The Hidden Girls

by Rebecca Whitney

  ‘Shit.’ Ruth wipes away the tears to clear her vision; Frieda’s been trying to protect the girl she rescued while attempting to not get her son arrested in the process, sorting things out her own way, just as she was grasping at anything to stay well on her own terms. No wonder Liam was desperate to get into his mum’s house; Frieda must have been bartering with him over these photos that were coming. All along, the old woman’s had the proof.

  The final photo is of another figure on the forecourt. A woman in trainers and tracksuit with her hair tied back as if she’s about to go for a run. Still groomed, though, still undeniably Sandra. Ruth slams the pictures down on the worktop as they’re shaking so hard in her hand. Sandra’s got her knee in the back of the woman who’s just come out of the manhole, pinning her to the ground, and the truth of it snaps into Ruth’s focus; Sandra’s fluffy edges, which Ruth had interpreted as her friend’s kindness and vulnerability, were nothing more than a distraction from her poisonous core. Ruth squints at the image of the girl on the tarmac. Tied round her neck is a polka-dot scarf, the same one Liam tried to burn on the sidings. That bruise on Sandra’s cheek – she’s never needed protecting, it’s everyone else who needs to be afraid of Sandra.

  Ruth puts a hand to the wall to brace herself against the wave, spreading her feet wide, refusing to let it upend her.

  The sound of the gate slamming and Giles’s footsteps as he comes back to the door, eyes glinting with tears, and for the briefest moment Ruth thinks he’s going to apologize before he says, ‘Where the hell is the car?’

  Ruth pushes the photos towards him. He flinches as if he’s expecting her to hit him, this man who she’s loved and made a child with. ‘Look,’ she says, thrusting the shot of the van on the forecourt close to Giles’s face.

  ‘Enough, Ruth.’ He brushes the pictures away. ‘Leave me alone.’

  Ruth holds the photo of the open manhole directly in front of his eyes, then shifts to the next shot of the woman climbing out of the hole. Giles stumbles for a second, then rights himself. He pulls his chin up as Ruth presses the last two pictures, unmistakably of Liam and Sandra, into Giles’s free hand. He moves inside the kitchen and leans under the light, rebalancing Bess on his hip. Ruth reaches for her baby. Giles frowns at Ruth, his face hot and confused, and he offers the smallest resistance before loosening his grip on Bess and refocusing on the images in his hand. Ruth slides her baby into her arms, wraps her close, breathes her in as if Bess is oxygen, as if Ruth is finally coming up for air.

  One by one, Giles goes through the pictures, then hurriedly repeats the shuffle. He turns to Ruth, his tongue moving inside his mouth without making words, a penny dropping behind his eyes.

  18

  Ruth can’t abide Country and Western music, and today the mawkish twang of the singer’s broken heart grates even more than usual. She doesn’t need to be told to be sad, but the song was a choice and needs a little respect; it was someone’s theme tune to life’s big moments.

  The small curtains winch round the coffin as the group in the chapel bow their heads. Feet shuffle. A person in the next row to Ruth checks his watch. It’s a scant turnout, to be expected, though, for someone who was cut off from almost everyone, whose outlook became hemmed in by circumstance.

  The music ends abruptly, as if someone simply decided to press stop. The mourners hesitate; no one wants to be the first to leave, though it’s obvious by the way heads are turning to the door that everyone’s itching to get back into the fresh air. Ruth puts the order of service in her bag, taking a last look at the photo on the cover: a joyful, even playful shot that’s impossible to square with the frail person she knew at the end. She wipes her eyes on a tissue and shoves it in her pocket. She nearly didn’t bring a handkerchief, wasn’t even sure if she’d need one today, and inwardly she berates herself for her selfishness because the truth is that she’s ended up crying for a lost part of her own life rather than the person who’s gone.

  Bess is reaching for her mum. ‘I don’t mind taking her outside for a bit,’ Frieda says, the bracelets on her arms stacking and jangling as she bobs the little girl up and down to keep her quiet. The woman holds on tight to Bess, the longing for her grandson visible in every knuckle and finger. ‘If you need some more time to yourself.’

  Ruth sniffs up the last of her tears. ‘Sure, thanks.’

