Page 94 of Deep Blue Lies

“Gale, we’re going to be late.” Rachel heard the way her voice rose in pitch and tried to calm herself, the way her therapist had shown her. But she gave up on the very first breath. She turned away from her son, to where her husband loitered in the doorway.

Her husband froze, triangle of toast hanging from his mouth. He always took the time to cut his toast into triangles; it was one of the things that had endeared him to her, back when life was a happy thing. Not like now.

“I told you about my meeting.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Yes, and I told you we were seeing Miss Townsend today.” Her voice was stuck now, its higher pitched note of incredulity.

“It’s Layla’s anniversary day tomorrow.” Her hands found her hips, but as she spoke she had a vague memory of him saying there was some event he hadn’t been able to move, and asking if she could speak with the headteacher alone on this occasion.

“Rachel, I’m the chief financial officer.

I can’t not be there for a finance meeting.

And we’re seeing DI Clarke later this week…

” He put the toast down now, so he could rub a heavy hand over his face.

All the while, poor Gale sat on the hallway bench still trying to get his shoes on.

Rachel dropped her head into her hands. Ten years old and the kid still struggled with tying his shoelaces.

Where had they gone wrong? Where had they gone so wrong?

She grabbed at Gale’s shoe, too quickly.

He glanced up at her as it slipped from his hands.

His face was a picture of pure misery, and yet so reminiscent of Layla.

For a second Rachel had to stop and stare at the ceiling – a neutral place.

A space without emotion. She let a few moments pass in the fantasy that this was two years earlier.

Back in the full-colour version of her life, when there had been two children rushing to get ready for school.

Bickering and squabbling but everything fundamentally right with the world.

Rachel got Gale’s shoes on and bundled him into the car. She had told him he could sit in the front seat now, if he wanted to, but he preferred the back, taking the same side he’d sat in when Layla was still alive. As if she might still climb in beside him.

Neither Rachel nor Gale spoke during the mile and a half drive to school. The parking was limited, but since Layla’s death, Rachel had been given access to the teacher’s car park. A sympathy perk, exclusively reserved for the horribly bereaved.

“I’ll drop you off and then go in to see Miss Townsend, OK?”

Gale nodded and pushed open the door. He was small for his age. So small it still took him both hands to get the heavy door to move.

As they walked to the classroom door, Gale seemed to be in a different place to the other children, who yelled and chattered with their parents.

He felt limp as he accepted her hug, and then disappeared inside.

His class teacher, a young woman named Miss Evans, offered Rachel her characteristic awkward smile.

Rachel had learned that the world, post Layla, could be divided into those able to express real compassion for the family’s situation – the minority – and those who felt so uncomfortable that they reduced their interactions to a series of supposedly sympathetic expressions.

Miss Evans was of the latter group. It wasn’t all bad, though: Gale had been assigned an SST – or Specialist Support Teacher .

Mrs Gibbons was older and more experienced, and she was able to look Rachel in the eye and understand that there was more to her life than a dead daughter, but that it still touched everything .

Rachel peered past Miss Evans into the now busy classroom, looking for her son’s helper, needing to see a friendly face. But she couldn’t see her.

“I’m sorry that Mrs Gibbons isn’t here today…”

Suddenly Rachel registered that Miss Evans was speaking to her. “I’m sorry?”

“Mrs Gibbons – she’s poorly.” Miss Evan’s pretty mouth crumpled into a faux look of sadness, as if this was a shame, something that couldn’t be helped . “Didn’t the office tell you?”

“No.” Somewhere inside Rachel a familiar cocktail of panic and rage began to mix itself together. “No, they didn’t.”

For a few seconds, Rachel saw a possible future.

She could demand to know who would take Mrs Gibbons’ place, who would support Gale until she returned.

But she knew the answer would be nobody.

The school didn’t have a limitless supply of staff – they’d told her that many times in the meetings and support sessions since Layla had died.

So, instead of complaining, Rachel simply let her soul shrivel a little more, then turned away.

She waited in the reception for the headteacher, trying not to think of the first time she had been in this space.

