Willa’s hand went to a little silver chain around her neck. She felt around until her fingers found its tiny dolphin pendant. It caught the moon’s light and glinted, like a torchlight in fog. “Not like Laika. I do well because it genuinely matters to me. Lai never worked hard at anything; it all just came naturally to her. But she wasn’t what you’d call academic, not in the traditional sense. It just didn’t bother her all that much. She wasn’t in the least motivated by the idea of coming first. If it didn’t interest her, or if she didn’t see the point, she just wouldn’t do the work. Her school grades were pretty average—some of them were dire. Her teachers said she was the classic case of could do better. It used to drive Mum mad. She always says her biggest regret was leaving school without any qualifications. I think she…well.”
We lay in silence. I didn’t want to risk looking at her in case she stopped talking. Instead I kept my eyes on the sky, where plum-dark clouds passed slowly under the stars like distant migrating whales and pipistrelles darted like tiny black fish.
“She was a fantastic mimic too. Honestly, she could pick up someone’s accent and take them off within seconds. And she wasn’t always kind with it either. She could be rude. And I do mean seriously, hideously, embarrassingly rude: confrontational. She never knew when to back down. She was fearless, completely fearless. She wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone. She couldn’t control it: when she got angry, she’d smash things.” I saw her shake her head slightly, then she lapsed back into a long silence. I wondered if she’d fallen asleep.
“I’m not meant to say things like that, am I?” she said. “You know, that whole thing about not speaking ill of—well, you know. But anyway. That’s who she was.”
I reached for her hand under the blankets and she shifted on to her side to face me. “On the news they described her as a likable and popular girl with masses of potential and lots of friends and a loving, stable family. I don’t know, perhaps you saw. It’s like reporters keep a stock list of phrases to describe teenagers. They’re always plucky, or brave, or tragic. Even the photo they used didn’t look a bit like her, not at the point she disappeared anyway. I wouldn’t have recognized her from the TV, so how was anyone else meant to? She didn’t even have any close friends. Laika could be a complete pain in the arse. Dad used to tell her she was pigheaded and bolshy. And she was too, at times. She was irritating and argumentative and difficult, but she was also wonderful and absolutely brilliant.”
“In other words, a real person.” I squeezed her hand.
“Yes. She was a real person.” Willa took a sudden deep breath. I heard a crack in her voice. “And I really, really miss her.”
“Oh, God,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I shouldn’t have said anything.” I thought, perhaps, she was about to throw back her head and howl. But she breathed deeply and held her breath several times, then exhaled slowly.
“It’s not you,” she said, her voice small but controlled again in the dark of the night. “I’m glad you asked, honestly. I mean that. I think about her all the time. All the time. I mean every hour, every minute, every second of the day. But nobody ever asks about her as a person. I know people don’t know what to say, or they’re afraid I’ll get upset. I get that, really, I do. But it’s not even been a full year—”
She turned on her side, away from me. I rolled on my side too. I put my arm around her waist and she found my fingers and held them. Moving slowly, I tucked my knees up behind hers and put my cheek against the back of her neck, my nose buried in her hair. The night rolled on. I think I slept. When I woke again it was still dark, but I somehow knew Willa wasn’t sleeping. I held her tight.
“Did she look like you?”
“Not really. If anything, she looked more like Dad. Her hair was darker than mine. I look more like my mum.”
We were both awake for the dawn. In every direction, as far as the eye could see, the grass was covered with the silver-white webs of funnel spiders, each with its own central spiral tunneling down into the grass. And every strand of every web was hung with tiny drops of dew, like tiny beads on tiny silver chains, and every web was connected to the next, to make one giant, floating, delicate carpet, and all of it was covered with countless tiny sparkling orbs, reflecting the world in miniature.
“They’ll find her, Willa.”
“They won’t.”
“You don’t know.”
“I do know,” she said. “I know.”
3 Supper with Friends Robyn
Willa slips into the kitchen. She gives me a quick, uncertain smile, then glances once toward the sound of voices in the hallway: Jamie talking to Cat. I pull her into a hug. Her hair smells of rose and amber and something else, something summery, orange blossom perhaps, clementines.
“About this morning,” she says, her voice a low, urgent whisper, “I—”
She breaks off as our five-year-old, Sophie, bowls into the room, throws her arms around my friend’s waist and almost knocks her off her feet. It will have to wait.
