by Sanjida Kay
‘I want to see that bitch sentenced,’ he’d said with uncharacteristic venom.
If it’s a really bad day, I think about Evie on the moor, alone, in the dark, wearing only a thin, blue, princess dress. The police estimate that she was outside by herself at night for about five hours until Hannah found her.
These are the things Evie has said:
Where is Pakistan?
Why does Miss White want us to live there?
Would you have visited me?
Why did Miss White say you were my fake mummy?
Is Miss White really my mummy?
When I grow up will I call Miss White Mummy?
It’s not much in five months. The list of what I think Evie really wants to ask but can’t, and may never be able to is even shorter:
Why didn’t you find me?
Why did you leave me there?
So I can understand it: she clings to me and at the same time she acts as if she hates me. But understanding my daughter’s behaviour on a rational level doesn’t make it any easier.
‘Just give her time,’ Ollie said, when I cried to him about it. He sounded impatient, no longer the gentle, reassuring man he used to be.
I need to give him time too. He hasn’t forgiven me. Sometimes I catch him looking at me and his expression is unfathomable, as if he doesn’t know who I am, as if I’m not the same woman he fell in love with fifteen years ago, as if I’ve betrayed his trust. Which, of course, I have.
Jenny comes over, her crimson-soled heels ringing out.
‘Darling, let’s have a quick word before this evening,’ she says.
I extricate my hand from Evie’s.
‘I’ll just be a minute, love,’ I say. ‘Why don’t you look around by yourself? You’re safe here.’ I give what I hope is a comforting smile.
Evie looks at the door, locked behind us, the solid presence of the men working. Jenny and I pass the hidden entrance at the back of the gallery and I feel a blush creep up my cheeks and neck as I remember stealing through the kitchenette and kissing Haris behind the car park. Once we reach her desk, Jenny runs through the names of the guests: these are the people I need to concentrate on speaking to: members of the press, dealers, buyers.
She clutches my elbow mid-sentence and says, ‘I didn’t invite Haris, by the way. You do know I don’t represent him any more?’
‘Dropping him was the least you could do,’ I say.
She hesitates for a fraction of a second and then continues. That’s as much responsibility as she’s going to take for her part in derailing my life.
‘Don’t worry about remembering everyone’s names, I’ll bring them to you. Now, anything else I can say to potential buyers? Have you started work on a new series?’
I shake my head and she looks disappointed. I haven’t been able to paint much. I’m okay with that, really. I need to focus on Ben and Evie right now.
I’ve stopped walking across Rombald’s Moor. Although I worry I might bump into Haris, that’s not the main reason. I spend a lot of time following the path alongside the River Wharfe, past the tennis club and the golf course. Bella chases the ducks and I’m looking forward to the summer and dense verges of cow parsley and Himalayan balsam. It feels safer.
I’ve started going further afield too; sometimes taking Ollie and the children with me at the weekends. We mostly go to Bolton Abbey and amble through Strid Wood, admiring the churning gush of the river as it pounds over the rocks; the swirling pancakes of foam above Guinness-brown pools. On those occasions we act like a normal family of four. We squelch through the mud and then go to the cafe for hot chocolates. We are an averagely good-looking, middle-class couple with a beautiful girl and a gorgeous boy and a lovely liver and white springer spaniel. No one watching us would see past our Boden Breton tops and our Joules wellies and guess that both our children are damaged in some small but significant way.
‘I’ve done one picture,’ I say. ‘It’s not finished. I’m not sure—’
Jenny holds out her hand for my phone. I swipe through the photos until I find it. It’s a departure for me. It’s full of motion – of the river, the dappled light, the wind in the trees – and it’s also filled with colour: purples and pinks, magenta and lime, lemon-yellow and cobalt. She inhales and turns to me, her red lipsticked-smile wide.
‘This is wonderful. You need to do more like this. We could have another exhibition next year.’
I shake my head. ‘I’ll let you know. I can’t really…’ I trail off.
