by Linda Green
‘That’s because you’re going to write your name on it.’
She looks up at me doubtfully.
‘My E for Ella is a bit wonky.’
‘Well, practice makes perfect. Let’s see how you get on.’
The child picks up the pencil and starts to carve her name onto the front of the book, her fingers gripping the pencil tightly. When she is finished she holds it up to me for inspection. The letters are all of different sizes but she is at least consistent in using capitals.
‘There, you’ve got the letters right. I expect you found it easier without your hair getting in your eyes.’
She shrugs. Releases her grip on the pencil a little.
‘Right. Well, before we progress to the whole alphabet, we’re going to learn about pencil control. I’ve got some writing exercises here for you to practise. Just copy the lines you see onto your page. It doesn’t matter if you go wrong; simply start again.’ I remember all this from when Matthew started at The Grange. The hours he spent at home following lines with his pencil. He was always such a meticulous child and so conscientious. Not the easiest of combinations, either for him or me as a mother. A lifetime of worry, that is what Malcolm used to say we had in store. He was right too. Although I don’t suppose he would even remember that now.
I look down as the pencil lead snaps. It is not surprising considering how hard she is pressing. She is looking up at me, unsure how I will react.
‘Never mind. I’ll sharpen it for you. You don’t need to press so hard, though.’
‘My fingers hurt. Can we do something else now?’
‘You’ve hardly started.’
‘Miss Roberts has an aliens’ corner in her classroom. She has lots of pants pinned up on the line, like in the Aliens Love Underpants book.’
This is why I sent Matthew to The Grange. For a proper education. Rather than fill his head with all this other nonsense. It is too late to get the child in there, of course. You have to put their names down early. Before they are born even. Baby Thornton, that’s what they wrote down for Matthew. I had to make it clear that I was Miss Norgate only professionally. As a parent I was to be known as Mrs Thornton. It was a little confusing. School fees to pay as one person and music teacher salary paid to me as another. Some of the mothers in Matthew’s class didn’t even know that I was one and the same person. I liked keeping things strictly professional though. Even Matthew had to call me Miss Norgate when I taught his class. He came out one afternoon in tears, saying one of his classmates didn’t believe I was his mother. I remember being touched that it mattered so much to him that they knew.
I miss it sometimes. Being in that professional environment. You command far more respect as a school teacher than you do when giving private lessons. But what’s done is done. I do at least still get to call myself Miss Norgate to my private pupils. There is far too much informality around. These teachers who ask the children to call them by their first names and then wonder why they don’t show any respect for them.
I look down at the child, realising that she is still waiting for a response. ‘We will play in the afternoons. The mornings are for working.’
‘Are we going to make an aliens’ corner?’
‘No. We shall play the piano and perhaps do some sewing cards or baking.’
The child is looking at me. It doesn’t appear to be the answer she was hoping for.
‘We’ll still have lots of fun,’ I add, ‘but it will be the right sort of fun.’ I think for a minute she is going to have another meltdown but when I hand her the sharpened pencil she looks at it closely and goes back to her writing.
A moment later the lead has snapped again.
‘Oops,’ she says.
‘What has happened to those delicate fingers which played the piano so beautifully?’
‘It hurts my fingers to write.’
‘Because you are gripping too hard.’
‘Are we going to have break time? Miss Roberts has break time and you get to play in the sand pit and there are swirly patterns on the playground you can run round but they haven’t got a slide.’
‘When we’ve done some more writing you can have a break time.’
‘Will we play outside?’
‘You know we can’t do that.’
‘Because of the naughty boys?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What will we do then?’
‘You can have a glass of milk.’
‘Do they have milk at big school?’
‘Not now. They used to, though.’
‘Did Matthew have milk at school?’
‘No. Only at breakfast and when he came home.’
‘Will Melody have milk too?’
‘I expect so. You can pour it for her if you like.’
‘Does Otis ever give her milk?’
‘No.’
‘Is it milk time yet?’
‘Do you ever stop asking questions?’
She gives a little shrug.
‘You will have your milk break when you’ve finished your writing.’ The child looks down at her broken pencil.
‘Here,’ I say with a sigh. ‘Let me sharpen it for you.’
*
I give up after another twenty minutes. There is no point in pushing the child on the first day. Their fingers and thumbs are used to touch screens these days, not holding a pencil.
She drinks her milk in silence. Her mind appears to be elsewhere. At the school she was due to attend perhaps. There will be an empty desk in her classroom. An empty coat peg on the wall. It is a shame, of course. That we have to do it this way. But sometimes the end justifies the means, and this is one of those occasions. It is such an underrated skill, parenting. People think it is instinctive. That the second you give birth to a child you will know the right thing to do. You don’t though. I can still taste the fear of when I first held Matthew in my arms, realising that this little person was utterly dependent on me and no one was going to provide the answers; I had to work them out for myself. It is easy for the father. They have to provide for children, yes, set a good example and be there to play ball games with them when they are older, but essentially it is the mother’s responsibility to raise them. To ensure they know right from wrong. Keep them from straying onto the wrong path. I realised that as I held him. That his future lay in my hands. I told him there and then, bent down and whispered in his ear. That I would do right by him. That if he listened to me, did as he was told, he would be fine. All he had to do was keep listening to me. I wasn’t to know, of course. That someone would try to drown my words out. Shout in his other ear. Attempt to turn him against me. Because she wanted him for herself. If I had known that I would have added one final piece of advice: never trust anyone apart from me. Because no one can ever love you more than your own mother.
