Everything She Forgot

by Lisa Ballantyne

  She nodded.

  He tutted loudly. “Sit still means sit still. You can speak instead of nodding your head.”

  “OK.”

  When he was finished, she looked a lot better. There was a mirror on the kitchen wall and George held her up to see.

  She said nothing, pulling at the hairs on her fringe.

  It was a twenty-minute walk from Bernie’s flat into town. George was wearing a T-shirt and a sweatshirt and Moll had her baseball cap on. They walked hand in hand through the terraced streets. It was Saturday morning and the streets were busier as they approached the shops, but George felt more confident than he had when they had taken the bus. He was not wearing his suit, and he had shaved his stubble last night. He had considered growing a beard, but one of the radio reports had described the abductor as scruffy. It had offended George. Moll, with her hair cut better, was a more convincing boy.

  “I’m hungry,” she said, lagging behind. The weight of her on his hand was slowing him down.

  “Have you got hollow legs?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you just had breakfast.”

  “Only two eggs and no soldiers.”

  He glanced at his watch. It was nearly eleven o’clock. He felt her hand tug away from him. He turned and she was crouched on the street, her head in her hands.

  “We need to keep going, Moll,” he whispered to her.

  “When are we going to get to the shop? I don’t want to walk anymore.”

  He regretted telling her about the shop. It was not his top priority.

  He had thought about going to a parking lot to find a suitable car to steal, but there were none nearby. He would have time in a parking lot to work on the locks. He turned around and looked down at her. She was rubbing her lazy eye, and looking up at him with her good eye, now standing with her feet turned in and her stomach thrust forward. She was too big to carry, and yet he knew he wasn’t going to get very far unless he offered.

  “Tell you what, you want a piggyback?”

  Moll blinked and then smiled. He turned around and took her arms around his neck, tilted forward and caught her feet.

  “You’ll need to hold on tight.”

  She curled her long legs around his waist as they walked down Eaton Street. There was a park and George turned onto Baskerville Road, noticing that there was a line of parked cars opposite the redbrick terraced houses. He walked with the park on his left side, peering into cars to see if they were unlocked. He would have tried a few doors just in case, but he was sure that she would comment.

  He decided that it would be best to find a suitable vehicle and then come back at night, when she was asleep.

  Her lithe limbs were tight around his neck and waist and he almost didn’t feel the weight of her. After fifty yards or so he felt her bury her face in his neck.

  “You smell nice,” she said, so close to his ear that it tickled.

  “I find that hard to believe, but thank you anyway.”

  “You smell like crisps.”

  George smiled and put a hand on her wrist at his collarbone. Just then, ten feet from him, he saw a gift from God.

  Until that moment, he thought every ounce of religion had been beaten out of him. His father had been a staunch Catholic and yet George had never known a more sinful man. The nuns had been his religious instructors, yet all they had really taught him was pain and humiliation. George had not considered it carefully—he had given up God like some people give up cigarettes—but he supposed he was an atheist.

  He was an atheist until he saw the gift from God before him. Parked opposite the next house in the terrace was an eight-year-old Volkswagen camper van in powder blue, with a FOR SALE: £300 OR NEAREST OFFER sign inked on cardboard and taped to the inside of the windshield.

  George tapped on Moll’s arm before lowering her to the ground.

  “What is it?” she asked, peering up at him, her lips pulled back, exposing the gum where her front teeth had been.

  George wiped his mouth with his hand, unbelieving, as if it were a mirage in the desert. He almost crossed himself, and then, as he took her hand and crossed the road to the house in question, he did cross himself. A sign on the gate that said BEWARE OF THE DOG.

  “Remember you’re Robin and don’t speak unless you’re spoken to,” he said, finger pointing at her, then lifting up the brim of her cap until she nodded assent. He opened the garden gate and walked up the path.

  As soon as he pressed the buzzer, he heard the sound of a dog barking. George pulled Moll behind him.

  He prepared his best smile.

  When the door opened, an ungroomed standard poodle leaped onto the doorstep and licked Moll in the face and then knocked her off her feet.

  “Beware of the dog indeed,” said George, helping Moll up and thrusting a hand at the small, corpulent man in shorts and T-shirt who stood behind the door. “Affection is the best defense, so it seems.”

  “Dudley,” the man said sharply, and George thought for a second it was an introduction until he realized that he was calling the poodle inside. The house smelled of sausages and George guessed that he had interrupted Saturday brunch.

  “Is it about the van?” said the man, frowning.

  “It is. Does it go?”

  “It goes, but I promised it to someone last night. I meant to take the sign off. I’m sorry.”

  George turned to look at the van, hands in his pockets.

  “You promised it last night and they’re still not here?” he said, turning to face the man. “Maybe they’re not that keen?”

  “They were keen enough. We’ve agreed a price.”

  “I can match it,” said George, smiling again, wishing that the man was a woman.

  Moll stood on her tiptoes and leaned into George, like a sunflower against a fence, and he thought briefly that the action might seem strange for a supposed ten-year-old boy and his father. Certainly George had never leaned against his own father without consequence.

