Reluctantly, dreading the fact that he might say yes, but knowing I have nothing else to offer, I play the last card in my solitaire pack. ‘Or maybe,’ I say, ‘if you need, I can look after Samuel while you work through here?’
‘Irene’s parents are lending a hand with things like that. In fact, they’ve got Sammy at the moment.’ He pauses. ‘But you’re nearly fourteen, is that right?’
I nod.
‘I tell you what, after your birthday, we might take you up on that offer. We’re looking for a local babysitter, a paid one.’
Before he has time to expand on his idea, an old woman comes into the shop and I have to move out of the way. Perhaps I should let Mr Phillips mull over my various suggestions and come back tomorrow?
‘I’ll be off now,’ I say. ‘See you soon.’
He raises his elegant hand in a seafarer’s salute and immediately turns his attention to the old woman.
****
Mon 19th September
‘I’m going to play with Katie,’ Helen calls, and pulls the door closed behind her.
I look out of my bedroom window.
My sister walks straight past Katie Nelson’s front door, head bowed down in the half-light as if she doesn’t want anybody to see her. I press my nose against the cold glass. Her skinny form scuttles up the road without a coat in the drizzle.
Normally I don’t really bother to keep track of my sister, so long as she comes home before Rebecca gets in from work so that I can claim my fee. Today, however, I had a really bad time at school because three girls in my class accused me of stealing glitter pens and Magic Markers from their bags in the cloakroom. They saw me using similar pens to their missing ones, and jumped to conclusions.
I can’t sit still inside the house. Rebecca is at an evening seminar and there’s nothing to divert my attention at number eleven. I need to take my mind off tomorrow. I decide to follow my sister and find out who she’s visiting.
It takes a few minutes to locate my mother’s old macintosh underneath the layers of coats hanging in the hall. At this time of year I hardly ever go outside in the evenings, especially if it’s raining. I prefer to sit with my back pressed against the radiator, soaking up the heat. My project this autumn is to perfect my calligraphy so that I can write professional labels for each of the specimens in my bottle collection. After that, I’m going to write a catalogue for all the books in my personal library. So far, I can do about three or four different styles, but I need to practise them every night, and learn some new ones so that everything I write will look beautiful.
By the time I get outside, Helen is nowhere to be seen.
I hunch my shoulders against the rain and walk up the road, past Katie Nelson’s house and past the village shop, which has closed for the night.
People’s silhouettes move around behind curtains.
Looking left and right, I continue up the road until I reach the church and peep over the flint wall. Still there’s no sign of Helen. Ancient gravestones covered in lichen puncture the evening light. Half-hopefully, I wonder if my sister has been kidnapped by a strange man, like the girl I heard about on John Craven’s Newsround. We will bury Helen here with all the other dead children, and the rain will wash her blood into the soil, draining everything away. Tucked inside this same thought, however, is the notion that my dad might have reappeared and taken her off in his car, leaving me alone in this place with Rebecca.
Shivering and damp, I abandon my search, turn around and walk back towards number eleven.
A light is on in the village shop when I pass, sending shafts of gold through the blinds to shimmer on the tarmac. Figures move about inside.
I linger in the empty drive that runs along the side of the shop, but try to stay as far away as possible from the spooky passageway which leads from the drive to the house at the rear.
I have always wanted to be able to gaze at Mr Phillips without him looking back at me with those dancing eyes, but until now it’s never occurred to me that I could easily peep through the shop window after dark. Whenever I think about how to look at him properly for a long time, without being spotted, I imagine him fast asleep in bed. Once I pictured him lying beautifully in a coffin, but that was too upsetting. In my daydream, Mrs Phillips is nowhere to be seen.
I inch forward to the window and almost fall against it when I see what’s going on inside.
All the familiar tins, packets and jars are in their usual places in the shop, but they have lost their neutral, everyday appearance and taken on an artificial sheen. The apples and tomatoes in boxes look as if they have been made from colourful wax, and the sweets shine too brightly inside the plastic jars above the counter.
