Henry Sutton
Missing Norwich

The story

Missing Norwich

Sometime in the 1970s

‘You’ve got to be joking,’ said Gregory. ‘What the hell are we going to do? I don’t see why they had to bring us here? It’s going to be torture. And what’s that smell?’

It was Sophie, the perfume she’d stolen from Jarrolds, Charlie by Revlon. She’d reapplied it at the last pit stop, because she was worried that she was sweating too much in the baking car. She’d over done it. She was always overdoing things. She wished she could just shut up and disappear like her younger brother Adam.

She wasn’t worried about what Gregory thought of course, but Daniel. She returned her gaze to the house, removing her sunglasses to get a better look. Once her eyes grew accustomed to the brightness, once she could focus properly on the façade, her confidence wobbled again. The building looked as if it were about to crumble to pieces. Was it even fit for human occupation?

‘Rocking,’ Daniel said, suddenly next to her.

Sophie shyly looked his way. He’d dusted himself down and had rearranged his sunglasses so they sat on top of his head, holding the spikes in place.

‘Some palace the old folks have lined up for us.’ He jerked his head towards the building. ‘Stingy bastards.’

Sophie could feel herself smiling. She and Daniel were exactly the same age. She barely knew him. Gregory was watching her, them. Adam would be somewhere too, and probably with his sneaky camera, which their dad had bought him before they left Norwich.

The old man knew what he was doing – he was going to get Adam to spy on them all, more particularly to spy on Liz and her new bloke, Keith. Adam would return to Norwich with a visual record that their dad would be more than happy to pay for it to be processed in Boots.

‘So this is what they call a gîte?’ Daniel continued. Daniel was her mum’s new bloke’s kid, teenager, whatever. He laughed, a deep throaty laugh, sounding like someone much older, someone who’d been smoking all his short life.

There was not a breath of wind and on it seemed to roll, this laugh, over the dust and down through the stunted oaks and forgotten-about vineyards, and fields already too dry and barren to sustain life. Sophie’s mind stretched too, while her stomach lurched. It was like the feeling she got when she helped herself to something in a shop, didn’t pay for it, and ran out.

She usually targeted Jarrolds because Jarrolds was Liz’s favourite department store, and handily it had like three exits on the ground floor. Plus she hated her mum, for doing what she’d done to her dad, to them. God it was hot. She wiped her brow.

All the way here Liz and Keith had been talking about a heatwave, which was expected to hit exactly where they were going to be. Squinting, trying to get a measure of the setting, Sophie decided it would probably be coming from just over the ridge that was hugging the near horizon, to the left of the house. If it hadn’t arrived already, in one great, sweaty lump.

‘Keith,’ Liz’s strained voice broke into the still, boiling air, ‘the key’s not where they said it would be.’

Sophie looked back at the house. Her mum was still by the front door, bending over, lifting stones, rubble, in her favourite shorts. They’d come from Jarrolds, of course. All her clothes came from Jarrolds. Some of them weren’t so bad, Sophie reluctantly admitted to herself.

She looked behind her, but Daniel was suddenly nowhere in sight, while Gregory had slunk nearer to the car, as if he wanted to get back in and be driven home already. She had no idea where Adam was.

‘For God’s sake,’ Keith started up, walking over to Liz, ‘it has to be there somewhere.’

‘You have a look then,’ Liz said, cross.

Sophie didn’t think she’d heard her mother use such a tone with Keith before. They’d only been together a few months, and now they were all on holiday. It was far too soon, so her dad had said.

Keith started to kick at the small rocks and dirt by the front door, where Liz had been searching. His face quickly growing as red as his vest. He didn’t shop in Jarrolds, that was for sure. His clothes were atrocious.

‘What do we do now then?’ Liz said, standing back. ‘Drive into the village, try to locate the owners?’

‘It will be here somewhere, it has to be.’ Keith moved along the front wall of the gîte.

‘When was this house actually last occupied?’ Sophie asked, reaching them. No one answered her and she looked down at the ground, made a circle in the dirt with her big toe. She needed the toilet.

‘What’s the problem?’ Gregory said, shuffling up to her.

‘They can’t find the key,’ she said.

‘I’m surprised this place even has a key,’ he said, stepping up to one of the shuttered windows. They were tatty and faded and looked like they would come apart if you poked them with any force.

‘Mum,’ Gregory called, ‘do people really live in places like this?’

‘Only the lucky ones,’ said Liz cheerily, turning towards them and leaving Keith to continue his hunt for the key.

‘Lucky?’ Gregory huffed.

‘Is there a toilet inside?’ asked Sophie.

‘For God’s sake darling, of course there is.’

‘Beats me,’ Keith was saying, ‘where they put the bloody thing. It’s not here is it?’

‘I did tell you,’ said Liz, returning her attention to the new love of her life.

‘So where are we going to sleep?’ said Gregory, his voice unsteady.

‘The car?’ said Sophie.

‘Where are the notes from the agency?’ Keith said. ‘Maybe we’ve missed something.’

‘Keith,’ said Liz, ‘believe me, I’ve read them countless times. I do know what they say, every word, and where the keys were meant to be. And they are not there.’

‘Maybe they don’t even know we’re coming,’ said Sophie. It wouldn’t have surprised her if her mother had got the whole thing completely wrong, the dates, the location. They were probably meant to be in Spain, not France. ‘Do we even have the right house, the right country?’

‘House?’ said Gregory.

‘Yes,’ said Keith and Liz together.

‘Ruin more like,’ Gregory continued.

He had a point, but Sophie was still determined to make the most of it. She had to be tough, single-minded. She knew she couldn’t rely on anyone in this world. ‘You sure, Mum?’

‘I recognise the trees,’ Liz said, ‘the shapes of the hills in the distance, from the photograph. This is definitely it.’

‘Still, shouldn’t someone have been here to meet us?’ Sophie asked. It was all very well telling yourself to grow-up, be an adult, but it wasn’t so easy. Besides, the adults she knew behaved worse than the kids. Only a couple of weeks ago she’d been staying with her dad, in his rented flat, when Keith had turned up, banged on the door, threatening violence. Her dad had called the police, but by the time they’d arrived Keith had disappeared. She hadn’t told her mum.

‘It’s rural France,’ Liz was saying.

So that was how it was going to be, Sophie could just tell. Everything that went right, and wrong, would be blamed on the fact that they were in rural France. She didn’t want to be here, with these people. Even her weird brothers. She’d never not wanted to be anywhere more strongly.

She wanted to be back in Norwich, with her dad and her friends, and the cloudy summer skies and the pubs she’d just started going to, and the city centre shops and department stores. She shut her eyes and pictured Jarrolds’ sparkly beauty hall. That was where dreams and hope and happiness lay.

If she could be transported back their right now she’d never shoplift another thing. ‘I totally promise,’ she whispered, crossing her fingers, and smelling herself in both disgust and delight. Did the gîte even have a bath?