by Emma Davies
I raise my eyebrows.
‘Anna and Rob’s,’ Drew corrects himself.
Better, but that’s not my only complaint. Bullying is a big deal and I’ve seen it swept under the carpet too many times.
Drew takes a deep breath. ‘Thea, I’m really proud of Lauren for trying to do the right thing, but she did go about it in the wrong way and, as her parents, we have to help her to understand that. I’m as unhappy about the way that this has been dealt with as you are, but try not to let yourself get upset about it. Or go thinking all the staff at the school are the problem. The girls have only just started school here for goodness’ sake, we don’t want them, or us, labelled as troublemakers.’
He starts walking again and I let him go one or two paces before I carry on myself. Somehow walking by his side no longer seems to be the right fit. Don’t get upset about it, he said. But I am. I wanted Drew’s total support on this and I’m surprised I didn’t get it.
Nine
I almost miss Lauren as I enter her bedroom, but when I do spot her, the sight stops me in my tracks. It could be me tucked up on the window seat, partially hidden behind the curtain, but instead it’s our eight-year-old daughter who has found her way there, just like I used to do when I was her age. It was my place of refuge back then, when I wanted to read or to draw, or simply stare out of the window lost in a daydream. It’s also where I used to take myself when I needed to cry.
‘Is everything all right, sweetheart?’
Lauren turns at the sound of my voice and nods, her face pale and solemn.
‘I’m sorry, Mummy.’ Her sad little voice is scarcely more than a whisper.
‘Oh, Lauren…’ I kneel on the floor beside her, my arm sliding around her small shoulders. ‘You’re not in any trouble, I promise. What you did today was very caring and very brave, but Daddy’s right when he says that hitting people isn’t the right thing to do, even when it seems like there’s nothing else you can do. And all you have to remember is that there’s always an adult you can talk to. Whether that’s one of us at home, or someone at school; they’ll know how to help. And as long as you tell the truth, you’ll never be in any trouble for trying to help your friends.’
She nods, but to my horror a slow tear makes its way down her cheek. I reach out to wipe it away. ‘So there’s no need to be sad, little wren.’
There’s a small smile but if anything the tears come even faster.
‘But I didn’t,’ she says, her head hanging down. Her hands are fiddling with a fold of paper on her lap, turning it over and over, first one way and then the other. I watch her for a second, mesmerised.
‘Didn’t what, sweetheart?’
She sniffs and a sob breaks free. ‘I didn’t tell the truth…’
I can feel my back stiffen. ‘About Leo?’ I ask, gently.
She doesn’t reply.
‘Lauren…? Whatever it is you need to tell me…’
‘But I’ll be in trouble.’
I can’t lie to her, but it’s breaking my heart to see her so forlorn. ‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But it’s always worse if you don’t own up to things. What didn’t you tell the truth about?’
The seconds tick by until I reach out a hand. ‘What’s that, Lauren?’ I touch a finger to the bright-pink envelope she’s been fiddling with.
‘It’s a letter. From Tilly. She gave it to me at school.’ And she draws it away, tucking it under the edge of her legs.
‘Oh… And are you going to write a reply? You can give it to her in the morning.’
She shakes her head, a tiny movement. ‘But that’s how I know I wasn’t telling the truth. Because Tilly explained what happened, and I got it wrong. Leo wasn’t hurting her at all, not really.’ Her face lifts to mine. ‘I’m sorry, Mummy…’
And with another sob she hurls herself into my arms.
‘Oh, Lauren…’ I say, my hand stroking her hair. It’s so obvious what’s happened here, but how can I tell her the truth of the situation? I’ll effectively be calling her friend a liar, and Tilly’s certainly not that. She’s just a scared child playing down an incident because she doesn’t want to make things worse for herself. It’s Anna I need to speak to, not Lauren. So instead, I just hold her, telling her it’s going to be all right until her tears subside.
