A Little Bird Told Me

by Marianne Holmes

  When we left, I left Debbie behind too. The loneliness of the years in hiding is a hollow thing inside me. We could never tell our new friends who we really were. Just in case.

  Kit must have thought about Neil too. I know he didn’t keep in touch, walked away with Matthew, leaving it all in the past, hidden and secret. In time, they created a new version of Kit, watchful and defended.

  It feels strange now that I think about it, to be here and not to see Debbie and Neil. But Kit knows how I feel about Neil Cadogan.

  Anyway, the Cadogans don’t live in their old house anymore. The new people put a note through the door when we arrived. It said ‘Welcome’ and asked if we planned to do anything about our old cherry tree on the front lawn before it fruits again next summer. They don’t want the birds to keep dropping stones and claret-coloured shit all over everyone’s cars.

  On my way back through town, I stop at the window of the bakery and look for those long iced-buns that Mum called Sticky Fingers, or the huge greasy doughnuts covered in icing, and pink and yellow Hundreds and Thousands, but the doughnuts have gone and been replaced by fruit pastries. I remember Mrs Winter laughing when we asked for Sticky Fingers.

  ‘Sticky by name and sticky on the hips,’ she’d say, and Mum would laugh too. Mrs Winter’s face would break into a smile as wide as her iced buns every time we bought them.

  I buy a pastry from a much younger woman and eat it out of the paper bag as I walk along the High Street. This time, I stop and look around me carefully before heading down into The Coppice, taking a slightly twisted route through it so I avoid Mace’s road.

  I’m still licking the icing from my fingers when I reach Debbie’s house. Mr Walker opens the door, his stomach sagging over his trousers. I wasn’t expecting to see him at home. My last memory of him is of his folded arms blocking my entrance to the newsagents, Debbie half-hidden behind him. When I finally make him understand who I am, who I was, he shouts over his shoulder for Mrs Walker, moving aside only when she reaches the doorway.

  ‘Says she’s the Stanton girl, June.’

  ‘Well, blow me! Bill swore blind he’d seen you, and I didn’t believe him. What on earth are you doing here?’ Mrs Walker says, wiping her hands on a tea towel. She looks tired, her face thinner than I remember.

  ‘I just wanted to see Debbie.’ I feel foolish turning up without warning. ‘Is she in?’

  She steps out under the porch putting the hand with the tea towel on to her hip so that it flicks out behind her like a tail. I’m not to be invited in.

  ‘Nope, moved away, like everyone else who wants a job.’ She leans towards me and I wonder if she’s thinking about the factory Matthew had to close. ‘If you’d ever written back to her you might know that already.’ Did Matthew’s solicitor forward any letters to us? I wouldn’t have paid any attention anyway.

  ‘I’m sorry. Can you tell her I’m back next time you speak to her?’

  ‘Are you staying for a while? Can’t see why you’d come back, what with your family all gone.’ She shuffles awkwardly, and I watch her face colour as she realises what she’s said. ‘I mean, obviously it was a terrible thing. I’m sure we’re all sorry about that.’

  Mrs Walker was always blowing up about something, but it never bothered me because I was on the inside with her, thanks to Debbie. I feel a stab of pain as I realise she doesn’t consider me Debbie’s friend now. I wait a moment longer hoping she’ll invite me in after all, that it’s just the surprise of seeing me after so long that makes her seem hostile, but she doesn’t.

  ‘I don’t know how long we’ll stay,’ I make my tone light and shrug. ‘Anyway, would you just tell Debbie I said “Hi”?’

  I wait for her to say more, but she turns heavily and goes back into the house, kicking the door behind her with her heel.

  I walk back through the estate quickly, disappointment and embarrassment driving me. The Coppice feels menacing and I can’t help checking over my shoulder as I walk.

  When I get back to the High Street, I stop in front of the newsagents. It’s strange without Mr Walker behind the counter, but I’m glad I can stand and read the notices without him watching. There’s a small card advertising for a stable hand. The ‘a’s have been written in the shape of hearts and, for a moment, I ignore the early hours and the terrible pay until I remember that, when I finally did have a riding lesson, I hated it. It seemed pointless and silly. I wonder if Debbie ever got a riding lesson too. It cheers me up a bit to imagine her grinning away under a velvet riding hat, with that wild hair plaited neatly underneath it. I wish we could have tried it together.

