While My Eyes Were Closed: The #1 Bestseller

by Linda Green

  I peel my knickers off over my feet. I should get something to help avoid these situations, I know. There are adverts in magazines aimed at ‘women of a certain age’ like me. Discretion is the key, it seems. But it is an admission of failure, and I am still, even now, not quite ready for that.

  I turn to the trail of urine on the floor. I use a J-Cloth to soak it up, throwing it in the bathroom bin when it is saturated. I take another clean one, run some hot water into the sink and pour some Dettol in. I give the area a thorough cleaning then use an air freshener because I’m not convinced the smell has gone. I need to go back into the bedroom to change my wet nightdress and get my dressing gown before having a shower. I pray that the child will have got bored and gone to find Melody. She hasn’t though. She is sitting cross-legged outside the bathroom door, still staring at the pool of urine on the landing. I look at her face. The scolding appears to have scorched her cheeks.

  ‘Are you going to put me on the naughty step?’ she asks.

  ‘I’m sorry I shouted at you,’ I say. ‘We don’t have a naughty step here. But in future you will do as you are told and not lock the bathroom door.’

  ‘Mummy lets me lock it.’

  ‘Yes, well, your mother did a lot of things that she shouldn’t have done.’

  ‘Why can’t Daddy look after me?’

  ‘Your daddy has to go to work.’

  ‘Is Grandma looking after Otis?’

  ‘I imagine so.’

  ‘When can I see Grandma and Grandad?’

  ‘You don’t need to see them.’

  ‘They give me sweeties and buy me ice creams.’

  I sigh, then realise I can compete with that.

  ‘Well you can have a little Magnum later today. I ordered some for us. The shopping man will be delivering them.’

  She gets up and rushes forward to give my legs a hug. She steps back quickly and wrinkles her nose.

  ‘Your nightie is all wet.’

  I push her away. ‘We shan’t be speaking of this again, do you understand?’ She nods solemnly. I hurry past her into the bedroom.

  *

  I am in the kitchen laying the table for lunch when I hear the knock on the door. My fingers grip the back of the chair. They have found out. I don’t know how but they have. I realise I haven’t thought any of this through. What I will do if they come knocking on the door again or ask to come in even. I haven’t got anywhere to hide her, not really. Certainly nowhere with a lock. Maybe I could ask her to hide. Pretend it is all part of a game. Yes, she would like that. She may stay hidden for ages.

  The knock at the door comes again, louder this time. Clearly they are not going to go away. I creep out into the hall. I can see the shadow of a figure through the panes at the top of the front door. It looks like a man. I suppose it would be for something like this. I don’t suppose the police would send a woman, not if they thought it was something serious.

  I haven’t got time to get her to hide now, it will take too long explaining. I’ll just have to hope that she stays where she is. That Melody will be able to distract her for long enough for me to deal with this.

  I go to the door. My hand rests shakily on the handle. I haven’t got a choice. The last thing I want is someone bashing my front door down. I would never hear the end of it from next door but one. I open the door a crack. The first thing I see is the red crate of Ocado carrier bags. I laugh. I actually laugh out loud. The delivery man probably thinks I am a bit simple. Though perhaps I am in a way. How else can I explain completely forgetting about the order I placed? Or the fact that I didn’t think through this part of the process. That the child would be in the house when he came. And that he really mustn’t see the child.

  ‘Hello there,’ he says, handing me the receipt. ‘It’s all here, no substitutions.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, taking the first carrier bag from him quickly. It is heavy or maybe it’s simply that I’m feeling a bit light-headed with it all. I stagger back into the hall.

  ‘Are you OK with that? Do you want me to bring them into the hall for you? Or the kitchen?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ I say, aware that the child is in the lounge, that she may run out at any moment and would certainly do so if someone came into the house.

  ‘Are you sure? It’s no trouble at all. Do you usually have them brought into the house?’

