Half the World Away

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I’m in the office, printing off letters and appointment slips for parents’ evening, which is the week after next. The staff are up to their eyes writing reports on each child, charting their progress in their key stage and the core subjects. Sheaves of paperwork, much of it to be done at home in their own time.

I break off and check Lori’s blog hasn’t been updated: it’s still the post about the weather. Nine days since she put it up. A week since I sent my last message. Perhaps she’s hard at work, keeps meaning to reply and hasn’t had time. Or she’s been away. Or ill. Perhaps she’s just being Lori, letting it slide, too caught up in her exciting new life. There could be problems with the Internet – the service is a bit patchy at times. I dither over whether to send a new message, and in the end I do. OK, maybe she’ll resent me nagging but I can live with that. She might just need a nudge.

It’s raining as we walk home from school. Isaac stops every so often, his attention drawn to a pile of litter or something in the hedge. I hurry him along. Finn walks through the puddles. ‘You’ve not got your wellies on,’ I say.

‘I don’t mind.’

‘So your trainers’ll be wet.’

‘Soon dry,’ he says.

The rain is heavier, cold by the time we reach home. ‘I’m soaking,’ Isaac says on the doorstep. ‘Can I stay here?’ Walking Benji is not usually something they can opt out of.

‘We won’t be long,’ I say.

‘But if Daddy’s here…’ Isaac goes on.

‘Daddy’s busy.’

We get inside. I call, ‘Hello.’

Nick answers from the dining room.

‘Daddy, I want to stay here,’ Isaac says. I motion him to stay in the hall – he’s dripping all over the floor. He shudders.

I put my head round the door. Nick’s on the computer. ‘Is that OK?’ I say. ‘He looks a bit peaky.’

‘Sure.’

Finn has Benji’s lead and the dog is jumping up at him, ecstatic.

‘Go and get changed,’ I tell Isaac, ‘put your wet things in the basket and don’t bother Daddy.’

‘I know,’ he says. He gets one bug after another at the moment and most of them make him throw up.

Finn and I walk partway around the park, then retrace our steps. The rain never lets up. My knees are damp, my trousers sticking to them. Blossom on the cherry trees is battered; half of it lies on the ground, a soggy mess already turning brown.

‘My nose is wet,’ Finn says. There’s a drip of water hanging off the end. He sticks his tongue out, shakes his head and catches it.

‘Come on,’ I say. ‘I’m wet inside out – even my knickers are wet.’

He chortles. We walk back, his trainers squelching.

‘You take Benji around the back,’ I say. ‘He can do his shaking dry in the kitchen.’

Inside I am met with the unmistakable acid pong of vomit and Nick is on his hands and knees with a cloth and a bucket.

‘Not again,’ I say, peeling off my coat.

‘He’s up in bed.’

‘Maybe it’s an allergy,’ I say.

‘Wouldn’t he swell up or get a rash?’ Nick says.

‘Possibly.’

Finn comes squelching out of the kitchen.

‘Go back and take your shoes off,’ I tell him.

He pulls a face. ‘Urgh – that stinks.’

‘Off you go… I’ll make an appointment,’ I say to Nick, ‘get him checked out.’

He sits back on his haunches, looks up at me. ‘Fine.’

‘Any luck?’ He has been waiting for a reply from a job application. It’s similar work to what he has been doing but down in Walsall in the West Midlands.

‘No.’ He gets up, lifts the bucket. ‘I’d have heard by now. Not even a bloody interview.’ He walks away.

The smell lingers. Nick has cleaned the floor but there’s a splash against the wall, speckled liquid, that he’s missed.

I go upstairs and look in on Isaac. He’s awake but seems woozy, eyes bleary.

‘You had a drink?’ I touch his forehead, definitely hot.

‘Yes.’

‘More?’

He nods. I pass him the water and he shuffles up and takes it, has a sip.

‘Poor Isaac. Did you eat your lunch?’

‘No,’ he says.

‘Did you feel sick then?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think we’ll get the doctor to have a look at you and see if you need some medicine.’

He nods solemnly.

‘You have a little rest, then.’

In the bathroom I soak a cloth in disinfectant and go to clean the wall in the hall. This way Nick won’t see me completing his efforts and have the chance to take my action as criticism. Pussyfooting around each other, that’s what we’re doing. Skirting hostilities. Somehow no longer on the same side.

Sunday, and we’re unloading the car. A trip to B &Q. I’ve been buying bedding plants and bird food, and he’s got all the materials for a DIY project. He’s going to move the boys into Lori’s room, set up their bunk beds in there, move her bed into the garage for now, then convert the boys’ room into a home office. He’ll start offering freelance consultancy work. I’m relieved that he’s got something constructive to do, something where he can see results, feel he’s achieved a goal even if it doesn’t mean any paid work yet. He’s asked a mate to do him a website design. Nick doesn’t particularly want to be a one-man business – he would much rather have the stability of employment and a regular income, along with paid holidays and the like, but needs must. Thanks God he’s recognized the need.

