A Kind of Vanishing

by Lesley Thomson

  She had let them down.

  No, it was Mark who had let them all down. Isabel closed her eyes.

  Mark’s death, a phrase that she wasn’t ready to use, was like a power cut. Although it is easy to grasp the fact of no electricity, in practice it is still a surprise when no light comes on or the kettle fails to boil at the click of a switch. It is the last straw when the television stays blank at the wand-wave of the remote. As Isabel lay on her treasured luxury lounger, she reflected on the yawning future.

  That morning she had walked around the side of the house, past the thick bushes of fuchsia and hydrangeas that grew beneath the study and dining room windows, gingerly raising branches, even checking in the old outhouse by the pantry. She had stopped quickly when she realised she was searching for Alice as she had when the girl first went missing.

  If she had told them, the family would have called it the Raleigh complex, named after Gina’s stolen bicycle which was cut from its chain outside the Chiswick open air swimming pool when Gina was nine. The police had said it would be local kids having a lark and to keep a look out for it. After that, the whole family stopped to examine every chipped blue bike they came across, looking for the tell-tale dabs of mismatched paint on the cross bar. This habit haunted them for years, long after Gina could have ridden the bike had it been recovered. Now Isabel was doing the same thing, except Alice’s worth hadn’t diminished in the same way as a battered old bike. Her mother, at least, would want her.

  At the time Isabel had been desperate to prove that Alice had got herself trapped somewhere. Houses were complicated structures, she had insisted, particularly this one. Alice could be anywhere. She had never told Mark that she had encouraged the police to search their house. There would, she had assured Richard Hall, be a good explanation. She suggested they try the basement.

  ‘It’s a warren down there, lots of little rooms, great place to hide.’

  Isabel had made repeated journeys into the cavernous basement herself and, careful not to be heard by anyone above, called out to Alice. She was cajoling, tempting, luring: Don’t be frightened; we’re not in the least annoyed with you. The police had been down there the day before, but Isabel had suspected that Alice would have been too scared to respond to men she didn’t know, however kind they appeared to be. You had to gain the trust of a girl like that. Then she would do anything for you.

  But years went by and still Alice had not been found.

  More than once, Isabel had sneaked off through the orchard to the Judge’s disused workshop – now filled with bikes, old lawn mowers, tins of paint and bits of broken garden furniture – and cupping her hands, peered through its grimy windows. In the cobwebbed interior, the disused contents kept their counsel.

  One evening when Mark was in his study, she made up her mind to tell the police about her dream. It was five years since Alice had gone missing and she had just watched a programme about the Kennedy shooting, which had happened the day after Alice disappeared. After some flicking back and forth she found Detective Inspector Hall’s number in the back of her 1968 diary. Making sure she wouldn’t be interrupted, she started dialling the number. Then common sense had prevailed. How absurd to tell them about a dream. They would section her. Instead she went down to the basement and methodically searched it yet again. As she moved aside boxes and shelving units, felt her way through the cold dank cellar where the ice had once been stored, she whispered Alice’s name, as she often did when she was on her own.

  Even after so many years Isabel could not stop looking for Alice although now, more than ever, she was terrified of finding her.

  Isabel wriggled her toes, and lay so that her body was aligned, as she had learnt at her transcendental meditation class. She breathed in and out with her palm on her abdomen. While doing this exercise she was supposed to recite the personal mantra given to her by her teacher. For maximum effect she was meant to keep it secret and not share it with anyone else. But these days unless Isabel wrote things down or told other people she forgot them. She had quickly forgotten her mantra and was unwilling to confess this. Instead she would recite as many titles of Thomas Hardy novels as she could remember. This worked just as well. Although the effort of recalling them made her tense, it did at least take her mind off things.

  Today the temperature was ideal: a breeze had got up, so it was not too hot, but warm enough to let go. Isabel did find it extraordinary that the sun could shine and that she could feel its warmth while Mark was lying buried under a mound of cold soil up by the church. She closed her eyes, not daring to think what else was possible.