She’s about to say something but she thinks better of it.
I look around for my daughter and feel what has become a familiar ball of panic burning in my chest. I need to be constantly aware of where she is every second. That exit out the back – there could be a car waiting! I’m breathing faster and faster as I scan the room.
‘Where’s Evie?’ I say sharply.
Jenny looks at me in surprise and then her features soften. In the time we’ve been talking, Evie could be halfway to Leeds Bradford Airport! She wouldn’t go anywhere on her own. Someone would have had to take her, force her... I march through the gallery, towards the second large room. I can’t see her here either. I swing round and head towards the smaller section off the central gallery and halt at the entrance.
She’s here. She’s concentrating so hard, she hasn’t seen me. She’s built a sculpture right in the centre, using the materials she has to hand: wine glasses. She’s laid them out in a grid and stacked others, three, four, five high. It’s not a pyramid – it’s far too random and precarious. She’s got her tongue stuck in the corner of one cheek, as she carefully pours red wine from a bottle into the glasses. She must have found an open bottle. There’s water in some of the other glasses already. I bite my lip to stop myself from calling her name and making her jump. I try to relax my shoulders. I admire the strange beauty of her creation: the way the fairy lights strung from the entrance sparkle from the rims; how the spotlights pick out the tonal dimension of the burgundy Merlot and the clear water, the fluidity of her sculpture, spreading wave-like across the gallery floor. And I admire my daughter: her long dark hair, her wide-set green eyes, her caramel-coloured skin. She is perfect.
‘It won’t be long until she has an exhibition of her own,’ murmurs Jenny, peering over my shoulder.
Thank God she isn’t angry.
Evie looks up and her face changes from intense concentration, as she’s jarred out of her semi-trance state, to surprise, guilt and then defiance. She stands up. I know instinctively what she’s going to do. I can see it playing like a movie in slow motion: her face will twist and she’ll aim a kick at her sculpture; the glasses will tumble and some will shatter, red wine will splash the white walls and arc across my paintings. I close my eyes for a second and swallow.
‘It’s time to go for ice cream,’ I say softly.
Evie hesitates, almost swaying, as if she’s unbalanced, as if she’s undecided what she’s going to do, as if she no longer knows what she feels. And then she walks over to me, holding out her hand for mine.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks go to Sarah Hilary, who brainstormed the original idea for The Stolen Child with me. Maddie West, my first editor at Corvus, read the synopsis and gave me excellent feedback. At every stage in the writing process, I’ve been helped and encouraged by my agent, Robert Dinsdale, of A.M.Heath. Sharon Lewis read part of an early draft and made insightful comments. My fellow writers, Claire Snook and Emma Barton-Smith, helped enormously, offering apposite suggestions, pointing out flaws with both precision and kindness, as well as cheering me along. Paul Whitehouse, Susie Painter, Sabina Bowler-Reed and David Cohen all helped with the technical aspects of the novel, from police procedure to poisoning to adoption. Artist, Elaine Jones, patiently answered my many questions about her work and how to juggle a career in the arts with bringing up small children.
The Stolen Child has been guided to publication by my wonderful, kind and clever editor, Loui
se Cullen, who also makes a lovely lunch date! Nicky Lovick has corrected my dodgy grammar with humour and aplomb. A huge thank you to the sales team behind Atlantic Books, and the marketing and publicity department, masterminded by Alison Davies.
At every step of the way, my husband, Jaimie, has been supportive and encouraging, whilst my daughter, Jasmine, has kept me endlessly entertained, reminding me what it’s all about. Thankfully, she’s slightly too young yet to be comprehend the emotional resonance within the poem that inspired this book: for, my darling, the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Also by Sanjida Kay
Bone by Bone
Published in trade paperback in Great Britain in 2017 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright © Sanjida Kay, 2017
The moral right of Sanjida Kay to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Trade paperback ISBN: 978 1 78239 691 8
E-book ISBN: 978 1 78239 693 2
Printed in Great Britain.
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