Missing Nancy

by Carolyn Lewis

Genres: Family Life

Synopsis

Nancy was the glue that kept her fractured family together but when she dies the cracks quickly appear. Ex-daughter-in-law Nina bundles her two children off to France in a desperate bid to find herself . In the process she loses her youngest child and, for a while, the respect of her eldest. Widower Frank, lonely in his rigid world, grieves for a marriage that may not have been all it seemed. The family are all missing Nancy but she remains at the centre of their lives, and instinctively, they know what she expects of them.

Release date: April 14, 2008

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 290

Sample

No one knows I talk to my dead grandmother. It’s not the sort of thing you say to people. She always said that she’d keep an eye on me and I prefer that to the way Mum says she’s watching me. Even when Mum’s reading a book, she says she can still see what I’m doing.

Grandad’s not dead and, although I’d told him that we were going on holiday, I wanted Grandma to know too. I thought if they both knew, that would be double the protection. A sort of extra insurance.

I guess Grandma was keeping an eye on us because the holiday started off OK. Mum got the car on the ferry, she didn’t get us lost or join the wrong queue or any of those things that can go wrong but I just knew the holiday would be rubbish. For a start we looked different, other cars had roof-racks, they had bikes on proper carriers on the backs of their cars; we had nothing like that, we didn’t even have a GB sticker. We didn’t have the right camping gear either although Mum had scrounged a Camping Gaz stove and some tatty old saucepans from a neighbour. She had bought new tents, though. They’d been marked down in price because the man said they were last year’s stock.

‘Even a child could put these up,’ the salesman told her. He wasn’t looking at me when he said it, he was looking at Mum. She didn’t notice, she just stood there twiddling with her hair, sucking at the ends of it.

My brother, he’s only a baby, was in his pushchair. He didn’t know why we were in that camping showroom listening to the rain thundering down on the corrugated roof. I did, I knew. I knew why we were buying two out-of-season tents. My mother, her name’s Nina, she was taking us to France. Taking me and my brother. She was going there to find herself. That’s what she said; she kept on saying it too.

‘I need to find myself, I’m lost in all this somehow.’

I didn’t think she was lost, I could always find her, but she does seem to have lost a lot. First of all my dad left, he left a long time ago when I was four, just a kid really. I’m nearly twelve now. Then there was another bloke, Steven something, but he left her too. Then after him Dan came to stay with us. Daniel, he had long hair and a Volkswagen Beetle. He’s the baby’s father and it was his idea to call the kid Sebastian.

Mum lost Daniel too. He came back from the pub one Saturday and told Mum he was leaving. He said that she was ‘too bogged down with things, useless things’.

I’ve no idea what he meant by that. I don’t think Mum did either but we watched him pack up his boxes of CDs, a bin-liner full of shoes, two old suitcases and a pile of books. Seemed to me that for a bloke who thought things were useless he had more things than my mum. The only thing he didn’t take was Sebastian: he left him in his pushchair with Mum. She cried for days after Dan left. She’d come downstairs every morning with her face all blotchy and her hair sticking up at the back of her head. Daniel left at the beginning of July and I said I’d stay home from school, to help her, I said. I thought she’d like that.

‘No, Jonathan, thanks but you must go to school, you can’t stay away. I’ll be fine. Honestly. I just need to do some thinking, that’s all. Don’t worry about me.’

She always patted me on the head when she said that, only now I’m nearly as tall as she is and I don’t like being patted.

Mum didn’t mention Daniel after that but she started to act in a funny way towards Sebastian. Difficult to explain really, he is only a baby, he can crawl and he can pull himself up and stuff, but she sort of stopped looking at him, she didn’t see him somehow. She’d change his nappy, she did all that, but when she put him in his high chair to feed him, she’d look over his shoulder, staring at something, then the spoon would miss his mouth, it wouldn’t go near him. Things like that. Poor kid, he kept turning round to see what Mum was looking at. He knew she wasn’t concentrating, even at eleven months he knew. She just stared, not looking at anything really, just staring beyond Sebastian’s head. He got fed up, I could see that, then he’d grab the spoon from her and shove it into his Weetabix or banana or whatever he was eating.

