The Hidden Girls

by Rebecca Whitney

  ‘I know it might not seem like it, hen,’ Frieda says, ‘but I am on your side.’

  Ruth pulls the door wide and is winded by the cold air. ‘I need to go.’ She darts from the house.

  The sun is dipping and a strong breeze blurs Ruth’s vision. Getting the key in the lock takes several attempts because her hands are shaking so much. Once inside she bangs the entrance shut, standing with her back against it, half expecting the wind to blow it open and let in all the bad stuff. Giles is on the lounge floor, blowing raspberries into Bess’s neck on her play mat. The little girl giggles and Giles holds his head above her and sings his dad song: ‘You are my sunshine . . .’ Bess is mesmerized.

  Ruth grabs the dreamcatcher and yanks it from the window latch. The twiggy circle snaps and a feather falls to the floor. She hauls open the back door that’s almost completely seized up with damp and marches across their garden and allotment towards the railway fence. With all her might, she hurls the dreamcatcher over the top, where it lands in the undergrowth, alongside all the sharp things Ruth used to own, items she didn’t trust herself with when she’d been ill: the knives, the corkscrews, the broken mirror.

  ‘Ruth?’ Giles is stepping into the garden. ‘Is everything OK?’

  She pushes past him to go inside and catches sight of her reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece, her complexion ghostly and the line of her jaw taut with fear. Huge quantities of her being have been lost these past six months, as if her core has been spooned out measure by measure, and she’s been left with nothing to fall back on. This making of casual friends used to be relatively easy, but since her illness even that simple pleasure has become as loaded and frightening as every other choice Ruth has to make. She’s never needed the care and company of women as much as now, yet everyone is in some way unavailable.

  Giles crosses slowly towards her as she plants her legs wide to stop the floor from swaying; unmoored, all at sea.

  ‘Is it time for my next dose?’ she says. ‘I need my medication, now.’

  10

  With her head below the fence line in her back garden, Ruth works quietly to avoid catching Frieda’s eye. She scrapes over weeds to make space for plants to grow in the spring. Paper packets of seeds rattle with tiny hope in the pocket of her long, tatty cardigan. If Ruth can’t walk or drive, then she will plant, the soil a balm to her anxiety, and taking control of this tiny patch of London is satisfying in a way that housework can never be. She’s completing tasks not instantly undone, creating life, improving her world.

  Ruth thought she’d be safe out here today, that it would be too soon for Frieda’s next washday, but her neighbour’s out of sync, or perhaps she’s finding extra things to do just to annoy Ruth. The gap between the houses is strung with tension as Frieda pegs out clothes in the thin sun, her shape bobbing in Ruth’s peripheral vision. Ruth bows her head, framing the other day at Frieda’s house inside the woman’s instability. ‘You and me are cut from the same cloth,’ Frieda had said, but it’s no cloth Ruth wants to be tangled in. Whatever the woman wants from her, even if it’s simply an outlet for her cryptic blather, Ruth needs to steer clear. She doesn’t need another excuse to worry about things that don’t exist. All roads lead Ruth to the psych unit.

  She stands to go indoors only to find Frieda leaning at her fence as if she’s been waiting there some time. ‘Ruth!’ The fence panel creaks with her weight.

  ‘In a rush.’ Ruth heaves open her back door. ‘Can’t talk.’ The door is getting stiffer every day in the cold damp weather, and Ruth has to slam it behind her when she’s inside. Breath wheezes in her tight throat.

  From the glimpse Ruth caught of Frieda, her neighbour appeared gaunter than when Ruth was at her house, the circles under her eyes deeper. Today’s winter sun could have accentuated her shadows or Frieda might have been wearing make-up before, though Ruth didn’t notice it if so. Liam said his mum self-medicates for whatever’s wrong with her, and Ruth wonders how much of the woman’s illness is psychological and how much physical. And is anyone apart from Liam looking out for her? Ruth’s never seen another visitor in the months she’s lived here.

  She peers from the window. Frieda’s gone inside now and Ruth pulls back into the room with a sigh; the chance to make amends has been taken out of her hands.

