‘Didn’t you and Mum ever think of moving away?’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘Why would we?’
‘You said Mum liked hearing about other places and different things – and yet she’s lived here all her life.’
‘Oh…’ He frowns and runs a hand across the top of his head. ‘I suppose it never came up. I don’t know. Everything changed so fast that I don’t think it occurred to us to move. Stoneridge felt like home.’
‘Do you remember the day I was born?’
Dad doesn’t answer at first because Mrs Winter toddles down the path with a plate loaded high with sandwiches and cakes. ‘I thought you might be hungry,’ she says. ‘There are tuna and cucumber, or egg salad.’
She puts the plate on the table between us and then returns a moment later with a jug of what she calls ‘home-made fresh ginger beer’. Ice cubes are bobbing on top and I’m not sure I’ve ever felt more British.
‘It’s lovely to see you both,’ Mrs Winter says, ‘you can drop round any time.’
We each thank her and then she heads back into the house, leaving us alone in the back garden. Dad takes one of the egg sandwiches and I leave him to it. There’s no question he needs the food more than me. I wonder when he last had a proper meal.
‘You came exactly on your due date,’ Dad says. ‘Everyone has a story about babies who come really early or late; or perhaps there’s a complication with the birth. Not you. You were out on time, average weight, perfectly healthy. Everything was fine.’
There’s quiet for a moment. Distant chirps of birds, the buzzing of bees and flies in the flower beds. A gentle hustle of breeze.
‘Why do you believe me?’ I ask, surprising myself.
It’s the wrong question – a dangerous, stupid question – and yet I’ve been dying to ask it of someone. Is it blind faith, like people who are religious? They’re not necessarily wrong about the existence of a higher power and yet they can’t prove they’re right. It’s all about belief. Is that what I am to my parents? An idea in which they desperately want to believe because it allows them to make some sort of sense of the past thirteen years?
Dad bites his lip. ‘I see your mother in you,’ he says.
It’s more or less what Mum said when she talked about my eyes. It’s recognition – and I don’t think I fathom it. Is it a parental thing? There are physical similarities between my mother and me but how is that enough?
I’m completely ambivalent. I want people to question me and probe and yet I would rather say nothing. I don’t understand how both things can be true.
‘It’s not physical,’ he adds and I blink, stunned that my father has somehow read my thoughts. ‘There’s an essence of her in you. The way you speak, the way you walk, the way you… are.’
That’s my answer, like it or not. I am my mother’s daughter.
‘I submitted for a DNA test this morning.’
Dad stops, sandwich halfway to his mouth. ‘You what?’
‘People were suspicious, so Mum and I had our cheeks swabbed. The results will be back on Monday.’
‘Did she make you?’
‘No. It wasn’t her decision. It was mine.’
‘Oh…’ The sandwich hangs in limbo for a moment before he takes another bite.
Neither of us speak for a while and I wonder what he’s thinking. There’s bravado in what I’ve done. Confidence. Willingly taking that test – having it be my idea – was a statement.
‘I had a job with the council,’ he adds, moving on. ‘Sarah was working at a supermarket. It’s not like now where house prices have gone crazy. We were doing okay and we saved up enough to get married. Sarah’s mum, your grandmother, didn’t want much to do with us and it was only a few months after the wedding that she passed.’
He digs into his pocket and takes out his wallet, flipping through the sections and then passing it across to me. There’s a small version of the wedding photo that I’ve seen before. Mum, Dad, Georgie and two three-year-old bridesmaids. I don’t ask why he’s still carrying it all these years after the divorce.
‘It was a nice day,’ he says. ‘Sunny, straightforward. The vicar at the church did the whole thing for free because he’d known Sarah since she was born. I think she’d been christened there. That meant we didn’t have to spend too much. I wish I had more stories to tell you, but everything was so smooth. The only controversy was your grandmother not turning up – but Sarah told everyone she was ill, so that wasn’t even a problem.’ He pauses, then adds: ‘She wasn’t even lying.’
‘What about your father?’
Dad finishes the sandwich and reaches for another. If it was up to me, he’d eat everything on the plate. Now his beard has been shaved away, it’s clear that his cheeks have hollowed inwards. He’s like one of the old photos of prisoners of war.
‘He died within a week or so of Sarah’s mum. It came from nowhere. He was seemingly healthy and working at the practice. He was always really clean-living – didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, ate well, ran every morning – but then he had brain cancer. One day he was fine; six or seven weeks later, he died.’
I let out a long, low whistle. It’s hard not to. It must have been devastating.
Dad seemingly reads my mind again. ‘It could’ve been worse,’ he says. ‘A long, slow, painful death would’ve been awful. At least this way he didn’t have to gradually fall apart. I think it was probably for the best.’
He finishes his second sandwich as I sit and take it in. He’s right. I suppose I’ve never thought of it like that before.
‘Mum said you argued...’
It doesn’t need any further explanation because Dad knows I’m talking about the day of the disappearance.
‘She never forgave me.’