It wasn’t long after this, just a couple of weeks, when she started talking about taking a trip, the three of us. She kept on saying that too.

‘It’s only us now, just the three of us. Just me and my two boys, we don’t need anybody else.’ She started laughing and then asked the baby where he wanted to go. ‘Come on, how about France? We can go anywhere we like, we can fly away.’ She held him high up in her arms. He dribbled at her and then she asked me.

‘Jon, where do you think we should go? France, what about France? Not just the tourist beaches and the cafés, we could go where the French go, see the real France, eat the real food.’

Don’t know why she bothered asking me, she’d made up her mind she wanted to go to France.

‘Just the three of us,’ she said that all the time. Only it wouldn’t just be the three of us, I told Grandma all about it too.

Mum works from home. Before their divorce Dad had built an office in our attic. She has a computer up there and a fax and answering machine but she doesn’t have her own web site. I think she should, but she’s not interested in all that, she said. Mum works as a freelance editor, she reads lots of manuscripts and there’s always masses of brown envelopes arriving for her. Sometimes, when she was fed up with work or it just wasn’t going well, she’d collect me from school. She said she needed the walk.

I wish she wouldn’t do that, wait for me. Sometimes it was OK, seeing her there, we’d go off and collect Sebastian from his playgroup, that bit was all right but she looked funny. Because she works from home, at home her clothes seem normal. Sitting up in the attic, working at her desk, she wears long floaty skirts in bright colours, red or green. If it was cold she’d wear an ancient pair of Dad’s jogging trousers, some he’d left behind. They’re enormous on her and sometimes she wears a yellow sweatshirt with them. When she wears those things at home, they were just Mum’s clothes, I suppose I got used to them. But, standing outside the school, she looked … I don’t know, different. The other mothers sat in their cars, listening to the radio or leaning up against the cars talking; hardly anyone walked to school. All those other mums wore jackets with shiny buttons, their shoes had heels. The last time Mum walked up it was a sunny day and she had a long skirt on, so long it almost touched the pavement; she wore old rubber flip-flops and they made a slapping noise against the soles of her feet as she walked.

Perhaps that’s what she meant when she kept saying there was just the three of us now. At home it didn’t seem there was any difference but, outside, watching the other mothers and listening to my mother’s flip-flops going slap slap as we walked home, sometimes then I could feel the difference.

Before we went on holiday I asked Mum if Dad knew we were going to France. ‘Does he know, in case he phones or something?’ He used to ring every Friday night when I could stay up late. I could talk to him then but they’d had a row, him and Mum, over money and now he hadn’t phoned for ages.

‘No, I haven’t told him.’ She was reading the paper and watching Sebastian. He was sitting on the potty and eating a biscuit. Didn’t seem very hygienic to me but perhaps Mum thought that, by eating on the loo, Sebastian would get the idea faster, you know, in and out in the same session.

‘Don’t you think we should tell him, just in case?’

‘Mm? Yes, OK, you tell him.’ She wasn’t listening to me, she had her head bent over the paper. Sebastian had finished, or at least he had finished eating and he grinned at me and wiped the chocolate from his hands onto his hair. Mum sighed and grabbed him, carting him off to the kitchen to clean him up.

This was in the last week of school, just before the holidays started. I always spent part of the school holidays with Dad and I wanted to ring him to see if he had planned anything. Just the two of us, him and me. I suppose I wanted to know if I could still see him. Before I had chance to pick up the phone, Mum came charging back into the living room, her face was bright red.

‘Don’t tell him about the holiday, don’t say a word about going to France. For God’s sake don’t mention it, not a word. He’ll want to know where the money is coming from. I told him I was broke and the back door is warped and needs replacing.’ Sebastian was yelling so she ran back into the kitchen.

I knew Dad’s number by heart. Didn’t need to look it up in the green address book on the table. It was nearly 7 o’clock, he would have been back from work. It rang and rang. I knew he wasn’t there but I kept on holding the phone and listening. Brr … brr … brr… The answer machine clicked on.

