Free Mapping the Edge by Sarah Dunant Page A

could get to it, it rang under his fingers. We both started with the sound. He grabbed the receiver and I heard what sounded like a female voice in his ear. It’s over, I thought. She’s back. I knew she would be. He shook his head at me immediately.
    â€œOh, Patricia, hello. How was your journey? Good, good. No, no, nothing.” He paused. “No, she’s fine. She’s still asleep. Yes, I know, we’ve already discussed it and I think we’ll have to do that. Yeah, she got here last night. Do you want to talk to her?”
    He handed it on to me.
    She has the nicest voice, Patricia, soft, as I imagine the Irish countryside after the rain (a sentimental idea, I know, and one that I would never dare to admit to her), and somehow patient. She was calling from her sister’s on the outskirts of Dublin; in the background you could hear the house waking up to the swish of wedding dresses and the smell of hair spray.
    She felt the need to tell me everything she had already told Paul. It was clear she was afraid that all of this was somehow her fault. Anna’s trip had been so last-minute she was worried that she had got the days or the times wrong. She had been certain Anna had told her Thursday night, but when she didn’t turn up she wondered if maybe she had meant Friday. If only she had called Paul earlier or had checked the hotel number . . . fear like a petrol line of fire was running through us all now.
    I did my best to reassure her. I saw her standing by the phone, a small energetic woman in her early fifties. She’d probably already be dressed for the day. Would she wear a hat to church? Presumably. Catholic wedding, Catholic customs. She didn’t seem the type for hats—too down-to-earth. She never really cared that much about her appearance.
    Patricia was the mother we all used to have before feminism arrived to split the nuclear atom. The woman who knew how to get rust stains out of a colored dress, but who would never fill out her own tax form because that was man’s work. She had three grown-up children of her own and had agreed to take on Lily because she couldn’t get out of the habit of mothering. She had been part of this unorthodox family since Lily was six months old, first full-time, now as child care after school and in the holidays. The love affair was mutual. She would have done anything for them, and what hurt most was that there was nothing she could do now.
    I told her that if we decided to call the police they might need to check some details with her; would it be all right if I gave them her sister’s number? She said yes, but that nobody would be back until late tonight. And had we remembered that Lily had a swimming lesson at 11:00? And that her friend Kylie’s mum would be picking her up at 10:30 and that her swimsuit was on the hook by the washing machine? I lied and told her that we had and that she was to forget all about this now and we would see her—all of us—when she got back on Monday afternoon. And to wish her niece all the best for the day. And then I put down the phone and told Paul I thought we should call the police now.
    I made tea while he did it. I heard him getting through. This is someone’s job, I thought. They deal with this kind of thing every day of the week. He walked to the other end of the room so he didn’t have to look at me and when it came to the relevant bit he described himself as a close friend of the family. He was saying something else when Lily appeared in the doorway.
    â€œHi, Lil,” I said loudly, because he hadn’t seen her. “You look hungry.”
    He turned and gave her a wave, moving out into the garden. She watched him go, then padded in and sat herself at the table.
    â€œBreakfast?” I said. “How about pancakes? I’ll do the flour if you crack the eggs.”
    â€œIt’s Saturday,” she announced. “I’ve got my swimming lesson