*
She almost wished she hadn’t finished her exams, because at least then there would be something to distract her. The need to know more about Peter was driving her mad. She could barely think of anything else. Ray had suggested they go ice-skating that afternoon. That would help to take her mind off it, but she couldn’t really afford it. What she should be doing, if she was being honest, was to be out looking for a temporary job – it was another three months before she started university, a good opportunity to build up some savings before she immersed herself in English literature for the next three years. But her mind kept returning to the fact that she’d once had a baby brother, and even though she couldn’t remember him properly she felt as though some part of her remembered missing him. The feeling was deep down, not just on the surface. When Elvis Presley died a few years ago, she’d read somewhere that he’d felt his entire life was blighted by the loss of his twin brother, who died before they were born. She understood that now. Poor Elvis. It was worse for him because he was there, right next to his brother in the womb when he died.
If only she had the photo; but her mum had stuffed it away somewhere, and whenever she raised the subject of Peter her mum looked devastated and left the room.
Restlessness danced around inside her like an itch. For the sake of something to do, she made herself some cheese on toast, shook a few drops of Lea & Perrins on top and took it through to the living room. There were plenty of snaps of her as a baby, so surely there were some of Peter as well? She could understand her mother not wanting to be reminded every day by having pictures of him in frames about the house, but she wouldn’t have destroyed them, surely? Maybe she’d put them away somewhere, like the wedding photos. As she ate, an image popped into her head. She put her plate down on the hearth and tore down the stairs to her mother’s room.
The moment she crossed the threshold, she once again had the feeling that she was being watched, and even though she knew there was no one else in the house, she moved quietly and carefully, tiptoeing across the carpet. This time she knew where to look; the other shoebox, the one full of papers. She found her parents’ marriage certificate; her father’s birth certificate; some papers referring to his National Service. Then there were several vaccination cards. She opened a white A5 envelope and inside was another birth certificate. This would be it. She unfolded the paper carefully and there it was: Twenty-second of October 1967, Lewisham Hospital, Peter Maurice, boy, Father, Edward John Crawford, Mother, Marjorie Elizabeth Crawford, formerly Lewis . . . So she’d been nearly three and a half when he was born. She thought about Ray’s little cousins Lisa and baby Lucy. Lisa was three, and was very aware of her baby sister, almost obsessed with her, in fact. The idea that if anything happened to Lucy Lisa would forget all about her was inconceivable. She tried to force her mind back, but her memories were so misty she wasn’t even sure if they were real memories, or if she’d conjured them up because she couldn’t remember. Then she realised there was something else in the envelope, another certificate. This was his death certificate. It was a different sort of paper; thicker, yellowish, and the lettering was in bold black type. There were several things written under Cause of death, but only one word jumped out at her: Drowning.
For a fleeting moment, she thought she’d made a mistake; maybe there had been another Peter Maurice Crawford. But no, the age was recorded as eight months. Drowning. But her mum said he was ill, and that’s why he died. Kneeling on the carpet with the certificate in her hand, she tried to make sense of it. An image flashed through her brain, too fast for her to examine it properly. A naked baby doll in the water; surely just a doll? Then her mother, screaming . . . No, it must be her imagination. But then, if she couldn’t remember standing next to her mother and holding Peter’s hand, which she knows happened because she’s seen the photographic evidence . . .
‘What the devil do you think you’re doing?’
Her whole body jumped. She hadn’t heard the front door, hadn’t even heard her mother coming down the stairs. She could feel the certificate in her hands. She wanted to fold it up and put it back in its envelope, but it was as if she’d been turned to stone. She wasn’t sure whether what she saw on her mum’s face was absolute fury, or . . . She looked almost frightened. ‘I . . .’ She swallowed, then got slowly to her feet. She’d been kneeling too long and she had pins and needles in her right leg. ‘Mum, I know this is upsetting for you. It’s . . . it’s awful, and I’m so sorry to upset you by bringing it all up. But—’
‘You’ve no idea, Eleanor,’ her mum said quietly, shaking her head.
