Hoping they wouldn’t notice her trembling hands, she placed the photo on the table. Then she sat back and waited. Bill was the first to speak. ‘Oh yes I remember that day,’ he said warmly. ‘Your mum had just taken delivery of your dad’s latest Mini. He had a few Minis in his time, but that one was the worst. Maggie was the one who drove it the most and it was always breaking down. She had to keep ringing Ray to come and fix it.’
‘Why didn’t my dad drive it?’ asked Megan.
‘He drove it at weekends,’ said Bill, ‘but he also had a van for his electrical business. He was out in the van when the Mini arrived.’
Megan was surprised. ‘Who took the photo then, if it wasn’t my dad?’
Bill looked up from the photo and glanced at Irene. It was a strange, lingering glance full of unspoken meaning. ‘It was me,’ said Irene quietly. ‘I took it.’
Megan had a feeling that she was on the cusp of a wave of truth that was just about to tumble out. She knew that the next question she asked would be crucial. She took a deep breath to calm herself and then looked directly at Irene. ‘Did you spend much time with my mum?’ she asked. ‘Only I just wondered what she was like.’ She wanted to hear from Irene, but it was Bill who answered.
‘She was a lovely person and that’s all you need to know really isn’t it?’ he said reassuringly. Megan felt frustrated. ‘No, it isn’t,’ she said quickly. ‘I want to know what she was like. I mean what sort of person was she?’ Irene’s reply was unexpected. ‘She was a bit eccentric. A bit on the wild side. Wouldn’t you agree Bill?’
‘I suppose you could say that,’ laughed Bill.
Ryan was intrigued. ‘What do you mean wild?’ he asked.
Irene began to relax and sat back in her chair before she replied. ‘Maggie was a very determined person,’ she declared. ‘She would get an idea in her head and that was it.’
Bill also looked less tense. ‘Do you remember when she painted all the woodwork in her house bright pink?’ he chuckled.
‘Oh yes,’ smiled Irene. ‘Paul made her repaint it the next day.’
‘She used to paint pictures as well, didn’t she?’ said Bill. ‘She painted some lovely portraits.’
Irene nodded. ‘Yes, she was due to start a course at York Art College just before she…’ her voice trailed off, but Bill carried on. ‘Do you remember the day she went on a charity run and got lost? I mean how can you get lost on an organised run, but she did. She tried to take a short cut across some fields and ended up walking even further to get back.’
By now Bill was laughing so heartily that his eyes were watering. Dabbing his eyes with a tissue, his memories of Maggie seemed to be unstoppable. How Megan wished she’d had enough courage to ask him about her mum before.
‘What about the day Maggie sprayed the inside of that blue Mini with a really strong perfume,’ he laughed.
‘I do remember that,’ smiled Irene. ‘She gave me a lift to York and the smell made me feel sick.’
It was the mention of the Mini again that gave Megan the opening she had been waiting for. ‘Was she driving that blue Mini when she had the crash?’ she asked tentatively.
With this one short question, the mood in the room darkened and Bill’s face changed.
‘No,’ he muttered almost inaudibly. ‘She wasn’t.’
Irene looked at Bill. ‘Paul needs to tell her,’ she said earnestly. ‘It’s not fair on any of us, least of all Megan.’
Bill sighed. ‘It’s your dad that needs to tell you what happened,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll have a word with him tomorrow.’
‘No,’ said Irene sharply. ‘You’re putting it off Bill. You need to go tonight. Maggie wouldn’t want Megan to suffer like this would she? I would go and see him myself, but you know how he feels about me.’
‘OK, OK,’ said Bill irritably. ‘I’ll go tonight.’
Megan couldn’t say any more. She just swallowed hard. The torrent of tears waiting behind her eyes was dangerously close to spilling over.
That night, after Megan had gone to bed, there was a knock at the front door. She could hear Bill’s voice as Paul greeted him and then she heard the lounge door closing behind them. She ran to the top of the stairs, but all she could hear were muffled voices. She was disappointed that she couldn’t hear what was being said, but at least Bill had kept his promise.
From where she was standing she could see into her dad’s bedroom. She glanced aimlessly at the usual mess of papers on the floor but as she did so, her eyes caught sight of a large box on top of his wardrobe. Her dad had once told her that it contained important papers and warned her not to touch it. But now things were different. There could be things in that box that might give her more information about her mother.
Thinking that Bill and her dad would be talking for a while, she crept into her dad’s room and looked for something to stand on to reach the box. There was a wooden chair next to his bed with clothes thrown over it. She lifted all the clothes onto the bed and placed the chair in front of the wardrobe. She was only small, but when she stood on the chair, she could just reach the box. Grasping it with both hands, she climbed off the chair and placed the box on the floor. It was covered in dust. She lifted the hinged lid with the tips of her fingers and slowly opened the box. Inside was a large sketch book with the initials MT on the cover and a large brown envelope. She wondered if this was what it felt like to break into someone’s house to steal something.
