Everything She Forgot

by Lisa Ballantyne

  George turned, his smile slippery, to see an old man with watery blue irises looking up at him. George swallowed, looking down at the man, whose lips twisted downward. George tightened his fist in panic.

  “You forgot the lad’s hat,” the old man said, handing him Moll’s baseball cap.

  George buckled with relief. “Thank you,” he whispered, got off the bus, took Moll by the hand, and strode out of the station.

  Bernadette lived in a tiny one-bedroom terraced house that had been painted pale yellow. There was a thick brush doormat on the step and underneath George found a key. He unlocked the door for Moll and followed her inside.

  George lit a cigarette, feeling the relief of the nicotine and the safe empty house all at once. Bernadette had left a note for him on the kitchen table. He handed it to Moll as he settled into a kitchen chair. He was exhausted.

  “What does that say, button?”

  Moll stood with her feet together and her back straight, holding the piece of paper in two hands, frowning. “‘Enjoy Hanley, Georgie. Help yourself to anything. You better be here when I come back, or I’ll come up to Shet … Shettle—’”

  “Shettleston,” George guessed.

  “‘Shettleston and kick your …’” Moll placed the paper on the table with her eyes wide and her lips pursed. “A bad word.”

  George blew a smoke ring at her, and she poked a finger through to break the circle.

  CHAPTER 25

  Kathleen Henderson

  Tuesday, October 8, 1985

  SHE DID IT SEVERAL TIMES A DAY, USUALLY WHEN JOHN WAS out of the house, but once again, Kathleen entered Moll’s bedroom.

  She sat down on the bed and smoothed the cover. It was a cream bedspread decorated with forget-me-nots. Moll had always liked it, and all of the blue items in the room—the lampshade and the rug and the curtains—had been chosen to coordinate with it.

  It was three in the afternoon and Kathleen was fully dressed, yet she lay down on the bed and pulled the cover over her. She held the duvet over her face and inhaled the smell. She had changed the sheets a week before Moll was taken, yet still, if Kathleen concentrated very hard, she could smell her. It brought her momentary comfort and the deepest pain.

  Alone in the big house, curled up in Moll’s bed, Kathleen wept. She cried, pressing the duvet into her face to suppress the noise, and wetting it with her tears and her spit. She pulled it into her, tugging it into her stomach and breasts.

  When her tears subsided, she was exhausted. She lay on her side, watching the bedside Minnie Mouse alarm clock. The hands of the clock were Minnie’s gloved arms. Moll had liked it because the arms were glow-in-the-dark. She had learned to tell the time early—when she was five or six—and now she liked to test herself if she woke up and it was still dark.

  “I can still tell the time—even though I can’t see the numbers, Mum,” she had announced proudly to Kathleen.

  Each second was measured by the twitch and turn of the ribbon bow on Minnie Mouse’s head. Kathleen sat up and swung her legs out of bed. Hot tears flashed over her face. Her eyes still had tears even though she had exhausted herself with crying.

  It was the time that was killing her, slowly. Every second without Moll was agony. It was like being burned from the feet up, as Joan of Arc had been.

  Kathleen got to her feet and went to the jewelry box on the dressing table. She opened it and a ballerina began to twirl, haltingly, dancing mechanically to a high-pitched plucked melody. Kathleen raked among the jewels: her old strings of sixties beads, plastic children’s rings from Christmas crackers, and old ladies’ clip-on earrings.

  Kathleen chose one of the rings and slipped it onto her finger. It was made of cheap metal, painted yellow gold and set with a piece of shiny plastic, but it was meant to look like a diamond ring. Kathleen wiggled the ring on her finger. It was too small to pass her knuckle. She sat down on the low stool before the dressing table and looked down at the ring finger of her left hand, now bearing two diamond rings.

  I do love you,” John said, whispering across the table at her.

  They were in a posh restaurant in the city center of Glasgow and Kathleen felt as stiff as the table linen. Her shoulders had been aching since she arrived, just from the effort of sitting up straight.

