Читать книгу 11 Missed Calls: A gripping psychological thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat - Elisabeth Carpenter, Elisabeth Carpenter, Libby Carpenter - Страница 13

Anna

It has been five days since I read the email and I still can’t find the right words to write back. I searched the loft for the box of Debbie’s things, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. This morning, Jack suggested it might be in the storage unit with the rest of the belongings we haven’t seen for years. I must not have looked at her things for over three years. Jack promised he would go over later to collect what he can find.

I pull up outside Dad and Monica’s to collect Sophie. I haven’t seen nor heard from Monica since last week. I should have brought her a box of chocolates or something to let her know I’m thinking of her – that I appreciate all that she’s done for me.

Growing up, neither I nor Robert called her Mum. Robert had always known her as Monica, so I must have copied him. ‘Why do you call your mum by her first name?’ friends used to ask. ‘She just likes it that way,’ I’d say, too embarrassed to tell the truth.

Monica never treated us any differently to Leo. It must have annoyed him. I haven’t heard from him in months – he’s been living in America near his dad for almost ten years. It must be so hard for Monica, Leo being so far away.

Dad opens the door before I have the chance to ring the doorbell.

‘Good day, love?’ he asks, as though it is a normal, unremarkable day.

How can he act so nonchalant? My mother is alive! Perhaps he’s worried about Monica. Leo’s been gone for so long, and now my mother might be coming back to replace her. Like she did to Debbie.

I put my head around the living-room door. Sophie raises her hand in greeting, chewing something without taking her eyes off the television. There’s a plate next to her with an unopened tangerine.

‘Not bad, thanks,’ I say. ‘Is that chocolate she’s eating?’

Dad’s hovering in the hallway and doesn’t answer my question.

‘Do you want a cup of tea, or do you want to head straight off?’

‘Are you trying to get rid of me?’

I follow him into the kitchen. He puts the kettle on and beckons me to stand closer to him. He waits until the water starts to hiss until he speaks.

‘Monica’s not feeling too well,’ he says.

He points to the kettle, then up to the ceiling. What he means is that the walls are very thin in their three-bedroomed terraced house – you can hear next door sneezing, and I dread to think what else.

‘Shall I take her up a drink?’ I ask.

Making yourself heard whilst trying to be quiet is harder than it seems.

Dad shakes his head. ‘Best leave her to it, love.’

‘It’s okay,’ I say, pouring hot water into the teapot. ‘I want to see Monica for myself. I’ll take her up a digestive.’

Dad doesn’t look happy, but what is he going to do? Wrestle me to the ground to stop me? I pour tea into a china cup, and milk into a little jug, and place them on a tray with a biscuit she probably won’t eat. I carry them upstairs, everything rattling.

I balance the tray on the palm of one hand and knock on their bedroom door with the other. There’s no reply. She used to do this a lot when she and Dad had arguments about the boys when they were teenagers. Robert and Leo didn’t get on most of the time. They had to share a bedroom. Robert’s side was reasonably tidy; Leo’s not so much.

I knock again.

‘Monica, it’s me, Anna.’

Still no reply.

I open the door. My eyes go directly to their bed, but she’s sitting in the chair that faces the window. I place the tray on the little table, and sit on the footstool next to her.

‘Have you been crying?’ I ask.

She blinks several times.

‘Oh, hello, Anna. I’m sorry. I’m not with it today.’

‘That’s okay. Is it the news about Debbie?’

I can’t call Debbie my mother in front of her. It feels disloyal to Monica; she has always been here for me.

‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ she says. ‘It’s all come as a bit of a shock.’

I pick up the cup of tea and offer it to her.

‘I’ve put two sugars in it.’

She purses her lips in a smile. ‘You’re too good to me. I don’t deserve it.’

‘Of course you do. Who else would put up with Robert and me?’

There is an answer that hangs in the air that neither of us even jokes about: Not my mother.

‘You know,’ she says, ‘I felt tremendous guilt getting together with your dad after your mother left. She was my best friend, you know. I met her in the third year of secondary school. I’d just moved up north, and spent the first couple of days sitting on my own at dinner time. Then Debbie came over to me – of course, she was Deborah, then. Her mum, you see, she always wanted her to be Deborah, never Debbie.’