  But Bess is cranky, grabbing at her mum’s sleeve, and Ruth nods a folded smile at Frieda who relents, sliding the little girl into Ruth’s arms. ‘There you go, wean,’ Frieda says. ‘Go and see your mummy.’

  The toddler settles instantly into a tight hug round her mum’s neck as Ruth absorbs her little girl, tingles with her softness, the effortlessness of this love that gathers pace every day, never ceasing to amaze her with its ability to find more space in her heart. She kisses Bess’s head, gently repositions the little girl on her hip and puts her free arm round Leila’s shoulders, the young woman crying the hardest of anyone in the room.

  She looks to Ruth with red eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, I keep trying to stop.’

  Ruth tightens her hug. ‘You don’t need to be sorry about anything.’

  ‘It just reminds me.’ She blows her nose loudly. ‘I can’t help it.’

  ‘I know, I understand. It’s still so recent.’

  She pulls the girl close, the sob in Leila’s chest moving through Ruth, and she again questions why she allowed Leila to come today, but the young woman was so insistent that Ruth thought it might help her to be part of someone else’s grief. ‘I want to be there for you too,’ Leila had said, although Ruth’s young friend is already coping with more than anyone ever should.

  The gathering files out of the chapel into the sunshine. It’s a crisp winter day, the chill a tonic, and people turn their faces up to the sky, reminding themselves that it’s good to be alive. Ruth stands Bess on the ground to do up her coat. The little girl started walking at fourteen months, and now she’s nearly a year and a half old; her legs fidget with the impatience of needing to run. Ruth won’t let her go, though. She doesn’t want to lose her daughter to this crowd.

  Ruth’s stepmum is the last to leave the hall. She’s basted in perma-tan even though it must be cold in Spain now. A couple of women Ruth has never seen before comfort Beverly, and they stand among a small gathering of similarly aged and expensively dressed people who’ve formed their own unit. These must be Ruth’s dad’s friends from the community in Spain; it’s not as though he’s been survived by or bothered to keep in touch with many friends in England. Ruth takes Bess by the hand and walks over to Beverly.

  ‘Ruth, darling.’ Beverly air-kisses Ruth’s cheeks without a millimetre of skin touching Ruth’s face. ‘And sweet Bess.’ The woman takes Ruth in for a moment before her chin crumples. ‘Oh, look at you, you’re the spit of your dad.’ She dissolves into tears. ‘What am I going to do without him?’ Ruth reaches out, brushes her stepmother’s arm as Beverly swabs her eyes, takes a breath, pulls herself upright. ‘Don’t mind me.’ She waves her tissue, giving Ruth a weak smile. ‘Me and your dad hadn’t known each other long, but when you get to my age and you meet someone you get on with, well . . . you have to grab hold of them while you can.’ She sniffs and dabs a nostril. ‘It’s going to take some getting used to being on my own again.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  Beverly blows her nose in tiny little puffs. ‘I know you never made it out to us while Bess was little, but you must come and visit. Promise me. Your dad would have loved that.’

  Ruth smiles back. ‘I’m sure he would.’ The two women survey each other, not unkindly, simply confirming that these are formalities never to be followed through. ‘And thanks, I’ll bear it in mind.’

  A bird sings in a tree close by and Ruth finds herself searching for it in the bare branches, wondering how long she and Beverly will have to go through the motions, how much of her time quantifies the correct amount of respect. ‘I’m sorry I can’t come to the pub for very long,’ Ruth says, tr
ying not to sound too bright. ‘But I have to get back for Giles.’ Beverly frowns sympathetically as Ruth continues. ‘Everything needs to be timed down to the nth degree these days. Giles sends apologies he couldn’t make it too, but he’s in the middle of a big project and just can’t afford any more time off work, what with . . . well, you know.’

  ‘It’s OK, darling,’ Beverly says, tying her camel coat tighter round her waist. ‘I knew it would be hard for you both today.’