  Moll was just a month old, and Kathleen was anxious to get back home to her.

  She had started going out with John, at her parents’ urging, before she had begun to show. The last time they had been out for dinner, Kathleen had been eight months’ pregnant and she had felt uncomfortable, constantly excusing herself because of heartburn or the need to pee. The baby had been kicking and she had just wanted to go home, to the sofa.

  John’s first wife had been young and in good health, but had died tragically after a fall. She had slipped on the ice and banged her head, but refused to go to the hospital and had died in her sleep at his side. He had been friends with Kathleen’s parents for some time, and her mother said that—before he was introduced to her—he had been resigned to spending the rest of his life alone.

  He was bright and funny and kind. Kathleen liked John and she knew that he loved her, but she was not sure she could ever feel anything more than that. Her heart still belonged to George; nevertheless, she had made her mind up early on that her daughter needed a father more than she needed a lover.

  IT WAS JUST two weeks since she and George had registered Moll’s birth and he had proposed to her in Glasgow Green. Now Kathleen sat smiling at John, feeling a husk of herself but trying to remember what was important.

  I do love you.

  Kathleen took his hand and squeezed it tightly because she did not feel able to say that she loved him too. She didn’t even know if she was capable of loving anyone other than George McLaughlin.

  They had finished their main courses and the waiter cleared their table as John held her hand. They asked for the menu for dessert and coffee and when it came John put it to one side, then reached into his jacket pocket. He said nothing, but opened the ring box and placed it beside the candle on the table.

  Kathleen looked straight at the ring, feeling sick. It was not dissimilar to the ring that George had chosen for her: a solitaire diamond, set in gold. John’s ring was larger, and, Kathleen imagined, significantly more expensive. She would have been with George, ring or no ring, house or no house, but things with John had to be navigated more formally. Her parents approved and she had Moll to consider.

  They spoke of Moll often. John talked about the good schools up north and how safe Thurso was, and close to the sea, so they could take Moll to the beach when the weather was fine.

  JOHN SMOOTHED THE hair over his head. He was thirty-four years old, and his hair was thinning and graying already, yet his cheeks, especially above the line of his stubble, seemed young as a boy’s, and flushed when he drank or was overcome with emotion.

  They flushed now, as he clasped his hands and looked at the ring on the table.

  “You would do me a great honor,” he said, without meeting her eye. Kathleen swallowed, but finally he met her gaze. “I can sense that you have been through a lot, and I know that is something you may never wish to discuss with me … but I love you and I will love Moll and I think that we can be happy together.”

  He blinked, waiting for her response. Kathleen inhaled.

  “I know you don’t feel as strongly as I do, but sometimes that can come with time.”

  “I will marry you,” said Kathleen, snapping the ring box shut, taking it and clasping it in her palm. “There’s a lot that we need to work out, but … I would love to marry you.”

  She had managed this. It was as close to I love you as she could get. Her soul was a wasteland. Apart from Moll and her strong need to care for her, Kathleen was no longer sure of anything.

  Kathleen slid the cheap metal ring from her finger and closed Moll’s jewelry box. She remembered John from those days: hesitant, insecure, asking for her love. She had been wrong about him. It
had taken time. Moll had been a toddler, at least two or three, before it hit her, but she and John had finally fallen passionately in love.

  She had always loved his smell and even now, in these dark days, she felt comforted when he was close.

  They had come to Thurso before Moll’s first birthday and John had the house ready for them. It was a small town at the very top of the country and Kathleen was lonely initially. She missed Glasgow and all her friends and family, but she made new friends at the children’s playgroup and was soon drawn into a community of young families.

  These were the early walls that she built for herself. She moved away and started a new life and tried her best not to think of George.

