“James,” I say at last, and hot tears brim out of my eyes, pouring down my cheeks. I can taste the salt as I open my mouth. “James,” I say again.
“Where are you, Kitty?”
“At the seaside,” I say and try to laugh—the effect is unconvincing.
“But what are you doing?”
“Standing in a call box talking to you.”
There is a pause. I wish he were here now. With me, his arms round me, his uneven legs balanced on the concrete floor, his curly hair wild and bouncy.
“Kitty—” His voice seems lower—it’s dropped a perfect fifth, I would say. “A baby was taken from the Maternity Hospital. It wasn’t you, was it?”
“I gave it back,” I say.
He doesn’t speak for a few seconds. “Are you alone?”
I look round the phone box. There is no one else here. “Yes,” I say. My voice is stronger. I wipe the tears from my cheeks with a wet, rain-soaked sleeve.
“Thank goodness for that.”
“Why?”
“There’s a girl missing. The police have been around, asking questions.”
“They came to see you?”
“Yes.”
“Why did they come and see you?”
“You disappeared. I didn’t know where you were, so I rang them to report your disappearance. They can help, you know.”
“But—” He often doesn’t know where I am. It’s never bothered him before.
“I was worried. We haven’t spoken properly since we came back from Lyme Regis, and you’d left your front door wide open—”
I’ve stopped listening to the words. I’m hearing his deep voice, the rise and fall of the intonation, this voice that represents safety and sanity.
I interrupt him without knowing what I am interrupting. “I want to come home,” I say.
“Right.” His voice becomes business-like and reassuring. “Where are you exactly?”
Why do I hesitate, why don’t I want to tell him? I haven’t got the energy to work it out. “Exmouth. Where Guy met Margaret.” I struggle over the names. I want to say, Where my father met my mother, but that would be untrue.
“Catch the next train to Exeter St. David’s. There’s a train to Birmingham coming up from Penzance at about four fifteen. You should get that one easily.”
I’m filled with pride and admiration. I knew his timetable memory would come in handy one day. “You’ve always wanted to find a practical use for it, haven’t you?” I say.
“I’ll meet you at the station.”
“No,” I say. He mustn’t find out about Megan. “I’ll catch a bus home.”
“Well …” He sounds worried.
“I want to come home on my own. I don’t want you to meet me.”
Accept this, I think. Do it for me.
He pauses. “All right,” he says, and I think he realizes that I might change my mind if he doesn’t agree. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Why don’t you get a taxi?”
“Maybe.”
“Kitty?”
“Yes?”
“Go to your father’s house first. I’ll meet you there.”
I don’t understand. “Why? I want to go home.”
“It would be better if you went to your father’s house.” He doesn’t want to explain. Something in his voice, the firmness of the tone, tells me this is important.
“All right,” I say after a pause.
I can hear his relief. “Great. I’ll meet you there.”
“Why?” I say again.
“Your father’s worried, and your brothers. They’ll want to see you.”
“Except they’re not.”
“Not what?”
“Not my father or my brothers.”
There is a pause. “No. But they are your family.”
We say goodbye and I put the phone down. We haven’t told each other the complete truth. I don’t know why I can’t go home. He’s not telling me. Are the police there—or outside perhaps—waiting for me to bring Megan home? But I didn’t tell him about Megan. I’m the one breaking the thread of truth, the one who was not entirely honest with him. I’ve never done that before. We’ve always been open with each other—or at least as open as you can be with another human being. It’s all relative. Did he believe me about Megan? Was there something in my voice that told him? Was that why he didn’t explain properly why I shouldn’t go home?
I stand in the phone box with the rain pounding down on the roof and dripping on me through the gaps in the door. I feel very alone and very cold. My feet are numb and I start to shiver, my teeth chattering uncontrollably. I consider leaving Megan and going home on my own.
It wouldn’t be such a terrible thing. The police are looking for her and she’d easily be found in the café, playing marbles with her chocolate cake, waiting for me to come back. I could phone the police, tell them where she is, and then they’d come and fetch her.
I can’t do it. I brought her here and I should take her home. She’s only eight, or nine, or ten, or eleven. She needs me. I take a slow careful breath of calming air and step out into the rain.
When I get back, the waitress is sitting with Megan and they’re having an animated discussion. I watch them for a while, wanting to walk away again, but I make myself go over to them. The girl with the orange lipstick—which matches her overall and looks silly—is flushed and smiling. She stands up as soon as she sees me. “I’ve been playing I-Spy with Beth. She’s very good at it.”
Who is she talking about? I look round to see if I can see someone called Beth, but there is no one else in the room.
Megan looks up at me from under lowered eyelids, a knowing look that seems to pierce me with accusations of neglect and disloyalty. Can she read my thoughts? Does she know that I considered abandoning her? “Hello, Mum,” she says.
I’m finding increasingly that I can’t hold things together. There’s such an air of artifice surrounding our whole situation that it’s difficult to remember how everything fits with everything else. We’re living in a soap opera. Nothing is real. We’ve somehow built up this extraordinary fantasy edifice, and I don’t know how to stop it. I want to clap my hands and say, That’s enough for one day. Well done, we’ve all performed brilliantly. Act Two tomorrow.