  She was aroused from the first driftings of a dream in which she was lying in Mark’s arms, cushioned on his shoulder, by the sound of familiar footsteps.

  She was in the car Mark used to drive before they got married and started a family. He was young with bristly short-back-and-sides, and eyes that glittered. His white coat with the stethoscope slung around his neck was too safe an image for a man who she had discovered was so unsafe. She tried to grab his leather-clad hand but it slipped away leaving her with a floppy glove. His scent faded as she struggled to reach him, to rest her hand on his thigh; to attract him. But his attention was on the road; he was gripping the wheel of his sports car, a laughing mouth refusing to say where they were going. White teeth bared, lips taut like a fox. She cried out, but made no sound.

  The dream had dwindled and Isabel was awake.

  The footsteps stopped. Already smiling, already knowing, Isabel opened her eyes and reached out her hands to greet Eleanor, her favourite child.

  Twenty-Three

  Alice’s mother helped Chris on to the settee. She was now the stronger of the two as she snatched up cushions and tucked them in behind her, plumping them smartly, easing her backwards with the economic efficiency of a nurse. A warm dry hand stroked Chris’s forehead, tidying back her hair, brushing her cheek. Chris blinked as her eyes stung with sudden tears; it was just how her Mum would have been. She couldn’t think of that now. She gave in as her legs were gently lifted, so that she was lying full length on the settee, her feet propped on another cushion. If only she could stay here. The village was no longer a science-fiction nightmare; she wanted to live here and start again. But of course once she was better she would have to go. When she had gone Mrs Howland wouldn’t care because she would have Alice.

  ‘Have a few sips.’

  As she took the cup and saucer Chris noticed there was no trace of the earlier shake and that Alice’s mother walked without catching her heels on the carpet.

  ‘What happened?’ Chris gave a groan.

  Alice would have the right to stay as long as she liked. Her mother would be newly alive. Upstairs a fluffy hot water bottle would once again warm the immaculate bed. On an impulse Chris decided it could not happen. She wouldn’t tell Kathleen Howland about Alice and she wouldn’t tell Alice where she was. She too could start a new life, with a new name and story and see how Alice liked it. Mrs Howland would be her new mother.

  Chris could be Alice. She could fill her space and stay with this kindly woman, who was after all her grandmother, lulled by the cluck-tock-cluck of the old clock on the mantelpiece. There was nothing to stop her. She needed a mother and this mother needed a daughter. This was the ‘grandma’ she had gone looking for outside Fuller’s Brewery.

  Chris could not know that she was one of a long line of women, and some men, who, claiming reasons of research or detection, had come to Alice’s cottage wanting to occupy the vacant role of the nine-year-old child. If only for an hour. There had been many ‘orphans’ drawn like magnets to this mother going spare. With the callous vigour of the cheated and betrayed, Chris reasoned that if a life could be invented for her, populated with phantoms she had been taught to love like kindred spirits, she could take a loving mother and hot sugary tea and make up a new life for herself.

  ‘You fainted, that’s what happened. Down like a nine-pin. Lucky you didn’t hit your head.’

&n
bsp; ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. It’s the heat. Abroad apparently they have thick walls and tiled floors. That’s better, you’re looking more yourself now.’

  Chris sipped the tea and settled further into the cushions. Already she loved this woman with soft hands, adorned only with a gold band on the wedding finger, who talked with quiet confidence. When she had brought in the tea, she had sat on a footstool next to the settee, her hands gathered around her knees like a girl.

  ‘You came out with something a bit odd before you keeled over.’ Alice’s Mum took the empty teacup off Chris and set it on the coffee table. ‘About going to London.’

  Chris could say she felt ill again, but this would mean more pretending. Despite the perfectly placed cushions and caring attendance, Mrs Howland was going through the motions. She was not Chris’s mother, nor did she want to be. No amount of fainting would change that. Chris would have to make her come to the flat and let her see Alice for herself.