  HER TEARS SPENT, Kathleen looked at her face in the mirror. Moll had her shape of face and she had her temper and strength, but the child’s blue eyes had always been George’s. Moll’s squint had become more noticeable when she was due to go to nursery school. When she was a baby, they had hoped it would correct itself. Fighting with her daughter over the need to wear her eye patch, Kathleen had sometimes wistfully wondered if one of Moll’s eyes was looking at her and the other was looking behind in search of her father.

  IT HAD UPSET John, but Kathleen had needed to tell Moll the truth about her father.

  “We loved each other very much, but not as much as we loved you.”

  “But did my real daddy not want to visit me, even?” Kathleen still remembered the loud whisper and Moll raising her head off the pillow.

  “He knew John was your daddy now, and he was happy for you. He knew we’d all be happy here and he gave us his blessing.”

  She had reached the point where even she believed it. It had been another version of herself who had loved George, and she would not now be able to. She could only love John now, and was grateful for him.

  KATHLEEN SMOOTHED THE hair back from her face and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her daughter had been her meaning for so long, and now that Moll was gone she was not sure where her meaning lay. One day since the newspaper article naming George McLaughlin, and Kathleen felt pummeled by her own memories.

  It was too much. No one should have to endure it. Kathleen opened the bedroom window to let in the air, then went downstairs to call Inspector Black, in case there was some news.

  CHAPTER 26

  Big George

  Friday, October 4–Wednesday, October 9, 1985

  GEORGE OPENED UP THE CUPBOARDS IN BERNADETTE’S kitchen. There was no bread or cereal, but he saw rice and pasta, tomato sauce, brown sauce, vinegar, and a bottle of sherry. George was not the best of cooks, so he focused his attention on the tinned goods: chopped tomatoes and several cans of beans, plus tinned pork and meatballs and a couple of tinned steak and kidney pies. There was tea and coffee and an opened packet of dark chocolate digestive biscuits, and George ate one and gave one to the bairn as he considered.

  In the fridge he found some eggs and three onions.

  He knew there were the makings of a good meal in the house, but he didn’t have the foggiest idea how that would come together.

  He turned on the radio that sat on a shelf by the window, poured himself a mugful of sherry, and began to cook to Otis Redding singing “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.”

  “Will you set the table?” he said to her.

  “I don’t know where things are.”

  “Neither do I,” he said, as he lit the gas and raked in the cutlery drawer for a tin opener.

  He gave her sliced pork with beans and he ate a steak and kidney pie. When they finished, George found a packet of Angel Delight and Moll helped him follow the instructions so that he could make her pudding.

  “Why are we in Bernie’s house?” she asked, putting a dessert spoon of chocolate Angel Delight into her mouth.

  George poured himself a little more sherry as he considered how to answer her.

  “Well, Bernie’s a good friend, and it’s a nice wee place to have a holiday. Also I need to spend some time looking for a new car for us.”

  “What kind of car are you going to buy?”

  He was going to steal it, not buy it. “What kind would you like?”

  “A pale blue one.”

  “Well, I’ll see what I can do.”

  They were both tired when the meal was over. He turned on the television and they sat side by side in separate armchairs, watching a western. There was a telephone on the table beside Moll’s chair and halfway through the film she turned, kneeling on the chair, and picked up the receiver.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, frowning.

  “I’m going to call my mummy and daddy.”

  “You can’t,” George said, checking the sternness in his voice. He couldn’t have her making phone calls, but at the same time he knew how willful she was and he didn’t want to cause another argument.

  “I think the phone’s broken,” he tried.

  She put the phone to her ear and looked over her shoulder at him, round-eyed. “There’s a dialing tone. When you hear the dialing tone that means it’s working.”

  George clasped his palms. His fingertips were sweaty and the gunfire on the television put him on edge. He got up and turned the volume down.

  “Well, I don’t know the number,” George said, biting the inside of his lip.

  “It’s OK, I know it. It’s 94712 …”

  She turned her attention back to the phone and leaned over the arm of the chair to dial. George took a step toward her, ready to take the phone from her and risk her tears and anger, but then he saw what she was doing and stopped.

