The Tall Man
Page 6
And now she had come to treasure that optimism of his, to see it as special. Because, even in the face of everything, Miles actually thought that they could be a normal family again – and so maybe, eventually, they would.
‘So how was last night?’ he asked. ‘Did you have a good time?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, thank you. And thanks for paying.’ She remembered to look up at Sadie too, and was curiously warmed by the surprise and pleasure on Sadie’s face when she did.
Miles took a gulp of his coffee. ‘So who turned up in the end?’
‘There was me, Mica, Alis, Jenna, some of the boys from my class, and Billie came, she’s really nice—’
Sadie leaned forward, her confidence growing. ‘Is Billie the dark-haired girl? I wondered who that was.’
Amber didn’t like this. Stalker, much? But she made herself smile. ‘Yep, that’s her. She moved here at the start of term. She’s in our form.’
‘That’s a point,’ Miles said. ‘It’s just her and her mum, right, Ams? I bet her mum doesn’t know anyone in town yet, either.’
Amber cringed. As if he was trying to matchmake Sadie with some poor other randomer. ‘I guess not,’ she said, shrugging.
‘Maybe you should go round there,’ he suggested to Sadie, who didn’t look like she was listening. ‘That’d be nice. I’m sure she could use a friend.’
‘Mmm.’ Sadie took a deep gulp of coffee, staring out of the kitchen window.
‘And what have you got planned for the rest of the weekend, Ams?’ Miles reached out to dip his last mouthful of roll in a blob of ketchup that was congealing on Amber’s plate. ‘Much homework?’
She probably did; she couldn’t remember. She wasn’t sure why she’d think of it now when there was all of Sunday and the ten minutes before she left for school on Monday morning in which to do it. ‘Me and Alis are going out when he finishes work this afternoon,’ she said. ‘Is that OK?’
‘Your grandparents are coming round tomorrow,’ Sadie said, frowning.
‘I know, that’s why I said we’re going out this afternoon.’ Amber could barely stop her top lip curling in irritation. It was so transparent; Sadie trying to make a place for herself in the house by putting Amber into hers. And then there was Miles, across the table, practically humming with happiness. So she had to smile, she had to hastily soften the sarcasm in the words still hanging in the air. ‘I’ll help you guys tidy up when I get back. Maybe I could make those cupcakes Nan likes.’
‘That sounds great.’ She could actually feel Miles’s smile without even seeing it; the warmth reflecting on her skin. He reached out and took her plate as he stood. ‘Well, have a nice afternoon with Alisdair. I’m going to have to lock myself in the study to get these essays marked.’
‘Thanks, Dad.’ As he left the kitchen, she glanced at Sadie, who was staring out of the window again. They were not often alone, even now. Six months since that morning when Miles had woken her an hour before her alarm, kneeling by the side of her bed. Forcing the duvet back when she tried to pull it over her face. Amber, you need to listen to me. And then the creak of a chair in the kitchen below. And she’d known, she’d known even then, the electric weight of knowing jerking through her and pushing sleep aside. Dad, who is that? Who’s downstairs?
Amber pushed her chair back and stood up from the table. She helped herself to a mug of coffee – maybe she’d been a bit quick to celebrate her lack of hangover – and then hesitated with the cafetière in hand, looking at the back of Sadie’s head. She should ask if she wanted a refill, that would be a normal thing to do. Somehow she couldn’t heave the words out.
She’d been excited at first, of course she had. It was hard not to be, with Miles practically jumping on the bed like he used to on Christmas morning when she was a kid. With her mum – her mum downstairs in the kitchen, waiting for her. Her mum had come back for her.
But then Amber couldn’t help remembering why she had left.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 01:39 PDT
From: Greta Mueller
To: Federica Sosa
Amber invited to speak at Glamour event Thurs – revised shooting schedule attached. Some good stuff shot today. Her Dr Phil appearance is online now – not sure about geoblocking but link below.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:13 PDT
From: Federica Sosa
To: Greta Mueller
What’s she like?
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:23 PDT
From: Greta Mueller
To: Federica Sosa
Guarded, mostly.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:25 PDT
From: Federica Sosa
To: Greta Mueller
Can’t say I blame her. Has she spoken much about the mother?
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:28 PDT
From: Greta Mueller
To: Federica Sosa
A bit. I’m trying not to rush her.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:31 PDT
From: Federica Sosa
To: Greta Mueller
Pffft she should be used to it by now! Remember who we’re dealing with here. Don’t feel like you need to get the kid gloves out.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:32 PDT
From: Greta Mueller
To: Federica Sosa
Feel very conscious that she’s only eighteen. I need to establish some kind of trust with her, I can’t just start throwing questions at her. Otherwise I think she’ll only shut down even more.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:33 PDT
From: Federica Sosa
To: Greta Mueller
Fine but don’t be too gentle. We need that stuff.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:33 PDT
From: Federica Sosa
To: Greta Mueller
The pretty young murderer thing is all v well but it’s been done. The other stuff is way more interesting.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:34 PDT
From: Federica Sosa
To: Greta Mueller
This isn’t about tabloid horror, it’s about a haunting. You get that, right?
