by Rosy Thorton
‘Willow?’
It was his turn to nod.
She licked her dry lips. ‘What do you know? Who told you?’ Surely the firemen didn’t talk to every passer-by who called to take a look?
‘Here.’ Without releasing her hand, he reached to his jacket and a produced a bottle of water. ‘Drink?’
To take off the lid required both hands, and she drank deep and gratefully, but when she set the bottle down, he captured her fingers again.
‘How do you know about Willow?’ she asked again.
‘I had a call from the duty social worker. She’d had the police on to her. Wanted to know if I knew where she might be.’
Laura felt foolish then. How could she have forgotten that he was Willow’s social worker?
‘And do you? Know where she might be, that is?’
‘No.’
She examined his face. ‘You would tell me, if you did?’
The brown eyes met hers seriously. ‘Yes.’
Just then, there was a slight stirring from the bed by their side. They rose as one and bent over Beth. Her eyes opened, mistily at first, but then they cleared, and moved slowly from Laura to Vince and back again.
‘Hello, love,’ murmured Laura. ‘You’re all right, we’re here. Don’t try to talk.’
Vince nodded at the oxygen mask with its tapes and tubes, the white plastic reservoir bag which trailed beneath her chin, rising and falling with her breaths. ‘Nice beard, Santa.’
A grin was visible beneath the mask; one finger lifted from its place on the blanket and wiggled in his direction.
‘You need to rest,’ Laura told her daughter gently, but Beth’s eyes had already closed again.
Conscious all at once of her own tiredness, Laura sat back down on the chair and shut her eyes, while Vince slid to sit on the floor at her feet.
‘And as for your footwear,’ he said, ‘it’s quite the fashion statement. What’s with the dress, by the way?’
She opened one eye, narrowly. ‘I-I came out without much.’
There was mockery coming, she knew there was, she could see it in his face. But, ‘You look great,’ was all he said.
Neither of them spoke for some time, and Laura’s mind might have drifted towards sleep, had it not kept returning to the same stubborn, knotted thought.
‘I know it’s stupid. I know it makes no sense at all. But I can’t help feeling I want us to find her, get to her, before the police do.’
Vince squeezed her hand. ‘Yes, I know. Me, too.’
‘What time did you leave your flat?’
‘Not until almost seven. She hadn’t rung there, and her phone’s off. I’ve texted her, but she hasn’t replied.’
She had their mobile numbers, Laura’s and Beth’s as well as Vince’s. If she’d wanted to be in touch with them, she would have rung. Even without her own mobile, even if it was lost or burned, she could surely find a call box, borrow a phone …
‘I tried the hospital – the other hospital, I mean. I had some idea she might have gone there, to Marianne. But they couldn’t help. I spoke to a nurse on early duty, she said they hadn’t seen Willow since Monday. And in fact, she’s gone AWOL, too. Marianne – she seems to have done a bunk again.’
Oh, God. What a mess, as he had rightly said.
‘Where can she be, Vince? Do you think she’s all right? Oh, where in God’s name can Willow be?’
Her voice must have risen rather more than she’d intended. In the bed, Beth stirred again, shifting her legs beneath the blanket.
‘Are you OK, sweetheart? Do you need anything? Are the blankets too tight? Here, let me loosen them a bit.’
Beth shook her head impatiently, twisting it from side to side on the pillow as far as the network of tubes would allow. Behind the cone of perspex, she was mumbling something.
‘Don’t worry, love,’ said Laura. ‘Just keep calm, don’t try to speak.’
But Vince moved up to her head and loosened the tape at the side of her mask; it was only lightly connected, and with the tape undone it lifted away by a few inches with very little incumbrance.
‘What is it?’ he asked her quietly. ‘What did you want to say?’
Without the oxygen feed, her breathing was slightly more arduous, though the rhythm remained regular enough. She fixed Vince intently in her gaze, and a slight frown indented her brow.
‘Maybe,’ she said, and took a gulp of unenhanced hospital air.