  ‘No,’ I snap. Followed, as I see the look on his face by a softer, ‘No, thank you.’

  I put the bag down just inside the door and hold my hand out for the next one. I need this to be over quickly. I need to get the door shut before she comes out to see who it is. He carries on talking though, far too loudly for my liking. Stupid things about how the items have been packed, the fact that it’s a bit cooler today and that he’s relieved as he doesn’t like the heat.

  I nod and mutter in agreement, trying to hurry things along. His voice is too loud though, too jolly. I know it is only a matter of time.

  ‘Is it the shopping man?’ comes a voice from the lounge. ‘Has he got my Magnums?’ I hear her footsteps racing across the wooden floor towards the hall. I have a split second to decide what to do. I shut the door in the delivery man’s face and turn to the child.

  ‘You’re to stay in that room,’ I hiss. ‘You mustn’t come out here.’

  ‘Has he got my Magnums? Can I have one now?’

  ‘Not unless you stay in the room and be quiet. Do you understand?’ The child nods and trots back into the room. I breathe deeply and open the front door. The man is hovering on the step, looking at me uncertainly.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m looking after my grandson and I didn’t want him running out into the road. You’ve left the gate open.’

  He turns to check. ‘Oh, sorry about that. I thought I’d shut it behind me.’

  He still looks a little uncertain. Maybe he got a glimpse of her before I managed to shut the door. She might be at the window now, looking out at him. I wouldn’t put it past her. I hold out my hand for the last bag.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say as he hands it to me.

  ‘You’re welcome. Bye now.’

  I shut the door. Listen to the sound of his footsteps retreating, the van doors slamming. I walk into the lounge, my feet still unsteady. The child is sitting on the floor with Melody, looking up at me as she bites her lip.

  ‘You’re not to run out if someone comes to the door, do you understand?’

  She nods.

  ‘It’s for your own good. Your own protection.’

  ‘I want my Magnum. Can I have my Magnum now?’

  ‘No, you can wait until you’ve remembered your manners.’

  She starts to cry. I walk out of the room. Matthew never had to be reminded about his manners. Not when he was little. He never snivelled like that either.

  I stop in the hall and take a few deep breaths. Clearly we can’t go on like this. We can’t live in hiding for ever. I need to make a plan. I need to think about what we are going to do.

  I pick up two of the carrier bags and take them through to the kitchen. The date on the wall calendar catches my eye, daring me to look back at it. I turn away. I do not need to see it to know. I have a calendar in my head. Each day I tear off the number, screw it up and throw it into the corner of my mind. It doesn’t change anything though. Doesn’t dim the pain. Simply litters my head with reminders that time moves on. Whether you want it to or not.

  I put the shopping away, each thing in its right place. Bur there are new things too. Things I have never had in the house before. I need to find new places for them. Need to create a new order.

  Outside Matthew sighs. A sigh which threads its way upwards through the canopy of the trees. He finds it hard too, I know that. Perhaps he thought taking the child in would help all of us. Perhaps it is not just about saving her. Perhaps there is someone else who needs saving. I don’t like seeing his young face so sad. I try to remember what we used to do, what used to put a smile on his face. And then it com
es to me.

  I put one of the small Magnums on a saucer and place it on the kitchen table. I walk briskly to the doorway of the lounge.

  ‘You may come and have your ice cream now,’ I say. The child looks at me warily then jumps up when she sees the expression on my face and follows me through to the kitchen.

  I sit opposite her, watching the way she savours every mouthful, delighting in the way she licks the corners of her mouth at the end.

  ‘You like those, don’t you?’

  She nods.

  ‘When we go away on holiday you’ll be able to have those every day.’

  The child looks at me quizzically. ‘Are we going on holiday?’

  ‘Yes, to Whitby. You like it there.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Of course you do. The beach and the chip shop by the harbour. Climbing the steps to the abbey. You can manage them all by yourself.’

  The child continues to frown.

