A Kind of Vanishing

by Lesley Thomson

  Eleanor had lied when she told Alice they had eaten cheese for lunch. They had beans and fish fingers. Alice must have realised this because she had eaten lunch with them.

  Eleanor had shunted the green sofa against the sitting room wall. In the big house the sofa was in front of the fireplace and was the best place to be in winter apart from by the kitchen stove. Her mother always lay on it when she was out of bed. Eleanor would sprawl on the thick rug in front of the fire and lean back against the sofa as she watched figures dance and leap in the flames. Sometimes her Mum would run spider fingers on the back of Eleanor’s neck, tracing messages that made her shrug and duck. Isabel liked to torment. She would nudge Crawford with her foot until he spat at her and blow on the back of Eleanor’s head until her skin tingled, while singing made-up songs that made them all laugh uneasily.

  Isabel Ramsay had been on the rug the night her family returned from the Lewes fireworks last November. Eleanor had been overjoyed to see her downstairs.

  Isabel lay sprawled on her side, an arm across the carpet, and the other bent underneath her in a way that Eleanor thought must give her pins and needles. She didn’t get up when they burst in whooping and shouting, pink cheeks stinging from the icy winds. Lucian and Eleanor were jumping like the mad firework that had zipped and dipped and made them giggle for ages after. Gina had been appalled. Her siblings were embarrassing. It was rare for Lucian to side with Eleanor and this had added to her joy.

  When she saw her Mum, Eleanor mouthed to the others shut up and did giant hopping steps towards her.

  One side of Isabel’s face was flushed purple from the fire, which although only glowing, was still boiling hot. Her jumper had pulled up at the back revealing a strip of white flesh and the black strap of her bra. As Eleanor got closer she discovered her Mum wasn’t asleep. An eye was open and watched something horrible in the fire without blinking, like one of Crawford’s birds. She was about to speak to her when there was a roar like a tornado whirling in from the garden. The living room door crashed against the wall shattering the convex mirror behind. A shower of splinters glittered and flashed in the firelight.

  Eleanor could think only of how her father never let anyone near the mirror, which was his dead mother’s. He acted like even looking in it wore it out. She had gazed down at the broken glass. It would be impossible to put it back together. Then she was spun off her feet as a great creature blundered past her shouting something about room to breathe. She grabbed at the mantelpiece to keep her balance. It was then she saw the puddle on the floor in front of her Mum’s face. A thin thread of sick hung from her lips, from which all the colour had gone.

  Her Dad was suddenly there, kneeling down on the floor beside her Mum, but Eleanor knew it was too late. She was dead. Later she would merge the memory of her mother sprawled on the floor with the grainy black and white image of the dying Senator. As her Dad bellowed at the children to get out, Eleanor had wanted to assure him none of them had broken the mirror or done anything to their mother. But before she could form the words an arm went around her, warm hands guiding her away as a soft whispering in her ear said things she couldn’t hear properly but that made her feel better.

  They had ended up in Gina’s bedroom and sat close together on her bed. Gina clasped them both to her in a huddle, and stroked their hair, telling Eleanor not to cry. Until then Eleanor had not realised she was crying, but her cheeks were wet so she let Gina blow her nose with Lucian’s handkerchief. She stole a glance at Lucian and saw that he was trembling like Crawford when he used to visit Mrs Jackson. They could hear their Dad calling out their Mum’s name so that Eleanor decided she had hidden and he was looking for her. He kept repeating: ‘Darling Izzie, it’ll be okay now. It’ll be okay.’

  After what seemed like hours the room filled with blue light going on and off, and they shuffled like a sack race across to the window, and gasped. A huge white van had crashed into their father’s brand new Rover. Then they saw it was just parked as close to the door as possible and not actually touching his car. Eleanor had saved up enough for a Red Cross ambulance with a detachable stretcher and doors that opened at the back and at the sides. She had been going to buy it at the weekend. This occurred to her as she stood between her brother and sister, and with a gossamer touch Gina stroked away Eleanor’s fringe. Now there would be no weekend.

