by Linda Green
‘You’re a size 10 in children’s,’ I tell her.
‘Have you got them in your shoe shop?’
I smile at her. ‘It’s not exactly a shop but I should have. Matthew would have been the same size as you at some point.’
‘What size is he now?’
‘Nine in adults,’ I reply.
‘Will my feet grow that big?’
‘No. Ladies’ feet are smaller. Not to mention more fragrant.’
I have another rummage. The sizes have rubbed off on some of them so I try to gauge the size just by looking.
‘Here, try these,’ I say, handing her a pair of blue slippers. She puts them on her bare feet, but when she takes a step they slip off her heels.
‘OK,’ I say, taking another look. ‘What about these?’
She tries the red pair I hand her. Matthew was not fussy about colours at that age.
‘I like them,’ she says putting them on and taking a few steps. ‘Did Matthew like them?’
‘Oh yes,’ I reply. ‘They were his favourites.’ She seems placated for the moment.
‘Right, let’s go downstairs. Have you been to the toilet this morning?’
The child nods her head. ‘In the green bathroom.’
‘For a number one or a number two?’
She bites her lip, a frown starts to gather on her forehead and she fiddles with a strand of hair.
‘I don’t know,’ she says finally. ‘We don’t do numbers, but I had a wee.’
I nod at her. ‘That’s a number one in this house,’ I say.
‘And is a p—’
‘Yes,’ I interrupt. ‘Now let’s go down for breakfast. Melody will be wanting feeding too.’
Her face brightens a little. ‘Can I feed her? Can I give her some biscuits? I haven’t got Germolene on my fingers.’
‘You may do. And then we’ll have breakfast together.’
‘And then Daddy will come to take me home.’
I look at her and away again without responding. Cruel to be kind, I tell myself. Cruel to be kind.
Melody comes to meet us at the foot of the stairs. She rubs around my ankles but appears confused because she’s missed the opportunity to wake me.
‘It’s OK, we’re up earlier than usual this morning, you haven’t missed out on anything.’ The child squats down to stroke her. I make sure she smooths the fur in the correct direction.
‘Biscuit time, Melody,’ the child says in her sing-song voice. Melody’s ears prick up. I think she will like it. Having a young child in the house. I think we both will.
I leave the two of them together and go through to the kitchen, fill the kettle and flick the switch before busying myself with the crumpets. For a brief moment my mind wanders to what will be going on in their house. I don’t suppose either of her parents will have slept much. I see tired faces, hands clutching coffee mugs. I get no satisfaction from other people’s suffering. But I also know I must stay strong for the child’s sake. She deserves a better life than the one she had there, and in time even she will understand that. One day, when she has grown up, she may even thank me. Not that I am doing this for gratitude. I am doing it because it is the right thing to do. So often these days people shy away from doing the right thing. They want it easy, you see. They want everything handed to them on a plate, washed, prepared and ready to consume. They sell carrot sticks in Marks & Spencer, for goodness’ sake.
My mother lived through the war in London. She understood the true meaning of hardship. Of fighting against the forces of evil, how you must never let your guard drop, even for a minute. Because it is a slippery slope, oh my, how slippery, once your standards start to fall. Before you know it you end up on the wrong side. Justifying behaviour which you know to be wrong, all because it is the easy thing to do.
I warm the pot for a moment before measuring in the loose-leaf tea, the scent of Earl Grey rising with the steam as I pour the water in. I give it a stir then pop the lid on, followed by the cosy. I knitted it myself, I think around the time I was knitting bootees for Matthew. Things last a long time if you take care of them.
Melody walks into the kitchen closely followed by the child.
‘Can I give her the biscuits now?’ she asks.
‘You may do. I’ll get them for you.’ I bend down and open the bottom cupboard, take out the pouch and hand it to her.
‘Just pour some into there,’ I say, pointing to the ceramic bowl in the corner. The child follows my instructions, glancing up after a moment to check if she’s poured the right amount.
