I don’t really know what to do with myself any more. I made myself get up today, though I couldn’t really see why, eating breakfast in front of the TV, losing hours there, my bad habit. I feel so tired and defeated. Then I started to tidy the living room uselessly, picking at dust that’s barely there. After that I went into the kitchen and picked up the phone, twice, wondering.
Should I call Dad? Charlotte? For once, I just want some human contact. But what can I tell them that won’t just make it worse? That won’t make them think that I’m losing my grip?
Then I think: the one person who won’t judge me.
I grab my keys and head out of the door.
Lily’s in her usual spot, dozing in her armchair in a shaft of sunlight. Her head’s lolled forward, that can’t be comfortable.
‘Lily,’ I say. ‘Lily.’ Her eyes open, blink into waking.
‘Oh hello, dear,’ she says, lifting her face to mine slowly. ‘Has he gone then?’ She must mean her care worker. I wonder if he’s actually been though, or she’s getting confused again.
‘Yes, it’s just me, Lil. Shall we have a cup of tea?’
‘Lovely. Yes, please.’ I head to the kitchen, check the milk and make us a cup each. It all looks tidy and clean, I’m reassured to see.
I’ve two china mugs of tea in my hands, pretty things with violets splashed over them, when I see the scrap of newspaper on the sideboard, neatly folded on top of her telephone directory.
RAN AWAY?
Send a message to let them know you’re safe
NO QUESTIONS ASKED
Just phone and give your message
We will pass it on
Send a MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
I manage not to spill anything.
‘Lily,’ I say, walking back into the sitting room, urgency in my voice. ‘Why’ve you got that bit of paper – the advert for the helpline?’ I hear the sharp note and try to soften my tone. ‘You know I work there, don’t you. That I volunteer there?’
She doesn’t reply.
I put our teas down on the little side table and try again. ‘Have you maybe tried to call me where I work? Maybe a few times?’
I’m not sure she’s listening, but then she starts talking, surprisingly brisk.
‘You said always to call, you know. You said: Lily, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to call. Well, you know I told you I was perfectly fine, but you insisted. Well, I said, I don’t need—’
‘No, no, that’s totally fine. I’m sorry. I just – I didn’t know you knew I worked at the charity.’ My heart’s sinking.
‘Of course I do, I remember things.’ She’s getting cross. A sign she’s feeling vulnerable, I know now. Is she feeling a little guilty?
‘Oh, Lily. I’m only next door. And you’ve got my phone numbers if there’s anything.’ She must have been calling the charity number, trying to get hold of me. And then what – hanging up? Asking for me? But from the phone box? I didn’t realise she was in so bad a state, that she was so confused. What is going on in her head?
I have an idea now: I pull up the footstool in front of her. ‘Lily, how’s your little boy?’
‘My little boy …’ Her brow creases.
‘Yes,’ I say encouragingly. ‘Your little boy, you’ve told me all about him.’
‘I don’t have a little boy,’ she says flatly.
‘Oh. I thought—’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I’m sorry, Lily, I thought you liked talking about your little friend. You said he had blond curls like you had. Does he look like Bob, your husband, too?’
That’s a mistake. ‘We didn’t have any children.’ She looks upset. ‘You’re a cruel girl.’
I draw back, shocked. Lily’s never angry with me. But then I’ve read that, on top of confusion and forgetfulness, mood changes can be a symptom of what I’ve feared: dementia.
‘I’m sorry, Lily. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘All right,’ she says fretfully. ‘But you ask too many questions. I don’t like it.’ She sounds like a child.
‘OK. We won’t talk about it again.’ I take a deep breath. ‘I’ve got a few things to do but I’ll come and see you again soon. Have a nice afternoon.’
What the hell’s going on with her? Back home I hurry to my computer, still on the kitchen table, and type in the name of the drug: the morphine I saw in her cabinet. I click on a website aimed at patients and start scanning: ‘It’s a controlled medication … Strict rules …’
One paragraph I read twice: ‘Don’t break, crush, chew or suck morphine pills. If you do, the whole dose might get into your body in one go. This could cause a potentially fatal overdose.’
Another note makes my stomach give a little flip: ‘What if I forget to take it?’ There’s a warning: never double up your dose to make up for a missed one.
Lily’s so forgetful now. And she’s got so much of it, bottles of pills and liquid. What are they all for?
That decides me. Lily isn’t in a state to be managing this, not when the medicine itself could be making her more confused. The note on the bottle, to take when needed – she could be taking it around the clock.