  The next day when Frieda walks past Ruth’s gate, Ruth holds steady; her mood is brightening and Frieda will only take her down. Frieda knocks on Ruth’s door when she returns from shopping and Ruth sneaks upstairs to Giles, whispering, ‘I don’t want to see her.’ Giles is midway through a work call in their bedroom, annoyed at the interruption, but busy enough to wave the problem away, and neither of them answer the door. As Ruth peeps from the bedroom window, the woman shuffles from the garden with shopping trolley in tow.

  ‘Faye, I have to go.’ Giles ends his call and turns to Ruth.

  ‘You should probably check with Liam,’ Ruth says to him, ‘that he’s keeping an eye out for his mum.’

  Giles leans back in his chair with arms crossed. ‘I’m sure Liam’s doing whatever needs to be done. I really don’t want to get involved.’ A text comes in and he checks it with a smile before laying his phone face down. ‘Leave her to her bloody crystals, Ruth, and steer clear. She’s not your problem, OK? Remember what the psychiatric nurse said when he came over yesterday? That woman lives in cloud-cuckoo land. Some people just keep butting up against the system. I can’t see how someone like that would be allowed to keep a baby if she had one today. No wonder Sandra and Liam don’t want her seeing Ian.’

  Frieda’s stoop as she walks to her front door reminds Ruth of her mother in those last months of illness, her mum shrinking as Ruth was beginning to expand into her pregnancy. They’d tried to make amends when they knew time was running out, each seemingly doing their best, but neither had their heart in it. Sitting at her mum’s bedside as a grown woman with her own child on the way, Ruth could understand even less how her parents had shunned her when she’d needed them most. Tam had been everyone’s shining star, with such high hopes for the future, and after they lost her, Ruth absorbed both the unspoken message that she was a poor substitute for Tam – her parents’ preference only clear when it had nowhere to hide – as well as the idea, all too explicitly stated, that she was to blame for what had happened; this, with no one to tell her otherwise, she internalized as the truth. Ruth’s mum on her sickbed that day had put her hand out to her only remaining daughter, and Ruth held on weakly, trying to remember the last time she’d had any kind of physical contact from her parents. ‘We’ve never been very good at losing things, have we?’ her mum said. ‘But you should have told us, Ruth. You shouldn’t have left her like you did. Your father and I had so many plans for her. Imagine how different all our lives would have been if you hadn’t been so foolish.’ Even then, halfway towards dying, her mum was still going over the same ground, but Ruth had even fewer answers after all the years, having examined her actions from so many different angles already it had sent her mad once. The best she could ever come up with was that she thought Tam would be OK, because nothing bad ever happened to Tam. Downstairs, Ruth’s dad smashed a teacup, shouting ‘Bugger!’ before slamming the front door behind him. ‘Women grieve, men replace,’ her mum said, pressing her eyes shut, tears forming between the lids. ‘Your father’s not much use around the house, not like your Giles. He’ll need all the help he can get and as soon as he can get it.’ The subtext, Ruth thought, was that her dad was ready to move on, or would be soon; that wives were interchangeable – unlike daughters – and for such simple reasons. Ruth slid her hand from her mum’s, clammy skin against skin accentuating her morning sickness, and she’d walked away grateful for having mourned her parents all those years ago, relieved also to be making a new family to replace these people she was connected to only through duty.