‘I’ve still not heard from Lori,’ I say to Nick.

‘You think she’ll complain?’ he says, meaning about the room.

‘No, I wasn’t thinking about that, just that it’s over a week since I emailed. And I texted, too. Nothing.’

He puts down the wood he’s carrying. ‘Try ringing?’

I nod, glad he’s not dismissed my concern. It will be seven in the evening in Chengdu. Lori teaches on a Sunday; she might still be at work.

Once we have brought everything in, I try her number. A recorded message tells me that it’s not been possible to connect me. Her phone is off.

‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘I’ll see if Tom’s heard anything.’

‘OK.’ He gestures upstairs and goes off to begin packing up the boys’ things.

Finn is out in the garden, jumping around on the trampoline. Benji is dozing on the ground underneath. It’s a dull, warm day, the sky grey chalk. The blackbird is chinking an alarm call, though I can’t see any cats about. We’ve sparrows nesting in the eaves and I can hear them squabbling too.

Tom answers, ‘Jo?’

‘Hi, how are you?’

‘Good. You?’

An urge to tell him the truth, to share, which I squash down. ‘Fine, but we’ve not heard from Lori for over a week now, wondered if you had.’

‘No. We Skyped for my birthday.’

The start of the month, April Fool’s. It’s the thirteenth now.

‘Her last blog was posted on the second,’ I say.

‘The one about the weather,’ Tom says.

‘I’ve tried emailing, calling and texting – nothing,’ I say.

‘She mentioned the idea of a holiday,’ Tom says.

‘Yes, to me too. Did she say when or where?’

‘There was nothing definite.’

Finn is on his back, arms and legs spread out like a star. Nick moves something heavy upstairs and the whole house shakes with the vibration.

‘See if anyone else has heard from her,’ Tom suggests. ‘Give it a few more days?’

And then what? ‘Yes. Do you have a number for Dawn?’

‘No,’ he says.

‘Me neither.’

Someone speaks in the background, a woman, though I can’t make out the words, and I realize with a jolt that Tom’s not alone.

‘OK,’ I say. ‘Let me know if you hear anything.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Straight away.’

I can tell he’s smiling as he says, ‘I promise. She’ll be fine. You know Lori.’

We say goodbye and hang up. I think of who else she might be in touch with, who else I can contact. The list is small: I’ve numbers and emails for Jake and Amy, the couple she had been travelling with in Thailand and Vietnam, who should now be back in the UK. And I’ve a phone number for Erin, the only person from school whom Lori stayed in touch with. We don’t have details for any of the friends in China Lori has told us about.

I play down my unease as I talk first to Erin, then to the others. No one has heard from Lori this month. I ask them to spread the word among their social networks, Twitter, Facebook, whatever, and ask anyone who’s heard from Lori to please contact me.

Isaac comes into the kitchen and catches me staring into space. The jotter on the table is scored with numbers and notes, some words from the conversations I’ve just had.

‘Where’s Finn?’ he says.

‘On the trampoline. You could go out.’

He shrugs.

‘I’m going to come out soon and plant my flowers.’

‘Will you twirl me?’ he says.

‘OK.’

Outside Isaac lies on his stomach on the swing, arms and legs hanging out either side. I twist the swing round, winding the ropes together, he inches higher from the ground. When I let go, the swing unwinds fast, spinning him round, him yelling.

Then Finn wants a go.

They take turns. My stomach feels tense, knotted together like the ropes.

I replay the phone calls I’ve just made as I tap out the plugs of bedding plants and tamp them down into the troughs we have on two sides of the patio.

‘I messaged her on Saturday,’ Amy said. ‘I thought she might have her phone off if she was teaching. But she didn’t get back to me.’

‘And she usually would?’ I said.

‘Most times, eventually.’

The blackbird chinks again, insistent. And Finn sings ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ at the top of his lungs. I stare at the lobelia, the petunias, the pink and white verbena and the fuchsias, and feel the dread grow in my chest. I set down the watering can, brush the worst of the compost from my hands before going in.

Nick has dismantled Lori’s bed and stacked it on the landing. He’s taking apart the bunk beds. ‘Great,’ he says, when he sees me. ‘You can give me a hand carrying the double mattress down.’

‘Nick,’ I say, ‘nobody’s heard from her. Nothing since the second of April. Eleven days.’

‘Right,’ he says slowly.

‘I’m really worried,’ I say, and the words spoken out loud make my legs weak. I take a breath, ignore the way my heart stutters. ‘I think something’s wrong,’ I say. ‘I think we should go to the police.’