Rowena followed her out of the house, and into the garden.
‘Jennifer!’
Rowena yanked her shoulder as she started along the garden path.
Jennifer turned to her quite calmly. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I was taking some air.’
Rowena frowned at her: even the phrase was not her own.
‘Were you going to go out of the gate?’
Jennifer hesitated. ‘No, Mummy,’ she said.
‘I think you’ve started lying to me,’ said Rowena, suddenly uncharacteristically angry. She took both Jennifer’s shoulders and shook her slightly. ‘Haven’t you?’
Jennifer widened her eyes.
‘No, Mummy.’
‘You are just thirteen. It is not safe at night out there. There are sometimes gypsies about, foxes . . . That strange sect nearby with all the long-haired people . . .’
Jennifer smiled. ‘I’ll go back to bed.’
Rowena caught her hands. ‘Where is Eva?’ she said.
Jennifer gazed up at her. In the light of the moon meeting the street lamp, she looked like a film star, illuminated by a glow as she had so singularly not been on screen. She wrinkled her brow. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.
As the birds began their chaotic chorus, Rowena finally slept.
‘The children need their breakfast,’ said Douglas, shaking her awake two hours later, and she groaned and staggered downstairs in a daze of head pain and fatigue. Dully, she cooked Ready Brek on the new hob.
‘You look peaky,’ said Douglas. ‘Wretched.’
‘I feel wretched,’ she murmured.
‘Church in an hour,’ he said. ‘People don’t miss it here.’
‘I . . .’ she said. ‘I need to get some sleep.’
‘I woke Mummy in the night,’ said Jennifer suddenly.
Douglas nodded. He looked round, then clapped his hands. ‘Come on, kids. Get to your posts. We’re going to church on our own. Chop chop.’
Rowena spotted him from the bedroom at the end of his garden as she had in the tumble of her fantasies, though in the night he had been in a white shirt as though dressed for work. She raced to the bath, visibly shaking under the shallow water, pulled in her stomach, re-shaved her legs and cut herself, wincing as she applied antiperspirant; she dressed in her new pedal pushers, knotted a shirt at her waist, and inspected her face, hiding from her window and slapping a little colour into her cheeks. Freckles danced across her nose over a tan from her perambulations about the green in his absence, rendering her instantly more youthful after so much time in which she had felt merely hag-ridden. She decided to keep her hair loose beneath a wide band so it fell with a bounce at either side of her face. She glanced out of the window again, glimpsed patches of white moving behind the foliage, and emerged on the garden path. She heard a low whistle. She walked slowly to the laurel.
‘I am flying, allegedly,’ Gregory Dangerfield said, his eyes catching hers through the leaf-shade. ‘But I fear the plane will have developed a fault. And you are . . .?’
‘Sleeping,’ said Rowena, blushing.
He was wearing a T-shirt, like Marlon Brando, and the contours of his chest were visible as never before beneath the cotton, the muscles on his arms almost, she thought, like sexual organs – too frank, too male. Her mouth was slack. She was aware she must look half-witted.
‘Come round the front,’ he said. ‘They’re all at church. Hasten, Lady Crale.’
‘You know I mustn’t, I mustn’t . . .’ she said, trailing off.
‘Do you wish to talk, walk, drink elderflower cordial?’ he said and took her by the waist, his hand a light pressure on its curve, and automatically the desire for him to want her grew, the longing for him blotting her vision.
She hesitated. He smiled, reading her.
‘Come and see the children’s tree house,’ he said, almost laughing, and her heart accelerated alarmingly, weakening her legs as she climbed the small ladder to the tree house that sat brightly in a cage of oak. She crouched down to enter it. It was uncharming, paint-new, and appeared almost unused by those spoilt children with their own swings and bars, their many pets and Wendy house. The church spire was visible, roofs, hedges and fences. Motor cars in many colours were converging by the green for a rally that was being held that day.
‘Do sit, Lady Crale,’ he said, and they lowered themselves and sat in a tangle of limbs on the floor with its rug and cushions, their legs almost reaching the other end.