  Giles isn’t due to have Bess until the weekend, but he’s offered to watch their little girl tonight as a favour while Ruth goes to the gallery, so he’s coming straight from work to the house rather than back to his own flat. Ruth’s exhibition opens next week, comprised of the shots she took when Bess was about six months old, and she still has lots to organize: last-minute invitations to send out, a meeting with a sponsor that couldn’t be rescheduled, Prosecco and glasses to order. Ruth wants the fizz to be decent quality as her old work friends are coming, although they’re so excited for Ruth it probably wouldn’t matter if she served them cheap cider. Even Minnie told Ruth at lunch the other day, ‘You’re the envy of the office. Everyone dreams of doing what you’re doing, but no one’s actually brave enough to give up the day job.’ To Ruth, though, the career change was less of a conscious choice and more a psychological purging, her illness forcing her to shed old skin and grow into a new self, soft and raw, where she’s learning to be comfortable with her imperfection.

  Yesterday, when Ruth had stood at the centre of the exhibition space with the images surrounding her, it was like peering through a window onto that difficult time. Finally she could witness the breadth of beauty she’d so ravenously sought to counter her old depression, and she sensed she was at last exorcising most of what her illness had imposed on her – most, but not all: two photos still at the framer’s and yet to be hung are from further back, with camera flares and shadows creating an ethereal liquid quality. In the exhibition catalogue, these pictures are titled, Sister.

  Beverly says, ‘I’ve brought that box of old things I was telling you about, the one I found when I had a clear-out. I’m sure your dad would have wanted you to have it. It’s in Janet’s car. Do you want to get it now or later?’

  ‘Where’s she parked?’

  Beverly points in the direction of the fleet of hire cars next to some bushes. ‘Just over the back there.’

  Ruth says, ‘My car’s almost the next along. I can put it straight in my boot.’

  ‘Great. Let me find Janet for you.’ Beverly cranes her neck, searching the tight bundle of people as if they are a crowd rather than a smattering. ‘Ah, there she is’ – and she goes to extricate Janet from cousin Dick’s golf blather.

  Ruth crosses to Frieda and Leila, who are sitting on a bench. Leila’s stopped crying and Frieda’s clutching the girl’s hand, her other arm round Leila’s back. Between Ruth, Frieda and Leila’s foster mum, Penny, they’ve created a rota that means Leila’s never alone, never unsupported, never needs to question if she’s safe; a small lifeboat in the ocean of Leila’s grief. Ruth understands the pain of losing a sister – the missing limb, forever a twinless twin – but the manner in which Farah was taken means that Leila will always risk sinking deeper.

  As Ruth approaches her friends, her heart expands with a sudden warmth, like wading out of freezing water into the hot sun. What a funny little family she’s made, but it’s the best she could have wished for, plus she got to choose them for herself. She slides Bess onto Leila’s lap without asking or warning, and Ruth’s two girls cuddle into each other, the shockwave of love that always passes between them the same as it was the first time they touched palms on Frieda’s back porch. Leila can’t help but smile.

  ‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ Ruth says, giving her baby a kiss on top of her curly hair and running a quick hand over Leila’s head. Janet waves to Ruth over by the cars and Ruth marches across to her.

  Inside Janet’s car is an old cardboard box that Ruth puts straight inside her own boot only a couple of vehicles down. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Janet says as she walks away. Ruth should wait until later but can’t resist peeking at what her dad had hung on to all these years. She opens the flaps to find a top layer of books. Yellow dog-eared editions of The Secret History and High Fidelity, the sight of them bringing a flutter of familiarity to her chest. She checks over her shoulder to see if her friends are OK. Bess is jabbering to Leila, who’s now laughing. Ruth puts the books to one side and digs through another layer of magazines, finding a plastic Eiffel Tower that Tam used to keep on her bedroom shelf – Ruth’s sister had bought it on a school trip to Paris. There’s an old Rimmel lipstick too, and Ruth scrolls up the half-used stick, examining the tip up close. Minuscule stripes have hardened into the red wax, ancient imprints from Tam’s lips. Ruth blinks away tears, puts the lid back on the lipstick, lays it gently in the box. A couple of posters have been folded and are ripped at the edges where they were taken off the wall, the Blu-Tack hard greasy lumps at the corners. As Ruth unfolds the band pictures – Sonic Youth, Sleater-Kinney – she tumbles down a rabbit hole of memory: holding hands with Tam, swaying to the music, throats sore as they shouted along to the CDs, putting on their favourite tracks over and again, because they wanted to and because they could. She laughs through a sob. She’d forgotten all the happy stuff, the power she’d felt then, of being untouchable, magnified, and the memories gather inside her. She slots them back into place, making herself a little more whole.

