Down to Earth

‘I don’t want anything … at least I don’t know what I want, except to come home. I wanted to see you, that’s all.’

‘You wanted to see me? After all this time? After letting us search fruitlessly for you for months and months, putting our lives on hold as we hoped and prayed you’d turn up alive, never wanting to give up hope of seeing you again? Letting us grieve for you …?’ He shot to his feet with surprising speed and stood with his face inches from mine. ‘Have you any idea what you’ve put us through?’

I took a step back. ‘I’m beginning to realise, yes.’

‘You really are something else.’ He began to pace up and down in front of me. ‘I think I preferred you dead.’

‘Look, I’m sorry, Calum. I didn’t mean to leave you or Abigail. If you’d just listen, I’ll try to explain.’

He stopped pacing and stared at me, waiting. The hurt in his eyes cut me to the core. ‘It had better be bloody good.’

Chapter Ten (#ulink_d0046c00-8543-5c33-b501-ad1644d13743)

I twisted my hands together wishing Calum would sit back down so that I could sink onto that filthy couch too. I wasn’t sure my legs would hold me up much longer. Swallowing, I cleared my throat. ‘Something weird happened during the jump. There was a strange wind, more like a hurricane really. It sort of enveloped me, and when I landed on the airfield it was dark and there was no one there.’ I stumbled to a halt, aware that he didn’t believe a word I was saying. Taking a deep breath I ploughed on. ‘That was only yesterday. I know it sounds far-fetched, but it was truly only yesterday that it happened! As far as I’m concerned I haven’t been away at all. I got a lift back here from a pub by the airfield and the newspapers say it’s 2008 and I’m so confused …’ My voice tapered off lamely. ‘I just wanted to come home to you and Abigail.’

He reached out and tentatively laid his hand on my arm. I realised that some of the anger had melted away and his shoulders were sagging tiredly. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to you, Michaela, but if you really believe what you’ve just told me, you should get help.’

‘I’m not mad, if that’s what you think. Matt and Kevin believe me.’

‘Matt? Are you talking about that bloody parachute instructor?’ He dropped his hand as if I might contaminate him somehow. ‘I knew he had something to do with your disappearance. Your parents were convinced of it too, but the police couldn’t pin anything on him.’ He furrowed his brow and peered into my eyes. ‘Was it him all along? Have you been with him all this time?’

‘No! It was nothing like that.’

‘Has he been holding you somewhere against your will?’

‘No! It happened like I told you. Matt just dropped me back here but he wasn’t involved.’

‘Where is he now?’

I shrugged feeling rather like a naughty child being confronted by an angry parent. ‘I suppose he’s gone back home.’

‘And would you happen to know where “home” might be for Mr Innocent?’

‘Not really.’

‘Come on, Michaela. You can’t expect me to believe that. Has he tired of you? Is that why you’ve come crawling back here?’

‘I haven’t been with him!’ I insisted, blushing at the memory of the previous night and my having begged to be allowed to stay in Matt’s room. ‘Look, I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through, I’m sorry you thought I was dead, but from my perspective I left here only yesterday morning.’ I lowered my voice, trying to regain some semblance of control. ‘I tried phoning you from the pub to ask you to come and fetch me, but no one answered. Matt’s number was in the pocket of my jumpsuit, so I rang him and he brought me back here.’

I decided not to mention sleeping in Matt’s bed; it had been a stupid mistake anyway. ‘Where were you when I needed you?’

Calum sank down on the sofa again, this time shaking his head. I decided to risk perching on the arm next to him. We sat in silence for a moment or two and then he turned and looked at me more closely. ‘You don’t look any older.’

‘That’s because you only saw me yesterday.’

‘Yesterday,’ he said bitterly, ‘I was at the hospital with my daughter, who was found lying comatose in the park by some boy and taken to the accident and emergency department in Guildford to have her stomach pumped.’

‘Oh, Calum, I’m sorry. Is Abbey going to be alright?’

