The Hidden Girls

by Rebecca Whitney

  ‘We’ll have to go back to the psychiatrist,’ Giles says. ‘We have to stop this getting worse.’

  Ruth’s throat is sore. ‘I . . .’ She shakes her head. ‘I just can’t think how I imagined it. I must have been dreaming.’

  ‘I’m exhausted by all this. Perhaps it’s time to think of another option. Maybe, you know . . . maybe it’s time to consider the mother-and-baby unit again.’

  ‘No. Really, Giles. It’s obvious what happened now. I thought I was awake, but I wasn’t. It was just a dream, a bad dream, that’s all. It was dark and I was cold and frightened. I’m so sorry. Honestly, I’m fine.’

  Giles lifts Bess from his wife’s arms and kisses the baby’s teary face. He strokes Ruth’s arm with his free hand. ‘Come to bed, Ruth, you look shattered.’ His palm is warm but shaking. Between the couple is a blink of what they once shared. Ruth leans into him and rests her head on his chest, her cheek fitting that familiar place they used to say was created just for her, back when they made promises never to argue over the washing-up or pick their toenails in bed. To fall out over such simple things now seems to Ruth a luxury.

  ‘Please don’t send me away. I’ll try harder. I’m getting better, I promise.’

  ‘You must never do that again.’ Giles paces his words. ‘I love you, Ruth, but you are ill, and you need to trust the process of getting better. Remember how the therapist compared your illness to an oil tanker at sea. You’re making the turn towards health, but the curve is long.’ He wraps an arm round her back. The three of them soften inside the huddle. ‘And please, please promise me never to take Bess from the house again without me knowing.’

  5

  ‘She’s OK for now.’ Giles’s voice floats up to the landing where Ruth has paused to listen. ‘I can stay with her for a couple more days, but if you’re able to fit in an appointment or a home visit as soon as possible, that would be great.’

  Ruth treads carefully downstairs, Giles too engrossed in his call to notice her reaching the bottom step. To be under her husband’s care is Ruth’s ultimate humiliation; they’ve been paddling at the edges of their relationship for so long, it’s yet to be revealed if there’s still a them; the less he loves her, the more she retreats, becomes sullen, less loveable. And the longer Ruth takes to get well, the more likely Giles will give up on her or look for distraction.

  ‘Bess is fine, thank God,’ he continues into the phone, ‘but there’s another thing I wanted to discuss with you. A friend mentioned that Ruth’s—’ He glances up as Ruth crosses into the room. ‘Yes, we’re all absolutely fine.’ He’s flipped to toddler speak. ‘We just need to pop in for a quick chat if that’s OK.’ He smiles widely at Ruth as he hurries a goodbye to the person on the other end of the line who Ruth assumes is the psychiatrist, the happy expression on Giles’s face frozen for a few seconds after he’s ended the call.

  In the downstairs toilet, Ruth opens the cabinet and takes out her prescription. Last night’s vision at the petrol station has shocked her. She thought she was better, or at least in control – people don’t climb out of holes in the ground. Or do they? She pushes the thought away. It didn’t happen, it’s all in her mind. The foil packaging crinkles as she presses a pill from its cocoon and lays it in her open palm. The tablet appears innocuous: round, white and small enough to swallow with one gulp of water. It signifies wellness and assimilation, but it won’t make her normal, only dampen her down, like poultice to a swelling. She puts the medication in her mouth and rolls it around with her tongue. Tang of chemicals to rein her in, that flatten her personality as well as her fears, though without this help she would be utterly lost.

  Giles knocks on the door. ‘Everything OK in there, Ruth?’

  She chokes the tablet down with her spit. ‘All fine.’ A couple of tubes of hand cream and a liquid soap clatter to the floor. ‘Just finishing up.’ She shakes as she puts the containers back, covering the damage to the wall she made all those months ago.

  ‘We’ve run out of bread,’ Ruth tells Giles after lunch. ‘I can pick some up at the end of the road to tide us over until the next shop.’

  Giles glances up from his laptop. The light from the screen drags his tired features. ‘If you give me a minute, I’ll just finish up this email.’

  Ruth dresses herself and Bess for the cold and loads her daughter into the pushchair. She’s been looking for an excuse to go to the petrol station, to witness first-hand that there isn’t, and never was, a threat. Lance the paranoia before it grows any bigger.