  In her bafflement at Alice’s terrible deceit, Chris had viewed Mrs Howland as no more than a catalyst, a prompter of events that would blast apart Alice’s world in the way Alice had shattered her own. Her trip to the eerily deserted village baking in hot sunshine and her arrival at a dark cottage had been for Chris part of a plot to make her Mum very sorry. She had been so intent on knocking down the tower of cards that her mother had painstakingly erected that she hadn’t taken on board the stark truth that there is no knowing how people will react.

  ‘It is a bit much. The heat.’ Chris didn’t know what to do next. ‘The bedroom…the dolls.’

  ‘You’re not the first. They think I don’t know how it looks, but it’s not possible to be normal. No parent should outlive their child. It’s normality turned on its head.’

  ‘I think I’ve found…’ Chris heaved herself into a sitting position. She would sort this thing out and put everything back in its place. She could do that, no problem.

  ‘Found what, dear?’

  It was the second time she had asked the question.

  ‘It’s best you come with me and see for yourself.’

  ‘Now? To London?’

  ‘I’ll explain when we get there.’

  Kathleen got up unsteadily.

  ‘I’d have to book a bed and breakfast. There was a good one in Hammersmith.’

  Already Kathleen was arranging the expedition with no trace of indecision. She thought nothing of getting on a train and being in a different city by nightfall. No one understood that for her nowhere was home, so it didn’t matter where she was. It was a relief to be kept busy. All these years the one thing she had learnt was to keep an open mind and trust that anything was possible. She would go wherever this young girl wanted to take her.

  Kathleen’s practical willingness emphasised the flimsiness of Chris’s own intentions.

  ‘Hammersmith is miles away. You could stay with us.’

  ‘Who is us, dear?’ Alice’s mother was rifling through her purse, a bus pass between her lips as she flicked through the credit card section, zipping and snapping, opening and shutting compartments.

  ‘Me. And…my Mum.’

  ‘Your Mum?’ Kathleen looked up. ‘Have you asked her?’ She looked at Chris as an adult checks the story of a child, respectful yet doubting.

  ‘She won’t mind. She’ll be pleased.’ Chris nodded firmly. Everyone would be pleased.

  On the train down, Chris had watched a little girl sobbing and being mopped up by her Mum and decided that nothing was certain. The child believed that her mother was protection against the world. Just as Chris had once assumed her own Mum was, until at three years old she had first seen her cry. She had not explained why she was crying, and would not stop. Chris got her tissues and patted her shoulders, repeating, ‘there, there’, but she had gone hollow inside and after that she had not felt safe.

  The mother on the train was troubled and tired, and embarrassed that her daughter was wailing loudly in a quiet railway carriage. Earlier Chris had helped her load a suitcase on to the rack above their heads. The shared effort hadn’t opened up further interaction. Chris hated knowing that the child’s sense of safety was an illusion. Yesterday she had discovered that all certainty was illusionary.

  Once thought, she could not unthink it.

  ‘I’ll be ready in two ticks, my bag is packed, just need to check I’ve got my pills, water, bits and bobs.’

  Chris wandered to the window.

  A blue Range Rover was parking outside the cottage. Its glass reflected the sun, so she couldn’t see the occupants. A door opened slowly, sending a lighthouse beam around the living room. Chris went up to the pane, interested now to see who would get out. So far the village had been devoid of life.

  Two women emerged, one from each side of the car. Although they were dressed differently, and one had short hair, the other shoulder length, there was a similarity that contributed to an impression of choreographed symmetry. The woman nearer the cottage had her back turned as she bent back inside the car and then, standing up, she slung a handbag on to her shoulder. The other woman held a bulky plastic bag in her arms. The doors slammed shut at the same time, and the woman who had been driving strode around the bonnet, a hand trailing over it as if staying an animal. As she came into view something fell out of the carrier bag on to the road. Chris stepped closer to the glass. It was a video tape. The woman who had been driving fumbled for it, and finally picked it up. Both women paused and examined it briefly. Then the woman with the short hair and the handbag turned to face the cottage and this stopped being a play in which Chris had no part.

  The woman was Alice.

