Pretty Little Things

by T. M. E. Walsh

  It wasn’t any surprise to me that Elle bonded well with her father. Best buddies they were and still are, although I can almost feel a sense of jealousy sometimes when Iain sees me focus a lot of my attention on Elle nowadays.

  Despite my efforts to really become better acquainted with her, I’d feel an ache I knew to be guilt whenever Elle hurt herself as a small child. She’d reach for Iain first. I was a reluctant second best to her, and to this day it still has the power to break my heart into a million pieces.

  Elle comes into the living room, so I quickly press the television off standby, and BBC One comes up. I don’t want her to think I’ve been wallowing in my own thoughts.

  ‘Savannah’s car’s just pulled up,’ she says.

  I look at my watch. It’s still early but I dive from the sofa and head for the stairs. ‘Let her in, will you?’ I say over my shoulder as I take the stairs two at a time.

  ‘Mum, it’s not even that bad,’ Elle says from the hallway.

  I can hear the exasperation in her voice, and I imagine she rolls her eyes, too, for good measure.

  I go into the bathroom and stare at my reflection. I hear Elle answer the door and, when the sound of Savannah’s voice fills the air, I’m conscious of the tears that prick in my eyes.

  I stare into the mirror above the basin. I stare at my face, at the constant physical reminder of what happened.

  I close my eyes, and I can almost feel the moment when I was slung forward in my car that day. I wince now, as if I can still feel that white-hot pain tearing through my skin. I blink back tears and gently try to blend my foundation in a bit better than when I rushed to put it on earlier.

  It needs to be perfect before I go downstairs and see Savannah. It needs to be perfect for work later.

  I hear the hum of voices from downstairs. Savannah and Elle. This is the most I’ve heard my daughter speak all morning.

  I head downstairs.

  ‘Morning.’ Savannah’s eyes look sad despite the fact that she’s smiling.

  She’s putting on a brave face in front of Elle. Savannah’s heard about Ruth’s daughter.

  She leans in for a fleeting hug and I can smell the shampoo she’s used on her white-blonde hair this morning.

  She smooths out her uniform after she’s released me.

  ‘You’ve heard then?’ I say.

  She looks at me, gives a wan smile. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what Ruth’s going through right now.’

  Savannah drops her handbag on the kitchen countertop. ‘She’s doing better than you might expect.’

  I’m confused. ‘How…You’ve spoken to her?’

  ‘Called her as soon as I found out. Least I could do. Feels too little, to be honest, but she was . . . OK.’ She waves her hand at her choice of words. ‘Well, not OK, but you know . . . better than I thought she’d be.’

  Inwardly, I chastise Iain. I knew I should have called as soon as we heard the news. Whatever must Ruth think of me, not being there right away at a time like this?

  ‘It’s not like this wasn’t at the back of her mind,’ Savannah continues. ‘I think it’s come as more of a shock for Mike. Ruth seemed to have come to terms with the fact that, as they hadn’t found Caroline within the first few days after she went missing, well . . .’ She looks pained. She swallows it down, looks to me and pulls a faint smile.

  ‘Are you going over to see her?’

  ‘I offered but . . . they need some space right now. They have officers helping them. It’s going to be hard in work today. For all of us.’

  A sense of guilt hits me, and I wish I weren’t so helpless. I wish I could be there too. So much has changed in the last six months.

  I see Savannah survey me and just want to change the subject.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ I say and pull my cardigan tighter around me. I glance at the kitchen clock on the wall behind her. ‘Are you on a different shift?’

  Savannah’s hazel-coloured eyes narrow and she frowns. ‘Didn’t you get my text last night?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Here,’ she says, her demeanour more jovial. Eager to move the conversation on as much as I am, I suppose.

  She whips out her phone, unlocks the screen. ‘See, I sent it about eight last night, saying I’d drop some bits off for the charity fete before my shift.’ She glances at her watch. ‘Although, I’m late.’