  “Well, I’m sure you can, but he said he’d be round midday and I don’t like to say no—it was a done deal, after all—thanks all the same.”

  The man tried to close the door, but George held out his hand.

  “I really like the look of it,” he said, persisting with his smile although it was difficult, looking down on the pale hairless-legged man who barely reached George’s chin. “How about you fire it up and let me hear it, just for the hell of it, like? Me and the missus were looking for something similar.” George placed a hand on Moll’s shoulder. “He’s one of five and how else are we to get a holiday? If the engine sounds OK, I can throw in an extra twenty or so …”

  The man’s face crumpled, as if George had suggested a huge inconvenience, but he picked up a set of keys from the telephone table, slipped on a pair of slippers, and followed George out to the VW, the poodle in tow, sniffing at Moll and causing her to cling to George even more.

  “It’s George, by the way,” he said, through the open van door, as the man tried to start it.

  “John,” said the small man, shaking the gearshift.

  The camper van sounded throaty, as if there was a small hole in the exhaust, but otherwise started without trouble. George took a look at the engine, which was at the rear of the van, casting an eye over it that Tam Driscoll had bestowed on him after many days of patient teaching. The engine was old and dirty, but George thought not too bad. The van had more than eighty thousand miles on the odometer.

  “You got around in this baby, then?” said George to the man.

  “Oh, we’ve had it for years. Been all over the country in it. Wales mostly we’d go to, but we even took it to France a couple of times.”

  “I’ll take it,” said George, hands in his pockets and chin up. The small man ran his fingers through the curly gray hair on the poodle’s head. “She’s a beauty, but like I said, I made a deal. The guy’ll be here any minute.”

  “How much d’you want?” said George, taking out his wal
let.

  Moll let go of George’s hand and, with some effort, opened the back door of the van, exposing the small camper kitchen with its cooker and tiny sink. “It smells like cabbage,” she said, turning to them both with her head cocked to one side.

  George peered inside. It was perfect. Moll was opening and shutting the cupboards. It was all set up with utensils: plates, knives and forks, even blankets.

  He poked his head out and sat down in the doorway, so that he was looking up at John in his sandals and shorts.

  “He’s right, it does smell a bit of cabbage.”

  John leaned down toward Moll, who was squatting at the van door. “I’m sorry, are you a lad? I thought you were a little girl.”

  “Robin!” said Moll, folding her arms.

  “Sensitive,” said George, whispering sarcastically to John. “So now you’ve offended my child, are you prepared to sell me this cabbage-smelling rust bucket with a dodgy exhaust for three twenty?”

  “It does smell of cabbage,” said Moll, pursing her lips to hold in a smile.

  “An astute judge,” said George, offering up one of his best smiles. “What can I say?”

  “Oh, to hell,” said John, pulling the waistband of his shorts over the curve of his abdomen. “Never know, he might not come back. Bird in the ’and, I always say …”

  “Bird in the hand indeed,” said George, placing three hundred and twenty pounds in John’s outstretched palm.

  They shook hands.

  “You ’ad one before? The roof goes up to give you more space and I can show you how to put the table up and put down the bed.”

  “Don’t you worry, we’ll work it out,” said George.

  George helped Moll up into the passenger seat, rolled down the window and waved at the man.

  “Do you know what this is, Moll?” said George as he lit a cigarette.

  “A van.”

  He tutted. “Don’t be daft. This isn’t just a van. This is a hotel on wheels! Do you like it?”

  She smiled up at him, her head cocked to one side. “You got a pale blue one just like I said.”

  “What can I say, button? What the lady wants, the lady gets.”

  George felt better once they had the van. The VW had no link to the abduction and the police would not be looking for it. It wasn’t stolen. The van would allow them to drive to Penzance, camping when they felt like it and driving when it was safe. When they arrived in Penzance, the van would give them somewhere to live until he got the cottage set up. While he lived in Hanley, there was no need to draw attention to themselves by driving to the supermarket. It was perfect.

  He spent the next few days working on the engine and getting supplies for their journey. His hands and arms blackened with car grease, George squinted at the wiring in the old engine. He wished he had listened more carefully to Tam. George had spent his life around cars, but he had no interest in them. He was no more a mechanic than his mother had been.

  When the van was as ready as he could make it, George began to stock up on food and necessities to last them for their journey and the time in Penzance before the cottage was ready. He had no idea how long that would be. His mother had inherited the house, but had never had a chance to return. The way she had spoken of it, it might be a ruin by now.

  In Hanley, they were only five and a half hours’ drive from Penzance if they took the motorway, but George had decided to stick to the quieter roads. It meant that the drive might take them eight hours. He had checked the calendar and hoped to set off in the afternoon or evening of Wednesday, October 9. Bernie was due home on the Saturday. George had the idea of spending the night halfway down, somewhere between Swindon and Bath, and completing the journey the following day.

  Moll was content while they were at the house. Bernie had teddy bears in her bedroom and Moll gave them all names and lined them up on the couch, where she would stand facing them, pointing at the wall and lecturing them as if they were her pupils. The largest teddy was continually given punishment exercises for not listening, and George wondered if this was supposed to be him. She was creative in her play and he admired her for it. When he had been little, he had been lost without his brothers and sister and the other children in the neighborhood, but Moll was an only child.