I can still see the edge of the pink envelope peeking out from beneath Lauren’s legs. ‘You know, when I was your age I used to write down any worries I had, a bit like Tilly has, only you write a letter to yourself, not to another person. I don’t know why, but I found it helped. And then once you’ve done that you put the letter away for a bit and try to forget about it. I always found that when I read the letter a little while later, the thing I was worried about had disappeared. Maybe you could do that too and find somewhere to keep the letters safe.’
There’s a gulp of breath and the smallest of nods. ‘I will.’
‘Good girl.’ I tilt my head to one side. ‘Now, why don’t you come and have a nice bath and then we can read for a while. How’s that?’
And it’s not until much later when I’m undressing, sitting on the edge of the bed in a room where my parents once slept, that I allow myself to remember what it was like to be a child with a secret.
* * *
We’re running late for school the next morning, which suits me fine. It means there’s no time to stand around worrying about whose eyes are on me in the playground or, worse, have a conversation with Leo’s mum about what happened yesterday. I will have to at some point, I know that, but not today. There’s no sign of Anna or Tilly either. They went on ahead of us and I hope this means that Anna is already inside discussing her own concerns. So I kiss the girls goodbye, give Lauren an extra big hug and head for home. I have work to do but I’m also very aware that there’s a jumble of thoughts building inside my head and I need a little time to straighten them all out. And Drew, I need to talk to Drew. If anyone can make sense of it all, he can.
Except that when I get back, going straight through to the studio, I find he’s got his jacket on, and is patting his pockets for his car keys and phone.
‘I got a bite,’ he says, grinning, gesturing towards his laptop. ‘So, I’m going to strike while the iron’s hot before they change their minds.’
This is brilliant news. ‘Who?’ I ask.
‘It’s only a small charity, in the Brecon Beacons, but it’s a start,’ he says. ‘And they just responded to a newsletter I sent out on spec, which is even better. At least it means I’m getting something right.’
I put my hands either side of his head and kiss him square on the lips. I can feel him grinning. ‘More than most,’ I reply, as his hands slide around my buttocks. ‘Go, knock ‘em dead,’ I add.
He checks his watch. ‘They’re a good two hours away,’ he says. ‘So I have no idea when I’ll be back.’
‘Go,’ I say, nodding at him. ‘Don’t worry…’
He’s distracted now. Already thinking about what he needs to do, what he needs to say.
‘Just go and be brilliant,’ I add.
He beams at me and plonks a kiss on my nose. ‘Love you.’
‘I love you too.’
Seconds later he’s gone and the rush of his energy departing the room leaves it feeling strangely empty. I drift through to the kitchen to make a drink. Perhaps a little caffeine is all I need to get the day flowing but, even as I sit back at my desk sipping my coffee, I realise that it’s not going to help. I try holding one of my brushes, usually the thing that starts my creative juices flowing. Yet, despite the way I’ve been feeling about my work the last few days, the journey to that space feels laboured this morning. Even though a part of me is eager to continue with my work, I feel oddly inert and yet restless at the same time.
I look at the clock. There are hours ahead of me. I should be glad for the chance of uninterrupted work, it’s usually something that makes my fingers tingle with excitement, but today it’s almost as if I don’t want to be left alone with my tho
ughts. The brush stills in my hand. That’s exactly what it is. If I’m left alone with them, I’ll have to admit to what I’m thinking and I really don’t want to do that. I need to keep busy, but it’s not my work I need right now. I need industry of a different kind.
Rachel and Gerry will be here at the weekend and the spare room needs some work if it’s going to be a comfortable place for them to stay. A damn good clean will make the world of difference but the furniture is a bit of a hotchpotch too; random items left there from when we moved. Still, with a bit of effort I should be able to make it look presentable. I swallow the rest of my coffee and head back to the kitchen for some cleaning materials.
Except that, as I cross the landing, I’m drawn back into Lauren’s room, not at all surprised to find myself heading towards the window seat.