‘Maybe?’ Laura drew closer, too, bending to survey her daughter’s face.
‘Maybe.’ Breathe. ‘The houseboats.’
‘Houseboats?’ For a second, Laura wondered if she had misheard – before she remembered, just as Beth gasped out the next two words.
‘Wicken.’ Breathe. ‘Fen.’
Vince slipped the mask back over Beth’s mouth and nose, and secured it in place with the tape. ‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘Just breathe now. Just try to relax, and breathe.’
Chapter 25
It was the glass in Willow’s wristwatch they had to thank for saving both their lives. It ought, by rights, to have been the smoke alarm, which Laura had screwed back into place, high on the pumphouse wall above the microwave, toaster and kettle, after they’d finished the decorating. But it was annoying there; the toaster was prone to jamming, and whenever it did, black smoke rose up and sent the alarm, at very first sniff, into its high, complaining wail. So Willow had climbed on a chair and lifted it down from its brackets, and stowed it in the wardrobe beneath a pile of magazines.
She wasn’t wearing the watch, which chafed her wrist in hot weather if she kept it on it at night; that fact also may have kept them both alive. She had placed it on the carpet, beside the book she’d been reading before she turned out the light.
Beth, in the end, had slept in the bed. She couldn’t get comfortable on the settee cushions, which shifted apart, she said, and left a gap whenever she tried to turn over. Willow offered to swap, and took the cushions herself. Once in the bed under Willow’s duvet, Beth was asleep in minutes. Willow took longer, not because she found the floor uncomfortable, nor due to the close-wrapped heat, but because she always liked to lie awake in the darkness for a while and listen to the noises of the night.
The sound which wakened her two hours later was not the familiar creak of cooling timber, nor the cry of a nocturnal bird, nor even the gurgle of the lode behind its bank, which could sometimes be heard through the pipework of the old pump. It was only a small noise, but she knew it at once for something unusual, something urgent. Though she didn’t recognise it, it was the snap of glass cracking in the face of her watch.
If she had not taken off the wristwatch; if she and Beth hadn’t swapped beds; if she hadn’t been on the floor, with her watch lying by her book, close to the pumphouse window, where the tossed match landed in the pool of spilled petrol. … But all these things did happen, and Willow woke up.
How strange it was, too, that fire itself should be so silent; that there was no audible whoosh as the flames swept across the sheet of lawnmower fuel and lit the carpet, no crackling as it embraced the slowly curling pages of her discarded paperback. How strange that the first sound she heard was the quiet crack of a small circle of glass.
As soon as she was half awake she felt the heat, and knew that this was not the warmth of a June heatwave but something hostile, to be flown from. Following first, unconscious instinct, she scrambled towards the door and the outside air and safety. Only when she lay panting on the cool grass did she remember where she was, and that she had not been alone in there.
There was no deliberate decision, no application of her surface mind at all. She simply stood up and walked back towards the pumphouse door.
The flames were clearly visible now through the open doorway, but they were centred over to the right, beneath the window, and not around the door itself, nor the bed, to the left. But the heat, as she came within a metre or so of the entrance was so intense that it almost beat her back; it f
elt like a solid thing, a wall of bruising, scouring brick through which she must somehow try to force a passage. She had on only shorts and a T shirt; the exposed skin of her arms and legs and face seemed to draw and lap the heat until it seared and smouldered from the inside.
But the smoke, the insidious, lethal smoke that wreathes around and penetrates and kills the sleeper before she wakes: for her that was the easy part. She’d practised so long and so often that it came as second nature. She emptied her lungs completely, so that she imagined them pressed out flat as burst balloons within her chest; then, with shoulders drawn back and throat thrown wide, she drew in as much as she could hold of the clean, cold, outdoor air.
One, two, three …
With lungs stopped tight and thought suppressed, Willow shut her eyes and stepped forward into the fire.