I love hearing Monica talk about my mother like this. Grandad still calls her Deborah – when he talks about her, that is.

‘Has Dad told Grandad about the email?’

Monica drops a splash of tea onto her skirt as she sips from her cup. She frowns, disorientated at being interrupted.

‘I imagine so. You’ll have to ask him.’

I take the tea cup away from her as she dabs at the blotch.

‘Where was I? Oh yes, at school. She walked up to me, her dark, wavy hair flowing behind her – you’ve got her hair, you know, the exact same. She looked stunning. Who looks so beautiful while they’re a schoolgirl? Back then it was different – kids weren’t allowed to wear make-up to school, and I had terrible spots. Debbie thought she was hideous, but she was never hideous. She was a joy to be around … well, until the end … Anyway, when she met my eye that day, I was sitting on a bench near the Maths block. I had to turn around to check it was me she was talking to. “I hear you’re from London,” were her first words to me. “I’d love to go there,” she said.’

‘What did you two used to get up to?’

I have asked the question so many times, but Monica never complains. Sometimes, there will be something I’ve never heard before.

‘We didn’t get up to much really. In the first summer we spent together, we were fourteen. All we did was talk about boys, though the ones at our school could never compare to David Cassidy.’ She smiles at me. ‘He was famous in the seventies – Google him. We were so naive. We read about boys and sex from a book, for God’s sake. Forever by Judy Blume – though we’d heard about most things by sixteen.’ She returns her gaze to the window. ‘We didn’t spend much time at her house. I think she was ashamed, but she needn’t have been – her parents were lovely.’

‘Why would she feel ashamed?’

‘Her parents sent her to a school in the next town – she mixed with other people than those on her estate.’ She looks at me and places a hand on mine. ‘I’m not saying that it’s right or anything, for her to have felt like that. It’s just how it was. Her parents were older than most when she was born. When she was growing up, they focused on what was best for her. I wish my parents had been like that, but Debbie felt embarrassed that they showed so much interest in her life. It made her lonely, I think. She didn’t have many friends. She was like you, really.’

‘A loner, you mean?’

‘No, no. As if I’d say something like that to you.’ She squeezes my hand, rubbing the top of it with her thumb. ‘She chose her friends carefully … was wary of other people. Her parents sheltered her from the big bad world, protected her from the hardship they suffered.’ Monica sighs. ‘Time goes by too quickly. She was always there for me. Until the end. It was all my fault.’

My ears tingle with a new bit of the story – she has never mentioned any cross words between them.

‘What do you mean it was your fault?’

‘Has your dad never talked about the troubles we had?’

‘He doesn’t talk about her much at all, let alone any problems.’

‘Thinking about it … I don’t know if Peter would want me to say anything to you about it.’ Monica’s not looking at me any more. ‘We haven’t talked about it for such a long time, I don’t know what he remembers. Memories can get distorted … hold you back, you know? Such a horrible time.’

Monica is staring out of the window again. It’s like a mist has covered her eyes, between the past and the present. I follow her gaze. Mr Flowers, from the house opposite, has dropped his keys; he’s trying to pick them up using the end of his walking stick. I should go out and help him, but I want to hear what Monica has to say.

‘I’ve said too much. Your father never wanted you to find out anything bad about Debbie. He blames himself, too, I imagine. There’s a lot that’s been airbrushed from Debbie’s history.’

‘What do you mean?’

She sits up and reaches for a tissue to wipe away the fresh tears.

Dad’s heavy footsteps are on the stairs.

Monica leans over and puts a hand on my shoulder.

‘Please don’t tell your dad I told you anything, will you? He’d kill me if he found out I mentioned anything.’

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. You’ve hardly said anything.’

She leans against the back of the chair.

‘I loved her, you know. She was like a sister to me.’

Dad turns the handle of the bedroom door. I put a smile on my face, so that when he opens the door, he’ll think everything is fine.