‘That’s right. A few more should do it.’ Melody dives in without waiting for her to finish. The child hands the pouch back to me.
‘I want to go home now,’ she says.
‘Breakfast,’ I reply. ‘We’re going to have crumpets, remember?’
*
As soon as she finishes her last mouthful I take her by the hand and lead her upstairs. Keeping busy, that is the key to this. If I talk to her while I am getting her dressed she won’t be paying as much attention to what I am saying.
We go into Matthew’s room together. I open the curtains and the early-morning sunlight catches the child’s hair. Every strand a different shade to the one next to it. I reach out and stroke it, finding myself humming as I do so. Schubert. I used to stroke Matthew’s hair sometimes as he played it on the piano.
‘Will Mummy be cross about my hair?’ she asks.
‘Your hair looks lovely. And it is far more practical to have it out of your eyes.’
‘Tell Daddy that you did it when he comes. Mummy doesn’t let me play with scissors.’
I snort. That’s a first, a safety concern in the child’s household.
‘The thing is, dear, Daddy won’t be coming for you today. He’s asked me to look after you a little longer. Your Mummy’s poorly, you see. She’s not really up to looking after you.’
‘Daddy can look after me.’
‘I expect he’ll be working. He does work, I take it?’
The child nods. ‘Grandma looks after me when Mummy and Daddy are working.’
‘Well, not today she isn’t. They’ve asked me to take care of you.’
I am aware of the sharpness in my tone as soon as I say it. It is hard. She doesn’t understand that this is for her own good. The child starts crying.
‘I want to go home.’
‘Come along now, there’s no need for that. We can have lots of fun together.’
‘I want to go home.’
‘You can play with Melody.’
‘I want my mummy.’
‘I’m sure we’ll have a lovely time together.’
‘I want to go back to the park. I want my mummy.’ She is shouting now, on the verge of screaming. It is like firefighting in the Australian bush. Every time you think you have put it out you turn round and another one has started. I go to embrace her but she pushes me away. She is not an attractive crier. Few children are. Matthew was an exception. He cried so elegantly. One dainty tear, dripping down his face, followed by another. The rest of his face remaining calm and still as if he was one of those baby dolls which you can make cry by turning a wheel at the back.
‘Let’s get you dressed and then we can go upstairs and find Matthew’s toys.’
‘I don’t want to get dressed.’
She is simply opposing everything I say now. But the tears are diminishing ever so slightly. If I can get her up to the toys it might just break it. I bring over the green dungarees, beige top and white briefs and socks which I dug out from the spare room earlier.
‘I want to wear my striped dress,’ she sobs.
‘Well you can’t, I’m afraid. It’s gone in the wash along with your leggings. Covered in dust and grass stains from the park they were.’
‘I don’t care. I want to wear them.’
I take off her pyjama top before she has even realised what I am doing and manage to get Matthew’s top over her head. His face smiles back at me, a bit of
Marmite smeared on the corner of his mouth. I get a wet flannel and dab it. He giggles. Always a smile. Always a cheery face.
‘I don’t like them. I don’t want to wear them.’
‘Right, pyjama bottoms off and on with your knick-knacks.’ When she doesn’t move I whip the bottoms down myself. She steps out of them without a protest and I hold the pants for her to step into.
‘They’re boys’ pants not knickers,’ she says.
‘Well, they’re the best I can do for now, I’m afraid. They’re clean, that’s all that’s important.’
She gingerly raises one foot at a time and steps inside. I pull them up for her. They are a bit baggy but will do the job. The dungarees are obviously going to be more difficult to get on. She fidgets and pushes my hand away as I try to clip the straps.
‘I want my stripy dress. I don’t want to wear these.’
I take deep breaths and say nothing. If I ignore her protests she may get tired of them. So many people give in to their children’s demands. And then they wonder why they keep pestering them.
Finally I manage to clip the straps into place. The dungarees suit the child. I do not hold with this urge to differentiate between genders so early. They are children and should be treated as such, not dressed as pink princesses or Premiership footballers. No wonder they start having sex so early. They are being primed for it from the time they are toddlers.