  Further along is a typewritten card advertising for an admin assistant for a solicitors’ offices in the centre of town. The name of the firm looks familiar, so I make a note of the details.

  At home, I check the name. If I could get this job, I could get access to the files. I’d be able to find out the exact date of his release and maybe there’s something else in the records, something he’d mentioned to a solicitor in passing, that might help me. I write my application out in the kitchen, signing my name with a flourish.

  Without Kit, the quiet in the house is exhausting. I take a rug out into the garden where there are still insects buzzing and spread it over the long grass. It rises and falls over the bent blades like a tartan mountain range, and I fling myself on to it, creating my own rift valley. In my head, I can see an image of mountains and a fringed coastline and, by the time Kit returns, I have lost myself completely. I have a pile of sketches and watercolours beside me, weighted with mugs and stones.

  ‘Don’t suppose you’ll sell many of those around here, Picasso,’ he says, sitting heavily on the Himalayas. I say nothing because I don’t want to ruin this light mood of his. I watch him looking around. He hasn’t been into the garden since we returned, and the grass and bushes are wild all around us. After a while, he sets down his mug, so it’s hidden among the greenery and stands up.

  The padlock on the shed door is rusted shut and the key Kit fetches from the kitchen doesn’t turn in it. He picks up a stone from what used to be a border and tries to knock the whole thing off the door, but it is stuck solid. He takes another swing, emitting a string of swear words that I rarely hear from him, and then another and another, still failing to knock the lock off.

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  He gives the padlock one last brutal blow and then sits down, leaning against the weathered wood. ‘Uh, a lawnmower, maybe?’ He tosses the stone back into the bushes. ‘I don’t suppose it would work anyway after all this time.’

  I get up and move to sit beside him, resting my head on his shoulder and looking back to the house.

  ‘Just a little while, Christopher.’

  He puts his arm around me.

  ‘At least you have a decent job. Is it how you remember it, the school?’

  ‘Even some of the staff.’

  ‘What about that one you and Neil were always playing tricks on? The one with the bow tie?’

  Kit grins and nods. I flick off a ladybird that has landed on his knee.

  The breeze stirs the curtains in my room so that they gust out of the window like a sheet being shaken, and I think of the younger Robyn sitting up there on the window seat, reading books about ponies and looking out into all the other gardens and worlds between our road and the next.

  Kit stands and pulls me up with a sigh. ‘Come on then, Little Bird. Where’s my dinner? Some of us have been at work all day.’

  I give him such a shove that he has to stretch his legs to leap over the mountains, and between us, we pick up the rug with everything on it and take it back into the house.

  Kit said I should make a list of all the things I plan to do, so that we both know what I’m up to. I make two lists and title them Alive and Dead. I draw roses and ladybirds around the titles. I write one to ten on each page and decorate the numbers with birds. I note a few things down.

  I haven’t made a lot of progress, wh
en Kit comes back from his run, bursting into the kitchen. He leans over the sink and puts his face under the tap. The water splashes off his skin and sparkles in the early morning sunlight.

  ‘Since when did you start running?’ I ask, putting my pen down. Kit shrugs and then sinks on to the chair I’ve pushed out for him.

  He pulls the pieces of paper over so he can read them and then pushes away Alive. I’ve already ticked off Item 1 on the Alive list because I placed the advert in the paper. Kit ignores that and reads down the other.

  ‘Him?’ The blood has drained from Kit’s face.

  ‘He’s at the bottom of the list,’ I say.

  ‘Court records, police records, newspaper archives, talk to that evil bastard? It’s not much of a list.’

  ‘I’m still thinking! You interrupted me!’ I wave my pen at him. ‘Anyway, you should go wash — you stink!’

  When he comes back down the radio is on, the batter is made, and there is butter sizzling in the pan. I resist the urge to stand on a chair at the hob like we used to and pass the jug to Kit so he can pour it. He tips the pan so that it’s coated and the edges of the pancakes frilly and translucent.