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:35 PDT
From: Federica Sosa
To: Greta Mueller
That’s a great line. Remind me to use that.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:38 PDT
From: Greta Mueller
To: Federica Sosa
Sure. I think it’s going to take some careful handling to get her to talk about Sadie or the Tall Man in any kind of meaningful way though. Whenever interviewers here have asked about it, she’s been pretty wary. Like she’s afraid of saying too much.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:38 PDT
From: Federica Sosa
To: Greta Mueller
She must know that’s what they want to hear about though.
You think she’s saving it all for the book?
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:41 PDT
From: Greta Mueller
To: Federica Sosa
I think she’s afraid that if she says she believes in the Tall Man, she’ll be written off as mad – but if she says she doesn’t, maybe the press will lose interest.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:43 PDT
From: Federica Sosa
To: Greta Mueller
That makes sense. And that’s another reason we’ve got to find that way in with her. Whatever it is – we need to be the ones she trusts. The ones she finally opens up to. I’m watching that interview you just sent and there’s just this thing about her I can’t put my finger on. There’s more to this, I know it.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:45 PDT
From: Federica Sosa
To: Greta Mueller
It’s like she’s not even glad she got off.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:47 PDT
From: Greta Mueller
To: Federica Sosa
Is that surprising? It would have a horrific effect on anyone, surely. Even if she didn’t deserve to go to prison for it.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 02:49 PDT
> From: Federica Sosa
To: Greta Mueller
Call me a cynic but I don’t get guilty or scarred from her. I get a total blank. No emotion.
She’s completely chilling to watch.
It’s going to be perfect.
7
2016
They made it through Sunday; through Miles’s parents. This was the fifth time they had visited since Sadie’s return, and it had, she supposed, got a bit easier. Relatively speaking, anyway. John and Frances Banner had never been particularly fond of her – the girl who had gotten pregnant at nineteen and trapped poor old Miles – and her mother-in-law’s fury at her abandonment of her family was only eclipsed by her fury at Sadie’s return. Who could blame her? Sadie didn’t. She had no idea what Miles had told them about any of it and he always dodged her questions. It doesn’t matter what they think, he kept saying. This is about us. The three of us.
Poor old optimistic Miles. Already, to him, they were a three again.
She hadn’t known what she would find when she returned. She’d spent a long time thinking, researching, checking. She’d felt sure that Amber was old enough to be out of danger. But deep down, a small voice had wondered if leaving would have saved her at all – and another part of her (quieter and tucked away) wondered if the danger had ever even existed. If the warning she had been given that first week of Amber’s life had been a lie.
Don’t. Don’t think of the girl.
The little girl, sitting in that chair in the corner of the room. The baby sleeping in the basket beside the bed.
She stood up. She was not to think of the girl.
She went upstairs to seek reprieve and the memories were indeed quieter up there. In the hallway, she looked around at the walls with their pinstriped paper, the finger-streaked mirror above the stairs. There were photos – mostly of Amber, but of Miles as well, and she studied them, as she had before, in an attempt to understand all the things that had happened while she had been gone. She studied Amber’s face and tried to see in it something she recognised—
The little girl said . . .
The little girl lied, she told herself. They all lie.
It didn’t help. She saw again clearly the night she had finally left that flat, Amber only ten days old. Miles snoring beside her as the floors and walls creaked, the shadows creeping closer. The baby kicking her legs in the Moses basket and Sadie lying on her side to look over the edge of the bed at her. So small – it had always taken her breath away. So quiet too, lying there, eyes wide open and gazing back at Sadie like she was the sun or the moon. Feet scuffing the little mattress, the tiny fingers on the hand tossed carelessly up beside her head slowly curling inwards.
And then in the corner of the room, another small scuffle.
A whisper of a giggle.
She had sat up and the girl had been there again, just as she expected. Sitting on the chair – it was too tall for her, her feet in their clunky old-fashioned shoes and their lacy socks swinging back and forth above the ground. Her hair had come loose from the daisy clips on each side, curls falling round her face, and her skin was pale and waxy, a smudge of mud across her cheek. Her dress stained dark. Sadie had known what she would see if the girl turned round. She’d tried to keep her pinned with her gaze, begged her silently. Don’t turn round.
‘The Tall Man takes daughters,’ the girl had told Sadie, as she had done on her previous visits, but this time, she’d looked sadly at the Moses basket beside the bed.
‘Please,’ Sadie had said, and the girl returned her attention to her, those pale wide eyes in that bruised-looking face. Sadie had heard a scratching sound coming faintly from somewhere in the flat.
‘The Tall Man takes daughters,’ the little girl had told her, Sadie already moving away from the bed, away from Amber. ‘But sometimes he needs help.’
