avenues that had been explored, the leads followed and abandoned. How strange his face would look if they were shaved off. Like a moon without a shadow.
That night Robert sat in the kitchen with a bottle of whiskey at his elbow. It was after two o’clock in the small hours when he entered the bedroom.
‘Carla…’ His voice shook as he leaned against the doorway. ‘Carla…’ His voice thickened when he repeated her name. He slumped to the floor, his back arched as he encircled his knees. ‘I know you’re blaming me. But I couldn’t prevent the decision…I couldn’t even do that much for her…’ He began to cry, an ugly sound, brutal, bare.
‘I don’t blame you.’ Carla helped him to their bed. ‘But it’s up to us now. We must do everything possible to keep her name in front of the public.’
Once he fell asleep, she entered the nursery. Isobel’s photograph was pinned above the cradle. It was so out of date. She was almost three months old now, the colour of her eyes clearly defined. Carla hoped they were brown but they could just as surely be the same intense blue as her father’s searching eyes. She was smiling and gaining weight, standing sturdily on the lap of some strange woman. Two little ramrod legs determined to stay upright.
The light struck the seahorses. She had forgotten how delicately they moved. The slightest sway of air set them in motion. She remembered the day she and Gillian had bought them. The glass artist had admired the cradle and held the seahorses over it, rainbow colours glancing off the white gauze.
‘It’s for my first grandchild,’ Gillian had confided to the artist, who smiled as she bubble-wrapped the seahorses and told them she would soon also become a grandmother. She was probably enjoying her grandchild now, whereas Gillian could only live with the longing.
Susanne
Four months later
Miriam called this afternoon. No warning. She just walked into my kitchen as if this was still her house. Country people do not understand the nature of privacy, the value of distance. They were used to dropping into Rockrose when she lived here and don’t see why things should be any different now.
Phyllis Lyons does the same. She opens the back door and shouts, Yoo hoo, anybody home? Do I need anything in the village? Would I like to sample her homemade jam? Would I like to put my feet up while she takes you to her house to see her mother? She wants to hold you, kiss you, cuddle you. As if she has earned the right to possess you.
Like Phyllis, Miriam is also oblivious of boundaries. ‘Come into my arms, my little cabbage,’ she says, and takes you from your pram or cot without asking my permission. ‘We’re a small community here,’ she reminds me when I suggest a phone call in advance would be appreciated. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony, especially in a village where everyone knows everyone else. Just be glad to have such good neighbours. Remember Phyllis. Where would you have been without her?’
‘Let’s have lunch,’ she said when she came today. ‘It’s ages since you and I have had a chance to talk. I’ve brought food.’
She unpacked a flask of homemade soup and sandwiches. You were sleeping upstairs, quiet for once, and we had the kitchen to ourselves.
When did I intend returning to work? Miriam’s tone was polite but she was looking for an answer. ‘It’s four months,’ she added when I make no reply. ‘I’m coping without you but only just. Have you considered the crèche at the craft centre? It’s the perfect solution.’
‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘I need more time with Joy. In fact, I think I should stay at home for the foreseeable future. I’m sorry, Miriam. I’d no idea she would take over my life but I honestly believe I’m making the right decision.’