The Girl Who Wasn't There

by Karen McCombie

  This time, it doesn’t work.

  ’Cause Donna is stepping closer to the window.

  She’s gone paler than pale.

  Like she’s seen a ghost…

  No, no, no!

  Has Kat appeared at the art room window?

  I flip around in a panic – and see nothing.

  Just a big, looming red-brick building, clouds buffeting across the rooftops, windows empty of life, dead or alive.

  My immediate reaction is to reach out to Donna, to touch her arm, ask if she’s all right – but I’ve only known her for about ten minutes, and it seems too much, too personal.

  Instead I look beyond her traumatized expression, the pain in her eyes, and reach out – in words, at least – for my sister.

  “Clem,” I say urgently. “Help me!”

  She turns from my books – just in time to see my curtains suddenly billowing.

  And Donna swaying, staggering, fainting…

  Look, I get most of the advice that Mum wrote in her notebook, I really do.

  But not all of it.

  That one where she says, Enjoy life. Enjoy every strange and unexpected twist and turn.

  How could she have written that, knowing a strange and unexpected twist or turn had landed her with an illness she’d never recover from?

  But that’s way back in the past, I suppose.

  Here and now, I’m not enjoying this particular strange and unexpected twist or turn.

  Donna is sitting next to Dad on the sofa, crying her eyes out.

  This getting-to-know-you visit with our maybe future stepmum isn’t exactly going great.

  To be honest, I’m scared – properly scared.

  To have her faint at my feet was one thing; to see her wordlessly sobbing now is another; but that look on her face at the window – I can’t get it out of my head.

  “Donna, please, please tell me what’s wrong!” says Dad, holding her tight, stroking the damp hair from her face.

  “Here,” says Clem, handing Donna a glass of water with ice cubes in it.

  She doesn’t seem to notice, so Dad takes it instead.

  “Thanks,” he mouths at my sister.

  “Should I call an ambulance? Maybe she hurt her head,” Clem suggests.

  “N–no, I don’t need an ambulance,” Donna manages to mutter, through her grief and tears and the soggy tissue covering her face.

  Meanwhile, I’m perched here on the edge of the coffee table like a frightened little kid, not knowing what to say, think, do.

  But spotting the dangling scrap of white paper in Dad’s girlfriend’s hand, I scrabble for the box of tissues next to me on the table.

  “Here,” I say, falling on to my knees in front of Donna, presenting her with the Kleenex.

  She doesn’t notice; her eyes are squeezed shut, her breath raspy and hiccuping with sobs.

  I’m thinking about placing the box gently on her lap when a sudden coolness swoops through me.

  A tiny flash of a memory hits me: scents of flowers from the garden, plucked petals on my jeans. Kat there in front of me as the truth dawned about who she was, what she was.

  My heart was racing, my head hurt … till Kat placed her hands on my knees, and I felt that soothing surge of a soft breeze brush over me, calming me.

  Is she here?

  Now?

  I glance around – there’s no one in the living room except me, Clem, Dad and Donna.

  But I’m sure she is here, somehow.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I sense a slight haze just in front of me, though I know if I blink it’ll be gone.

  A shift.

  That’s what it is.

  Her.

  It’s enough for me to understand and to use the unexpected coolness in me, in my fingertips, to reach out to Donna.

  I softly rest my hands palms down on her knees … and it happens.

  She takes a halting, gathering breath, and her shoulders relax; her eyes blink away the last of her tears.

  “Donna?” says Dad, relieved to see the change in her. “Can you tell us what’s wrong?”

  She nods. She gulps. She’s definitely better but it still takes her a few minutes to collect herself enough to talk, so I keep my borrowed, healing hands right where they are.

  “I didn’t want to come here today. I mean, I didn’t ever want to come here,” Donna finally says, and Dad looks instantly crestfallen. “And not because of you, Jack – or your girls!”

  Donna is staring at him, mascara smeared down her face, willing him to understand.