I put the key into our front door, and remember the letter hidden in Jack’s wallet. I have spent the past week worrying about it, but barely thought of it today. Does that mean I don’t care about him any more? I need to confront him, but that would mean admitting I was snooping again. I can’t have him think I’m not coping. It can’t be like last time. I nearly lost everything.

I let Sophie in through the door before me. She looks so small in her little grey school pinafore – her cute little legs. I can’t lose my little girl; I must keep it together – pretend everything is okay. But I make a mental note to go through all of Jack’s contacts on Facebook to see if there’s anyone by that name – there can’t be many. I have never met anyone called Francesca.

I reach into Sophie’s school bag and take out her reading book. She skips through to the kitchen and sits at the table next to Jack. I place the book in front of Sophie and she begins reading quietly to herself.

‘You’re back early,’ I say.

I glance around the kitchen. Jack’s put all the dirty dishes into the dishwasher and the empty beer bottles into the recycling. The worktops have been wiped clean and the bin has been emptied.

There’s a carrier bag of food on the counter. I peek inside: ingredients for a spaghetti bolognese and a bottle of red wine. I kiss the top of Jack’s head and we almost clash as he jolts in surprise.

‘Did you remember at last?’ I say to him.

‘Remember what?’ He winks and walks out of the kitchen, coming back seconds later with a bouquet of flowers and a small gift bag.

‘I’m so sorry, Anna,’ he says. ‘I’ve had the present in the boot of my car for days. I was mortified when I got to work this morning, saw it, and realised the date.’ He hands me the bunch of roses. ‘I got these as an extra – to say sorry.’ He strokes my cheek. ‘Are you going to open your present?’

‘I might save it for later – when I can really appreciate it.’

He’s smiling for the first time in weeks – I don’t want to spoil it by mentioning anything about love letters from strange women. He’s still looking at me, but his eyes glaze over.

‘Are you all right?’ I say.

He tilts his head to one side, blinking his thoughts away. ‘I was about to ask you the same thing. After that email—’

‘I’m fine.’ I don’t want to talk about it in front of Sophie. I nod in the direction of our daughter, her little head down in concentration.

‘If you put Sophie to bed,’ says Jack, ‘I can nip out to the storage unit and get that box of things you were looking for the other day.’

‘That would be great. Thank you.’

It seems I’m not the only one pretending we’re all right. I know he’s tried to make it better with the flowers, but I know there is something he’s hiding from me.

It was four years ago when I first searched Jack’s belongings. Sophie was asleep, and Jack had nipped to the bathroom. He’d just used his phone and the pin number wasn’t needed so I picked it up. There were several texts from a woman.

Jack caught me looking, though I was hardly subtle. I was standing in the middle of the living room with his phone in my shaking hands.

‘What are you doing, Anna?’ he’d said.

‘I was just borrowing your phone – mine’s out of battery.’

I didn’t look up. He walked towards me quickly, holding out his hand for me to give him the phone, but I held on to it.

‘But we’re at home,’ he said. ‘Use the landline.’

‘Who’s Samantha?’

‘What? Give me the phone, Anna. You can’t just go through people’s things.’

He lifted his hand to grab it, but I put my hand behind my back.

‘You’re my husband, Jack. We shouldn’t have secrets.’

He folded his arms slowly.

‘There are boundaries, Anna. People have boundaries. Haven’t you learned that from what happened with Gillian Crossley?’

‘That’s nothing like this. And you said we’d never mention it. It was two years ago.’

He tilted his head to the side.

‘I know. But sometimes I get scared you’ll do something like that again. She said you were stalking her. It’s happened one too many times.’

‘That’s below the belt, Jack. You know I wasn’t well. I had counselling. I know the signs, when to get help.’

He stared at me.

‘You’d tell me if things were getting on top of you, wouldn’t you? I love you. I’m not your enemy.’

I glanced at the photographs on the wall: of Jack and me, of Sophie.

‘I know. I’m just tired.’ I brought my hand round and handed him the phone. ‘But who is Samantha? I’m sure any wife would want to know who the woman texting her husband is.’