‘Hello, this is Chris Jones. Sorry I can’t take your call right now, if you leave your …’

I put the phone down, I didn’t want to talk to the machine, I wanted to talk to Dad.

‘What did he say?’ Mum was shouting from the kitchen. I could only just hear her above Sebastian’s yells, she was giving him a wash in the sink.

‘Nothing, he wasn’t there.’

‘Did you leave a message?’

‘What?’ I could hear her, I didn’t want to talk to her about Dad.

‘Did you leave …? Oh, Sebastian, please, I can’t hear a word.’

She came back into the living room with Sebastian under one arm and her skirt soaking wet. She held him out to me. ‘I’ve had enough, put him to bed for me please. Did you leave a message for your dad?’

I took Sebastian and mumbled something, something about his machine not working and I took my baby brother upstairs with me. He’d stopped crying by the time we got to his bedroom. His pyjamas were at the foot of his cot, under a pile of dirty clothes. Mum had been wandering around collecting clothes for washing before we had tea. She must have forgotten this lot and just left it all on Sebastian’s cot. I put a clean nappy on him, then put his pyjamas on and tidied up his cot. Well, actually all I did was put his dirty clothes out on the landing and then I straightened up his duvet. He grabbed his favourite toy, an old one of mine, Zebedee from the ‘Magic Roundabout’ and he lay on his back, watching me.

‘Go to sleep, go on, go to sleep.’ He smiled and chewed on Zebedee’s ear. I left him and closed the door. Mum had turned the television on, I could hear it. She was listening to the news on Channel 4. The sound came up to the landing. I didn’t want to go downstairs, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I kicked at the pile of clothes on the landing. There were only a few days left before we went on holiday and it didn’t seem right to me that Dad didn’t know where we were going. We’d got the passports, we all had new clothes. ‘Good old plastic,’ Mum said. We had two new tents, neighbours were coming in to check the post and feed the cat and Dad didn’t know where I was going.

I picked up the pile of dirty clothes and dropped them, one by one, over the banister. They separated as they fell, T-shirts, shorts, socks, little vests, they dropped down, billowing out like parachutes dropping behind enemy lines and landed all over the stairs. I left them there and went into my bedroom.

It was stuffy in my room so I pushed the window open and leaned out. There was no one in the street, it was very hot, everyone must have been in their back gardens. The neighbours were OK, but they were all a bit old and quiet. None of the other kids in school lived in this street; I messed about on the waste ground at the end of the road sometimes and I told Mum that some of the other boys often play with me there, but they don’t.

I could hear yelling, some kids were playing football in a back garden. ‘Come on, what’s the matter with you, go any slower and you’ll stop.’ Must be the woman over the road, she’s got two grandsons. Nerds, they are.

I started to kick the wall by the window. My trainer left a black mark on the wallpaper. I wished Dad was here, or at least at his flat.

I looked up at the sky, a skinny cloud moved across the sun. I thought of Grandma. I knew she was watching me, she promised she would. I closed my eyes and I whispered, ‘Grandma’.

Don’t ask me how I know she’s listening, I just do.

I leant out a bit further, I thought it would make it easier for her to hear me. There was still a lot of yelling from the nerdy grandkids.

‘Guess what, Grandma? We’re going to France. It was Mum’s idea, she wants to see the real France she says. Don’t know what she means by that, how can it be a pretend France?’

The skinny cloud moved away. ‘It’ll only be us, Mum, Sebastian and me. Mum says it will be an adventure.’ My head felt warm, I knew she heard every word.

‘That part’s all right, Grandma, and I know you’ll be watching out for me but I wanted my dad to know too.’

I didn’t say anything else for a while, I waited. I tried to rub out the mark on the wallpaper but I only made it worse. The thing is, with this talking I do, I don’t need to hear her, it’s enough for me to know that she’s listening.

Suddenly I knew, I knew what I should be doing. If I couldn’t tell Dad, I could tell Grandad. ‘Thanks, Grandma,’ I whispered.

I ran downstairs and collected all the clothes lying on the stairs. Mum was still in the living room. She’d opened a bottle of wine and she held a glass up to her cheek, rolling it on her skin as if she was cooling herself. She’d changed channels and was watching ‘ Eastenders’. I put all the dirty clothes on top of the washing machine; the sink was full of soapy water, the bubbles small and grey and the water was cold.