  Giles’s phone rings and he checks the screen. ‘Damn,’ he says. ‘Sorry, I need to take this. Be as quick as I can.’

  It’s stuffy inside the house in their outdoor clothes and Ruth pushes Bess into the front yard to wait while Giles paces on the other side of the window, holding up a just be a moment finger.

  The shrubs in their garden have died back to skeletons. A few dead leaves hang on like wet feathers. Ruth touches a curled clematis stem, wondering if it will still be green inside. She pulls one of the outer tendrils and a whole length of the plant comes away in her hand. Last summer, towards the end of her pregnancy, she and Giles had spent a few days out here, weeding and planting. Giles had dug a hole for this climber and Ruth had pressed in the root ball before watering. Afterwards, they’d sat together on a low wall drinking tea, muddy handprints on mugs, shoulders touching with an absent familiarity. Ruth’s belly was peeping out from her T-shirt like a ripe watermelon, stripy with stretch marks, and her tummy button had turned into an outie, the baby pushing with her foot to tell her mum she’d almost run out of space. Within the boundaries of this small yard, Ruth and Giles had experienced incalculable joy, over and above the planting of a clematis. They owned walls, they tilled earth, they trusted in nature. If some of the plants didn’t flourish, they could be fed and watered. If parenting was hard, love would see them through. Their faith in the future at that moment was unbound.

  A wind picks up. Ruth pushes the buggy back and forth to keep Bess quiet, the paving stones uneven as the fat white roots of horsetails regenerate and push up underneath. Ruth has the sense that if she stands still for long enough, the plants will curl round her legs and drag her into the ground.

  Somewhere close and out of view, a power tool is being used, its drone invading Ruth’s ears. Bess, too, grizzles at the noise – there’ll be no settling her until Ruth can get out of range. Through the bare trellis, Ruth has a side view across the alley to where the adjacent row of terraces begins. The neighbour’s galley kitchen stretches out from the main house into her yard, the same as Ruth’s does, so that the two front doors that lead from the kitchens face each other. That opposite door now opens. Ruth’s neighbour – the woman she met in the cafe, Liam’s mum, Sandra’s mother-in-law – shuffles out, head bowed, pulling her checked shopping trolley. Her hair is in the same scruffy bun and she’s wearing that funny little hat, the sight of which roots Ruth in a quainter time, away from this place and all of her problems. She follows the woman with her eyes, wondering if she’ll have to say ‘hi’ since they’ve already made introductions. The neighbour catches Ruth’s stare and Ruth smiles a tentative ‘hello’.

  Liam’s mum stops at Ruth’s gate. She’s speaking quietly. Ruth moves a little closer, heart quickening, hoping for another compliment or an invite for tea and a chat, even though she’s been warned and knows it’s forbidden. Perhaps she wouldn’t need to tell Sandra, who’s going back to work soon anyway. This could be Ruth’s secret.

  The neighbour speaks in a whisper, barely audible over the buzz of the chainsaw. ‘I saw you out here last night.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  The woman speaks a little louder. ‘Last night. I saw you come out of your car.’

  Ruth strains to hear. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’ The neighbour’s back straightens. ‘Did you see them?’

  ‘What?’

  Opposite, a large tree in one of the gardens that backs onto the hedgerow shakes. A branch cr
acks and falls away, then the chainsaw revs up again.

  ‘The people.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t . . .’ A prickle rolls up Ruth’s spine. ‘What people?’

  ‘At the petrol station.’

  The ground underneath Ruth undulates as if a body of water has risen up, the culverted river that’s rushing metres below, breaking through the surface.

  The woman continues, her voice too low for comfort, Ruth catching only scraps of sentences. ‘It’s not right . . . petrol station shop . . . gave them a piece of my mind.’ Her face comes close to the slats of the gate, lips pinched through the gap. Ruth leans a little closer. ‘Up all hours . . . seen them coming out before.’

  ‘I can’t hear you properly,’ Ruth says. ‘I really don’t understand what you’re talking about.’

  ‘God only knows where they take them.’

