Little Girls Tell Tales

by Rachel Bennett

  ‘She told me to check on you. I think she wanted some time with Dallin. And, to be honest, I think she’s told us everything she knows. She doesn’t remember Simone.’

  ‘I thought she probably wouldn’t. Sorry.’

  ‘I know. It’s just … you can’t help getting your hopes up, can you?’ The wind blew strands of hair across her face. ‘I keep expecting to get a sudden breakthrough, where someone will turn around and tell me, yes, I remember your sister. It’s hard not to hope for too much. I’ve been chasing weird rumours and old stories for so long, almost anything can sound like a solid tip-off. I have to stop myself jumping on the slightest thing that sounds promising.’

  She unlocked the car. I got in the passenger seat, moving aside a paperback that’d been left lying on the seat. ‘I’m sorry it wasn’t more helpful,’ I said.

  ‘It’s okay. I’d just like to get this search over and done with, y’know? It’s infuriating when it feels like I’m running in quicksand. I don’t like being,’ Cora made a circling gesture at her own face, ‘like this. Obsessive. I know that’s how I act. It’s upsetting. I just want some closure so I can go back to my normal life.’

  I nodded. I would’ve liked a normal life again. I just needed to figure out what normal looked like.

  ‘What happened to your mum?’ Cora asked.

  ‘A car accident. Quite a while ago now.’ I decided that was probably as much as I wanted to say.

  Cora nodded. ‘Why doesn’t Dallin talk about her?’

  ‘I have no idea why Dallin does anything.’ I picked up the book that’d been on the passenger seat. ‘Is this yours?’

  Her eyes drifted to the book. ‘It’s about the curraghs.’ Cora put a finger on the cover. ‘I found it on Amazon before we came here. It’s mostly a catalogue of the fascinating different types of orchid you may or may not see, but it’s got some of the history as well. Probably nothing we can use, but I like to know as much as I can.’ Another smile. ‘You never know when something will be useful.’

  I buttoned up my coat. The car engine was off, the heater not running, and it was cold in there. I began to regret storming out of Mum’s flat. ‘Why did Simone run away?’ I asked. It was something I’d been wondering.

  ‘I don’t know the exact reason. Everything. Nothing. Some people are like that, aren’t they? I was upset when she left, but I wasn’t surprised. She was never the sort of person to keep her roots. Still, it hurt when she upped and left without a word. I thought she’d at least say goodbye.’

  ‘She didn’t tell anyone where she was going?’

  ‘No. She didn’t have a lot of close friends anyway. She was difficult to know.’ Cora smiled at a memory. ‘When we were little, I thought we were like this,’ she held up two fingers, crossed as if for luck. ‘I think that’s just how I remember it. I was nine when she left. How much can an immature nine-year-old and an over-mature fifteen-year-old have in common? I worry our friendship was all in my head.’

  ‘What about the rest of your family?’

  She pursed her lips. ‘Ours is a big, sprawling family, y’know? The type where you’ve got five hundred cousins and half-cousins and no one’s ever completely sure how you’re related to each other because no one except me bothers to sit down with a pen and paper and map it all out.’

  I nodded, although in honesty I didn’t know what that was like. My family had consisted of me, Mum, Dad, and Dallin. A tree with few branches. If I’d ever troubled to draw it out in full, it would’ve made a depressing tree, petering out as it went down. Me and Dallin were the last of a slender line. I knew for a fact I would never have children, so if anyone wanted to carry on our lineage it’d have to be Dallin.

  ‘And everyone was always falling out with one another,’ Cora said. She took the book and flicked through it at random. ‘We’d argue over the most pointless stuff, like whose fault it was that so-and-so argued with such-and-such on Christmas day twenty years ago. At any given time there’s at least ten per cent of my family who aren’t talking to a different ten per cent.’ She lifted her gaze with a frown. ‘I wonder if I brought it with me … I did draw out a family tree one time. It’s in one of my notebooks.’ She laughed. ‘Family trees are like maps. I understand maps.’

  ‘Cora …’ I thought about what I wanted to say. ‘What’ll happen if you don’t find Simone here? What then?’