‘Jon? I thought you’d gone out. It’s too warm to be indoors, get some fresh air, find a friend …’ She sipped at her glass and held it on her cheek again.

‘Can I ring Grandad? I thought he might know where Dad is, what do you think? Dad might even be with Grandad. Mum? Can I ring him, Mum?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, all this fuss about a holiday. Don’t you trust me? We’ll be staying together, Jon, the three of us. I won’t go off and leave you, you won’t get lost, we’ll be together the whole time. What on earth are you worrying about?’

I couldn’t tell her. I didn’t know what I was worrying about. I just knew that I’d feel better if someone else knew, someone like Dad or Grandad. Anyway, it had been Grandma’s idea and I couldn’t tell Mum that. I shrugged. I know she hates it when I do that. She didn’t say anything for a while, she just watched me. I didn’t look at her, I couldn’t. I kept my eyes on the telly and waited.

She let out an enormous sigh. ‘OK, if that’s what you want, if it’ll make you feel better, ring your grandfather.’ She looked at her watch, ‘7.45, he’ll be watering the geraniums or it might be the fuchsias, but he’ll be watering something. Go on, ring him, anything for a bit of peace and quiet.’

I used the phone in the hall. Mum was still watching the telly but she had changed her position and she wasn’t holding the wine glass any more.

Brr, brr … ‘ Frank Jones speaking.’

‘Grandad! It’s me, Jonathan.’

‘Who? Jonathan? Oh, it’s you lad. How are you? Is everything all right? You don’t normally ring in the evening. I was just watering the garden before locking up. Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m ringing to ask if you know where Dad is. I can’t get hold of him and I want to tell him …’ Mum suddenly coughed. ‘Well, I just want to talk to him really. I haven’t spoken to him for ages.’

‘Is that right? Now, let me see, I seem to remember that he was off on a course or something. I think I’ve written it down somewhere. Hang on a moment, lad, I’ll have a look …’

I could hear Grandad rustling papers; his phone was on the wall in the kitchen and he had a huge calendar above it. Mum always said he was a sad old man, ‘What does he want a calendar for? He does the same things every day.’

‘Jonathan?’ Grandad’s voice was loud and I saw Mum move as she heard his voice.

‘Yes, Grandad, do you know where Dad is?’

‘Yes, I wrote it down. He’s in York and won’t be back until late Friday. You could ring him on Saturday, what about that, eh?’ Grandad sounded so pleased with himself.

‘Great, thanks Grandad. Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I’m fine. Right as ninepence. Have you broken up from school yet? Keeping yourself busy, are you, out of trouble?’

‘Yes, I’m helping Mum with Sebastian, playing around a bit, usual stuff.’

‘Your mother, all right is she?’ Grandad’s voice was different, as if someone had tipped him upside down.

‘Yeah, she’s fine, do you want to talk to her?’

‘No. No, lad, no need to trouble her. Good to talk to you though. I expect you’ll be popping around soon to see me, with the holidays and all. Give me a hand in the garden, always plenty to do.’

‘No, Grandad, I can’t. Well, not for a while.’ I was watching Mum, she’d poured herself another glass of wine. ‘ Eastenders’ was nearly finished and she was listening to the programme and not me.

‘Grandad, we’re going to France.’ I didn’t mean to say it, at least I don’t think I did, but the words came out anyway.

‘France? When? How? Who with? Is that bloke back, the one with the hair, whatsisname? Is he going with you?’

‘Daniel, no he left ages ago, I told you that. No, it’s just me and Mum and Sebastian. Mum says we all need a holiday. We’ve bought tents and everything. We’re going on the ferry on Saturday.’

‘Saturday, but that’s, what, this Saturday?’

‘Yes, this weekend. Grandad …?’

‘What? Jonathan, are you all right? Tell me, son, is everything all right?’

Mum was still watching the telly, the soap was almost finished, any minute now the music would start. ‘Yes, I’m OK, but I wish my dad knew. I’m glad you know, but I want my dad to know too.’