She was about to open the envelope when the sound of her dad’s raised voice made her jump. The lounge door opened and then the front door slammed. It sounded like there had been an argument and Bill had left. She put the envelope on the bed. There was no time to look at the sketch book, so she left it in the box. As she quickly climbed onto the chair to put the box back, it slipped from her hands, landing on the floor with a thud. ‘Megan,’ called Paul from downstairs. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m fine Dad,’ she called back. ‘Just reading and dropped my book that’s all.’
Picking up the box again, she returned it to the top of the wardrobe and gently climbed off the chair. With shaking hands, she lifted up the chair to put it back by the bed, but as she did so, one of the chair legs caught the bedroom door with a sharp bang. Her dad’s angry voice bellowed at her from the bottom of the stairs yet again. ‘What are you doing now Megan? Get to bed!’
Snatching up the envelope, she raced out of the bedroom. ‘Sorry Dad. I’m just going to the bathroom.’
There was no response. Paul went back into the lounge and slammed the door. Megan listened and waited. She could hear nothing apart from the pounding of her heart as she stood motionless in the bathroom with the envelope still in her hand.
A few minutes later she was back in her bedroom, looking for a place to hide it. There was only one place her dad would never look and that was in her memory box.
She turned the envelope over and over in her hands. Something felt wrong. Some-how she just couldn’t bring herself to open it. She felt guilty for taking it and she was terrified at the thought of what she might or might not discover. A cold chill rippled through her body. Clutching the envelope tightly to her chest, she pulled back the duvet and slid into the warmth of her comforting bed. She lay there for a few moments with her head on the pillow, cradling the envelope against her body like a baby with a soft toy. She wondered if she ought to put the envelope back where she found it. Everyone seemed to be saying she was too young to know the truth and perhaps they were right. Maybe it was too horrible to face up to. Then without warning, warm tears flowed onto her pillow as if from nowhere, making her hold the envelope that little bit tighter. Then she knew that she couldn’t put it back. She had come too far in her search for the truth to give up now. Whatever was in the envelope, it couldn’t be worse than not knowing.
8
A Newspaper Cutting
She woke
up with a start and looked at the clock. It was 1 a.m. and the envelope was still in the bed. The light had been turned off, so her dad must have looked in and switched it off. She was thankful that the envelope was not on view. It then crossed her mind that this would be the best time to open it, as her dad would be asleep. It was too risky to put the light on, so she propped up her torch on the bed and gently pulled out some of the papers from the envelope. On the top was a folded paper that looked quite old. It was her mother’s birth certificate. She held it closer to the torchlight, so it was easier to read. It said that her mother’s name was Margaret Hawkins and that she was born in York. It also gave the names of her mother’s parents – Susan and David Hawkins – and it gave her date of birth. She carefully put this to one side and unfolded another sheet which appeared to be her parents’ marriage certificate. Inside the folded certificate was a photo of her mum and dad on their wedding day. Her mum looked beautiful, dressed in white. She was carrying a spray of bright red flowers that matched her red curly hair. The newlywed couple were standing in some gardens and looked really happy, but there was no family grouped around them. She had once asked her dad why she didn’t have any grandparents and he told her they had all died. She had never heard him mention any aunts or uncles either. How she envied Ryan who had both his parents and his grandad still alive.
The torchlight flickered over the bed and she heard her dad coughing as he slept. Megan’s eyes were hurting and she was desperately tired. She felt she needed more time to study what else was in the envelope, so she put it in her memory box and drifted into an uneasy sleep.
The next morning when Megan went downstairs to make her breakfast she heard someone putting something through the letter box. When she looked, there was another handwritten letter on the mat, addressed to her dad. She dashed to the front window and looked down the street, but whoever had posted the letter had gone. With everything that had been going on, she had forgotten to ask him about the last one and her dad had not mentioned it. This letter looked like the same handwriting. She wandered into the kitchen and put it on the table as she reached for an apple from the fruit bowl. She seemed to have permanently lost her appetite and couldn’t face eating anything more.
She turned as Paul came into the kitchen. ‘Someone’s just posted another of those handwritten letters through the letterbox Dad,’ she said as she bit into the apple. ‘You didn’t tell me who the last one was from.’
Paul snatched up the letter. ‘Is that all you’re having for breakfast?’ he snapped. But he didn’t wait for a reply before he continued. ‘I don’t want you going to Bill’s house any more after school,’ he stated bluntly. ‘In fact, I don’t want you going there at all,’ he added.
Megan was astonished. ‘But why?’ she cried.
‘You need to come home and do your homework,’ he replied curtly. ‘You’ll never do well at school if you spend all your time round there. And don’t bother arguing with me Megan because I’ve made up my mind.’
Before Megan could say any more, Paul stormed out of the kitchen and marched up the stairs to his bedroom. There was no time to protest. Megan’s school was in York and if she missed the next bus she would be late. When she left primary school, she had wanted to go to Oakton High School with her friends, but her dad said the one in York was a better school. He said there were too many rough kids at Oakton school, but Ryan went there and he seemed to be OK. If she was not at the same school as Ryan and not even allowed to visit him, she couldn’t think how she was ever going to see Irene again. She just hoped that the envelope she had hidden in her memory box would tell her what else she needed to know.
