‘I trusted you,’ Samantha said, her face breaking. ‘You seemed to understand,’ she added, her voice catching on the words before she composed herself, lifted her chin.
Elsie almost broke at that. She had understood, she knew what it was like to have no one. More than anyone, she knew that.
‘Well, we won’t be troubling you in the future, that’s for sure.’
Elsie nodded, capitulating immediately, just wanting to shut the door on this tirade.
But Samantha hadn’t finished, her eyes welling as she swiped at her face. ‘What’s wrong in your life that you think shouting at a little boy is OK? I thought you cared about him, I thought he meant something to you. Is that just how you treat people?’
Was that how she treated people? Elsie wondered. She thought about all the times she had let her own anger and frustrations out on people in the village. June irritated her but was she really all that bad? Did gentle Scarlet deserve more from her? The number of times she had shut down the start of a conversation. And why did she always give Mr Porter the butcher, always kind, such short shrift?
But this was so much worse. Billy had meant something to her: she had liked him, and he had needed someone. She felt shame fill her up, didn’t relish the feeling, it made her even sharper.
‘He meddled.’ She glared, trying to convince herself perhaps?
He had expressly ignored her after she had told him not to go to that house. He had brought this all down on them. He had, quite literally, dug up her past. Elsie breathed loudly through her nostrils, reminding herself that she had just spent the last few moments sweeping up the mess.
‘He broke my teapot, he ignored my inst—’
‘I’ll pay you back for your damn teapot!’ Samantha interrupted, her eyebrows shooting upwards in amazement. ‘God, is that what all this is about?’
‘I don’t want money,’ Elsie bristled. ‘He was careless and he doesn’t listen…’
‘He’s just a young boy.’
Elsie stopped, head bowed, a swell of shame in her stomach.
‘I lived with someone who spoke to me any which way he could and I won’t have my boy fall into the same trap of loving someone with the same traits,’ Samantha continued, her voice wobbling.
Elsie flinched at the word love. Was that what she had been feeling these last few weeks for that small boy? She thought then of the times she had looked over at him in the garden, earnestly following her instructions, at his excitement at seeing things in the village, his joy as he leapt into the river, his babbling excitement at making a new friend…
‘I’ve told him not to come over here. Do you know he wanted to apologise? He said the teapot was important to you. Well, it shouldn’t be as bloody important to you as a person!’
Elsie deserved this: she had shouted at him, she had let him go, she hadn’t followed him, hadn’t cared where he had ended up. She had been irresponsible, selfish and cruel. Samantha was right.
‘What about the restaurant?’ Elsie asked in a quiet voice, needing to fix things, panicking for a moment that she had ruined everything.
‘I’ll ask Polly from work to watch him, she needs money for travelling.’
Elsie didn’t point out that Samantha barely had enough money for rent. She couldn’t summon any words. She should have stayed away in the first place, not got caught up in it all. She had always stayed out of other people’s business, never getting involved in their lives. After so many years, what had possessed her to think she could have helped? She had only brought misery on the boy and herself. She needed to close this door, draw the curtains, stick to the routines she knew; no one to mess them up, no one to hurt.
Samantha had dried up, distracted by a light shining from her own house. ‘I need to get back to him, I told him I was getting milk.’ She started to walk away, turned back to say one last thing, her face highlighted in the glow of the outdoor light. ‘He told me not to come here,’ she added, a bruised look on her face, ‘was worried he’d make it worse. See who the adult is in this scenario?’
Elsie pressed her lips together, choking down the emotion.
Samantha left, leaving the gate swinging open, and Elsie watched, an ache in her chest for all the things said, all the things she couldn’t defend.
‘I always mess things up,’ Elsie said aloud.
She had always been unlovable. She had known that since the day she opened that tin, a memory box of items, twenty-eight years ago. Since the day the world she had known, the person she was, the person she thought her mother had been, came crashing down around her ears.
I told you once that when I was a teenager I snuck out in the middle of the night, with a small bag, my torch, a sweater, some food. I had loaded up the bag, creeping around the kitchen: taking bread from its spot under the chalkboard, biscuits from the red tin, a carton of orange juice.
