Ghost Girl

by Thomson, Lesley

  ‘It’s me, Mum.’ She squeezed inside and, sweeping her hand over the wall until she found the switch, clicked on the light. It spread bleak illumination over a narrow hallway, made narrower by piles of newspapers and cartons, reaching higher than Stella’s six feet, that threatened to topple when, moving crabwise, her rucksack in her arms, Stella inched along.

  She paused at her old bedroom. There were the boxes of carbon-copied reports from when her mother worked, magazine recipes, bank statements, postcards and letters awaiting Suzie’s attention; they must not be thrown out. A box in the doorway had ‘Mum’ scrawled on the side. Stella’s grandmother’s knitting patterns, needles and odd balls of wool spilled out. It being there gave Stella scant hope her mum was sorting it at last, but more likely she had, on a whim, been prodding about for the pattern she would knit when she ‘found the time’. She would not throw it out, it would be ‘killing her mother all over again’, she said. As if she had killed her the first time. Sometimes the way Suzie talked reminded Stella of Jack.

  Stella’s bedroom had been Clean Slate’s office and like her room at Terry’s held no evidence of her childhood. The day Stella started at the ‘big’ school, Suzie had announced she was grown up. Stella had been pleased by this but when she had got home her toys, her wool rabbit, her puzzles, her Sindy doll and the glass tube of sand from the Isle of Wight holiday – the first without Terry – had gone to charity. Preoccupied with the complexities of new teachers, noisy children and so many classrooms, Stella had not thought she minded.

  Despite her cleaning only yesterday, the air was cloying with cooking smells overlaid with cigarette smoke. Suzie insisted she had given up; Stella knew this was a lie. Her mother lied about many things, or maybe she could not distinguish the truth.

  Stella paused outside the living-room door. Despite knowing Suzie was in there, Stella felt that she could be alone – so unlike her impression that Terry was present when she was in his house.

  A semblance of domestic comfort signalled by a standard lamp with a fringed shade was cancelled out by clutter. More newspapers behind the door, a plastic laundry bin full of the umbrellas her mother insisted she had taken by accident. A gate-leg table took the weight of serving dishes, jars filled with buttons, paper clips, bus tickets and the other objects Suzie collected indiscriminately. There were two more tubs of mini chocolate biscuits, her mother’s latest food fad.

  The serving hatch was of no practical use: it was partially obscured by piles of books and a sofa blocked access to it. A cracked plastic Adidas holdall lay on the path to the kitchen; Stella recognized her old games bag and wondered with a sinking heart why her mother had got it out. Beside it was a green glass fruit bowl spilling over with bars of staples, packets of screws, a bulb of garlic, a root of stale ginger and the used jiffy bags Suzie had asked her to bring from the office two days ago. Stella had cleaned the room only yesterday; none of what she had achieved was evident.

  One item dominated the chaos: a threadbare wing-backed armchair upholstered in red velvet. Stella was uncomfortably reminded of Mrs Barlow’s recliner. She snatched up the fruit bowl and wedged it between two shoe boxes on the table and made her way across the room. A television Stella had fitted into an alcove by the gas fire was back on the kitchen chair with the broken strut that Stella was forbidden to take to the dump because it had been ‘Mum’s favourite’. Laying siege to this were more jars with coins, scraps of material and stamps. The flickering screen increased Stella’s impression of instability and she tripped over a mound of tea towels by the sofa.

  Suzanne Darnell was small-boned and, in contrast to her tall daughter, barely over five foot. Disappointment and dissatisfaction had not eroded the beauty that had captured Terry Darnell years ago. Her shoulder-length blonde hair – one of her outings was to the colourist – was tied back with a succession of brightly coloured ribbons. Curled in her chair, a cushion hugged to her chest, legs tucked beneath her, she was lost in her ex-husband’s fisherman’s jumper, a favourite. Stella had noticed that, unlike herself, her mother achieved chic even when scruffily dressed. Her careless pose implied a girlishness that belied her sixty-six years. Her neediness, on the other hand, could add a further twenty years to her age.

  Her mother was glaring at the television screen on which a man was being given cardiac shock treatment. Suzie kept the volume down in case of shouting or raucous background music; she hated surprises. She continued to gaze in the direction of the screen when Stella stepped into her line of vision.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Corncrake asperity broke the quiet. When she spoke, Suzie’s fingers tapped the patchwork cushion.