‘She was upset…’
He shakes his head. ‘I never forgave me. I shouldn’t have left you alone. Your mother and I said the most awful things to each other. Every day you didn’t come back was another day we got more and more vicious. I don’t think there was any way back after that. Even if you’d reappeared a week later, we’d gone too far. We stayed married for another year or so but we were done.’
Dad finishes another sandwich, tuna this time, and reaches for a fourth.
‘What about Max?’
I suppose I expect a hint of defiance or resentment, but there’s nothing. Dad simply bites into his sandwich and chews. ‘There was always something between them,’ he says. ‘Childhood sweethearts, you know? A first-love thing. It wasn’t a problem, but I knew she always had a soft spot for him and he for her. I understood it and didn’t mind. Living here, it was impossible not to run into one another. I’d see Max and his brother out and about but there were never any problems.’
‘They didn’t give you a hard time?’
Dad shakes his head. ‘No… but they were around a lot when the search started. Everyone in the community knew the Pitman brothers and Ashley sort of became the centre of that. I didn’t think he’d ever met you – certainly not in any way other than perhaps seeing you out and about with your mum. But, afterwards, when the police were around, when the papers were here – with everyone watching – he was somehow a spokesman for the village. I suppose I don’t blame him. Your mother and I were too busy arguing among ourselves to notice but I think that’s when it started. Ashley and Max would be out as part of the search team and then Sarah would be interacting with them through that. There was a time where I guess it all became inevitable. Sarah and I broke up and then she started seeing Max.’
‘Didn’t you mind?’
He holds up sandwich number five, offering it to me, though I shake my head. There’s only one left and I hope he eats that, too.
‘I’d found another companion by then.’
I almost ask ‘who?’ but it dawns that he’s not talking about a person.
‘I wanted her to be happy,’ he adds. ‘If Max makes her happy, then great. We were never going to have that.’ He looks up and smiles sadl
y. ‘I’m glad you’re back,’ he says.
Twenty-Two
It’s not even been a week and yet it feels like I’ve slotted into a routine of spending each evening drinking with Nattie. Rhys is with us this time, our trio slumped into the usual booth in the Black Horse. Even the rounds are identical: two Guinnesses for Rhys and me; cider for Nattie.
Nattie had an afternoon shift at the café after the mouth swab at Mum’s house this morning. She hasn’t asked what I talked to Max about in the kitchen but she is interested to hear about the time I spent at the old house with Dad. We talk for a while but there’s not a lot to report. She asks if it brought back any memories but I have to say no. Nattie says she doesn’t really know my dad – but that’s no particular surprise. It sounds like he’s only had one relationship of note for a long, long time.
The pub is the busiest I’ve seen it, with almost all the tables occupied and many more people standing in the various corners. There’s a constant chirp from the various fruit and quiz machines, not to mention the buzz of conversation.
It isn’t simply paranoia, there’s no question I’ve been noticed. As people pass on the way to the toilets, they glance in our direction. Others stare over their pint glasses or around their friends. I see some muttering to their friends and then turning in our direction before quickly spinning away again. People are trying to watch in a not-watching kind of way, but it’s so overt that Nattie and Rhys have both noticed.
‘We have a famous friend,’ Nattie says with a nudge to Rhys.
‘You’ve put the village on the map once,’ he says, ‘now you’re doing it again. You won’t forget the little people, will you…?’
Nattie slides a beer mat across the table, though it sticks to the surface halfway between us. ‘Do you do autographs?’ she asks. ‘Or selfies?’
They laugh and, though I join in, it’s all a little too close. I’m not sure what I expected.
Time to change the subject: ‘What do people do around the village?’ I ask.
Nattie and Rhys reply at the same time: ‘This!’
‘Go to the pub? Is that all?’
‘We sometimes visit the city,’ Nattie replies, ‘but it’s a lot of hassle getting in and out. No buses, taxis are really expensive and there’s no point in driving if you want a few drinks. Most of the time we hang around here. We go to the park if we’re skint, but sometimes the police move us on even if we’re only sitting and talking. It’s like we’re fourteen or something – but there’s a lot of coffin-dodgers around and they’ve got nothing better to do than complain. It’s like living in an old people’s home half the time.’
‘You’re not saying much to make me want to stay…’
Nattie laughs and finishes her drink. ‘It’s different,’ she says. ‘Not bad, not necessarily good – just different. Stoneridge is all family and neighbourhood. Most people born here end up living sixty or seventy-odd years on the same street.’
‘Do you like soaps?’ Rhys asks.
‘I shower if that’s what you’re asking.’
He grins. ‘Soaps on TV. That’s what it’s like living here sometimes. You end up with these really silly feuds. Families who hate other families because of something that happened thirty years ago. Nobody even remembers what the original spark was, they just know that they hate one another. There were these two lads in my school who were always fighting and that was back when they were six or seven years old. They didn’t have anything against each other specifically but one of their dads claimed the other one’s dad had sold him a dodgy bike when they were kids. It was some old BMX thing, probably a rust bucket – but they’d been arguing over it ever since. That’s what Stoneridge is about, if you ask me. It looks like a sleepy, quiet place to be until you actually live here. Then you realise it’s constant drama.’
‘You lived in London,’ Nattie says. ‘What was that like?’
