As if it were yesterday, Kathleen could still remember looking down at him, on his knees before her, and seeing all the love and hope in his eyes. Saying no to him had been the hardest thing that she had ever done. Walking away from him hurt her more than anything else she had ever experienced. Being without him had been like living without her skin. She had been raw with the sorrow of it, and had it not been for her daughter and the need to make a good life for her, Kathleen was not sure that she could have done it.
At first George wouldn’t accept it, but when they finally said goodbye they had held each other, crying. The noises they made were like the noises of wounded animals. Parting was a violence to them both – an intense insufferable pain.
They didn’t stay in touch.
Kathleen remembered that she’d lost over a stone in weight after she parted from George and the doctor was worried that it would affect the baby. Kathleen was eating but it was as if nothing could nourish her now that George’s love was gone.
For years afterwards, when she visited Glasgow, she would find herself unconsciously scanning the streets for his face. Sometimes when the doorbell rang unexpectedly she would wonder if it was him. She hadn’t told him where she had gone but she knew that he could have found her if he had wanted; if he had wanted.
Would George have taken Moll? Kathleen didn’t believe it. He had loved her, Kathleen knew, and he had said how much he loved Moll when she was born. Seven years, but Kathleen still felt that she knew him well. In the early years of her marriage, she had wondered if George would reappear and try to win her back, but taking her daughter was not something he would do. The act was too violent and spiteful for him. George might have come to the door begging for her hand, but he would never have taken her child.
Nonetheless, a flicker of anger licked her gullet and the brief change of chord in her emotions was a small relief. If George had taken her, Kathleen would have him. But the whole idea was ridiculous. What would George do with Moll? He could barely look after himself.
After it had been confirmed that Moll was missing, two police officers had interviewed Kathleen and John at length, asking about relatives and friends who might have taken her or posed a threat. In the artist’s sketch based on the young girls’ description of the man who took her, he looked wild and malicious – blank eyes and a wide, thin mouth. It looked like no one they knew, and John had asked what the police were planning to do. Moll’s disappearance fitted the profile of a stranger abduction, but even in those cases the man was often known in the community. Both she and John had said they could think of no one who would take their little girl.
During that first interview, Kathleen had thought of George but knew in her bones that he wouldn’t have taken Moll. She had pressed her lips together instead of speaking his name. She hadn’t wanted time wasted on her George. Perhaps she had also wanted to protect him.
The phone rang and Kathleen was startled by it. She picked it up quickly.
‘Kathleen?’ said Detective Inspector Black.
‘Yes,’ she replied. They were already on first-name terms. She could hear John upstairs in the shower.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you so early, but I knew…’
‘Yes, I’ve been awake for hours. Is there news?’
‘I’m afraid not. I only called because last night a journalist from the —’
‘I know, that ridiculous article.’
‘There’s an article?’
‘This morning, the Journal has a front page on Molly, and reveals her real father and suggests but doesn’t say that he might have taken her.’
‘I wanted to discuss it with you…’
‘Why?’ said Kathleen, a fist of worry under her ribcage. ‘What do you know?’
‘Well, a writer from the Journal called me last night with information on Molly’s natural father… You hadn’t mentioned him.’
Kathleen swallowed, considering her answer.
‘I never thought. He’s had no contact with her. He’s had no contact with me. George is… George wouldn’t take Molly. To be honest, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see George at my door one day, but the thought that he would take Molly when he hasn’t seen her for seven years… it makes no sense.’
The detective inspector cleared his throat. ‘It sounded improbable to me too, and for all we know he’s on holiday, but I had one of my officers look into it just out of interest and sure enough, George McLaughlin is not at home.’
‘That means nothing. George doesn’t have a real home. He’ll be with whatever girl he’s with right now. If I went to the East End of Glasgow, I could probably find him for you in five minutes, but he won’t answer his phone or his door, that’s if he even has a door… I know him well.’
‘So you think this is not worth following up…’
‘Oh God, if only,’ said Kathleen, unable to keep the grief from returning to her voice. ‘If she’s with George…’ The tears came again and she put a hand over her mouth to stop them but had to take a hard gasp of air before she was able to control herself, ‘Then she’s OK.’
‘I checked his record. His family are rather colourful, but he seems only to have been cautioned for being drunk and disorderly five years ago. He’s clean, but that might be…’
‘He’s not like the rest of them,’ said Kathleen, relaxed again, heavy with sheer exhaustion. ‘He’s a tearaway and he always has been, but that’s all.’