Grandad didn’t say anything for a while. I kept my eyes on Mum, I could hear Grandad wheezing over the phone.

‘Could you do with some extra pocket money? Would an extra couple of quid help? I could let you have some spending money, how about that?’ Shall I pop it over to you before you go, what do you say?’ Grandad’s voice had dropped, he was almost whispering. My voice dropped too. The music was starting, ‘ Eastenders ’ was finished and Mum was looking through the paper again, checking to see what else was on.

‘Yes, thanks, Grandad. That’d be great.’

‘Leave it to me, lad. We’ll sort this out. Goodnight now, God bless …’

I put the phone down just as Mum looked up from the paper, ‘All right, Jon? What did the old man say to you? Does he know where your dad is?’

‘York, he said, on a course, be back at the weekend.’

‘And that’s when we leave. Don’t look so miserable, I promise you, we’ll have a great time.’

I wasn’t miserable. I felt better, the holiday would be all right now. Grandad knew about it even if Dad didn’t. Thanks Grandma.

FRANK

Frank was awake, he’d been awake since 4 o’clock. The amber numbers on the clock radio were showing 6:54. Without moving his head he could see the top of the bedside u nit where the mug with his late-night drink stood, next to his watch and a handful of change. He could hear rain attacking the bedroom window. He slowly shifted. The pain was dormant, it was sleeping although he was wide awake.

Frank was breathing slowly, carefully. He didn’t want the pain to start. He spoke softly, ‘Stupid old man, too frightened to move …’ The radio blipped into life. 7:00, the newsreader’s voice rose and fell, making little impression over the sounds of the rain.

Frank gingerly moved his legs then stopped. He knew the pain was there, he saw it sometimes as a shapeless mass, hiding in a dark cave, waiting for him to walk past.

He concentrated on his breathing, the clock radio showed 7:10. He could hear the sound of the rain gushing down the outside pipe and into the drain. The sound of the rain comforted him, it had been raining the day he showed the house to Nancy, before they got married.

‘It’s not what I had in mind,’ she’d said. ‘It’s square and it looks like all the others in the road, they’re all the same.’

‘That’s exactly why we should have it.’ Frank told her. ‘It’s a solid, well-built house, it’s a no-nonsense sort of house.’

Trees lined the short street and, over the years, their roots had pushed up slabs on the pavements. Dusty privet hedging, like a dark green, prickly necklace, outlined every garden and was determinedly pruned by each owner.

It had been Frank parents’ house; he’d lived there all his life. After their deaths he initially thought of selling it, buying something new but then he’d met Nancy and it seemed that the sheer solidity of the house was something he couldn’t walk away from. He wanted to prove to her that they could start their lives together here; it would be a foundation for them, they would grow from this house. Fifty-four years ago.

Nancy grew to love the house, in particular the garden, which was protected by a grey stone wall. She tried softening the walls, planting honeysuckle and wisteria; they grew tendrils over the grey stones. Frank had always loved the symmetry, the squareness, the solid feel of the house, its garden protected from neighbouring eyes. Their son, Christopher, had played in the garden, riding his bike around and around, inside the confines of the walls.

Alone in his bedroom, Frank smiled, remembering the early days with Nancy and Christopher. They had wanted three children. ‘Two boys and a girl,’ they said to each other after they got married. Christopher arrived and they were delighted but there were no more children. They didn’t have tests, Frank couldn’t remember talking to their doctor about it. People didn’t talk about those things then. They just got on with their lives, made the best of things. They didn’t have counselling or therapy. None of that malarkey. Frank grunted, no need for other people to be involved, that just led to prying and interfering. Best to make do with what you’ve got. Just a good marriage between two sensible people. He missed Nancy, he talked to her every day.

He moved his legs slowly. He must get out of bed. Frank inched his way towards the edge, the bed was old and sagged in the middle. Nancy used to complain that it made her back ache. ‘We need a new mattress, Frank.’

‘Nonsense, plenty of life left in this one. This is a proper mattress, not like the rubbish on the market today.’ Frank saw no need to get rid of the bed, Christopher had been born in it, Nancy had died in it. It would see him out too.