  ‘It takes a while to get here from—’ Stella stopped. Terry’s death had not stemmed her mum’s waspish remarks about his shortcomings. Meant, Stella used to suppose, for her to pass on to her father. Growing up, Stella had side-stepped this tacit intention; now she found odd comfort in her mother’s sniping: while Terry was found wanting, he had not gone entirely. She avoided mentioning Terry’s house. If Suzie demanded to visit Stella would not know how to prevent her.

  ‘Even at this time there’s traffic,’ Stella finished.

  ‘So you say.’ Suzie laid the cushion flat and tapped it. Her hand stilled and she rested her head against the back of the chair.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Stella had not meant to sound harsh; she could see no sign of an emergency, which was a relief. Then she bit her lower lip: a scorch mark on the arm of the chair was new; her mum must have fallen asleep with a cigarette in her hand. She could see no sign of a stub or flecks of ash.

  ‘Lucky you turned up out of the blue.’ Nestling deeper into the chair her fingers busied themselves briefly again on the cushion.

  ‘You asked me to come.’

  Suzie shook her head. ‘I didn’t.’

  Stand-off. Both women turned their attention to the television where the heart monitor now showed a flat line.

  It seemed to Stella that she could hear the continuous signal without the volume. She looked away. ‘You did.’ Instantly she regretted pursuing a battle she could not win.

  ‘I didn’t.’ The fingers tapped. ‘Watch closely, you’ll see a pulse. No one can play dead for long.’ Her mother waved a hand as a sheet was pulled over the man’s impassive features.

  Stella went to the kitchen. When she had lived there, the hatchway meant she was not alone in the lounge when her mum was cooking and her mum would chatter on. Now, jammed with objects, there was no connection with the adjoining room.

  The bin was empty only because Suzie persisted in dropping rubbish into a plastic bag hung from a cupboard knob. This was bulging, the plastic ripped by a foil tray. The sink and draining board were heaped with dirty dishes from which there came the acrid odour of stale tomato sauce and possibly nicotine.

  Stella relaxed. She could clean.

  She looked for the rubber gloves she had left by the tap. Her mother must have thrown them away; her hoarding instincts did not apply to what Stella brought to the flat. Suzie didn’t seem concerned that disposing of these things could ‘kill’ her daughter. The idea in this context seemed less absurd to Stella, because finding that the cleaning agents and equipment she had stowed in the under-sink cupboard had disappeared could well be the death of her.

  She delved into her rucksack for her emergency kit: gloves, a sponge, a cloth and a vial of anti-bacterial cleaner. Within minutes she had restored order. She returned to the living room with the sealed bag of rubbish.

  ‘Let me see.’

  ‘It’s the rubbish, Mum.’ She should have hidden it behind her back.

  ‘Get newspaper and lay it out properly. If a job’s worth doing…’ The fingers pattered furiously over the cushion.

  It was pointless to resist what was coming; Stella fetched a newspaper from the tower near the door.

  ‘Not from there. I want those!’ The drumming on the cushion was intense.

  Stella went into the hall and snatched a newspaper fr
om the top of the highest pile, steadying the rest in case the paper – The Sun – by some quirk of balance was keeping the whole thing upright. She spread it at Suzie’s feet. It was dated 12 June 2008. Suzie hopped out of her armchair and knelt beside Stella. The delicate scent of her mother’s perfume wafted around her: Suzie had asked for Givenchy’s ‘Very Irresistible’ for her last birthday, a change from the Elizabeth Arden Terry used to buy her which she had worn for all of Stella’s life.

  Suzie grimaced at the picture of Myra Hindley on the front page. Hindley stared back. Beside the iconic 1960s mug shot was the headline: ‘Myra swamped by fan mail’.

  ‘He never caught her.’ Suzie’s fingers tapped the crinkled paper.

  It took Stella a moment to understand. ‘Dad was in the Met, he didn’t work that case.’ Every unsolved case, every criminal injustice, every police error was Terry’s fault. Suzanne Darnell had no fear of logic.