  ‘I’ll keep looking.’ There was no hesitation. ‘I know it’s difficult, and I know it’s only going to get harder as more years go by and fewer people remember, but if I keep looking, I know I’ll find her. She left traces behind when she vanished. I just have to track them.’

  Her conviction was unnerving. ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because I always get where I’m going.’ Cora smiled at me. ‘Even if I hadn’t found your story on Dallin’s webpage, I would’ve come across it eventually.’

  I blinked. ‘Dallin’s webpage?’

  ‘Yeah, the one with the skeleton in the marshlands story. I showed you the page, right?’

  ‘Why do you say it’s his?’

  It was Cora’s turn to blink. ‘Because he wrote it. He told you that, right?’ From my expression she must’ve guessed the answer. ‘Oh my God. I always assumed he’d worked with you to put the story online … he didn’t tell you at all?’

  Mutely, I shook my head. ‘I didn’t know it existed until the other day.’

  ‘Fucking hell. I’m sorry. That must’ve been—’ Cora shook her head in wonder. ‘Wow, that’s a shocker. I can’t believe Dallin hadn’t told you. What the hell must you have thought when we pitched up on your doorstep? I thought you’d been fully briefed about all this.’

  I shook my head again. Inside, my stomach was twisting itself up in knots. Why hadn’t Dallin told me the webpage was his work? Except, thinking about it, I already knew the answer. He knew I’d be upset he’d exposed my secrets to the online world. Far easier for him to pretend it was the work of some random person who’d heard my story and typed it up for all the world to see.

  ‘I did wonder who’d written it,’ I said, keeping my voice level. There were details on the webpage I didn’t recall telling anyone – except maybe Dallin, when we were kids.

  Cora’s gaze turned to the window. ‘Families,’ she said, making the word sound like a curse. ‘Most of mine lost patience with me a long time ago. As far as they’re concerned, Simone is gone, and there’s no point constantly chasing her shadow. One time my mum asked me, “Why do you even want her back?” I couldn’t for the life of me think how to answer that.’

  ‘What was Simone like?’

  ‘Bitchy.’ Cora glanced at the window, as if Simone’s ghost might’ve unexpectedly come within earshot. ‘I mean, what teenage girl isn’t? But Simone took it to extremes. All the normal stuff – drinking, smoking, hanging out with incredibly unsuitable men, you know how it goes. She stole our dad’s car once and crashed it into a roundabout. It was insane.’ Cora sighed. ‘Her and Da were always arguing. She made Ma cry at least twice a week.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘Not that we didn’t love her, of course. I idolised her for a while. And then, after she disappeared, I blamed myself. I thought I’d put the idea into her head.’

  ‘Why? What did you say to her?’

  The front door of Mum’s house opened and Dallin came out.

  Cora started the engine. ‘I told her to follow her heart,’ she said, with a mirthless smile.

  Chapter 12

  Cora offered to drive me back to my house, and I surprised everyone – myself included – by inviting her to stay for lunch.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Cora asked. ‘We can pick up some sandwiches if it’s easier …?’

  ‘It’s fine, I’ve got plenty of food. I can’t guarantee it’ll be better that the sandwiches from the Co-op though.’ I smiled at her, although already my stomach was knotting itself and I was wondering if I could back out gracefully from my invitation without looking impolite. Also, I wasn’t one hundred per cen
t certain I did have plenty of food.

  ‘Alright, you’re on.’ Cora checked the time on the dashboard clock. ‘It’s still early. I’ll do another hour or so of walking and then break for lunch, does that sound okay to you, Rosalie?’

  ‘Sounds fine.’ I twisted my hands in my lap. ‘That’ll give me time to fix something for lunch.’

  ‘Am I invited too?’ Dallin asked. It was the first thing he’d said to either of us since getting in the car.

  I couldn’t think of a reasonable way to say no, so I had to say yes.

  ‘We don’t need anything fancy,’ Cora said. She reached over to touch my arm. It was a gentle, almost unconscious gesture, but I felt heat rush to my face. I stared out of the window because I was scared if I looked at her she’d see something in my expression I’d rather keep hidden.

  Cora drove back to my house without needing directions. It didn’t surprise me she was already finding her way around. I suspected she’d checked out the local routes on one of her trusty maps.