  ‘And we’ll go to Robin Hood’s Bay. Remember how much you love it there? I think you spent the entire day in a rock pool the last time we went. We can even take your fishing net if you’d like to.’

  ‘I haven’t got a fishing net.’

  I laugh, a cut-glass tinkle. ‘Of course you have. It’s in the shed. The net is green and there’s some red tape on the end of the handle.’ I look down. Two eyes peer back at me. Big and wide and trusting. I reach out and squeeze his hand.

  ‘I’ll go and get it if you don’t remember. Stay here a moment, I’ll be right back.’

  I hurry to the front door, picking up the shed key from the pot as I pass the hall table. I step outside, pulling the door to behind me. I jiggle the key in the padlock, it always was a bit stiff. I’ll have to get Malcolm to put some WD40 on it. I reach for the far corner, where I can see the handle of the fishing net. It takes a bit of wriggling about to free it from the tools. As I go to shut the shed door I catch a glimpse of red in the corner and smile to myself. Of course. How could I have forgotten?

  I hurry back through to the kitchen. The child is still sitting at the table.

  ‘Here it is,’ I say, holding up the handle of the net to him. ‘And look what else I found – your bucket and spade.’

  I see the child’s face, a little uncertain.

  I turn the bucket so he can see. ‘There,’ I say, pointing. ‘It’s even got your name still on it.’

  The child looks closer. ‘That’s not my name.’

  ‘Of course it is. It’s just that the top of the M has rubbed off a little.’

  There is a pause. ‘When are we going?’ he asks.

  ‘Friday,’ I reply. ‘Straight after breakfast.

  ‘Are Mummy and Daddy coming too?’

  ‘Of course we are. We wouldn’t let you go on your own, would we?’

  Matthew

  Sunday, 22 June 2014

  I’ve had sex with Sparrow and Mum knows about it. That’s like the best thing ever and the worst thing ever all rolled into one. Mum hasn’t said that she knows, it’s far worse than that. It happened on Monday. Sparrow came home with me and said she didn’t want to wait any longer so we just did it, like right there and then. It was good, like really good. I mean I don’t know what it’s supposed to be like, only the stuff you see in films and it wasn’t quite like that. It was messier than that and it took ages for me to put the condom on (she brought some with her, how cool is that?) and we didn’t lie around naked for ages afterwards because we knew we had to get everything cleaned up before Mum came home. But the actual sex, her smiling at me as she opened her legs and me looking at her and feeling how wet she was and then being inside her for the first time and moving inside her and watching her face as she moaned before I just sort of exploded inside her, that was fucking awesome.

  We had to get up pretty much straight afterwards. I’d put a towel down on the bed before we started and there was a bit of blood on it so I had to chuck it straight in the washing machine on a quick cycle with some other stuff of mine to sort of cover it up. And we had to remake the bed and smooth down the duvet and I checked about twenty times before we left that you couldn’t tell and I really didn’t think you could.

  But when I came home from school Mum had changed the sheets on my bed. I’d forgotten that she always does that on a Monday, like we always have fish on Friday evening. Anyway, I put my earphones in and lay down on the bed and thought about what had happened earlier, and I still don’t know how I saw it or anything but there was a strand of hair on my pillow, a very long strand of dark brown hair, Sparrow’s hair, and it didn’t hit me for a minute and then I just sat up and said, ‘Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.’ Cos I realised it was Monday and Mum had changed the sheets. I double-checked just in case and they were white instead of the blue ones that were on before (and I know they were blue before cos Sparrow took the piss about the fact that Mum does them on a rota) and that was when I knew. Mum must have found Sparrow’s hair on my pillow. She must have picked it up and put it somewhere and washed the sheets and put the new ones on and put the hair back on the pillow so that I would know. So now I know that she knows and she knows that I know she knows and I don’t know if I’m supposed to apologise or say anything and if I do she’ll probably turn round and say she doesn’t know what I’m talking about and then I’ll have really landed myself in it but if I don’t say anything there’s going to be this awful unspoken thing between us for ever. I mean, if she’d screamed and shouted at me I could have dealt with that, but this, this is just kind of weird. It’s like she’s left a calling card and she’s watching me and I know what she wants me to do. She wants me to end it. And she’s kind of saying that if I end it nothing more will ever be said on the subject. But there’s no way on earth I am going to end it. So I don’t know what happens now, whether we have some massive row or I just get the silent treatment for the rest of my life or if she’s in her room sticking pins in a doll of Sparrow or something.

