The Memory Collector

by Fiona Harper

  At that moment, a couple appear at the double doors and stare out at the darkened garden. They probably can’t see the two women, facing off like a fox and a scared rabbit in the shadows, but Heather and Lydia don’t take any chances. They move farther down the patio, into a corner where wisteria twines over a pergola. The flowers are gone now but the leaves are dense and drooping, needing a good prune. It welcomes them in and hides them well.

  Up until this moment Heather has felt powerful, in control, but as the cool night air swirls around her, it dawns on her that she’s got this all switched around. She might be the one acting as if she’s got a rocket up her backside, and Lydia seems all cowed and meek, but she needs to tread carefully. This woman has what she wants – answers – and if Heather doesn’t calm down, she might never mine that treasure. She takes a deep breath. It’s time to stop reacting and time to start thinking about which questions Lydia must answer before she disappears into the mist again.

  ‘I remember a lot,’ she tells the other woman, for the first time talking to her as if she’s another human being, not a monster from a nightmare. ‘I remember your yellow kitchen and mint-choc-chip ice cream… I know from the newspaper reports at the time that you… took me to Hastings for a couple of weeks and then I was returned home safe and sound, but it’s not the whole story. There are things I don’t know that I need to. Please?’

  ‘What like? What do you remember?’

  ‘Not much. I was six. It’s all a bit fuzzy, snatches here and there. I have no idea what’s real and what my imagination has conjured up since I found out ten weeks ago.’

  Lydia gasps. ‘You didn’t remember at all?’

  ‘No, I didn’t remember! And over the last twenty-six years no one in my family saw fit to tell me. That’s what a mess we were. That’s what you did to us.’ She clamps her mouth shut. She didn’t mean to say all that. She may have just blown it. ‘When it all boils down to it,’ she adds quickly, smoothing her tone and lowering her voice, ‘there’s just one thing I want to know.’

  Lydia is quivering, the same way a scared puppy does when it thinks it’s about to feel somebody’s boot.

  ‘I want to know the truth.’

  There’s been precious little of that, but it’s the blade that can cut through everything else, the thing that will release her tangled knots. The truth will set her free. It has to.

  ‘I want to know why.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  JUMPER

  It lies crumpled in a corner of the playground, once elevated to the status of goalpost, but now the single remnant of a game of football, long abandoned. Forgotten. Left behind. I feel sorry for the jumper. I wonder if it’s sad, if it knows the fate that awaits it. It will be rained on, trodden on, kicked into the dirt at the edges of the tarmac playground. Eventually it will become nobody’s, not even a useful garment any more. Just a piece of nothing, to be thrown away and forgotten.

  3 JULY 1992

  The squeals and shouts of the after-school bustle have finished. Everyone has gone home. Only Danny Wiseman’s jumper and Heather are left behind in the playground. Heather cranes her neck, both hands gripping the handle of her book bag, trying to see if her mummy is running up the road, all flustered and full of sorrys, but the street is empty.

  A tiny pinprick of rain lands on her arm. Heather was thinking about rain when she was staring at the jumper. She wonders if somehow she made it happen. She’s always wanted to be magic, because being magic means you’re special. Heather would like to feel special.

  Heather decides to wish even harder for rain and almost instantly the drops start to get bigger and fatter. At first she’s happy because it seems to be working, but then she realizes it was a stupid thing to do because now she’s going to get really, really wet – like the time Faith fell in the stream at Keston Ponds. Inside her head, she commands the rain to stop, but the clouds don’t listen. They keep dumping water all over her.

  She looks over her shoulder towards the school doors. They’re shut now. Her mum says she should always wait for Faith if she’s running late (which she is quite a lot, even though they have at least thirty clocks in their house), but Faith has trampolining tonight and she won’t be out for ages and ages. Heather doesn’t want to wait all that time in the rain, but what else can she do?

  After a while, Heather has a thought. Miss Perrins says she’s a big girl now that she’s six and at school, that it’s good for her to have Sponsibility. Heather isn’t quite sure what that is, but Miss Perrins has given her the job of washing up the paintbrushes after art, which she likes because the water goes like a rainbow. If Sponsibility is to do with rainbows, Heather thinks she’d like a lot more of it.