  I unlocked my front door, while Cora did a seven-point-turn in the narrow lane outside my house. She waved before she drove off. It made me smile. Dallin kept his gaze fixed forward.

  It was hard to figure out what Dallin’s problem was. I hadn’t asked him to come home. He’d made it clear from his years of silence that he wasn’t interested in my life. Was he upset that me and Mum hadn’t welcomed him back with open arms? What had he expected?

  Dallin was the sort who assumed everyone’s lives were on hold when he wasn’t there. It must’ve been a shock to realise we hadn’t been waiting anxiously for him to show his face.

  Suck it up, Buttercup, Beth would’ve said to him.

  There was a letter on the doormat. A plain Manila envelope with my name written in blocky handwriting on the front. No postage, because it’d been delivered by hand.

  I felt all the confidence drain out of me. Two in one week? Why now?

  I picked up the envelope like it was a twitchy snake. Right at that moment, I couldn’t face opening it, or dealing with what it contained. I tucked it on the hall table underneath a pile of other post. Just its presence made a lead weight settle into my stomach.

  They can’t hurt you unless you let them, Beth would’ve said.

  I went into the kitchen and dumped my bag on the table. Usually when I came back from visiting Mum, I would have groceries to unload. Again I felt the sting of my upset routine. In a way I was glad I’d offered to make lunch. Otherwise I would’ve had no idea what to do with myself. Tidy? Clean? I had no frame of reference for my current state of mind. Without something to occupy my hands, I would’ve sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, staring at nothing until night fell.

  I rummaged in the fridge. A new edge of panic pushed its way into my stomach. What on earth possessed me to invite two people to my house for food? I hadn’t cooked for anyone other than myself in over a year. And even before that, I wasn’t exactly a regular hostess. Beth did the majority of the cooking. I had two or three fall-back dishes, which I would make two or three times a month.

  I went to look in the pantry instead. It was a large cupboard, really, at the back of the kitchen, but Beth had said she’d always wanted a pantry, so that’s what it became.

  There wasn’t a lot of inspiration in the cupboard, but there were potatoes. I checked the clock. An hour was long enough to make decent baked potatoes. Since I hadn’t remembered to check whether Cora was vegetarian, they were also a safe option. I could make a load of toppings, grated cheese and tuna mayo and that sweetcorn-pepper relish that tasted way posher than it actually was.

  With a plan in place, I cleaned the potatoes then popped them in the oven.

  It was a simple action, but it kick-started my routine. When I washed my hands, I thought I could clean the sink while I was there, then wipe down the counters. From there it was a natural progression to sweeping and mopping. An hour later I turned the oven down. The potatoes were cooked; they just needed to stay hot. I pulled stuff out of the fridge to prepare the toppings on my nice clean counters.

  An hour and ten minutes after I’d returned home, I had lunch ready for three people, and a beautiful clean kitchen. Rather than lose momentum, I went out into the garden to choose flowers for the table. I could get some of the early lettuce leaves to make a rough salad as well.

  I’d just cut half a dozen dahlias of various colours when I heard the phone ringing inside the house.

  I hurried back in, leaving the dahlias on the kitchen table. The phone must’ve rung a dozen times before I got into the hall, but whoever was calling didn’t ring off. That meant it was probably Mum. She knew I wasn’t always speedy.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Rosalie? That you?’

  It took me a moment to recognise Cora’s voice. She sounded distant and faint. ‘Hi, it’s me, yes.’ I looked at the clock on the wall. ‘Are you on the way here? Lunch is nearly ready.’

  ‘No … Rosalie, something’s happened. Can you come pick us up?’

  My scalp prickled. ‘What happened? Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine. We’re fine. It’s a problem with the car.’

  I should’ve felt better at that, but the obvious distress in Cora’s voice said otherwise. ‘Why? What’s wrong?’

  Cora let out a breath. I heard her swear quietly. ‘Someone’s slashed our tyres.’

  Chapter 13

  By the time I got to the car park in the curraghs, Cora had finished swearing, but only just. She looked like she was working herself up to start again. As I got out of my car, she stalked back and forth, muttering under her breath.