  Stella undid the knot she had tied in the neck of the bag and, cross with herself for not anticipating this regular sifting of the rubbish, tipped it out, moving it over the sheet to evenly distribute the contents. Myra Hindley vanished beneath sodden tea bags, used tissues, bread crusts and a congealed half-eaten lamb chop. Stella clambered on to the sofa and reaching through the hatchway unhooked a fork from the carousel. The tines caught the light of the lamp as she teased through the detritus, lifting, pushing and raking it. Suzie was rapt with attention.

  ‘It must be there somewhere,’ she said eventually.

  ‘Don’t think it is,’ Stella replied, not knowing yet what ‘it’ was. It didn’t do to jump the gun, as her mother called it.

  ‘It’s the only present Terry gave me.’ Her voice was tiny, her fingers relaxing when she subsided into silence. ‘They’re my favourite earrings. If one is lost both might as well be.’

  ‘When did you last see it?’ Stella knew the answer: 30 August 1978, they had looked for them many times before. Had they been looking for Suzie’s Parker pen, lost six months ago, there was a chance of uncovering it somewhere in the flat, but most of the objects Suzie had her hunt for had been mislaid long ago in Terry’s house. They would not discover them in the rubbish here. The pearl earring had come up in the searching after Terry died; Jackie said it was symbolic and was her mother’s way of handling grief. Stella was sceptical: Suzie had left Terry and had not seen him since Stella was old enough to travel to see him unaccompanied. Whatever the reason, the forensic unpickings of the bin were a waste of time; nothing was ever found.

  ‘I took them out after the parents’ evening when they said you were bossy to that boy, ridiculous to-do. The limp lettuce should have stood up for himself. I was on my own. Terry had been called out as per.’

  Stella forked through the mush and Myra Hindley reappeared, blotched with stains. At last she convinced Suzie, and by now herself too (because once involved in the process she forgot its futility), that the earring was not there. She refilled the bag and put it in the hallway.

  When she returned to the living room, she said brightly, ‘I wondered if you fancied a trip? Maybe to Richmond Park?’ This was where Terry had taken Suzie on their first date. After they moved to Barons Court, Suzie would take Stella there for tea and a slice of coffee cake.

  ‘It’s bedtime.’

  ‘I don’t mean now.’

  ‘Then why mention it?’

  ‘It would be something to look forward to.’

  Suzie gave a vague shrug. She got to her feet and brushed her jumper down. Her attention returned to the television on which were images of a sparse parched landscape that might be Australia. Or Africa. Stella roused herself.

  ‘If you don’t need anything more, I’ll get going, Mum.’ Again the thought of tucking into her bed next door flashed through her head.

  ‘Are you rushing off to solve a case? I never fail to see the irony in the attention paid to dead people compared to those of us who are alive.’

  ‘Mum, I’m a cleaner, not a detective.’

  ‘You could do better. Get a bigger office, hire more people. Do less cleaning.’ Her fingers tapped out a well-trodden refrain.

  ‘One step at a time,’ Stella said mildly.

  ‘All the boys wanted me for their reports. I was the best in the pool. Fastest shorthand and typing speed with no mistakes. PC Darnell was happy to have me spend nights deciphering his handwriting and correcting his English so he could swarm up the greasy pole.’

  ‘Not now, Mum.’

  ‘Never now. Always later.’ Suzie moved about the room straightening objects, adjusting jam jars. ‘You get going, that business won’t run itself.’

  Sometimes Stella couldn’t tell if her mother was being sarcastic.

  ‘How is your nice friend?’ Suzie was fiddling with her cuticles now, pursing her lips with the effort.

  ‘What friend?’ Stella had no time for friends unless she counted Jackie. Perhaps she did count Jackie.

  ‘That young man. He was a charmer.’

  ‘Mum, I don’t know who you mean. I’ll give you a ring tomorrow to see about Richmond Park. Otherwise maybe pop out for a paper or fruit? Not cigarettes. Get some fresh air?’ Stella intonated everything as a question to avoid an accusation of bossing. Her mother kissed her palm airily at her and headed for the kitchen where she would undo all Stella’s work.

  In the hall Stella gathered up the rubbish, holding it away from her suit, although after the cistern business and Terry’s basement it would need dry cleaning.

