Helen Callaghan - Dear Amy

He leaned back in his chair, then let out a sigh, lightly misted with compassion and barely hidden exasperation.

‘You know’ – his gaze rolled up to the plain plaster ceiling – ‘it would be fun to imagine that this girl had somehow managed to survive for seventeen years. It’s not that I’m…’ he was choosing his words carefully, ‘ immune to the imaginative appeal the idea has,’ he said. ‘But until someone can prove it…’ He shrugged.

I sighed. ‘Of course you’re right.’

He regarded me with a thin sliver of suspicion for a long moment, as though he was trying to work out whether I was humouring him.

Suddenly he was on his feet. ‘Come on, you’ll be late. I’ll walk you out.’

We strolled back across the courtyard, which was starting to fill up as students and staff wheeled back into college for lunch.

‘Margot, I wouldn’t build too much upon these letters. Even if we do find out they’re real, what good does it do us if this woman won’t tell us what she calls herself now? Or where she lives?’

I felt a pain in my chest, and realized it was my heart beating against my ribs. Martin was talking to me as though I were an overexcited child. He sounded momentarily like one of the counsellors at the clinic. I shuddered. Maybe life really is as simple as the people at the clinic suggest. I always have trouble believing it. I expect that’s because I know it’s not true.

‘Perhaps she doesn’t know where she lives, if she’s being held captive in this place. She doesn’t know she’s been forgotten. I’m sorry,’ I said as we reached the heavy darkness of the gatehouse. ‘But somehow I believe in the letters.’ I gave a tiny, apologetic twitch. ‘I just do.’

We faced each other. The cool air blew between us and I could feel myself anchored to the ground by the stony weight of my conviction. ‘This woman, Bethan Avery, could still be alive. I’m not even saying she’s being held prisoner. She believes she is, though. She’s still the girl kidnapped twenty years ago. She wants to be set free.’

Martin rubbed his chin once more, seemed about to speak, then fell silent, with a sharp shake of his head, a policy decision in action. ‘I’ll take the letters to Mo tomorrow. There’s no point discussing anything until then.’

We had reached the gate, and with an old-world courtesy he reached out and shook my hand. Again that warm, firm grip, surprisingly gentle from such a burly man.

‘It was genuinely lovely to meet you, Margot. And I’ll let you know the minute we hear anything,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, if there are any more letters, don’t hesitate to call.’

‘I will.’

He turned away, but before he could leave…

‘Martin, wait.’

He paused mid-step, regarding me.

‘You said that there was something else interesting about the letters. In your first email. I meant to ask you what it was.’

His face set a little, smoothed into something almost defensive.

‘The handwriting…?’ he mused out loud, and for the first time I had the sense that he was not being wholly honest – that he knew exactly what I meant.

‘No, you said something else. That there were “other reasons” the letters were of interest.’

He froze, and then, as though considering, glanced quickly over both shoulders, then moved to rejoin me at the gate.

He bent low, next to my ear, and there was a strange, ambiguous moment during which I wasn’t sure if he meant to kiss me or not. I was about to draw away when he whispered, ‘The second letter mentioned soundproofing.’

‘What?’

‘Soundproofing,’ he repeated. ‘They found fragments of insulation material on Bethan’s nightdress, they think it was used for soundproofing.’ He stepped back, with a little shrug. ‘It was never made public.’ He beetled his brows at me. ‘So please keep that to yourself.’

It was over and I was back on King’s Parade, in the mob of tourists, hurrying academics and office and shop workers in search of some lunch. I wandered, in a kind of weird, anxious dream, back towards the Copper Kettle and my bicycle. A big tour group was coming towards me and I stepped out of their way. As my groping hand reached out to steady myself it touched glass, and I became aware of a loud ticking, sinister and yet familiar.

I was in front of the Corpus Clock. I glanced at it, caught. Behind the glass a huge rippling gold disk, backlit in bluish-pink, the edges ratcheted with teeth, moved in fits and starts. Above it was a large gleaming metal locust – the Chromophage, the time-eater – who rode the teeth as they moved beneath its chrome body, each one issuing a harsh metallic click.

I have stood here for up to a quarter of an hour at a time before now, entranced by its slightly irregular, sinister movement, which is only absolutely accurate every five minutes. On one of our first dates, Eddy taught me to read the markings on the gold-plated disk to translate the hour. I sighed and glanced down at the inscription in stone below it: ‘ Mundus transit et concupiscentia eius .’

‘“The world passeth away, and the lust thereof,”’ I murmured.

I considered Martin Forrester, his piercing eyes, his thick dark hair, before firmly shaking my head and trying to dismiss him from my thoughts.

I had to go.

Work passed in a dream, and then there was the Classics Club after school – we were doing the third of our Conversational Ancient Greek nights this year, which is normally hugely amusing, but somehow I felt a little distant, a little lost, and had to work hard to hide this from the kids. We were doing an improvisation with Demeter asking in various shops and public amenities whether anyone had seen her lost daughter Persephone – the goddess of the fields looks for her daughter, the goddess of spring growth, who has been abducted by Hades, Lord of the Dead and the Underworld.

It was the sort of thing the children found funny and as a consequence their language skills raced ahead – in their version, Persephone has lied to her mother about where she’s gone and is instead hiding with her unsuitable boyfriend underground – but tonight everything about it, especially the ribald undercurrent, grated upon my nerves.

It was late when I got back home, and there were no further letters from Eddy’s lawyers. The bedroom was slightly chilly, and I hurried into the bathroom, anxious to huddle myself into my bed as soon as possible. I pulled the cord dangling from the bathroom ceiling, and the light came on with a hum and a click.

My face was thrown back at me from the fluorescently lit mirror. I looked dreadful. A light sheen of sweat covered all the visible surfaces of my skin. My nervous lines had returned – they never really go away – but right then they were pronounced. When they get worse, the muscles they bind start to jump. Then they are twitching cords running from my cheeks to my chin, framing my nose with its rumpled bent bridge, making me look like a gargoyle or a damned soul.

I washed my face carefully, and then fumbled through my bag, finding the right bottle of pills. I was tired, so it took a few minutes. ‘ZORICLORONE – TAKE AS DIRECTED’, and then my name. I unscrewed the lid and shook one into my damp palm. It was snow white against my pink skin.

I raised it to my mouth. The woman in the mirror mimicked my actions, my greedy haste. I suddenly stopped and so did she. What the hell was I taking it for? I looked terrible but I felt… I felt fine . I could take my quiet heart and clear mind to bed to a just sleep, as deep and refreshing as a baby’s. I couldn’t remember feeling so good for a very long time.