The Hidden Girls

by Rebecca Whitney

Leila speaks as if she’s talking to the water. ‘I have only Farah, and Farah have only me.’

  ‘Then they’ll be expecting you to go back for her. It’ll be even more dangerous for you.’

  The gate bangs. Footsteps and a voice at the front door. ‘Yeah, mate, it’s a Yale and a Chubb, just standard, I think.’ Liam’s on the other side of the shut curtain. A pause before he shouts. ‘Can’t you do it any sooner? I thought you locksmiths were supposed to be an emergency service?’ Ruth and Leila hold their breath, both creeping to the toilet door to locate Bess. The little girl is on the rug playing with something she’s found in the thick pile. The object is tiny and round, the size of a bead or small battery, and she rolls it in her fingers before putting it in her mouth. Ruth hyperventilates into the silence. Liam continues, ‘What, three this afternoon? You’re mugging me off!’ Bess’s gums work the object. It’s keeping her quiet, but at a choking distance. Ruth crawls towards her daughter as Liam carries on. ‘Nah, it’s me mum’s house. I live down the road.’ He kicks the door with a steady thump thump and Bess’s eyes widen in alarm. ‘It’s a fucking joke, mate.’ Liam’s voice is as loud as if he were in the room with them, and Bess is suspended in the seconds of shock before she’ll start to wail. Ruth reaches out to her daughter. Liam again: ‘If that’s the best you can do, I’ve got no bloody choice, have I?’ Then his footsteps stomp into the distance and the gate bangs shut. Ruth launches at Bess, digging a finger into the little girl’s mouth and pulling out a large seed covered in spit, aware only then of Leila’s sweaty palms squeezing her own arm. The girl’s nails have left dents on Ruth’s skin.

  Ruth pushes her away. ‘I can’t do this any more.’ Her words spurt out before her thinking’s even caught up. ‘I mean, what do you bloody expect from me? I’m just a woman with a baby. Bess, she nearly . . . she could have choked.’ She gathers her few things as Leila watches, chest sunk, head bowed in glowering defeat. Ruth opens the back door. ‘I’m sorry. You’ll have to find another way. Call the police or call home. There must be someone. Frieda has a phone. You need to do it before Liam comes back, and you need to get out of here quick. It’s not safe.’ She closes the door behind her.

  At home Ruth grabs the landline, the call less traceable this way if Giles were ever inclined, although there’s nothing she needs to hide, not yet. The dialling tone burrs and the receiver squeaks in her damp palm. With the handset sandwiched between ear and shoulder, Ruth scrolls through her mobile contacts to find the number of the hospital where she had Bess. She dials and gets patched through.

  ‘Miss Cailleach hasn’t long woken up,’ the nurse tells Ruth. ‘She’s still quite frail, but I’ll see if she can take your call. Did you say you’re her daughter-in-law?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ruth’s heart skips with tiny treachery. ‘My name’s Sandra, Sandra Smith.’ The line is paused as Ruth is connected to her neighbour’s bedside.

  Shuffling noises. ‘Just a moment, please.’ The mouthpiece sounds like it’s being stuffed with cotton wool.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Ruth asks.

  Frieda comes back on the line, clearer now. ‘Ruth? Thank God, they told me it was Sandra.’

  ‘Yes, sorry about that.’ She swaps the phone to her other ear. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Been better. I’ll be here for a while yet.’ A phlegmy crackle. ‘They’ve got me on God knows what. I’m so groggy I don’t know if it’s night or day.’ Another long pause as Frieda catches her breath. ‘Are you taking care of my cat? Is there a problem?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ruth grits her teeth. It’s not possible to shout at an old ill woman, but Frieda’s big ask that was never a question is made worse by the silly school-girl code. ‘There is a huge problem. You have no right to put this on me.’

  The woman slurs a little. ‘But is my cat still in the house?’

  ‘If you’re referring to Leila, of course she is, but Liam’s coming over with a locksmith today.’

  ‘My son mustn’t get in.’ Frieda coughs. ‘He won’t understand. You mustn’t let him find her there.’

  Ruth works hard to control her voice. ‘I know, which is why I’m calling you.’

  Clanging metal travels down the line, mixed with a clinical echo of hospital chatter. ‘I’m sorry, I know it’s a lot to expect of you, but it’s very important we keep Leila safe.’