  “What do you mean?” says Dad, struggling to make sense of what Donna’s telling him.

  “This place … the school. It has really, really bad memories for me.”

  “But you said you grew up near the country park,” Clem butts in. “You didn’t go to school here, did you?”

  “No,” says Donna, with a shake of her head. “But my mother was head of the art department at Nightingale, and we lived a couple of streets away; I don’t remember the name of the road, I was too young at the time. My big sister … she was a Nightingale girl.”

  The coolness in me swooshes around, turning slightly icy.

  “Did something happen, Donna?” Dad asks, gently encouraging her.

  “My sister stayed after school every day – she was in lots of clubs and did sports. Then when our mother finished work, they’d walk home together and collect me from my childminder on the way.”

  None of us says anything. All of us breathe as quietly as we can, so we don’t disturb Donna, lost in her story.

  “But every Friday, as a treat, the childminder would drop me off at the school at three-thirty, and me and my sister would paint and draw and scribble till Mum finished tidying up. It was lovely. Lovely.”

  The icy whirls inside me are giving me the shivers.

  “But then there was the accident … it just felt so, so real again, seeing the school, the art room, and the roof terrace out of your window, Maisie!”

  Donna is crying again, but slow, steady streams of tears instead of the hiccuping sobs of a few minutes ago.

  “What happened?” I can’t help push her, as the ice speeds up and down my back, races round and round my chest.

  This might be it.

  The final piece of Kat’s puzzle.

  “We lost her,” Donna answers simply, broken-heartedly. “She went out on to the roof terrace, but no one knew why; my sister would’ve known that wasn’t allowed. And no one saw – Mum only realized when she heard her scream, when she saw the open window…”

  “Oh, no!” Dad gasps.

  “Omigod,” mumbles Clem.

  But I’m holding it together; I have to know as much as there is to know.

  “Katherine … she fell over the parapet?” I check.

  “Yes,” Donna nods, twisting the damp tissue into knots in her hand. “The school caretaker was first to get to her, but she was gone … gone. She was only thirteen.”

  Dad quickly passes the undrunk glass of water over to Clem, and now wraps his other arm around Donna, slowly rocking her as she sinks gratefully into him.

  Clem drops her head, bites her lip hard, lost for words.

  Me?

  I lay my head on Donna’s lap, since Kat wants me to.

  Same as I know she likes it very, very much when Donna lays a shaky hand on my hair and strokes it a few moments later.

  And now the iciness is fading.

  Kat’s ebbing away from me.

  I hope she’s OK.

  And in the sadness and muddle of the moment, I hope neither Clem, Dad or Donna realize I used Katherine’s name without being told what it was.

  “Can I make a suggestion?” Dad suddenly asks Donna. “It’s going to sound mad, but it might h
elp.”

  I think I know what he’s going to ask her to do.

  Pushing myself up on to my feet, I get ready to rush to the cupboard in the kitchen where Dad keeps his giant set of keys, if Donna answers yes…

  “Maisie! MAISIE!”

  It’s friendly, but it’s a shout that makes me stop in my tracks.

  You don’t ignore a friendly shout from your teacher, even when you are nearly home. (Even when home is only seventy-five steps across the playground and you’re on step sixty-nine.)

  I turn around and see Mrs Watson waving.

  Patience is at her side.

  I turn and walk back, wondering what’s up.

  Is Mrs Watson going to make a joke again about how distracted I was in registration this morning? “Hope your daydream is interesting, Miss Mills?” Mrs Watson teased when I didn’t notice her calling my name only a few feet away from me.

  I could hardly tell her I was lost in thoughts of yesterday evening’s strange and unexpected twists and turns.

  Lost in thoughts of Donna’s sad story, of Kat’s sad story.

  Of words that helped in Mum’s notebook: Sometimes things never quite make sense; you just have to accept that.