I was amazed to find it still here when we moved in, certain it would have been ripped out in an effort to modernise. Even more astonishing has been the way that Lauren has gravitated here, just as I did, and to see her occupying this same space yesterday brought forth a powerful emotion. And when I realised that the envelope on her lap was the same one I had hidden away all those years ago, it almost took my breath away.
A picture book rests on the seat cushion and I place it carefully on the bed before returning to yank the cushion from the seat and hurl it to the floor. Underneath the wooden lid is a useful storage cubby where Lauren has packed away some of her dolls and I pull them from the dark interior, the slightly musty smell of the old wood seeping through the cracks of my memories. My hands seek out the corner plank on the floor of the cubbyhole, testing, feeling. Out of sight, out of mind. For all these years.
I press the end closest to me, feeling the corresponding lift from the far end and, although my fingers are much larger than they used to be, with a bit of scraping of nails and jiggling of the wood I’m able to work it free, revealing the cavity beneath. The secret hiding place of my childhood.
I sit back on my haunches, my skin prickling with sudden heat as I recognise where I’m at. There’s a threshold here that once I cross there will be no going back from. If there’s anything still here. I take a deep breath, all at once realising that I desperately want there to be.
I should get a torch really. The space isn’t big, but it’s big enough to have filled with spiders and unmentionables of almost every variety. My fingers gingerly start to explore. At first there is nothing, a cold draught, something soft on the floor of the space, but then I touch the edges of a smooth surface, and I know that Lauren has replaced the envelope exactly where she found it. The pink envelope that came with a birthday card one year and in which, for reasons I forget now, I always placed my darkest fears. Maybe I thought that nothing could ever be that bad if I enclosed it in something so relentlessly cheerful.
There should only be one piece of paper inside it now. All the others I threw away as time rendered the petty upsets of my childhood innocuous: the day my pet hamster died; the time I ripped the hem of my party dress and was devastated; when I got into trouble for spilling blackcurrant juice all over the white tablecloth when my grandma came to stay. All gone, except this last one, a page torn from my favourite notebook and left with the house for safekeeping. It had seemed like the right thing to do when we moved; I hadn’t wanted to take it with me. And truly, up until now, I can’t remember ever thinking about what I had written. I didn’t need to – nothing like that had ever happened again.
My hands are trembling as I lift the envelope clear of the space that, until recently, has kept it hidden for twenty-three years. I was eleven when I wrote the letter. I don’t remember exactly when, but sometime in the weeks before we left and the golden, magical time that was Pevensey was over.
There are two other sheets of paper in here now – Tilly’s letter and perhaps a reply from Lauren – but I won’t read them. They’re private, and I know without looking which one’s mine. The paper is pale yellow, made crinkly around the edges from the damp space, and I open it up, the handwriting achingly familiar. It’s large and round, innocent. And it’s as if my old self is sitting here beside me now, except that she already knows what’s written on the piece of paper, and she’s waiting for me to read it so that we can compare notes. Did she feel the same back then as I do now?
I’ve had weird butterflies in my tummy all day today. Like when you know you’re in trouble or something bad happens. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen mummy crying before. She tried to pretend she wasn’t but her face was all red so I know she was because that’s just how mine goes.
I think it was because she and daddy were arguing. She shouts at me sometimes, but I’ve never heard her shout at him and he looked like he was crying too.
But I’m too scared to ask what’s wrong. Because when Drew’s mum was crying once, he asked her what was wrong and it was because his grandad had died. And I don’t want anyone to have died.
I stare at the words again. It’s not as if I remember them exactly, but I remember the feel of them. And she’s right, I have had weird butterflies in my tummy all day, just like she did. I’ve been trying to ignore them, but they’re there.
I never did find out why my mum was crying, or what she and Dad had argued about, but I guess it didn’t matter. People cry all the time. They argue too, and she and Dad were married right up until the day he died, so whatever it was couldn’t have been that serious.