At first she was going to say sorry again, but instead, feeling a surge of confidence, she said, ‘Why did you lie to me?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You said he was ill, or he had “problems”, or something like that. But it says here that he drowned.’
‘He wasn’t well. He had—’
‘But that isn’t why he died, is it? She looked at the death certificate again. ‘This says—’
‘I know what it says.’
‘So why didn’t you tell me?’
Her mother sighed. ‘What good would it have done?’
She felt a rage building up inside her that she’d never experienced before. ‘He was my brother; I was his sister. Didn’t I have a right to know? It’s as though you tried to wipe him out completely.’ She wasn’t actually shouting, but she could hear her voice getting louder and she could feel her face turning red. ‘You’ve never even mentioned him. I didn’t know he’d even been born, never mind that he drowned.’
Her mum was crying again now, and for some reason that made Eleanor even more angry.
‘Eleanor, he was . . . There were a lot of things wrong with Peter. I—’
‘Oh, so it was all right that he died, was it?’
Her mum slapped her cheek. ‘How dare you?’ she shrieked. ‘You know nothing about it, nothing.’
For a second, Eleanor was speechless. She’d never seen her mum in this state before, eyes blazing, face contorted with anger and tears pouring down her cheeks.
Then she screamed back, ‘How could I know anything about it? You didn’t bloody tell me!’
Her mother was at the door, her fingers on the handle. She half turned, and Eleanor thought she was going to shout again, but she spoke quietly, her voice half choked by tears. ‘It was you who put him in the bloody water, if you must know. That’s why we didn’t tell you.’
Eleanor, summer 1982
Eleanor lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been awake, but it felt like hours. Her neck felt hot, so she sat up and turned her pillow over, briefly soothed by the coolness of the cotton against her cheek. She closed her eyes and tried again to empty her mind.
It had been a horrible few weeks, and she’d never felt so strange. It was as though she didn’t know herself any more. She kept reflecting on the expression people used so often when they were unwell, I’m not really myself. That was how she felt, not herself; disconnected from who she had always thought she was. Before she’d found out about her brother, she was Eleanor Crawford, an ordinary, reasonably popular girl with a steady-but-not-serious boyfriend, a place on the English BA course at Reading University and what her careers adviser called a ‘well thought-out life plan’: degree, PGCE, teaching at primary level until she was ready to have her own children, and then a few years off to raise a family before considering the next phase of her life. Now she was Eleanor Crawford, one-time psychotherapy patient, responsible for the drowning of her baby brother. She’d put him in a paddling pool full of water, they told her. She vaguely remembered the shouting, people coming to the house, and her being sent up the road to stay with Peggy. And she remembered being taken to see Mr Greenfield, who had made her put her memories in a dustbin. Thanks to him, she didn’t remember actually doing it, or what had been going through her mind beforehand. Her memories of Peter were so fleeting, she had no idea whether she w
as just playing or whether she’d meant to hurt him, maybe out of jealousy. Whatever the reason, no primary school in its right mind would let her anywhere near small children. And even if no one ever found out, how could she possibly trust herself to be responsible for thirty-odd children? Part of her knew that such thoughts were irrational, but the fact that she still couldn’t remember exactly what had happened that day scared her. If she wasn’t in control of her own self, how could she possibly be responsible for anyone else?
Her mum was distraught after she’d blurted it out, and didn’t stop apologising for almost a week. When Peggy returned from Bristol, Eleanor had barely been able to bring herself to speak to her; she couldn’t remember ever being angry with her before. Peggy had always been her ally, the one she turned to when things weren’t going well with her mum, so knowing that Peggy had kept something so momentous from her all these years . . . it was hard to take. ‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart,’ Peggy kept saying. ‘It was what your mum and dad thought best, you see.’
Peggy had been there when it happened, it turned out. At least, she’d arrived almost immediately afterwards. She’d walked into the garden to find Eleanor hysterical because Marjorie had shouted at her and Marjorie herself practically catatonic with shock. It had been Peggy who’d called the ambulance, and then she’d taken Eleanor home to stay with her in the days after it happened.
