As She Left It: A Novel

by Catriona McPherson

  “In the outhouse,” said Frank.

  “On a Friday night. Mum’s party. Thinking she’d be too busy to mind where I’d got to. So … I never even got my first-aid badge at Brownies and I would probably have killed myself if someone hadn’t found me. It was one of mum’s friends. Well, it was Robbie Southgate, is who it was. He was brilliant. He took me to hospital and stayed with me and he never looked down his nose at me or anything like that. He just looked after me. And all I remember was his arm when he was cuddling me in to him in the car—two bluebird tattoos on his arm. It was the only thing I could remember. Probably just as well.” She scrubbed her hands over her face. “The rest of it—when it started coming back again—wasn’t that fantastic, really.”

  “You poor little love,” said Frank. “Do you want to stop? It feels dead wrong you saying all this and me watching the road.”

  “I’m not trying to get sympathy!” said Opal. “I’m just telling you. Keep going. We need to get there by chucking out time.”

  “Am I supposed to understand how all this fits together yet?” said Frank. “Because I don’t.”

  “Listen,” Opal said. “Karen Reid wouldn’t hear a word against Robbie, right? And she stopped seeing her mum and dad. And when I grabbed her and said I wanted to talk about Craig, she was frightened.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t you see? She was frightened. She shouldn’t have been frightened. If her little boy had been missing for ten years and someone suddenly came up and talked to her about him she should have gone through the roof with … I dunno, hope or something. And I thought it was weird that she didn’t look out of the bus window when all the school kids were going by. And I’ll tell you something else, the thing that made her go completely nuts at me and start threatening me was when I told her where I grew up.”

  “Mote Street?”

  “No, I mean, where I went to live when I left Mote Street: Whitby. She freaked when she heard that. And it was the next day that the photo came through the door. Taken from across the street—where Karen’s parents live. From when I was a little girl, when Karen was always round with the baby. And if anyone could have a copy of a key to a house in Mote Street—say if they wanted to stick a cat with a bread knife in its back on someone’s bed—it would be someone connected to Margaret. Like you said yourself, she’s already come sniffing after one of your spares, hasn’t she?”

  “Karen Reid wanted you to stop looking for Craig?”

  “And how weird is that?”

  Opal directed him to the school gates, and they arrived in good time, ten minutes before the end of the day. But then five minutes after that, she looked in the passenger wing mirror and swore softly.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said. “Steph’s here. Don’t tell me she still picks Michael up and takes him home.” She got down from the van and went over to the parked car.

  Stephanie got out before Opal reached her and stood with her arms folded, leaning against the car door.

  “What are you doing here?” she said.

  “I want to speak to Michael,” Opal.

  “Just as well I’m here to stop you then, isn’t it?” She flicked a glance towards Frank as he came up beside them. “Who are you?”

  “Frank Gilbert,” he said, but he didn’t put out his hand the way he had done when he met Opal. “Friend of your stepdaughter’s.” Steph raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

  “I just want to ask Michael one very specific question,” said Opal, “and then we’ll go.”

  “What?”

  “Remember when he joined that footie club.” Immediately, blotches of angry pink began to bloom on Steph’s neck.

  “You’re kidding,” she said. “You must be joking. This again? That?”

  “I know, I know,” said Opal. “But listen. I just want to know if he knows—or if you know and then I don’t even need to see Michael—where the coach lives.”

  “Eh?” said Steph, looking between Opal and Frank, frowning.

  “Michael’s coach from the club. Do you know his address? Or his phone number?”

  “What’s this about?”

  “If you tell me, I’ll get out of your sight,” Opal said. All three of them turned as the school bell rang out in the building.

  “It’s Abbeville Avenue,” Steph said. “Well I know it; I had to go round there and clear up all your bullshit. There and fifty other places.”

  “What number?”

  “I can’t remember the number. It’s in the teens. A blue door with a stained glass lamp. Right. I’ve told you. So go.”

  Opal turned right away, but Frank stayed and said something to Steph, quite quietly, but Steph’s answer was pretty loud.

  He slammed into the van and glared at Opal.

  “So that’s your stepmother, is it?” he said. “She’s like something out of fucking Disney.”

  Opal laughed, and Frank nearly laughed too.

  “Poor Steph, you can’t blame her. I made her life a complete misery. Right then. I don’t know exactly where this is, but I’ll do my best. If we get lost, we can stop and ask for directions.”

  “So why did your wicked stepmother go mad when you asked about your brother’s football club?”

  “That’s when it started,” Opal said. “I got given the responsibility of taking Michael to the club after school. And that’s when I … flipped out and started saying Michael was my little boy that Steph and Dad stole from me. Only—believe it or not—I never put two and two together and worked out why I started saying it. I know now, of course.”