The child finishes her milk.
‘What are we doing now?’ she asks.
‘Your numbers,’ I say.
‘I can count already. I can count up to one hundred. Mummy was counting to one hundred when we came to hide at your house.’
*
I print the photograph out after lunch, while the child is playing with Melody. I use the proper photo paper and for once the printer doesn’t leave any smudges, which is good. I want it to be special, this first photograph. One to treasure. I do not have any spare frames so I go to the landing and look at the pictures on the wall. I find the duplicate photograph of Matthew quite quickly. We gave it to my mother, and when she died I brought it back here along with the others. We already had the same photograph downstairs, so I put it up here on the landing. I’m not sure Matthew ever noticed. If he did, he never said anything. And Malcolm was gone by then. Not that he’d have noticed either.
I take the frame down and turn it over, easing the catches out with my thumb and lifting out the back. I take the photo out and turn it over. Matthew smiles back at me uncertainly. I think the school photographer used to scare him. He was one of those men
who was over-jolly with children. Loud and more than a little ridiculous. I suspect he reminded Matthew of the clowns at the circus. We only ever went to the circus once. We left before the interval.
I put the photograph to one side and replace it with the new one. I put the back on, forcing down the catches to secure it, before turning it over and looking. The child smiles back at me a little uncertainly. But in time she will trust me. Learn to listen to me and only me. And to ignore the other voices.
Matthew
Saturday, 10 May 2014
This is getting so hard now it’s starting to do my head in. Mum has got no one left apart from me so it’s like she’s following me with laser eyes and BFG ears and some sort of sixth-sense thing. Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe without her permission. I mean I’m eighteen, for fuck’s sake. I could be married or working or fighting for my country. I’m not some little kid, but she still acts like I am and expects me to be home for every single meal, and if I’m not I get the evil eye and this huffy silence from her and then I feel like I’ve been a real bastard, cos of everything that’s happened to her, like. So then I tell Sparrow I can’t see her out of school for a day or two and she gets pissed off with me (not that she tells me, but I kind of know she does because it feels a bit awkward when I’m around her and it’s never felt awkward before) and I want to scream at Mum and tell her to stop being so fucking needy, only if I did that I’d be a serious bastard so I just sort of do deep sighs and go to my room.
So what do I do? I really don’t know. I can only see Mum getting worse, to be honest. It’s like her world’s becoming smaller and smaller. At least she’s still got her work – that’s the only thing which saves me at the moment. And it helps that I kind of know her timetable at school because I don’t think anything has changed at The Grange since I was there (actually, I doubt if anything has changed at The Grange since about 1452), so I know what days her piano lessons are and sometimes I even go on to their website and see what special assemblies and concerts and stuff they’re doing because she always goes to those. And that’s the only way I get to see Sparrow out of school because at least with our A levels coming up we’ve got study leave in school time when Mum’s at work so we’re managing to get to see each other. And it has to be here really because Sparrow lives two bus rides away and there’s nowhere else to go.
But I know it’s crazy and I hate having to creep around behind Mum’s back like this and I get a bit paranoid and smooth out the duvet about twenty times before we go and sometimes I look at Melody and wonder if Mum has fitted her with some kind of recording device and she’s like a sort of KGB cat because I wouldn’t put it past her and then I realise that I’m comparing Mum to Putin and that makes me feel like a real git and it all just gets dead stressy. I try to pretend it’s like being in a modern-day version of Romeo and Juliet only it’s not like that because our families have never met, it’s just that we know they’d hate each other if they did. Actually, that’s not strictly true. My mum would hate them but they probably wouldn’t hate her, they’d just think she’s a bit weird. And anyway it’s not like Romeo and Juliet at all really cos Sparrow has told her mum about me. Apparently she was pretty cool about it. She told her that as long as she was sensible and I didn’t get her in trouble and she didn’t let it affect her exams then it was OK.
If I told Mum she’d go ballistic, absolutely fucking mental. That’s why I don’t have any choice really other than to keep it all secret.
I’m already worried about what we’re going to do in the school holidays when Mum’s not at work. It’s going to be a nightmare. I am so sick of all this. I can’t wait till we get to uni. At least then we’ll be able to be together every evening and Mum won’t know anything about it and I’ll just send her text messages telling her I’m studying and she won’t know any different. I am so counting down the days. That’s the thing I’m looking forward to most about uni. I mean I’m sure the course will be good and that but it’s not really why I’m going. I’m going because it’s the only way I can escape from all this and be with Sparrow without having to worry about Mum finding out. Three years of being with Sparrow all the time, that seems like the most amazing thing in the world to me. It’s what keeps me going through all this crap. I am so counting the days.