I was meeting a boy, someone I had met in the library a few days before. I had been returning a book, a saga about a family in Tennessee.
‘Was it any good?’ he had asked, taking a step towards me.
I hadn’t seen him before, my forearms breaking into goosebumps at the proximity. I could feel my face working away – speak, Elsie, speak – but all those years without peers, it felt so strange to talk to someone my own age. I just didn’t know how to do it.
His blue eyes were mischievous as if he was on the edge of a great joke.
‘Awful,’ I said and he threw his head back and my eyes rounded in amazement as I heard his laugh, throaty and loud, earning a fierce glare from the librarian behind the counter.
He walked me home and asked me questions and I found myself flicking my hair over one shoulder, speaking in a lighter voice. I brushed his arm when he said something amusing, amazed at my new, confident persona.
‘Where do you go to school then?’
‘I don’t,’ I admitted.
‘Cool!’
I realised he thought that meant I was older than I was, not that I had never been, and I didn’t correct him. I wanted to pretend I was this entirely different person, this older girl who had opinions about books she read, who tinkled with abandon, and could make good-looking boys laugh in libraries. I liked her.
We arranged to meet after his shift in a local pub – if he thought it was a strange time to meet, he didn’t say anything.
‘The meadow,’ he said, one eyebrow raised in a question.
I’d nodded and told him to be there.
The high street had been deadly still, familiar places now foreign shapes in the dark. There had barely been any moon and I had walked underneath the railway bridge, heart hammering, my hands gripping the handles of my bag.
He never showed.
And I cried. I cried self-pitying tears. I didn’t want to walk home with my bag of food and my cartons of juice. I didn’t want to go home at all. I sat in the dark on the bench that overlooked the bridge as the tears fell. I’d just wanted a night and someone to share it with.
Because it was too much. It got too much at times. In the house. Just us. Always.
Chapter Twenty-Two
BILLY
The forms were handed out right at the end of the day, the accompanying slips of paper with our groups typed on them. I knew the moment I saw it, I’d have to get out of it.
The whole class was going to the New Forest for the end-of-term camping trip and I’d been put in a walking group with three other boys: Daniel, Javid and Max. You couldn’t make it up. Me and the boys who hated me most walking through a forest together, no teachers for a million miles as we trekked to some horrible campsite to eat stuff out of packets and sleep in tents. It was like the teachers could see inside my head and extract my worst-ever idea.
It was obvious Daniel was well up for the chance to make my life hell and he was there at the gate when school finished, Javid standing next to him as if he was glued to him. I hated them, their stupid smirking faces. Why couldn’t they get bored and pick on someone else? Feeling my skin pr
ickle, I knew I couldn’t avoid them now they’d seen me.
Daniel was holding the form for the trip in his left hand, sneering at me. ‘You’ll be carrying my rucksack, obviously,’ he said, waving it at me. ‘You need to get the practice in…’
‘Why’s that?’ I asked, trying to look bold enough to answer back, just wanting to get through the gate and home. I hated him.
‘Only thing you’ll be doing in the future, isn’t it? “Sir, sir, can I take your bag?”,’ he mimicked my cockney accent again, bowing and making Javid laugh.
I ignored him, stepping around him to get through the gate.
He spat on the ground in front of me, flecks hitting my shoe, turning my stomach. ‘Oops, fly in my mouth!’ He smiled, his teeth stained yellow in the front, breath all meaty. ‘Stay and talk, Billy-Boy.’
I mumbled something, not brave enough to tell him where to go. Was anyone seeing this? Would anyone help me? Becky was with another girl up ahead. It looked like she was hanging back, looking back at me over her shoulder: was it kindness or pity?
Daniel pulled out his mobile, scrolled to his photos, playing a short video clip. Confused, I forgot Becky as I listened to echoing laughter and chatter. The images were wobbly: plain white walls, everything at a strange angle as if a phone was resting on the floor, the close-up of someone, pink flesh. ‘You love to show off all your body when you change for PE, don’t you?’