The hero and heroine of the show are real enough. It’s obvious to me that these two have no idea they are visible to the outside world. They think they are hiding inside a sealed-off world.
I can’t hear what they’re saying through the glass, but my sister melts with open delight as Mr Phillips juggles three clementines, his mouth moving rapidly all the time. His eyes show intense concentration while, quick as lightning, his hands reach out, first left then right, grabbing potatoes from a sack to add to the airborne fruit. Strewn at their feet is a pile of fresh produce. Clearly my sister has made several attempts of her own to juggle under his instruction.
No matter how close I get to the window, they can’t see me because of the brightness of the light inside. I am as invisible as the glass. Every time Helen tries to juggle, Mr Phillips stands there smiling down at her, occasionally correcting her posture by setting her elbows at the correct angle. She is, of course, a complete failure and drops things all the time.
When he stands behind her and rests his hands on her shoulders, my mouth fills with a bitter taste which I want to spit out at the corner of the shop. Instead, I swallow, turn away, and walk back down the road.
Without having a definite plan in mind, I ring the bell of Katie Nelson’s house. The dog yaps inside. When Mr Nelson opens the door, I burst into loud, uncontrollable sobbing. I’m not pretending to cry. What I’ve seen has genuinely upset me. I can’t believe he invites her round, not me, and that he prefers her silly games to my intelligent conversation.
‘Is Helen here?’ I splutter. ‘She’s gone missing from home. I’m really worried! I’m meant to be looking after her, but she went off on her own. Do you know where she is?’
Katie Nelson hovers behind her dad, trying to smile at me in a friendly way. Katie’s only in the first year at my school, so I generally tend to ignore her.
‘Where’s your mum?’ Mr Nelson asks.
‘She’s at work. She won’t be back till about half eight tonight.’
Mr Nelson exchanges a Funny Look with Mrs Nelson, who has appeared in the hall.
When I started my story, my vague aim was for them to call the Police and report my sister missing, then a search party would discover Helen at the shop and she’d be in Deep Trouble. She’s still a minor in the eyes of the law, so she’s clearly committing a criminal offence if she runs off like this. But as I stand on the doorstep facing the Nelsons, I start to worry about what I might have started. I don’t want any trouble for him. If they find Helen with him, he might be implicated in her crime by association with her.
I shuffle from foot to foot. ‘Maybe she’s at home after all.’
‘There she is!’ Katie shouts, pointing over my shoulder.
Helen wanders down the road sucking a lollipop. She waves cheerfully at us.
‘Where have you been?’ Mrs Nelson shrieks. ‘You must tell your sister exactly where you’re going, especially at night. You never know who’s out there.’
‘I went to see my friend,’ Helen says, and looks at me triumphantly. ‘Did you think I said I was going to see Katie? Silly Lizzie!’
‘What friend?’ I demand.
‘My friend up the road,’ Helen replies enigmatically.
By the time our mother gets home, Helen is sitting happily in her bed
room. She’s dry and warm, smiling, lips stained red from her lollipop. I, on the other hand, am wet to the bone and my teeth are chattering. My whole body is pressed against the radiator in my bedroom. Steam rises from my damp clothes. I smell like a dishcloth.
My heart hasn’t stopped racing since I left the shop window, and however many times I go to the bathroom to spit in the basin, that bitter taste lingers in my mouth, coating my teeth. Outside, the wind moans through the rigging on the creek. I imagine the yachts bobbing about on the high tide, battered florescent buoys strapped to their railings.
****
Tues 20th September
At exactly six o’clock in the evening, the bell rings and I open the front door. A man my dad’s height stands on the doorstep, wearing my dad’s grey raincoat and his glasses. Rain splashes off his silver car parked on the road immediately outside our house.
‘Dad!’ I say, full of relief at his return after so many years, waiting for him to bend down and envelop me with his musky smell.
Instead, the man tucks his mouth into his beard, makes a crooked shape with his lips, and gazes at me with magnified eyes. The wind flaps at his coat and blows salt-marsh scents into the hall.