  But it also means she’s big enough to do things by herself, like doing up her own shoes and wiping her own bottom. Heather thinks about this. She also thinks about the fact she knows the way home without anyone having to show her.

  Without looking back towards the school building, she sets off across the playground, glancing at the jumper as she passes by it. She shouldn’t feel sorry for it, really, because Danny Wiseman called her smelly today. She should be glad it’s there getting all soggy and nasty. Besides, he’s the one who smells. Every time he comes close it reminds her of old biscuits. Yuck. She turns round and kicks the jumper before continuing on her journey.

  She pulls herself taller as she walks through the gates. She doesn’t scuff her shoes on the paving slabs, doesn’t drag her book bag. Grown-up girls don’t do that sort of thing. They walk along feeling all important, like Heather does now.

  Crossing the roads is a little bit scary. She tries to use the ones with the green men but not everywhere has them. One time a driver beeps his horn at her and looks very cross, so Heather runs away and hides round the corner until he’s gone. It seems like ages before she reaches home – much, much longer than when she walks with Faith or her mum – but eventually she turns into Hawksbury Road.

  She’s thirsty after all the walking and she needs the toilet, so she runs round to the back of the house and tries the back door, but it won’t move. That’s weird, Heather thinks. The lock broke ages ago. It’s still raining, so she goes back round to the front of the house and sits under the porch and waits.

  She’s kind of zoned out, staring at the gate, when someone speaks.

  ‘Hey there, poppet!’ She looks up and the nice lady from next door is at the end of the path. ‘What are you doing there sitting on the step in the rain?’

  Heather shrugs. ‘Just waiting. The door won’t open and Faith’s at trampolining.’

  ‘Where’s your mum? Isn’t she home?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’ Heather stands up, but discovers it wasn’t a very good idea. She starts to fidget.

  ‘Do you need the toilet?’ Lydia asks, watching her dance from foot to foot.

  Heather nods.

  Lydia holds out her hand. ‘Well, why don’t you come and use the toilet at my house?’

  Heather crosses her legs and tries not to cry. ‘I don’t think I can hold it in much longer. The back door is stuck and I’m not strong enough to push it open. Our downstairs toilet is right inside. Can you help me?’

  Lydia takes her hand and marches a hopping Heather round to the back of the house. The door doesn’t move when she pushes it, so she gives it a harder shove. The door opens a crack but springs back. ‘There seems to be something in the way,’ she says, and gives it another try. She uses her shoulder to push the door, putting her whole weight against it. At first it looks as if nothing is going to move but then suddenly something gives and the door swings wider before getting caught on a fanned stack of Radio Times.

  The gap is too small for Lydia to get through but it’s just the right size for Heather. She squeezes inside, jumping over the piles of paper like one of those mountain goats she saw on the Discovery Channel, and dashes into the downstairs bathroom.

  She comes out again feeling much happier and finds Lydia standing on top of
the carpet of papers covering the hall floor. She looks frozen, her eyes wide, her mouth loose. Heather wants to poke her to see if she’s stuck like that. Maybe the wind changed, just like Aunty Kathy always warned her it would.

  Lydia is still for so long that Heather wonders if she magicked her into a statue by accident. Just as she’s about to go up and feel if her skin has actually turned cold and smooth, Lydia turns and looks at her. ‘Is it… Is it always like this?’

  Heather blinks. ‘Like what?’

  Lydia stares at her hard, as if she’s not quite sure Heather is telling the truth. ‘Like… this?’ She sweeps her hand in a wide circle as she turns. ‘All this stuff.’

  Heather looks again, more carefully this time. It’s just how her house always is: full. Nothing special. Nothing different. But then she remembers Lydia’s yellow kitchen and her lovely living room with the sofa with the pink flowers, and she realizes how not full Lydia’s house is.

