The Missing One (44 page)

‘Thank you,' I say. ‘Thank you, Maggie. I'm sorry to be so – so shouty – I just really need to find Finn now.'

‘Just don't be too hard on her,' she calls after me. ‘I know she likes to be in control, she doesn't always listen, but she really did think you wanted her to take the baby. And she must be upset too … '

I look at her and her gaze still has that blank sheen. For a moment, I wonder what Maggie does and doesn't know. I nod, then, hooking my bag across my body, I plunge back out into the rain and sprint, as fast as I can, towards the ferry.

*

There are a few bundled-up people on board, hunched on benches in rows. There is no bar on this boat; it's far too small and it's shabby and stinking – it looks like it was built somewhere back in the seventies. It smells of old fish and cigarettes and has a rough brown carpet. It lurches out of the port, rain slashing at the windows.

I am struggling to get my head around the fact that just an hour or two earlier Finn was on this boat. This cannot be happening. I've felt this feeling before – in nightmares – and that time by the ruined West Pier when my mother walked off and I hurried after her, but my feet slid and pushed at the bank of stones, getting me nowhere.

I need to call Doug now. He'll be appalled that I have allowed this woman – this stranger – to take Finn. If I call I'll panic him. But his is the only voice I need to hear right now. And he needs to know what is happening. I feel nausea rising but there's still a signal on the phone so I take a breath and dial. He answers in just two rings.

‘I'm so glad you called—'

‘Doug,' I cut him off. For a moment I can't speak. It feels as if the planet is rollicking off its axis and I have to find something to hold onto or I will be hurled into space with it.

‘What's happened?' I hear it in his voice – his fear answering mine. ‘What is it?'

‘No.' I suck in the stale cabin air. ‘No, no. It's OK. He's OK. But I'm … I have to … Doug, I've been staying with this woman, Susannah; she's a very old friend of my mother's. She knew me when I was a baby; she owns a gallery on Spring Tide Island, near Vancouver. I've been … tired … very tired, and I fell asleep this morning, and when I woke up, she'd taken Finn to … to … she'd taken him on a day trip to her cabin … on this other island.' I take another breath. ‘Without asking me.'

‘What?' His voice is hoarse. ‘Where is he now? Are you telling me you haven't got him with you?'

‘He's with her. It's OK. She's not a random stranger. I mean, I think it's all fine, I don't want you to panic. It's just – I just wanted to hear your voice. That's all. I wanted to tell you what's happening. I … I'm on the ferry, going after them, to find them. She's at her cabin. I think it's a
floathouse, actually, I think it used to belong to my mother but—'

‘What did you say?' he shouts. ‘Kal, you're breaking up. Finn's at a floating house? Where are you then?'

‘It's OK, really it is. Susannah's friend at the bakery, Maggie, says she's only trying to help – she's been quite good with Finn while I've been staying. I just – I shouldn't have called you, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry you. I just really needed to hear your voice, that's all.'

‘Tell me exactly where you are right now.' He knows, just as I do, that this is not right. Nobody can just go off with our baby. ‘Give me your exact location, her name, everything you can think of.'

‘I'm on my way there, I'm going to be there, with Finn, really soon.'

‘Kal,' he barks. ‘Just give me the information.'

‘OK. So I'm just leaving Spring Tide Island. It's to the north-west of Vancouver. I'm on the
Sea Maiden
ferry heading to a place called Raven Bay – maybe north-west of Spring Tide, I think it's pretty close, I don't know, maybe a fifteen-, twenty-minute ride.' As I say this, I realize I haven't asked anyone how long this ferry will actually take to get to Raven Bay. ‘The woman I've been staying with is called Susannah Gillespie, she owns the Susannah Gillespie Gallery here – there's a website, you can google her. She knew Mum at university. My father knows her. She's well known in the art world, I think. She took Finn out to her cabin on Raven Bay earlier today, maybe midday. Listen, I'm sure it's fine but … ' He is too silent. I pause. ‘Doug?'

Nothing. Dead air. Then a flatline tone.

‘Doug, can you hear me? Doug!'