Megan gets up and comes over to me. She takes my hand. “Come on, Mummy,” she says. “Let’s go and find Daddy.”
I look at the girl who is still sitting at the table, smiling fondly. Surely she doesn’t believe all this? But she waves prettily with her fingers. “Goodbye, Beth,” she says. “See you again some time?”
Megan nods vigorously. “You were really good at I-Spy.”
“Come along, darling,” I say, and take Megan’s hand. “We mustn’t keep Daddy waiting.”
We walk out of the café. I can feel my legs trembling. I don’t look back. Waves of uncontrollable laughter are building up inside me. Megan turns back once and waves childishly at the café window.
I walk faster, pulling her along with me. Once the café is out of sight, I let my laughter rise to the surface. We both start howling, staggering around, clutching a lamp post to keep ourselves upright.
“How old did you say you were?” I gasp out between the giggles.
She is jumping up and down with excitement. “Six,” she says and dissolves into giggles.
The laughter takes over again, although I don’t really know why. Why is it funny that she said she was six? Am I delighted that I’m not the only one who gets it wrong? Maybe Megan doesn’t know her own age. The more I know her, the less relevant it becomes.
We calm down a bit and stand still, breathing deeply. I try not to look at Megan until I gain reasonable control of myself.
“Can we do it again?” she says.
There’s a sharp, whining tone in her voice and she’s not laughing anymore. Her face is set and, although her eyes are looking at me, she sees past me, even through me, as if I don’
t really exist. “No, of course not,” I say. “I’ve made my phone call.”
“What are we going to do now?”
“We’re going home.”
She stands rigidly in front of me. “I don’t want to go home.”
“But you said you did.”
She’s silent for a while, and seems to shut herself off from me. “Have we got to go back on the stupid train?”
I nod.
She looks into space. The same look that she had on the beach with the fire. Total absorption. Lost in a parallel but different world. Thinking about the fire reminds me that she must still have some matches. She must have taken them from Mrs. Benedict’s kitchen. I daren’t ask her, because I know she’ll deny it and she could easily become uncontrollable again. I can’t cope with her screaming at me in front of a crowd of people.
We take the little train to Exeter and the big train to Edinburgh which stops at Birmingham New Street. Megan falls asleep almost immediately, curled up on her seat, her head on my lap. I study her sleeping face, searching for some evidence of the monster inside her. She sucks her right thumb, while her fingers flutter and grasp a strand of her hair. She glows with a childish innocence and it’s hard to remain unconvinced by it. I long to stroke her cheek or kiss her forehead, but I resist the instinct, because I know she is not as she seems.
Finally, I sleep too, my head slumped sideways against the window. Every time there’s an announcement, I wake with a jump and can only still my pounding heart by checking my watch and reassuring myself that we haven’t missed Birmingham. I wake for longer when refreshments are brought round and buy a cup of coffee, my neck aching from my awkward position. Megan stirs, moves around, muttering, and then goes back to sleep. I place the coffee in front of me and doze off again without drinking it.
I have to wake Megan as we approach New Street Station and she sits up, flushed and irritable, her short wispy fringe bent at an awkward angle. We leave the train, go up the escalators and out into the main concourse. I look around anxiously to see if there are any police there, or James not keeping his side of the bargain. There’s no sign of him and I start to relax. I take Megan’s hand and pull her to the nearest bus stop.
“Where are we going?”
“Home.”
“Your home?”
“No, yours. You’ll have to show me the way.”
The bus to Harborne comes and we climb on wearily. We walk to the back and I put our new hold-all on the seat next to me.
Halfway there, Megan says, “I don’t want to go home.”
“Well, you have to.”
“I want to go with you.”
“No, you don’t. You think I’m stupid.”
“Everybody’s stupid.”
“You might be right.” I say. “I’d just prefer it if you didn’t keep reminding me.”
We get off the bus in Harborne High Street and stand together. I know that Megan must live near here. “How do we get to your house?”
She doesn’t answer, so I start walking up a side street, assuming that she’ll tell me if it’s the wrong way.
She walks sullenly beside me, refusing to speak.
“Come on, Megan. It’s late. I’m tired, you’re tired, your mummy will be worried.”
“No, she won’t. She’ll be looking after stupid Henry.”
For a few seconds, I hesitate, seeing a real reluctance in her, frightened that I’m sending her back to an unhappy home. “You have to go home.”
“No, I don’t,” she says.
She turns and kicks the back of my knee very hard. I let go of her hand with shock, and she kicks me again, harder. I lose my balance this time and fall awkwardly on to the hold-all.
“Megan—”
“You’re stupid,” she says, kicks me again and runs away.
We are in a residential area, completely alone in the dark. “Megan!” I call, and then louder: “Megan!”
But she’s gone. A group of teenagers wanders down the road, puzzled by the sight of me struggling to get up. They stop to look. They’re paired up, two sets of girls and boys, arms round each other, and not very old—out in the evening, allowed to wander aimlessly.
“What happened to you?” says a girl, retrieving her arm from her boyfriend so that she can stand upright.
