by Linda Green
*
It is my fault, bad timing as ever. I am running past the school at the exact moment the coach returns with the reception children, who have been on a school trip to Eureka.
The lane is narrow and there is no room to get past safely. I have no choice but to stand there and watch as they burst down the steps, full of chatter and laughter and bubbling over with excitement.
Charlie Wilson is brandishing a piece of green paper with some splats of colour on in his hand. He holds it up to me as he goes past.
‘That’s nice,’ I say. ‘Did you do that?’
‘Yes,’ says Charlie. ‘All by myself.’
And I have to turn away so he won’t see me crying because I know that when he gets home his dad will do one of those looks of mock awe and say it is amazing and not even ask what it is because it doesn’t matter and he does not want Charlie to know it is not obvious, and later that night, when Charlie has gone to bed, he will put it on the fridge door with a magnet and it will stay there for years, even when he has done far better drawings, because it was the first one he did at school. And usually I hate all that stuff and I am the one who instigated the night-time recycling of art from school in an effort to save our house from disappearing under the weight of the stuff, but right now I want that first picture of Ella’s more than anything in the world. I want to take it home and stick it on my fridge and look at it and smile every time I get the milk out. And it is not fair, so bloody not fair, that all the other parents will do that tonight but I can’t and I want to come back at home time and tell them that. Tell them to guard that picture of whatever it is with their lives because you don’t get a warning, you never know when all of this is going to be taken away from you and I would do anything right now to have that fucking stupid piece of green paper stuck on my fridge.
I walk away, aware that the last thing any of these children need to see is my tear-stained face, and start running again as soon as I get past the coach. I had actually been on my way home but I know I can’t go back now. I have to keep on running until the tears have dried, until I can get myself together enough to face Otis and Chloe. Because my children, the two I have left, need me to be strong. They need to know that the whole world around them may crumble but I am not going to crumble with it. I am going to be strong for them and somehow, although I have no idea how at the moment, we are going to have to find a way through this.
*
Alex is sitting at the kitchen table with a gas bill in his hand when I get back. He looks up as I walk in the door. If anything, his face looks worse than mine.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘I checked the bank today. Things are getting a bit tight.’
‘Oh,’ I say. That’s the trouble when you’re both self-employed. No monthly salary coming in. When we stop working the money stops.
‘I think I need to go back to work on Monday.’
I stare at him. Not quite sure I am hearing this right.
‘But you can’t. That’s like giving up on her.’
‘Please don’t make this harder than it is, Lis. One of us needs to be earning. We can’t afford to go on like this much longer.’
‘But how can you even think of going back with Ella missing?’
‘Because we have to pay our bills. The last thing we need right now is to be getting into debt on top of all of this.’
‘I don’t care about the bills. The bank can bloody wait a bit, can’t they?’
‘Come on, love. We’ve got to try to keep on top of this.’
‘And what if they find her body later, are you still going back to work then?’
‘Lis, please, don’t.’
‘Well what am I supposed to say?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know how this is supposed to work. I’m just trying to muddle through the best I can. To do something to try to look after my family.’
He walks out of the room. I sit down at the table and cry. I don’t even look to see how much the gas bill is.
*
I am getting used to Claire’s serious faces now. Serious but not doom-laden. I would rate this as somewhere around a five. It is not what we are dreading but nor is it good news either. It is simply something she has to tell us. Mum is with Otis. Chloe is upstairs in her room. I figure it’s as good a time as any.
‘Go on,’ I say.
‘They want to do a reconstruction,’ she says. ‘Tomorrow afternoon, in the park.’
It makes sense, of course. It will be a week. The longest week of my life but still only technically seven days.
‘Will I have to—’
‘No,’ interrupts Claire. ‘We’ve got a policewoman to do it. She’s about the same size as you, does a lot of running.’
I nod. ‘What about Ella?’
‘One of the desk sergeants at Halifax has a granddaughter the same age, very similar hair. I’ve been asked to bring a photo of her to show you. You don’t have to see it, of course. It’s only if you want to. And if you don’t think the girl is right please say so and we’ll find someone else.’
I glance at Alex, who shrugs.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘We’ll look.’
Claire takes the photo out and puts it down on the kitchen table. The first thing I notice is her eyes – she has the exact same colour eyes as Ella, which is weird as they are quite unusual. Her hair is a touch longer but a very similar colour. She doesn’t have the dimples but other than that she is very convincing. Almost too convincing to be comfortable.
Alex looks at me; I can see he thinks so too.
‘Are you happy with using her?’ Claire asks. I nod, still unable to formulate any words.
‘Great, thanks. I should let you know that we’ve got hold of a dress the same as the one Ella was wearing, from Boden. So she’s going to be wearing that.’
I nod again. It will be on television and there will be pictures in the newspapers. It will look like Ella, she’ll be wearing the same dress even, but I’ll know it isn’t her.
‘Can I have the dress?’ I ask. ‘Afterwards, when you’ve finished the filming, can I have the dress to keep?’