‘Well, I just thought I’d run it past you…’
‘Thank you and we should look into it. I want everything investigated – every lead, every single tiny detail, but… I know George and he wouldn’t take her. He wouldn’t do it to me.’
‘Well, rest assured, we’re checking it out. We’ll leave no stone unturned.’
‘Thank you.’
The detective inspector rang off and Kathleen drank the rest of her now cold tea. As she washed her cup, she listened to the creak of John’s feet on the upper floorboards, as he got ready for work.
Kathleen wondered if all this would have been easier, or harder, if she had had another child to look after. In one sense she needed the distraction. John was gone all day, although he had taken two days off to look for Moll himself, combing the woods from dawn to dusk.
After they had married, she and John had tried for a child, but without success. She had become pregnant so easily with George – just that one night of carelessness – but there had been years of consciously trying with John; taking her temperature and watching the calendar, and elevating her hips on a pillow afterwards. She had not even had a single false alarm. It hadn’t mattered. John had talked abstractly about wanting a son, but he was smitten with Moll, and Kathleen had never been sure that she was ready for another child.
Moll had been their world, and now that she was gone, their world was empty.
Kathleen dried her hands on a dishtowel and stood staring out of the kitchen window at the back garden. The trees had begun to shed their leaves and the grass was strewn with them. There was a makeshift swing strung to the tree at the back of the garden. John had hung it there for Moll and Kathleen watched it moving gently in the wind. Sometimes when she was in the garden by herself, Moll would lie on the swing, so that it was resting against her stomach and use her feet to push off from the ground.
Taking a deep breath, Kathleen forced herself to look away. She washed the kitchen surfaces and put on a load of washing. She put bread under the grill for John’s breakfast and placed two eggs in a pot of water, ready for the boil when he came downstairs.
It didn’t matter what she did or how fast Kathleen moved, Moll was still there, the panic of separation was still there and the fear that she was being hurt.
She heard John’s footsteps above her and knew that he would be fixing his tie in the long mirror. She turned on the gas and lit it. She stared at the two eggs in the pan, remembering things which had gone before. She was no longer religious, but just then, before the boiling eggs, she crossed herself.
‘Georgie, if you have her, look after her,’ she whispered.
As she heard John’s feet on the stairs, Kathleen bit her lip. She wasn’t sure what had come over her. George wouldn’t have taken her, but the sheer thought that Moll might be with him gave her a strange desperate hope. He was a wild man, and Kathleen was grateful that they were no longer together. But there was no other wild man she would trust her daughter to.
17
Margaret Holloway
Thursday 19 December, 2013
It was the first day of the Christmas holidays and Ben had gone to central London to interview a contact for his latest article. It was the afternoon and Margaret was wrapping Christmas presents in the lounge with the children.
The term was now over, but she had left without attending the glut of Christmas dinners and parties. Normally the two deputy head teachers, the four assistant heads and Malcolm would go out for dinner, and then there was the big staff party, which was held in the school canteen with lethal punch and a secret Santa. Margaret also usually went out with her old team from the Learning Support Unit. This year she couldn’t face any of it. She had gone into work every day until the break, but told Malcolm that she was not feeling able to socialise and he had told her he understood.
Margaret was wrapping the presents and Paula was decorating them – curling ribbons and sticking on golden-leafed holly. Eliot was supposed to be helping too, but had already lost interest.
When Margaret was in the middle of wrapping a shirt for her father, Eliot stood up and put his arms around her neck. She kissed and nuzzled his hands, but he stayed where he was and she could feel his quick hot breaths against her neck.
She had been an only child. As a young mother, she had been fascinated by the differences between her children. Her son had always asked for more affection than her daughter, from Ben too, but particularly from her.
When Margaret was Eliot’s age, she had been a shy and withdrawn child. Her parents were kind and loving, but she had been left with a sensation that they were unable to give her all the love she needed – that they were not enough. She lacked clear memories of her childhood, but she remembered loneliness. It was not that her parents’ love had been sparing, but that their love had not been able to reach the place inside Margaret that needed love.
As a parent, Margaret tried to give her children all the love she had in her. She was compensating, but she didn’t know for what. She didn’t want them to feel the ache, which was almost all that Margaret could remember from being small.
