Where the Missing Go(18)

‘Can I get you ladies anything else to drink?’ The waiter’s hovering over us, all smiles. ‘Tea, coffee?’ He gives a happy little shrug. ‘Nice glass of fizz?’

‘Fancy it? I will if you will,’ I say.

‘I won’t thanks. I’ve got to drive,’ she adds. ‘My parking will run out soon.’

But now she’s here in front of me, I suddenly want to keep her here, this link with Sophie.

‘Do you still keep in contact with Danny, Holly? Sophie’s old boyfriend?’

She pauses, fiddling with the pink pompom on her car keys. ‘I do, yes. Look –’ she lifts up her head, looks me in the eye – ‘I talked about this with him. That’s why I agreed to meet you. I don’t want you stirring things up for us, it’s not fair. It’s been hard as it is.’

I’m a step behind. ‘Stirring up – you’re together?’

‘Yes,’ she says, serious. ‘It’s not a secret. We just haven’t … been rubbing it in people’s faces.’

‘Since when?’ The words come out before I can stop them: ‘How do you think Sophie would feel about this?’ I am suddenly angry: my daughter’s best friend and her boyfriend. That old cliché.

‘I don’t know how she’d feel.’ Her chin’s up now, patches of red creeping up her neck. ‘She’s been gone a long time now. If she cared—’

‘Sorry,’ I say, my flash of anger receding as quickly as it came. ‘It’s not my place.’

‘… if she cared about him or me,’ she’s relentless, ‘if she cared about any of us, she’d have come back.’ She adds, softer now: ‘I missed her a lot. He did too. We started spending more time together. And, you know …’

‘Fine, I get it. I’m sorry I asked.’ I want to go home and shut the door. Sophie’s disappearing from their lives. Like a stone thrown into a pond, and even the ripples are now fading away. I motion for the bill, the waiter flapping a little – it’s obvious the mood’s changed – when it occurs to me.

‘Sophie did care about you,’ I tell Holly. I really want her to understand this, for some reason. ‘When I found the package in the bin – your pregnancy test – I wasn’t happy about it. At all. She stuck up for you.’

Sophie had been so earnest in her defence of Holly: ‘You can’t get her mum involved, you don’t understand. She’s a good girl.’ It’s hard to remember a time when the spectre of teenage pregnancy seemed like the worst thing that could happen to a family.

‘She really stuck up for you,’ I repeat.

‘Well, that was the least she could do,’ says Holly. She’s looking around to catch the waiter’s eye to hurry him, when she says it, casually: ‘After all, it was her test.’

‘It was her test? What – how?’

She shrugs, a touch impatient. ‘She was with Danny then. We were teenagers, it wasn’t such a big deal.’

It’s now my turn to feel my face grow hot. I can almost hear Sophie: ‘God, Mum, you’re so nosy. I need some space!’ Her bedroom door slammed shut.

‘I – I didn’t realise they were that … serious.’

Holly’s mouth quirks. ‘Well. It’s not something I talk about with him now. But, evidently.’

‘Why did you lie?’

‘You’d have freaked out. That would’ve been the end of Sophie going out for a while, wouldn’t it?’

I can’t argue with that.

‘Does it even matter now?’ she says. ‘It’s ancient history.’ She pushes her empty cup away. ‘You might not like it, but we don’t talk about that time – about Sophie – now. We’re thinking about the future.’ She picks up her bag, ready to go. ‘I know it must be hard. But I don’t know why she never came back.’

‘OK,’ I say, with a slow nod. ‘I understand. Let me get this bill. Bye, Holly.’

She’s already out of her chair. ‘Bye, Kate.’

It still doesn’t sound right.





10


I’m nearly home again, about to turn into my drive, when a flash of red ahead catches my eye: Lily’s front door, swinging open. I feel a pulse of alarm and continue past the fork that leads to my house and up to hers, parking on the pebbled drive in front of her cottage.

‘Lily?’ I call, running in. ‘Lily, are you OK?’

I find her in the living room, standing in the corner. She’s wringing her hands, her eyes unfocused. ‘Lily,’ I say softly, ‘what’s wrong?’

‘He’s gone,’ she says. ‘The little boy. He’s gone again …’

Uh oh. I settle her in a chair, head to the kitchen and make her a cup of tea. Normally she settles down after a minute or two when she’s confused. When I come back she’s still in her chair but staring out of the window, her blue eyes filled with tears.

‘Oh, Lily, what’s wrong?’

‘My boy. I can’t find him.’

‘Which little boy is this, Lily?’

‘My little boy,’ she says impatiently. ‘I’ve been looking all over. I can’t find him.’