  I squeeze the lemons, stick a spoon in the bag of sugar, and then get the plates out. We eat them hot from the pan with our fingers, scooping up the sugar and juice off the plates, until we can’t eat any more. I wash my hands and make us tea, and we sit and watch as a large wasp flies through the window and lands among the sugar granules on the work surface. Kit pulls a face at the whiney sound of it.

  ‘Can no one do anything about that wasp?’ I groan in Matthew’s style.

  Kit grins at me. ‘Yup, they can,’ he says, putting a glass over it so the whine is muted.

  Kit’s smile slips away. ‘Seriously, Robyn. Is that all that’s on your list?’ He stretches his legs out under the table. ‘If he gets parole this time, there won’t be time to faff about.’

  ‘I know, I’m trying!’

  ‘You could look for Eva — Mum might’ve told her something.’

  I could. ‘And there’s the job at his solicitors.’

  ‘Do you really think they’d let you search through the files, even if you do get it?’

  ‘It’s worth a try, isn’t it?’ I write Eva’s name down under Dead. It doesn’t look right, so I cross it out again and write Find Eva.

  ‘I don’t think you understand how dangerous this would be.’ Kit stabs at the bottom of the list. I nod, not in agreement, but because I know this is what Kit thinks. He’s probably right too, but that’s a price I’m prepared to pay. I owe it to Mum to finish this — I just can’t tell Kit that.

  ‘I’m not saying I’ll talk to him,’ I itch to cross my fingers. ‘I’m saying it’s an option. If everything else fails.’

  ‘I just don’t understand why you need to do this so much. If I can cope with not knowing, then —’

  ‘Stop, telling me how to feel!’ Kit looks hurt, but I can’t help it.

  I can feel us wearing some more grooves into the argument that has been rumbling alongside us since we left Matthew.

  ‘Jesus, Robyn, we moved hundreds of miles away so he couldn’t find us, and now you want to go and tell him where we are?’

  I get out my cream and rub some into my scar. It’s a cheap move, and Kit sits back in his chair, his face etched with pain and guilt.

  ‘Look, maybe we won’t have to.’ I try to take it back. ‘Why don’t you come and help me look through the stuff Matthew gave us? Maybe you’ll remember something useful?’

  There’s a letter in there I’m afraid to read on my own. It’s about all of us, and it wouldn’t feel right to open it without Kit.

  He shakes his head. ‘I just can’t.’

  ‘Come on. Matthew wouldn’t have given it to us if he didn’t think you should read it.’ I try again. ‘Why don’t you call and ask him?’

  ‘Matthew has done enough for us, he lost her too.’

  ‘He should’ve saved her then,’ I spit. ‘So, we’re the price he pays.’ I feel the familiar surge of disbelief that Matthew made the choice he did. And then I’m sorry because he loves us ,and we love him, and, without him, we’d be alone in this world.

  ‘Please, Kit,’ I put my hand on his arm, ‘it might help.’

  ‘I know what happened. Finding her won’t change anything. And it’s madness, Robyn. I wish you’d see that.’

  What Kit knows and what I know is not the same. I have become my own secret curator of the facts. It’s all in the suitcase I keep under my bed along with the other monsters.

  Matthew and Kit think they can protect me even now by keeping the past hidden. But they’re wrong. I already know more than they think.

  Chapter Three

  1976

  I’m sitting on the end of Debbie’s bed. She has one of those Swiss eiderdowns, and its pink cover is decorated with lots of tiny horses. They’re all different colours, like Refreshers, and they are leaping or trotting or kicking out their back legs. I have brought my Sindy doll and her pony, and Debbie has got her Barbie. We have set them out on the Refresher horses in a paddock that is fenced with dominoes.

  Debbie’s big sister, Ruth, is downstairs. She’s supposed to be looking after us in return for new jeans, but, actually, her boyfriend is here, and she has told us not to go down and bother her. We don’t mind. We have a packet of rainbow biscuits and two large glasses of squash. Mrs Walker sometimes works at the newsagents in the mornings to cover what Mr Walker calls the ‘paper and fags rush’, but today she’s had to go and sort out some family business.