Paula knelt before the couch to change the music on the laptop that was open on the sofa. She was wearing leggings and a sweatshirt with sequins on it. Her nails were painted dark glittery blue. She looked older than nine. Margaret smiled at her, remembering the baby she had been. Paula put on some Christmas tunes and then jived to them, spinning around with her long hair swishing back and forth.
‘Dance, Mum, this is a good one.’
‘In a minute, sweet,’ said Margaret, feeling a twinge of guilt that she did not feel able to rise and dance as her daughter expected. ‘Good moves, darlin’.’
When the song ended, Paula collapsed on the floor beside her mother, midriff showing, her face full of glee. Margaret reached over and tickled her belly.
When Paula was born, Margaret’s mother had been dead six years. She had grieved for her mother anew, shuggling the colicky infant back and forth across the living-room floor, not knowing what to do.
Margaret opened a tin of sweets that she had been given by her old colleagues in the Learning Support Unit. She and the children each chose a chocolate before they continued wrapping. The doorbell rang and Margaret went to answer it.
They lived in a terraced house off Oakwood Hill, with a painted awning above the doorstep. It was dark already and Margaret could not see clearly the young, hooded man who stood scuffing the garden path with the tips of his trainers.
‘Hello?’ said Margaret, swallowing her chocolate and straining into the darkness.
The young man looked up and she recognised him instantly. He pushed down the hood of his sports top.
‘Mrs H,’ he said, his breath clouding in the cold air.
Margaret held the door open and motioned him inside.
‘Stephen! Are you all right?’
‘I got expelled, miss,’ he said, hunched. He had never been able to keep still and now he jived in her hallway, shifting from one foot to the other.
Both Paula and Eliot appeared at the living-room door. ‘Hey, Stephen,’ said Paula, blushing shyly. He raised his head in greeting to them both and drove his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.
‘You guys take a break for a bit,’ said Margaret, running her fingers through her daughter’s hair. ‘D’you want to put a film on for you and your brother? I might be a little while…’
Paula raised her eyes heavenwards and turned into the living room, with exaggeratedly heavy footfalls.
In the kitchen, Stephen stood pulling the cuffs of his sweatshirt over his hands, as if he were cold. Instinctively, as she would have done for her own, Margaret poured crisps into a bowl and shook biscuits on to a plate.
‘Do you want something to drink? I’ve got Coke or…’
‘Coke, thanks.’
He crunched the crisps hungrily while she poured Coca-Cola into a glass.
‘I can make you a sandwich?’ she said, placing the glass before him.
He tucked his hands under the table as if merely showing hunger was an admission of guilt.
Stephen grinned at her. ‘ ’Member that first time I came round, miss, and you made me spag’ bol’ and everything…’
‘I can make you spag’ bol’ again.’ Margaret turned to him, one eyebrow raised. It was so good to see him, but she worried he would ask her to try to get him back into school.
She was wearing an old pair of jeans and one of Ben’s sweatshirts. Before other students, she would have felt underdressed, but Stephen had been at the house many times and she was comfortable to be herself. ‘Are you hungry?’ she pressed.
‘Nah, ’m’all right, I was just saying, like. You’re just always so nice to me.’ He pulled his hands underneath his cuffs again, and looked down at the table, suddenly shy.
‘I wasn’t responsible for that decision to expel you,’ said Margaret, sitting down opposite him. ‘I didn’t support it.’ She spoke very clearly and calmly so that nothing could be misconstrued.
‘I know, miss.’
Stephen met her eyes. His large brown eyes seemed hunted, making him look older than seventeen.
Margaret had taught Stephen how to read and write. She still remembered the day he appeared in her Learning Support classroom, covered in bruises, yet seemingly feared. It was his second year at high school but he had failed to meet any learning objectives. He had been removed from normal classes and kept in the classroom at breaks and lunchtime for the safety of other pupils. At the beginning he had been disruptive in Margaret’s classes – once trying to throw a chair through the window, although the window was plastic and the chair just bounced back into the room, hitting another student on the shoulder.
It was weeks before Margaret had been able to reach him. She had been to his home, met his bullying elder brother who was his only family, and seen his swimming trophies before she knew that Stephen could barely write his own name. His father was in prison and his mother had died.
He was bright but had been ignored and punished. Once she’d taught him to read and write he had changed completely. She had risen to management by the time he got his GCSEs, but she had cried with pride.
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