“I tripped,” I say. “The pavement must be uneven.”
“No,” says a boy. “The pavement is very even.”
I look down and he’s right. They roll their eyes at each other, then wrap up again in pairs and walk away.
“Thank you for asking,” I say to their backs.
I limp in the direction of my father’s house.
I HESITATE OUTSIDE THE FRONT DOOR. I usually walk straight in, but now—now everything has changed. I’m nervous, uncertain of my position. Perhaps I should ring the bell. I raise my hand, but then I feel foolish. Maybe I’ll offend everyone if I’m too formal. I did live here once, I remind myself. This is my childhood home.
I lean against the door, groping for the key in my bag, and it swings open. It has been left on the latch. James believes in me. I’m expected.
I creep into the hall, over the old worn quarry tiles and towards the kitchen where I know I will find them. I can hear their voices.
My father gives a sudden cackle of laughter. “Ha! Old Kent Road with a hotel. Gets them every time. Collect £200 as you pass Go and pass it straight on to me.”
“Hold on.” James’s voice is quiet, careful. “I threw a ten, not nine.”
“Rubbish. It was nine, clear as daylight.”
“Where’s the dice?”
“Here in my hand. It was nine—we all saw it.”
“I didn’t. I demand a rethrow.”
“Over my dead body.”
“Don’t think I’m not tempted—”
Wonderful. I’ve been desperate to come home to them and they sit playing Monopoly, each playing to win, as always, channelling their antagonism into the game, fighting it out in a literal context.
I push the door open gently.
My father and James are sitting opposite each other, perched on the edge of their chairs, tight and angry as they always are together. Martin sits between them at the end of the table, gloomily contemplating the board, his arms folded, avoiding the appeals of the players. Apparently, he is not playing.
“Are you accusing me of cheating?” says my father.
“Of course,” says James. “I don’t remember any occasion when you haven’t cheated.”
“Come on, Martin,” says my father. “Tell him what he threw.”
Martin unfolds his arms. “Well—” he says and stops.
“Hello,” I say into the silence.
They all turn round. My father and James jump to their feet, spilling Monopoly pieces on to the floor.
“Kitty!” says my father, and I’m five again, wrapped around by his words of welcome, made secure by his pleasure in seeing me.
I stand, quite still, and James comes over to me. He doesn’t say anything. He circles me with his arms and I lower my head on to his shoulder. I know now that the love I have for him is as strong as the love he has for me. We stand together for some time. The silence is made extraordinary by the presence of my father.
“Come and sit down,” says James after a while, and I take a seat at the table, in front of the abandoned Monopoly.
“We don’t need all this now,” says my father, and he sweeps the pieces into the box. The little dog and a hotel have fallen to the floor, but he doesn’t notice. “Just filling in time,” he says. “Waiting for you. Do you remember the games we used to have with the boys? They all cheated.” He looks at James.
I look at him with amazement. “You were the one who cheated—all the time.”
“False memories, Kitty,” says my father. “You were only little. You wouldn’t remember.”
James says nothing. He sits down next to me and fingers some crumbs on the table, crumbs that have probably been there for wee
ks, unnoticed by anyone except James. He sweeps them up, running his fingers along the grooves of the table, drawing them into a neat little pile.
“Let’s have some coffee,” says Martin, and switches on the kettle. He takes four unwashed mugs out of the dishwasher and rinses them sketchily under the tap. When he’s finished, James gets up and runs the tap for a while. Then he fills the bowl with hot water and Fairy liquid and washes the mugs properly. He starts to work his way through the dirty crockery piled next to the sink. He rinses everything meticulously under a running tap.
“We do have a dishwasher,” says my father.
Martin watches for a bit, and eventually takes a tea towel and dries them.
James ignores him.
I sit watching them and feel suddenly secure. I can’t think why I went away, why I thought I couldn’t manage all this. The warmth of the kitchen spreads through me, finally reaching my poor cold feet.
“I thought it would be better to come here,” says James, turning round, “because the police are waiting for you at home. I sneaked out by the back door. They think you might have taken this child—she’s been missing for two days now. We’d better ring them and let them know they’re wrong.”
“James,” I say.
He looks at me, but I can’t go on. I’m too tired. I need to tell him, I want to tell him, but it’s too difficult to find the right words.
The kettle is boiling, the warmth of the kitchen creeping into me, and I feel light-headed. It must be all that chocolate, I think. I don’t want anybody to move, anybody to speak. I would just like to hold it all together, here in this old neglected kitchen where I grew up, where nothing is ever washed properly. I like the piles of empty jam jars and wine bottles in the corner which no one remembers to take to the bottle bank, the mounds of bills and documents waiting to be noticed, the chairs with unsteady legs. This is where I grew up, the centre of my childhood, when mothers didn’t seem to matter so much because I had so many willing brothers.
I give up and let myself be swamped by this enormous feeling of relief. I watch Martin make the coffee, his huge fingers somehow neat and precise with the granules, knowing exactly how much he shouldn’t waste.
We hear the front door creak open and shut.
Astonishing Splashes of Colour Page 27