My mother joined me upstairs and we sat her on her bed with the plastic pink toy on my lap.
‘Let’s go all through the birthdays again. Try Noah’s.’
I typed it into the number keypad. The pink door stayed closed. ‘Nope.’
‘Try her birthday.’
Nothing.
‘Peter’s?’
Nothing.
‘Oh God,’ I groaned. ‘It could be anything.’
‘Yours next,’ Mum offered.
‘I’ve tried that already. I’ve tried all of them,’ I sighed despairingly. But I typed it in again anyway, for the hell of it.
The door popped open to reveal the thick pink notepad.
I looked at my mother triumphantly. ‘She must have changed it.’
I placed the diary between us.
‘What’s this?’ Mum asked, unbending the flimsy plastic pink arm of what I had always assumed was a mini-light.
‘It’s a lamp for after lights out, I think.’
‘But she always uses her torch.’
‘That’s true,’ I said, picking the yellow torch up from the table next to her bed.
My mother waggled the extendable arm of the light.
The notepad was about half full. I flicked through the pages.
Dear Mummy... Dear Mummy... Dear Mummy... on every page. My face flushed with shame.
‘It’s to me.’
‘She loves you so much, Gemma.’
A lump formed in my throat. ‘And I haven’t been there for her.’
‘By the time we have kids, it’s too late to realise how inadequate we are for the job,’ my mother said. She wrapped her arm around me in an awkward but heartfelt squeeze.
I added, ‘You did all right, for a Campbell woman.’
‘We’re a substandard lot. But we try our best.’
‘I love you, Mum.’
‘Love you too, darling.’ She twitched a series of sniffs, as though smelling the air for breakfast, and pinched her pink-tipped nose. ‘Right come along. Time to get reading.’
Why are there so many gaps in the writing? I wondered as I skimmed through the paragraphs.
‘Wait a second... Look there are two pens.’ I unclipped them from their Velcro holders by the side of the notebook. One was black and the other was white.
‘What?’ Mum asked.
‘I remember now. When I bought this for her the box said it had invisible ink.’
I scribbled the white felt-tip pen on a blank page, which left no markings on the page, and then clicked the switch to the mini-UV-light. ‘Shit. It’s not working. Shit!’
I was convinced that the blanks held the key to her whereabouts.
My mother turned the diary over. ‘Triple AAA. I’ll nip down to the shops. You start reading the rest.’
I read from the back. There were no dates.
TOP SECRET
* * *
Dear Mummy,
* * *
It is 7 days after you left. Granny Helen comes into my room to wake me up every morning but she doesn’t know that I am already wide-awake. I wake up early to look outside to see if your car is home. Daddy says that you are not feeling very well and that you need to get better before you come home. Did I make you ill, Mumma?...’
My tears dropped onto her writing and I blotted the page with my sleeve. As I continued to read, I noticed that there were six lines left completely blank in the middle of her entry, which I guessed was where the invisible ink began. I checked previous entries, spotting more and more blank spaces.
By the time I heard Peter pull up outside, I had no information about Rosie’s whereabouts, but I had seen sides to her that I had completely forgotten about, that I had neglected to see. Her sincerity. Her fear. Her vulnerability. I couldn’t bear that I had not found time to listen, really listen, and really hear. She needed this diary to feel heard; my attention might have come too late. I pressed the diary to my chest, heartbroken.
Peter came into the room.
‘Oh my God, Peter, where is she?’ I cried, falling into his arms.
He hugged me tightly, and I hoped he would never let go. ‘The police’ll find her.’
‘Peter, I didn’t push her. I didn’t hurt her head. She rolled, I swear to God.’
Peter drew away and took me by the shoulders. ‘I know, I saw her do it again when Noah hit her and I have been trying to call you for days. Where have you been?’
‘It’s doesn’t matter now. I’m back.’
‘It’s been hell without you.’
I smiled sadly, wishing I could feel vindicated, knowing I had stayed away too long.
‘I thought you said she was calmer without me.’
‘I have never wanted to hear her tantrums more. She’s been so good it’s been awful.’
‘I came home to tell her about Kaarina. I’m not going to run away from it anymore.’
Peter nodded and smiled, and then he scratched his hands through his hair. ‘Oh God, where the hell are the police?’
I looked out of the window and saw Mira and Barry Entwistle’s house.
‘Mira,’ I hissed.
‘Gemma, no,’ Peter cried, following me as I almost tumbled down the stairs.
‘I have to ask her.’
I sprinted over to their house and knocked on the door repeatedly.
Barry opened it. ‘Hello Gemma. How can I help?’ he asked, twitching his nose so that his glasses popped up and down.
‘Where’s Rosie?’ I screamed in his face.
Peter pulled me back. ‘Sorry, Barry, we’re looking for Rosie. Might you have seen her anywhere?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ he said, frowning at me.
‘Is Mira there?’ I cried.
‘She’s gone to work. Do you want me to call her and ask her about Rosie?’
Peter answered, ‘Yes, that would be really kind, Barry, thank you,’ and he yanked me away. I tried to look over Barry’s shoulder.
‘He was hiding something, I can tell,’ I sneered, as Peter frogmarched me back home.
‘Behaving like that is not going to help Rosie.’
Chastened, I stopped writhing.
Before getting back inside, I heard a car. My heart leapt. I hoped it was the police, but it was Mum’s red Mini.
‘The batteries!’ I cried.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Mira had woken up that morning with butterflies. It was the day she would be calling her son. His letter was waiting for her on the bureau.
Her mind was alert, as it had been all night. But she wasn’t tired. Her eyes were wide open to the beauties of the world around her.
The drive to Woodlands had taken her breath away. The pink sky, the frosted branches, the bunches of brown leaves scurrying along the road next to her seemed to be saying ‘Good Morning Mira!’ and ‘What a wonderful day it is today!’
The children at school were a delight, even when they weren’t. She hugged them and laughed with them and admonished them gently.
When Patricia politely asked her to come out of the classroom for a word, Mira was not worried. She was on a high. Nothing could bring her down.
‘Mira, I’m afraid your mobile telephone has been ringing quite insistently from your coat. I would ask you to turn it off before it sends me to the loony bin.’
Mira’s mortification was quickly replaced by terror. Barry never called her at work. Nobody ever called her at work. Not even Deidre.
Having apologised to Patricia, she scuttled off to find her phone.
Four missed calls from Barry in the last fifteen minutes.
She called him back.
‘Mira, love, the Bradleys have been round and they’re saying Rosie is missing.’
Mira was confused and spoke without thinking. ‘But I only saw her last night.’
‘You saw her last night?’
‘Yes, she came to visit me in the shed and then she...’ Mira’s heart was in her mouth. She dropped the phone and let out a small cry.
Without a thought of Patricia or Year Two, she shoved her jacket on, checked the keys to the shed were still in her pocket, and fled from the school.
She sped recklessly through the lanes. The joy and beauty of the drive earlier was now a blur. Her fear seemed to be spreading and ripping through the landscape like a hurricane.