‘There we are,’ I say. ‘That wasn’t too bad, was it? We’ll just pop your socks on and I’ll take you up to see Matthew’s toys.’
The child looks up at me, a combination of anger, resignation and curiosity in her eyes as she points her toes to allow me to pull the socks on.
‘What toys has he got?’
Curiosity has won out. I smile and take her hand. ‘Let’s go and see. You can choose three toys you’d like to play with today and I’ll bring them downstairs.’
‘Won’t he mind?’
‘No, not at all. He’ll be pleased someone else is enjoying them.’
‘Mummy says I have to ask Otis before I borrow his toys.’
‘Yes, well, he lives with you, doesn’t he?’
‘And Matthew doesn’t because he’s a big boy.’
‘That’s right.’
She comes upstairs with me without any further protest.
‘Why have you got two lots of stairs?’
‘It’s an old Victorian house. They often had three floors. The servants’ quarters would have been up here.’
She looks at me blankly.
‘Servants are people who clean and cook for you.’
‘Do you have servants?’
I smile down at her. ‘No, dear. I use it as a storeroom. It’s where I keep Matthew’s things.’
We reach the top of the stairs. Matthew is in the box room. I can hear him playing on the glockenspiel. I wonder for a moment if he is doing it in protest. If he does not want some other child trampling over and playing with his things. I don’t think he is though. I think it is more of a welcome. I turn and look down at the child. She can’t hear the music, but it is enough for me to know that he was playing.
I turn the door handle and the music stops. We walk into a silent room. Only in my ears is the music still ringing.
I hear an intake of breath from the child. I look down and her face has brightened considerably. The tears dried and forgotten.
‘You can have a look at them,’ I tell her. ‘Just be careful with things and ask if you’d like me to get anything out.’
She squats down in front of me and peers into the mass of toys.
‘There’s a rocking horse,’ she squeals. ‘Matthew has a rocking horse.’
‘Yes, that’s Rocky. Would you like a ride on him?’
She nods vigorously. I step over a few things to reach him and manage to slide him out so that she can climb on board. She sits tall in the painted saddle and rocks gently back and forth a few times before gaining in confidence and rocking more vigorously. The child’s face is beginning to blur. The lips are fuller, nose slightly broader. He rocks so hard I fear he is going to tip over and fly off, either that or grind himself through the floorboards. He doesn’t though. He always come back to me smiling. Always.
The doorbell rings downstairs. I hear it only faintly at first but then it rings again. Whoever’s finger is on the bell sounds impatient. It will probably be the postman – he never stops even to pass the time of day. I glance down at the child. She is in a world of her own. She will not notice if I slip away. But if he keeps ringing the bell she may hear it and run downstairs. I back out of the room and silently close the door behind me before hurrying down both flights of stairs. It suddenly occurs to me that it could be the father. That someone could have seen me with the child yesterday and told them. My throat tightens as I reach out and open the door. It is not the father though. It is a police officer. My fingers grip the door handle tightly. So tightly that I fear I might snap it clean off. I can’t work out how they know. How they found me so quickly. And then I look at his face and see that he is smiling, and I look down and see the pile of leaflets in his hand. Further down the road there are other police officers knocking on doors. He doesn’t know at all. I let go of the handle, put my other hand on the door frame to support myself, relieved that the shoe rack is safely out of view behind the door.
‘Hello, I’m a police community support officer,’ he says, flashing an ID card at me. ‘Sorry to disturb you so early on a Saturday morning. We’re doing house-to-house enquiries regarding the little girl who’s gone missing. You may have heard about it on the news.’
I shake my head. ‘No.’
‘Oh. Well, her name is Ella Dale, she’s four years old, and this is what she looks like.’ He holds up a flyer with a photo of the child on. She is wearing the stripy dress. The same one she had on yesterday. The one which is in my washing machine. I ease the door closed a little, trying to work out how I will stop him if he asks to come in.
‘Right. Well I haven’t been out so I’m afraid I can’t help.’
