The Missing One (50 page)

I have to stop being so fearful. I have to think.

‘Have you got a phone?' I say. ‘Because I should probably call my sister to let her know I'm OK. I called her from Raven Bay, when you took Finn, so she knows I'm here. She knows exactly where I am. They all do. Ana, and Sven … '

‘Huh? They do? Well. Nobody's here now, are they? And no, there are no phones.' She puts her head on one side. ‘Well, actually, that's not true. I think Jeff over the other side of the island has one. But … ' She shrugs. Then looks right at me, with a half-smile. ‘That's a way away.'

A dark shape shoots out of the sofa cushion behind her, scuttles madly through the sofa legs, and into the furthest corner of the room. ‘Shit!' I yelp. ‘Jesus Christ, what was that?'

She doesn't even twitch.

I point at the sofa. ‘Oh my God, there are rats here, Susannah. Was that a
rat
? I can't believe you'd bring Finn here. This is a nightmare. It's freezing. It's damp.' I look around, at all the candles. ‘Is there even electricity in this house? There isn't electricity, is there?'

‘I've kept it just the way she had it.' Susannah shrugs. ‘Though of course in those days the generator worked. Yes, you do have to be kind of careful here, Kali. Watch your step. The rocks, in particular, are quite perilous.'

I look at her. She looks back, steadily.

‘But Maggie said this is your bolt hole.'

‘Ah. So it was Maggie who sent you here. Idiot.'

‘She said this is your sanctuary. This isn't a sanctuary, Susannah, it's a bloody wreck – this place is falling apart.' I take a step or two closer to the kitchen, and glance in.

There is a candle on a peeling yellowish cabinet, and next to it a box of food – I see the Cheerios logo and a bag of apples, a box of Animal Crackers, a big glass jar of something – pickles – and a Horizon organic milk carton. These are groceries she bought today. She planned this. She shopped for it. She dropped the dogs off. Took some of Finn's clothes. She must have packed it all up while I was sleeping on her sofa. My sleep. What did she put in that cup of tea?

‘You don't belong here,' she says.

‘Actually, this place is probably legally mine,' I snap. ‘But don't let that bother you.'

‘Yours?' she says. ‘It's Gray's, technically, but we don't need to get into that, do we? This place is the last place on earth Gray would ever want to come to.'

I think of my father's warnings.

She stares at the dark window, the lashing rain. I can't make out her expression. She might even be smiling. The shadows have pooled in her eye sockets and I can't see her eyes any more. Her cheeks look sunken and there are deep lines on either side of her mouth. She turns her head, slowly, towards me.

Instinctively, I cover Finn's head with my hand. But she goes across to the sofa and, leaning one knee on it, she reaches up to the wall and unhooks a picture.

‘He was so good-looking, wasn't he?' She gazes at it. ‘That's what hoodwinked her, you see?' She steps towards me, holding out the picture. I can see a man with a beard in a woollen hat, standing on the deck of a boat. ‘She never could see how dangerous he was.'

‘Who? This man? Who is he?'

‘This?' She holds it up to me, smiles, then looks at it again. ‘It's Jonas, of course.' She gazes at him. Another gust of wind hits the floathouse roof and the whole structure shudders.

‘But who is Jonas, Susannah?'

‘Oh come on, Kali. Jonas started this whole mess.'

‘Oh. Then … but … ' I squint across at the photo. In the dim light I can't see him clearly, but he is wearing a yellow all-weather suit. And finally it hits me: of course. This has been staring me in the face the whole time. My mother didn't leave my father for the whales, she left him for Jonas – the whale researcher. This handsome bearded man.

I can't believe this has not occurred to me before. ‘My
mother ran off with this man – the whale researcher? Jonas? They were lovers?'

‘Oh Kali.' She shakes her head. ‘Are you seriously telling me you haven't even worked that out yet?'

‘I've been a bit preoccupied,' I snap back. ‘What with you drugging me and kidnapping my son.'

Immediately I regret my tone. She moves rapidly across the room, holding the photo flat on her body. I shrink back against the wall, squeezing Finn to my chest, covering his head with my hand. Candlelight flickers in her white eyes. ‘Don't give me that bullshit.' She grits her teeth. She holds up one finger, close to my nose. ‘Don't.'