  Those helped ’cause while it seemed like I’d found an ending to my friend’s story, it still felt like a piece of the puzzle was lost somewhere, brushed under a carpet, chucked in a corner of the past where we’d never find it, Kat and me.

  And like Mum wrote – all those years ago – we’re just going to have to accept that.

  Unless Kat can remember what Katherine was doing out on the roof terrace…

  I need her to reappear. We need to talk.

  “Yes, Mrs Watson?” I call out to my teacher now, squashing thoughts of Kat to the back of my mind for a brief moment.

  “I’ve been trying to catch you between classes, but you’re an elusive girl!” she says with a wide smile.

  Not as elusive as Kat; every chance I got today I’ve been hurrying down dim and distant corridors, trying to glimpse her, even just a hint of her.

  “Anyway, I was chatting to Miss Carrera in the staffroom at lunchtime,” Mrs Watson carries on, regardless of my lack of explanation, “and she’s keen on spring cleaning the art room. Lots of the older art projects are getting a bit worn and torn and have been there since long before she started.”

  How funny.

  What would Miss Carrera and Mrs Watson think if they knew that Donna’s fingers brushed past the junk sculpture last night, sending spirals of dust into the evening air? Would they report Dad to the head teacher for breaking the rules and doing his girlfriend a kindness at the same time? (“Thanks,” we’d heard Donna say as she and Dad walked hand in hand across the playground after we’d taken the saddest walk down memory lane I can think of. “I think I needed to banish those demons…”)

  “So, I volunteered your services, Maisie!” Mrs Watson announces cheerfully. “Yours and Patience’s.”

  I can see where this is going.

  I can see Patience’s still face, her dark-brown eyes scanning me, wondering what I’ll make of this friendship matchmaking that Mrs Watson’s just sprung on us. (I’m sure that’s what it is.)

  “You two are just the ultra-keen helpers she needs. Starting tomorrow, you’ll grab a sandwich from the dining hall at lunchtime and take it up to her room, ready to start. All right?”

  It doesn’t matter how keen on this idea Mrs Watson is, Patience is hardly going to want to be forced into spending time with me. Is she?

  “Yes, miss!” says Patience, smiling up at our teacher, and then surprising me by continuing the smile, only in my direction.

  It must be an act, in front of Mrs Watson.

  She doesn’t really talk to me in class, so why would she—

  Oh.

  Behind Mrs Watson’s shoulder; against the slight darkness of the entrance through the double doors.

  A shift.

  A shimmer.

  A glimmer of a girl.

  She’s coming back to me.

  “That’s great,” I hurriedly say to Mrs Watson, flashing a quick smile back at Patience while I’m at it. “But I’d better go now – I have this … thing.”

  I turn and half-walk, half-run towards the side door of our cottage, knowing she’ll be following me, even be ahead of me.

  “Kat?” I call out, as soon as the door thunks closed at my back.

  I’m safe to shout, knowing that it’ll be another hour at least till Clem saunters home. And Dad is busy round the school, whistling with happiness, I’ll bet, after the watershed of last night.

  Kat’s not in the kitchen.

  Not in the living room.

  Not in my bedroom.

  Not in – oh!

  “What?!” Clem frowns at me from the floor of her room, where she’s kneeling. She has a knife in her hand.

  “I didn’t think you’d be home,” I tell her.

  “I cut the last lesson. Don’t tell Dad,” she says, then gleefully sticks the knife in her hideous carpet and drags it through with an ominous tearing noise.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, shocked at her vandalism, even if it is the ugliest piece of floor covering in the world.

  “It’s OK; Dad said I could. Donna told him we should get rid of it and paint the floorboards white, like she’s done in her flat. God, I love that woman!”

  “When did that happen?” I ask, thinking back to the conversation we’d had over tea, all huddled around the table in the glow of candles.

  “After you went to bed, sleepyhead!” She looks up from her work and grins at me.