He shook his head, grabbing the phone from my hands.

‘A new solicitor at work. And if you’d read the texts properly you’d have seen that.’

My face burned.

Later, when he was asleep, I checked his firm’s website and there she was: Samantha Webster, Solicitor – her arms folded in a serious pose for the camera.

I look at him now, listening to Sophie read, and you wouldn’t think he was hiding something. If I were to admit I had searched his wallet, he would accuse me of relapsing. But what happened all those years ago has taught me one thing: two can play at that game.

Monica used to say that if a boy caused you so much heartache, then they weren’t the right one for you. My first heartbreak was aged twelve. I lay on my bed, listening to LeAnn Rimes belting out ‘How Do I Live’ to drown out the sound of the boys arguing in the room next to my head. Monica knocked at the door.

‘Are you okay, Anna? You’ve not come down for your tea.’

‘Fine,’ I shouted over the noise.

She walked in, closed the door, and opened the curtains and the window.

‘A bit of fresh air is what’s needed in here,’ she said. She sat on the edge of my bed and swiped the hair from my face. ‘What’s wrong, love?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I’ve plated your dinner up. I’ll leave it on the side. Just heat it up in the mike when you’re ready to come down.’

She didn’t move from the bed, was still stroking my hair.

‘Thanks.’

‘If you want to talk about it, I’m here.’

‘Hmm.’

The song ended, but it started again because I’d put it on repeat.

‘Is it your friends, Annie? Have they all ganged up on you again?’

I shook my head. That hadn’t happened in months, but it wasn’t them this time.

‘A boy?’

I shrugged, my shoulders cushioned against the pillow.

‘It’s hard, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘I suppose.’

I had to blink quickly so my tears didn’t fall out of my eyes.

‘Hannah said yes to a date with him. She knew I liked him.’

In the end, I couldn’t stop the tears falling.

‘Oh, love.’

I sobbed into the pillow. Monica lay down next to me, put her arms around me, and I cried into her jumper.

‘Let it all out, sweetheart.’

We lay like that for ten minutes. The song played another two times, and I finally stopped crying.

‘He wasn’t the right one for you, that’s all. The One will come along and he’ll like you right back.’ She stood up. ‘Talk to me about it whenever you want. I’ve been there. School is tough, I know. It’ll pass quickly enough.’

Now I blink away the tears that have formed in my eyes as I hear Jack’s car pull up outside. I open the front door quietly and watch him open the boot and take out the box.

Is he being nice because he feels guilty, or because he genuinely wants to help me? Heartache sounds too indulgent when you’ve been with a person for years. I might not like Jack sometimes, but he’s my family. I love him. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t confronted him: I don’t want to hear the truth.

He’s trying hard to be quiet, so he doesn’t wake Sophie. I stand aside as he carries the box into the house as though it were a boulder. I shove my hands underneath and take it from him. It’s not that heavy at all, but I pretend it is as I lower it to the ground.

‘Careful – it’s weighty,’ he says.

‘It’s okay. I’m used to carrying boxes of books at the shop.’

It’s fifty centimetres square and painted pale blue with hand-drawn flowers all over it. It has my writing in black marker: Mother. I don’t remember writing that; it’s been years since I’ve seen it. I want Jack to leave the room, so I can look at the contents alone.

‘Well?’ he says.

‘Well?’ I repeat, in the hope he’ll take the hint, but he sits on the edge of the sofa.

I sit on the rug and lift the lid off. Straight away I see my scrapbook. It’s decorated with pictures of beaches in Tenerife from holiday brochures, models from Mizz and Woman’s Own who I thought might look like her, and The Beatles. Inside the box are the 45rpm singles Gran gave me: ‘Norwegian Wood’ and ‘Heart of Glass’. Dad always switched the car radio off if one of those songs came on.

After Gran died, I began asking him more questions about Debbie. He gave me a telephone number, saying it was for Debbie’s old mobile. At first, I rang it every day, but there was never a reply, obviously. I used to tell the answer machine my problems, what was happening at school, how much I missed her. It only dawned on me a few years later that it can’t have been Debbie’s – she wouldn’t have had a mobile phone in 1986. It was probably one of Monica or Dad’s old numbers; there must be at least a thousand missed calls on it. I don’t want to imagine them listening to the messages I left.