  Bess settles into a groove of sorts; she’s eating and sleeping better as Ruth’s mood begins to lift everyone. The following day, after Gil
es gives Ruth her medication, he leaves to go to the office for a few hours, his time away to be extended each day. He was supposed to be home for at least two weeks, but Ruth’s improving rapidly on the new concoction of meds and is being prepped for another return to independence, a possibility that both excites and terrifies her. She washes and dries the lunch things then organizes the food for supper, making a list of meals for the next few days – the tyranny of the pasta bake, the monotony of the jacket potato – and smiles into the tedium. If she was fit for work, she’d get a job, even if the wages only covered the nursery, but that sort of good health and confidence is still out of her reach. Her lack of financial independence ties her to the house, smack-bang in a gender stereotype she never imagined she’d accept, and yet she’s powerless to change it. And the more that money comes to define her and Giles – who earns it and who doesn’t – the less she is able to attach worth to what she’s doing, even though if anyone else took on these hours, they would command a decent salary. But she skips over this annoyance; a semblance of order is better than obsessing over melting ice caps or people climbing out of petrol tanks. Richard, Ruth’s CPN, told her to congratulate herself for small triumphs. ‘Just let those negatives pop like bubbles,’ he said. ‘Don’t dwell on them or they might take you backwards.’ Ruth banks today’s achievements as something to talk about next time they meet. Bess is asleep and Ruth picks up the book she’s been attempting to read for a few days. So far she’s two paragraphs in.

  The light falling across the page flickers then darkens. Ruth glances up, looking for a dying light bulb, unsure what’s changed. Nothing obvious. She carries on with the sentence before voices outside disturb her. She lays her book face down on the cushions and walks to the kitchen to pull back the nets at the window. An ambulance is parked outside Frieda’s. Paramedics bustle in and out of the vehicle and her neighbour’s front door, snapping on blue latex gloves and carrying bags of equipment. Ruth clasps a hand over her mouth, gripping the sink as she strains to see inside Frieda’s door – impossible, though, from this angle. Seconds pass, then from Frieda’s house comes a wheelchair. At first Ruth doesn’t recognize the person underneath the blankets who’s strapped in with chunky belts, like outsized luggage, but the wiry mess of hair gives Frieda away. Under the covers, the elderly woman’s body is flattened, drained of substance. A cannula with tube is taped to her bony hand and she gestures to the paramedic, fingers battling the breeze. Ruth pulls her door open as the two paramedics manoeuvre the neighbour into the back of the ambulance. Before Ruth can reach her own gate, a third medic enters Ruth’s front yard.

  Ruth rushes towards her. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Mrs Woodman?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  ‘I’m sorry to let you know that Miss Cailleach collapsed earlier today. We’re taking her in for observation.’

  Ruth pushes towards the pavement. ‘Can I see her?’ She cranes her neck as the rear doors of the ambulance close. ‘Which hospital is she going to?’

  ‘We’re taking her to the Royal Free. She’s very agitated at the moment so it’s best we keep her as calm as possible. Her son has been contacted and he’ll be dealing with her immediate needs.’

  The ambulance pulls away from the kerb and drives towards the turning point at the dead end of the road.

  ‘Is she going to be OK? What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘I can’t give details unless you’re next of kin, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But is there anything I can do?’ Ruth asks.

  The medic hands Ruth an envelope. ‘Miss Cailleach asked me to give you this. She was very insistent you got it as soon as possible.’

  Ruth holds the letter with shaking hands. All those times she’s sidestepped Frieda when her neighbour must have been desperate for help. The medic watches Ruth with her head to one side, perhaps waiting for the tears she’s expecting to come, the ones she doesn’t have time for. She keeps one eye on the road for the ambulance’s return.

  Ruth sniffs and wipes her nose on her sleeve; she wasn’t prepared to cry and she hasn’t got tissues, though no one will care about decorum in the face of this greater emergency. ‘Can you tell her I’m thinking of her? Can you say that I’m sorry?’

  ‘Of course. We’ve given her something for the pain, but I’ll make sure she gets your message when she’s back with us.’

  Bess is waking, her grizzle travelling through the window. The ambulance draws up by the gate, pointing in the right direction now, blue light flashing in silence. The gate shuts behind the paramedic and the vehicle streaks away.

  Ruth returns to the sofa, turning the envelope in her hands, its contents crunching. Inside is a letter plus something hard and loose. Bess will be OK for a few more minutes in her cot. Ruth shoves the book she was reading to one side, the cover closing over the saved page, and slides her finger under the gummed flap of the envelope to rip it open. Frieda’s writing is shaky and in large letters:

  Dear Ruth,

  I’m sorry for our misunderstanding, but I trusted you were the right person when I met you – there’s no such thing as coincidence. Please look after my cat, she is very precious. Do not let my son in, whatever he says, and do not tell your husband. They might call the vet!!!