  ‘Is your room like this too?’ Lydia asks. ‘Where do you sleep?’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ Heather says and takes Lydia’s hand to help her. If you’re not used to it, walking on top of the stuff can get a bit slippery, and Lydia’s old, after all. Heather leads her down the hallway, past the kitchen and into the living room. Lydia makes a funny squeaking noise as she steps inside and covers her mouth with her free hand.

  ‘Over here.’ Heather leads Lydia to her corner. Ever since the piles took over her bedroom, she’s slept right there. It’s an armchair her mother rescued from outside somebody else’s house. It’s purple, Heather’s favourite colour, and the material is a little bit fluffy if she strokes it. It’s magic, too, because if you pull a lever, it changes from being a ‘sit up properly’ seat into a zigzaggy, lie-down kind of seat that’s a bit like a bed. Heather’s only little, so it’s the perfect size for her.

  She shows Lydia her favourite pillow and her Little Mermaid duvet cover. She also shows Lydia the little knitted angel she gave Heather for Christmas, sitting near the pillow, keeping her safe. Lydia picks it up and begins to cry.

  ‘Don’t be sad,’ Heather says, hugging her arm. ‘Did you miss the dolly? Do you want it back?’

  She shakes her head and pulls Heather close. Heather’s face gets squished against her dress, but she doesn’t mind because it’s a nice kind of hug. ‘Are you sure you don’t want her back?’ Heather asks, looking up at her.

  Lydia shakes her head, her eyes wet. ‘No. I made her for my daughter, but she… She doesn’t need it any more. That’s why I thought I’d give it to you. You remind me of her.’

  Heather smiles. What Lydia said makes her happy. She wishes Lydia’s little girl lived next door with her. They could all play together then.

  Lydia looks round the room again, shaking her head. At first, her mouth makes the same kind of wobbly shapes Faith’s does when she’s trying not to cry, but then it flattens into a hard line.

  Heather tugs her hand. ‘Can we go to your house and have ice cream now?’

  Lydia doesn’t move. Heather thinks she’s gone all statuey again, but then she suddenly looks down at Heather and smiles really, really wide. ‘You know what? I think I have a better idea!’

  ‘Better than mint choc chip?’

  Lydia nods. ‘Do you know what my little girl and I used to like to do after school sometimes? We used to go to the seaside and eat huge cornets full of whippy ice cream and paddle in the sea.’

  Heather starts to jump up and down. ‘The seaside!’ she shouts. ‘I love the seaside!’

  ‘Then let’s go.’

  Lydia steers Heather out of the house, pushing from behind. They’re going a little bit too fast, like Lydia can’t quite wait to be out in the cool, rainy air again, and they slip and slide on the fallen magazines. Outside, it’s no longer raining and the sun is peeking out from behind a cloud. Heather starts to get even more excited. The beach is much more fun when it’s sunshiny.

  They leave Heather’s garden and go next door. Lydia tells Heather to wait beside her car while she fetches her lovely red coat, the one with the sticky-out bottom and the big shiny buttons. When she comes back out wearing it, she hands Heather a coat too. It’s like those coats the detectives on TV wear, but instead of yukky brown it’s pale pink. When she puts it on, the sleeves hang down past her fingers, but Lydia tuts and folds them back, and then they get in her car and drive away.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  NOW

  A low stone wall surrounds the terrace. Heather sits down on the rough coping. It scrapes against the backs of her legs through her tights. Lydia has finished telling her story and now the only noise is the breeze in the wisteria above their heads.

  This is… This is not what she had expected to hear. And yet… There’s something about not just the telling but the facts that seem to ring true. It’s like déjà vu, that inner knowledge that something is familiar. Known. She has no idea what to think or say about the whole thing and so she latches onto something else Lydia said.

  ‘What happened to your daughter?’ Lydia is looking at the floor. Her head jerks up. ‘You said she didn’t need the angel any more – I still have it, you know. Did she grow up, move out?’

  Lydia shakes her head. ‘She died,’ she replies softly, blankly. ‘When she was nine. A brain aneurysm.’ Heather watches her as she talks. She is in another place. Another time. ‘That’s the sort of thing you expect to happen to adults, isn’t it, not children? But it can happen to anyone – a defect in a vein since birth, ticking away like a time bomb inside her head…’ She pauses, breathes. ‘There was nothing anyone could do. It was nobody’s fault.’