  ‘An ambulance,’ she breathed, then flinched, waiting for Gina to reprimand her.

  ‘It’s for Mum.’ Gina spoke like their mother, low and certain.

  Eleanor was reassured. Gina knew what was happening. They kept out of sight as two men carried a stretcher through the front door beneath them. When the men came back there was a bundle on the stretcher like the Guy earlier that evening. The men loaded it into the back of the ambulance. Then just for a moment Eleanor glimpsed her Mum’s face, the eyes looked right at her, before her Dad jumped in and the doors were slammed shut.

  ‘She’s not dead.’ Lucian stated in his doctor’s voice.

  ‘Luke!’ Gina pointed at Eleanor, and hugging her tighter, clamped a hand over her ear, which made no difference to what she could hear.

  ‘If she were dead, they would have covered her face. That’s all.’ Lucian detached himself from his sisters with a shrug.

  The children watched impassively as the ambulance followed the circular drive in front of the house and glided out through the gateway. It gathered speed on the lane, and they saw the light flashing, a fallen star moving at speed at ground level, outlining the winding road across the downs to Brighton. Then it plunged into the woods and vanished.

  For the first time in their lives the three children had to spend a night alone in the White House because Lizzie was in London until the next day. They had slept in a tangle on top of Gina’s bed, their dreams punctuated by the dull booms and stuttering cracks from firework parties echoing over the dark downs. The three children were woken by their father charging into the room the next morning, demanding help with breakfast. It was past ten o’clock, the longest they had ever been allowed to sleep in.

  After that everything returned to normal. Their mother came home a week later in new clothes implying she had been shopping. It was dealing with such incidents that taught the Ramsays to treat big things as small things. Her week away became food poisoning. It was not a secret because no one was keeping it.

  Eleanor knew that Alice was wrong. No one died from cheese. But it made her admit to herself that she hated Alice. She did not miss her one bit, although at the end of his visit she decided to tell the detective that it was no fun without her.

  Her mother smiled as he gave her a sweet so it had been the right thing to say.

  On Thursday lunchtime, after the police had left for the day to continue their investigations, Lucian sauntered past Eleanor as she sat cross-legged on the patio at the back of the house ruminatively weeding out blades of grass from between the cracks in the flags, and laying them out in a neat and tidy row. He called out to his father, who was reading The Lancet on a camp bed under Uncle Jack’s tree:

  ‘Robert Kennedy’s dead.’

  Eleanor’s hand went to her mouth. Her father lowered the magazine just briefly before continuing to read. Eleanor shuddered as Lucian let the side gate bang on his way to the river, whistling a tune on one note. She got to her feet and wandered aimlessly around the side of the house to the meadow.

  She walked to the centre and stood in the long grass looking up at the blue cloudless sky, her cheeks warmed by the sun. The handsome Senator in the suit, with brushed hair and squeaky shoes, did not exist any more. Two wasps crawled busily over a rotten apple by her foot. Now the man with the crack in his chin would never save her from drowning.

  Eleanor understood with a profundity beyond her nearly nine years that she was truly alone. After that afternoon on the 6th June 1968, this recognition never left her.

  Five

  On the following Saturday morning, when Alice had been missing for three days, Eleanor ha
d finished a clandestine bowl of cornflakes and was creeping back upstairs when she heard voices coming from the dining room.

  She ran nimbly down again. The door was slightly open. This was unusual; another change since Alice went was that doors were mostly shut. Since they had been coming to the White House, Isabel had railed at the creaking doors and windows, left to swing to and fro despite her constant requests to keep them closed, for draughts, she insisted, were definitely responsible for her headaches. After Alice, the White House was quiet.

  Eleanor peered in. Her father sat in his chair at the head of the table ready waiting for food. Her mother craned over him from behind perhaps straightening his napkin. Although this in itself was odd, what astonished Eleanor was the way her mother was talking. She was half speaking, half singing like she did with Crawford and her favourite men friends.