  Ruth squeezes the handles of the buggy for stability, turning towards the house, willing Giles to come into the garden and save her. He has his back to her and is gesticulating wildly to whoever’s on the other end of the phone.

  The woman says, ‘I’m going to sort it out . . . see what I’ve got . . . won’t be able to deny it any more.’

  The chainsaw is going full throttle now and people are shouting in the opposite garden as another branch crashes to the ground. Bess has started crying. Ruth’s neighbour twitches her head, calling Ruth closer to the gate. Ruth’s fear is directly matched by her need to know, and she slides the last few inches towards the woman, magnetized to the horror.

  The neighbour’s whisper is a loud scratch. ‘There are tanks under the ground where they used to store the petrol. Now the garage is shut, they fill them with people.’

  The front door opens and Giles steps briskly into the yard.

  ‘Well, goodbye then,’ the woman says. She grabs her trolley and breaks into a fast walk.

  Giles comes level with Ruth. ‘Was that our next-door neighbour?’ He arches his eyebrows with a smile. ‘What will Sandra say?’

  Ruth takes a moment, tries to speak, but her words have cemented in her throat.

  ‘Ruth?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says through tight breath. ‘The neighbour.’ The woman disappears from view.

  ‘I’ve not seen you two speaking before. I didn’t know you knew her.’

  ‘I don’t. I mean, I’ve only met her once.’

  ‘What were you chatting about?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She braces her jaw to contain her shudder. ‘She only said hello. That’s all. Nothing else. You don’t need to keep asking.’

  Giles’s eyes widen. ‘Are you OK, darling?’

  A goods train clatters past on the hidden side of the house; the double pitch of its horn is long and urgent, as if warning someone off the line. Ruth gathers herself before speaking again. ‘I’m fine. It’s just so bloody noisy here. I can’t stand it.’

  Giles frowns with a ‘Huh’ before saying, ‘Well, it’s nice you’re making connections on the street.’ He rubs her back, careful not to push too hard. ‘I told you there are lots of nice people here, you just need to give them a chance to get to know you. Why don’t you invite her over? I know Liam says she’s a bit strange, but you never know, you might get on really well.’

  ‘I don’t want her in the house.’

  Giles has his head to one side with a question on his lips. Then he straightens, appearing to choose the less fractious path. Ever the peacemaker, thank God for Giles. He kisses her cheek, ‘OK then,’ and shrugs his shoulders. ‘Whatever works, it was only a suggestion.’

  The couple leave their garden. Ahead, the neighbour takes a cut-through towards the main road, but before she’s out of sight, she turns back to Ruth. Nausea sits in Ruth’s throat. She looks the other way until the woman has disappeared as she and Giles continue down the road towards the petrol station.

  The forecourt is empty, the steady drizzle hampering afternoon business. A couple of workers lean against a sheltered wall, one man on his mobile, the other with arms crossed, wet rag hanging from his belt. He’s wearing a T-shirt printed with the car-wash logo, RAY’S HAND WASH AND VALET. The two Mercedes are parked to one side and Liam’s big white car is next to them as usual. Giles takes the pushchair into the shop and Ruth lags behind, head bowed, legs feeble. If a strong wind were to blow, she’d topple over. A hum travels through the soles of her feet, like the tremble of a distant earthquake; hidden things, buried things, making themselves present, her illness a contagion drawing them close. Push the nonsense away, she tells herself, give the fear no space, stop airing the fantasy. She follows into the shop where Giles is rummaging through the bright-orange cheese selection, checking the sell-by dates on the sweaty packets. The man behind the counter stares at Ruth as she enters. He’s the same man she thought talked about the scream. He checks Ruth up and down, speed-scanning her legs, breasts and face. Even here he does this, while Ruth is with her baby, her husband just out of sight. A second later his expression flips to neutral, verging on disdain. He’s cast her aside, the act of dismissal an insult in itself, the message being You’re not good enough and I’m not even that fussy. She’s been rated and found lacking. His judgement repels her, but that it’s been forced on her, and in the negative, shrinks Ruth. Whatever form her beauty used to take is now lost, another piece of her identity stripped away.