Her mum and Peggy were being extra nice to her at the moment. They both kept telling her it wasn’t her fault: she was four years old; she couldn’t possibly be held responsible. ‘If it was anyone’s fault,’ her mum kept saying, ‘it was mine. I fell asleep when I should have been watching you. Everyone knows you don’t leave children unattended near water.’
Which was all very well, she thought as she turned over to try to get comfortable for the umpteenth time, but it was me who put him in the water.
*
She woke, as she had done every morning recently, feeling as though there was a heavy weight crushing her chest. It must be quite late, because the sunlight pouring through the open curtains was already hot, strong and bright. Her mother would probably have gone to work by now, and she was mildly relieved at not having to make conversation. She levered herself up onto her elbow to look at the clock, and as she did so, she felt a strange popping sensation on the back of her head. She felt a tickle as her hair brushed against her cheek and she instinctively put her hand up to sweep it back behind her ear, but as her fingers touched it, it came right away from her head. She sat up. Strands of loose hair covered the pillow. There was some on her nightdress, too. Tentatively, she reached up to touch her head and yet another strand came away. There was a fluttering sensation in her stomach and all at once she became acutely conscious of her own heartbeat. For some reason, she felt as though she shouldn’t move too quickly, so, slowly and carefully, she turned back the covers and eased herself out of bed, becoming instantly aware of clumps of loose hair falling from her shoulders as she did so.
She could feel the sun-warmed carpet beneath her bare feet as she walked over to the wardrobe mirror, taking great care not to make any sudden movements. She barely recognised her own reflection. Maybe it would have been better if her mother had hacked off her hair as a punishment; at least it would just be too short. But this was a horrible, uneven mess. On the left side of her head, the side where she usually slept, there were great clumps missing: large, bald patches where obscene white skin showed through. She turned her head. On the right-hand side, her hair looked almost normal – mousy blonde, still long and slightly wavy. She put her hand up to touch it; it felt normal, too. Carefully, she took a tendril between her thumb and forefinger and gave it a gentle tug. It felt okay. She tugged a little harder; still fine. She selected another, which also appeared to be firmly attached, and began to wind it around her finger like a corkscrew as she sometimes did when she was trying to encourage more waviness. She didn’t even feel the roots come away from her scalp; she was only aware of the sudden disconnection, the definite separateness of what was in her hand. She was shaking. She put her hand out to the dressing table to steady herself as she looked at the long, detached skein of hair that was now twisted around her finger, then she looked in the mirror again. She was like a witch, an ugly hag, a crone; she half expected her teeth to start falling out as well.
She should do something; see if her mother was still at home. But she stood still, as though rooted to the spot, staring at her reflection in horrified fascination. She turned her head slightly to the left and looked again at the bald patches on the right side of her head. There were three areas that were about the size of a ten-pence piece, and two much bigger patches. They were disgusting to look at; the skin of her scalp was almost bluish white. She felt embarrassed to see this skin exposed; it was intimate skin that should never be on public display, as though she was walking around with her private parts showing. How could she even leave the room looking like this? She edged slowly back to her bed. There were strands or clumps all over the bedclothes. She held her hand in front of her, unwound the detached hair and laid it out on her bedside cabinet. Then she began to collect up as much hair as she could. As she bent to pick up a couple of lengths off the rug next to her bed, a tendril that was still attached fell across her face and she absent-mindedly tucked it behind her left ear, only to realise that doing so had loosened it, and now it too came away in her trembling hand. Slowly, she made her way to the door and out into the hallway. Her knees were shaky. She put her hand on the banister and her foot on the bottom stair and, barely raising her voice above its usual level, called up to her mum. There was no answer. She could see from here that the door to the upper hallway was closed, but she felt frightened to walk up the stairs. Her teeth were beginning to chatter, despite the late August warmth. She had to try to get upstairs. Moving as slowly and smoothly as she could, she took the next step, and then the next, until she was at the top and able to open the heavy door to the upper hallway. ‘Mum?’ She called into the kitchen, but then she noticed that her mum’s car keys weren’t in the pot. Still moving slowly, she walked along the shared hallway and opened the door to the main front porch. Her heart sank when she saw that Peggy’s front door hadn’t been left on the latch, so she too must have gone to work.
