Читать книгу Blackbird - N.D. Gomes - Страница 9

I don’t push the doorbell, but slam my hand on James’s door, needing to feel pain. He doesn’t answer. My palm throbbing a little more than I had hoped for, this time I ring the bell. He answers almost immediately as if he’d been waiting for me right behind the door.

He opens his mouth to say something but I get there first. ‘Is she here?’ I ask, glancing over his shoulder. The TV flickers behind him, crackling against the wall in the hallway.

‘Alex, she’s not here. I haven’t seen her.’

‘Are you lying? Are you trying to cover for her? If you are that’s fine, just tell her to come home.’

He steps out from the doorway and rests against the edge of the frame. Dark circles have formed around his eyes and his skin is a little paler than usual. ‘Look, I really don’t think it’s anything to worry about.’

‘Are you kidding? She’s going to be in so much trouble. The police are involved now.’

‘I know. They just came to see me.’ He pushes his hands into his jeans pockets and looks out past me, towards the street or the ocean beyond me.

‘And?’

‘And I told them the same thing. She’s not here.’

A large sigh escapes my lungs and I tuck my chin to my chest a little. I had been hoping that she was here, hoping that James would know where she was so we could end all of this. But he knows as little as me. ‘Well, when was the last time you saw her? At the party?’

‘What party?’ He shrugs.

‘Euan’s party.’

‘How do you know about that?’

‘She tells me everything. I know she wasn’t watching a movie at Emily’s house. She went to a party at Euan’s house over by Binscarth Farm.’

He digs his hands in deeper into his pockets and smiles slightly, the corners twisting up but not in a way that I find familiar or comforting. ‘She tells you everything, does she?’

‘Yes . . . I think so.’

‘Well, did she tell you we broke up?’

‘What?’

‘I guess she doesn’t tell you everything.’

‘This isn’t a joke. This is a waste of police time. She could be charged or something, I don’t know.’

‘I’m telling you the truth. We broke up. I wasn’t at that party because I knew she was going. I did my own thing, hung out with the boys from the football club.’

‘Why did you break up?’

He frowns, tiny lines forming across his forehead.

I can’t imagine them not together. They’re all I remember. The two of them and Emily have been friends for so much of her – and my – life. Was this because of London? Had they argued about her moving there? Had he refused to go, or asked her to stay?

‘You’ll have to ask her. I would like to know myself.’

He looks uncomfortable, his fingers fidgeting in his pockets. I don’t know what else to say to him. I came here looking for Olivia, but all I’ve done is remind him of a time he seems to want to forget.

‘Um, well if you do know where she is, please get this message to her. She needs to come home. I doubt she’ll be in much trouble now. If she waits too long, she might be.’

‘Like I said, I don’t know where she is.’ He steps back and slowly closes the front door, leaving me all alone on the step.

I turn around and walk down the driveway, glancing back at the house to see if there is any movement behind the curtains. She would have come out if she was there and heard my voice. She’d know everyone was worried about her.

I don’t think she’s here.

I gaze down the street and wonder if she walked here recently. Why would they break up? And why would she not tell me about it? I’m her sister. We tell each other everything, or at least I thought we were supposed to.

Maybe she told her best friend instead. I need to talk to Emily. She’d know where Olivia was. She has to; someone has to.

I lightly jog down to the bus stop at the bottom of the road, and check the timetable. My dad’s face enters my mind and I can’t stop thinking about the look on it when he told me we’d find Olivia soon. He looked like he didn’t believe his own words.

The ache comes back, it’s dull at first then starts getting stronger. My hand grips the metal edge of the bus shelter as I try to steady myself.

We’ll find her.

We’ll find her.

The bus pulls up loudly behind me and screeches to a halt. I close my eyes tight, and take a slow deep breath.

One foot at a time. That’s all I have to focus on.

The doors swing open. ‘Oi, are you getting on or what? I don’t have all day.’

My fingers loosen their grip on the shelter side and I push off slightly to turn around. ‘Yeah, sorry.’

Fumbling around for change in my coat pocket, I briefly glance up to meet the driver’s eyes. He startles for a moment then straightens up his back slightly. ‘So sorry, I . . . I didn’t see who you were. I’m really sorry for your family’s loss.’

‘My sister’s not dead,’ I say, my tone sharper than I’d intended. But she’s not dead. She’s missing, so please don’t call it a loss. We haven’t lost her. We just can’t find her right now.

