“I thought I’d send your favourite man Mr Gummer home early. You’re right, though, I ought to be with you for the peace of mind.”
If he had just the average share, she reflected, she might have more herself. It took her several minutes to reach the phone, as a preamble to doing which she had to walk home not unduly fast and unbutton the alarm, by which time there was surely no point in calling except to assure herself there wasn’t. The phone at the disco went unanswered long enough for Wilf to turn away and rub his face twice; then a girl’s voice younger than Claire was expecting, and backed by music loud enough to distort it, said “Sin Tans.”
“Hello, St Anne’s. This is Laura Maynard’s mother. Could I have a quick word with her?”
“Who? Oh, Lor.” As Claire deduced this wasn’t a mild oath but a version of Laura’s name, the girl said “I’ll just see.”
She was gone at once, presumably laying the receiver down with the mouth toward the music, so that it amplified itself like a dramatic soundtrack in a film. Claire had thought of a question to justify the call and no doubt to annoy Laura - they’d established when she must be home, but not with whom or how - when the girl returned. “Mrs Maynard,” she shouted over an upsurge of the music, “she’s not here yet, her friend Hannah says.”
“You obviously wouldn’t know if her bus happened to run.”
“Yes, Hannah was on it, but it was early at Lor’s stop.”
“I understand,” said Claire, compelled to sound more like a grown-up than she felt. “Could you ask her to ring home the moment she gets there? The moment you see her, I mean.”
“I will, Mrs Maynard.”
“Thanks. You’re very -” The line went dead, and Claire hung up the receiver beside the stairs, next to the oval mirror in which Wilf was raising his hunched head. Two steps like the heaviness of his expression rendered palpable brought him round to face her. “She’s not there, then,” he said.
“Not yet.”
“Not much we can do, is there? Not till she gets home, and then I’ll be having a good few words.”
“Don’t work yourself up till we know what happened. You always assume it’s her fault. I may just nip out to see . . .”
“I can look if you like while you’re waiting for her to call. See what?”
“She’ll speak to the machine if we aren’t here. I know she wouldn’t go across the golf course by herself, but maybe someone she knew went with her if they missed the bus too. If anyone’s still playing I can ask if they saw her. It’s better than sitting at home thinking things there’s no need to think.”
“I’ll come with you, shall I? If there are any golfers they may be miles apart.”
He so visibly welcomed being motivated that she couldn’t have refused him. “You set the lights and everything while I go on ahead,” she told him.
The twilight was quieter, and almost dark. The mowers had gone to bed. Though she could hear no sound of play from the golf course she made for it, having glanced back to see that Wilf was following, far enough behind that she had a moment of hoping a call from Laura had delayed him. By the time he emerged from their street Claire was nearly at the bus stop.
Smaller flags led away from it, starting at the first hole. The clubhouse was nearby, though screened by one of the thick lines of trees that had been grown to complicate the golf. Claire heard the whop of a club across the miles of grass and sandy hollows, and the approach of a bus, reminding her that it was at least an hour since Laura had left the house. “Come on, Wilf,” she urged, and stepped off the concrete onto the turf.
Tines of light from the clubhouse protruded through the trees; one thin beam pricked the corner of her eye. A stroke that sounded muffled by a divot echoed out of the gloom. “I’ll find them,” she called, pointing towards the invisible game, “while you see if anyone at the clubhouse can help. Show them your badge.”
Her last words jerked as she began to jog up a slope towards a copse. Having panted as far as the clump, she glanced at Wilf. “Get a move on,” she exhorted, but her words only made him turn to her. She waved him onward and lurched down the far side of the slope.
Her cry brought Wilf stumbling towards her, halting when she regained her balance. “What now?” he demanded, his nervousness crowding into his voice. “What have you -”
“Nearly fell in a bunker, that’s all,” she said, grateful to have an excuse for even a forced laugh. She took a step which placed the bulk of the copse between her and Wilf and cut off the light from the clubhouse, and looked down.
This time she didn’t cry out. “Wilf,” she said with the suddenly unfamiliar object she used for speech; then she raised her voice until it became part of the agony she was experiencing. “Wilf,” she repeated, and slid down into the bunker.
The slope gave way beneath her feet, and she felt as if the world had done so. The darkness that rose to meet her was the end of the lights of the world. It couldn’t blind her to the sight below her, though her mind was doing its best to think that the figure in the depths of the sandpit wasn’t Laura - was the child of some poor mother who would scream or faint or go mad when she saw. None of this happened, and in a moment Laura was close enough to touch.
She was lying face down in the hollow. Her skirt had been pulled above her waist, and her legs forced so wide that her panties cut into her stockinged legs just above the knees. The patch of sand between her thighs was stained dark red, and the top of her right leg glistened as if a large snail had crawled down it. Her fists were pressed together above her head in a flurry of sand.
Claire fell to her knees, sand grinding against them, and took hold of Laura’s shoulders. She had never known them feel so thin and delicate; she seemed unable to be gentle enough. As Laura’s face reluctantly ceased nestling in the slope, Claire heard the whisper of a breath. It was only sand rustling out of Laura’s hair -more of the sand which filled her nostrils and her gaping mouth and even her open eyes.
Claire was brushing sand out of Laura’s eyelashes, to give herself a moment before the glare of her emotions set about shrivelling her brain - she was remembering Laura at four years old on a day at the seaside, her small sunlit face releasing a tear as Claire dabbed a grain of sand out of her eye - when she heard Wilf above the bunker. “Where are -” he said, then “Oh, you’re - What -”
She shrank into herself while she awaited his reaction. When it came, his wordless roar expressed outrage and grief enough for her as well. She looked up to see him clutching at his heart, and heard cloth tear. He was twisting the badge, digging the pin into his chest. “Don’t,” she pleaded. “That won’t help.”
He wavered at the top of the bunker as if he might fall, then he trudged down the outside of the hollow to slither in and kneel beside her. She felt his arms tremble about her and Laura before gripping them in a hug whose fierceness summed up his helplessness. “Be careful of her,” she hardly knew she said.