She fought the tears as she stood there in her nightie, barefoot in the hallway. If she cried, the very action of doing so might loosen more hair. Eventually, moving as though she was carrying a glass of water on her head, she managed to get herself into the living room so she could phone her mother at work, then she sat as still as a stone on a hard chair and waited for her to come home.
‘Mum,’ she half sobbed as soon as she saw her. ‘What am I going to do?’
*
Over the next few days, more hair came away from her scalp. Then her eyelashes fell out, as did her eyebrows. So far, her pubic hair and the fine hairs on her arms and legs remained intact.
The doctor washed his hands. ‘Alopecia areata. Not uncommon.’ He was sympathetic, he said, and there were certain lotions that claimed to help, but he didn’t want to mislead her, and he didn’t hold out much hope that they would be able to halt the process. ‘You can try this one.’ He tore off a prescription. ‘But don’t get your hopes up, Eleanor. It might grow back in due course, but there are no guarantees, so in the meantime we need to get you fitted with a wig, okay?’ He smiled a big, broad smile.
No, Eleanor wanted to say, of course it’s not okay. I look like a freak. I’m eighteen; I don’t want to wear a wig like an old lady. What she actually said was, ‘How long will it take to grow back?’
His eyes flickered and he looked back at his prescription pad. ‘As I say, best not to get your hopes up. I’ll see you again in three weeks and we’ll take it from there.’
Eleanor: the present, Scalby
Everything’s fine, Peggy says when she phones. Marjorie has been no trouble at all; quite a few ‘good days’, in fact. The downstairs ceiling just needs a skim of plaster, then i
t’ll be ready for painting; the floorboards have dried out without warping and once the decorating’s finished, everything will be tickety-boo. Eleanor is reassured, but makes Peggy promise to call immediately if there are any concerns.
After dinner in the farm kitchen, most people drift over to the main sitting room, but she notices that Dylan has brought his sketch pad and drawing materials with him. He often spends his evenings here scratching away with pencils or charcoal, and in the past, if he’s drawing outside, Eleanor has gone with him to the clifftop to watch as he sketches the coastline or the view along to the ruined castle. She’s fascinated by the way he captures the whole feel of the seascape with a few careful strokes of his pencil. Sometimes, they walk along to the south bay so he can sketch families on the beach or the boats in the harbour, or they just hang around the farm while he draws what he sees, the comings and goings of the swallows that nest in the eaves, or the hens pecking around in the dust.
Tonight he wants to outline her head, her new hair. She protests gently but is secretly pleased. If it falls out again, as she fully expects it to, at least she’ll have a picture, something more than the rather blurry shots Jill took with her phone.
He raises his eyebrows in silent enquiry as he reaches for her head. She nods her permission and tips her head forward so he can touch her hair. ‘It’s such an interesting texture,’ he says, feeling around the roots with his slender fingers. ‘It’s almost feather-like. And the colour. There are so many different shades.’
‘It’s much lighter than it used to be. It was a horrible colour before. Mousy.’
‘I bet it wasn’t horrible. Women are always so self-critical. Now, sit here.’ He pulls the other bentwood chair away from her desk and places it in front of his own. He has positioned them by the window so he can make the most of the light. She likes watching him work, and as she listens to the sound of his pencil as it rasps over the page, she reflects on how he’s matured, and how they’ve both aged since they first met thirteen years ago. She is glad he’s filled out a little, thickened at the waist; her own waist is bigger than it was, too, though the daily physical work has kept her body strong and firm. Dylan’s face is more lined than most men of his age, probably because of all the time he spends outdoors, but it suits him. There are heavy creases around his eyes. Laughter lines. He laughs a lot; he always has. She wonders how he’ll portray her own wrinkles, which, while still minimal, are definitely starting to take hold.
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