  ‘We? There is no we. You’re in hospital, so this problem is now mine.’

  ‘It’s bad luck it’s turned out this way.’ Frieda makes tiny grunts as if she’s rearranging herself in the bed. ‘I wasn’t expecting to be here, not so soon anyway. I was trying to stay well, but the universe had other ideas.’

  Ruth turns her face to the ceiling at this esoteric nonsense, unable to control herself any longer. ‘Fat lot of use your home remedies were then.’

  Frieda’s replies comes fast, like she’s rehearsed what to say. ‘I’d have been in hospital much sooner if I’d done nothing at all.’ Her voice grows distant. ‘It’s just that all my mistakes caught up with me at the same time . . . it’s my reckoning.’ Heavy breathing. ‘Please, just a minute.’

  ‘Frieda?’ A long pause with knocking and clanking. ‘What’s happening, what’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m all right, just needed some water.’ The woman speaks so softly that Ruth has to press her ear flat to the receiver. ‘There are some things you need to understand. About Rainbow – I mean Liam – when he was a boy.’ Her breath is asthmatic and slow. ‘I . . . well, I did things differently. Didn’t think he needed school for a start, not the rubbish they wanted to teach him anyway.’ Her words gather pace, the memories gifting her a little energy. ‘We were doing fine, doing things our own way, but the social worker didn’t think so.’ Her cough rattles in Ruth’s ear. ‘Thought I was being negligent, that my flat wasn’t the right environment to bring up a child.’

  Ruth itches with frustration. ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘If I’d had a nice husband and a posh house, they wouldn’t have batted an eye, but money’s got nothing to do with love, and I didn’t need a man around, certainly not someone like Rainbow’s father.’ Frieda’s words are sticky. ‘I could see what was coming, it’d happened to other people on the scheme – you know, the estate. They’d have my boy off me. So I came to London for a fresh start, tried to stay under the radar, but they found me anyway. Then I had to behave all over again.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry for whatever’s happened, but what has this got to do with now, with Leila?’

  ‘I’m just trying to explain about me and Rainbow. People can be cruel, they don’t want to let you in. It was like I had a smell about me and, no matter what I did, they sniffed me out. Even my own son turned his nose up at me in the end. But he was just a lonely boy. All he ever wanted was someone to help him belong.’

  ‘Frieda, none of this is making sense.’

  ‘My son’s not perfect, and he’s got himself in over his head this time, but I love him, no matter what. I can’t let him down again, can’t let them take him off me. As a mother you must understand that.’

  ‘So, because you and Liam have got issues, I’m suddenly involved in this total mess?’ Her voice rises, politeness bypassed, landing the two women in this candid exchange, as if they are family. ‘Leila is not my responsibility. It’s dangerous. Where the hell is she going to go if she can’t stay at your house?’

  Frieda’s voice is soft and muffled, like she’s got the mouthpiece up against her face, her energy fading fast. ‘I believe in you, Ruth. You remind me of myself when I was your age. A lot of people were against me too.’ Ruth strains to hear. ‘I sense you’re the right person to help, I’ve always felt that about you. You know what it is to be alone in the world.’

  ‘I’ve got enough going on without all of this.’

  ‘With someone like you on her side, Leila might have a chance.’

  Ruth growls. ‘Why is any of this my problem?’

  ‘Because it is your time. Please, it will all make sense. Something�
�s coming for me. Keep it safe, don’t let anyone else get hold of it.’

  ‘What? What’s coming?’

  ‘I know you will do the right thing. I’ve seen all this in a dream.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Ruth . . .’ Frieda’s voice trails off, and the handset clatters.

  A distant squeak of rubber-soled shoes on clean floors, then another person in the background, the nurse. ‘Miss Cailleach?’ He comes on the line, panic in his voice. ‘I’m sorry but your mum needs to rest now. No more phone calls today, I’m afraid. Best speak to the doctor later after her rounds.’

  The line is disconnected.