‘Right, sorry. Where are you off to?’

‘I need to get to Kirbister Road.’

‘I actually don’t stop there, this is a number eight. I only go to Guardhouse Park . . . but I’m almost at the end of my shift, and the bus is empty. I’ll take you.’

‘Thank you,’ I say quietly, pulling out silver fifty-pence pieces from my pocket.

‘Don’t worry about the fare this time.’

I shuffle to the middle of the bus, and collapse down into a navy cushioned seat. My fingers grip the yellow standing bar, again to steady myself.

The loch is on my right, as we head north up the A965. When I look up front, I see the driver’s eyes in the rear mirror. But he’s not looking at the cars behind us, because there aren’t any. He’s looking at me. He must recognize me from the local newspapers. We’re all in there, the whole family. Our faces and names splashed all over the front, for the whole world to speculate. How did they act so fast? What do they want from us?

Shivering, I turn my body a little towards the window and gaze out. If she’s not at Emily’s, I don’t know where to go after that, what to do. We’re in the newspapers, we’re on the news – if she’s out there, she would see how this is getting out of hand.

Olivia, where are you?

Please come home.

What if she can’t come home? What if she’s trapped? Is she being held against her will? Do we know the person who has my sister? Were they in their house right now, watching TV or taking a walk on the beach with their dog? Who is the monster? Whoever it is took my sister from me. Took her from the world, when she had so much to give back.

No, no. She’s out there. I know she is, I feel it. Or do I?

The bus jolts and I know we’re here. The side door pops open, and I’m relieved because I don’t have to talk to the driver again, and face his sympathies, his pity.

‘Thank you,’ I call back as I step off and my feet land on the icy road beneath. I start pounding the pavement up the street and slow down. That’s my dad’s car. It’s parked in Emily’s driveway. He’s here too.

When I pull in closer, I see Emily at the front door talking to him. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but she looks a little scared, or maybe nervous.

‘Dad!’

He turns around, but doesn’t look surprised. ‘I told you to stay in the house.’

‘You didn’t tell me you were coming here.’

‘You didn’t either.’

‘I stopped by James’s too.’

‘James?’ asks Emily.

‘Yeah, me too,’ my dad mumbles.

I look at Emily, desperate. ‘Well, is she here?’

My dad shakes his head.

‘I was telling your dad, I haven’t seen Olivia since the party on New Year’s Eve. Sorry. I would tell you if she was here. It’s all over the newspapers, I wouldn’t lie about that.’

‘Did you know she was going to a party on Hogmanay?’ my dad asks me.

I don’t want to lie to him, but I don’t want him to think Olivia lied to him either. So I ignore his question and turn back to Emily. ‘But surely you must know where she could be if she’s not with you?’ I ask, taking another step towards her.

‘Honestly, lately I never know where she is. We haven’t been hanging out as much as we used to. So you’re asking the wrong person.’

‘Who should we be asking?’ my father says, his jaw tensing slightly.

‘Not me.’ She starts to close the door on us, but then stops. ‘Sorry, I wish I knew more, but I just don’t.’

When the door clicks shut, I turn to my dad. His chin is down at his chest. I know how he feels. Another dead end.

‘Dad, we’ll find her. She’ll come home.’

He nods his head gently, then walks back to his car. I slide in the passenger side and hear a crumpling beneath me. I’m sitting on papers. When I pull them out from underneath I’m faced with Olivia again. It’s a photo of her from her birthday dinner in Aberdeen two years ago. We had gone there for the weekend, stayed on Union Street. During the daytime, we shopped, walked along the River Don to watch the occasional salmon spring to the surface, and even visited Dunnottar Castle. It was mesmerizing. The long winding path down to the castle, the cliff drops on all sides.

In the evening, we had eaten early because Dad likes his meals around half four or five, and walked around the city which really seemed to come to life at night. It was too much for me. Too many bright lights, too many big buildings, too many sounds. But Olivia loved it. I thought it too loud, but for her it wasn’t loud enough. That’s when she decided she wanted to move to London.

Sometimes we could be so different.

‘Alex?’

‘Sorry, Dad. I was a million miles away. Did you say something?’

‘I want to get the flyers up before it gets dark. Will you help me?’

‘Of course.’