  Dallin was standing at the rear of the car with a cigarette in his hand. He nudged the back tyre with his foot.

  ‘Someone’s done a right number on these,’ he said to me. He sounded more surprised than angry.

  ‘We came back to the car and found it like this,’ Cora said. ‘We were only out for an hour or so.’

  I crouched so I could see the damage. The front and rear passenger-side tyres had been cut open with deep slashes. The tears were ragged, as if whoever did it had been in a hurry, or hadn’t used something sharp enough.

  ‘Who the hell would do that?’ Cora asked the air. ‘Both tyres, man. I’ve had this car for four years and no one’s so much as scratched it. I thought this island was supposed to be safe?’ She glared into the trees as if the culprit might be hiding just out of sight. For all we knew, they could’ve been.

  I touched a finger to the torn rubber. The tyre was thicker than I’d expected. Someone had properly sawn into them. I changed my guess – this would’ve taken more than just a few moments, and it needed something sharp and jagged, like a small saw. Not the sort of thing a person would carry around with them for no reason.

  ‘It was probably kids,’ Dallin said. He bounced his toe off the rear tyre again. ‘Vandals.’

  ‘Out here?’ Cora demanded. ‘How many roving gangs of teenagers do you get in the sticks? And why us? Why not one of the other random cars that get parked up here during the day? And two tyres.’ She picked up a stone and flung it at a tree. ‘Two!’

  I stood up and looked at the other tyre. The cut there was deeper and less ragged, as if the first had been a practice. The car had been parked with the passenger side facing the road. The tyres on the other side were intact.

  ‘At least they didn’t do all four,’ I said.

  Cora picked up another stone and hurled it at the trees. ‘They did two on purpose,’ she said. ‘They knew we’d have a spare tyre, so doing just one wouldn’t stop us, so they did two. That’s the fastest amount of damage they could inflict and be certain we couldn’t drive away.’

  ‘C’mon, Cora,’ Dallin said. ‘No one was thinking that hard about this. It’s just – I don’t know—’

  ‘It was targeted, and it was calculated.’ Cora stalked away, then came back, still simmering. ‘Someone did this on purpose and they knew exactly what they were doing.’

 
; I stood back from the car, trying to see a way the damage could’ve been accidental. Someone driving too close … swerving to avoid one of the dozens of potholes in the road … a jagged edge of wheel trim or something similar …

  I couldn’t make the mental image line up with reality. But still, I didn’t want to believe someone had done this on purpose. It was too upsetting to contemplate.

  ‘Who do you think it was?’ Dallin asked. To my surprise, he was looking at me. ‘This is only our second day. This afternoon we’ve been parked for hardly any time. No one knows we’re here.’

  ‘Except your mum,’ Cora said.

  Dallin scoffed. ‘My invalided mother did not drive out here and cut up our tyres.’

  ‘No, but she might’ve told people we were here.’ Cora lifted her shoulders in an angry shrug. ‘I don’t know.’

  She looked at me as well. I could only mirror her shrug. ‘She might’ve phoned her friends to tell them about us,’ I admitted. ‘She’s got a pretty solid network of people.’

  Dallin grunted in agreement. ‘The whole north of the island probably knows what we’re up to by now.’

  Cora was swearing under her breath again, but at least she’d stopped flinging stones. It made me edgy to see her react like that. I wasn’t a big fan of confrontation.

  ‘We need to call the garage,’ I said.

  ‘Already tried that.’ Dallin dropped the end of his cigarette and ground it under his toe. ‘The garage in Ramsey doesn’t have a tow-truck today. They said they could fit new tyres, if we can get to them. I told them what we thought of that idea. They suggested we call a garage in Douglas instead. Or try Green Flag.’

  I glanced along the narrow road. It might be possible to get a tow truck to the car park, but it would’ve been an effort. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘what if we take off the damaged tyres and put them in my car, then I’ll drive to Ramsey and get them replaced. Would that work?’

  Cora shook her head. ‘I couldn’t ask you to do that.’

  ‘I’m not sure what other use I can be. I’ve got a working car; you don’t. How else are you going to get the tyres replaced?’