‘I’m not your dad,’ the man says in a sad voice that is and is not my father’s.
I can’t believe the way my eyes have deceived me.
He holds a shabby briefcase in front of my nose to illustrate his point. ‘I’ve brought some documents for your mum to sign. She said she’d be here this evening. Is she here? Mrs Osborne?’
Out on the creek, the wind whistles through the boatyard and rattles the rigging against the masts. A faint clatter fills the air further off, on the other side of the water.
Our mother emerges from her study. Her long brown hair and pale face appear through a fog of cigarette smoke. ‘Hello! Come on in.’
He takes off his raincoat and tries to hang it on a peg, but there’s no space, so he folds it over his arm as she ushers him down the corridor. They are swallowed up by the smoke and the room.
Upstairs in my bedroom, I stare out of my window and tug at my fingernails with my teeth. In spite of the rain, it’s still light outside, and warm. I can hear a thrush singing a fruity song.
I want to seal up the door of number eleven for ever, so that no more strangers can come along to trick me.
After the strange man’s visit to our house, Rebecca’s sobbing begins again. We hear it coming out of her bedroom. She starts up like the engine of our old car, straining at first and failing. After several attempts, she begins again and ticks over steadily for the rest of the night.
****
Wed 21st September
The playing-card is behind her ear! I can’t work out how he did it.
I creep forward, trying to stay hidden in the drive, and peer through the blinds just as he puts an arm around her shoulders and gives her a squeeze. Her shoulders bunch up happily. He ruffles her hair.
He holds the pack of cards in a fan shape. She chooses one and replaces it without showing him. Then he finds her card again: this time it’s tucked in her sock.
The next card is hidden in the hem of her skirt.
‘What are you doing? Peeping Tom! Go home! Stop spying through windows!’ the old man with the zimmer frame bawls at me.
I spin around.
Bulging carrier-bags hang off the handles of his walking frame. I was concentrating so hard I didn’t hear him approach, even though each of his creaky steps forward is accompanied by the clank and chime of empty bottles.
When it’s windy weather, he rings at our door and asks for help because the walking frame is too unsteady to deliver him down the hill and through the door of the pub.
Without waiting to find out if they’ve heard anything inside the shop, I run home to number eleven and slam the door behind me.
****
The Art of Persuasion
Basic Rules & Method
1. First of all, relax your whole face, inside and out, especially your throat. This stops you sounding guilty when you are under cross-examination.
2. Make sure you adopt a reasonable tone of voice. Flat denial does not work.
3. With grownups, you have to include what they say in your story. If you repeat some of the words and phrases they use to you, they are more likely to think you are telling the truth.
4. Maintain eye contact, not all the time but about eighty-eight to ninety per cent of the time. You must never move your eyes to your right because this is a sure sign you are lying.
5. Provide lots of detail because grownups always believe detailed stories.
6. If you don’t believe your own story, nobody else will. You must believe what you are saying.
****
Fri 23rd September
‘Hello young ladies. Welcome to my humble premises,’ he says solemnly, bowing like a butler. He pretends not to recognise us. ‘And who do I have the honour of serving on this auspicious morning?’
Even though we don’t understand a lot of his words, we giggle at the attention and shift about on the lino. Helen passes our mother’s shopping list to him, eager to see if he will perform a new magic trick today to make the list disappear from her hands and reappear behind her ears or in a pocket of his jeans.
I clamp my hand around Helen’s fingers and squeeze. ‘I’m not going to tell you my name,’ I reply to his question, ‘but I’ll tell you who she is. Today this girl will be called the Common or Garden Snail. We can only feed her lettuce leaves. Maybe a cabbage leaf, but nothing too salty.’
‘No I’m not called snail!’ she shrieks, right on cue, ‘I’m called Helen. Helen.’
She pronounces it ‘Heron,’ and the more we play the game, the more Mr Phillips laughs at her and smiles at me.
I know he really likes me. You can see it in his eyes.