“Let Willa get her coat off,” I say, smiling as Willa bends with the grace of a dancer to present Sophie with a book and a soft gray rabbit in a paisley waistcoat. I watch her pass a hand over our daughter’s dark hair and stroke her cheek. Willa looks stunning, truly beautiful, in a deep forest-green wrap dress that contrasts wonderfully with the almost-red of her hair. Large diamonds sparkle in her ear lobes. She is all cheekbones and hips and legs.
“Wow,” I say, “you look amazing.”
“Check these out,” Cat says. She comes in from the hallway, clutching an enormous bouquet filled with white roses, peonies, thistles and sprigs of eucalyptus, followed by Jamie cradling two expensive-looking bottles of wine. He bends to kiss my cheek with a delicacy somewhat unexpected in such a large man, his breath hot on my cheek and holding within it the sweet-sour tang of an earlier drink.
“Robyn,” he says smoothly, in the low tones of a late-night radio host, “it’s always lovely to see you.”
Willa offers to take Sophie back up to bed, leaving us to entertain Jamie. He dwarfs my fine-boned wife. In the cluttered space of our Victorian kitchen he looks too large, too tall, like some luxury cruise liner jammed into a narrow Venetian canal, and I immediately find myself willing him to sit. I pull back a chair and flash a smile at Cat as he lowers himself into it. He crosses one leg over the other, ankle to knee, scoops up a handful of almonds from a bowl and ladles the entire lot into his mouth. I edge round the table to sit next to him while Cat arranges the flowers in a vase. He leans back and, in a languid gesture, drapes one arm heavily over the back of my chair. I lean forward, putting my elbows on the table.
“Why don’t I take charge of the wine?” he says. “Make myself useful.” He examines the label of one of the bottles, “Pass me a corkscrew and I’ll open this one, if you like.”
“We’ve got fizz too,” I say. “Or perhaps you’d like an aperitif? Vodka? Gin? I make an amazing Martini.”
“You’re okay,” he says, popping the cork and pouring himself a large glass of velvety wine. “This will do.” For a crystallizing moment I can’t think of a single thing to say to Jamie, a man I’ve known now for almost two years. I need Willa back, her grace and beauty and familiarity, to be our common ground. He takes a long drink of the wine, and I follow his eyes as they make a slow sweep of our kitchen and its detritus of family life—the drawings and photographs on the fridge, kindergarten notices, the pile of small shoes by the back door, a stray abandoned bear. I push a plate of canapés in his direction and he selects a small square of rye bread topped with cream cheese, red pepper and caviar. A fish egg glues itself to his lower lip and, when he next starts to speak, I can’t stop looking at that little black speck.
“Interesting kind of fix,” he says, running a finger over the silver lines of our favorite bowl. He breaks into a grin. “Couldn’t afford a new one?”
I smile. “Kintsugi, it’s called. It’s a technique that signifies healing and forgiving. Mending things with love. My mum and dad gave it to us when Cat and I got married.”
“Dear oh dear,” he says, sounding amused. “They reckon you two argue, do they? Better watch your back, then, Robyn, Cat’s probably fairly handy with a spear.”
My mouth drops open and Cat turns from the stove so fast that her elbow sweeps a side plate off the worktop. There’s a loud crack as it hits the floor.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “what?”
“What did I miss?” Willa says, coming back in.
There’s a beat. One of the many things I love about my wife is her grit. She speaks her mind, calls out bad behavior, challenges people, stands up for what’s right. I’ve never known her let a racist comment go past unremarked, not ever, not once. But now she glances once at Willa and then, clear-eyed, at me. “Nothing,” she says, a small but definite signal to let it go.
“You should kin-thing that,” Jamie says. Cat plucks up the broken pieces, raises the lid of the pedal bin and drops in the bits. You’d think she hadn’t heard.
“Let me get you a drink,” I say to Willa. “G and T?”
Jamie looks at the tray of canapés with wolfish eyes, “She’s not drinking,” he says. “She’ll have water.”
“I’ll have one,” Cat says. “Actually, why don’t you make it a double?” She turns back to the hob and the kitchen fills with the warming scents of ginger and lime. I place a tall glass within her reach and, as I move close to nuzzle her cheek, she throws me a look and mutters, “Jesus fucking Christ.”