I force myself to lift my chin and stare back at her, even though I want to cower, or better still, flee. ‘What do you mean?' I say.

‘Oh, you know.'

‘Actually, I really don't, honestly, but … OK. Look … ' I edge sideways. I have to calm her down. Something is misfiring in her brain. ‘Susannah, it's OK. Listen, maybe you can just tell me what happened up here. I'd really like to get it straight. Are you saying my mother left my father and had an affair with this whale researcher, Jonas, and then it somehow went wrong and she went back to my father? Went back to California? Is that it?'

‘Ha. Yeah. Went wrong. You could say that.'

‘And she left you too?' I try to speak gently. ‘Is that what this is all about? She hurt you too?'

‘Me? She didn't hurt me. She needed me. Someone had to protect you from him.'

‘Me?'

Her eyes flicker over my face, and she frowns. ‘No. No. Not you. Of course not. I'm talking about Elena. And you. Both of you. All of you.'

‘So, you had to protect us from this man – from Jonas?'

She is staring at the picture again. She is breathing hard as if holding all this in her head is a huge effort.

‘He was dangerous? Jonas was dangerous?' I think about my mother's safe routines, her Sussex life, her periods of deep depression, her moods. ‘What did he do to her, Susannah?' I glance into the shadows of the kitchen, half expecting a big bearded figure to appear in a yellow suit. ‘Where is he?' I say. ‘Where's Jonas now?'

She doesn't answer.

‘Susannah. What did Jonas do to my mother? You have to tell me.'

‘It's not what he did,' she says, ‘but what he was
capable
of doing.'

‘So he didn't do anything? He didn't hurt her?' I feel something release in my skull, as if someone has loosened a metal band around it. ‘OK. What happened then? Did you persuade her to go back to my father? Is that why Jonas needs – needed – to forgive you?'

Again, she says nothing. I can see thoughts, maybe memories, tugging at the muscles on her face.

‘Where is Jonas now?' I try to keep my voice soft. ‘He's not up here, is he, Susannah?'

The tip of her nose is reddish. Violet thread veins map her cheeks. Her hair is wild and her fingers, clasped around
the picture frame, are red raw. There are lines of dirt under each fingernail. She drops one hand to her side, and her fingers begin to tap rapidly against her thigh.

‘Susannah? Can you hear me?'

‘She upped and left just two weeks after she met him. I mean – who does that? Can you believe that? Two damned weeks!'

‘My father must have been really upset.'

‘Gray? Oh, he was destroyed.'

This is hard to imagine. My father has always seemed so unreachable, positioning himself somewhere beyond the petty demands of emotional involvement. My mother's death is the only time I've ever seen him vulnerable. It is hard to imagine him as a young man in California, abandoned and distraught. ‘So – she really fell in love with Jonas?'

‘Jonas was very persuasive.' Her fingertips tap harder, faster and then, as if taking its nervy cue, her leg begins to jiggle. I hug Finn tighter. ‘He was idealistic. Moody. Intense. Totally obsessed with his orca-mapping project. He had a God complex. He was going to save the world and I guess she was going to be his little handmaiden.'

‘OK, I definitely can't imagine her as anyone's little handmaiden.'

She stops twitching and tapping. ‘Well, yes, you see, that's the first reason it could never work.' She says this almost anxiously, her eyes searching mine for affirmation. ‘It really was never going to work out, was it?'

‘Did my father just let her go?'

‘She'd already gone! She crept out like a criminal while
he was away. Of course, it was a monumental mistake. Monumental.' She starts the jiggling and tapping again.

‘Maybe it was just something she felt she had to do? I mean, she was very young, wasn't she? People do make mistakes, don't they? And she made the right decision in the end because she loved my father, they were … content.' I can't say happy. Happy is not a word that fits my mother.

‘You told me you wanted to know everything,' she sighs. ‘But you really don't, do you, Kali?'

‘What? No. I do. That's why I'm asking you all these questions.' I shift Finn to my hip, keeping my arms tight around him. My back is beginning to ache. I stroke the hair out of his eyes and kiss him. ‘It's OK, love.'