There was a hooting on the green as the car rally gathered momentum. ‘Ignore them,’ he said, and he flipped her on to her back, skilfully in that small space. ‘Ingenuity is required,’ he said as he unhooked her bra, that beautiful gingham patterned object she treasured, that she could wear now she was no longer required as a dairy cow, and he was above her, the oak leaves patterning the corners of her vision as she pulled him to her, their legs at odd angles and their clothes tangled ridges as they laughed at themselves. She kissed him rapidly all over his cheeks, chin, mouth: fast kisses everywhere, until he shifted his position and stilled her, slowed her, kissed her with great tenderness. He faced her, his hair falling forward, his expression intent and focused and almost brutal as she had never seen it before, so she momentarily wanted to escape, but he whispered to her and she needed him, so needed him, and he was above her and inside her and she shuddered as cars hooted and voices began sounding from the green as the congregation left the church.
14
‘WHERE IS JENNIFER?’ said Rowena when Douglas returned.
She had changed into her weekend drainpipes and a checked shirt; she was sore, her thighs tender and her head light, almost stupefied in her distraction. The clamour of motors and voices above them bounced in through the windows in a constant stream as though a wireless were on.
‘She must be behind us,’ said Douglas. He was not cross and overheated as she had expected, but pleased with himself, calling Bob ‘old man’ and praising the behaviour of the girls. He even ruffled Caroline’s downy hair, making her cry.
‘Good, good,’ said Rowena, smiling. ‘Lunch!’ she said suddenly. She had not given it a moment’s consideration.
‘I thought, I thought—’ she said hastily. ‘We would have a summer salad.’ She snatched eggs in a dangerous fashion from the fridge and put a pan on to boil. ‘I have been asleep, not much time . . . beetroot salad, egg, lettuce . . .’ she said, hiding behind the fridge door.
Douglas darkened. ‘I’m peckish,’ he said. ‘When will we eat?’
‘Soon,’ said Rowena, searching for crackers as the bread was stale. Cars were revving and hooting. ‘And . . . sausages,’ she said brightly.
‘Dreadful racket. How long did you sleep?’
‘Oh, ages,’ said Rowena. ‘Silly me. When Jennifer woke me in the night, I couldn’t . . . Where is she, Douglas?’
‘Where’s Jennifer?’ he said to Rosemary, not turning.
‘I don’t know,’ said Rosemary. ‘Shall I go and look, Daddy?’
‘Yes. She’s probably being chatted to by the vicar’s wife,’ he said. ‘You know how a certain kind of silly woman seems to dote on Jennifer.’
‘It’s the ones without their own children,’ murmured Rowena, scooping mayonnaise in a daze. She boiled eggs and laid the table, waiting for Rosemary and Jennifer to return.
Rosemary ran in, out of breath. ‘She’s not there,’ she said.
‘Who is still at the church?’ said Rowena.
‘No one now,’ said Rosemary.
‘Oh,’ said Rowena. Faint anxiety started fanning through her distraction.
‘No one?’ said Douglas.
‘They’ve closed the church now. The vicar is gone, Daddy. The people were all watching the motor cars.’
‘Some terrific marques,’ he said. ‘Well, she must be amongst them.’
‘I didn’t see her, Daddy,’ said Rosemary.
‘She didn’t go ho
me with a friend?’ said Rowena.
Rosemary shook her head. ‘She wouldn’t on a Sunday lunchtime without asking you. Would she?’
‘I’ll pop out and have a look for her. But oh, lunch.’
‘Honestly,’ said Douglas, opening a beer and running his hand through his hair. ‘Can’t it wait? I’m famished.’
Rowena ate virtually nothing. The beetroot was watery, the cubed cheese hard, the lettuce sparse. Douglas was openly disgruntled, but she barely responded. Her breasts had been touched. Her nipples were hard at the memory. She swayed very slightly.
‘I am going to find Jennifer,’ she said, standing up.
‘I think I’ll go to the pub for a ploughman’s,’ said Douglas in a tight voice.
