I’m in such a deep sleep when the phone wakes me up that I haven’t even been dreaming. I’ve been utterly comatose, snuggled up with Tom under the duvet, lost in our mutual calm.
I have my phone set to sound like one of those old phones – the ones with dials instead of buttons – and for a moment it feels like I’m in a scene from a black and white movie; that I’m Sherlock Holmes about to be called in to consult on a case at Scotland Yard.
Tom murmurs and moves beside me, and slowly my conscious rises to the surface. Damn that fiendish Moriarty and his dastardly ways.
I clamber over Tom, and grab my phone from the table. I’m still groggy, and wiping sleep from my eyes, and see that it is just after 5 a.m. – just after 5 a.m., and Auburn is calling me.
I suddenly sober up, the traces of sex and sleep fleeing my body to be replaced by an unpleasant surge of adrenaline – the kind you get when you trip up, even if you manage to stay upright.
‘It’s me! I’m here!’ I say, as soon as my fumbling fingers manage to answer the call. ‘What’s wrong?’
I don’t think I’m being presumptuous asking this – there’s no way Auburn would call me this early just to ask where the granola is. At least I don’t think she would.
‘She’s not here!’ Auburn says, the panic in her voice immediately communicating itself to my brain. I take a deep breath, and try to stay calm – both of us freaking out isn’t going to help anybody. I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, naked, and now shivering. I hear Tom moving around behind me, and nod at him gratefully as he covers my shoulders with the duvet.
‘Okay. Do you mean she’s not in the house?’
‘What else would I bloody mean? I got up for a wee, and checked in on her, and she’s not there. Her bed is empty!’
‘Calm down, Auburn,’ I say, even if I don’t feel it myself. Tom has realised something is afoot, and is quietly getting dressed, pulling on his jeans and flicking the Yoda lamp on.
‘Is the bed still warm?’ I ask.
‘What? How would I know? What does that matter?’
I feel like reaching down the phone line and throttling her, but luckily technology isn’t that advanced yet. I remind myself that she’s a novice at all this, and that’s not her fault.
‘Go and check. Just touch the sheets. If they’re still warm, it means she’s not been gone long, and won’t have made it far.’
I hear her make a ‘humph’ sound as the logic hits her, and the sound of her walking through the house. A few moments later, she says: ‘No. Stone cold. Oh God. What does that mean? What should I do?’
‘First of all, stop going nuts. That won’t help Mum, or you. This has happened before, and there are a few places she usually aims for. The café, the Community Centre in the village, and possibly this place – Briarwood. I’m here already, so I’ll start at this end. I’ll call Cal and Zoe, they’re in the village and can look there. You set off for the café – she takes the footpaths over the field and then the coastal track. If we don’t find her straightaway, I’ll get the others on the hunt. Don’t worry. We’ll find her. It’ll be okay.’
I hear her sucking in air, trying to calm herself down, and the sound of her pulling on her boots. I also hear the sound of rain, hammering away on the roof of the camper van – looks like April is living up to its reputation, and bringing us more showers, just when we least need them. A million thoughts flit across my mind: is she wearing shoes; did she take a coat; is she lying in a ditch; will we find her by the side of a stream all grey and sickly like E.T.…
I take control of all those thoughts, and instead I say: ‘Keep your phone with you, and on. I’ll call you soon. Be careful.’
Tom has not only listened in and put two and two together, he’s already on the phone to Cal, telling him what’s happened and asking for their help. I hear Cal’s sleepy but reassuring Aussie drawl over the line, as he tells Tom they’ll get right on it. I wonder whether to call Cherie and Frank now, but decide to give it a bit longer. We might find her straightaway, and I don’t want to cause a huge drama for no reason.
I can feel the guilt starting to seep through my mind as I get dressed, hopping around trying to get my leggings on, fumbling with the laces of my boots. I sit down on the edge of the bed, frustrated at my sudden bout of clumsiness. Tom kneels down in front of me, and ties the laces for me.
‘It’s okay,’ he says quietly, holding onto my knees and looking up at me. ‘We’ll find her.’