As she sat on the school bus, she felt angry with her father and yet she was afraid to complain in case he got worse. Just like the wild cat in the watchtower, she felt completely alone and unable to break free.
When Megan returned from school that day, Paul was watching from the window. Two youths in hooded jackets were delivering leaflets across the street. ‘I’m just watching those two,’ he said as he opened the door. ‘They’re delivering leaflets about the car wash at Ray’s Garage, but they seem to be taking their time. One of them has just stopped for a smoke. I hope they don’t do that when they’re cleaning cars.’
Megan didn’t believe him. It was obvious he was standing there to make sure she didn’t call on Ryan before she got home. She went into the house without saying a word. She could hardly bear to speak to him.
Later in the evening she decided to ask him again why she couldn’t visit Ryan, but when he refused to even discuss it, she gave up and went to her room, saying she was going to do her homework.
After jamming a cushion behind her bedroom door to stop her dad coming in unexpectedly, she took the envelope out of her memory box and spread all the contents on the bed. She put the certificates to one side and then picked up a smaller white envelope containing a folded sheet of newspaper. From the condition of the newspaper she guessed it was published some time ago. As she carefully unfolded the page, a shocking headline came into view: FATAL CAR CRASH IN OAKTON WOODS. Her stomach churned when she saw the photo beneath the headline. The car that was crushed against a tree was some kind of sports car with the top down, but two other things caught her attention. In the background you could see Irene’s gatehouse with a Mini parked outside. She couldn’t tell what colour the Mini was because the newspaper photo was black and white, but it had a white stripe down the bonnet, just like the one in the photo of her mum and Bill. The newspaper report underneath the photo was quite factual and short. It gave her mother’s name as the person who died and it said she was the driver of the sports car. It also mentioned that there were no other vehicles involved. But what stood out for Megan was the exact date and time of the crash. It was the afternoon of her seventh birthday. She felt stunned. She now realised why her dad didn’t want to tell her exactly when her mum died. She felt guilty that she had been so angry with him, when he was only trying to ensure that her birthdays were free from sadness for as long as possible.
Then it occurred to her that whilst the discovery of this newspaper report answered the question about the date and time of the crash, it actually raised more questions. Why was her mother driving a sports car when the Mini was close by and why hadn’t her dad told her that the car crashed by the gatehouses in Oakton woods? Then there was the question of where Megan was at the time of the crash. She worked out that if it happened outside Irene’s house and Irene was looking after her, they both could have seen the crash or even caused it in some way. She also remembered her dad saying that her mum had gone to York on the day of the crash and she wondered what she had gone there for. Her mind was in a turmoil.
She took another look at the photograph of the crashed sports car. The more she looked at it, the more it looked like one of those Frog-Eyed Sprites. It certainly looked a lot like the one in the car park at Oakton Hall. She folded up the paper and put everything back in the envelope. She was glad she had seen the photo of the mangled car, but she didn’t want to look at it ever again. It was just too painful.
As Megan lay in her bed that night, everything was going round in her head. Every time she found some answers there seemed to be more questions. Try as she might, she found it hard to remember much about being at Irene’s house on her seventh birthday. Apart from a vague memory of playing hide and seek in the woods and playing with the knitted cats, she couldn’t remember anything. She told herself that she would have to be patient. She would bide her time and wait for a chance to ask more questions. She was determined that she would never give up until she got what she wanted.
The next few weeks were very difficult. She couldn’t seem to concentrate at school. She spent much of her time during lessons lost in thought as she invented different versions of what might have happened on her seventh birthday. Her teachers kept reminding her to pay attention, but thankfully the pupils in her class didn’t notice anything different becaus
e they usually ignored her anyway. Being the only one in her year from the Oakton area meant that, right from her first day at the school, she felt like something of an outsider. The girls in her form seemed to have such different lives to her. They were allowed to go places at weekends and they had their own phones, which they constantly used to chat to each other every day. Some of them even had boyfriends. It was impossible for Megan to keep up with them and so in the end she stopped trying. During lunch breaks she would eat her lunch as fast as she could and then she would either go to the library or walk around the school trying to look as if she were going somewhere. In Megan’s mind, anything was better than the shame of everyone knowing you had no friends to talk to. In fact, even though she could hardly call Ryan a friend, he was the only person she felt she could confide in and now she was not even allowed to see him.
At home things were also getting worse. Her dad was becoming more and more irritable. One evening after school Megan poured herself a glass of milk and accidentally knocked the glass over onto the kitchen floor. The splinting, crashing sound brought her dad scurrying in from the lounge. ‘You stupid clumsy girl,’ he shouted as he attempted to pick up the broken pieces of glass.
‘Sorry Dad. I’ll get a cloth…’
‘No. Let me do it!’ he yelled. ‘You’ve done enough damage. Why can’t you watch what you’re doing? Just get out. Get out!’
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