A Sleep and A Forgetting

They had lived in the States for three more years, where Charlotte had been born. Then Avalon Corporation, Bill’s employer, had taken over an English company, and he had been the obvious choice to return to head its research department, based at Wychwood Court, a country house, formerly a girls’ boarding school, near Cheltenham.

At Catriona’s first meeting with her brother-in-law, Bill made no secret of his male chauvinism. A woman’s brain, in his view, was not suitable for academic work, and besides, he regarded literature, the focus of her interests, as unworthy of sustained intellectual attention by anyone, male or female. Poetry, novels, plays, he thought of as lightweight entertainment for an idle hour or two. Art and sculpture were merely forms of decoration. His main pleasure outside his work was playing and watching a variety of sports.

Bill had straightaway picked up the habit of addressing Catriona through Flora, referring to her as ‘your sister’. ‘Would your sister like another cup of coffee?’ ‘Is your sister coming with us this afternoon?’ He avoided situations in which they would be forced to converse together by themselves. If they were left together in a room, he would immediately mumble an excuse and find something to do in another part of the house.

Her visits en famille were consequently infrequent and rather a strain. She preferred to keep in touch with Flora by twice or thrice weekly phone conversations. If Bill took the call, he did no more than grunt a greeting, then she would hear him yell out to Flora, ‘Your sister’s on the line!’

In fact, the few weekends Catriona did spend in Gloucestershire were only tolerable because Bill was out for much of the time, either jogging around the countryside to keep fit, or playing cricket, tennis, squash or golf. Even at weekends, he would go over to the laboratory for hours at a time, pleading that an experiment needed attention or that results needed to be run through the computer in time for the return of the technical staff on the Monday.

Flora seemed to accept this workaholism. He was hardly ever around to share bedtimes or to read stories or simply to have fun with his daughter. Flora, in contrast, was devoted to Charlotte. She seemed to enjoy the demanding but dull routines of motherhood. Physically strong, she used to joke that, after having four hundred adult babies to cope with on an international flight, only one real baby was a piece of cake. She would spend hours playing with her, or taking her to the local playgroup.

To Catriona, this signified that her sister’s individuality had been further compromised. Flora had ceased to be an independent person. She had dwindled into a wife and was now further diminished into a mother. When Charlotte had gone to school, Flora had taken a part-time job, but it was not a real job, not a job like the Bloomsbury Chair of English Literature at Warbeck College in the University of London, which Catriona herself occupied with such distinction.

For years, Catriona had persisted in her belief that she and Flora, attached to each other though they were, and willing on occasions to share their differences – Flora would read a book that Catriona recommended, Catriona would allow herself to buy an outfit or some underwear of her sister’s choice – remained the opposites she had always regarded them as being.

For years. Until Saturday. The day that had changed everything.

On Wednesday evening, the phone was answered. But it was a male voice. Bill’s.

‘Catriona?’ He had never called her Cat.

‘Hi, there Bill! Good trip? Sorry to disturb the joyous reunion, but I’d just like a word with the lady of the house!’ As she spoke, watching her knuckles whiten as she grasped the plastic handset, she was conscious that the false, nervous joviality was so uncharacteristic that even the insensitive biochemist might suspect something was wrong.

But when he replied, his voice had in it only the habitual note of irritation, emanating, she believed, from his conviction that no tiresome mortal had the right to interrupt the deep thought processes on which the future of the human race might depend. ‘Actually, she’s not here, although she knew quite well I was coming back today.’

She was trembling now. Breathing deeply, she waited before replying, so long that Bill demanded impatiently, as if the connection had been lost, ‘Are you still there, Catriona?’

‘I haven’t heard from Flora since last week. I’ve phoned several times and got only the machine. I’ve left messages. It isn’t like her not to return calls or to be out so often. I had the impression she might have gone away.’

‘Now you mention it, there’s no sign of her having been here at all, not for some time. It isn’t that the house is tidy. It’s always that. But even Flora leaves things out occasionally, and there’s nothing of that sort. And I looked in the fridge just now and I noticed there’s none of the salad stuff she normally eats. As if she hasn’t been shopping recently. Which reinforces the idea that she’s away. So do you have any idea where she might have gone?’

‘No, none whatever.’

‘She never mentioned anything like that to you, even as a remote possibility?’

‘No.’

‘You’re quite sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure!’

‘Why did you happen to ring up just now?’