I look at the phone –
call failed
.

I have no idea how much – if anything – Doug heard of what I just said. I should never –
never
 – have called him. What can he do but panic now? And I can't even call him back.

Hearing myself explain all this has grounded me slightly. When you say the facts, it's not so bad, really. It's outrageous that she took Finn off without asking me. It's wrong – it goes against all sorts of unspoken rules, but it's not a disaster – and I'll be there soon. I'll have him back before I know it. I mustn't let hormones and the foreignness, the bigness of this place propel me into an unruly state. I should never have called Doug.

The boat lurches further on to the rough sea. There is no visibility. It is as if we are being bounced across the ocean in a pod of rain. I rest my head in my hands. The ibuprofen is wearing off and my coccyx aches. My head aches too, from the caffeine, all that heavy sleep. My mouth is still very dry. I have still eaten nothing. The idea of food makes me want to throw up.

Rain lashes against the scratched windows and the boat tips and teeters over the tall waves. Sickness rolls through me. I close my eyes. How are these people not vomiting? This is awful. I make myself open my eyes; there are five or six people on the benches around me – all men – all zipped into weather gear, mostly staring at their knees, or reading papers.

Maggie is a reasonable, sane person. She wears clogs and bakes poppy-seed muffins. She has presumably known Susannah for years. She would have behaved differently if there were a reason to worry; I must have missed the note.

Suddenly I feel the anger rising up again, the sheer, impotent fury. She doesn't get to take him away from me like this. You can't do that.

Even if she thought she was doing me a favour, she didn't have to lie about it. She told Maggie that I asked her to take him away. The lie, I realize, is what takes this from deluded to outrageous.

For a moment I imagine screaming at Susannah when I get off this ferry. I picture myself flying at her, grabbing Finn and howling, spitting in her face. I feel myself go hot and shaky, as if I'm about to attack her. But I mustn't allow myself to lose it. And screaming at her would achieve nothing. When I meet them at the other end of this appalling journey I must just take Finn calmly, and turn around and get away from this woman for ever.

The fleeting thought of holding Finn again triggers a physical reaction, a knot of pain and longing in my gut, and an ache in my arms and shoulders. It makes me think of when he was a newborn and I'd hear his cry and my breasts would leak milk – the maternal body overruling the rational brain.

The ferry heaves onwards. I glance at my watch. It's been twenty minutes already. I turn to the man on the bench behind me. ‘Excuse me? Hello?'

He looks up. His face is almost totally obscured by a beard, a woollen hat tugged down over eyes that are small, lined and very weary.

‘How long does this ferry take to get to Raven Bay?'

He grunts something that sounds like ‘half an hour'.

‘Half an hour?' I say, leaning closer.

He lifts his chin, briefly, out of his zipped-up jacket. ‘ 'Bout an hour.'

‘An hour?' I sit back on the roiling seat. An hour! But Maggie said – but then I realize that nobody has said anything about how far it is to Raven Bay. I never asked.

She took Finn on an hour-long ferry ride? In these conditions? On this sea? This is not outrageous. It's insane. What the hell was she thinking?

But perhaps they have different standards for weather up here. For them, this is just a normal winter's day. A bit choppy. Maybe they have a different sense of distance, too. I remember my mother telling me once about a rail journey she took across Canada as a child. She said that as she climbed into her bunk at night the train was just beginning to go around Lake Winnipeg. When she woke, the next morning, the train had been chugging all night. It was still going round Lake Winnipeg.

I don't remember why she was crossing Canada on a train, or how old she was, or who she was with. I don't even remember why she told me this story – perhaps to keep me quiet on a long car ride. I'll never know now. But the point is that everything in this place has been scaled up – the landscape, the weather, the distances, the wildlife. An
hour on a ferry, for these people, might seem like nothing. Towering waves. Lashing rain. Normal.

I fix my eyes on my feet. Despite this rationale, I feel the cold nausea edge towards my throat and I know it is more than seasickness and pregnancy. It is fear.