  ‘It’s boring, darling but it’ll soon be over. Like Richard said, it’s routine. I think myself that she could simply be trapped in a cupboard here in the house, those children were getting everywhere, I even poked about in the chest freezer.’ She gave a strange laugh.

  ‘What would he do?’

  Eleanor squinted at her father through the space made by the hinges, as he indicated Judge Henry behind him.

  ‘Oh, Mark!’ (Eleanor wished her Dad hadn’t mentioned the Judge. It wasn’t the way to get her Mum’s sympathy.) ‘He’d get rid of these damned police, for a start. He was their boss, wasn’t he?’ Eleanor shut her eyes, but her father only made a mewing noise and put his head in his hands.

  Her parents had been closeted in the living room most of the morning, watching Robert Kennedy’s funeral on the television. This must have upset her Dad who had lost his twin.

  There was a scraping step at the front door and a massive silhouette filled the frosted glass panels. Now accomplished at deception, Eleanor bolted back to the kitchen, then marched out again with stamping steps, before running full tilt up the stairs as someone gave three loud knocks which caused the loft door on the top landing to swing open and smash against the wall. The bangs got quieter and quieter like the ball bearings in a cat’s cradle. She knew that now her Dad would never fix the catch and her Mum would be even more cross.

  Then Eleanor realised what had really upset her Dad. Chief Inspector Richard Hall had told her mother at the end of their talk yesterday that the police wanted to search the house in case Alice had hidden in a childish prank as he called it. He told her that they had already searched Alice’s house and found nothing. Although he kept saying ‘Mrs Ramsay’, he looked at Eleanor, so that when her mother said she supposed it must be done, Eleanor nodded heartily in agreement. She was Mrs Ramsay. She wished Gina had been there to see.

  If things weren’t bad enough, for the last few days Eleanor had not been able to find Mrs Jackson’s glass amulet. Its disappearance worried her more than what had happened to Alice. She was certain it had last been in her Box of Secrets. This loss was the culmination of a land shift that had altered her perceptions. Wardrobes and wallpaper were different. They were angular and unfriendly, stripped of memory or association. Trees cast menacing shadows across the overgrown lawn and the milk on her cereal that morning had been slightly sour. Nothing was the same.

  She had overheard Lizzie telling her mother that the police had opened an Incident Room in the church hall on the high street so today there would be no Bring and Buy sale. Instead most of the village helped in a search across the fields and along the riverbank. Gina and Lucian had been allowed to join in. Gina found a crisp bag that she was told might have a bearing on the case. Lucian hadn’t found anything so said the whole thing was a waste of time. At night Eleanor lay watching the creeping shapes on the ceiling made by sweeping headlights and dazzling film lamps. Intermittent rifle-fire of numerous car doors failed to penetrate the cotton wool quiet hanging over the Green. It reminded Eleanor of the muffled stillness inside her father’s car as outside he chatted on the busy pavement inches from the closed windows.

  All day policemen and journalists consulted in hushed murmurs, perhaps because they knew they were getting in the way of everyday life. A life now deemed precious and lost to an age already passing. Then a reporter would aim a camera lens at the White House windows and, diving to the floor out of sight, Eleanor was her old self.

  The house search did not produce Alice, but it did yield a packet of Gauloises in Gina’s knicker drawer and a welcome if momentary return to family responsibilities for Mark and Isabel. After administering a telling-off for which neither of them could muster up much remonstrative stamina, Gina was released to make only her second trip to the stables since Alice had hidden. That evening she stormed home in tears and standing in the hall, hurled her riding hat to the floor, where it bounced and rolled on the tiles, as she sliced the air with her crop. Seeing Eleanor strolling out of the kitchen munching on a ham sandwich, Gina had levelled the crop at her and screamed:

  ‘I ab-so-lute-ly hate you!’