  At the bottom of the box is a bright-red notebook, carefully wrapped in layers of tissue paper, perhaps never taken out again since it had been stowed away. The sight of it now zooms Ruth back to another moment she hasn’t thought about for years: stumbling into Tam’s room months after her sister had disappeared, Ruth’s mum sitting on the bed surrounded by Tam’s things, boxes in various stages of being packed covering the floor, and this very book open on her knees. Her mum had looked directly at Ruth, tears in her eyes, and said, ‘I don’t want you in here. You’ve done enough damage already.’

  Ruth unwraps the book and turns the pages of Tam’s journal, the smell of old paper wafting up. Her fingers tremble across the tiny indents made by a biro Tam once pressed on these very pages. One passage is about boys and school and not being allowed to go to a party because she had to revise, the language overwrought with clumsy longing, but it’s heartfelt and open too, the emotion on the page pure Tam, and Ruth’s sister’s voice rushes inside her head, like Tam’s carrying on a conversation they were just having over breakfast. Ruth shivers, holds her breath, can’t help flicking past the entries, until there it is – the last thing Tam ever wrote:

  Mum and Dad want me to go and see the doctor again, but I don’t want to keep dumbing myself down just so I can get through my bloody exams. Every time they have friends over, they make me come down and tell them all about my science award, like I’m some kind of performing monkey. It’s so embarrassing, I hate it and I hate them. Sometimes I feel like running away or just disappearing. Perhaps I’ll give them a fright. Then they’ll take me seriously.

  Ruth slams the book shut. It falls from her hand. She holds the edge of the car boot and leans over as fat dark circles of her tears stain the journal. Tam the golden girl was coming unstuck and Ruth’s parents couldn’t stop it, were actively ignoring her pleas to falter or fail. Maybe what happened to Tam in the sea that day was the deliberate and desperate act of a young woman who felt she would never be heard – it’s possible Tam was that ill or unhappy – but Ruth’s stronger suspicion is that her sister simply miscalculated the size of a provocative dare; Tam being Tam, she probably thought she was stronger than the sea. And after Tam died, it became easier for Ruth’s parents to live inside the lie that they had nothing to do with Tam’s pain, so they ended up creating their own alternative story where their part in her unravelling was absent, and they got caught up in the fantasy and ran with it; it was certainly easier to bear than the truth. Plus, they
found an easy scapegoat in Ruth. Ruth not telling her parents that Tam was in the sea was a devastating mistake, a childish error that she will regret to the end of her days, but her intention was never malicious. She tenses her hands, thumps her head on the open boot, screams behind her teeth.

  A hand on her shoulder. ‘Ruth?’ It’s Frieda. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘No.’ She wipes her eyes. ‘But I will be as soon as I get away from here.’ She slams the boot and takes Bess from Leila, who’s standing next to Frieda. ‘Come on,’ Ruth says, moving round to the side of the car.

  ‘Are we going to the wake now?’ Leila asks, opening the door opposite Ruth.

  ‘Nope.’ Ruth slides Bess into her car seat and secures her daughter’s straps, hands working fast as she clicks the buckles into place, her sense of relief mounting. ‘My dad’s had the last of me he’s ever going to get.’ All Ruth has ever had to mourn is that her mum and dad were not the kind of parents to command her grief.

  Frieda and Leila look at each other then back at Ruth.

  ‘It’s OK, I’m fine.’ Ruth gets into the Prius and places her bag in the seat well behind. ‘Anyway, this way I’ve got time to drop you at college, Leila. If you still want to go in, that is?’

  ‘If you’re sure, that would be great.’ Leila sits in the back next to Bess and yawns loudly. ‘The library’s quieter in the evenings and I need to catch up.’

  Bess returns the yawn, her eyes growing heavy; it’s been a long day and she’s missed her sleep. Leila strokes the toddler’s hair and, like magic, the little girl’s eyes close.