I nod, abruptly, unable to speak. Unable to speak because right now, I’m almost paralysed by it – the guilt. What if I hadn’t had a sleepover? What if I’d stayed where I belong, with my mum?
She hadn’t seemed upset, but maybe I just chose not to see it, because I was so desperate for my night with Tom. And now my mother is lost, out there in the rain, just so I could have a shag. I cringe a little even as I think it – it’s an unfairly crude way to describe what happened between me and Tom last night – but the fact remains. I left, and she went walkabout.
I stand up, and grab my phone. Tom gives me a waterproof to wear, and we share one small, sad smile, as though marking the end of the happy times, at least for now. I escaped reality for one night – now it’s caught up with me, and is punching me in the face.
I’m feeling awful, and he knows I’m feeling awful, and he knows why – which must also make him feel awful. This has gone from blissful to bollocks in the space of one phone call, and I want to reach out to him – but I can’t. I need to concentrate now, to be practical and calm and clever. I need to find my mum, and sort out all the other crap later.
He opens the door to the camper, and it looks spooky outside. It’s that weird false dawn, a little while before true sunrise, when the light seems to filter through in a strange pale silver that stripes the sky. The rain is torrential, flattening the broad-leaved branches of the trees, splattering off the table in huge fat droplets, pooling in the dips and valleys of the grass.
I step down, and the ground squelches beneath my feet. It’s cold, but not by any means freezing, which is something of a blessing. If she is out there, stranded, she’ll be chilled but hopefully not hypothermic. I turn around, and say to Tom: ‘Can you bring a bag with you? A blanket, some water? Just in case.’
He nods, and turns around to get them. I shelter under the canopy, and text the same to Auburn and Cal. She may well be absolutely fine – sitting in a bus stop thinking she’s about to get the express to Lyme Regis, or waiting outside the Community Centre ready to start her yoga class, or sitting on the bench that overlooks the bay, waiting for dawn so she can do her sun salutations. I have to believe that, or I’ll go mad.
Tom emerges, the hood of his jacket pulled over his head, carrying a torch. He takes my phone from my hand, and silently wraps it in a small plastic bag, the kind you keep sandwiches in. Ever the inventor. I give him a quick smile, and we set off, plunging through the darkness and the rain.
It’s heavy going, the pathways slick with mud, gnarled tree roots slippy and covered in moss, leaping up to snaggle our feet. I feel like I’m in some weird episode of Bear Grylls, hacking my way through the Amazonian rainforest. Eventually, we emerge out into the clearing at the front of the house.
Briarwood looks menacing in the half-light, shrouded in shadow, rain drops bouncing off the plastic sheeting at the side of the building. The fountain is filling with water, and the newly laid gravel is sodden beneath our boots.
We split up and do a quick circuit of the house – it was left unlocked, and part of me wonders if she’s made it in there. There’s no response to our calls, so we leave again, back out into the wilderness.
‘If she was coming here, where is she likely to be? What route would she take?’ Tom asks, as we regroup by the front door, hiding beneath the porch.
‘Last time she tried to make it here, she was on the main road up the hill, thank God. There are all kinds of shortcuts and pathways, but she stuck to the main road. Let’s try there next. I’ll just check in with the others.’
Tom ushers me back into the hallway of Briarwood, to the smell of sawdust and paint, while I check my phone. There’s already a text from Zoe, telling me she’s not at the Community Centre, but they’re carrying on looking around the village. I tap out a quick reply, asking them to look in the Pet Cemetery, in case for some reason she’s gone to visit Pickle, our late, great Border Terrier. I add in a thank you and several kisses, remembering at the last minute to be grateful, before I call Auburn.
‘Anything?’ I ask, when she answers after a couple of rings. I can hear her panting and wheezing, and guess that she’s run the whole way from the cottage to the café. Her poor ciggie-addled lungs are not happy.
‘No! I’m here now, in the garden, and she’s nowhere. I even checked in the dog field, and in the sheds where they keep the barbecue, and around the back of the bookshop. Nothing. Where else should I go? I’m so scared for her, Willow – it’s bloody awful out here, anything could have happened!’
