Small Hours by Bobby Palmer

Author:Bobby Palmer [Palmer, Bobby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2023-11-03T15:06:31+00:00

twenty-one

‘She tricked me,’ Jack said, through clenched teeth, his hands clamped to Charlotte’s desk.

His sister’s revelation had made him incandescent with rage. Now she stood there in front of him, still looking like she was holding back.

‘She shouldn’t have had to,’ Charlotte said, tentatively.

‘You tricked me.’

‘It’s not my fault that you don’t know your own mother’s handwriting.’

Jack closed his eyes, massaged his temples. For someone with an analytical brain, he felt pretty stupid for not having questioned the first-­class British stamps affixed to the postcards. He pictured Charlotte, hunched over her desk, forging messages from their mother. He pictured his dad, losing his grip on reality in the garden, Jack gripping on to his father’s elbows and shouting in his face. He tried to picture his mum, somewhere else, but he couldn’t even conjure up an image of where she might be. Things were spiralling out of control. As Jack was shaking his head and muttering under his breath, Charlotte was backing out of the doorway and looking off down the landing.

‘Where’s Dad?’ she said, mostly to herself.

‘Where’s Mum!?’ Jack shouted, entirely at Charlotte.

Charlotte sighed, looked at the ceiling. ‘She’s—’

‘In Alderney?’

‘Further.’

‘The Alps?’

‘I think—’ Charlotte said. ‘Further.’

‘Where, then?’ Jack said. ‘Trentino? Zagreb?

‘Further,’ Charlotte said, then hesitated. ‘I think. She didn’t tell me.’

‘Great,’ Jack said, incredulously, flinging his arms wide. ‘And when is she coming back?’

‘She didn’t tell me that, either,’ Charlotte replied, panic creeping into her voice. ‘But it’s been nine days, and, and—’ She checked her phone. ‘Look, she said she’d message. And she hasn’t.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Jack said, starting to pace and rub his brow. ‘She said you’d always be able to contact her. But her phone’s been off all week.’ He pointed at his own phone. ‘I’ve messaged her, a lot. I’ve called her, a lot. It rang through. Every. Single. Time.’

A pause. Charlotte played with the hem of her hoodie, spoke almost under her breath. ‘I bought her a burner.’

‘A burner?’ Jack grabbed two handfuls of his unwashed hair. ‘This isn’t a spy film, Charlotte. This is real life!’

‘I know,’ she said, but she was distracted, looking down the landing again. ‘We need to find Dad. I’m worried.’

Jack shook his head, stared off out of Charlotte’s bedroom window. ‘That’s rich,’ he said. Then he shrugged. ‘He’ll be in the garden. He’s not exactly hard to find.’

Charlotte left the doorway, headed towards the stairs. Jack chased after her.

‘This conversation isn’t over,’ he said, in the voice of a school prefect.

Charlotte turned at the top of the stairs. She looked on the verge of tears, an expression entirely unfamiliar to Jack. It made him stop in his tracks.

‘I’ve been trying,’ she said, her voice choked. ‘To hold it all together.’

Jack felt a stab of something. ‘Look,’ he said, stiffly. ‘I get it.’ He paused. ‘You’re not old enough to deal with all this.’ I should have been here, he thought. ‘Mum should be here,’ he said.

This didn’t seem to go down well. ‘I’m not a teenager any more!’ She was the one shouting now.

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