‘Look after the babies,’ Rowena said to Rosemary, and ran out to the green, where she cast her eyes around for Evangeline even as she looked for Jennifer, and Freddie seemed to follow her out there too. He was clinging to her skirt; she felt it, a child in the bright sunshine tugging at her impatiently, but then he was gone, his presence only a shadow by the stream, if at all, and the green rippled in a heat haze, and she was furious with herself for such arrant stupidity.
The rally was now thinning, and Lally Lyn, who was signing an autograph through a car window, waved.
‘Have you seen Jennifer?’ Rowena called, but Lally was still chatting to her fan. She stood in the girlish knock-kneed pose she used in photographs. ‘Sorry, duck,’ she mouthed, then made her way in a swirling blouse that looked to Rowena like the Pucci she saw in magazines, and was approached by another driver.
Rowena clicked her tongue in impatience. ‘Please,’ she asked anyone she saw, ‘have you seen Jennifer?’
She knocked on a few doors. She tried houses where the twins knew the children. A cloud of panic was rising inside her.
‘Lost another bairn?’ said the small Scottish man who lived in a tiny house divided into two behind the pub.
Rowena gasped. She lifted her hand, and without hesitation she slapped his face. Then she gaped at him.
‘Sorry,’ she said, widening her eyes. ‘I’m most awfully sorry.’
He stared at her, his mouth tightening.
She backed off, apologising, and ran around the village. Eventually, she made herself approach the Dangerfield house. She stood on the step, quite dizzy with dread. As she lifted her hand to the polished brass knocker, she had to steady her breathing.
There they all were, at lunch in their large dining room, the remains of a Sunday roast on the table as they tucked into a trifle. Gregory visibly tensed as he saw her. Her hair was ragged; she was perspiring; her casual outfit was infinitely less appealing than the clothes she had worn when he had made love to her. Lana Dangerfield was somewhat reserved.
‘I’ve not seen her,’ she said in her careful tones. ‘I’m sorry.’
Peter and Jane gazed silently.
The police searched everywhere that day, bringing in a larger force and scouring and interviewing the village. Locals joined them in the evening, searching the outlying fields and woods. The reaction to the disappearance of Jennifer was in sharp contrast to that of Eva, who was clearly considered a lost cause and prone to wandering. The police announced that by the following day, they would release the news to the public.
‘If this pack of rural bobbies doesn’t find her,’ said Douglas, ‘I’m thinking we need to hire a private detective. Get a proper chap up here. It will cost us, Ro.’
‘They’re already bringing in a bigger force,’ she said. ‘But yes. Yes. Please let’s do that.’
‘If you get the press on to it, lie low, darling,’ Gregory murmured to Rowena over her garden gate. ‘You’ll have to gag Lally Lyn, otherwise she’ll be offering up quotes about how “fabsville” it was playing Jennifer’s sister to the Herald. I’ll have a word with her,’ he said, swinging his work jacket on to his shoulder. ‘You don’t want the press getting hold of the – two . . .’
Rowena sobbed and put her face in her hands.
‘Hold tight,’ he said and gazed momentarily into her eyes. He squeezed her hand. ‘I’ll see you as soon as I can.’
In the night, there was no sleep. Image upon image processed past her: her children were taken from her by the court, the adoption services, inevitable if you lost two of five, three of six, the sums merging in her head so she was sweating and crying and begging her pillow. Jennifer, Jennifer, she sobbed. While Eva had always wandered, especially now they lived in the country, Jennifer trod a safe path between home, village and friends’ houses, with occasional excursions across the fields to Brinden with her sisters. Douglas woke intermittently and threw his arm around Rowena, or sighed heavily at her sleeplessness; once he paced the floor and left the room and she heard the sounds of him muttering Jennifer’s name as he urinated loudly. He crashed back to sleep, and she rose to go to the bathroom herself and heard the noises so openly now, the creaks and murmurings from along the passage. She almost didn’t care.
