I Am Watching You(8)



It was as if she suddenly saw this light go on, a window of opportunity in the wretched grind of guilt and helplessness. Suddenly her eyes were shining and she was saying that of course she didn’t mind people seeing her in a fairy costume with wings. Dear God. If it might help them find Anna.

And then she was off to her room, shouting that he was to follow her. There were loads of old pictures in boxes in one of the cupboards. She would dig them out. And could he call the police? Right now, Daddy. Loads of really great pictures. Do you remember? When we used to fool about in those automatic booths. The gang. Me, Sarah and Anna and Paul and Tim. She found an example – the five of them pulling faces – and held it out to him.

Henry sucks in the cold air as he remembers Anna in the centre of her friends, and closes his eyes.

You disgust me . . .

He had guessed the police wouldn’t want the pictures. And they didn’t. They just wanted the film. And when he told poor Jenny that the police were very grateful – and he and Mummy were, too – for all the time she had put in, finding the other pictures, her eyes had changed right back to how they always looked now. Sort of only half there.

‘Come on then, Sammy. Time to do this.’

Taking his wellies off in the boot room, Henry can hear his wife calling up the stairs.

‘Now are you sure you won’t watch it with us, Jen? Down here? Daddy and I really don’t like the idea – Oh. Hang on. I can hear – Daddy’s back.’

He walks in his socks through to the kitchen.

‘Great. Good. Henry. I’ve set it ready on the right channel and it’s all set to record, too. The producer has been on from the studio and they’re going to ring us. To let us know about the number of calls.’

‘Good. That’s good.’

‘Jennifer is still saying that she wants to watch it in her room. I don’t feel at all happy about that, Henry. Will you try talking to her again?’

‘If you like. But I spoke to her this morning, love, and—’

‘The thing is she doesn’t have to watch it at all, if she doesn’t want to. I’ve told her that. But if she does, I don’t want her to be on her own. I don’t see why she won’t be with us. We should be together for this. Don’t you think we should be together? As a family. Watch it together.’

Henry wonders if he should say it. The obvious: that they are no longer a family. He examines his wife’s face very closely and lowers his voice to a whisper. ‘Jenny doesn’t want to have to see our faces, darling.’ He means hers. Barbara’s.

‘Our faces?’ Barbara’s expression changes as she turns the words over for a moment. She looks away to the mirror in the hall and then quickly back at him. ‘Is that what she said?’

‘She didn’t have to, love.’

Henry continues to watch his wife very, very closely as she processes this properly. He makes himself look at her, right in the eye. He knows exactly why it is so difficult for Jenny to do this because he finds it so very difficult these days himself. To witness the depth of it all, written there, dark and dreadful at the very back of Barbara’s eyes. All day. Every day. No matter how hard she tries to dress it all up for Jenny with hope and smiles. With her scrapbook cuttings of the lost and found. And her endless baking.

‘But you’ll still talk to her? Before the programme?’ She is looking down at the floor now.

Henry steps forward and kisses his wife on the forehead. It is a kiss of duty and he does not touch her at the same time, for he knows the rules. Their limits. Their physical life on hold; or maybe gone forever.

‘I’ll just wash my hands and then – yes. I’ll talk to her.’

Jenny is sitting on the floor of her room, surrounded by bits of paper. Magazines also, and old photo albums, too.

‘Mummy wanted me to have another word.’ Henry scans the albums. Lots more photographs of the two sisters growing up. Matching bridesmaid dresses in one. Their first day at big school together. Most of the recent pictures are stored digitally, of course, but Jenny printed off a lot of favourites after her laptop crashed one year and she lost the pictures from a whole summer. They’d already been wiped from the camera. Irretrievable.

‘It’s all right. I’ve asked Paul and Sarah and Tim to come over. Is that OK? I mean – Mum’s right. It might feel too upsetting to watch it on my own. But I can’t sit with Mummy. I just can’t.’

‘Oh. Right. I’d better have a word. Goodness.’ He checks his watch. ‘It’s just that your mother might not feel comfortable with so many other people in the house this evening.’

‘Oh, come on, Dad. These aren’t other people. They’re my friends.’

Henry presses his lips together. There is still an hour and a half until the programme is due to start. He takes a deep breath, trying to weigh up his own response before dealing with his wife’s.

Barbara will cater. Sandwiches and cakes and the like. Fussing.

Absent-mindedly he looks at his watch again. Who knows – maybe it will actually help Barbara to have something to fuss over. A distraction.

He is surprised that Sarah’s mother Margaret does not want her at home to protect her. It has been hard for Sarah. A lot of unanswered questions. Still no one quite understands the story of how the friends became separated in London, and some people have been pointing fingers.

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