  On their last evening, they ate a special dinner of fish and chips from the local chip shop. When they were finished, Moll sat licking the vinegar off each of her fingers. George kicked his feet up on the end of the sofa again, but soon became aware that she was staring at him.

  He looked over at her. She was kneeling on the floor, her hands on her hips and her head cocked to one side. She had a smile on her face; her good eye was fixed on him while her left eye was looking out of the window.

  “We should practice your reading and writing,” she said to him.

  “Not now, button.” He was tired.

  “We have to. If you don’t practice, you won’t get any better.”

  “I think I’m a lost cause.”

  “You’re not a lost cause but you need to do a little bit every day. I’m the best reader in my class and that’s because I always do my reading when I first get home. In fact, I read ahead …”—she frowned and pursed her lips—“although you’re not supposed to do that.”

  George sighed deeply. He could have argued with her but he knew that she would win, so he swung his feet back on to the floor and surrendered to her teaching.

  She was thrilled with the idea, so much more so than George. She pulled the largest of a nest of tables over and set it in front of him like a desk. She stormed up the stairs and came thundering back down with her satchel.

  “Dear God, you’re like a fairy elephant,” he said.

  She stooped over the wastepaper basket and sharpened two pencils for him and placed them on the desk with her exercise book—carefully folded to a fresh page.

  “Hmm,” she said, head in her satchel, her voice muffled by the leather. “I think we should do reading tonight. We only did writing last time.” She fished a book out of her bag, then stood, a finger on her lips, looking upward. “I can’t remember, but I think I learned to read before I learned to write …”

  “Well, you’re the teacher,” he said. “I’m in your hands.”

  She placed the book on the table in front of him and slid a fringed leather bookmark from the margin. It looked not unlike the belt Sister Agatha had used on him.

  “It’s called Charlotte’s Web,” she said, then looking worried, sucking in her lower lip, “but it’s for the group-one readers, so it might be a bit hard for you.”

  “I’m sure it will be,” said George, furrowing his forehead, trying to smile.

  Moll came to his side, and pointed to the first word. “We can take our time and spell them out,” she said, sounding suddenly older than seven, “but unfortunately the first word is a hard one.”

  George raised his eyebrows at her.

  “It’s OK.” She was speaking very close to his face, so that he could smell the sweetness of the chips she had eaten and the vinegar from her lips. “I’ll help you.”

  Her skin was so flawless and soft, and for a moment he couldn’t believe he had made something so beautiful.

  She pointed at the first word, and so George made an attempt.

  “I don’t know,” he said, beginning to feel impatience, no longer so keen to indulge her.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “It is a hard word. What is the first letter, do you know?”

  George did. It was a W.

  “Good, and what is the next letter, do you know?”

  “N?”

  “Nearly. It’s an H. Now, an important thing to learn is that when W comes before an H it makes a special sound, not a wuh sound like normal …”

  George frowned.

  “It makes a whhh sound, for words like where and what and …”—she screwed her face up as she considered—“… when. So this,” she said to George, “is where.”

  “Where,” he re
peated, nodding, feeling fatigued already.

  “The next word you can manage, I’m pretty sure,” said Moll. Again, her voice was strange, as if she was mimicking someone else. George wondered if it was her teacher, or Kathleen.

  He surrendered to her once again and tried to read the word she was pointing at.

  “Puh, puh, pa-pa.” He had barely finished when she exclaimed with joy.

  “You’re right.” She flashed him a gummy smile. “Papa … like you.” She kissed his cheek and George felt strange, humbled before her.

  She curled up on the sofa beside him, book in hand.

  “I think it’s a bit too hard for you,” she said, nodding. “Do you want me to read you a bit of it? I’m a good reader.”

  “I know. You’ve proved that already,” he said, putting an arm over her shoulder.

  She read quickly and with confidence, her elbow digging into his stomach.

  “Where’s Papa going with that axe?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

  “Out to the hoghouse,” replied Mrs. Arable. “Some pigs were born last night.”

  “You see,” said Moll, looking up at him, “the daddy is going to kill the little pig, ’cause it’s a runt. That means it’s not as good as the other piglets.”

  “Aye, I think I’ve heard this story,” said George, standing up and stretching. “It sounds like my house.”

  BERNIE HAD A guitar in the corner, and just to halt the onslaught of letters George picked it up. He settled down on the armchair with it and strummed. It was almost in tune. He wasn’t a skilled player, but he had learned a song or two. Bernie had taught him how to play. He had met her in a bar when she was doing a turn on an open-mike night and getting heckled because she was the only woman. He still called her Joan Bernie Baez for a joke sometimes.

  “It’s nearly time for bed,” said George, strumming, as she curled up on the sofa and put two hands under her face. “Maybe you should have a bath and get to bed. We’re going to hit the road in our hotel on wheels tomorrow, and we won’t have a bath handy for a while.”

  “Where are we going tomorrow?”

  “We’ll travel south and then camp somewhere that we fancy on the way. When we get halfway to Penzance I’ll tell you and then you can choose where we camp.”