Half the World Away

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Nick has made a list from his conversation with Edward at Missing Overseas. We divide up the tasks. I begin calling round friends and family so people hear directly from us before it’s made public. I find it easier to keep the calls brisk as I tell her friends, Erin, then Amy, that Lori is officially missing, and ask them to spread the word. Jake’s voicemail is on so I leave him a message.

There’s no one really on my side of the family to notify: I’m an only child, parents both dead now. My mum’s brother Norman lives in Oxfordshire but he was too frail to make her funeral. His daughter, my cousin Adrienne, and her brother, Curtis, are still around somewhere but I only have Norman’s details. He is very deaf so I won’t ring. Instead I type a letter and address it to Adrienne, c/o Norman.

Edward has sent us a template for a press release and Nick is cutting and pasting text into it.

I ask Nick if he’ll speak to his parents in Nottingham. They are in sheltered accommodation, still independent but increasingly prone to falling over and the diseases of old age – glaucoma, arthritis, osteoporosis. Nick checks the time. They won’t answer the phone before six because of the expense, even though we’d be paying. It doesn’t matter whether we’ve a price plan that includes free or cheap calls to their number, the habit is ingrained. Betty washes and reuses baking foil and darns Ron’s socks. One teabag does for two cups.

Nick’s brother, Philip, lives near to them and has tea there every Sunday. Philip is a bit of a recluse, never married; he worked on the railways as an engineer for twenty years before going long-term sick with cirrhosis. He has a drink problem. Some insurance policy from his trade union means he can just about manage without having to go on benefits.

I wonder now, as Nick is deliberating over whether to call him first, if Philip is depressed, if that’s behind the drinking. Which came first? Then I feel awkward, knowing how much Nick would hate any comparison between himself and Philip, or any pop psychology about genetics and depression.

And this isn’t depression, I think, not really. Depression is not being able to get out of bed, literally. It’s trudging through one dead grey hour after another; it’s complete self-obsession, self-loathing and pain. Isolation. It is grief as deep as the earth. I know these things from stories I’ve read and documentaries I’ve seen but also because Tom’s mother has been clinically depressed for much of her life. And most of his. Hospitalized for years on end. She couldn’t come to our wedding. We took Lori there once, when Daphne was at home. I’d nagged Tom about visiting, letting her meet her grandchild, until he relented. I had seen photographs of her, tall and blonde, like Tom, but very pale-skinned. She did some modelling in the sixties. There are shots of her wrapped in white fur with bare feet and smouldering eyes. When she married Francis, she found herself installed in a crumbling Georgian house, in a Sussex village, expected to take care of the interior design and socializing and, once Tom came along, the childrearing, while Francis spent his weeks in London at his insurance company, living in the flat he kept there.

When Daphne was ‘away’, Tom was cared for by a nanny until, at the age of seven, he was parcelled off to boarding school. He detested it. When the time came to transfer from prep school to the linked public school, he refused. Clamoured to try for the local grammar instead. Francis wouldn’t hear of it. Tom ran away repeatedly until the school recommended he leave. He moved to the grammar school and scraped into university, choosing philosophy because he quite liked the sound of it but, more importantly, because he knew it would annoy his father. Their encounters were always conducted with an icy politeness that would, on occasion, erupt into vicious mud-slinging. When Tom left for Manchester, Francis told him not to bother coming home until he’d graduated and could stand on his own two feet.

The doorbell rings and I let Tom in. He’s on his phone, ‘Maidstone Avenue house is an inventory check and boiler inspection, and we’ve a viewing at four for Leybourne Close.’ He listens intently, says, ‘Five-fifty a month, all inclusive.’ Listens again. ‘Yeah, well, it’s a bit of a shit-hole but demand’s high. OK, Moira, catch you later.’ He closes his phone. ‘So?’