  Suzie never mentioned men other than Terry. Since Terry’s death her mum had changed: new perfume, more rubbish hunts. Maybe Jackie had a point about grief.

  The bins were in a yard kept in permanent shadow by a wall at the rear of the mansion block. Barbed wire discouraged residents from climbing over and falling on to the railway tracks below. Today, the rumble of a train coming out of the tunnel made her think of Jack. He had the Dead Late shift on the District line so would not be driving yet. She heaved the bag up into the nearest bin.

  The ‘charming young man’ was Jack Harmon.

  She hurried out to her van. Her mother, who recently had been forgetting so much, had not forgotten Jack. In his thirties, he was hardly young but he could be charming.

  One evening, over a month ago, Stella had been at Jackie’s desk in the office perusing the latest figures submitted by the book-keeper when two things happened. Jack returned the van keys after a shift and her mobile phone rang. Seeing it was her mother, Stella ignored it, but Jack had not.

  ‘It says “Mum”. You should answer it.’

  He had a thing about parents, probably because he didn’t have any. To top it off, this time Suzie had a genuine emergency. She had slipped and cut her arm on the door of the oven. Stella rushed out the office and Jack had come too.

  Jack had been charming. Ridiculously, he had given a bow and then knelt at Suzie’s feet with a washing-up bowl of warm soapy water to sponge the graze on her arm. He had dressed the wound with gauze and cotton wool from the first-aid kit from the van and bandaged the whole of her forearm. Stella had been tasked with sifting the rubbish for Suzie’s reading spectacles, lost when Stella was ten. Jack had assured Suzie that if the specs were there Stella would find them. He had meant well, but set her up for failure because they were not.

  For the first time in decades Stella spent a night in her old bed – Jack didn’t think Suzie should be alone after the shock. Unable to sleep, she had traced the pattern of luminous stars, stuck on the ceiling by her dad when they first moved in, as she used to do before falling into a sound sleep.

  Suzie appeared to take Stella’s presence for granted and when Stella was leaving, had suggested they go to Richmond Park.

  A horn sounded. A driver wanted her space. Stella swished down the seat belt and pulled out into the night-time traffic.

  She found herself driving into King Street instead of taking the flyover to the Hogarth roundabout, the quicker route to her flat. She was accidentally following the
route to Terry’s. Stella remembered that the last time she had seen Jack, when he had popped into the office a week ago, he had asked when she planned to sell Terry’s house. Stella had changed the subject because she didn’t know.

  She hit a snarl-up outside Marks and Spencer’s. Jack would be the perfect cleaner for Suzie. He would amuse her and she might pay attention to his suggestions, which when it came to cleaning were all sensible. Jack seemed good with older women. She let the handbrake off and drifted the length of a car and then came to another stop. A witness appeal board was propped by the kerb, secured by sandbags. Jack once pointed out they looked like piglets. He felt sad for them lolling by the side of the road. He could also be absurd, she reflected. Jack and her mother would egg each other on. In the light from passing headlights, Stella suddenly saw what Jack meant – the two piglets hung over the metal strut of the notice board as if they had passed out. If he cleaned for her mum she would eventually find fault with Jack and Stella didn’t want that to happen. To stop the jangle of this problem she switched on the radio.

  ‘…a hit-and-run incident in which a seven-year-old boy was killed this afternoon in West London. Joel Evans chased a football across King Street in Hammersmith while out with his grandmother and was hit by a car travelling from the Broadway. He was killed instantly. The driver failed to stop. A workman on Chiswick High Road reported a man checking his vehicle soon after the time of the accident. He walked around it before driving off. The car may have been a Ford Fiesta and was white or a light blue. The police believe the incident may have been caught on the camera of a 27 bus and hope to identify the number plate of the car. They are appealing to the driver to come forward and to anyone who witnessed the incident to contact them…’

  Alert, Stella edged the van up to the notice and sure enough it referred to the same incident: ‘16.32 p.m., 23/4/12’. In the gap between her van and the lorry in front her headlights cast a wash of light over a muffled sandy shape. It resembled the outline of a sprawling figure. It must be a trick of the light; the police would not have traced the boy’s outline on the road. A torn strip of blue and white police tape fluttered from a lamp-post. She took her foot off the accelerator and the van coasted past the notice. She needed to get to bed.