I went into the bathroom with my contact lens case and stood in front of the sink to remove them. The first one came out easily enough, but my eyes were dry and I struggled with the second. When I finally got it out I put on my glasses, which had broken across the bridge and were stuck together with masking tape. I was ashamed of them but couldn’t afford another pair, and made do by never wearing them in public.
“You look different with your glasses on,” said a voice behind me, and I looked around to see Liam standing in the doorway. I didn’t know how long he’d been there, but his posture was relaxed, as if it had been a while.
Mortified that he had seen me in my glasses and had apparently been watching me without my knowledge, I shrieked, but he didn’t move. So I shoved him out of the bathroom, hard. “Don’t look at me, you fucking creep!”
His kind eyes buckled, then his legs. He landed clumsily on one knee and I realized, a little too late, that I’d behaved like a total bitch.
“Please,” I said, more gently. “I want to be alone.”
I got into bed and pulled the duvet over me, trying to get warm. It was the middle of summer, but my bones were cold. Sticking out from the end of the bed, a swatch of candy pink wrapping paper caught my eye. The pinkness of it didn’t make sense; it was way too bright, an insult of color. I stared at it for a whole minute before I remembered what it was. Lily’s present. Fuck. It was Christmas morning. How could I have forgotten? I looked at the bedside clock. It was not quite ten thirty but my bus to Hamilton had left an hour before. Rowan and Ludo were expecting me for dinner. Or was it lunch? Was dinner at lunchtime on Christmas Day? I had never known the rules. Maybe another bus left later. Or maybe it didn’t. I would worry about that after I’d had some sleep. I closed my eyes, but they continued to dart about, and the cogs in my skull whirred ceaselessly, so that every thought I had seemed to double back on itself and play in a loop. The fibers of the mattress absorbed me and tendrils of it grew up and over my body, weaving me into a sleep pod out of which there was no escape.
Chapter Fourteen
London, 2003
On the morning after I put my hand through the strange curtain in the closet, the phone rang in the living room, and I answered it through a fog of sleep, taking a moment to recognize Pippa’s distressed voice on the other end. I had been dozing on the couch, and didn’t remember at first how I’d gotten there. Then I tasted bittersweet tea, saw the half-empty cup I had made in the small hours, and the events of the night before played back in a delirious slide show. By the time I tuned in to what Pippa was saying, she was telling me about a fall in the courtyard, that they would have to take Peggy to the mainland for X-rays. They’d be out of reach for a few days and she wanted to speak to Caleb before they went. That was when I remembered that Caleb was still missing.
“He’s not here,” I said, fumbling for an excuse. “Soccer practice started early.”
“At half past seven?”
“I know. Must be a big match this week.”
“Wow,” she said. “Your influence is working already.” She told me to make sure he cleaned the mud off his soccer boots when he got home instead of leaving them in the sink to fester. I was also to give him a hug from her. I promised I would, and felt terrible for lying. If Caleb really was missing, I’d just made matters worse.
To make amends, I resolved to spend the day looking for him, and got in the shower at once. Under piping-hot water, I planned my search route: first, Wormwood Scrubs, followed by his school, then the local cinema—where I’d go, but, realistically, he wouldn’t. I’d call his cell phone at regular intervals throughout the day and also ring home in case he’d returned while I was out.
When I stepped out of the shower, the bathroom was opaque with steam, and I opened the window to a gust of cold air, the first sign of summer’s end. I was in the downstairs bathroom, had forgotten to bring a towel, and the only thing at hand, apart from the pajamas I’d had on the night before, was a flimsy satin dressing gown of Pippa’s. I’d just put it on when I heard the doorbell ringing, not serenely like it normally did, but a crazed bing-bong bing-bong bing-bong. Caleb must have forgotten his key and gone bonkers from waiting on the doorstep for so long.
I ran to the intercom and buzzed him in, saying, “Thank God you’re home.” Caleb made no reply over the receiver, but I heard the downstairs door click shut behind him. His feet on the stairs were slow, deliberate, as if he had on lead boots and was very tired.
Pippa’s satin dressing gown was now wet through, transparent, and I grabbed Ari’s gabardine raincoat off a hook and put it on. Then, when I opened the door, I thought I really was going berserk. Caleb stood in front of me—only he had aged overnight and was forty years old.