The Missing Pieces of Sophie McCarthy Read online

  B. M. Carroll

  * * *

  THE MISSING PIECES OF SOPHIE MCCARTHY

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THE MISSING PIECES OF SOPHIE MCCARTHY

  Ber Carroll was born in Blarney, a small village in Ireland. The third child of six, reading was her favourite pastime (and still is!). Ber moved to Sydney in 1995 and spent her early career working in finance. Her work colleagues were speechless when she revealed that she had written a novel that was soon to be published. Ber now writes full time and is the author of eight novels, including Once Lost, Worlds Apart and Less Than Perfect. The Missing Pieces of Sophie McCarthy is her first book published under the name B. M. Carroll.

  For Brian

  1

  Sophie

  I know instantly. At the first tug of consciousness, long before I open my eyes. Before I tune into the sound of traffic on the road outside, or register the cool air that’s wafting through the open window on to my face, I know that it’s going to be a bad day. The pain circles my half-asleep body, its menace penetrating the warm duvet and the last shreds of sleepiness.

  ‘Sophie?’

  Of course Aidan is already awake. Rising early has been drilled into him. Courage, initiative, respect, teamwork: the official army values. Rising early is intrinsic, as is routine. They’re like robots, programmed to execute the same tasks at the same times each and every day: rise by the crack of dawn; arrive at the barracks clean-shaven and wearing general duty dress ironed free of wrinkles; eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at the required times; undertake boot polishing, hair combing, nail clipping and other fastidious grooming routines; aim for maximum physical activity, minimum alcohol consumption and going to sleep at a sensible hour.

  Aidan once told me that there are even stipulations about underwear. Apparently it must be plain and of a similar colour to the uniform. Seriously! I remember laughing at the idea, and asking to inspect his briefs to make sure they fitted the guidelines. Now, having had more exposure to the army way of life, I don’t know how he can stand it. The rules, the rigidity, the stark lack of individualism and flexibility. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to a certain amount of rigour. Methodical, logical, systematic: that’s me to a tee. I’m just saying that the army takes things too far.

  ‘Sophie?’ Aidan tries again, before deciding that I’m still asleep and swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

  It’s only when I hear the sound of the shower that I open my eyes. The pain immediately becomes real. It settles into my chest, my neck, my back. It’s not intense, not yet, but it holds the threat of becoming so. From experience, I know I’ll get nothing more than a couple of functional hours. Then I’ll have to give in to it. Lie down. Take more painkillers. This is why I ignore Aidan when he calls my name. I need to be alone when I wake up. So I can gauge the pain, have the chance to rally myself for the day ahead. Aidan peering at me anxiously doesn’t help. If only it did.

  He’s singing in the shower. The hiss of the water mingles with his baritone and I can’t decipher the tune. Probably some song that’s popular now but will soon be forgotten. Aidan has a strangely unsophisticated taste in music. This surprised me when I first got to know him: his taste in music seemed out of sync with the rest of him. A pop-loving army captain … seriously? I used to find this anomaly in his personality rather cute. No, I still find it cute. I’m erring on the side of irritable this morning, that’s all.

  My eyes veer to his side of the bed, to the digital clock, angled so we can both see it: 6.05 a.m., 22°C, Tuesday, 27 February.

  Two hundred and eighty-five days. Nine months. Three quarters of a year. How can it still hurt so much? Will it ever stop? I’m beginning to think it won’t. That the pain will go on and on and on. That this is it, my life, and I’ll simply have to get used to waking up feeling as though someone is sitting astride my chest, pinning me down while stabbing needles into my neck. That I’ll eventually forget what it felt like not to be this way.

  The shower turns off. Aidan is economical with water; it’s a valuable resource, and resources must not be wasted. He’ll be drying himself now, briskly rubbing a towel over his lean body, not a single gram of extra fat on him. Physical training is part of his job, and he’s extremely controlled about what he eats. Balanced, nutritional meals. No snacking. Definitely no binge-eating. In the meantime, my own weight has been creeping up. Another thing that’s just not fair. Going for a jog, working out at the gym, swimming – most forms of exercise are out of the question. Food is one of the few things in life that gives me pure pleasure. I was never like that before.

  I should get up. Go to the kitchen and make him a cup of tea. Have a chat with him before he leaves for work.

  The en-suite door whips open before I can motivate myself to move.

  ‘Hey, you’re awake,’ he states. He’s naked, and totally at ease with the fact. I still feel a jolt of surprise when I see him like this, that he’s here in my house, that we’re together, despite what everyone’s said about us.

  ‘Yes,’ I answer, averting my eyes only because I feel so awful.

  ‘How did you sleep?’

  ‘Not great.’