She walked through the house in her nightdress, and the sounds subsided but the smells were there in force, the landing thick with perfume, with – she had to face it – with urine, and, as she descended the staircase at that end, the air was hung with mildew, with sour wafts of cat. Was there canary there too? No, that was in her imagination. She gagged. The stains were now spreading from above the arch to the middle of the ceiling, a crazy feathering of yellow, brown, rust on the paint, mould fingering towards the centre, its path interrupted by loosening sections of plaster, and spreading into plump furry accretions that recalled again Mrs Crale’s old wallpaper, the birds that were decapitated by Pollard’s blows. ‘Oh God,’ murmured Rowena. ‘God,’ she said more loudly, crying in some way for help.
‘I seen your bairn,’ said the old Scottish man the next day.
‘Where?’ Rowena gripped him.
‘By the stream.’
‘By the stream?’ said Rowena rapidly. ‘What was she doing?’
‘Chatterin’ away. As to a wee bairn. But there were none there.’
‘Oh, you mean Eva?’
He looked puzzled. ‘The lassie who dresses as the dead. As the departed. Like her grandmammy. As the—’
‘Evangeline,’ snapped Rowena, the neighbour’s small wizened face with its hen eyes boring into her, and she felt that same impulse to hit him. ‘You saw her?’
‘Aye.’
‘Where did she go afterwards?’
‘I dinnae know.’
Rowena swore under her breath. ‘Well, tell the police you saw her.’
‘Aye. I will do that.’
‘And if you see her again, tell her to come home, then fetch me. Tell her she won’t be in trouble.’
‘She will though, aye? Your mister will take a belt to her.’
Rowena went back to the house, sobbing. Douglas was betraying a new tone of urgency in his somewhat aggressive dealings with the police and she wanted to be near the phone. She gazed, all afternoon, out of the window, keeping Rosemary, Bob and Caroline inside, close to her. She had been prescribed a stronger dose of Librium. The light was mobile in the next room.
Freddie. Freddie is here, she thought – Freddie, who doesn’t exist. My own girls are gone, gone, and all I have is a lost boy.
Eventually, Caroline and Bob went for their naps, Rosemary sat in her bedroom, and Rowena stood alone by the window. She gazed and gazed through different panes, the distortions of each small section of glass altering the view of the green in cloud, in rain, in silver silence, and she was increasingly aware that, should she look round, there would be someone behind her. She didn’t look, but there was the knowledge of being watched, of someone small playing, the smell of grubby, sugary skin pressed against her back, and she stood there rigidly, the only movement the tears running down her face.
15
ROWENA CONTINUED TO look through the rain as the boy played behind her, a presence as sure as the clouds that darkened the room, while the faintest shiftings of joists so
unded upstairs. She couldn’t look at him or he would scutter away, a collection of shadows, so she resisted him with her back, and tears made her face sore as rain twined down the window.
Was she to call him Freddie? He had never had a name. ‘Freddie,’ she murmured aloud, to try it out, and she was reminded of Eva again, as she followed him up the stairs, because he was pulling at her with a hot sticky hand, and she would look after him now, when it was too late. Too late. He needed a mother’s arms.
On the landing, he was gone, but there was Eva’s skirt.
‘Oh!’ Rowena let out a cry.
A layer of red flannel petticoat beneath a sprigged flounce caught in the corner of the tongue-and-groove door; a hand opened the section again swiftly and quietly and then released it, and the wall was once again as it ever had been.
Joy flooded through Rowena. Here was her darling daughter. She cried thanks to God in the sky, in the clouds and heavens. If Evangeline was here, Jennifer was somewhere at large too. She was, she was; she had to be.
Rowena heard Eva’s voice and caught her breath. Her heart was thumping so hard, she thought that surely its reverberations must drum on the wood, but she made herself still in her light-headedness, and she listened.
She heard murmurings, seemingly a conversation rising and falling through the noise of rain on the roof, and strained to hear the words. Eva! Her dear mad daughter, there in that horrible cupboard. Through her bewilderment was the blessed relief that the panic was over.
‘. . . please,’ said Eva gently.
There were whisperings, silences, a tangle of words. Rain thundered, subsided, regathered force, blocking out all other sound. Rowena pressed her ear harder to the wood, but she could distinguish only an occasional word through the onslaught.
‘. . . your medicine . . . potatoes . . . Pollard,’ she heard.
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