  Ruth slams down the receiver, her anger high-pitched. It would be possible to leave Leila to sort it out for herself, but the likelihood is the girl will end up back where she began, and allowing that to happen would be as wilful as getting involved. Now that Ruth’s hardwired into the truth, she can no longer turn away; she has responsibility, and at least the choice between right and wrong, whereas Leila can only hover around Ruth’s kindness, hoping not to frighten off her one and only ally, herself and her sister dispensable through the misfortune of being poor and from far enough away to be judged by many as other. But every turn Ruth can think of, every possible course of action, is connected to someone or something that could weaponize Ruth’s choices, and she will end up as collateral damage. If Ruth could exist in the parallel universe where she’d handed the keys to Liam when he first asked, she’d have no idea Leila even existed. Her days would now be brightening and her marriage continuing to heal. But she’d also be back to pat-a-cake with Bess, meal planning her life away, and pretending those tiny steps weren’t like trying to damn a river with only handfuls of twigs.

  She moves to the kitchen window, her heart fluttering so fast it’s coming up her throat. Across the alley, Ruth trains her eyes on Frieda’s front door. Any moment Liam might turn up with the locksmith, or Leila could fly out in a panic and run back to the petrol station. The opportunities for Ruth to act are ticking away with the speed of a countdown, only now that her rage is subsiding, the walls of her house for once seem less confining and the outside world draws close. It is possible to have purpose and do good. Ruth no longer needs to be invisible, shut away caring for a small child.

  14

  Leila remains stock-still in the centre of Ruth’s lounge, clothes sagging like old skin from her tiny frame. They fled from Frieda’s, the mess left behind more reflective of the house’s owner having been unexpectedly whisked away than the neat and ordered home that met Ruth when she first discovered Leila. The girl unwinds the scarf Ruth wrapped round her head and shrugs off the old-lady mac; a double agent removing her disguise. On her feet are a pair of Frieda’s Velcro granny shoes, too small for Leila, but the only other option were the flip-flops she’d arrived in. Leila scans her new surroundings, and Ruth watches as the girl logs the electronics – the big TV with its multiverse of remotes, Ruth’s laptop, an archaic music system with turntable and speakers. Ruth in turn eyes her possessions that only seconds ago had seemed shabby. Through this stranger’s filter, they have become riches.

  She bolts the front door. Giles isn’t due home until after his post-work drink, but still she’s jittery in case he changes his mind and turns up unannounced. Bess cries for food and it settles Ruth to focus on this immediacy rather than the chaos gathering on the horizon. She warms Bess’s bottle and takes a Tupperware of yesterday’s stew from the fridge, leaving the food to simmer in a pan. The meaty smell takes the chill from the atmosphere.

  Leila pulls what looks like a photo from under her fleece and T-shirt – she must have been hiding it in her bra for safety. She stares at the well-thumbed picture, holding tight to what Ruth realizes must be her one true possession, the moment intensely personal. Ruth wants to honour the girl’s privacy by not asking to see unless she’s offered, though she’s itching for a look. She pretends she needs something from her bag, putting Bess’s bottle on the coffee table as she passes, and catches a glimpse over Leila’s shoulder. The shot is of Leila and another girl, the picture still too distant to make out details. Bess stretches for the bottle from her bouncy chair and before Ruth can get to her, Leila has lifted the baby onto her lap. The young woman tests the temperature of the milk by shaking a drop on her hand, then she offers the teat to Bess, rocking the baby gently from side to side, as if feeding her is the most natural thing to do, as if she’s done this a thousand times before. Bess calms instantly and guzzles the milk, big eyes locked on Leila, free hand exploring the older girl’s chin. Ruth hovers close, wanting to take Bess and feed her herself, experiencing an inadequacy close to jealousy, that she’s not the natural Leila is, that this relative stranger has found ease with her daughter after only a short time – and Leila didn’t even think to ask permission. Ruth suspects Leila’s from a place where less is demanded of children, and where mums and dads don’t pressure themselves to be perfect. She looks up at Ruth and smiles, and the open joy in her face is instantly reassuring. Even Ruth’s nervy attention to her daughter doesn’t faze Leila; there’s no judgement. Bess plays with Leila’s hair, the bottle half finished, and Ruth wants to gift-wrap the moment with Leila here to help and her own sense of purpose growing, reconnecting her to the person she used to be.