I don’t care if I’m interfering, I don’t want to wait around for Dr Heath to have a polite word with a colleague. Before I can think about it more, I call the surgery and give full force to the unsuspecting receptionist. She won’t even confirm that Lily’s a patient, which doesn’t help my mood.
‘It’s dangerous,’ I finish. ‘Whoever’s prescribing this stuff to Lily – I mean, Mrs Green – could be in serious trouble. It’s … it’s negligent,’ I add, grasping for a legal-sounding word.
‘Mrs Harlow,’ says the receptionist, Valerie. ‘I do understand. Now, I’ve taken down all your details, and I’ll pass your message on to the practice manager.’
‘OK. Good. And will they call me back? Because I’m going to keep calling you until they do.’
‘Yes,’ she says. I can swear I hear gritted teeth. ‘Someone will call you back.’ Hopefully not me, I can almost hear her add, before she hangs up.
I feel a little better once that’s done. But it’s not the receptionist’s fault. I know I’m venting my frustration – at the police, at Nicholls, at my failure to get anywhere.
I get, up restless, and go to the window. How could I have made the conversation with Nicholls go better? I don’t know if I could. Now I remember his comments, when he’d called me at the start, about how I came to pick up the phone call that night at the helpline:
‘I guess it could have been anyone,’ I’d said then.
‘Yes. Quite the coincidence, really,’ he replied, nice as pie. ‘And is it always that quiet – just you on your own?’
I should have known that’s where he was going. That this is what they’d conclude: that maybe I didn’t even get a call, not from Sophie anyway. That I was, at the least, unreliable.
Because it was weird that it was me who picked up.
I can admit that, now that I’m not trying to convince anyone else. Of all the times she could have called the helpline, for her to get through when it was just me.
I frown. For some reason, I felt like the caller was as surprised as I was … the line going dead, like she panicked.
But maybe she was just overwhelmed. What if she had been trying to reach me? What if she knew I was working there, somehow?
Think. If you search for me online … I go to the computer and do it quickly – yes, there I am. You have to scroll down a bit, to find it, but there’s my name, mentioned in that newspaper article from last Christmas about the helpline. In the picture, I’m gurning away in the back row of volunteers – and yes, my name’s in the caption. She could have found me there.
So maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe the call was meant for me: perhaps, Sophie understood how much I needed to hear her voice again, even as she asked me not to worry any more – to let her go. And of course getting through to me at the helpline, not our home, has meant I’ve had no way of tracing the call: it keeps me at a safe distance. It keeps her at a safe distance.
It’s just an awful lot of effort to go to to reach me, only to stay hidden …
And now my mind’s drifting to something else, because that isn’t the only odd thing in all this. That diary was found by a dog walker, the police said. And for that to happen now, so soon after the call …
I picture the diary again, as Nicholls showed it to me in that little room: the frontispiece with an email address that looks right – it just doesn’t match the one I know.
But, then again, who else would notice a detail like that, other than Sophie’s mother?
My heart starts to hurry, just a little. I want to try something.
I pull up the page I’ve had open: the email account that I can’t get into. Now, typing gibberish, I deliberately get the password wrong and get myself into the security process.
The question flashes up again. I’ve tried so many times to answer it, racking my brains as to what Sophie might answer: What was the name of your first pet?
This time, I type it in quickly: Matilda.
Matilda was the corgi I grew up with, a portly little dog with a strong sense of her own dignity. I used to tell stories about Matilda to Sophie when she was little, to make her laugh …
The next question flashes up.
Where were you born?
I take a deep breath in and out again. I’m through to the next question. I was right. It was a question for me. Stay calm.
London, I type in. That’s what Sophie would answer. We were living in a little flat there when she was born, south of the river.
Error. Of course.
But now I know. It gives me another try.
This time I type in Manchester, for me.
Correct. My eyes start to blur with tears, but I’m smiling as the third question comes up.
These are meant for me. Sophie pointed me to this email and left questions only I’d know. She knew I’d always come looking for her.
What’s your mother’s maiden name?
I was a Greenwood, but over time it just seemed easier to be a Harlow. Once we moved up here, and I wasn’t working any more, the shift seemed somehow definite.
But Mum was Rhodes, before she married Dad.
And yet I hesitate before I start to type again – I’m so close, I almost don’t dare believe it. What if it doesn’t work? What if the email account is empty or, worse, inactive now, and I’ll never know what was in it. Please God … I type:
Rhodes.
And I’m in, the inbox laid out before me.
There is just one message, the subject line reading ‘FW:’, for a forwarded message. I click it open. I start reading.
Then I read it again, quickly. My mouth is dry, a beat starting to pulse in my eardrums. I swallow.
Oh, Sophie. Oh no. What have you done?