Читать книгу A Song for Jenny: A Mother's Story of Love and Loss - Julie Nicholson - Страница 8

RECOVERY OPERATION

It’s a relief to be driving along a stretch of familiar road and momentum within the car is picking up as we near our destination. I lean forward, looking out for the landmarks which indicate the gap between trees and hedges where we need to turn off the main road. Martyn slows the car down; even so we overshoot the turning, spotting the obscured entrance just as we pass it. He swings the car around, swinging us with it and doubles back the short distance to turn from the main road into the approach lane leading to my sister and brother-in-law’s house.

The lane gradually crumbles into a track, uneven with ridges and potholes. Bumping slowly along towards the drive, passing the two or three other properties, we’re shaken out of our soporific states and begin speaking again. The tension of the journey is rapidly dissipated. When the car finally pulls to a halt, there’s a fraction’s pause while Martyn flexes his arms against the steering wheel, breathing a long sigh, then the doors are thrown open and our stiff bodies tumble from the car. Amidst a mêlée of greetings and embraces, we trail through the hallway, all talking at once and pour through the doorway of the kitchen in a combined state of near hysteria.

Vanda and Stefan are looking at us with stunned expressions and have become rooted to the spot as we bombard them with overlapping words. They are standing close together as if in mutual protection against the onslaught. ‘My God, you all sound so high,’ Vanda finally blurts out. ‘We thought you’d be tired and flat and we’d have to restore your spirits.’ Finding her voice seems to galvanize my sister into action and she turns to stir a pan simmering on the stove for a moment before abandoning the wooden spoon and turning her attention to a row of glass tumblers lined up on the kitchen unit.

‘Come in and have a drink.’ Stefan is taking a bottle of gin from the pantry and handing it to Vanda.

‘We’ve had a really quiet day here, apart from the phone,’ she says, dropping several chunks of ice into each tumbler. ‘Can you call Mum?’ The ice is followed by slices of lemon and a generous slug of gin. ‘I promised her you’d call as soon as you arrived.’ Tonic fizzes over the top of the bottle with a whoosh as the cap is unscrewed. My sister’s gin and tonic construction is legendary: clumsy but with great largesse.

Within minutes of piling through the front door all five of us hold a more than modest G&T in our hands. Dendy, a devotee of Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry who doesn’t normally drink gin, magnanimously concedes, ‘What the heck, I may as well start now!’

Questions and responses dart backwards and forwards. My niece Ellie comes over and gives me a hug, snuggling her head against my chest and wrapping her arms around my waist, remaining in that position while everyone talks, doubtless taking it all in. I am smoothing Ellie’s hair and chipping in as Dendy and Sharon animatedly recount the dramas of the journey into London. My sister is still looking shocked at our high spirits and in her eyes I see a look which I think translates as, ‘I wish I had been with you; I wish I had been part of it then I might understand why you’re all behaving in this way.’ Nevertheless I believe she is glad we are all now here with her. Martyn is sitting at the table, long legs spread out in front of him. He’s beginning to look sleepy. In spite of this a grin is spreading across his face at the description of the police escort. Leaning against the sink dressed in work jeans and a T-shirt Stefan’s expression is intent. A high forehead combined with greying hair and spectacles gives him a prematurely wise old owl appearance. He doesn’t say much but his eyes behind his glasses are narrowed in concentration, listening as though he is carefully assimilating information. He has finished his gin and has folded his arms across his chest. Every now and then he darts a concerned glance across the kitchen at James who has been talking rapidly but is now very quiet and staring at the ground.

This is the tableau, varying levels of energy gathered around a kitchen table with a pot of pasta bubbling in the background.

My nephew is standing in the doorway and looks on for a little while, hopping from one foot to the other, trying unsuccessfully to be patient, before asking James to play football with him outside. I watch them go; this is normal practice for six-year-old William. Visitors arrive, they play football with him; why should today be any different?

Everything I say to my mother is a blur, she doesn’t need to tell me: ‘I wish I could be there with you.’

‘I know.’ I can imagine how she’s feeling, away from the place and one person she wants to be with.

‘Let me know as soon as there’s any news.’

‘I will.’

I can feel my energy ebbing away but I phone home before settling down to whatever the night has in store. Lizzie answers. There’s not a lot to say that hasn’t already been said throughout the day. We talk about commonplace things: what’s going on here; what’s going on there.

‘What time did you arrive?’

‘About seven o’clock. Auntie Vanda had gin waiting,’ I say, smiling across the kitchen at my sister.

‘We’re waiting for Katie and Jo to arrive and Auntie Chris is cooking.’

‘William has dragged James off to play football.’

‘The phone hasn’t stopped ringing.’

‘Nor here from what I can gather.’

‘What’s everyone else doing?’

‘Uncle Martyn has fallen asleep on the sofa, exhausted after the long drive and a large gin, Stefan is outside with William and James and the rest of us are in the kitchen talking.’ We each need to hold on to an image of the other household; it’s a connection between us.

‘Promise you’ll call, even if it’s the middle of the night.’