  I texted Sparrow and told her. I didn’t phone cos I had the feeling Mum would be listening outside my door. Sparrow reckons Mum is some kind of psycho. She said I should just ignore it, pretend it never happened and we carry on as before, but that’s easy for her to say, she doesn’t have to live with her. It feels like I’ve got to choose between them and I can’t do that. Maybe Mum is a psycho but she’s still my mum and I’m all she’s got left and I can’t just ignore her cos to do that would feel like I was stabbing her in the back.

  And it’s really crap timing cos our exams will have finished soon and then we’re not going to be able to see each other in school any more and as soon as The Grange break up in a few weeks Mum won’t have anything to do and she’s gonna be watching me all the time. Every time I go out she’s gonna want to know where I’m going, and I can’t lie to her, not after this. Sparrow says I should front her up, tell her I’m eighteen and it’s none of her fucking business where I am or who I’m with but I know if I do that she’ll just do that whole ‘not under my roof’ thing and I will feel really bad for upsetting her.

  So it’s like I’m trapped in my bedroom now. I haven’t even had the balls to go downstairs yet because she’ll be sitting there in her favourite armchair doing that pursed-lips thing and I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to say to her. The whole thing is a nightmare. I wish I could see Sparrow but she can’t come round and I can’t go there. So we’re all texted out and I’m just lying here holding Sparrow’s hair in my hand cos it’s all I’ve got left of her right now. The whole thing is such a mess.

  17

  Lisa

  We watch it on TV, the police starting their search of Ogden Water. It is like driving past an awful pile-up on the motorway and knowing you shouldn’t look but still sneaking a glimpse. Only in this case we are the grieving relatives on the hard shoulder, looking down on the carnage and wondering when they are going to bring out the body of our loved one.

  Claire said it didn’t mean anything, that we weren’t to lose hope. It was simply som
ething they had to do in the circumstances. The circumstances being that someone had reported seeing a man who looked like Taylor with a small girl who fitted the description of Ella in the car park at Ogden Water about an hour after she’d disappeared on Friday afternoon.

  It was apparently only a fleeting glimpse; the man and the girl were some distance from him and he couldn’t remember exactly what she was wearing, although he thought there was some green in it. And it was only when he saw the photos of Taylor and Ella alongside each other on the TV screen that he came forward. And sometimes, as Claire had been at great pains to point out to us, people see what they want to see and make it fit when it doesn’t because everyone likes putting the final piece in the jigsaw.

  And that is why we are watching film taken from a helicopter of a police diver in Ogden Water. And why I am digging what is left of my nails into my palms and why Alex is physically shaking on the sofa next to me and why Otis has gone to Mum and Dad’s for the day and Chloe is in her room refusing to come out.

  We have muted the sound – the relentless speculation is more than we can bear – but neither of us seems capable of reaching over for the remote control and pressing the Off button. It is almost as though we feel we should be there for her when they find her. That having failed her so miserably in her short life, we should at least be there for her now in death. I am feeling it now, the sensation I thought I would feel if something had happened to her. It is a combination of acute morning sickness and apprehension. I do not like the feeling, I want to try to shake it off, chase it away. And there is only one way I know how to do that.

  I get up. ‘I’m going for a run,’ I say. Alex looks up at me, his eyes big and hollow.