Girl Unknown Read Free Page B

help but admire her a little, the curious tilt of her chin, the bravery in her optimism.
    A sudden rap on the open door startled her. She stood up quickly. Another student appeared. ‘Dr Connolly.’
    ‘Just a moment,’ I said.
    The girl was already fixing the strap of her satchel over one shoulder. ‘I should go,’ she said.
    Awkwardly, beneath the gaze of the other student, we said goodbye to one another. I turned back into the room, went to the window and waited for the young man to sit. Below in the courtyard, staff and students sat at tables among the birch trees; the sound of their conversation rose in a barely audible hum. Shadows moved overhead,the day darkened. The student behind me cleared his throat.
    ‘Would you mind waiting?’ I said, making for the door. ‘I’ll just be a moment.’
    She was at the stairwell by the time I caught up. Hair falling over her shoulders, strolling away. I called to her and she turned. A door opened and a flurry of students drifted out, passing us in a noisy group.
    ‘I wanted to ask you,’ I said, ‘have you told anyone else? Any of your friends? Anyone in the class?’
    ‘No,’ she said.
    ‘Can I ask that you don’t? Please. Not yet, not until I’ve had some time to take it in.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, her voice flat and unreadable. In her eyes, there was a flash of pity. I felt a nudge of something, too: shame, perhaps. However foolish, I still believed I could contain whatever it was that had been released.
    ‘I won’t say a thing,’ she said, slipping into the stream of students passing, leaving me there, sweat on my palms, holding on to the rail, conscious that I was about to be swept up by something more powerful than I understood, something dangerous and beyond my control.

3. Caroline
    I can remember when it began.
    One afternoon in early autumn, I had been called away from the office unexpectedly because of David’s mother, Ellen. There had been an incident.
    I was just settling her with her tea-tray, the telly on, when my mobile rang, David’s number appearing on the screen.
    ‘Caroline?’
    ‘I was just going to call you.’
    ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Has something happened?’
    Something in his voice: a scratch of irritation or a wrinkle of concern.
    ‘Who is it?’ Ellen asked, her voice still quavering with nerves.
    ‘It’s David.’ I turned up the volume of the telly, then closed the door gently behind me. In the hallway, I sat down on the stairs and felt the carpet rough at the back of my legs, a musty smell rising from it. ‘Your mum,’ I told him. ‘She went wandering again.’
    ‘Oh, Christ.’
    ‘She’s fine –’
    ‘What happened?’
    I told him about the phone call I’d received – Ellen’s neighbour Marion, sounding breathy and rushed: You told me to call if ever something happened . I listened as she toldme how she had found Ellen in Tesco, crying in the frozen-food section, not knowing where she was or how she would get home. It was not the first such occurrence. ‘I’ve settled her now,’ I said. ‘I gave her some beans on toast.’
    ‘Should I come over?’
    Ellen was just beginning to get over her shakiness. The last thing she needed was to relive it for her son. ‘Leave it until the weekend, David. Give her a chance to recover.’
    ‘Okay,’ he agreed. Then he said: ‘Caroline?’
    ‘Yes?’
    He hesitated. ‘Nothing. It can wait.’
    But it was there in his voice – a note I couldn’t identify.
    I knew it at once: something had happened.
    She came into our lives, into our home, at an awkward time for me, a time I think of now as being filled with nerves and self-doubt. I had, after a fifteen-year hiatus, returned to work at the advertising agency I had left when Robbie was born. Everything felt changed, like foreign territory I had visited once but of which I retained no memory. Nothing was familiar.
    The decision to give up my career to raise my children was not something I regretted, even though