  Outside a rubbish truck is collecting the waste. A mechanism on the back of the lorry lifts industrial black bins from the forecourt and tips their contents into the hopper. The winch whines as it levers each container up, then down. A man inspects a recently grounded bin and operates the lift again. Something must be stuck inside. He presses another button when the bin is poised overhead to make it shake. Whatever was lodged inside clatters into the back of the lorry and a few stray items spill onto the pavement. Scraps of paper swirl in the wind. One heavier object lands on the forecourt. Rubbish man picks it up and turns it over in his hands, calling to his mate to take a look.

  With no consciousness of her decision to move, Ruth walks from the shop towards the man. As she gets close, she sees he’s holding a patent pink shoe, platformed at the front and with a high spiky heel. The man says something to the van driver and the two of them laugh. They look up, see Ruth and stop. The man holding the shoe bows his head as if he’s about to be told off, and he goes to throw the platform in the back of the truck when Ruth says, ‘No.’ She reaches for the shoe. ‘It’s mine.’

  He hands it over with an embarrassed shrug before turning to continue with his work.

  The shoe could have fallen from one of the cars while the vehicle was being vacuumed, but why not give it back to its owner? It’s not as if it would have been inconspicuous on the tarmac. Ruth checks the ground, her sightline tracing towards the centre of the forecourt and the manhole covers. The edges of the metal discs are silted with dirt, but one towards the back is clean round the rim, as if it’s recently been lifted. A small piece of fabric pokes out, the material frayed, the remainder of the item trapped underground. Ruth scuffs the garment with her foot. It’s dirty and wet, patterned with a tiny butterfly print. A delicate button at the cuff.

  ‘There you are,’ Giles calls to Ruth and she startles.

  He’s crossing the forecourt with a bulging plastic bag swinging from the handles of the pushchair. Behind him, Barry from next door enters the shop, his reptilian skulk marking his aversion to his neighbours. Once Barry had caught Ruth taking photos of his house, just like she had of Sandra’s, sneaking her phone over his back wall, convinced he was making fox traps or laying down poison in his garden. He’d hammered his fist on his window that day, like he was scaring away a rabid dog, and even now Ruth crumples in humiliation at the memory.

  ‘What’ve you got there?’ Giles nods at the shoe as he draws up next to her.

  ‘Nothing, it’s nothing.’ She hides the platform behind her back, her actions childish in panic as her elderly neighbour’s words replay in her ears: There are tanks under the ground. They fi
ll them with people.

  ‘Come on,’ says Giles. ‘Let’s have a look.’ He tries to grab the shoe from her and she shifts this way and that to stop him. He’s laughing, being playful. Ruth should join in but her breakfast is churning in her stomach. ‘I didn’t think you were that kind of girl.’ Giles’s eyes sparkle with fun.

  ‘Please, don’t.’

  Finally he grabs the shoe from her and inspects the heel with an astonished whistle. Behind him, the man in the shop watches from the door.

  ‘Give it back,’ Ruth says, anxiety mounting. ‘You don’t understand.’

  Giles is laughing out loud now. ‘Where’s your other slipper, Cinderella?’

  Ruth’s heartbeat scatters in panic. She checks up the road on the slim chance her neighbour might be coming this way, the same old woman Ruth couldn’t wait to be shot of earlier, who she’d now openly hug if she turned up to ratify Ruth’s story. Giles might just believe it if he heard it from someone else.

  Giles’s jokes die as Ruth isn’t feeding him any lines. She tries to grab the shoe. It flies out of Giles’s hands and lands near the bin, skittering on the tarmac before coming to a standstill. Giles shrugs and turns the buggy in the direction of home.

  The shoe is tiny, about a size three, and would fit a child. Last night Ruth thought she saw a woman stumble across this forecourt, but perhaps she was younger. A girl taken somewhere in the back of a windowless van. Nobody knows about her apart from Ruth and her crazy neighbour.

  The man from the shop has opened the door and he stands in the frame with his hands on his hips. Ruth crouches to the ground, keeping her eyes on him. She grabs the fabric that’s caught in the manhole and tugs. The material is stuck fast.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Giles asks, looking back over his shoulder.

  ‘I need to get this out.’ The metal cover shifts a millimetre as she pulls, scraping with an empty echo. Ruth’s courage accelerates as she pulls harder. The fabric begins to rip. ‘Can you help me?’

  ‘Ruth, leave it, it’s filthy.’