So far, so good. Frank stood upright and steadied himself against the bedside table. Gingerly he moved one foot, no pain, not a twinge.

He needed to be in control today, he had to see the lad, to see Jonathan. Another hare-brained scheme of that mother of his, going off to France. France! She couldn’t find her way to the front door.

In his bathroom, Frank turned on the tap in the wash hand basin, water gushed out and Frank hummed tunelessly as he began shaving.

‘This is the eight o’clock news on Friday 26th July . After turning the radio on, Frank wrote Jonathan in his calendar. The rain had stopped, steam rose from the patio slabs.

Very little had changed in the kitchen since Nancy died. The walls were painted a pale cream and Frank re-painted them every year. Each spring he bought a large can of emulsion in Buttermilk , grumbling each time about the price increase. He applied white gloss paint to the windows and skirting boards on one day and on the next he painted the kitchen walls. Frank had moved Nancy’s pots of fresh herbs, leaving them outside where they withered and died. The garlic and onion sets that hung on the wall he’d thrown away. But he still ate his meals in the kitchen, just as he and Nancy had done together. Each night, before he went to bed, he placed his cutlery, plates and jar of marmalade on the tray. His breakfast was always the same: two rashers of bacon, a poached egg and two slices of toast with marmalade. Nancy’s packets of muesli and All Bran had been thrown out.

Frank spread his morning paper on the table and began to cut into his egg as he scanned the headlines, ‘Bloody politicians.’ The newsreader ended his report as Frank took the first mouthful of a lightly poached egg.

Frank tugged at the garage door, ‘Needs a drop of oil.’ One more tug and he opened the doors. As sunlight entered the cool gloom, light bounced off the shiny surfaces of the tools that hung in orderly racks alongside the walls of the garage. Frank ran a hand along the bonnet of his Fiesta and he removed the worn blanket from the car’s roof.

He slowly backed the Fiesta out, his head swivelling from side to side as he drove it onto the road. Frank sat outside his house, running his eye over the windows, making certain that each one was closed.

He indicated to an empty road that he was about to pull out then he drove the Fiesta towards the woman who used to be his daughter-in-law.

Bad choice. Christopher had chosen the wrong woman. Frank had told Nancy that straight away, right after Christopher had introduced his latest girlfriend to his parents.

‘This is Nina,’ he’d said, tucking her hand under his elbow. ‘We’ve just got engaged.’

Frank had shaken the girl’s hand, cold, limp thing and his eyes had gone straight down to her sandalled feet where her toes, under their coat of dark red nail varnish, twinkled in the sunlight. Christopher and Nina hadn’t stayed long that first time, just staying for an uncomfortable hour sitting in the back garden looking at the manicured lawn.

‘Mousy thing, covered in freckles,’ Frank told Nancy after they’d gone. He remembered Nancy saying something about Nina’s hair, ‘A cloud of hair, all those red curls. I always believed redheads had pale faces because their hair drains all their colour.’

Waiting at traffic lights, Frank gripped the steering wheel, you’d have something to say about this mess, wouldn’t you Nancy?

He parked the car a few doors away from Nina’s house. He sat there for a while, looking at the paintwork on the houses, at the front gardens.

‘Those roses haven’t been pruned.’ He could see Nina’s car, the red Clio parked outside No. 24, wind chimes which hung from the porch roof moved gently in the warm air. Bloody stupid things. Frank looked at his watch, he hadn’t mentioned a time to Jonathan, just told him that he’d pop round. It was almost 3 o’clock as Frank got out of his car and locked it. He walked around the Fiesta, tugging at each door. Walking to No. 24, pushing the chimes away with his hand, he rang the bell.

‘I’ll get it, I’ll get it.’ He heard Jonathan’s voice, then the door was flung open, ‘Grandad, Grandad,’ Jonathan flung his arms around his grandfather.

Frank patted his grandson, he was bothered by the exuberance of Jonathan’s welcome, his hands rested on Jonathan’s shoulders then slowly, gently, he straightened his arms, moving Jonathan away from him.

‘There, that’s bette. . .