He chuckles and says, ‘You’re not a snail, sweetie, but you do need to come out of your shell!’
I laugh loudly at this hilarious joke, but you can tell that my sister doesn’t understand it because she stays silent. He holds out Helen’s Bunty and my Beano, refusing to let go of the comics while we pull with all our might. When he unclamps his fingers, we both stagger backwards. It’s always the same. He doesn’t mind if we land in the shelves of Mother’s Pride or fall on the sacks of potatoes.
Afterwards Helen stands on the blue and white lino not knowing whether to laugh or cry, peeping up at him through her black curls.
‘Well now, Miss Osborne the Thirteenth,’ he says, leaning towards me over the wooden counter and preparing for his regular Friday-night speech. My toes start to tingle, and I start to blush. ‘Isn’t it about time a young lady like yourself gives up the Beano and starts to read proper magazines? How about Jackie? Or My Guy?’
‘No! I hate them! I’ll never buy them.’
It’s true. I hate those magazines. They’re disgusting. Katie Nelson, who is only eleven, showed me her copy of My Guy a couple of months ago when we caught the bus home from school together. On the problem page there was a letter from a girl who let her boyfriend lick her Private Parts. She’d come up in sore red patches and wanted to know what to do. Disgusting!
Mr Phillips gives us a handful of sweets to eat as we wander back home to number eleven.
****
Sat 24th September
I’m not willing to plunder my reserves of pocket-money to buy a proper card for Mrs Phillips but, on the other side of the new pound coin, I want him to see what a caring and sympathetic person I am compared with my sister so that he will snap out of his misplaced favouritism for her.
As a compromise, I decide to make a card. I don’t spend too much time on it. I simply fold a piece of cartridge paper into quarters and scrawl a rough picture of a flower on the front in felt-tipped pen. I write ‘Get Well Soon—from Lizzie at Number Eleven’ in big black capitals inside the card, but refuse to use my calligraphy nibs or nice Winsor and Newton inks. Before leaving, I take an envelope out of Rebe
cca’s desk in the study, and scrawl ‘Mrs Phillips’ on the front.
I hear the terrible racket the moment I put my hand on the door handle of the shop. Mr Phillips is in no position to greet me in his usual way. He can’t bow down and call me mademoiselle. He can’t wink at me and pretend the chocolate digestives are out of stock before magically producing a packet from his sleeve. In fact, I can hardly see him through the crowds, and when I finally catch a glimpse of his face he doesn’t even look in my direction.
The shop is full of people. Samuel runs between everybody’s legs, roaring ‘nee-naw nee-naw’ and laughing raucously at some private joke.
I don’t think any of this is remotely funny. I planned to have a quiet mousy chat with Mr Phillips while the cat was away, and give him the card to give her in hospital.
I push my way over to the shop counter and hand over my envelope. ‘I’ve got a card for Mrs Phillips.’
‘Thank you Lizzie,’ he replies. ‘That’s very sweet of you.’ He points to the corner of the shop where most people are gathered. ‘Give it to her yourself if you can fight your way through that lot.’
Reluctantly, I approach the corner. Mrs Phillips is sitting in the folding chair he keeps for old people when they get tired, surrounded by a semi-circle of women from the village making bleating noises. I force my way through. In her arms is a bundle no bigger than a sliced loaf of Hovis. I stare at its red screwed-up face and gaping mouth.
I’m amazed at how quickly she seems to have recovered. When the ambulance took her away the other day, she acted as if she was dying. What an attention-seeker.
When she finally sees me, she says, ‘Lizzie! Meet George!’
All the women bleat again.
I hold out the envelope.
‘Thanks! Just pop it in the basket over there with the other presents. Did you see the lovely little bunch of flowers your sister made for me?’
In amongst the boxes of chocolates and bunches of real flowers, I see Helen’s trademark gift: a bunch of tissue-paper flowers in reds, yellows and blues. I carefully place my card on top of the bunch and press down very firmly. Before leaving, I steal a packet of ballbearings from the rotating rack by the door.
The Third Person Page 4