  I see some bags beside Elle on the floor. I don’t remember reading this text, but then again, it’s not the first time I’ve forgotten things lately.

  ‘I remember now,’ I say.

  Elle stares at me and then rolls her eyes.

  ‘Don’t you have coursework?’ I say.

  Savannah gives Elle a wink as she huffs out of the room, then she smiles at me, but she must see the doubt in my eyes as I stare at the bags on the floor.

  ‘Oh, Ruth has said she wants us to go ahead with this.’

  I look at her as she gestures to the bags. She looks so sure, but I’m not.

  When Caroline first went missing, there was very little press coverage. But when two more girls vanished in as many weeks, everyone started pulling together.

  When a fourth disappeared, too, we knew we had to do this event to raise money for the families so they could use the extra resources to help bring the girls home. I’d set up a funding page with Savannah and we decided to organise a charity street fete, to be held on the green opposite our house in the cul-de-sac.

  Some people thought the police hadn’t been doing enough to find the girls.

  But this was different.

  They were missing then, and hope remained, slim though it was.

  But now they’re no longer missing.

  ‘Ruth’s OK with it?’ I say. Savannah nods. ‘Really? I mean, that’s great but I worry it might look . . . insensitive.’

  ‘Hardly. This is what we do as a community. We band together and Ruth said we have her blessing. It can be like a celebration of their lives.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I shake my head as my eyes sweep over the bags again. ‘It’s different now.’

  Savannah comes closer to me, puts her hands on both my shoulders. ‘Look, if the other families don’t want this, we can do something just for Ruth and Mike.’

  I’m not convinced. ‘I should call Ruth.’

  ‘Leave it with me,’ she says. ‘You’ve got enough to be getting on with.’

  A look of confusion passes over my face.

  ‘For Elle’s party?’ she says, as if that’s something I shouldn’t forget.

  I hadn’t forgotten but I’ve been in two minds about whether to cancel it, or at least scale it down. Now this has happened, those teens found, somehow it doesn’t feel right to be throwing a party for my daughter, when these mothers will no longer be able to do the same for their girls.

  Savannah sees the look on my face. ‘Want to talk about it?’

  ‘Have you got time for a coffee?’

  Savannah glances at her watch again. ‘Yeah, sure, just a quick one.’

  *

  ‘Why can’t she have a party?’ Savannah sips her coffee. ‘I’m confused.’

  And I’m frustrated she’s just not getting it.

  ‘I never said she couldn’t. Not exactly.’ I sigh, rub my forehead.

  ‘You’ve booked a DJ already, and the community hall.’

  ‘Yes but—’

  ‘You’d lose your money.’

  ‘The deposit.’

  ‘But still . . .’

  I let her words hang in the air a moment before I speak. ‘I was thinking maybe we could still have a celebration for Elle but not on such a large scale.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Maybe joint with the charity fete?’

  She scoffs. ‘Not sure Elle-Belle’s going to like that.’

  ‘Well, maybe a meal out with just a few of us?’

  ‘What about her friends?’

  I pause, think. ‘They can come to the cha
rity fete. It’s an open event for ours and the surrounding villages, after all. I’ll leave the kitchen open for them to drop presents off.’

  Savannah chews her bottom lip, mulling it over. ‘Slight problem.’

  I look at her.

  ‘Isn’t there a party Elle’s been invited to this Friday? You mentioned it the other day.’

  I nod and see her point before she spells it out.

  ‘You can’t say yes to letting her go to that and then take away her own birthday party.’ She pauses, sips her drink. ‘You are letting her go to that, aren’t you?’

  She sets her mug down and folds her arms on the kitchen table in front of her.

  I look at her well-defined, arched eyebrow, her expertly applied makeup and feel self-conscious about my own face. I realise I’m staring and inwardly shake myself.

  I shrug. ‘I don’t know. I’m torn. I mean, Iain…’ I say and clasp my hands around my own mug. ‘He thinks we should let her go to this party and he’ll take her and pick her up . . .’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But I can’t help thinking about what happened before.’