Feeling my cheeks go red, my hands curl tight, I stood there. Had he videoed me when I’d used the PE changing rooms? The thought made me feel sick. The clip had been too quick but I saw naked bits… What had he filmed? Was it definitely me?
Daniel was examining it now and I could hear the distinctive sounds of the concrete rooms we all showered and dressed in. ‘You’re not very big down there, are you, Billy?’ Max and Javid twitching before barks of nervous laughter.
Oh my God! I needed to see it again, how much had he filmed? He must have hidden the phone under the slatted benches. I felt my stomach flip.
‘Before you ask, yep, I’m thinking of sending it to the whole class so they can rate your body, so keep an eye out. Oh, wait, you’re not even on the group chat.’ He followed the line with a long grunt, his face screwed up. Javid paused for a second, eyes flicking worriedly over my shoulder and back to Daniel before laughing. Daniel had noticed too, narrowing his eyes at his little minion. Javid shrank backwards. Daniel really did have everyone in his pocket.
‘Plenty of time to catch you again when you’re dropping your trousers to shit into a hole in the woods,’ he laughed, sliding the phone back into his pocket, then grunted again.
He stepped backwards, one arm out as if giving me permission to leave, and, miserably, head drooping, I did just that, pushing at the sticky wooden gate, walking out of the school grounds. The thought of me stood oblivious in the changing room with its dark wooden benches, its wobbly biro graffiti on the grey walls as I was filmed, made me want to cry.
I got home quickly, finding a note from Mum telling me she’d be back in ten minutes. Blinking, wanting a hug, wishing I could tell her what was going on, I raced up to my room and slammed the door. I pressed my whole body against the wood and pulled out my own phone, saw the pathetically short list of contacts. Who could I call? I couldn’t even tell Liam, it was too embarrassing to write the words down. Tilly? There was no way I could tell her about a naked video – I didn’t want to lose my only friend.
Hot with shame and the most alone I had ever felt, I sat on the edge of my bed, knowing no one could really help. For a second I thought of heading next door. Mrs Maple had been good at listening in the past, knew how Daniel made me feel. Maybe if I told her what he’d done, I’d feel better. Peeking out of the window, craning to see over the fence into her garden, so much of it hidden from view, I wondered if she was down there on her knees in the soil. Did she need someone to drag that ladder over to the gutters for her?
Then I remembered how she had glared at me, shouted at me, her eyes cold, and my heart hardened again.
The door went and Mum called out. Hiding the phone as quickly as I could under the mattress, I headed downstairs.
I didn’t hand over the form, had stuffed it deep in my bag hoping it would just disappear. But, just my luck, it seemed that Mum, for about the first time in forever, had spoken to another parent. ‘Poppy’s mum told me there was some end-of-term trip announced today?’ she said, twisting her hair up and clipping it, her fringe tucked behind her ears.
‘Yeah,’ I grunted, panicking as to how I could downplay it.
‘Apparently there’s a few things we might need for it: walking boots and the like.’ She worried at a nail. I wasn’t a rocket scientist but even I had worked that we didn’t have any money, there’s only so much carrot soup she could make.
I saw my way in. ‘That’s OK. If we don’t have any money, I don’t have to go.’
Mum looked horrified. ‘Oh, don’t be silly, of course we’ll find a way! I won’t have you missing out because of something stupid like money. Someone will have some second-hand,’ she said. ‘Poppy’s mum was going to ask around for me.’ She ruffled my hair and moved to collapse on the sofa.
I wrinkled my nose, already picturing a stinky pair of used boots full of another boy’s sweat, plastered in mud. Great. No doubt the other boys would all turn up with new gear, some special camping fashion I couldn’t even begin to compete with.
‘I’ve never even stayed away from home,’ I began, moving across to her with puppy-dog eyes. Mum was a sucker for that kind of thing, always calling me her ‘baby’ even though I squirmed and wriggled out of her hugs. This time I sat and snuggled in closer, smelling her shampoo with a hint of garlic from the restaurant as I nestled there, like I was a toddler all over again.
