‘I looked for her. She’s not—’

‘Not that you’d understand, not being a mother yourself.’

It’s a barb that was meant to stick but Fran doesn’t so much as flinch. Her mother may see her childlessness as a sign of failure, of not fulfilling her feminine role in life but, for her, it’s the opposite. Not having children was very much her choice.

‘What difference will talking to Tom Wade make?’ she asks. ‘He’s going to tell you the same as the police – Jenna jumped or fell off a cliff. She’s not hiding, she’s not being held against her will and she’s not wandering around with amnesia.’

‘How can you possibly—’

‘It’s been two years. If she was still alive she would have contacted us by now. Unless you said or did something that— Woah!’ Fran leans back sharply as her mum flicks her wrist and hot tea leaps across the table. Most of it misses her but there are tannin-coloured splodges on her jumper, from her chest to her hips.

‘My hand slipped,’ Geraldine shouts as Fran rushes to the sink, grabs a dish cloth and soaks it in cold water. She dabs at the dark stains on her thin, cotton jumper then turns, the dish cloth still pressed to her stomach, to confront her mother.

‘You blame me!’ Geraldine shouts before Fran can speak. ‘Everyone always blames me.’ Far from looking repentant, Geraldine is sitting up taller in her chair, gripping the mug tightly. ‘It’s my fault Jenna’s missing, my fault she went to Gozo, my fault you were bullied at boarding school, my fault Daddy had a stroke. It’s all my fault.’ Angry tears burn in her eyes. ‘I raised you girls, I gave you the best start in life and I dedicated forty-eight years of my life to your father and his career and what did I get in return? A blissful retirement spent travelling the world and grandchildren playing at my feet when I return home? No, I got nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.’

Fran feels herself shrink further under the weight of her mother’s self-pity. She’s the size of a sixteen-year-old, a fourteen-year-old, twelve, ten, eight … She is eight years old, standing in the doorway of a large, Victorian school house, watching her mother walk away, down a driveway as wide as a river.

‘Tears are for babies,’ says the woman standing beside Fran. She’s the size of a giant and smells like stewed plums. ‘If Mummy looks back, give her a smile and a wave.’ She clamps a hand to Fran’s shoulder and digs too-sharp nails into the thin material of her new school blouse. ‘This is harder for Mummy than it is for you.’ Fran waits and she waits but her mother never looks back.

Chapter 5

Then

JENNA