Chapter 15
I woke up with a start and glancing around, felt disorientated. My mouth was dry, and my body ached and as I hauled myself into a seated position, I questioned why I’d fallen asleep on Mum’s sofa.
My brain kicked into gear and remembering Mum had gone missing, I knew it would be just like her to come home, find me snoozing, and, like some naughty teenager, tiptoe upstairs so as not to disturb me.
Creeping past the lounge, I’d hold my breath as I tackled the staircase, negotiating every step to avoid the creaks.
‘Where do you think you’ve been?’ Mum would say, appearing behind me as if from nowhere.
Oh how the tables had turned. I yawned, forced to acknowledge that wasn’t quite true. Back in the day, not only had Mum been more stealth than me, she hadn’t once slept on the job.
I tapped on her door and opening it, popped my head into her room.
‘Mum,’ I said, tiptoeing over. My heart sank as I reached out to find her bed still empty.
Concern turning to frustration, I told myself whatever she and Jackson thought they were playing at, it wasn’t funny.
They had to know the worry they were causing.
My body taut with annoyance, I turned and charged back downstairs to the lounge, all the while debating what to do next. Do I go next door and talk to Theo again? Should I ring around the hospitals or recontact the police? Surely PC Graham Smithers has to take me seriously now?
As I paced one way and then the other trying to decide, my mobile bleeped – an incoming message.
Desperate for news, I grabbed it off the coffee table.
No one ever contacted me at that time in the morning, so it had to have come from Mum.
Automatically opening it ready to give her the what for, my frustration grew.
Instead of being from her, it was from Joyce.
I didn’t know Maeve had a TikTok!
I let out a hysterical laugh. The world had clearly gone mad.
Firstly, I doubted Mum even knew what TikTok was and secondly, what was Joyce doing on there?
Rather than playing on phone apps, if she had to be awake at such an ungodly hour and with only one day until Christmas Eve, wouldn’t her time have been better spent packing for her festive cruise?
I was just setting up my own account…
I shook my head. I could just see Joyce rating every aspect of her holiday.
The good, the bad and the ugly, like some trainee holiday show presenter.
Joyce had a no-nonsense approach that people either loved or hated, and I cringed on her behalf.
The woman was like Marmite and in a world full of internet trolls and keyboard warriors, I hoped she realised what she was getting herself into.
…and having a nosy around to see if I knew anyone…
Aware of Joyce’s propensity for gossip that didn’t surprise me.
…and voilà.
About to tell Joyce she must have mistaken Mum with someone else, dancing blue dots appeared to let me know my friend was typing.
Look up @maeveescapesthedungeon
Immediately recognising the reference, my eyes widened in horror.
Mum had clearly had some sort of breakdown if she thought social media was the answer to her isolation.
Either that, or I was wrong earlier when I mentioned to Theo I didn’t believe in coincidences, because this would prove they happened.
‘What would Mum even say to billions of people?’ I asked myself.
She didn’t play a musical instrument and the only make-up she wore was lipstick so tutorials were out of the question.
She’d never been one to discuss politics because according to her it didn’t matter who was in power, they were all the same, and it wasn’t as if she had a product to market or a religious position to share.
I crossed my fingers, hoping whoever this individual was, it wasn’t Mum but her doppelg?nger.
One Maeve Gordon in the world was enough; we didn’t need two.
Signing into my Foredale and Frogmore’s TikTok account, and doing as Joyce suggested, I typed in @maeveescapesthedungeon. My stomach lurched. ‘And there she is.’
Nothing about the last twenty-four hours had gone right, and with Mum’s face staring back at me, any upturn had yet to arrive.
I plonked myself down on the sofa, taking in her shoulder-length bob that poked out from under her black beret.
She wore a navy and white striped Breton sweater and a massive grin.
All that was missing was a string of onions.
I shook my head. ‘Please don’t tell me you’re giving French lessons. ’
Noting the backdrop, I could see she’d filmed herself in the garden and recalling her home delivery of a mobile phone tripod, complete with remote control and additional extendable selfie stick, I wanted to kick myself.
Instead of thinking Mum had bought them at random for the sake of it, I should have realised that she had to be up to something.
I clicked on her page to see one solitary video that had been posted at 11am the previous morning.
It had garnered less than a hundred views, but the fact that it was pinned told me she hadn’t acted alone in her TikTok endeavour; Jackson had to have helped.
Much to my surprise she had a handful of followers, one of whom I knew without looking would be Joyce.
As my thumb hovered over the screen, a part of me didn’t want to watch, while another part was curious for more.
‘How bad can it be?’ I asked. Steeling myself, I let my thumb drop and pressed play.