‘We’ve filled in the press release,’ I say. ‘Missing Overseas said to notify people. I’ve covered Erin and Jake and Amy. Nick’s doing his family…’ Tom can fill in the rest.

I point to the kitchen, where Nick has rigged up the family computer. It’s the only room with a large table.

‘Social media?’ Tom says, as he unzips his laptop.

‘I asked them to tell their friends on Facebook and so on,’ I say.

‘Edward says Missing Overseas will use Facebook and Twitter,’ Nick says. ‘I’m on LinkedIn.’

‘That still going?’ Tom says. Before either of us can react to the dig, and its juvenile nature, he says, ‘You?’

‘Why should I be on LinkedIn?’ I say. ‘I’m a bloody school secretary.’

‘OK, the press,’ Tom says. ‘I know someone on the Metro. They should do a feature.’

‘The Big Issue,’ Nick says. ‘Edward says he’s hopeful they’ll do something, talk about Lori as part of a broader piece.’

‘What about local news, TV and radio?’ Tom says.

The message alert sounds on the computer and Nick reaches over to open it. ‘It’s up,’ he says, and we crowd around the monitor. He clicks the link in the email, which takes us to the Missing Overseas website and Lori’s picture appears, with the agreed text:

Lorelei Maddox

Age: 23

Missing since 2 April 2014.

Lorelei has been missing in China since 2 April 2014.

She was last seen in Chengdu where she was working as a private English teacher. Lorelei is 5’3” tall and of slim build with dark hair and blue eyes.

Do you have any information?

‘Daddy and I need to talk to you about something.’

We are at the table and the boys have just eaten. I suggested to Nick we have something later, left-over stew in the freezer that needs using up.

‘The holidays?’ Finn beams.

‘No, Finn, not the holidays.’

‘A party?’

Nick touches his arm, mouths, ‘Shush.’

Isaac is still, wary.

‘You know Lori’s gone to China-’ Nick says.

‘Are we going?’ Finn jumps in.

Nick shakes his head. ‘Just listen. Well, Lori hasn’t Skyped us for a while and her phone’s not working and she’s not at her house in China, so some people are trying to find her.’

‘Is she lost?’ Finn says.

‘She might be,’ I say.

‘She should ask a policeman,’ Isaac says.

‘That’s a good idea,’ I say. ‘Perhaps she will.’

‘So,’ Nick says, ‘we’re going to be telling everybody she’s missing and asking them to help look for her.’

‘There might not be a policeman,’ Finn says.

‘A grown-up then. Ask a grown-up,’ Isaac says.

‘Lori is a grown-up,’ Finn says.

‘Anyway, we hope we find her soon but we wanted you to know what was happening.’ Nick gets to his feet. He pours himself a whisky.

‘We’ve made this,’ I say, ‘to show people.’ I have a copy of the press release. The ink’s running out on the printer so the picture is faded, the text striped with white lines.

‘Missing,’ Isaac says.

I read the rest of it out for them.

‘Hmm – like Poncho,’ Finn says.

Oh, God. Poncho was Lori’s hamster when she was about eight. Finn wasn’t even born. But it’s a family myth, how Poncho disappeared behind the radiator in the kitchen and was never seen again. How Lori sat up all night keeping vigil, with a saucer full of Poncho treats to tempt him back. How she fell asleep sitting up.

Eager to distract them from the fact that there was no happy reunion with Poncho, I say, ‘But Poncho couldn’t ask anyone the way home. He couldn’t talk, only make noises. What noises do hamsters make?’

Isaac says hamsters don’t make any noises – Sebastian has one and it never says anything. Finn says they squeak. They bicker about that for a while and I clear the table.

I stick the ‘Missing’ sheet up on the cork board. It’s as if I’m waiting for it to hit me, as though we’ve unlocked the floodgates and the water is rushing towards us but we can’t hear the roar, can’t see the torrent racing our way. There is just the caught breath of a pause, a frozen heartbeat, the unnatural stillness, pinning me in place.