Thomas is very quiet on the phone but Chris assures me everyone is OK; they’re all keeping each other going. By the time I speak to Greg I’ve run out of anything to say and resort to ‘how are you?’ to which, of course, there’s no adequate answer. How are any of us? This big portent is hanging over us like a great louring cloud and all we can do is talk about the little things.

The gin has taken effect and I’m feeling a bit light-headed. My glass is replenished but I don’t drink any more. I want to keep a clear head. Vanda and I are alone in the kitchen. ‘Have many people called?’ I ask.

‘The phone’s been ringing on and off all day. The children went to friends after school so it’s been just Stefan and me here most of the day, answering the phone and trying to keep busy.’

‘What have you told the children?’ I ask.

‘Not much; fortunately they’ve been out of it for most of the day. They know about the explosions and that you’ve come to London to look for Jenny, just the bare facts.’

She’s cutting a long French stick of bread into chunks and piling it on to a platter. ‘I made a big pot of bacon chilli pasta, something that would do anytime you arrived.’ Between us we make space in the centre of the table for the bread.

‘Dendy’s a vegetarian,’ I say, remembering.

‘Oh!’

‘That’s OK,’ says Dendy, coming back into the kitchen. ‘I’ll just pick the bits of meat out.’

Right on cue, the phone rings; although I’m nearest I don’t move from the table. ‘Do you want to speak to anyone?’ Vanda asks as she crosses the kitchen to take the call.

‘No, not at the moment,’ I answer, shaking my head. ‘Unless it’s the police, I gave them your number.’

Ellie and William are in the bath. I offer to go and supervise and wander down to the bathroom. ‘You can sit on the toilet seat,’ William instructs me magnanimously.

Watching the children play is a distraction and provides some respite from the activity in the kitchen. The bath is clogged with plastic toys, an array of primary colours bobbing up and down in the bubbles.

‘Auntie Julie?’ William concentrates on filling a green plastic whale with water and doesn’t look up.

‘Yes, Wills?’

‘Where do you think Jenny is?’

I wasn’t expecting the question and hesitate for a moment, unsure how to answer. Truthfully, I suppose. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Are the police going to help you find her?’

‘Yes, I hope so, Wills.’ I wait for the next question but it doesn’t come. He seems satisfied for the time being. Ellie is engrossed in her own world of play and seems not to have heard the exchange but suddenly declares she’s had enough of the bath and asks if she can get out.

Being amongst family, and carried along by the routine of the household and needs of children and bath and bedtime rituals, offers a kind of recovery from the turbulence of the day. Despite the bustle of arrival and phones ringing, it feels like a safe harbour – a place to be normal. The children are tucked into bed by Daddy and send a message via Stefan that they want James to go and say goodnight, then Auntie Julie, then Mummy. As I lean over to kiss Ellie, she says very quietly, ‘I wish Jenny was here.’

Supper is calm, or subdued, I can’t tell which, though without the children we can talk more freely about the last two days. We sit around the kitchen table long after supper is cleared away; wine glasses, bottles of fizzy water and coffee remain to sustain us through the evening. Stefan says he thinks we ought to get Greg and Lizzie and Thomas here. Whatever the next days have in store, we all need to be together.

Callers are dealt with quickly; everyone is aware of the one call which could change everything. If the landline isn’t ringing someone’s mobile is. We soon become used to the different ring tones and incoming text jingles. Every spare socket around the kitchen now has a mobile phone charger attached and active. My sister’s kitchen is turning into an incident room and those of us gathered around the table debate every nuance of Jenny’s journey, as though we’re investigators in a strange disappearance, which in a way I suppose we are. Over and over James insists there’s just no logical reason why Jenny would have been travelling from Edgware Road towards Paddington. Perhaps she’s been involved in a separate incident, is lying concussed in another hospital. Who knows what knocks and bumps might have occurred in the general chaos across London? It’s conceivable that she’s forgotten her name and lost her belongings and bearings. The news reported people drifting into churches and halls in traumatized states. As James is talking, I imagine Jenny wandering the streets of London, confused, not knowing where to go for help. Maybe, even now, someone is looking after her, trying to find out who she is and where she lives. It’s inconceivable that Jenny has been caught up in the explosions in any significant way. We all collude with the improbability and deny well into the night the possibility that Jenny is anything other than temporarily missing.

In the allocation of beds I opt for the sofa with the logic that I’m unlikely to sleep and it’s closest to the phone. Sharon is on the sofabed and Dendy on an airbed on the floor. For an hour or so after the household settles down for the night the sitting room takes on the air of a girls’ dorm, with all the accompanying foolishness, before darkness and the relative silence of night permeates our senses, stilling our chatter and gradually lulling our bodies into repose.

The gentle, rhythmic breathing of my companions, now asleep, provides a reassuring backdrop to my wakeful state. I can’t really decide whether I need company or solitude. The confident mask I put on during the day is laid aside under cover of night and with it all protection against fears and dark thoughts. Yet I’m glad of that. Glad of the release into whatever the darkness brings. My eyes wander over the shapes and shadows of the room, through the gap in the curtains where the midnight sky is bright with stars and gaze deeply into the endless darkness beyond, feeling the dark shadows in my own heart. I give myself up to it, wondering where are you Jenny?