‘I wanted to speak to her, of course!’

‘Look, Catriona, if I find out that you and your sister have cooked this up to put the wind up me, then I shall be very annoyed indeed. Now I’m going to make some calls. To friends locally. Her boss. See if they know anything.’

Seething with fury she slammed down the phone. The bastard had accused her of conspiring with Flora in some petty act of spite. Had the two of them had a row? Or was this the normal state of their marital relations? Had Flora simply walked out on him? In Catriona’s view she would have had ample justification. But why the terrible letter? Why drag her sister into their private quarrel?

Later that evening the phone rang again and she snatched it up.

This time Bill’s voice had a more conciliatory tone; from that unusual state, she judged with a sinking heart that he, the great unflappable, was worried.

‘I’ve exhausted all the possibilities I can think of and there’s no trace of her. Nor did she say anything to anyone about going away. I’m letting you know that I consider that I have no alternative but to report her absence to the police.’

‘The police? You think you need to do that?’

‘I really think I do. Now I’ve had the chance to look around the house, there are some other puzzling features. Her car’s still in the garage, for example. I’ve never known Flora take the bus or use a cab ever since we’ve lived here. Why would she start now? Her handbag has gone, but there’s no sign of anything in the way of clothing being missing, though she had so much that it’s hard to tell. The overnight bag and make-up bag she always used are still here. I’ve looked in the loft and none of the suitcases are missing.’

‘If Flora’s simply gone off on her own for a few days, won’t she be annoyed to find herself the subject of a missing persons inquiry?’

At this, his usual truculent tone returned. ‘Frankly, Catriona, if my wife and your sister has been so damned insensitive as to walk out on her family without a word of explanation to anyone, without having the consideration to leave so much as a note as to her whereabouts, then she needs to be made aware of the effects of her behaviour. I don’t care if she’s annoyed. We’ll find her first, and worry then about whether she’s embarrassed. Besides,’ and here there was almost, to her amazement, the trace of a sob in his voice, ‘we have to face up to the possibility that something, something serious may have happened to her. She can’t have had just an accident. I’ve called the hospitals round here that have emergency departments: Gloucester, Bristol, and Cheltenham. There were no unidentified casualty patients or victims of accidents.’

‘Something serious? What do you mean?’

‘Isn’t it rather obvious? It’s desperately upsetting but we can’t yet rule out the possibility that she might have been attacked or abducted. I don’t want to think these things, but it seems to me they have to be considered.’

‘But is there any indication of something like that having happened?’

‘Here? None whatever. But it could have happened while she was out. You know how much she likes rambling around the countryside. But we could speculate endlessly and quite pointlessly. That’s why I’m going to the police. They have the resources and the knowledge to do what’s necessary.’

‘What about Charlotte?’

‘She’s not home until Friday. Besides, if Flora does turn up, there may in the end be nothing to tell her.’

Catriona sat unmoving staring at the phone for long after he had rung off.

In the light of what Bill knew, the action he proposed was entirely logical. He was, after all, a scientist. A disappearing spouse was no different from one of Newton’s billiard balls. If she had moved, some force must have acted upon her. All appropriate means should therefore be taken to identify that force.

Was she right to deny him the data concerning the nature of the force that might have acted? Was she concealing vital information for her own selfish reasons? If Flora did not return in the next few days, would she then be bound to reveal all she knew? Her gorge rose at the very thought of that idea, of broaching that taboo with such a man.

Did he in fact even care what had happened to his wife? Had the marriage been a mere shell with no kernel of love or affection? There had seemed at some points to be in him more anger than concern, as if he felt that Flora had been playing some kind of game with him. But the contemplation of her abduction, injury or even death had shown a little more of his vulnerability, and a little was a great deal in a man of his generally dispassionate nature.

And Flora, this new Flora whom she hardly knew, was she really playing some sort of attention-seeking game? At that, Catriona found that she too could feel anger and resentment, mixed with her anxiety and grief. And wasn’t suicide itself the ultimate piece of attention-seeking, the easy, the coward’s way out? Wasn’t that why she herself had shunned it? How could Flora have vanished in this fashion, leaving such emotional wreckage in her wake? Was it desperation that caused it, or cruelty – a desire to wound and to punish? Each thought was like a further stone added to the cairn of desolation in her heart. How could she have been abandoned like this, full of a grief that could neither be assuaged with knowledge or purged by death?

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