‘She’s going to be fine,’ she says walking in, trying for cheerful. ‘You know how dizzy they get when they’re excited.’
‘They’re joined at the hip, Louise,’ I say grimly. ‘Nothing would make Rachel go off and not come back.’
I watch too many news reports on TV. Far too much. But I know something isn’t right.
‘Megan’s in the back room with the manager,’ explains Louise. ‘He doesn’t want to call the police.’
I bet he doesn’t.
I phone the police as I reverse the car out of the drive. It’s been five minutes since Louise rang. Five more minutes of Rachel not being attached to her friend.
The police are amazingly helpful. They have a squad car a minute away from the club.
I wish I was a minute away. The drive into the city centre usually takes twenty minutes, but I make it in fourteen. Screw the red lights and God help anyone who tries to stop me. I can find Rachel: nobody but me. I know her, understand her: she came from my body, covered in blood and vernix, she’s mine to protect.
I throw the car vaguely at a parking space, leap out and run up the street, noting the ridiculous number of alleys lining it. A couple emerging from the basement entrance of Les Cloob are shoved rudely aside as Itwo-step-it-at-a-time down metal steps. I push pass the bouncer and something in my face tells him not to bar my way.
Inside, people are dancing, music’s playing, but it’s all white noise to me. I scan the room for the bar, find it, then shove viciously past a crowd, mostlyhalf-drunk who complain and I shout ‘back off ’ at them with such ferocity that they move back.
‘The manager’s room, the police? Where are they?’ I snarl at a young barman when I get to the counter.
He gestures to a door in a wall and I take the shortest route, pushing roughly through dancers. I don’t care who gets flattened. I have to find Rachel. Nothing else matters.
A man in dark blue serge is at the door and I shove past him too, spotting Megan in an armchair and, beside her, sobbing and dishevelled, with vomit on her silky vintage slip dress, is Rachel.
I sink to the floor beside my daughter, looking for signs of assault, hurt.
‘What happened?’ I ask.
‘Oh Mum, I went outside for –’ She stops in her shaky confession and starts crying again.
‘It was only a cigarette,’ says Megan quickly.
‘Nobody hurt you?’ I demand. I don’t care about cigarettes, even though she swore blind she’d never smoke.
‘The door got stuck,’ my daughter goes on.
‘She went out the wrong door into the stores and she couldn’t get back in,’ adds the manager.
‘And nobody hurt you?’ I ask again.
Rachel shakes her head. ‘I felt sick and I kept banging the door but nobody heard me–’
Uncaring of the vomit, the way I never cared about it when she was little, I pull her close to me and croon her name as I stroke her hair. My girl, safe, unhurt.
Scared but unhurt.
We phone Louise, who’s back in her own house, which means Nate must have reared his head at last. I can almost feel the tension flow out of her at the news that Rachel’s safe.
Once Megan’s in her own home, and both Rachel and I have been hugged by Louise, we drive home, Rachel drunkenly apologising, for the cigarette, for everything.
My hand finds hers in the dark of the car.
‘We’ll talk in the morning. I love you so much, Rachel,’ I say, determined not to cry in front of her. ‘You’re safe, that’s all that matters.’
That’s all we care about, us mothers.
At our house, I help her out of the car in those daft shoes but Nate is out the front door in seconds and sweeps her up in his arms, his face white.