She stroked my hair. ‘Hmm…’ She didn’t seem convinced. ‘That’s nice, but it’s the whole class, Billy. This is exactly the kind of time to do it, it’s perfect. Everyone will feel the same.’
It didn’t take long for me to drop the snuggly toddler act and move straight to another tack, standing up and moving angrily through to the kitchen. ‘It sounds rubbish! We have to stay in tents, it’ll probably rain.’ I slammed a cupboard door open, not shocked to see a few tins and barely anything else. I missed London with the crisps and snack-size chocolate bars Mum always hid but badly enough I could sniff them out. A rotting banana rested on its side and I sighed and picked it up.
‘That’s not like you,’ Mum said, appearing in the door. ‘You’ve become positively outdoorsy,’ she added, a smile on her face. ‘I can’t believe you leapt in the river.’
‘Just once,’ I snapped.
Her smile slid from her face.
I’d have to be ill. All I knew was that I wasn’t getting on that coach in that last week of term. No way!
‘I’ve got homework,’ I said, pushing past her in the doorway. I shut my eyes as she simply said a quiet OK.
Upstairs, throwing myself on my bed, I couldn’t be bothered to reach for my bag. Homework could wait. I pulled out the mobile again, but I didn’t want to message Liam, not to just moan. It was different: if he was here, I could talk to him. I was about to throw the mobile back down again when I saw it, the notification on Facebook messenger, realising with a jolt of surprise who it was before I even clicked on it.
My finger lingered over it before I pressed down to read it.
Where are you?
I could just tell him, could type the letters, I thought. My dad could have been here with me in less than a couple of hours. But something stopped me answering, an uneasy feeling in my stomach.
I knew Mum wouldn’t like it, her voice tense every time I asked her about him. The questions she avoided. How stressed she sounded when she told me not to get in touch. My guilt that I’d found him on Facebook, had hidden that fact from her.
So why didn’t I tell him now? I did want to see him, missed him, and at the moment I needed people around, needed someone to notice what t
he hell was going on – to help. Dad had an edge. If he knew about Daniel, I was pretty sure he’d be angry, wouldn’t let him get away with it.
But a memory, a memory I hadn’t thought about for a while and had deliberately pushed deep down so I didn’t have to, slunk in. It was a couple of years ago, stood in the doorway of my room in our flat in London, late.
I’d been woken by a noise, imagining monsters in the dark, the outline of my dressing gown making my heart beat fast as I scrabbled up in bed as things came into focus, the nightmare vanishing.
Hushed voices, a strange, strangled noise. Coming from inside the flat, definitely not outside.
They were stood in the corridor, Mum in her tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt, the material bunched in Dad’s hand, her stomach visible. I’d looked away, not wanting to see her like that, see the bottom of her bra. Were they hugging?
Then I saw the expression on her face, her eyes white and round as Dad held her against the wall, his big arm across her small body, resting on her neck, her feet on tiptoes. Something I didn’t quite understand. Other smaller memories starting to form a pattern I didn’t want to complete.
It didn’t look like a hug.
I’d stepped backwards, creeping quickly back to my bed, curled right up tight, face to the wall, felt the smallest creak of my door as someone pushed at it, light leaking into the room from the hallway.
I’d held my breath, squeezed my eyes tight. I was asleep: I hadn’t seen anything, it had just been a bad dream.
The next morning I’d woken up and convinced myself it had been just that. Dad was sat at the table smiling at me, asking me about football practice, making a joke at Mum, who stood round-shouldered at the oven. It was fine, I’d thought, my answer sticking in my throat. It was fine, this was normal.
I tried to ignore Mum’s face as she placed my cornflakes in front of me, pretended not to notice the bloodshot eyes or the purple mark that peeked out of the top of her trousers when she bent down to pick something up. It was fine, it was normal. I had forced myself to eat the whole bowl, feeling the cornflakes bubble in my stomach.
The Garden of Lost Memories Page 15