  A package is coming for me. You will know it when you see it. Keep it safe until I get home. Remember, it belongs to me and to no one else.

  Thank you.

  Your friend, Frieda

  Inside the envelope is a set of keys. One fob on the key ring is a leather angel’s wing, another a clear resin disk with a baby cannabis leaf embedded in the plastic. Ruth rereads Frieda’s note, hoping more will be revealed, but what’s being asked seems a huge rigmarole for one small animal. The cat must have become the focus of Frieda’s lonely days, filled with nothing other than smoking drugs delivered by the postman.

  Bess’s call echoes into the lounge. Ruth shoves the letter and keys in her pocket and goes upstairs, the thought of dealing with a sick animal and cleaning its litter tray making her hands tacky with imagined germs.

  An hour goes by feeding and changing Bess in Ruth’s bedroom, by which time dusk is coming in. The baby is a warm cuddle in Ruth’s arms and she sways from side to side patting the little girl’s back, not wanting this precious moment to end – and not wanting to think about the poor animal next door who has no one else to give it food.

  A white car draws up outside, the flashy engineering shouting for attention. Ruth’s heart skips in the millisecond it takes to realize that it’s Liam. He strides from the car into his mother’s front garden and rattles the door, peering through the window even though the curtains are still drawn. Ruth’s legs stiffen as she strokes Bess’s downy head, shushing her gently. Liam disappears from view. Ruth holds Bess tighter, unsure which impulse to obey: to hide or hand over responsibility.

  From the back of the house comes the sound of scraping, something falling. Ruth tiptoes to the rear window where she spies Liam in Frieda’s back yard. He’s stooping under the laundry and turning up bricks and flowerpots. His thick dark hair has been recently clipped round the sides and the fullness of the curls left on his crown have been oiled into submission. Ruth bunches her knuckles close to the window to knock, but she can’t formulate the lie she’s been asked to tell. She curses her own indecision, annoyed too at being put in this situation in the first place. But Frieda is ill and perhaps if Ruth had been more considerate she could have warded off this emergency. Liam rattles his mother’s back door, then disappears under the line of the fence. He’s out of sight for several seconds before reappearing with a brick in hand. He holds it behind him and is about to smash it into the pane of the back door when Ruth pushes the window open.

  ‘No.’ She shouts through the gap in the window. ‘Don’t.’

  Bess strains in Ruth’s arms and Ruth holds her away from the opening. Liam turns his head.

  ‘I’m up here.’

  His face pivots to Ruth at the window, che
eks glossy, eyes asquint. She steps back, imagining the brick being hurled in her direction. Liam drops it with a thump. Ruth puts Bess in her cot with a toy before returning to the window. Liam’s in the same spot, tension concentrated on his face as he stares up at her.

  ‘My mother needs some things,’ he says. ‘I need to get in.’

  Ruth leans further out. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Not well, not well at all. By the time I got to her she was unconscious again.’ His voice is contained considering this huge piece of news. Perhaps he’s trying not to cry. ‘We’re not sure of the prognosis at the moment.’

  The Frieda who Ruth saw earlier was still attempting orders, her hand directing the medics, unaware of the sinkhole that lay ahead. ‘God! I’m so sorry. Is there anything I—’

  ‘Do you know if she’s left a key?’ Liam’s feeling around the window frame, working his fingers into a gap. ‘She needs some home comforts.’ Home comforts. The words sound wooden in Liam’s mouth, as if it’s the first time he’s said them, and what would she need if she’s unconscious? ‘Has anyone got a spare?’

  Ruth’s fingers creep into her pocket, the envelope crackling against the hard nubs of keys. A cat springs across the fence and into the allotments. ‘The cat!’ Ruth shouts. ‘She must’ve got out.’ She fishes out the keys and holds them up, but Liam’s still focused on trying to prise open the window frame.

  He says, still concentrating on the window, ‘What cat?’