  Her tongue protruding between her lips, her small forefinger hooked and pulled on the dial, 9-4-7-1-2.

  He exhaled through his teeth and ran a hand through his hair. She didn’t know the area code.

  She turned to him, frowning. “It’s not working.”

  “That’s not possible,” said George, taking the phone from her. There was a recording of a posh lady’s voice saying, “You have dialed an incorrect number.”

  “Try it again,” said George, handing the phone back to her.

  “Maybe you accidentally dialed the wrong number.”

  Moll tried again, to no success. Her face crumpled with dismay.

  “Hey, button,” said George, lifting her up and setting her on his lap. “We’ll try again another time. Maybe the phone’s just having a bad day. Don’t worry.”

  She rested her head against his chest. “I wanted to tell my mummy about Bernie’s house.”

  “You will tell her. You can tell her all about it once we get to where we’re going.”

  By the time the film finished, she had fallen asleep, squashed beside him on the armchair. It was eight o’clock. He carried her upstairs and put her to bed in Bernadette’s double bed. He pulled off her trainers and set them at the side of the bed and then drew the pink frilly curtains.

  Upstairs there was only a small bedroom and bathroom. The ceilings were low, and George had to hunch up. He ran a bath and peered at his reflection in the tiny bathroom mirror, before it steamed up and his face disappeared.

  “What the hell are you gonna do now, Georgie?” he asked himself.

  George was asleep on the couch in Bernadette’s living room. He was lying on his back with his feet raised on the arm of the chair. When Moll leaned over and lifted one of his eyelids he was startled awake.

  He looked around the room, confused. The living room was dark but it was cast in a blue light from the television, which showed a static picture of a young girl at a blackboard with a clown. A high-pitched noise pierced the room, signaling the end of TV programming.

  “What is it, button?” he asked, focusing on Moll’s face and glancing at his watch. It was just after three in the morning.

  “I woke up. I don’t like it up there. Can I sleep down here with you?”

  “Em …” George ran a hand over his face, still dazed with sleep. She didn’t wait for him to reply, but instead curled up on the couch beside him. He w
as too tired to argue, so he shifted onto his side and put his arm around her.

  “You don’t have a cover or anything,” she said, in a deafening whisper.

  “Are you cold?” he mumbled, yawning.

  “Not anymore,” she said, curling into a ball. “Night night.”

  In the morning, George made tea and drank it while peering out of the net curtains onto the street. It was a gray day, but he could see that the sun was trying to shine through the clouds. He had big plans for today. He wanted to go out and scout the area for a car to steal, and buy them some food for the next few days. He had decided that if they lay low for a while, then things might calm down, although he wanted to be gone before Bernie got back. He could trust her but he didn’t know what he would say to her about the wean.

  They were eating boiled eggs for breakfast.

  “My mummy makes me toast soldiers so I can dip them,” she said, her brows gathered.

  “Well, I’m going to go out and get some shopping, so I’ll be sure to pick up some bread and then you can get toast soldiers tomorrow. You can stay here and watch the fort.”

  “No!” she exclaimed suddenly, throwing down her spoon and jumping out of the chair. “I don’t want to be by myself.”

  “I’ll only be gone an hour or so. You can watch telly.”

  “No.” Her lip curled, and George took an intake of breath, knowing that tears were soon to follow.

  “OK, OK, you win.” He pushed his plate away. “C’m’ere.”

  He pulled her into the space between his legs, and brushed what hair she had left off her face.

  “If I take you with me, you must remember to be very quiet and not talk to anyone.”

  She nodded slowly.

  “Tell you what … I bet Bernie has some scissors. We could try and sort your hair and that would be a start.”

  He set newspapers on the floor and a stool on top of them and got her to sit on it. Bernie had a mixing bowl in the cupboard and George set it over her head.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I want to make sure I cut it straight this time … You need to sit still now. Hear me?”