The ferry would hold about forty people at most, but there are almost no passengers on board. All are men. I want to scream,
Help me! She took my baby!
I look at their blank, tired faces, one after another, and one after another they glance up at me, then look away, as if embarrassed for me.

I stare through the stained window. The sea is angry and swollen, and every few seconds another wave hurls itself brutally against the glass. I wonder how Finn would have dealt with this trip. Did he throw up? He would definitely have been scared, and missing me. He will want his bunny too. I dig in my bag and pull it out. It looks forlorn, as if it, too, knows that this is bad. I dig my face into its soft brown fur. He wouldn't understand where she was taking him or where I'd gone or why she couldn't give him his bunny. He would feel abandoned and alone. He will be wanting me badly, and he will think that I've abandoned him.

My mouth fills with saliva and I blink back tears, looking for a toilet sign.

I try to remind myself that on the ferry from Vancouver he was delighted, running around, bashing things; it was me who felt seasick. Maybe he'll think this is all an adventure too, maybe he'll be distracted and won't miss me. But I know this is not true. He will be confused and frightened. I get up and begin to stagger up the aisle towards the toilets.
I have to stop thinking about Finn's distress. It isn't going to help get him back. I have to stay calm and if I am going to stay calm I have to not think like this. I just have to focus on the fact that I am about to get him back, and this is about to be over.

The ferry bucks as it moves further out, into deeper, wilder waters. When I peer through the window again the lights of Spring Tide Island are long gone.

I've vomited three times into the reeking toilet before we get there. Every cell in my body feels as if it is turning itself inside out. It's nearly four as the ferry slows and it is starting to get dark. But I made it. I am here and in a moment, I will be holding my baby and I will never, ever let him go again. Never.

My entire body aches for him now. I can't wait to get off this boat and sprint as fast as I can to wherever they are standing and to pull him out of her arms and hold him as tight as I've ever held him.

Presumably she will be waiting in the ferry terminal to get onto this boat. I squint through the windows to catch a glimpse of Finn's red suit, but they're too freckled and cracked and the rain is too heavy to see anything except the faintest blur of lights as we ease into Raven Bay.

Will she have him wrapped up warm? Did she remember to change his nappy? Did she let him have a nap? Has he eaten anything today? As I stagger down the gangplank through the drizzle, clutching his bunny, my legs wobble, my head pounds and I can taste sick through my nose. My throat hurts from the dry retching at the end. But of course
there is no ferry terminal on this tiny crumb of land. I squint through the rain. There is a slippery-looking walkway ahead, and a small hut, and then behind that, a single-lane road and a row of tall, wood-slat houses.

There is no sign of Susannah or Finn.

The men push past me, muffled by their waterproofs. They trudge away in a line, like the faceless figures of a dream. It is brutally cold up here. I shove the bunny into my pocket and pull up the hood of the parka, yanking the toggles so that it clings to the edge of my face; the chill stings my hands and I shove them into my pockets too. Waves bash against the pier that shelters the dock, throwing wild plumes into the air. All I can smell is salt and fish and something like diesel oil. I search the waterside for a flash of red suit, but even with the rain I can see that they are not here. The ferry must be early. Of course. She'll be coming any moment. She'll be coming round the corner and I'll see them. I just have to wait.

A couple of ferrymen in huge coats are hanging around by the hut. Could I have somehow missed her getting on the boat? I turn and scan it, but, no, nobody can have got on yet. The doors are shut, there is a barrier at the bottom of the gangplank and the crew is unloading crates from the hull. And anyway, she would have had to walk right past me to get on.

On the other side of the ferry, fishing vessels bump against the wooden dock, their masts clattering a percussion to the howl of the wind. I'm shivering. I can just make out dense pines sloping up behind the boats and houses
towards what may be a snow-capped mountain, but it's hard to tell with the rain and the glowering sky. It seems impossible that she would bring Finn to a place like this.

Waves crash and thump against the sea wall. A ferryman hollers and then I hear the boat engine churn and shudder. I spin around.

The ferry is moving. It is pulling back out into the waves, churning a mess of gristle-grey water in its wake.