  Her companion lifted the latch on the gate. Chris bounded across the room to get to the door before they rang the bell. Already they were coming up the path. In the hall, she collided with Mrs Howland, nearly knocking her over.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I was going to tell you…’

  ‘Calm down, you’ll be ill again.’ Mrs Howland was in slow motion. Chris held on to the wall as the hallway reeled and dipped.

  A shadow fell across the porthole of moulded glass in the door and the barometer needle trembled on Fair as the knocker thundered down.

  Already Mrs Howland was far away as Chris pitched forward trying to stop her getting to the door. Too late. The front door opened with a deafening creak over which Chris was shouting. Later she wasn’t sure she had made any sound at all.

  ‘It’s Alice. I’ve found Alice!’

  Sunlight flooded the hallway. In the glare, two figures on the doorstep loomed – shapes with no features. Chris was helpless as Kathleen stepped forward and all the while in the background, a voice was talking.

  ‘Mrs Howland, we’ve brought Dad’s camera tapes. Quite a collection, over two weeks’ worth, but what with…’

  Kathleen Howland gave a cry, of pain or joy, Chris couldn’t tell, and grabbed Alice’s hands, grasping them, intertwining them, and jigging them up and down. She drew the other woman in too, pulling them to her.

  ‘It’s Eleanor Ramsay! And Gina too. How thoughtful of you both, with all that’s happened…oh, come in, come in! You can meet my new friend.’

  Kathleen ushered the Ramsay sisters into the living room. There was no one there. The young woman whose name she had already forgotten had vanished. Kathleen wasn’t surprised. She was almost used to it. They got what they came for and went.

  Nevertheless she was disappointed. This girl had seemed so different.

  Twenty-Four

  Chris wasted valuable seconds fumbling with the back door key before realising it was already unlocked. A raised step tripped her up and she tumbled out into the garden sending a plastic box, like the one she used to take to school for her lunch, spinning over the path, white bread spilling. She dashed down the path between the cottage and the post office, and stopped at the corner of the cottage. The front door was shut, but the car was still outside. Chris bowed her head, then taking a de
ep breath, hands shielding her face, she ran out down the path and, leaving the gate swinging, she set off up the lane.

  The pavement rushed beneath her, cracks passing faster and faster as she quickened her pace up the hill. Her lungs were bursting, sweat soaking her shirt, but still she kept going.

  Since Chris had discovered the articles under her mother’s pillow, her landscape had been demolished. It was years since that morning when she had banged out of the flat without saying goodbye to the woman who was supposed to be her Mum and supposed to be called Alice. Hours and minutes had dragged, shot forward, wound back, and now in a benign country churchyard on a warm summer’s afternoon, they halted altogether.

  Storming between the plots, tripping on the uneven ground, Chris was an agitated figure to anyone who might see her.

  There was someone.

  She caught a movement by the corner of the churchyard. In this horror-film village Chris hadn’t reckoned on meeting anyone. There was a woman, maybe not much older than herself, standing in the dappled shadow of a silver ash. She hadn’t seen Chris. She was looking at a grave and writing, supporting a notebook with one hand, her blonde hair falling forward. At first Chris assumed she was some mourner come to spend quiet time with her loved one. She must have made a sound because the woman looked up and saw her. She snapped shut her book, dropped her pen in the bag slung on her shoulder and marched swiftly over the grass back to the path. As she came towards Chris, a smile already prepared, Chris saw she was much older than her hair and clothes had made her think. Not actually old, but worn-out looking. Chris was also taken aback by her expression. Far from behaving as if Chris had interrupted a precious moment, she was embarrassed and the quick nod of greeting as she hurried by was apologetic.

  After the woman had left the churchyard, Chris decided to find out which grave had so interested her.

  She was not prepared for what she found. The grave was recent, a long low mound of soil flecked with bits of white chalk with nothing else to distinguish it, no flowers or messages of love. The thick clods of earth were rudimentary and raw while a makeshift wooden cross at its head undermined the permanency of the place and the significance of the grave itself. Chris imagined the body buried below, it probably still had eyes, and a lolling tongue turned colourless by death lying inert in its mouth. She read the name on the metal strip screwed to the wood.