She looks down at the photo again. ‘I always knew he'd try to hurt her. I always told her he would – that's why I stayed as close as I could. I wasn't going to let it happen, not to you.' She's talking to herself now. ‘Not to my Elena.'

‘But, you said he didn't hurt her.'

She fixes her white wolf eyes on my face.

‘What did he do, Susannah? He did something, didn't he? Just tell me what it was. Where is Jonas now?'

‘He's dead,' she spits. ‘Jonas is dead.'

‘He died?' I feel relief flood my limbs. Finn is so heavy. I shift him to the other hip. ‘OK, but you said … something about you coming up here to see Jonas?'

She laughs – a thin and shivery sound. ‘You want to know the whole story, don't you? And you won't let up till you get it. Your mother's daughter. Well. Fine. Fine! I'll tell you what happened! They were photographing a new family of orcas
and a storm came in. It happens all the time up here – like this one coming now; a polar storm, just closes in, almost no warning.' She claps the frame against her leg and I jump. ‘Seventeen-foot tides, massive winds. The seas up here are dangerous.
Dangerous
!' – she shouts it – ‘People die every year out there. Every year. He drowned! OK? Jonas drowned!'

‘Is that what you mean by my mother getting hurt?' I ask, as gently as I can. ‘Her grief?'

Susannah is muttering something; I can see her lips moving, as if she's consulting an invisible companion.

‘Susannah? You mean my mother was hurt by grief?'

So this is why she would never talk about the past: this horrible accident, her dead lover, the grief – and the shame of betraying my father. But something is still missing from this story. ‘Susannah,' I say, slowly. ‘What has this got to do with you? Why did my mother refuse to speak to you for thirty-eight years?'

*

Her face darkens and her body seems to inflate. Her eyes bulge and the vein running up the centre of her forehead begins to pulse. She throws the photo, like a frisbee, across the room and it smashes on the wall behind me. I jump. Her hand shoots out and I think she's going to punch me over Finn's head – I lurch backwards, but she hits her own forehead with a flat palm. It makes a loud smack. She does it again. And again.

‘Susannah … ' Finn starts to cry. I press his head against my chest. ‘Stop! Please. Stop.'

‘That's enough.' She screws her hand into a fist. ‘Enough!'
She punctuates each word with a thump against the side of her head. ‘Leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone.'

Finn's cry is escalating like a siren, his mouth baby-bird wide, his whole body rigid. But she continues to shout over his cries. ‘You've undone thirty-eight years in three days.' Her face is turning scarlet. ‘And now you follow me up here to – what – torment me? Hadn't you done enough? Why are you doing this to me? You're not meant to be here. You aren't here. Why can't you just GO AWAY?'

‘It's OK. It's OK. I'm not doing anything to you, Susannah.' I stroke Finn's hair, trying to calm him. ‘I'm not trying to upset you, I promise. And I didn't bring Finn to you – you took him from me. Remember? I just came up here to get him back. I won't ask you any more questions, OK? Please, please try to calm down.'

Her shoulders slump. She looks crestfallen. It occurs to me that she may actually be more of a danger to herself than to me, or Finn.

‘It's OK. Let's get some sleep, eh, Susannah?' I coax, ‘You look really tired. It's been a very very long day. Finn's exhausted. He really needs to sleep now. Let's sleep. I'm going to go away, first thing in the morning, OK? As soon as I can. And everything will be all right again. Please. Let's just … let's see if we can just sleep.'

She turns and flings herself across the room and up the stairs.

As I soothe Finn I can hear her stumble to the top, and then crash around for a bit. Little bits fall off the ceiling like confetti. Gradually Finn's sobs subside.

‘There you go.' I kiss him again. ‘Silly Susannah, all that shouting. It's OK. Silly old Susannah.'

I walk with him into the freezing kitchen and try to open a drawer but the wood is swollen and warped and nothing will budge. My hands are stiff with cold. I try another. From a corner, a spider the size of Finn's fist flexes its legs at me. I grab the bottle of water, wrench it open by balancing Finn on one hip and gulp at it, keeping one eye on the spider. It doesn't move. Icy water trickles down my throat.

I don't need a knife. People only get kitchen knives in Hollywood movies. This is not dramatic – it's just sad. She's plainly unwell. I just have to get through the night, then leave the moment it gets light.