  The wardrobe door squeaks as he slides it open, the metal hangers clanging as he selects his clothes. Through slitted eyes, I watch him. Camouflage trousers, brown vest, his shirt, which takes a few moments to button up. He looks good in uniform. His hair and skin are dark enough to carry all the browns and greens. Men with paler skin or hair tend to look washed out in it.

  He stands beside me, kisses my forehead. ‘I’ll get your tea, madam.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Once he’s gone, I move myself up in the bed. Slowly, slowly. That’s it. Careful movements. I’m so very gentle with myself. No whipping around, or kicking out, or bounding up stairs, or suddenness of any description. The gentleness seems to combat the violence of what has been done to me. Maybe, one day, when the gentleness outweighs the violence, my body will finally recover.

  ‘T
ea service.’

  Aidan is back, holding a steaming mug of tea. He puts it down on the bedside table next to me.

  He imparts another kiss, this time on my lips. He tastes of sugar – his one dietary weakness – and toast.

  ‘You’re leaving already?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he answers, halfway out of the room. ‘The bus was early yesterday. I nearly missed it.’

  My tea is exactly how I like it: strong, dash of milk, no sugar. Funny how I crave sugar in everything but my tea and Aidan is the opposite. I can hear him moving about, getting his boots from where he keeps them at the back door. A few moments’ silence while he laces them up. Then the jangle of his house keys.

  ‘See ya,’ he calls, before the front door opens and bangs shut again.

  Alone. A whole day to fill. Again. Despair weighs me down in the bed.

  Get up. Come on. For fuck’s sake, Sophie. Move yourself.

  Bathroom first, the mirror still steamed up after Aidan’s shower. I shuffle like an old lady, using the towel rail to steady myself.

  Then clothes. Old jeans, tank top, light cardigan: aeons away from the crisp business suits that still hang in my wardrobe.

  Breakfast. Eggs and toast, the assembling and cooking of which can be broken down into hundreds of tiny movements. Even the way I eat has changed. Each bite slow and considered, chewed to death.

  Time for my faithful laptop. Quick scan through my emails, mostly junk. A flick through Facebook, glimpses of other people’s full and pain-free lives. Now, the spreadsheet: at last, a flash of something other than despair.

  I wish I had thought of tracking everything while I was in hospital, but in the first few months I trusted in the doctors and in my recovery; I assumed I would get better. Four times a day (morning, noon, afternoon and last thing at night), I input data, a rating on a scale of one to ten. One means I’m feeling good, strong. Ten means I’ve had to call the doctor or go to hospital. Complex formulas convert the raw data into averages and means, and spit out professional-looking graphs in bright primary colours. This morning is an overall eight. No, I’m being too negative. Seven point five. That’s fairer. Now, a more detailed rating for my chest, my back and my neck. There. That’s about right. Refresh.

  The screen blanks for a second, and for a few moments I have that faint sense of anticipation. That today will be the day I’ll crack the pattern, the underlying logic, the day that I’ll pinpoint a slight but definitive long-term improvement in my mornings, or my nights, or my afternoons, or – a miracle – my whole day. That my chest is still stuffed but, look, there is statistical evidence that proves my back has been giving me a little less trouble.

  The screen fills with the updated graphs and I lean closer to study them. It doesn’t matter how hard I stare, there is no pattern to be found, no improvement at all; categorically, no end in sight.

  Use your superior mathematical ability to solve real problems. I can still remember the catchphrase from that brochure, the one I happened across at careers week at school. Solve real problems. Become an actuary. I’ve always liked solving things, ever since I was a little girl. There was a stage when I was obsessed with jigsaw puzzles, content for hours with my latest thousand-piece endeavour. Later on, I channelled those skills into black-belt sudoku, cryptic crosswords and accelerated maths. Standing in the school hall with the actuarial-studies brochure in my hand, I knew I had found the right career for me.

  Now, you could say I have a ‘real problem’ of my own. A problem I didn’t see coming. A problem that is not my fault. A problem that impacts on me in every way imaginable. I have measured this problem, analysed it, written mathematical equations and thrown all my intelligence at it. And the fact that I am no closer to solving it is almost as debilitating as the pain itself.

  Don’t, I tell myself. Don’t start feeling like this. It only brings on the pain. Don’t start feeling sorry for yourself. Don’t start feeling depressed at the thought of today, and tomorrow, and every other day that will start like this. Don’t start getting angry with Aidan for being the cause of all this.

  Just don’t.

  2

  Richard

  You don’t really know what love is until you have children of your own. In my opinion, anyway. The love lodges itself deep in your gut, like a parasite, and hijacks your body, your mind, your whole life. I wasn’t one of those men who are born to be fathers. You know the ones: bouncing nieces and nephews on their knees, kicking and throwing balls in the garden with the children of their friends, distributing tickles and hair ruffles wherever possible. It was Dee who wanted kids – I just went along with it. That’s why the love took me so much by surprise. How selfless it was. How primal. How a mild-mannered man like me could contemplate killing someone with my bare hands if they harmed Jacob or Sophie.