  The photo has dropped to the floor. Ruth picks it up. Leila doesn’t object or try to take it back. The picture is of Leila with a younger girl whose similar features – deep-brown eyes, high forehead, straight, attractive nose – tell Ruth it’s Farah. The younger sister’s cheeks are fuller than Leila’s, her smile more shy, and she’s tucking herself behind Leila as if the camera is too revealing, her vulnerability a birthmark she can’t disguise. Leila’s shoulders are pushed back, head high, attempting to fill the frame for them both if she could. And Farah’s wearing that same spotty silk scarf Leila brought back from the petrol station, knotted slightly too high at her neck, perhaps in an attempt to look more adult, alluring even, and Ruth wonders how long into Farah’s journey it took for that innocent act to become more sinisterly realized.

  Ruth sits next to Leila on the sofa as the girl bends her head. Tears fall in circles on her trousers. Ruth gently slides her daughter into her own arms as Leila makes fists in her lap, Farah’s absence a tangible presence in the room.

  ‘She is only a year younger than me,’ Leila says. ‘But it seems more. She won’t be safe without me.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Ruth puts a hand on Leila’s arm and rubs. ‘Listen.’ Her shoulders rise and fall with a big sigh. ‘I really think we have to call the police now. It’s time. I can’t see any other option.’

  ‘No.’ Leila’s volume bounces off the walls. ‘Even if they help, it will take too long, and Farah might be hurt.’

  ‘But there are refuges for women like you, organizations who can look after you, who’ll know what to do.’ Ruth reaches over to her laptop, animated with this new idea. ‘We can do a search.’

  Leila puts out an arm to block Ruth’s way. ‘If these people come, they will ask questions. It will only make trouble.’

  ‘But they’re set up to help women in your situation.’

  ‘See?’ Leila pulls up her top, face shining with anger. Her bruises seem to have deepened in colour; old blood under thin skin. ‘This Ray does when he is a little angry. Only a little. If they think the police are coming or if the people you say try to help, then with Farah it will be more.’ Fear radiates as a heat off Leila. She pulls down the layers of clothing and sinks backwards, defeated by this wave of emotion. Her eyes glaze. ‘Last night I had a dream. I was under the ground. It was cold and dark. My hands found Farah, but I could not wake her.’

  Ruth stands and straightens her little girl’s clothes to give her own pulse a chance to even out. She moves to the window to reassure herself the world’s still turning. Two dog walkers pass each other from opposite directions with a cursory nod and no smile, perhaps smarting from the earlier dog fight. The pavements a
re still grimed with snow, but the weather’s ceased to be a novelty, the white slush now merely a bother. All it took for the blitz spirit to die was a small rise in temperature. Perhaps even Monica wouldn’t give Ruth the time of day now. Ruth draws the curtains and busies herself by dishing up the stew, a small offering in the face of Leila’s huge need. The food’s caught on the bottom of the pan and Leila adds handfuls of Cheddar that Ruth’s grated to cover the charred taste. Strings of cheese drip from the girl’s spoon as she shovels in the food, wiping the spills on her sleeve. Ruth watches with a satisfaction denied by her own daughter’s picky eating. In the safety of this house, Leila’s dropped the illusion of adulthood that’s enabled her to survive for so long, and there’s a childish quality to her lack of table manners. Her sleeve skims the surface of the stew. Ruth pulls it out of the way and tucks a stray clump of hair behind Leila’s ear, keeping her hand on the girl’s head a beat too long. Leila tweaks a smile. Somehow, being here among the mountain of Leila’s problems is more fulfilling for Ruth than the daily demands of being at home with her daughter. But this strange little unit, camped out in a darkened house, can only last so long.

  ‘I’ve messaged Giles,’ Ruth says, extending her arm across Leila’s back, the girl’s vertebrae a hard line under her top. ‘He’s not getting home until later, but if we can’t call the police then we need to make a plan about what you’re going to do next.’ Giles’s reply to Ruth’s text was curt, obviously still smarting from this morning’s rejection. Don’t wait up, he wrote. And I’d appreciate no baby duty tonight. She read the message several times, willing the words to reveal more, but there was nothing cryptic, no underlying softness. No smiley faces or kisses at the end.

  Leila puts down her bowl. ‘I will go soon.’ Her foot accidentally kicks the empty bowl on the floor and the spoon jangles against the china.

  ‘You’re not serious about just turning up at the petrol station, are you?’