A Song for Jenny: A Mother's Story of Love and Loss. Julie Nicholson

school so it’s been just Stefan and me here most of the day, answering the phone and trying to keep busy.’

      ‘What have you told the children?’ I ask.

      ‘Not much; fortunately they’ve been out of it for most of the day. They know about the explosions and that you’ve come to London to look for Jenny, just the bare facts.’

      She’s cutting a long French stick of bread into chunks and piling it on to a platter. ‘I made a big pot of bacon chilli pasta, something that would do anytime you arrived.’ Between us we make space in the centre of the table for the bread.

      ‘Dendy’s a vegetarian,’ I say, remembering.

      ‘Oh!’

      ‘That’s OK,’ says Dendy, coming back into the kitchen. ‘I’ll just pick the bits of meat out.’

      Right on cue, the phone rings; although I’m nearest I don’t move from the table. ‘Do you want to speak to anyone?’ Vanda asks as she crosses the kitchen to take the call.

      ‘No, not at the moment,’ I answer, shaking my head. ‘Unless it’s the police, I gave them your number.’

      Ellie and William are in the bath. I offer to go and supervise and wander down to the bathroom. ‘You can sit on the toilet seat,’ William instructs me magnanimously.

      Watching the children play is a distraction and provides some respite from the activity in the kitchen. The bath is clogged with plastic toys, an array of primary colours bobbing up and down in the bubbles.

      ‘Auntie Julie?’ William concentrates on filling a green plastic whale with water and doesn’t look up.

      ‘Yes, Wills?’

      ‘Where do you think Jenny is?’

      I wasn’t expecting the question and hesitate for a moment, unsure how to answer. Truthfully, I suppose. ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘Are the police going to help you find her?’

      ‘Yes, I hope so, Wills.’ I wait for the next question but it doesn’t come. He seems satisfied for the time being. Ellie is engrossed in her own world of play and seems not to have heard the exchange but suddenly declares she’s had enough of the bath and asks if she can get out.

      Being amongst family, and carried along by the routine of the household and needs of children and bath and bedtime rituals, offers a kind of recovery from the turbulence of the day. Despite the bustle of arrival and phones ringing, it feels like a safe harbour – a place to be normal. The children are tucked into bed by Daddy and send a message via Stefan that they want James to go and say goodnight, then Auntie Julie, then Mummy. As I lean over to kiss Ellie, she says very quietly, ‘I wish Jenny was here.’

      Supper is calm, or subdued, I can’t tell which, though without the children we can talk more freely about the last two days. We sit around the kitchen table long after supper is cleared away; wine glasses, bottles of fizzy water and coffee remain to sustain us through the evening. Stefan says he thinks we ought to get Greg and Lizzie and Thomas here. Whatever the next days have in store, we all need to be together.

      Callers are dealt with quickly; everyone is aware of the one call which could change everything. If the landline isn’t ringing someone’s mobile is. We soon become used to the different ring tones and incoming text jingles. Every spare socket around the kitchen now has a mobile phone charger attached and active. My sister’s kitchen is turning into an incident room and those of us gathered around the table debate every nuance of Jenny’s journey, as though we’re investigators in a strange disappearance, which in a way I suppose we are. Over and over James insists there’s just no logical reason why Jenny would have been travelling from Edgware Road towards Paddington. Perhaps she’s been involved in a separate incident, is lying concussed in another hospital. Who knows what knocks and bumps might have occurred in the general chaos across London? It’s conceivable that she’s forgotten her name and lost her belongings and bearings. The news reported people drifting into churches and halls in traumatized states. As James is talking, I imagine Jenny wandering the streets of London, confused, not knowing where to go for help. Maybe, even now, someone is looking after her, trying to find out who she is and where she lives. It’s inconceivable that Jenny has been caught up in the explosions in any significant way. We all collude with the improbability and deny well into the night the possibility that Jenny is anything other than temporarily missing.

      In the allocation of beds I opt for the sofa with the logic that I’m unlikely to sleep and it’s closest to the phone. Sharon is on the sofabed and Dendy on an airbed on the floor. For an hour or so after the household settles down for the night the sitting room takes on the air of a girls’ dorm, with all the accompanying foolishness, before darkness and the relative silence of night permeates our senses, stilling our chatter and gradually lulling our bodies into repose.

      The gentle, rhythmic breathing of my companions, now asleep, provides a reassuring backdrop to my wakeful state. I can’t really decide whether I need company or solitude. The confident mask I put on during the day is laid aside under cover of night and with it all protection against fears and dark thoughts. Yet I’m glad of that. Glad of the release into whatever the darkness brings. My eyes wander over the shapes and shadows of the room, through the gap in the curtains where the midnight sky is bright with stars and gaze deeply into the endless darkness beyond, feeling the dark shadows in my own heart. I give myself up to it, wondering where are you Jenny?