I lower the paper to my lap. Perhaps that’s why I’m here today. To be given the proof by my younger self that, just because we feel something is wrong, doesn’t necessarily mean it is. Or at least it’s something that blows over, a storm in a teacup as my mum used to say. Maybe all I needed was to get things into perspective. To recognise that what felt important enough back then for me to write down and leave in my secret place turned out to be just a childish anxiety. I stare out the window, at the gilded trees outside. That would make sense.
Except… I shake my head, because there is something there, niggling me at the back of my mind. This isn’t just a memory I can close the door on, because there’s something stuck there, keeping it ajar. I look down at the envelope once more. It’s incredible that Lauren even found it in the first place, but she’s so like me at times it hurts. I wonder what she felt when she first discovered my letter. And when she read it. Has she worked out that I’m the little girl who wrote it? Has it made her feel safe, knowing that her worries are tucked away next to mine?
But I’ve lied to her. I told her that if she wrote them down they would disappear, and yet mine are still here, the ghostly fingers of their memory reaching out to me, ruffling the hairs on the back of my neck. A shiver ripples down my back and I thrust the letter inside the envelope, suddenly wanting it as far away as possible.
It takes only a moment to return it to the hiding place of my youth, to work the wooden slat into position and pile Lauren’s dolls back inside the cubbyhole, closing the lid. The cushion slides neatly over the top and, as if by magic, it’s just a reading seat again. As if the last few minutes never happened and the picture-postcard view of my childhood is no longer torn in two.
I’m about to leave the room when I remember Lauren’s book. I retrieve it from the bed, trying to recall how it was placed on the seat so that she won’t know I’ve been here. Something flutters from it to the floor. It’s a sheet of newspaper and, as I bend to pick it up, the butterflies in my stomach take flight.
Ten
The newspaper is yellowed with age, the edges rippled where it has succumbed to the damp, just like my letter.
The page facing me carries a huge advertisement for Butlin’s holiday camp, and I harbour a brief hope that it has been left behind for purely innocent reasons, a bit of fun maybe, like unearthing a time capsule in the garden. But I know that’s not going to be the case. Because the spot where Lauren found it is a place where secrets were kept.
A heavy thudding fills the centre of my chest as I open up the folded sheet to see what’s at its heart. Sp
read in front of me are pictures of the village from my childhood: the school still with its old sign in place, the church, the lane looking lovely with its summery gardens. And for a moment I believe that this might really be just a memento after all. Until I see the headline.
Because these photos aren’t in the paper to announce that the village has won an award for Britain in Bloom, or been voted one of the best places to live. They’re there as a reminder to people, to jog their memories in case they might be able to shed some light on who could have dragged a thirteen-year-old girl into the bushes on a warm summer night as she walked home from Guides.
I close my eyes and swallow. There is a faint clicking noise coming from some distant corner of the house, most likely the hot water system settling. Closer to me are the sound of blackbirds outside, trilling from the roof. But apart from these small reminders of normality, everything else has irrevocably changed. Because this newspaper is here, in my old house, and has been hidden alongside my letter in the bright-pink envelope, and I really don’t want to think about why that might be.
I scan the paper for clues; there are no names, just a date in June, but nothing to indicate which year and, as I turn the paper this way and that, I realise there’s no other date anywhere. I peer at the photos again, trying to work out when they would have been taken, but there’s no doubt in my mind that this is the incident that Anna had referred to. A crime where the perpetrator had never been found. I rack my brains, trawling my memory banks for the name Anna mentioned – Georgia Thomas – but there’s nothing. Not a single thing to tell me why this newspaper is here. My hand flies to my mouth as I suddenly realise what I’ve been reading. And, more to the point, who else has. There isn’t much detail in the article but the thought of Lauren looking at what little there is makes me feel sick.