  ‘That was under different circumstances, though,’ Savannah says, shifting in her seat. She’s dancing around saying it out loud, I know.

  ‘True, but still . . . Once that trust is broken, it’s hard to get back.’

  ‘Maybe that’s the way forward with Elle. Start giving her a little more rope to play with, so to speak, and let her see you’re trying to give her the chance to prove herself. Maybe you could just postpone her party. Give it a few weeks for things to settle down here?’ She pauses. ‘You don’t want to let her down, not when you’ve been trying to make headway with her.’

  I remain silent.

  ‘She is nearly seventeen, after all,’ she adds.

  Savannah’s my age and she’s not married, doesn’t have kids. This is easy for her to say. She has no idea what it’s like to be a parent. Sure, she has a small nephew, looked after him a little, but it’s not the same.

  There’s this bond, an ache – for me anyway – as a mother, something Savannah can never really understand, never feel between me and Elle. She’s the most precious thing in my life. If she was ever taken from me . . .

  ‘Do you think we have enough sweets?’

  I look at her, confused.

  ‘For the kids?’

  I continue staring at her, Elle’s party still in the forefront of my mind. ‘For the kids . . .?’

  ‘Yes, hun. For the kids’ stalls. At the fete,’ she stresses, leaning closer to me.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Sorry, of course.’

  I think she can see I’m starting to lose enthusiasm for all this. I can’t help but think of Ruth. Of Caroline. Of her body unceremoniously dumped in the ground.

  Truth be told, though, I feel organising this fete is taking its toll on me. Savannah’s had to pick up the slack a fair bit and I feel bad about that.

  She places a hand on my arm. ‘I can take on more of the responsibility if you want?’ She pauses. ‘I know you’ve other things on your mind.’

  She raises her hand to my face as she says this and rubs her thumb gently over the section of forehead where my scar begins.

  I flinch under her touch.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says, but doesn’t take her hand away. ‘You’ve missed a bit.’

  She smooths what must be a glob of foundation over a ridge in the skin and it stings. I try not to react.

  She gives me a sympathetic smile. ‘There.’ She appraises me. ‘It’s not as noticeable.’

  I feel like she’s left a spark of electricity that flickers its way down the angry-looking red scar that trails from my hairline on the left, in an almost vertical line to my nose.

  ‘Does it still hurt?’

  I nod. ‘Sometimes. I wonder if any of the metal was left inside, but . . .’ I trail off, avoid looking at her. ‘I’m a bit worried about what this will look like at the fete.’

  Savannah folds her well-toned arms again and shakes her head. ‘No one will be looking at the scar. I think it’s looking a little better.’

  I shake my head. ‘I can’t help but think that when people see my face, that’s how they judge me, how they see me – the victim of something awful.’

  She smiles with sympathy. ‘It was awful. You’re allowed to feel like this, Charlotte. It’s OK.’

  ‘I’m trying really hard not to feel like a victim.’ I laugh, hollow, devoid of any humour. ‘There are bigger things going on here now, more terrible.’

  ‘Charlotte, it is OK,’ she says again. ‘It’s natural to feel like this.’

  ‘But I don’t know what’s worse sometimes, seeing the look on some stranger’s face as they try to work out what must have happened to me or the glances from people who know me, who go out of their way to try and ignore what’s now a large part of my face.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Those people mean well. It isn’t meant maliciously and really, hun, it’s not as noticeable as you think.’

  Savannah is quite beautiful. This is easy for her to say.

  I work in a newsagent’s in the village, part-time. Trust me, my accident and my face are on many people’s minds when they see me.

  ‘Tom was asking after you yesterday.’ She pauses. ‘Have you given much thought about maybe coming back? You know they’d have you back in a heartbeat.’

  Before my accident I was a staff nurse for Amersham Hospital, Bucks NHS Hospitals Trust, along with Savannah and Ruth.

  I loved my job. It was hard work, constantly demanding, each day throwing something new at you. I saw how well we all banded together, despite being under the constant strain of government cuts.