He ran a hand wearily over his eyes and I understood now why he looked so tired and drawn. ‘Abbey’s in with a bad crowd. They call themselves emo’s or something like that. They seem to be into very loud music, alcohol, smoking, self-abuse; you name it. I appear to be enemy number one, and I don’t know how to help her.’

I pictured the bright, cheeky child I had said goodbye to and felt a pang of regret that I hadn’t been around for her. ‘Please tell me this isn’t my fault.’

He shook his head again. ‘It didn’t help, you abandoning her after she’d already lost her natural mother, but I won’t lay this at your door. I’ve been looking after her for the last six years; if there’s any fault to be found it’s probably mine.’ He gazed round the filthy room and shrugged. ‘I always encouraged her to bring her friends back here – I thought it was better to know where she was and who she was with – but they use the place like a doss house. I suppose I should employ a cleaner as Abbey refuses to clear up, but money is tight at the moment.’

‘Abbey and her friends did this?’ I looked round at the chaos with fresh eyes. ‘Don’t you supervise her at all?’

He shrugged. ‘She’s not a child any more. When she bothers to get out of bed in the mornings she goes to college and I suppose I’ve let her do her own thing. No one supervised me when I was that age. Anyway I have to work to keep this roof over our heads.’

I put a hand to my head. Of course, Abbey’s birthday was at the end of October. She’d still been ten and a half in the April when I’d left for the jump, which made her sixteen, almost seventeen now.

I ran a hand over my face. ‘Oh, Calum.’

‘Don’t you dare judge me, not after running out on us like that.’ I could hear the anger rising in his voice again.

‘I’m not judging you. It sounds as if you’ve done your best.’ We subsided into silence once more but at least he wasn’t throwing me out into the street. ‘Look, I only came to tell you I’m back before you found out from the police or the newspapers or something.’

‘You expect me to believe that?’

I shrugged. ‘It’s the truth. And I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you, Calum. And the parachute jump itself wasn’t that dangerous anyway, I survived it, didn’t I?’

‘It seems so.’

‘Look, I think I’d better go.’ I got to my feet. ‘Could I use your phone to call my mum? She or Dad could come and collect me.’

He reached out unexpectedly and caught my hand. ‘Do you really not know about your parents?’

My heart pounded as I looked at him. I suddenly remembered Kevin’s comment at Matt’s house earlier. ‘What about them?’

‘There’s no easy way to say this. Your father died four years ago; two years after you went missing.’

I stared at him as the words sunk in. Then I gave a strangled cry and put my face in my hands. ‘No!’ Dad couldn’t be dead, I thought; how could that be? He’d always been so full of life, such a constant part of my existence. I thought of the dashing rather handsome middle aged man who had been the centre of my universe when I’d been growing up.

‘At the beginning he and your mother flatly refused to believe you were dead.’ Calum was continuing as if the bottom hadn’t just dropped out of my world. ‘After the police enquiry went cold they spent all their waking hours putting up posters and leaflets, asking people if they’d seen you. Your father’s heart gave out suddenly one day while he was out for the umpteenth time questioning people who lived in out-lying areas near the airfield. They took him to the hospital but he was pronounced dead on arrival. Your mother thought he didn’t put up much of a fight, because he was ready to die … to go to you.’ It was an accusation. ‘I think even he gave up on you at the very end.’

The tears I’d been holding back flowed freely down my face now and were dripping off the end of my chin. ‘I must go to Mum.’

Calum lowered his eyes and looked away, his face taut.

‘What?’ I cried in alarm as I saw the discomfort in his face. ‘What else has happened?’

‘Your mother never really recovered after losing you. When your father died, it was too much for her and she retreated into a world of her own. She’s suffering from clinical depression and is in a nursing home for the mentally ill, Kaela. Your parents’ house was sold to pay for it.’

I registered his use of my nickname, the name my family and close friends used.

I looked up at him with my tear-stained face and realised he was observing me with some sympathy now, the earlier hostility gone, or at least tucked away out of sight.

‘Where is this home? Can you give me the address?’