No, Robin would have called me straight away. He wouldn’t havestoppedcalling.
I pull over, wait four minutes and then call him again. My body relaxes instantly as I hear the ringtone. Robin. My rock. Power bank at the ready; he’s charging, just like I knew he would.
But he doesn’t answer.
Are you OK?I message.Are the kids OK?
He reads the message but doesn’t reply.
I call Maya, but she doesn’t answer. She messaged early this morning to say Nicola is not coping, so she’s offered to go and register Dad’s death in Exeter this morning. I imagine she’s driving.
I text Robin my flight times and say that I’ll probably get home around 11 p.m. I tell him I’m still in such shock I can’t really connect with what’s happening, but he doesn’t reply to this either.
On a fence post twenty feet away a large bird of prey sits motionless, watching me. I think it’s an osprey. There was a beautiful photo of one in Johan’s cabin, lifting a fish clean out of the sea with its talons. The bird stares at me, as if seeing parts of me I thought I’d kept hidden.
Does Robin know?is the next thought I have.Has he somehow worked out where I am? Who I was talking to last night?
I shake my head, dislodging the thought. Robin’s probably just trying to find a moment of peace to talk to me properly about Dad. To comfort me without a seven-year-old shouting in his ear.
The rain shower has passed but it’s left a strong wind. My little hire car shakes and the osprey continues to stare at me, seeing everything. My phone buzzes again. This time it’s Johan, messaging via Roof. I feel uneasy reading his messages. We held each other for so long, last night, after Nicola’s call. Longer than two people who once loved each other ever should. When he left for his parents’, neither of us could quite look the other in the eye.
He’s asking how I’m doing, whether I slept. He repeats how sorry he is about my dad. He says he hopes the next few weeks are bearable and that the funeral gives me some kind of closure, and he wishes me luck for the future.
Take care, Carrie,he writes, withXas an afterthought message.
A last kiss.
I’m not OK,I reply, because I have nobody else to talk to in this moment.My husband has gone AWOL and I’m sure everything is fine,but I just have a weird feeling. It’s probably just Dad. I just can’t take it in. I should have been there. I’d have spotted the signs that he was deteriorating.
I just want to be home, and I don’t want to have to travel sixteen hours to get there. I let off the hand brake and check my wing mirrors, just as my phone pings another message through.
But it’s not Robin. It’s my Roof guests, who are arriving at the Pig Shed today. I agreed they could have an early check-in; they flew into Exeter from the Channel Islands this morning. I nearly don’t read it but pull the hand brake up and open the message. Robin’s overseeing this stay in my absence, but if he’s having a difficult time with the kids he might welcome my help.
Hi Carrie, we’re here at the property but the door’s locked and nobody’s around. We’ve knocked on your door but there’s no car and the lights are off, even though it’s quite foggy and gray up here on the moor. Is there a key somewhere that we’ve missed? Could you call me when you get this? Regards, Hazel.
I call Robin and the phone rings. Once again he cancels it. When I call again it just rings out. I try Maya again, because if anyone’s spoken to Robin this morning it’ll be her, but she doesn’t answer.
As human beings we are skilled at talking ourselves down from a panic. We have special phrases that we roll out and, normally, we believe them:I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation.This sort of thing happens all the time. You’re overreacting!But I think we also know, somehow, when it’s time to worry. For me, that time is now.
Something is not right.
I call Hazel, who’s on the edge of anger but calms down when I walk her to the hole in the garden wall where we keep the spare key. I stay with her until she gets inside, cooing happily over the expensive bedding I insisted on, the proper sofa, and the chef’s knives in the kitchen.
Where is Robin? Where are the kids?
I ask if there are any lights on inside my house, even though she said in her message there weren’t. “They’re meant to be at home right now,” I say, hoping she’ll tell me something that will make me feel less anxious. “We’re always in at this time of day because my daughter has gymnastics at eleven a.m. and we’re never organized enough to go out somewhere first! Perhaps they’ve driven to town for some breakfast.”
“I think they must have left yesterday, actually,” Hazel says. She orders her husband to carry her bag across the boggy grass. “There was a large branch across the track when we arrived. The storm was last night, so the branch must have fallen then. They’d have had to move it to get out this morning.”
I spoke to my family at 5 p.m. yesterday—4 p.m. their time. The kids were making slides out of sofa cushions while Robin got jacket potatoes into the oven. He would never have impulsively whisked them away for a night, not that late in the afternoon. Especially with a Roof check-in the next morning and a trip to Sweden on Monday.
I wish Hazel a lovely stay and tell her to call me if she needs anything. Just before we end the call, however, her husband speaks up.
“Oh,” she says. “We’ve just got a message from you on Roof! Literally, in the last minute or so. It must be your husband, hang on…”
I hear her fiddling with the touchscreen. “Ah,” she says, then pauses, still reading. “Carrie?”
“Yes.”