  Mark had come up behind Gina, car keys jangling, and grabbing her shoulders, he propelled her into the dining room, kicking the door shut behind him. The sandwich turned to sticky dough clogging Eleanor’s mouth. What was the matter? There was plenty of ham left, and loads of bread; in fact recently, along with cheese, Gina had stopped eating meat, so what did she care? She swallowed hard and trotted swiftly across to the forbidding dining room door. Squinting into the keyhole through which she could see nothing because of the key, Eleanor listened. Gina was shouting:

  ‘It’s not fair. I hate her. She’s ruined everything!’

  Her father cajoled in a continuous rumble so that Eleanor could not make out separate words. She pulled a face as Gina carried on: ‘… and she gets away with it!’

  The hatred in her voice made Eleanor hiccup on her sandwich.

  She backed away from the door and told herself it didn’t matter about Gina, because her Dad had proved he was on her side. Whatever happened, Eleanor knew for certain that he loved her. This might make everything bearable. When she had got up the nerve to hear more they were talking calmly, although her Dad sounded like he was putting Gina to sleep as she made baby sounds, which should have been funny, but wasn’t.

  A chair leg screeched and Eleanor dropped her sandwich. She moved fast, scooping up the scraps of bread, scooting to the kitchen, where she threw them in the bin, scuffling them under a damp wad of rubbish in case she was told off for wasting food with people starving. This made her realise that since Alice went she hadn’t been told off at all. As Eleanor retreated to the playroom – now the extent of her world – she wished they would be cross with her. Gina’s outburst had been a relief. Since Alice had gone, Eleanor had vanished too.

  She settled on the floor and went on with her picture. Despite her gloomy mood, Eleanor was pleased with it. Two small spies creeping through thorny bushes followed by a tall murderer in sunglasses and a denim cap. She drew him, in thick black mixed with streaks of burnt umber and gashes of grey and brown, crawling over leaves and branches like a beetle. The spies were meant to capture the Mill Owner and hand him over to Richard Hall. She put in tumbles of gorse and brambles to rip his clothes and scratch him. Along the top of the paper she added the Tide Mills in the distance, and looming at the forefront, the Mill Owner’s house. Then she changed her mind about the thorns and coloured over them. She livened up as she filled the orchard with juicy, ripe pears that she decided the murderer should be allowed to eat because one of them was poisoned by the Chief Spy.

  No mention of Gina’s explosion was made at supper. Usually Eleanor would have said something, but instead she chewed diligently, her elbows tucked in. Gina did not shout again, Lucian didn’t talk about logic and reasoning with cutlery acting the parts. Everyone stared at their plates and munched. As the meal wore on Eleanor propped herself on her elbow, her forehead leaning heavily on her hand, and loudly slurped reluctant spoonfuls of custard. No one told her off.

  Isabel had set up camp in the dining room,
smoking and talking to visitors, emerging only to take a phone call or get another coffee. The dining room was where Eleanor was asked to go and talk to Richard Hall. Isabel sat beside her, as Richard the Chief Inspector explained how she would be helping them with their enquiries. He was trying to make her feel special. Eleanor was suspicious.

  The first time they talked, which was the afternoon after Alice went missing, Richard had asked her to think about playing hide and seek with Alice. He was sure that a clever girl like Eleanor could guess where Alice might be hidden. Eleanor had already informed him it was Alice’s turn to look, but he had forgotten. She decided Richard really was bonkers when he asked: ‘Elly, do you remember where you hid Alice?’

  His mistake made her snigger: as if she could hide Alice! Eleanor imagined her, smooth and white and clean and hard to lift. It was easy to hide from Alice, because she wouldn’t look in dirty places. Alice, sharp as a pencil, sat bolt upright, asking impossible questions, always demanding the right answers. Alice was very difficult to hide.

  She stopped counting before getting to ten.

  Richard the Policeman had rubbed his chin, making Eleanor think of Robert Kennedy, at that point still alive and presumably lying on a hospital bed in America with his head in a bandage. This distracted her so that she jumped when her mother smacked her hand down on the table. Everyone stared at it. Eleanor was sure Richard liked the nails, polished and long, and she hoped he liked the rings, the sparkling diamond, and the gold signet on her mother’s little finger that made her father cross because it was from a ‘former life’.