  Jacob was our firstborn. A fat, cheerful baby, my heart used to freefall at the very sight of him: his thick legs and gummy smile, the way he would hold out his arms to be lifted up, how he used to explore my face with his pointed finger. You could say that Jacob primed me for Sophie, who came eighteen months later. I would never admit this, not then or now, but I was worried I wouldn’t love her as much. Ridiculous, I know. I must have thought there was a quota on how much love a father could have for his children and that I had used it all up on Jacob. So I was taken completely by surprise, again. Even more astonishing was that I loved Sophie in a whole different way. She didn’t make me feel gooey and affectionate, like Jacob did; she made me feel proud. Right from the moment she was born, six weeks before her due date.

  ‘Such a big rush to be born,’ the nurse cooed. ‘She’s a fighter, this one.’

  My newborn daughter, a fighter. Those words stirred me, evoking a fierceness the like of which I’d never experienced before. If my daughter was a fighter, I would be too. I’d protect her, provide for her, make sure she had the best opportunities in life, and that she was treated right. These promises I made standing in the Special Care Unit, looking down on Sophie in her see-through plastic crib. Various wires and tubes connected her little body to drips, monitors and other machines. Her lungs were underdeveloped, the paediatrician had explained, and she needed some help with her breathing. She had a white woollen hat on her head – all the premature babies wore these knitted hats, to keep them warm – and a pink ID band around her tiny wrist. Sophie Elizabeth McCarthy. Fighter. Well, they were right about that.

  Dee strolls into the kitchen, bringing a halt to my contemplations on fatherly love and the day that Sophie was born. My wife of thirty-five years: hair blow-dried into smooth waves, lightly applied make-up, neatly yet casually dressed. I’m lucky. With my children and my wife.

  ‘What time is it?’ Dee’s one of those people who’s always asking the time.

  ‘Half past ten.’ And I am one of those people who always know the answer, often without having to check my watch. ‘Are you ready to go?’

  This is our routine now. She goes out to work; I stay at home. Funny how time can turn everything on its head.

  ‘I’ll just have a quick cuppa,’ she says, flicking on the switch of the kettle.

  ‘You’ll be late,’ I warn with a degree of resignation.

  She doesn’t reply. Being late doesn’t bother her. Strangely, it doesn’t seem to bother her boss either. She works a few hours a day in a small boutique in Coogee. I get the impression that business is slow and being ten minutes early or late doesn’t have much of an impact. Nevertheless, tardiness is a bad habit, no matter what the circumstances. That’s my opinion, for what it’s worth.

  ‘What’s on the agenda for today?’ Dee asks, sitting down next to me with her cup of tea.

  ‘The garden. Some painting. Get a start on dinner.’

  ‘It looks like it might rain.’

  ‘Hopefully not before I mow the lawn.’

  ‘Are you going to drop in on Sophie?’

  This question is slightly guarded, as is my response.

  ‘I might … I’l
l see how I go for time.’

  Dee thinks we’re too involved with Sophie. In her view, we should back off a little, give Sophie the chance to rely more on her own resources. Dee loves Sophie as much as I do, of course she does, but I don’t think she understands the full intensity or indeed the ceaselessness of the pain she’s in. And what else would I be doing if not supporting my daughter in every way I can? I have time on my hands. Far too much of it, to be honest. Too late to change my mind now, though. I can’t exactly ‘un-retire’. Unfortunately.

  ‘Come on, Dee.’ I stand up and snatch the car keys from where they’re lying on the counter. ‘I can’t stand it when you’re late.’

  Traffic is surprisingly light and we get a satisfying run of green lights. It’s bang on eleven when we pull up outside the boutique.

  ‘I can walk home if you like,’ she offers before getting out.

  ‘No, I’ll come and get you.’ Any excuse to get out of the house.

  ‘Richard?’ she stalls.

  ‘What?’ She’s squandering the time we made up with the traffic. If she just got out now, and hurried slightly, she would still be on time.

  ‘Nothing,’ she says, after a considerable pause.

  ‘Are you going to sit here until you’re actually late?’

  ‘You’re such an old woman,’ she snaps. ‘I’m going! I’m going!’

  The car door slams shut and she walks towards the shop. It pleases me to see her hurrying. I love Dee dearly but, when you’ve been married as long as we have, some things can begin to grate. The timekeeping thing, for instance. And tidiness, or lack thereof (Dee is always leaving jackets and shoes strewn around the house; it drives me mad.) And, more than anything, the children. You’d think we’d be past disagreeing about the kids; they’re adults, for God’s sake. This time last year it seemed like we’d finally struck the right balance between our independence and being involved in the lives of our offspring. Then Sophie’s accident happened, after which boundaries of any description became senseless.