Free Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey Page B

cupboard door shut and the plates on the dresser rattle. The noise makes me swell with irritation for a moment. She puts a hand on a plate to silence it and then turns to lay the tablecloth out. She’s a bit haphazard about it and can’t seem to get it even. “You could help, you know,” she says to Katy.
    My granddaughter nods and shifts a foot from the door, but she doesn’t make it any further and she doesn’t take her eyes from the phone.
    “He was quite angry,” I say. “Helen, if a friend of mine called you and said they were worried about me, what would you say?”
    “I’d say, ‘You should be worried because she’s quite dotty.’”
    “Helen.”
    “Okay, okay.” She drops the edge of the tablecloth. “I’d say, ‘Thank you for your concern, but there’s nothing to worry about. The men in white coats are coming for her soon.’”
    I sigh.
    “Fine. I wouldn’t say the last bit.” She picks up the tablecloth again. Pulls it towards her.
    “But you wouldn’t get angry.”
    “No.” She walks round to pull the other side, sighing in Katy’s direction.
    “You see, Helen? I don’t trust him.”
    “Oh, Mum.”
    “Surely only someone with a guilty conscience—”
    “You called him in the middle of the night. He was bad-tempered, and no wonder. That doesn’t mean he lied or that he’s done his mother in.”
    “I know. But I think he’s hiding something.”
    “Right, Katy, go and hang about somewhere else.” She opens a drawer and rakes though it. “Mum, put these out, would you?”
    She hands me a bundle of knives and forks. I put them down in the centre of the table and follow her to the kitchen. There’s a smell of rosemary and mint and I hope we’re having lamb, but knowing my daughter, it’s as likely to be some sort of tafoo or torfo business.
    “Mum!” she says, turning round and bumping into me. “Stay in there and set the table, will you?”
    “Sorry.” I go back to the dining room and stand still for a minute. I can’t think what I’m supposed to be doing, but I can hear someone in another room.
    “Katy, I’ve told her a hundred times,” a voice says. “And I can’t take her there. Peter was adamant. I just wish she’d forget about it.”
    There’s a murmuring answer and then: “Oh, very bloody funny.”
    I follow the noise. Helen is in the kitchen.
    “Back again?” she says. “I asked you to help me. Have you got a bit of paper?”
    She puts out a hand and I give her a blue square. She fishes in a drawer for a pen, writes “Set the table,” and hands the square back to me.
    “Give me the rest of the notes,” she says. “I’ll put them somewhere safe.”
    Back in the dining room, I begin to arrange things on the table, mats spaced evenly, spoons above. I pick up a knife and fork and stand thinking for a minute. I can’t remember which side they go. Fork right? Or fork left? I lay them down where I think they should be, but for the next place along I change my mind. I take another knife and fork. Looking at my hands, I try mimicking the action of cutting up food. Do they look right where they are, or should I swap them over? I try swapping. They look the same.
    When Helen comes in I am still examining my hands, looking at the wrinkles on the knuckles, the papery skin, the brown spots.
    “Have you finished, Mum?” Helen asks. “What are you doing?”
    I don’t look up. It’s such a little thing—knowing where to put cutlery—but I feel like I’ve failed an important test. A little piece of me is gone.
    “It looks very nice,” she says, her voice too bright. She walks round the table and I watch her out of the corner of my eye. I see her look at me. I see her hesitate and then quickly swap the knife and fork. She says nothing. Doesn’t point out my mistake.
    “I don’t want to set the table again,” I say.

CHAPTER 5
    I t’s dark out here, but there’s a glimmer of grey light somewhere low in the sky; it will be day soon and I must finish