  Of course I don’t tell Clem the truth. I didn’t head for bed last night because I was tired; I just wanted to watch the school from my room, to see if Kat was at her long window … but there was no sign, or shift, of her.

  “Anyway, go – you’re distracting me!” Clem orders, and I quickly pull her door shut.

  And then, as I stand on the airless landing, I smell lavender … roses … cut grass … damp earth…

  I know where she is.

  “Are you all right?” I ask, stepping out into the brightness of the back garden and seeing her there, sitting waiting for me in the summerhouse.

  “I’m OK, thanks,” she smiles, but her face is thin, and her head leans against the one of the glassless window frames, as if she hasn’t the energy to hold it up on her own.

  “You heard it all last night?” I check with her, as I carefully avoid the encroaching stinging nettles and splintered wood in the summerhouse.

  “Mm,” she murmurs, seeming exhausted but happy. “And it was so lovely to meet her.”

  “To ‘meet’ her? That’s a funny thing to say – Donna’s your sister!” I say, taking a seat opposite.

  “Hey, don’t forget; my Donna was that size,” Kat laughs, holding her hand out to toddler height. “My little star. I used to breathe on windows and draw these little stick figures of her. She loved it!”

  “You did that in my room the first time you came, remember?” I say, thinking too of the matching stick figures on the inside of the art room window.

  “Did I?” Kat says dreamily.

  Her memory really does come in flashes and snatches, drifting back and forth in time.

  “Kat, can you picture that day? Can you try really hard to think what happened to you before you fell?” I urge her, sensing that she’s tired but I’m desperate to see if her mind can reach out and grab a wisp of an answer.

  Kat closes her eyes tight, slaps her hands over her face, tries so hard to concentrate.

  I hold my breath, rigid with hope.

  Then she shakes her head, her bow flapping, her fingers falling away from her face.

  “It’s just sun and clouds and Donna’s giggles – and then nothing.”


  “Oh, Kat…” I sigh sorrowfully.

  My automatic reaction is to get up, go over and hug her, but before I do a shout jolts through me, anchoring me where I am.

  “Maisie! MAISIE!”

  It’s the second time I’ve been shouted at, but this time it sounds more urgent than friendly.

  “You’ve got to look at this!” Clem calls, hurrying towards me, her normally perfect hair bundled in a ponytail, messy carpet fibres coating her black leggings.

  She’s holding some folded paper in her hand.

  “Climb through,” I tell her, as she struggles to open the door to the summerhouse and fails.

  “Pile of old rubbish,” she mutters, hopping awkwardly in to join me and Kat.

  Though she doesn’t seem to have acknowledged Kat’s there.

  I glance over at my friend as my sister settles herself on the built-in wooden seat. Kat looks hazy to me, as if I have a filmy veil covering my eyes. She’s smiling softly and shaking her head, touching a finger to her lips, letting me know Clem can’t see her.

  “What’s up?” I ask, knowing that whatever it is, it has something to do with the flat folds of yellowed paper Clem’s carrying.

  “I found this under my carpet,” she tells me, holding up what I now recognize as a newspaper. The local newspaper, going by the title.

  “What’s that doing under your carpet?” I wonder, confused.

  “Before underlay was invented, people used to use old newspapers to line the floors, then put the new carpet down on top,” Clem explains wearily, annoyed at having to give me a social history lesson. “But that’s not the point.”

  “The point is…?” I try.

  “Read the date,” orders Clem, her navy-varnished nail tapping at a line of small text near the top of the page.

  “May fifteenth, nineteen eighty-seven,” I mutter, then the surprise sets in. “Has this got something to do with Donna’s sister?”

  “It’s got everything to do with Donna’s sister. Look!”

  With a rustle and a smooth of Clem’s hand, I find myself staring down at a front-page story.

  There’s a photo – taken with something like a fish-eye lens – of the Nightingale School playground. There are girls standing in huddles crying, or bending down to lay flowers near the main front doors.