‘That’s an unusual collection of pictures,’ says Jack, making me jump.

I had forgotten he was here.

‘I was a child when I decorated it.’

I shouldn’t feel embarrassed in front of him, but I do.

‘But why beaches?’ he says.

‘It’s Tenerife. It was where she was last seen.’

‘That’s a bit macabre, isn’t it? What if she was …’

He stops himself from saying what he usually says after he’s been drinking.

‘I just thought she must have really liked Tenerife,’ I say, ‘to have never come back.’

It’s like my eleven-year-old self is saying the words.

Jack gets up and heads towards the door. Before he leaves, he turns around.

‘Why didn’t you just put a picture of Debbie on it – instead of models who look like her?’

He doesn’t wait for me to answer. He looks away from me and tilts his head as though pondering. He hasn’t seen the memories inside my shell box. He might have feigned interest when we first started going out, but he isn’t bothered about the details of her as a person. He would rather pontificate at length about what happened to her – as though he were discussing a murder victim on the television.

I lay everything out on the floor as I take it out of the box. The records, the scrapbook, the old cigar box Debbie decorated with seashells – half of which are chipped. I know what’s in it without opening it, but I flip the lid anyway. It’s quite pathetic really, the number of things in there: my hospital wristband, a stick of Blackpool rock – now a mass of crumbled sugar held together by a cylinder of cellophane. There’s also a pen with a moving ship and a silver pendant depicting the Virgin Mary with the words Bless This Child, threaded on a piece of pink string. Dad can’t remember buying any of the items in the box, so I like to think Debbie chose them just for me.

I open my scrapbook.

She wore flip-flops in the summer and Doc Martens boots in the winter.

She had a birthmark in the shape of Australia on the top of her leg.

She ‘couldn’t take her drink’ after having children.

The front door shuts – I hadn’t heard it open. Jack walks into the living room carrying a box the same size as my seashell one.

‘I forgot this,’ he says, placing it on the floor beside me.

It’s decorated with what looks like real Liquorice Allsorts. I pick it up; it smells sugary, medicinal.

‘They’re real sweets,’ I say. ‘Where did this come from?’

He shrugs, and walks towards the door.

‘It was packed next to your box. I’m going upstairs to make an important phone call. Don’t just walk in, if that’s okay? It’ll seem unprofessional.’

I wave my hand in reply. His phone call might be far from professional, but I can’t take my eyes off the box covered in sweets. It must be Robert’s. It’s an old King Edward cigar box like mine. I knew he must have had one, but I’ve never seen it before. I assumed he’d thrown it away. What was it doing in our storage?

I don’t open it straight away. Like with presents, an unopened object is far more interesting than an unwrapped one. I turn it in my hands and hold it. She must have spent ages gluing them on like this.

I place it on the floor and slowly lift the lid.

There are more items in this one than in mine. Robert probably added some pieces himself. There’s his conker that Grandad told him to bake in the oven for seven hours. After that, he painted it with five coats of Ronseal in mahogany. I would have been three or four years old. I bring it up to my nose – I remember the scent as he painted it, but it doesn’t smell of anything now. The treatment was effective; it still looks as smooth and shiny as it did then.

I take out his other things: hospital wristband; a Pez dispenser, with a few rectangular sweets still inside; his first report from primary school; and birthday cards signed from Mummy and Daddy. I don’t have any birthday cards with my mother’s name inside. I run my fingers along the writing in one of them.

Underneath all of these is an old photo processing envelope. It lists different sizes and finishes of photographs – our old home address is scrawled on the form in childish handwriting. It’s dated 20 February 1987 – nearly seven months after my mother disappeared. There is a cylinder inside it. I stick my hand in and pull out a black plastic container. I peel the cap off it, praying there’s something inside.

There is.

A whole roll of film that might contain pictures of my mother that I’ve never seen before.