Claire nods and looks down. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes, of course. Obviously you’re both very welcome to watch the reconstruction but I completely understand if you don’t want to. There’s going be a brief rehearsal this evening, without any media, if you’re interested in going to that . . .’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure if I can go to the park yet.’
‘I’ll go,’ says Alex. ‘I’ll film it on my mobile. I can show you when I come back, so you can check they’ve got everything right.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, aching at how much I know I’ve hurt him and still he comes back at me with nothing but love.
‘Can I go too?’
I turn. I hadn’t even realised Chloe was standing in the doorway.
‘Oh, um . . . I don’t know. I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’
‘Not to the rehearsal, to the real thing. I want to see what happened. I want to watch it with my own eyes. I want to try to understand.’
I hesitate. It feels like she doubts my version of events. That she somehow thinks I have missed out some vital piece of information. But then she doesn’t trust me, I know that. And I understand why too.
‘OK,’ I say, ‘if you’re sure.’
She nods. Her eyes have an empty, haunted quality to them. Although to be honest, they have looked like that for quite a long time now.
*
Dad warned me that the press were still outside their house. He said I shouldn’t come. That he’d got himself into this mess and I had enough on my plate.
As I pull up outside and see the lenses pointing in my direction I wish I hadn’t argued with him.
I get out and slam the car door. There is a shouted question about how I feel about what Dad has done. A lens is poked very near my face. I hate them right now. Hate the way they are gathering like vultures as our family disintegrates.
But I also know that I can’t make things any worse than they already are because they are still our best bet and we need to get them back on our side. I keep my head down, stride briskly up to the front door and ring the bell.
Tony answers straight away. We used to have a running joke about him being Anthony from The Royle Family when he was a teenager because Dad always made him answer the door. He shuts it behind me quickly.
‘Fucking arseholes,’ he says.
‘How is he?’
Tony shrugs. ‘Think he’s feeling a bit sheepish, to be honest. Hardly said a word on the way home after I told him about Taylor.’
I nod. ‘And how about you?’ I ask.
‘Me?’
‘Yeah. You, Tony, Ella’s favourite uncle.’
‘Only cos she’s only got one.’
‘No, probably more because you spend a fortune on her at Christmas.’
Tony looks at his feet. ‘You want the truth?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Then I feel like I’ve been winded and kneed in the balls at the same time and I don’t think I’m ever going to stop feeling like that.’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘Except you haven’t got any balls. Actually, no, that’s not true. You got more balls than most blokes I know.’
I manage a little smile and walk into the living room. Mum and Dad are sitting on the sofa with the front curtains drawn, which looks pretty weird in the daytime, it has to be said. They both look suddenly old and small – I swear they’ve shrunk in the past week.
‘Sorry,’ says Dad, catching my eye before looking down again. ‘That’s about the last thing you need – those little shits sticking their lenses up your nose.’
‘I take it they got you too?’
‘Yeah. Front page we’ll be tomorrow. You can rely on your old dad to screw things up for you.’
‘You’ve got to stop saying that.’
‘Why? It’s true.’
‘Well even if it were I wouldn’t care. I don’t give a toss what people think any more. Not sure I ever did, to be honest.’
‘Your father’s been told he’s got to appear in court on Monday.’ Mum says this like she is distancing herself from him, pretending he’s not in the same room even.
‘Fine, we’ll all go then.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ says Dad. ‘I’m not having any of you there. I got myself into this mess; I should be the one who has to deal with it.’
‘Except no one’s on their own in this family, are they? That’s what you both used to tell me when I was growing up. And you didn’t chuck me out on the streets when I got myself in trouble, did you?’
‘That was different,’ says Dad. ‘You were only a kid.’
‘Well, there’s no age limit on screwing up, is there? So if you’re going to be in court I’m going to be with you, OK?’
Dad nods. Mum starts to cry again.
‘And we’ll have none of them tears on Monday,’ I say. ‘We hold our heads up high in front of the cameras; you plead guilty; Claire’s going to put a statement out saying how sorry we all are and then we can get back to looking for Ella, all right?’
They nod. And for first time ever I feel like their parent instead of their child.
*
It is late when Alex comes back with Claire. Otis has gone to bed and Chloe is in her room, though the chink of light underneath her door suggests that she is not even trying to get to sleep.
Alex’s face is pale and drained. I wonder if he wishes he hadn’t gone. Going back to work on Monday will probably be a welcome break from this. Claire puts the kettle on. Alex sits down at the kitchen table and takes out his phone.
‘You sure?’ he asks.
‘Yeah, I’m sure.’
He fiddles with the phone for a second before handing it to me. I press Play. I see a girl in a green and white striped dress. One with a big pink flower on its side. She has green leggings on too and green Crocs, which are a slightly different shade of green to Ella’s but I don’t think it matters. And I see a woman in running vest and shorts. A woman holding a red balloon and a mobile phone. A woman who, unlike me, looks like she hasn’t got a care in the world.