13
Lisa
I must have fallen asleep at some point. The realisation hits me as I open my eyes and see dawn creeping into the room uninvited. I seize on the hope that the whole thing might have been a nightmare. There is nothing in our bedroom to suggest otherwise. Alex’s back is to me but light snoring suggests he too is asleep. There is one obvious way to find out. I slide out from under the duvet and pad through to Ella’s room, opening the door gently so as not to wake her. I know instantly that she is not there because of how light the room is. Her curtains are not closed. There didn’t seem to be any point. It is not a nightmare from which I have woken; it’s a nightmare in which I finally fell asleep.
I climb into Ella’s bed and pull the duvet up over me. I feel bad for sleeping, as if it is somehow disloyal to her.
‘I do care,’ I whisper into the duvet. ‘I care very much, you know that. I just couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.’
I lie there for some time, wondering whether she has managed to sleep at all – if she’s still got the opportunity to, that is. But this slips too uncomfortably into thinking about him, the man who has taken her. Thinking about how old he is, what he looks like, whether he is one of those loners you hear about in these cases. Maybe he still lives with his mother. Although if he does, he can’t have taken Ella back home with him. Maybe he’s already got rid of her. Maybe he did it on the same day and went home for tea with his mum. Maybe she doesn’t even know.
Ella’s pillow is soggy against my face. I hadn’t even realised I’d been crying.
‘Bastard,’ I whisper. ‘Dirty, fucking bastard.’
I get up and pace up and down Ella’s bedroom, which, due to its size, only involves four steps each way. Maybe the cops were right. Maybe it is someone I know. Someone who I haven’t thought of yet. A client who came to the gym years ago, one of those over-muscly sports-supplement guys to whom I gave a hard time. Maybe they saw Ella. I had to take her there once or twice when Mum was ill and Alex was working away. Maybe they remembered her. I try to see their faces in my head, every single client who has ever been through the gym. I can’t though. I see a blur of faces merging into each other, smell a range of body odours, take a towel and wipe away the sweat which one of them has left on the bench press. This is not helping. I am not helping. Ella could be screaming for me at this very moment and I am no fucking help at all.
I catch sight of her school shoes in the corner of the room and realise what day it is. I open the wardrobe door. It is there, hanging at the end of the rail, her school uniform, white polo shirt, red sweatshirt and grey trousers. She was adamant about having trousers rather than a skirt. I remember doing a discreet little air punch when she said so. She won’t get to wear them now. Not today at any rate, maybe not tomorrow, perhaps never.
I reach out and touch the sweatshirt. I should really have given her Otis’s old one, which I still have, but she was so excited about the whole uniform thing that I decided to get her a new one. The other one will do as a spare when she gets spaghetti down the front of the new one, that’s what I told myself. What I would give to see her getting spaghetti down the front of anything right now.
*
I am in Otis’s room, standing just inside the door, when he wakes. I’m not one of those mothers who gets over-sentimental about how beautiful their kids are when they’re sleeping. But this morning I needed to see him sleeping peacefully before he has to deal with what the day will bring. I sit down on the edge of the bed and stroke his hair, which is always a complete mess in the mornings.
‘Did you sleep OK?’ I ask.
He rubs his eyes and nods.
‘It’s not too late to change your mind
, you know.’
‘No. I want to go.’
‘If you’re sure,’ I say. ‘But if at any point it gets too much, or anyone says stuff which upsets you, tell Miss Farrell and I’ll come and get you, OK?’
‘Why would someone say stuff to upset me?’
‘I’m not saying they’d mean to upset you but sometimes children can be a little bit . . . you know, insensitive. Speaking first and thinking about how it might make someone feel later.’
‘Will they all know about Ella?’
‘I expect so. It’s been on the news a lot. Their parents will probably have talked to them about it.’
‘What will they have said?’
‘Just that she’s missing. That the police are trying to find her.’
‘Will they know where she was hiding? Only they might know hiding places at the park that I don’t know.’
I swallow hard and pull Otis’s body towards me.
‘You’re a brilliant big brother, you are,’ I say.
*
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to take him?’ asks Alex for the third time. I look at him and notice that he has finally shaved. I don’t know if that means he has given up or if he is just trying to look presentable. I decide not to say anything.
‘No, I told you. If he’s got to go through this I don’t see why I shouldn’t have to.’ Mum has texted twice this morning to offer to do the school run too. To be honest, I can’t think of anything I would less like to do right now, but that is not the point. If I don’t show my face, people will think it’s because our family has got something to hide. I’m going to walk into that playground with my head held high.
‘OK, but why don’t you let me come too?’
‘Because I don’t need my hand holding, all right?’
I know as soon as I say it that I shouldn’t have. The look on Alex’s face simply confirms this.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I know you’re trying to help but I can’t do with all this fussing right now, OK?’