  If it hadn’t been for the NHS, things would have turned out very different for me. Amersham was the nearest hospital in the immediate aftermath of the accident.

  I had fallen unconscious in the ambulance but Iain’s told me since what happened on arrival.

  There was so much blood on my battered face that my own work colleagues hadn’t recognised me at first. Even after the blood was washed away, the swelling was so bad I hadn’t looked like me. I’d looked like something alien – that’s what Iain said.

  Plastics did the best they could. It’s likely I’ll have to have more surgery later on.

  ‘I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready to go back,’ I say and wipe at the tears that brim in my eyes.

  ‘Char, I know it’s early days still, but I think it’d do you good.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  We both look up as Iain comes into the room. He smiles at Savannah and the look isn’t lost on me. I push strands of my long, dark hair from behind my ear, and brush them forward across half of my face, obscuring my scar.

  ‘I was saying Charlotte should consider coming back to the hospital. I think it’d do her good to be back with the rest of us.’

  I shake my head, screw my face up.

  ‘It’d make you feel less isolated,’ she says. Then she half laughs. ‘Got to be better than working for Harry Evans, am I right?’

  She says this in jest but she’s not far wrong.

  Harry Evans is a miserable shit of a man who thinks that, because he lets me do the hours I want at his newsagent’s, I’m indebted to him. I guess in some ways I am, but I do wish I felt able to go back to the hospital.

  Most of all I guess what I really want is my old friends back.

  They say that when you face something tough in your life, you find out who your true friends are.

  Whoever said that was so right.

  Before the accident, I had lots, mainly people from the hospital. They were great and I overlooked the fact that they could be cliquey. As long as I was part of that clique, I wasn’t too bothered. Shallow of me, yes, but I’ve always had a need to fit in.

  At school I always wanted to belong. Primary school was awful for me and when I moved on to secondary, I was determined to make more of an effort. By the time I got the job at Amersham, I felt b
lessed.

  Savannah was without doubt my best friend at work, and she still is, but some of the others . . .? I guess they don’t know what to say to me any more.

  ‘Didn’t you get any more milk?’ Iain says, head obscured by the fridge door.

  ‘Was I supposed to?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says as he shuts the fridge. His hand lingers in the handle. ‘Something else you forgot . . .’

  Now he looks at me.

  I feel my face flush.

  ‘Charlotte’s had a lot on, planning this fete,’ Savannah says. ‘Can’t blame her for forgetting the small things, so leave off.’ She smiles and playfully shoves Iain’s arm as he walks past her.

  He grunts, but I see he buries a smile.

  I haven’t seen him smile much lately, not like that anyway. Not because of me.

  ‘I’m off. Got a job in Rutland Heath,’ he says.

  I stare at him and it’s like any other morning for him. Like the morning’s events haven’t registered.

  ‘You’re going to work? Even after what’s happened?’

  He looks at me, confused.

  ‘Ruth and Mike . . . Caroline,’ I say.

  He avoids my eyes. ‘Life has to carry on, Char. What good will it do to sit here and brood over it? It won’t help them.’ He looks at me now. ‘It won’t help you. You go into work as normal.’

  I feel Savannah shift in her seat. She’s uncomfortable but trying hard to hide it. She doesn’t want to be caught in the middle any more than she already is with me and Iain. She sneaks me a look, subtly shakes her head.

  I try hard to keep my voice light now. ‘When will you be back?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I don’t really hear him. ‘ . . . Only, I wanted to talk to you about Elle’s party,’ I say, eyes flicking to look at Savannah.

  His face is blank.

  ‘Will you be back in time for dinner?’

  I’m hoping he’ll say yes, because it’d be good to spend time as a family, today more than ever. I miss time spent chatting about our respective days around the table together. Something we haven’t done much since the accident. Plus, I’ll need his support when I mention to Elle that we should postpone her party like Savannah suggested.

  Iain looks at Savannah, then to me. ‘I’ll heat dinner up in the microwave later.’