We start at the academy, taping posters around the entrance beneath the sky-blue sign, under the letters of STROMNESS ACADEMY, on classroom windows, on lampposts on the streets that spill out. Then we drive to the beach, and attach posters to the sides of bins, on car windscreens. We get to the golf club, the tourist office for the Ring of Brodgar and Skara Brae, bus shelters, the ferry docks, and even a couple of hotels. But when we drive to Kirkwall, we have to split up to cover more ground.

My dad takes his time in the pubs, asking revellers if they’ve seen anyone that looks like Olivia; while I stop by the cafés, The Shore Hotel, Helgis’, the iCentre, St Ola Community Centre, even the library. We meet back at the ferry docks, a small stack of flyers still gripped tight in our hands.

It’s not enough.

It’ll never be enough.

By this time, the sun has almost set. Some lingering strips of amber and blush hover on the surface of the water.

We leave the remaining flyers on a bench outside Julia’s Café where Olivia and I got hot chocolate and watched the tourists march down off the boats and head straight for the warmth of Stromness Inn. It’s always colder here than people imagine. The climate isn’t for everyone. But for those who manage, it’s home.

My hands are red raw from the cold. I eventually had to take my gloves off because the tape kept sticking to the fluff, and I was afraid that the flyers wouldn’t stick right and fall off.

My dad has several small scratches on his hands which look like paper cuts.

We’ve been at this for hours now. But why do we feel like we’ve not accomplished anything at all?

We get home to find the house in darkness and my mum sleeping on the sofa with the phone cradled in her arms. She doesn’t look like she’s moved much since I left her.

Why is this happening to us?

She stirs and slowly opens her eyes. They’re brown and shaped like almonds, like Olivia’s. Like mine.

‘You’re back. Did you put the posters up?’

‘Yeah, we did.’

‘Did anyone call?’ asks my dad, removing the phone from her grasp. He collapses into his armchair and lays the phone down in his lap, gently securing it with his fingers, as if it might fall and break.

‘Journalists,’ she mutters.

‘How did they bloody get our number?’ snaps my dad.

‘It’s a small island, Peter,’ she says.

Mum even sounds like Olivia. I think that’s where she got her sense of adventure from. They’d gawk at photos in travel magazines together, and linger on Thomson Holidays adverts. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mum encouraged Olivia to move to London mainly so she’d have the chance to visit her there. But for my dad, the weekend in Aberdeen was enough. He got his taste of adventure and culture, and he wanted back on the island as soon as possible.

We couldn’t afford to fly, so we’d gone on the NorthLink ferry from Kirkwall. It had taken several hours, which was torture for my dad. I remember standing outside, letting the wind battle my hair wildly, and lift the fabric of my shirt. For me, I’d never felt more free in my life. To be surrounded by water on all sides, the sheer magnitude of it, the infiniteness. But for Olivia, it felt like a prison. She always felt trapped by the water because for her, she was stuck on an island.

The phone rings and we all jump, each of us lost in our own memories of Olivia. My dad grabs the phone and roughly pushes it to his ear, ‘Hello? Hello? Olivia?’

His face drops and he slowly hands the phone to me. ‘It’s Siobhan. Again.’

‘Tell her I’m not –’

‘Just talk to her, love,’ says my mum, taking the phone from my dad and placing it in my hand.

I get up and walk to my bedroom, feeling the carpet soft under my feet. ‘Hello?’

‘Hey, it’s me. Any news?’

‘No, it’s still the same. No word from her.’

There’s a cold silence between us, and I wonder whether she’s still there.

I don’t know why, but I haven’t wanted to talk to her since Olivia went missing. Our conversations, our general interactions just seem so trivial now compared to what me and my family are going through.

Siobhan and I hang out, we talk about boys, we listen to music, we watch her brother’s scary zombie films. Sometimes we pick up the other phone in her house and listen to his conversations with his girlfriend.

We don’t do this.

‘Do you feel like coming over tonight? I can invite Andy if you want, that’ll cheer you up –’

‘I can’t tonight. We have a lot going on here. We’re waiting by the phone. We’re back out tomorrow, early. We’re going to go with the police on their search party.’

‘Oh . . . do you want me to come?’

‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll speak to you later.’ I hang up before she responds.

Is this what happened to Olivia and Emily? Are Siobhan and I growing up, and growing apart?

Am I losing someone else in my life?

Or am I pushing her away?