I hide behind my drink for a mouthful. ‘Big,’ I reply. ‘Lots of people all the time. It never stops.’
‘I guess you either like that or you don’t,’ Nattie says. ‘If you’re a city person, then fair enough. Sometimes I think I might be, but every time I go shopping somewhere big, I always want to kick off with people for walking so slowly. They should have fast lanes and slow lanes on the pavement. It’s like all the slow walkers are drawn to the cities. I can live without that. I’d end up on a manslaughter charge.’
‘You’d get off,’ Rhys said. ‘Any jury would accept that as a reason.’
We laugh and then Rhys collects the empty glasses before heading off to the bar. I tell Nattie I’m off to the ladies’ and am in the hallway when I remember the toilet in my room upstairs is much nicer than the communal one for the bar. The box from Mum’s house that’s filled with articles and photos is up there, too – and a trip to the toilet is the perfect opportunity to have a quick skim of whatever’s next in the stack. I feel drawn to the information.
The stairs are particularly creaky, each step squeaking angrily as I head up. I fumble with my keys, unlocking and pushing open my door in one crisp movement.
I freeze as soon as I enter the room. Instinct screams there’s something wrong but it takes my eyes a moment to catch up.
And there it is.
Chris is crouched next to the bed, hunting through the box that’s filled with articles and photos, oblivious to the fact that I’m watching on.
Twenty-Three
‘What the hell are you doing?’
Chris jumps, having apparently not heard me entering the room. He falls backwards from his crouching position, landing on his backside. His eyes widen as he turns to stare in my general direction. It’s hard to tell if he’s actually looking at me. I have no idea what’s going on with the rash across his neck, chin and cheeks, but it’s grown even more since I last saw him, like the bruised bobbly surface of a smushed blackberry.
‘That’s my stuff,’ I say. ‘What are you doing?’
He opens his mouth but only a croak escapes.
I march across the room and grab the box’s lid from the bed. I check the first few layers of articles but it doesn’t look as if anything has been moved. I jam the lid on the top and then push the box back under the bed to where it was in the first place. Chris is still on his backside, shuffling around like a tipsy crab and I’m on my feet standing over him.
‘What are you doing?’ I repeat.
‘I… um… cleaning.’
The door to the toilet is open and there’s a bucket and mop in there. There’s also a basket in the corner of the bedroom that’s filled with folded sheets. It’s not quite a hotel’s cleaning cart – but then this isn’t quite a hotel.
Before I can say anything else, Pete appears in the doorway. He looks between us and it must seem like quite the sight. Chris is shuffling backwards away from me, still on his backside.
‘I heard shouting…’ he says, still looking between us.
I’d not realised I’d raised my voice.
‘Is everything all right?’ he adds.
‘He was going through my stuff.’
Pete frowns towards Chris but there’s something about his conflicted expression that makes me feel as if he doesn’t believe me.
‘Cleaning,’ Chris says.
I nudge the box with my foot. ‘He pulled this out from under the bed and was going through it.’
Chris shakes his head. He’s staring at his feet, rocking back and forth. ‘Pulled it out to change the sheet. The lid came off.’
My stomach feels like it’s sinking, as if I’ve not eaten all day.
‘Is that what you saw?’ Pete asks me.
‘I don’t know… maybe.’
‘Chris got in late,’ Pete replies. ‘He had a few problems, so it was fine. He does the guest room cleaning for a bit of extra money. He’s cleaned your room every day you’ve been here.’
‘Oh. I didn’t know that.’
‘Because he was late, he hadn’t had a chance to clean in here yet. I fi
gured since you were enjoying yourself downstairs that it wouldn’t be a problem. That’s my fault – I didn’t mean for anyone’s privacy to be invaded.’
He’s spoken so calmly and sensibly that I’ve gone from bristling with righteous anger to feeling like a complete idiot.
Pete glances down to Chris, who has hooked his arms around his knees and is continuing to rock back and forth. He crouches and rests a hand on the man’s shoulder, whispering that it’s okay, that he’s safe and he’s done nothing wrong. I sit on the bed and watch, willing the floor to open up and swallow me. I feel tiny.
When Chris stops rocking, Pete offers him a hand and helps him up. He says he should go downstairs, where he can take his break or return to the bar. Chris says ‘bar’ and then he shuffles out of the room, not risking a look back before I hear the creak of the stairs.
Pete stands and motions towards the bed, asking if I mind. When I say it’s fine, he sits. I’m at one end by the pillows, he’s at the foot.
‘I know that look,’ he says.
‘What look?’
‘People have told you things about Chris, haven’t they?’
‘I, um…’
He relaxes a little, shoulders slumping. ‘It’s okay. I see it a lot around here. That’s the problem with Stoneridge. Mud sticks. Whatever people say you are becomes the truth. It takes a lot to escape that.’
He sighs again and then adds: ‘It’s not true. If you’ve heard he touched some girl, it never happened. He was attacked – he was the victim – and instead of getting any sort of justice for what happened, all these rumours started.’
If I was feeling small before then I’m subatomic now.
‘There’s no reason for you to know this,’ Pete says. ‘I should’ve said something.’
The Girl Who Came Back Page 17