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9

GERDA

I sneaked to the village before detention and called my mother from a phonebox. It smelled of London: smoke and old wee. London! Where I wanted to be. She didn’t sound at all happy to hear me, and she was talking much too quietly.

‘Sorry I haven’t been in touch. There’s someone here. Sorry, Gerda – ’

‘Who?’

‘Someone who is right beside me. Someone very famous I’m having to look after. Someone special. I’m busy, darling.’

‘How about looking after your daughter? Aren’t I special? I hate you, Mummy.’ I banged the phone down, though it missed the cradle and swung there, hopeless, like a baby on a cord. Banging its head against the glass. Just for a moment, I felt powerful, but it was raining outside the box, there was nothing I knew, just the horrible village.

I was the baby, swinging, hopeless.

ANGELA

She knows she is not supposed to call me. But that’s children: they choose their moment. They ask a lot. Though one gives it gladly. I had told her never to hang up on me.

Virginia, too, was like a child. She showed no interest at all in me. Yes, I pitied her pain over Leonard. But I had worries of my own. I had no clue what was happening to Edward.

However much I tried not to care, I didn’t have a heart of stone. Some of the time they would be using huskies, but some terrain would be covered on foot. Edward had done special training for months – I should know, I had complained enough when he didn’t do his share of the household chores – but he was also accident-prone, and health and safety were not his forte. He was cavalier about equipment, and frostbite, and when I fretted, called it ‘fussing’.

What if I just read about his death in the papers? Did he, or his team, know where I was? I’d left my new mobile number with the neighbours, but had Edward actually noticed our neighbours? Men could be impervious. I didn’t want to hear the news from strangers. How could I ever tell Gerda?

It would break her heart. She loves her father.