  ‘Ruth says that no one has enough money in a repression like this, and, even if Dad does still have a job, it doesn’t mean he’s got spare cash!’

  Debbie is telling me what her mum said when she asked about riding lessons. There are a couple of girls in our class who go, but we’re not really friends with them.

  I don’t have lessons because Mum says she’s not going to go charging out into the boring old countryside every week when there are so many other things to do here in town. Eventually, she said maybe I could go, but only if I saved up for the lessons myself and someone else agreed to take me. Now she’s given all my savings away, and I bet she did it on purpose.

  ‘Maybe, he’s got horses,’ I say, ‘I mean, he wears a cowboy hat.’ Debbie looks at me, her eyes all scrunched up like when she’s doing her times tables. ‘You know, the man at the swimming pool.’

  ‘Can’t believe you haven’t asked your mum who he is.’

  I’m not sure why I haven’t yet either, although Mum has been very distracted lately. When we heard that Mrs Mace and Danny had gone back home, I asked if that meant Mrs Mace would give me my money back. Mum didn’t even answer me.

  Mum says we should never keep secrets from her because strong families don’t do that and telling the truth is very important. I put my hand in my pocket and feel the wooden babies warm and smooth like conkers and feel bad. I think I will tell her as soon as I get home.

  As we are finishing the biscuits, Mrs Walker comes back, and we hear her voice raised. The front door slams almost immediately, and we hang out of Debbie’s window to watch Ruth’s boyfriend walk away, hands stuffed so far into his pockets that each step seems to pull a shoulder forward and back in turn like a puppet. We can hear Ruth shout back at her mum, the thunder of her feet running up the stairs, and then the walls shake as she bangs her bedroom door shut.

  ‘That happens all the time,’ says Debbie. ‘Mum says it’s all the Normans in her system.’

  We flick the biscuit crumbs under the bed only just in time before Debbie’s door opens.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Walker,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ She sits down heavily on the bed. ‘How are you, dear?’

  I know she’s not waiting for a reply, so I don’t say anything. Mrs Walker sighs and looks about the room as if she has never been in it before and then sees the plastic ponies. My Sindy is sitting on her horse, but Debb
ie’s Barbie is standing beside her pony with a brush in her hand.

  ‘I suppose your mother is paying for you to have riding lessons?’ she sighs, picking up the Barbie and smoothing her hair down.

  ‘No, Mrs Walker, I don’t think she likes horses,’ I say, and Debbie’s Mum snorts.

  ‘Well then, there’s one thing we can agree on.’ She shakes her head as though she and Mum are sworn enemies. ‘Bloomin’ riding lessons.’ The mini dress she is wearing has ruched up around her middle as she sits, and she plucks at the folds with brightly coloured nails.

  ‘Do you know what your sister was up to with that boy, Debbie?’ she asks, and Debbie shakes her head.

  ‘We’ve been up here all morning, Mum. Can we come down now?’

  ‘Come on then.’ Mrs Walker heaves herself off the bed, and we follow her out. As we go down, Mrs Walker shouts at Ruth’s door.

  ‘And don’t you come out of there, my girl, until you’ve thought about what I said.’

  She sighs again and mutters something as she goes into the kitchen. Debbie and I look at each other and try not to giggle.

  ‘What’s that, Mum?’ calls Debbie.

  ‘What?’ She puts her head out through the serving hatch between the kitchen and the front room. We can see that she is pulling a lot of food out of the fridge, and I’m certainly not going to tell her that we’ve already had biscuits because it looks like she might be doing sausages.

  ‘I was just saying you girls are in too much of a hurry to grow up these days.’

  Debbie gives me a big nudge and whispers that Ruth is always arguing with her mum about boys.

  ‘I mean no one ever thinks about the reality of being stuck in the house with a nipper to look after while Mr Wonderful’s off out with his mates. Honestly, does that sound fun to you?’

  We shake our heads because we know from her tone that’s what she wants.

  ‘Well, it would be a good thing if you explained it to your sister, Deborah Anne.’

  Mrs Walker sighs and we stand very still until she pulls her head back in when the telephone rings. She reaches to put the chip pan on and then tucks the receiver under her chin, while she starts stabbing at the potatoes.