‘Do you have any outbuildings? Only we need to check any sheds or other buildings which are left unlocked. Places she may have climbed into.’
‘Only a garden tool store. It’s there,’ I say, pointing to the corner of the front garden. ‘And it has a padlock on.’
He goes up to it and checks the padlock before coming back to me.
‘Well, thank you for your time, and if you do see or hear anything suspicious please do call us.’ He hands me a flyer as he says it. I take it without looking and manage to force the corners of my mouth up slightly.
‘Thank you, officer,’ I say, shutting the door quickly. I turn and start as I see the child peering down through the banisters at the top of the stairs.
‘Why did the policeman come?’ she asks. I keep my left hand, the one with the flyer in, behind me. I try to stop my other hand shaking.
‘Just to tell us it’s still not safe to go to the park.’
‘Because of the naughty boys?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why doesn’t he tell them to go home?’
‘He does, but they keep coming back.’
‘The big boys are always naughty. Otis is sometimes a bit naughty but not as naughty as the big boys.’
I am aware that I need her to go away so I can hide the flyer.
‘Would you like me to bring the rocking horse down so you can play on it?’
She nods.
‘OK, you run upstairs and tell Rocky, and I’ll be there in a minute.’
She turns and hurries up the stairs. I wait until I hear her get to the top of the second flight before I bring my left hand out from behind me and look again at her photograph.
She looks very different now, with her haircut and Matthew’s clothes. Almost unrecognisable in fact. I fold the flyer in half and put it in the pocket of a jacket hanging on the coat pegs. I stand still for a moment. There is no way back now. I know that. I have to wait u
ntil they dig deep enough to find out the truth about the mother. I have no idea how long that could take.
I pick up my mobile phone from the hall table and turn it on. I very rarely use it. It is more for parents to leave messages than anything. They all seem to want to text these days. Anything to avoid conversation, it seems.
I type in the message. It takes a long time as I have one of those older-style phones. It doesn’t have the predictive thing. I keep the message brief and impersonal. ‘Apologies, all piano lessons cancelled for the next week due to illness. Miss Norgate.’
I send it to the list of parents in my address book. I realise belatedly that Olivia Harper’s lesson is at two o’clock this afternoon. It is very short notice. I should ring her parents and apologise in person. But if I do that they will ask me what is wrong and I will have to make something up and then it will all get difficult. And it is difficult enough as it is.
I climb the stairs, pausing on the first landing to look out of the window. There are three police cars parked further up the road. There appears to be a lot of activity in the park. Matthew will not like it. I know exactly what he will be doing. Covering his ears and singing ‘la, la, la’ at the top of his voice.
Matthew
Monday, 3 March 2014
It’s like Mum has done something to piss off God (yeah, I know there isn’t one but just go with it), and he’s decided to throw a whole load of crap down to see how she copes with it. Nan’s died. She was eighty-five so it’s not like it’s a big deal or anything, but I guess it’s still a bit of a shock – it has been for Mum anyway. I mean Nan didn’t have cancer or anything and she still had all her marbles, and I have the feeling Mum thought she was just kind of invincible, like one of those old bids who goes on till she’s one hundred. Only she wasn’t.
It was Mum who found her. I’ve never seen a dead body, not in real life anyway. I guess it must freak you out a bit. Mum went to see her as usual on Thursday morning and let herself in, and Nan didn’t call out or anything and she wasn’t in her armchair so Mum went upstairs and found her dead in bed. She didn’t say much about what happened after that but it can’t have been very nice. She’s been really quiet since, even at meal times when she usually does that making-conversation thing. I don’t think she’s really got over Dad leaving and now this. I mean this has to be one of the crappiest starts to a year ever. The funeral’s next week. I’ve never been to a funeral before. I was only nine when Grandad died and Mum said it wasn’t the done thing for children to go to funerals. Valerie next door but one looked after me. I remember we played board games and she let me watch Newsround because she didn’t know that Mum didn’t usually let me see it.