She’d smelt the petrol, even before she saw the empty can. Right from the first, on the floor of the pumphouse, before she was properly awake, before awareness of where she was or what was happening had imprinted itself on her brain, she’d caught the odour and known what it must mean. There was only one thing it could be, one person.
Petrol had a different smell from lighter fluid. It was heavier, more permeating, less pure and clean. But its effect was just as sure.
Her chest was close to bursting as she dragged Beth clear of the pumphouse door, and laid her on the lawn. She released her breath on three hundred and fifty-four. Beth had a pulse, and she was breathing, and Willow herself did little else for more than a minute. But then she was up on her feet, and looking around her, alert for a sign, a mark, a scent, that would set her on the trail.
Her mother.
She was out here through the smoke, somewhere in the scorched June night, and Willow had to find her.
At dawn’s light, when the reality of failure showed up stark and grey, she found herself on the road, where she flagged down an early farm truck, headed for Littleport laden with carrots. She didn’t know what to do, or where to go. All she knew was, she couldn’t go back. She couldn’t face Laura, and Beth, and Vince, with the enormity of what had happened, and of what she’d brought upon them.
So when the driver, whose name was Mick if his baseball cap could be believed, pulled over to let her in, she had no plan in her mind. She opened her mouth, said ‘Wicken’, and climbed up beside him.
She saw him looking at her bare feet, but he said nothing; on her side, she kept up a silence as off-putting as she dared, and hoped it was too early in the morning for sexual molestation. When he put her down in a layby on the edge of Wicken village, he gave her some gum and a can of Red Bull, and she felt a pang of guilt. She watched the truck go, and wished she could call it back.
She had only been here once, the day they didn’t go skating. But she remembered the sign, and the turning, and the lane that led down to the fen. The gravel hurt her feet, so she walked at the side on the narrow strip of grass verge, and braved the nettles instead. Where the metalled road ended, the going was easier. Here the track was soft, black dust, with ruts that still held slime, in spite of the weeks of drought. When she trod in the mud, it squeezed up in worms between her toes.
The two houseboats were still there, and still deserted. She chose the taller, stumpier boat, the one that was metal and going rusty. It was a haul to get herself up on the deck; she reached up and grabbed the edge, dragging herself up by her arms while she scrabbled for toeholds on the flaking hull. The door to the cabin was locked, but the hinges had disintegrated and it swung loose at the second good, strong tug. Inside it was dank and musty, calm and secret. For the first time she noticed the cold and wished she had a blanket.
Even without it, she curled up on the floor and was very soon asleep.
Stupid, was her first thought when she awoke. Without a watch she could only guess the time from the sun which streaked through the green and grime of the windows, discoloured, like swimming pool light, staining her flesh a pale turquoise. It must be around mid-morning.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. She should never have left. She should never have run off in the night on a stupid chase to nowhere and nothing. Marianne was her mother, but she was also Marianne, and there was nothing Willow could do about it. She should have stayed; she shouldn’t have left Beth. She was only a kid, and she should have stayed with her. Stupid stupid stupid.
If only she had her phone. She would ring Vince, or Laura, and they would come and get her, take her home. She wanted them here, she wanted the three of them: Vince and Laura and Beth. She wanted Ninepins. She wanted to go home.
Clambering stiffly to her feet, she moved to the cabin window and, pulling down the sleeve of her T shirt to cover her elbow, wiped a swathe through the dirt and condensation. The morning sun was bright, winking and fragmenting in the smear of moisture that remained, so that at first she couldn’t be certain of what she saw. Two figures, close together, dark against the dazzle of the day. But as they drew nearer, her heart jumped and she knew that there was no mistake. It was Laura and Vince, walking side by side along the river bank towards her.
Chapter 26
On Sunday evening Laura made pizza for supper again. She did it the cheat’s way, slitting baguettes in half lengthways and topping them with the tomato and cheese. The mozzarella, this time, was the vacuum-packed supermarket variety, and well within its sell-by date.
