The Switch(91)

‘Isn’t that like … identity fraud?’ Fitz says as he places a cup of tea beside me.

‘I’m Eileen Cotton, aren’t I?’ I tell him, scrolling back through her messages, skim-reading as I go. Shit. I should have warned Grandma about catfishing, I should never have just let her loose on this website – what was I thinking

I reach for my phone; I only notice it’s already ringing when it buzzes as my hand closes around it. It’s Grandma calling.

‘Grandma, did you transfer money to a man you met on the Internet?’ I say as I pick up. My heart is beating fast.

‘What? Leena, Leena – you need to get back here. Get back to Hamleigh.’

‘What’s going on? Grandma, slow down.’ I scrabble to my feet, pushing my laptop on to the floor. I haven’t heard that tone in my grandmother’s voice since Carla was ill, and it makes me feel instantly sick.

‘It’s Marian. She’s nowhere.’

‘She’s what?’

‘She’s not answering the door, and she’s not anywhere in the village and nobody has seen her. It’s just like the last time, Leena, she must be in there but she’s not letting me in, and I can’t find my key or the spare anywhere to get in and check she’s … what if she hurts herself in there all alone?’

Right, step one: keep Grandma calm.

‘Grandma, slow down. Mum’s not going to hurt herself.’

I drag my laptop back on to my knees again.

Step two: check trains. Because I have just remembered I have both sets of keys to Mum’s house in my purse.

‘OK, I’ll be there by seven, with the keys,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry for taking them with me. Are you sure Mum’s not just gone for a swim in Daredale or something?’

‘I rang the pool,’ Grandma says. She sounds on the edge of tears. ‘They said she’d not been since last week.’

Step three: keep myself calm. Mum was doing really, really well when I left her, the antidepressants were helping, we did so much talking about Carla, it all felt so much healthier. I’m sure there’s a totally reasonable explanation for all this.

But … the doubt’s creeping in. After all, I underestimated how bad she was last time around, didn’t I? I didn’t even know about these depressive episodes until Grandma told me.

What if she really is in there, alone? Did I say something awful at May Day, when she walked me home drunk? Should I have done more to support her these last two months, like Grandma said from the start? I wish I was still there, I wish I’d left at least one bloody key, if she really is locked in that house having some kind of breakdown and there’s nothing I can do, and not enough time and—

No, come on. Step four: recognise how much time you have, and how much you can do in that time. I remember a change-management seminar where the speaker told us that the doctors who handle real, every-second-counts emergencies move more slowly than doctors in any other department. They know the true capacity of a minute, just how much you can fit into it, and how much more fits in when you’re calm.

‘It’s all right, Grandma. We’ll talk it all through when I get there. Just stay at the house and keep knocking in case she is in there. And if you hear anything that makes you think she might be in danger, you go and get Dr Piotr, OK?’

‘OK,’ Grandma says, voice quivering.

I swallow. ‘Right. Grandma, this man, did you send him a bank transfer?’

‘A cheque. Why are you asking all this, Leena? Did you – why does this matter, did you not hear what I said? Marian’s not coping again, she’s gone, or she’s hiding, she won’t let me in, she—’

‘I know. But I have twenty minutes in which I can do nothing about that. And I can use that time to stop you from getting scammed. You concentrate on Mum, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘What do you mean “scammed”?’

‘I’ll explain later,’ I say shortly, and hang up. Grandma’s bank’s phone number is up on my laptop screen.

‘Hello, there,’ I say, when someone answers. ‘My name is Eileen Cotton, account number 4599871. I’d like to cancel a cheque.’

‘That’s fine. I just need to go through a few security questions first before we can authorise that. What’s your date of birth, please?’

‘Eighteenth of October, 1939,’ I say, with as much confidence as I can muster.

‘Now that is definitely identity fraud,’ Fitz says.

*

I am travelling north, at last. Across the aisle of the train a young family is playing Scrabble – I feel a bitter pang of nostalgia for the time when my family looked like that, happy in the ignorance of everything to come.

My legs jitter; I’m itching to run, but I’m trapped here on this train, crawling my way up to Yorkshire a hundred times more slowly than I want to be.

Breathe in, slow. Out, slow. OK. Yes, I’m stuck on this train, but that means I have two hours to get my head around this. Let’s aim to reach calmness by Grantham. Mum is OK. Mum is OK. Mum is OK.

A new email appears in my inbox; my laptop is open in front of me, more out of habit than the need to do anything with it. Rebecca wants me to come in for a coffee on Friday to talk about my return to work. Ceci is copied in on the email, and I flinch when I see her name, even though I don’t believe Grandma, of course I don’t.