The Love of My Life(91)

‘She just didn’t feel safe. She was paranoid someone would come into our tent and steal me while she slept.’

That had made for an uncomfortable silence.

Every time I think about Janice Rothschild, something wrenches in my abdomen. Charlie didn’t bring it up in the car, which was a relief, but it’s there: malignant, appalling. I gave up my son because of her lies.

Charlie’s zipping up a windbreaker, swapping his trainers for well-used walking boots.

I’ve always loved that brand of walking boot! I want to say, but I mustn’t bombard him with similarities. I’m scared of anything that might make him think I’m desperate. But, even more than that, I’m scared this will be a waste of time, that we will find nothing but a dusty shed full of sheep shit and picnickers’ litter.

I ask him how he’s feeling.

He thinks about it. ‘Anxious.’

‘That we won’t find her?’

There’s a pause. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Anxious that we will.’

It takes a few seconds for me to understand what he means.

‘Oh, Charlie . . .’

‘It’s not just that she was buying paracetamol, it’s her diaries. The recent ones. She sounds really bad.’

I am not equipped for this. I should have kept out of it; allowed Jeremy and Charlie to find Janice. Who was I to think I understood her? That I knew how her mind worked, just because we shared some sandwiches in a shed nearly twenty years ago?

‘Look. Shall we go to your parents’ house, before we go to the shed? Take five?’

Charlie shuts the boot of my car.

‘No. I don’t want to waste another minute. I want to find her, get her to see a doctor.’

I send up a silent prayer. Let Janice be safe. The woman who stole my son, let her be safe.

It isn’t long before I see the shed. It’s not exactly as I remembered, but that’s the thing with memory: it makes up its own stories. They harden and calcify in just the same way as facts, and most of the time we have no idea which is which.

I remember the hut as much bigger, with a couple of windows and a crude chimney, and the remains of a wall circling it, where perhaps once sheep were overnighted.

Now there’s a large bush sprouting into a hole that was once a window, and the door has been boarded over. There’s the remnants of what’s probably a local teenagers’ bonfire outside, but it’s the only sign of life. Nobody has been inside this building for a very long time.

We both stop to stare at it – this tiny, ridiculous shack we have driven for hours to search. Janice was never here. There’s only the sea and the sky; the vast, knowing sky, with its circling marine birds and the secrets it never shares.

Charlie shoves his hands into his pockets and turns to look down at the waves as they fizz out across the sand.

Janice could be anywhere. Even if she’s nearby, how would we actually go about finding her? Every new beach stretches right to the horizon here; you could go hours without seeing a soul. No wonder the Vikings landed on this part of the British coast. It might as well have been the moon.

I sit down in the crook of a sand dune, overcome by exhaustion. I haven’t stopped since Jill semi-kidnapped me yesterday morning. I get out the miserable sandwich I bought somewhere near Newcastle and start eating.

I messaged Jill a couple of times, on the journey up here, but she hasn’t replied.

I know a thing or two about long-term guilt. It burns you from the inside like swallowed acid; it reaches every corner of your thinking. I just hope she’ll let me help dismantle these stories she’s told herself for so long. God knows, I owe her.

Charlie sits down next to me after a while. Charlie, who’s only here because of Jill.

I send her another message, while Charlie eats a pasty.

‘I think we should walk into the village and get a pint,’ I say, when we’ve finished our food. ‘Have a think about where else we can look.’

Charlie stands up, dusting himself down. ‘Mmm,’ he says. ‘Not sure it feels right to be in a pub when we could be looking for her.’

‘Of course. I . . . Look, Charlie, I’m sorry I planted the idea of the shed. It seems absurd now.’

Charlie thinks for a moment, poking at a little shock of marram grass with his boot. ‘The more I think about it, the more I agree with you, actually.’ He points to the beach, just below where we’re standing. ‘It’s always been here that we’ve had picnics. Always here that she used to spread out our towels and the windbreaker on beach days.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’ He stares down at the sand, remembering sun cream and bottled water, sandcastles and dinghies. ‘This is her spot.’

I turn my back to the sea, to look at the shed again. Behind it, a golf course runs along the beach for a mile or so. I wonder if any of the regulars might have noticed a woman, walking – maybe sitting here in the evenings? There’s a couple of golfers who are probably within shouting distance.

‘Charlie,’ I begin, and then I stop.

There is a strange synergy between me and Janice Rothschild, no matter how far we have circled from each other since Charlie was born. The day I bumped into her and Jeremy on this beach, four years ago, I felt her before I saw her.

And I feel her again now. She’s here. Close by.