  “Why?”

  “Robbie Southgate. I hadn’t seen him since that night when I was twelve and I was eighteen by this time. I didn’t actually recognise him, but I recognised the bluebirds on his arm. I started dreaming about babies. I started thinking about the fact that I couldn’t actually remember anything about the whole summer when I moved here. I’d, like, I’d blocked it out? And Michael was exactly the right age you know. Twelve and half years younger than me.”

  “God almighty. So Steph was pregnant when you arrived after the … miscarriage?”

  “No, actually,” Opal said. “Michael’s adopted. That’s the whole point, see? He’s adopted. And he obviously wasn’t Steph’s and Dad’s real baby. He looks a lot more like me—complexion-wise, you know. So that’s why people actually believed me. It’s just like Norah, kind of.”

  Frank swerved the van and glared at her again.

  “Opal bloody Jones,” he said. “It’s nothing like Norah. Norah hated her brother and pretended he never … Norah’s nuts.”

  “I think we need to turn here,” Opal said. “Yeah. Now, where’s the … ? Oh, slow down, look. There’s a coloured lamp and a blue door.”

  They parked, walked up the path, and rang the bell. Through the frosted glass they could see a figure approaching. A man it looked like, until the door opened and they saw that it was a boy, dressed in school uniform, with his tie undone.

  “God, you look like your grandpa!” said Opal. “You won’t remember me, but I used to babysit you when you were tiny.” She stuck out her hand. “Craig, I’m Opal Jones.”

  EPILOGUE

  IT WAS SO HOT that her fingers slid about on the stops, slick with sweat, and drops of sweat fell into her eyes and made her blink so she couldn’t follow the sheet music, and her breath was all wrong because she was so near crying. But the other Mote Street Boys just played louder and louder, and she got through it. No one was listening to her anyway. Everyone gathered round the grave was listening to the absent echo of Fishbo’s voice, craning to hear the ghost of it one more time.

  Opal lowered her trumpet, Pep let his fingers fall from the keyboard, Big Al moved his sax to one side holding it like a rifle on an honour parade, Mr. Hoadley hugged his bass like a lover, and Jimmy D stilled the final flourish of his flare drum. Overhead, there was a rumble and the sky darkened. Pep cast a look at the socket of the orange extension cable that his electric keyboard
was plugged into. It had either been that or try to wheel a proper piano over the grass, and this summer everyone had forgotten about rain.

  The celebrant was speaking again. A nice enough woman from some church where they didn’t go in much for God, but Opal couldn’t pay attention to what was being said. She was looking at them all, ranged on the other side of the grave from where she had set up with the rest of the band.

  Vonnie Pickess couldn’t meet her eye, hadn’t met her eye once since the showdown in the hospital waiting room. Opal would need to go and tell her it was okay. Nicola would have drunk herself to death sooner or later, and at least this way Mrs. Pickess had saved her ending up on the streets begging for change. Sunil and Zula were there in the front row too, Zula unable to keep shooting little sideways looks to where she wished she could turn round and stare with her mouth open. All five of the boys were there, reeking of aftershave and wearing enough hair gel to go round a regiment. They were the only ones who’d threatened to laugh at Opal’s playing. Sanjit and Vikram anyway.

  She should really have been practising every minute of the three days, but she’d been busy. She’d gone round to Walrus Antiques with Frank to get them to go and do a proper inventory of Norah’s stuff—since Frank found out Auntie Norah was really Granny Norah, he’d started taking more of an interest in his children’s stake in the estate, not so keen to let Sarah fritter it all away. So Billy and Tony were here today, Tony cleaned up in cords and a jacket and Billy well over the top in a jet-black funeral suit, black silk tie, and pointy patent-leather boots. They had come for the prospect of Opal playing the trumpet, but they couldn’t keep their eyes off the five handsome Joshi boys, and Opal was looking forward to winding Vik and Sanj up about it in revenge for the smirking.

  Margaret was there, in a black coat and mantilla that had to be sweltering her, and Denny was there in a wheelchair—an enormous wheelchair, but he’d made it. And Craig was there too, standing next to his granny, who was holding on so tight to his hand that Opal could see the tips of his fingers swelling up like red berries. Robbie was there too. But not Karen. If Robbie and Karen were ever be in the same place again, it would be a while yet.

  “I found him,” Robbie had said, when Frank and Opal were sitting in his living room in Whitby. “Wandering around the back lane, covered in paint. I was coming to see your mum, actually. And so I took him home and waited for Karen to phone me. And waited and waited and waited.”

  “I see,” Opal had said.

  “And then when she did get in touch, she lied. Said he’d only been gone an hour or two Saturday morning. So I thought I’d teach her a lesson. I wasn’t going to admit I had him until she admitted how long he’d really been gone. But she never did. It was three days later I finally told her.”