The three of them – Rachel, her husband Jon, and the precocious, bright, wonderful four-year-old Layla – had sat on the very same chairs, waiting for the same Miss Townsend to take them on a tour of the school.

It was crazy, she’d been there dozens of times since, before Layla died too, but it was always this image that came to her.

It was something to do with the hope she had felt then, the sense that this school was the one.

The place where Layla would grow and meet her friends, build the foundation of her education, act in Nativity plays.

These were the spaces that would mould Layla into the teenager she would become, the beautiful young adult after that – and beyond, who knew?

They’d felt – Rachel and Jon – that their daughter was somehow selected for a very special future, though they knew not what it would be. There had been something unique about her from the very beginning, and it didn’t feel irrational to think that perhaps she had something approaching a destiny.

And now, this morning, Rachel found her mind filling up with memories of how her daughter had gripped her hand that day.

Before she knew it, Rachel was weeping; not the full-blown crying that sometimes still happened – even in public – but the quiet tears that were just enough to ruin her make-up.

She swore under her breath as she regained control and dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

And then the school’s automatic front doors swished open, and her husband walked in.

“Jon? You said you had a meeting.”

“I did. I asked Charlie to stand in for me. If they have any questions they’re going to phone, but I told them it was important I was here.”

She smiled and felt a now familiar, but still confusing, swirl of emotions.

A wave of love for this man, who stood so handsomely before her, in his dark blue suit, but also a peculiar emptiness, as if that wasn’t enough, not anymore, and perhaps never could be again.

The thought stayed, unresolved, until Miss Townsend walked through the other doors a moment later, and invited them through to her office.

“Rachel, Jon,” Miss Townsend paused to send them what was presumably meant as a comforting look, but then it was down to business. “You asked to see me?”

Rachel couldn’t remember the point that Miss Townsend had started using their first names. She’d offered her own in return – Emma – but they hadn’t taken to it. Maybe that was for Gale’s sake – he had to keep to her official school name.

Rachel took a breath to gather her thoughts. “Yes.”

There was a combative edge to Miss Townsend’s body language which caused Rachel to frown as she went on. She sensed the argument to come.

“As you doubtless know, tomorrow is a very important day for Gale, it’s the day he becomes the same age as Layla, and we wanted to ask whether you would mark it by saying something to the children.

” She paused. “As you know he’s still… struggling a little.

And it might help him to know how much his sister is still thought of as a part of the school community. ”

Miss Townsend had begun by giving the appearance of listening carefully, but now she actually seemed confused.

“I’m sorry, are you saying it’s Gale’s birthday tomorrow?” Her forehead crumpled.

“ No .” Now Rachel felt confused. She’d been quite clear, hadn’t she?

“Because I thought Gale’s birthday was in August,” the headteacher went on. “And it’s not Layla’s, because we marked her birthday in March?”

“ No. ” Rachel glanced at her husband in frustration. Help me . “Yes. Yes, I know we marked Layla’s birthday. I don’t mean…” She stopped. Breathe . “No. Tomorrow is the day that Gale becomes the same age as Layla was…on the day…you know.”

Still the headteacher frowned, not getting it.

“Layla went missing when she was ten years and three months exactly. Tomorrow Gale will be that same age.”

The frown lifted from the teacher’s face. “I see. Yes, now I understand.”

There was another pause, while Miss Townsend flashed a range of expressions, as if considering which to go with. In the end she opted for a quick smile.

“Of course. Well, I can say something in assembly.” Then, as if remembering similar conversations, she went on. “Was there anything in particular you’d like me to say?”

Rachel fumbled in her bag, pulling out a folded sheet of paper.

“Yes, I wrote down some thoughts, and I found a prayer…” The Martin family were not, and never had been religious, but the school was.

“I thought it would be nice for Layla’s friends to hear it while they’re thinking about her.” She held out the paper for Miss Townsend to take, covered in her neat, small print.

Miss Townsend hesitated. Her mouth fell open as she appeared to check her reply. When it came, her wording was careful, measured.

“Of course.” Her eyes scanned the paper, and it was obvious she was taking in just how much was written there. She turned it over, to find more text. She raised a finger to her lips and tapped them a few times.