‘Thinking like that won’t help,’ I reply, as it’s exactly what I’ve been telling myself. ‘Check down by the bay – she likes sitting on those big rocks and watching the sea. It can come in quite high, so be careful. If she’s not there, walk up the pathway along the side of the cliffs – there’s a little bench there where you can look down at the beach. She likes that too.’
‘I know the one,’ she replies, and I can hear her moving off again. ‘We went there the other day and she told me the names of all the birds. I think she was making them up though – I’m not sure the Snozz-Wozzle Puffin-Pie is real …’
I have to smile at that – our mother, channelling her inner Roald Dahl. I say goodbye to Auburn, and Tom and I set off again.
He leads me towards his car, and I try to shrug him off.
‘No,’ I say, shaking my head, seeing raindrops fly from it with the gesture. ‘It’s better to walk, so we can check out the footpaths as well.’
‘It’s not,’ he replies firmly, opening the car door, and bundling me inside. ‘You said she took the main road last time. There’s no reason to assume she hasn’t this time, and this will be quicker and dryer. We can do a quick circuit in the car, and if we don’t see her, we can double back and do it again on foot. Trust me, I’m a mad scientist.’
I can’t argue with his logic, and am grateful that at least one of us still possesses some. I’m trying to sound level-headed to my sister, but inside, I’m coming apart. Tom flicks the heating on full, and I’m even more grateful when warm gusts of air start to cloud out onto the skin of my wet, trembling hands.
‘Does she have a phone?’ he asks, putting on the lights, carving out two tunnels of yellow in the gloomy air around us. The rain stripes down through them, neon blobs against the darkness.
‘No,’ I say, regretfully. ‘We tried – I thought it would be sensible. But she just couldn’t get the hang of it at all, and it made her feel bad about herself, so we gave up. Maybe we shouldn’t have, maybe I should have tried harder …’
‘Stop doing that,’ he says, frowning as he negotiates the car through the gate posts and heads for the main road.
‘What?’
‘Stop beating yourself up. We can set aside some time for that later, if it makes you feel better. But for now, concentrate on looking through the windows – I have to concentrate on not crashing.’
I nod, because he’s right. I can’t let my self-pity party get in the way of the mission.
He drives at a snail’s pace, because he can – it’s not like there’s any other traffic out here at this time of day.
I wind the windows down, because I can’t see out of them properly when they’re steamed up, and the rain lashes in, slapping my face and his. He doesn’t say a word, just blinks it away, because he obviously knows why I’m doing it. Killer brain, three steps ahead.
I look out of my window, and out of his, and out of the windscreen, the wipers flashing away on the highest setting. I shine the torch out into the hedgerows, startling a fox, who stops what he’s doing and stares up at me, the light reflecting from his eyes before he scampers away, fur flattened and wet.
Tom stops at each of the footpaths, and I examine the gates and stiles, looking for any evidence she’s passed this way. Auburn calls from bench, to say there’s no sign of her – I tell her to head to Frank and Cherie’s farmhouse.
Mum’s never gone there before, but at the very least, I know they’ll look after Auburn – who is now sounding so desperate and anxious that I’m almost as worried about her as Mum. She’s been tense ever since she got here – I’ve noticed all the twitches and tics and nail biting and the constant movement. This might be enough to push her over the edge, and nothing will be more effective in preventing that from happening than getting some TLC from Cherie.
I see texts have landed from Laura, and from Scrumpy Joe, and realise that Zoe and Cal must have raised the alarm to spread the search more widely. Becca and Sam are left alone as they have Little Edie to care for, and Big Edie is automatically immune due to being almost a thousand years old.
I feel my eyes fill up a little with truly pathetic tears – this is a terrible situation, but I am so grateful to have such friends around me. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, the police force would consist of two bobbies in a patrol car if we were lucky – hopefully it won’t come to that, and this lot are likely to be even more effective. Their help means the area around the Rockery and the outer edges of the village are now also being checked.