Beth and Willow were supposed to be helping, but mostly they were sitting at the kitchen table and feeding themselves by the handful on the olives and peppers and sliced salami that Laura had laid out in bowls.
‘Hey, you two. There’ll be nothing left to put on the pizzas.’
‘Never mind,’ said Beth, giggling. ‘Make mine a Margherita.’
‘And what about Vince? At this rate, it’ll be all gone before he even gets here.’
‘ ’S’OK.’ Willow grinned. ‘He likes Margheritas, too.’
‘Here, Mum. Have an olive and shut up.’
It was their first evening back together. Willow had come home with Laura and Vince on the Saturday, though she’d had to go out again in the afternoon, when Vince drove her to Cambridge to make a statement at the police station. When they had gone, and before she herself drove back to the hospital, Laura went up to the spare bedroom and opened the window wide to let in some fresh air. Still on the night stand, untouched and unharmed, sat the old, blue shoebox. She folded up the rose pattern bedspread and laid it back in the linen chest, closing the lid with a smile. Willow could have her own spare duvet for now, and on Monday they’d go shopping and buy her a new one. Plus maybe some cushions, perhaps, if she wanted them, and posters for the walls; it was rather plain in here.
Beth, to her immense chagrin, had been kept in a second night for observation. Her fever to be out of the bed and back home to Ninepins was a testament to her recovery, which was rapid and robust. She could patter out long sentences now and hardly seem to draw breath, though a hospital pallor still lingered in her cheeks, and every so often she gave a dry, rasping cough.
Vince, when he came, brought wine as usual, and a pack of Diet Cokes.
‘I’ve noticed,’ he said to Willow, ‘that Laura keeps a rather too virtuous fridge. We may need to work on that.’
They shared out what was left of the toppings between the eight halved baguettes and ate them in their fingers, scalding from the grill. There was salad, ready-washed from a bag, and Laura let them eat that with their hands as well.
‘Things taste better in your fingers,’ Vince informed them. ‘It’s a scientific fact.’ And Laura, pulling a slice of salami off her pizza and rolling it up to push in her mouth, decided the scientists might be right.
There were fresh cherries for pudding, and cream meringues.
‘Can me and Willow take ours to the tree house and have it there? We want to watch when it starts to rain.’
‘All right – go on, then.’
From early in the morning, clouds had been gathering in the western sky, the first they had
seen in what felt like forever. They had stacked and swelled until by lunchtime the whole sky was overcast, but there had been no sign yet of the rain, which must surely come before nightfall.
When they were gone, Vince refilled their wine glasses; she handed him a plate with a meringue, and pushed the open bag of cherries in his direction.
‘She’s different, you know, since she’s been here with you.’ He twisted off a cherry stalk. ‘Willow – she’s a different person.’
‘She’s seventeen, eighteen very soon. She’s growing up.’
‘No.’ He put the cherry down on his plate. ‘I don’t just mean that. She’s changing, really changing. She’s more … open. Open to things, and to people. It’s as if she’s finally learning to breathe freely.’
They both sipped their wine, thinking their own thoughts. Presently, Laura asked, ‘What did they say at the police station?’ She hesitated, before adding, ‘If it’s not confidential.’
‘Oh, it is, almost certainly.’ Then he grinned. ‘But confidentially, I don’t care.’
She offered a grin back. ‘So, what happened?’
‘Willow gave her statement, and they put it on file. They picked up Marianne last night, along the lode towards Wicken. She was down near the sluice, they said, standing in the water, ankle deep. She didn’t deny what had happened; her hair was soaked in petrol. They’ll be thinking about charges, of course.’
There lurked, underneath, the gnawing question. ‘Why, Vince? Why do you think she did it?’
Looking sad, he shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know. She may not know the reason why herself – or even really be aware of what she’s done. Could be jealousy, maybe? Of Willow, of you, of us? But she hears things, remember; she hears voices. Her reality is not the same as other people’s.’
Stories, remembered Laura, out of nowhere; she told amazing stories.