  ‘But it doesn’t always feel that way, does it?’ Heather has forgotten the cold stone against her thighs now. Losing a child… Whatever this woman has done, Heather’s heart goes out to her for that at least.

  ‘No. It doesn’t.’ Lydia sighs. ‘Anyway, it destroyed my marriage. Within two years we had separated. I couldn’t stand to live in Hastings any more, walking past her school every day on the way to the shops, washing up in the kitchen with the back door open, hearing a child laugh and then realizing our garden was empty. So I moved. To Bickley, far enough away but still close to the A21 so I could get in my car and visit her grave if I wanted to, a tarmac lifeline, linking my old life and my new one. Hawksbury Road was supposed to be my fresh start.’

  ‘Is that why you took me there? To Hastings?’

  Lydia looks back at her helplessly. ‘Maybe. The truth is I really don’t know.’ She shakes her head again. ‘Something inside me just snapped. I thought I was doing better, getting stronger, that I was coping, but I obviously wasn’t. And then I saw you inside that house…’ Even now her nose wrinkles in disgust. ‘That awful, flea-bitten chair where you slept. And all I could think was that lovely, bright, sunny little girls shouldn’t have to endure that. They should be laughing and skipping, eating candyfloss and wearing pretty dresses. They should be allowed to be children.

  ‘I thought of how I used to take Natalie to the beach after school sometimes, how much she loved the fresh air and the waves, and I just decided you needed something nice for a change, a treat.’ She looks intently at Heather for a few seconds. ‘That was all it was supposed to be – an outing. I didn’t mean to keep you longer than an afternoon, but at the time I wasn’t really thinking properly, about how far away Hastings was, about how your mother might worry. I just knew I had to get you out of that awful, awful place.’

  She falls quiet. Heather feels she ought to say something, express at least some kind of understanding, but she can’t. Even though her heart is reaching for Lydia, it’s too soon, too fresh, and these facts are sitting in her head like hard, wooden blocks – solid and real, yes, but they don’t fit. They don’t slot in anywhere to make sense. Not yet.

  ‘Why did you run away that day you saw me on the pier?’ Heather asks.

  ‘You said it yourself: I did a horrible thing. I ruined your family.’ Tears well in Lydia’s eyes and
she thumps a fist against her breast, providing a percussive beat to her next assertion. ‘I know what it’s like to lose a child! I know! And I still did it to another mother. It’s unforgivable! That’s why I ran away when I saw you. I thought I was the last person in the world you’d want to come face to face with.’

  There’s so much swimming around in Heather’s head, but something else is just beginning to dawn on her. Something important. ‘Lydia?’

  She looks up. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I know this sounds very obvious. In fact, it’s probably going to sound a bit stupid, given what you’ve just told me, but are you sure my house was messy before we went to Hastings?’

  Lydia frowns. ‘Yes, of course. I would never have—’

  Heather stands up, effectively cutting her off. This doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t make sense at all.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, starting to walk away. ‘This is all a bit much. I just need to…’ And without finishing, she heads for the dark, neatly clipped lawn. Space always helps her think, and here there is lots of it.

  Her heels start to sink into the soft ground when she reaches the grass, so she kicks them off, leaving them where they fall, and keeps walking. She doesn’t stop until she’s in the middle of the vast lawn. Usually, this would be the most exposing place in the garden, but she’s far enough away from the hotel that the floodlights can’t reach her and the darkness closes in around her like a shield.

  When she senses everything and everyone is far enough away, she stops, planting her feet parallel to each other, closes her eyes, and lifts her arms out to the side, reaching, feeling nothing. And then she starts to breathe.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  NOW

  Jason finds her there almost ten minutes later, arms by her sides, eyes closed. She is still breathing. In… out. In… out. It feels like an accomplishment.

  ‘I was getting worried about you,’ he says. ‘I even knocked on the door of the Ladies and popped my head in, making some poor woman jump!’