The words echoed in Sadie’s ears now as she stood in the hallway of the house her family had grown up in without her, looking at the photos of the life they had lived in the years she had been away. She had heeded the girl’s warning, she had left Amber safely with Miles and led the Tall Man and his shadows away. So why, then, did it feel like this house was still heavy with them, that eyes watched her from every corner?
In a fit of movement – sometimes she thought that if she moved quickly, she could surprise the house into obedience; ward off its hostility – she reached up and tugged the pull-cord of the loft hatch, the door flipping down and the ladder sliding neatly into place.
She climbed halfway up and then went back down, into Miles’s study, for a torch. There could be electricity up there, she hadn’t thought to ask. She would not chance it. She could not risk the dark.
Clambering into the hatch, she sat on the edge for a minute, letting her eyes adjust. Enough light filtered up from the hall to pick out shapes; old and broken furniture stacked up against the walls, sheets cast over some of it. She clicked on the torch, the beam bouncing through the dusty dark. It couldn’t reach the corners, the shadows pooling and impenetrable. She felt as if they were just there, just out of sight. The Tall Man and his girls. Waiting to step out into the light, if only she’d let them. She flicked the torchlight away.
Against the opposite wall were boxes, neatly piled in rows. All of these things that she hadn’t had to think about – school books; Christmas decorations; fancy dress outfits – labelled carefully and stacked away, all these building blocks of their past for her to unpack and understand. It was disheartening and for a while she sat and looked at them, her legs penduluming back and forth without building the momentum to carry her on.
Was that someone else breathing somewhere in the dark? The small, snuffly breaths of a child, perhaps, steady and wet. She waited for the trip-trip of small feet across the bare boards. She waited for the small tinkle of a laugh – because there was always that laugh, its silvery notes seeking her out.
She waited. She did not turn around.
A creak of a floorboard behind her, that flutter of breath again. Soon those small fingers would reach out, close around her arm or shoulder, the giggle spilling into her ear—
She jerked round, torchlight dancing over the rafters.
But there was only silence, only the shadows – and the shadows were still.
She turned back and looked again at the labels on the boxes, reciting them under her breath. Papers – Miles. Trophies – Amber. Doll’s house. Doll’s house furniture. Clothes – Sadie. She stared at that one for a moment or two. Taped up inside it was a whole different Sadie, one who had existed only briefly, and she often felt desperately homesick for her, as if that person was a flat she had inhabited until whoever had rented it to her had decided they wanted it back. She knew that box would hold countless band T-shirts and strappy tops, lumberjack shirts, denim skirts and several pairs of combat trousers. A studded belt, perhaps even a crusty old tube of hair mascara. She wanted to spread them out on the floor and lie down on them, breathe in their smell of damp laundry room and spilt lager.
Except that now they would just smell of cardboard and dust. She had abandoned them, like she had abandoned Miles and Amber, and they had collected the smells of a life lived ordinarily.
And now she was back.
She averted her eyes, letting them rest under a bike frame without wheels. A small, crouched shadow wavered there and reflexively her hand turned the torch in its direction. The light picked out the edge of a face, a face turning towards her, its eyes downcast, mouth opening—
She held her breath. Counted carefully in her head as she waited for it to unfold, to take its first steps towards her. It melted back into the dark and she let herself exhale, the hairs on her arms prickling.
She moved the torch’s beam on to a sturdy white documents box. Photos.
She stood and made her way over, balancing carefully on the beams. The box was lighter than she expected and she sat down on the edge of a beam with it, the torch forgotten by her feet, the need to see inside suddenly urgent
and animal. She tore off the tape and abandoned it, half-balled, beside her.
The photos were loose for the most part, some of them still in their lime green paper wallets, a couple even in an envelope with the old pharmacy’s logo on it. Lots of them had spilled out, a leaf litter of faces on the bottom of the box. It would take time to sort through them all.
There was a whispering from the shadows behind her, though when she turned she saw only a doll’s house, a wooden chest engraved Toys. More of the Amber she had left behind, the Amber she would never know. All of these things whispered, she realised. It wasn’t only the shadows that had their secrets to hold.
At the top of the box of photos was the album. She lifted it out gingerly, holding it carefully on her lap. A white canvas cover, yellowed with age. On it, a pram made of pink gingham cotton; two ducks of yellow corduroy. And the words, sewn in loose cross-stitch: Our Baby Girl. She held it to her face, breathed in its dusty scent.
A floorboard creaked, a slight shifting of weight. She was disturbing things she should have left settled, she knew.
She flipped open the cover, a cheap, thin cardboard thing. The album itself had been bought from a newsagent’s in town when she was four or five months pregnant, not long after she’d dropped out of her course. When she was feeling defiant. In denial. She’d been sure that it was a beginning for her, a new start. A new person to be: Sadie Banner, a wife and a mother. Someone who lived in the light. She’d truly believed, then, that she could do it. She’d ignored the fear that crawled through her at night, the dreams that still came, leaving her damp with sweat and short of breath. They were easier to silence when she woke to Miles’s body pressed close to hers, their baby turning inside her.