It is shot from some distance away. Maybe Alex didn’t want to get too close, maybe he wasn’t allowed to. I watch the girl run over to the climbing frame.
‘She couldn’t get up to the big slide on her own,’ says Alex, ‘so she just went a little way up.’
I nod and think how proud Ella would be that we couldn’t find a girl her age who could do what she could do. The woman playing me looks at her watch and the girl mouths, ‘Please.’ The woman walks over to the tree – they’ve even got the right tree – while the girl runs away. She pretends to fall over. I can hear Ella saying that it is not a very good pretend, that she could do it much better. She can’t though. She can’t play herself in this because she is not here.
And I run over to her, not me but the woman playing me. The girl screws her face up a bit and pretends to cry. I brush off her hands and knees and she points at the tree again. I turn and walk over to it, and although I know what is going to happen and know it is not real, I still will myself not to answer the phone when it rings. I do though, and as I do I let go of the red balloon. The last shot is of it drifting off into the sky. I have an overwhelming desire to stick a pin in it and burst that bloody red balloon.
22
Muriel
At some point the shadows lift and the sun has the audacity to show its face through the window. The world went on. That was the thing I never understood. How everything and everyone else continued as if nothing had happened. How I was the only one for whom time stopped that day. And who even now, a year on, has never been able to get the clocks right.
There is a sudden rush of consciousness. Images, sounds, events, flicking through my mind in quick succession. I am unsure if they are in the right order. I do not know what the right order is any more.
I do know there is a child. A child who looks like Matthew. Not outside, in the park, but inside my house. I put my hand out to push myself up and realise that the sheet is sodden. The smell fills my nostrils. It is guilt and sadness and shame. It is my smell. It is what I have become.
I get up slowly and drag the bedside cabinet from in front of the door. The child is not outside when I open it. I go to the bathroom, not that it is really worth it now but I must retain some degree of normal functioning. I remove my blouse and my wet skirt and knickers and wash my hands before taking my dressing gown from behind the door and folding it around me. My mouth is papery, my breath musty. I brush my teeth, aware suddenly of my rumbling stomach. Of my need for a cup of tea.
I go through to my bedroom, the silence closing in around me, take a fresh blouse and skirt off their hangers in the wardrobe and dress slowly before returning to the landing. Matthew smiles at me. Matthew always smiles. Matthew has never stopped smiling.
I descend the stairs, holding on tightly to the rail as I do not feel at all steady on my feet. The silence in the hall is oppressive. I have a crushing sense that there should be noise although I am not really sure why. And then I reach the kitchen and see the child lying there on the floor. For a moment my heart stills and I look to see if there is any blood, if she is hurt at all. But her little chest rises and falls as it should do. Her head is inside Melody’s basket, Melody herself curled tight against her shoulder. The biscuit bowl beside them is empty. The water bowl is too. Melody senses me first and gets to her feet and stretches, miaowing loudly as she does so. The child opens her eyes. She looks at me, at Melody standing above her and then back to me.
‘I asked Melody if I could share her bed. She said I could.’
I nod and swallow.
The child sits up, glances at the empty biscuit bowl and looks down again. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I was hungry. I only had what Melody left. I didn’t really like them.’
I stare at the child. Hear the noises in the park. Touch her blood
y knee. Smell the Germolene.
‘Crumpets,’ I say. ‘We’ll have crumpets for breakfast.’
She nods and yawns at the same time. I go to the cooker and turn the grill on. The flame roars at me. It takes a long time for the heat to filter through.
Afterwards, when she has finished every last crumb of her second crumpet and slurped her milk thirstily, she looks up at me.
‘Why were you crying?’ she asks. ‘Why wouldn’t you let me in? Were you poorly?’
‘Yes,’ I reply.
‘And are you better now?’
I shake my head. ‘It’s not a poorly that gets better. Not ever.’
‘Are we still going on holiday?’
‘Yes. Of course. We’ll go upstairs to pack in a minute.’
‘Is Matthew coming? Are you going to pack for him too?’
‘No. He’s not coming. Not this time.’
‘Because he’s all growed-up now?’
I nod. Unable to form any words.
‘Why have you still got all his old things?’
‘Because I don’t like throwing perfectly good things away.’
‘Mummy puts our old things on eBay. She says there wouldn’t be room for us if we kept stuff.’
I raise my eyebrows but say nothing. I can’t bear the thought of it, to be honest. Selling your memories to strangers like that. Everything seems to have a price nowadays.
‘Is that why you haven’t got any other children?’ she asks. ‘Because there wasn’t room for them with all Matthew’s stuff?’
I look down at her. She is oblivious as to how her words scour my skin, revealing traces of the flesh underneath. Flesh that is still smarting from the years of trying for a child.
‘Sometimes, when you have a special child, a child so perfect in every way, you don’t need another one.’
She thinks for a moment. ‘Chloe must have been very naughty then because Mummy still had Otis and me.’
The name, her name, shatters the stillness around us. I see long dark hair and dark eyes beneath when she flicks the hair back off her face.
