I didn’t dare say it. Claire sat in her wicker chair leaning against the wall. The dappled shade outside the window was throwing patterns on the David Bowie poster behind her. I hadn’t told Claire yet about my breakup with my David. It didn’t really matter right now.
“What if something happens to you?” I grumbled and rolled over on the quilted bed cover, lying on my tummy, chin in both hands.
“What’s supposed to happen to me? I’ll live in a company house with lots of colleagues around. Probably won’t ever have time to myself. And then there is Tony, of course. He’ll look after me,” Claire tried to calm me, while she drew doodles on an empty envelope.
She seemed far away. Probably somewhere with Tony. The thought made me feel jealous for half a second. There had been brief talk of marriage, but as far as I could tell, there was no clanging of wedding bells yet.
“Won’t you miss me at all, then?” I sulked.
“Of course I will! You’ll come and visit me in Gaborone as soon as you can, right?” Claire tried to sound excited for me.” Then we go and explore the Kalahari together.”
“Yes sure, fine,” I said casually, more to annoy her than anything else.
“Oh don’t be so cross, Foompy.” She made a funny face and I had to laugh.
But Claire had been wrong! A few weeks later, my world had turned on itself. Something did happen to her — Claire had disappeared.
When the news broke, I was numb with sadness and worry. Nothing made sense anymore. It couldn’t be true, just couldn’t! I crept upstairs to Claire’s room, threw myself on her bed, buried my face in the pillow and screamed. Until I didn’t have a voice left to scream. Then came the tears.
I shouldn’t have let her go, I kept thinking, I should have stopped her somehow. The needle-sharp thought poked out any kind of logic. As if it was possible to stop my stubborn sister from doing anything. But what was I supposed to do now?
The news exploded in our town. Newspapers were full of articles about Claire and her mysterious disappearance. Was it murder or abduction? Opinions chased each other. What’d you expect? Africa was a dangerous place. I felt nauseous every time I saw the headlines and stopped buying newspapers. A week later, sports news had replaced Claire’s story.
Her old red Mazda was found abandoned in a field somewhere close to Mochudi. The name Mochudi meant nothing to me then. The police interrogated the locals, but they hadn’t seen or heard anything. Of course not! Fingerprints were inconclusive, because children had played in the car.
Even a British MI 5 Special Unit, doing some training in Botswana at the time, had allegedly found nothing useful to speak of. We were to assume the worst!
Claire had travelled alone — and why not? Tony had to mark exam papers and couldn’t come with her at the time. How could he have known what would happen? But I blamed him in the beginning, for a minute or so. She was planning to visit Pierre and Karabo in Francistown, her last stop before Gaborone was the Tuli Block, a remote national park. She had booked herself into a lodge to see the elephants. She never arrived there.
We waited for Tony to call, but Tony didn’t call. Maybe he didn’t have our number. I sent him a letter. I waited for his answer. And waited. I guess I began to think right there right then that I should take things into my own hands. I couldn’t bear all this waiting.
The ‘International Missing Persons Bureau’ got involved. My father asked the authorities, if he shouldn’t help them by going to Botswana. The answer was a resounding ‘No’.
Everything humanly possible was being done already. Family presence would only hamper the investigation. Unbelievable! I was furious. Why didn’t they do their job properly then? You couldn’t tell me that there was no trace of Claire to be found anywhere with all this investigating going on. And to tell us to assume the worst and sit around and wait!
Then the nightmares started. Blurred images of Claire behind a misty veil. Laughing, saying something I couldn’t understand... then fading away back into the mist. I wanted to call out to her, grab her, and woke up with tears running down my face every time.
But there was hope. She had to be alive, I could feel it! Just where was she?
I didn’t tell anybody about my dreams. The atmosphere at home had become unbearable and the house in Tenison Avenue had lost its warmth for me. Mom cried all the time and Grandpa had come up from London to console her. Dad was withdrawn and mostly sitting in his study. I wasn’t so sure that their ideal marriage would survive the pain of their loss.
Dad was a handsome, brooding engineer from Germany. He had followed my mother to England, after they had met in their twenties on a train in France. It must have been awfully romantic and was probably the most courageous thing he had ever done in his life.
Mom lectured history of art and Dad had retired just before ‘the thing’ with Claire happened. Their life had been picture book perfect. Until now. I felt powerless.
After a while I had no more tears. I felt just helpless and angry. At everybody. It seemed as if they had just given up. The lot of them! Didn’t they know she was still alive?
I saw Dad in the kitchen and I tried to talk to him.
“We have to do something,” I began carefully.
“Do something?”
“Perhaps you should just go there…”
“To Botswana? What am I supposed to do there? Mom needs me here and the police are already doing their job,” my Dad flared up. Only to apologize seconds later. “Sorry darling, I didn’t mean to be so gruff, but my nerves...”
I could have yelled at him: the police are doing their job? Really?! Fix it, Dad, why don’t you fix it? But I couldn’t say another word. It hurt too much to speak about Claire.
Mom took tranquilizers and wanted to speak only with her therapist. I had the inexplicable feeling that she made me somehow responsible for everything. The idea of going to Botswana and finding Claire myself, began to take shape.
When the dust had settled and articles about the vanishing had disappeared for good, I met with my friends for tea. Our doe-eyed friend Zaheeda was at her sister’s wedding in Manchester that day. I wondered whether she would have understood; why I needed to go to Africa to find Claire and all.
“Oh Bridge, what do you want to do there - in Botswana?”
Liz pronounced the word as if it was a disgusting insect.
“I knew something was going to happen when Claire went away.” Her pointy nose trembled.
“Oh bloody hell, Liz, how can you say something like that in front of Bridget?” scolded Diane with unusual vehemence, “You didn’t know that. Nobody could have known. Claire has always travelled and knows the ways of the world.”
Everybody stared at her. Diane was usually soft and gentle.
Liz didn’t let up. “I guess, but that didn’t help her now did it? Why couldn’t Claire have moved to Italy or Spain? Or even America? At least she would have been in a civilized country.” She didn’t mince her words.
She meant well in her own way.
“Sometimes I think that it was fate. I mean that Claire went to Botswana and that I must go and find her there.” I knew it didn’t make much sense, but I was still searching for a logical explanation.
“Oh Bridge, of course you would think that…” Diane said soothingly, as if I was a fragile mental patient.
They both looked at me in a commiserating sort of way, as if I was about to fall completely off the rocker.
“Oh stop staring at me like that! Claire needs me. She’s still somewhere out there and she is all right. I can feel it.”
“Sure you can, love…” Liz quickly changed the subject.