‘No news?’ asks Tom, eyes still glued to the road. The light is starting to filter through the rain clouds now, as the sun at least tries to rise. The world looks grey and miserable, but those first fingers of brightness chase the shadows from the trees and begin to dispel at least some of the apocalyptic gloom.
‘No, not yet,’ I say, resuming my eagle-eyed surveillance out of the side of the car. I feel his hand reach out and squeeze my thigh, but don’t have it in me to respond beyond a small smile.
‘It’ll be all right,’ he says firmly, following the curve of the road down the hill.
‘You don’t know that,’ I reply, feeling unfairly annoyed – it’s exactly what I’ve been saying to Auburn, but for some reason, I don’t want to hear it myself. ‘You don’t know it’s going to be all right. Look at this weather. It’s dark, it’s dangerous – anything could have happened to her. I never should have left her …’
He ignores that, but keeps his hand on my leg. I leave it there, because none of this is his fault, and I already feel bad for snapping at him.
My mind is working overtime, conjuring up every hideous scenario it can – the flip side of having a vivid imagination is the way it can mess with you. I see Mum lying in a heap on the beach, pale and still as the waves wash over her lifeless form; I see Mum collapsed and in pain on one of the treacherous cliff-side paths; I see Mum kidnapped by human traffickers and on her way to Marrakesh … and finally, miraculously, I see Mum.
Not in my imagination – I actually see her. We’re crawling down the hill, me shining the torch through the open windows, and I catch a glimpse of something that doesn’t quite belong. It stands out from the soggy green shades of the bushes and hedgerows and the black tar of the road. It stands out because zebras do not roam wild and free in the Dorset countryside.
‘Stop!’ I yell, trying to pull open the car door before he’s even had time to brake properly. ‘I think I see something!’
I almost fall over as I clamber out of the car, and he is by my side in seconds. We abandon the Fiat, doors open, headlights cutting a path through the grim dawn morning. I run over to the side of the road, and see one leg stretched out – a leg dressed in a zebra-print onesie.
My relief only lasts for a few seconds, because as I reach her, scrambling through the bushes, overhanging branches tearing at my face, I see that she is in a bad way.
She’s curled into a foetal ball, her arms wrapped around herself to try and stay warm. Her onesie is soaked through, clinging to her body, her hair a slick tangle around her face. Her cheeks are pale and glistening with rain, and her ankle is swollen and twisted, skin shining white around the bruises. She’s wearing her fluffy moccasin slippers; one is still on, coated in mud and clinging leaves, the other cast off from her injured foot.
I throw myself down next to her, aware that Tom is right behind me, and cradle her head. I drop the torch, and it lands next to us, casting a bright light over the bushes and sending a flurry of scared wildlife away in a sinister scuttle.
I stroke her hair away from her face, hold her cold hands, and call her name, praying that she responds.
‘I’ll get an ambulance,’ says Tom, reaching for his sandwich-bagged phone. The rain isn’t letting up.
‘Wait a minute,’ I say, rubbing her hands, and hoping for her eyes to open. ‘It’ll take forever for one to get here – if she’s conscious, we’re better just getting her in the car, warming her up, and going straight to the hospital.’
He nods, and takes off his coat, covering her with it to shelter her from at least some of the rain. His Goonies T-shirt is immediately soaked through as the storm continues, but he doesn’t seem to even notice.
‘Mum … Mum, wake up! It’s me, it’s Willow!’ I say, desperately.
Her eyelids flicker, and her fingers weakly grasp mine, and eventually, she opens her eyes and looks up at me. She stares, and smiles, and finally speaks.
‘Willow. I was looking for her,’ she says, her voice tiny and low. ‘I was looking for Willow. The one with the pink hair. My baby girl. She went for a sleepover, and I had to go and collect her.’
I realise that my hair is plastered to my scalp, dark with rain, and to her, probably doesn’t look even the smallest bit pink.
‘It’s me, Mum,’ I say, sounding ragged, ‘I’m Willow, the one with the pink hair. I’m here. I’ve got you. It’s all going to be okay now …’