  “You put her through hell,” Opal said.

  “She put me through it too,” said Robbie. “And not only then, either. It was me that wanted kids, you know. Mad about kids—I still coach. Coach tennis all summer and football all winter. I had to talk Karen into having a baby at all. And when she left me, she cared more about me not getting him than about keeping him herself. Dumped him at Margaret’s half the time, didn’t she?”

  “And so she gave him up to stay out of trouble?”

  “We made a deal. He came to live with me, and I didn’t tell on her.”

  “Didn’t anyone recognise him? Wasn’t everyone looking?”

  “We spent that first summer up north fishing. With my sister. A man and woman and a kid—why would anyone look twice? Then we moved to Whitby when school started up again.”

  “But how did the teachers and all them not know?

  “Changed our name,” Robbie said. “We’re MacDonalds now. My mum’s maiden name.”

  “And you were right here all the time? In the same county, for God’s sake?”

  Robbie shrugged. “If someone had recognised him, it would be Karen in trouble, not me. Maybe that’s what kept us safe: I didn’t look guilty because I had nothing to look guilty over.”

  “So if I hadn’t recognised you … And you didn’t recognise me?”

  “Michael Jones’s sister? I didn’t, no.”

  “And what about Margaret and Denny?” Opal said. “You said you had nothing to feel guilty about, but they’ve gone through worse hell than anyone.”

  “Karen said she’d told them where he was,” Robbie said. “And she said they had fallen out with her and didn’t want to see him anymore.” He put his head in his hands. “I can’t stand thinking about them not knowing. Ten years! How could I not check? They’ll never forgive me.”

  “If you walk in with Craig, they’ll forgive you anything,” Opal said. “And if Karen brings little Jodie along, it’ll be the same do.” So they would all be back together, Margaret and Denny, Karen and Craig. One big happy family—except for the divorced ones who couldn’t stand each other obviously. And Fishbo was gone where nothing would ever hurt him. And Frank would have Charlie and Finn, at least for a night after school every week and the odd weekend and holiday.

  And what about Opal?

  Sitting right there in a stranger’s house, she bent over at the waist and a terrible honking, gulping sound came out of her.

  “Mum,” she wailed. “Mummy!”

  And so Frank took her back to Steph’s house and spent an hour talking to Steph in the dining room with the double doors closed over, and he had gone to the station that morning to meet the train. Opal looked across the grave and smiled at Michael, who rolled his eyes, because the funeral of some old bloke he’d never met wasn’t his idea of a day out, but Frank had insisted.

  “Opal needs her family,” he’d said. “And you’re it, pal. It won’t kill you to be there for her for this one day.”

  “I quite like your Frank,” Michael had said to Opal. “He just gives it straight.”

  Opal squealed. “He’s not my Frank,” she said, but she looked at him now standing behind Denny’s wheelchair—him and Sunil together had shoved it over the grass, half-carrying it to stop it sinking into the ground—and she wondered if maybe he could be. He was the only person in the world who knew absolutely every stinking thing about her shithole of a life and he was still there, smiling at her.

  And she couldn’t forget the things he had said on the way home from Whitby, about how mothers weren’t the be all and end all. And when she thought about what kind of mother Norah had been, and Nicola, and God knows Karen, she couldn’t argue. As for fathers—her own, Fishbo, and Norah’s too, if it was him who built the tunnel from the back door to the garage to hide her and sent his grandkid away—Frank was right about them too.

  “As long as you’re not alone,” he’d said. “So long as there’s someone, it doesn’t matter who.”

  She smiled back at him. The Mote Street Boys lowered Fishbo’s coffin into the ground and the celebrant called for a moment’s quiet reflection. All the mourners were silent, but the sky rumbled again, crackled with a flash of light, and at last let go onto the parched ground the first enormous drops of cold, sweet rain.

  Photo © Neil McRoberts

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Catriona McPherson was born in Scotland, where she lived until moving to California in 2010. She is the author of the award-winning Dandy Gilver historical mystery series and is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. As She Left It is her first modern standalone. You can visit Catriona online at www.catrionamcpherson.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank: everyone at Midnight Ink, especially Courtney Colton, Nicole Nugent, the lingering spirit of Steven Pomijie, and the incomparable Terri Bischoff; Lisa Moylett, wonder agent; Jess Lourey, for introducing me to Jessie Chandler for introducing me to Terri; Diane Nelson, old pal and owner of Opal’s house; Louise Kelly, old pal and third leg of the weekend that sowed the seed of this story; Eileen Rendahl and Spring Warren, new pals and great listeners; and Neil McRoberts.

  Table of Contents

 
Title Page

  Copyright Information

  Dedication

  Map of the Neighborhood

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments