‘Yes.’
The editor, Iain, was soon amazed at the change in him. He rang me up late at night, having got my number from school, and pitched the idea of giving me a trial writing an advice column for the newspaper. That was last year, and ‘Dear Amy’ is still going strong.
As for Conor, he doesn’t hang around with Sammy as much any more, and when we meet in corridors or pass in the grounds, his eyes always light up and he gives me a cheerful, approving little nod, as though I passed the trial, and not he. Whatever is going on in his life, I am no longer worried for him.
I had deliberately put the paper there to remind me that I needed to call by the offices and pick up the rest of the ‘Dear Amy’ caseload for the week. There’s an email address for ‘Dear Amy’, but many people still believe the anonymity of the Internet is little better than a ruse and opt for snail mail. I might pull a face sometimes, but in truth I enjoy the work – it feels useful and does a good job of challenging all my assumptions on a weekly basis.
I nearly ran over a few of my pupils on the way to the Examiner offices as they stepped off the kerb during a spot of horseplay on the Fen Causeway, not one of them paying attention to the traffic. I swerved hard and my brakes squealed. Three boys with identical artfully messy hairstyles turned, startled, to offer me obscene gestures before recognizing me and then lapsing into comical shock. I swept past them, honking, aware I should be pulling over, giving them a piece of my mind, but also aware that no one in the crushed traffic behind would thank me. Justice would have to wait to be served.
‘You daft muppets,’ I muttered to myself, reaching over the passenger seat to adjust my bag, which had nearly spilled its contents into the footwell during these death-defying manoeuvres. I glared into my rear-view mirror. ‘You were nearly roadkill, Mr Aaron Jones.’
My hand on the steering wheel was trembling. I stared at it in surprise, as though it belonged to somebody else. The almost-accident must have shaken me more than I realized.
I have an ambivalent attitude to children. They drive me mad, but I can’t stay away from them and miss them horribly when they’re not in my life. Some time after we got married I learned that I couldn’t have children myself, and my husband Eddy suggested that I quit teaching and perhaps take private adult students for Greek and Latin. I tried it. Two months later I went for the job at St Hilda’s, as an alternative to smashing all of our crockery and jumping off the nearest railway bridge.
It’s the only job I do well.
And as Eddy has since run off with his boss, it’s just as well I have something to occupy me full time and put food on the table.
When I reached the Examiner offices the staff were just leaving. This is always the case, even if I arrive early, or at eight o’clock at night. Wendy was clearing her expensive little phone and a just-washed mug bearing a screenprint of her three children off her desk and packing them into her handbag. She gave me a brisk smile.
‘Hallo, Margot.’ She reached into one of the pigeonholes behind her desk. ‘Not so many this week.’ She handed me a little bundle of letters tied together with a blue rubber band.
She always says this. I can never quite shake the feeling that she’s waiting for me to say, ‘No, there isn’t, is there? I should just give up,’ before leaving and never coming back.
Somehow, and without understanding why, I sense that this would please her.
I pulled the band off the letters and glanced idly through them. One in particular caught my attention. It was addressed simply in capital letters: ‘DEAR AMY, THE CAMBRIDGE EXAMINER, CAMBRIDGE’.
A strong but childish hand had written the address. The ‘o’s were very round and the loops regular, almost fussily so.
On an impulse I tore it open. Tucked inside was a piece of crumpled, sweaty paper. Wendy put her coat on, pretending to be oblivious. She was waiting, not very patiently, for me to give some clue as to what I’d been sent. I didn’t, of course. I never do.
I had a cold presentiment as I unfolded the letter. Before I’d even read them the words screamed ‘Haste!’ and ‘Panic!’ at me. Wendy came to my side, ready to leave, and I quickly folded it up, having only got as far as ‘Dear Amy’, and shoved it into the pocket of my jacket.
‘Anything interesting?’ she asked.
‘No, no – can barely read it, to be honest,’ I lied. I decided to head the enquiry off by changing the subject. ‘I see there’s been nothing in the paper about Katie for a while.’
‘Who?’ She clearly had no idea who I was talking about.
‘Katie Browne,’ I said, trying to keep my voice even. ‘The missing girl.’
Her mouth opened wide in exaggerated apology. ‘Oh, of course, yes, sorry. She was one of yours, wasn’t she?’
‘She was in my class two years ago.’
Wendy sighed. ‘It’s a worry, isn’t it? When they run off like that.’
‘If she ran off. That remains to be proven.’
‘Well,’ said Wendy, her eyes sliding sideways to the door, ‘the police have been talking to Iain – they seem to think she’s run off. They’ve talked to her family and friends, and I’m sure they’d know best.’ She patted my arm gingerly. I suspect I appeared a little intense to her. ‘I mean, you get your letters. You must know that not everything is how it seems in people’s lives.’
I didn’t reply to this rather obvious statement. I was well aware of what the police thought, and what Wendy thought. One of the investigative team had visited the school the day before yesterday and told us that Katie had been unhappy at home for a while – something I had suspected.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that whether she’d been unhappy or not, something about her disappearance felt wrong.
I had a memory of arrogant yet guarded dark eyes raking me from the back of the class; long brown hair drawn up into a ponytail.
‘I’m locking up now.’ Wendy jangled the keys.
‘I’m ready.’ I felt a bit light-headed. Perhaps almost mowing down those three delinquents was still bothering me. An evening spent worrying about having their names called out at tomorrow’s assembly would do them all good.
We walked in silence to the car park. My feet were numb with cold inside the thin leather of my boots. There was an icy wind blowing, tingling like needles thrown against my exposed cheek. It was winter again, but funnily enough, I don’t mind. I prefer it to summer.
We said our goodbyes and parted. Wendy and I must make an effort to be civil to one another, as we are mutually aware that without it our lack of affinity would quickly blossom into dislike. Wendy is fussy, smug and nosy, and I… well, I’m how I am. I don’t envy her children once they get a little older. I was glad to see her go.
The evening was already drawing in, amazing me by how dark it had grown so early. It always catches me off guard at this time of year, a constant revisiting of annual surprise. Sometimes I feel like a goldfish, with the glass walls of my bowl providing a continuous source of novel amazement each time I swim around them.
Once safe in the car I drew the letter out of my pocket and leaned back.
Dear Amy,
Please please PLEASE help me! I have been kidnapped by a strange man and he’s holding me prisoner in this cellar. He says I can never go home. I don’t know where I am or what to do and nobody knows I’m here.
I don’t even know how long I’ve been gone, but it seems like for ever. I’m afraid that people will stop looking for me. I’m afraid he’ll kill me.