She can’t recall the boy’s name, only that his eyes were bright, his skin pinked by cold, his voice and laughter warm.
‘I was pretty smitten, but I was so pissed, everyone looked good. I felt good too – until the booze and the heat and the press of the crowd caught up with me. I had to get out.’
The boy took her by the hand and led her clear of the crowds. They ended up back in his hotel room overlooking the castle and the melee on Princes Street.
‘I’d sobered up a bit by then. The Edinburgh air is as effective at clearing heads as its whisky is at clouding them. Me and schnapps boy ended up in bed.’ She leans towards me, hands on knees, frowning.
‘It was my first time, but I’d been on the pill for a while, just in case. And he had a condom too. I used to think we were just unlucky. Now I know nothing could have stopped me getting pregnant. Despite our precautions, the odds were stacked against us.’
She took a deep breath and went on.
‘We made love as the countdown to midnight began. Outside, the cheers and whistles grew. The crowd chanted. Ten, nine, eight . . . Then, boom!’
The room flickered blue and white, caught in a schism between light and dark. The sky exploded with technicoloured shrapnel.
Libby was unaware that inside her, a subtler, quieter explosive had detonated, its echoes and aftershocks palpable and permanent.
Listening to her account of Millennium Eve makes my own memories of it roll.
I have played that night back in my head so frequently it is worn and faded, like an old film. The memories jump and push, rush in and over each other until I can no longer tell where one ends and the next begins. Sometimes I wonder if a detail I feel certain of actually happened at all, while others I’m sure I’ve imagined seem horribly real.
I remember watching the new millennium creep around the world on the television. As grass-skirted natives in Vanuatu played salutes on sea conches, I remember the crack and fizz of an ice cube dropped into my cheeky gin and tonic. The tang of a salted pretzel on my tongue.
I remember the irritation in Brian’s voice when I rang him at work to remind him he was only working a half-day.
‘And please don’t forget to pick up some champagne,’ I say. ‘We can’t show up at your biggest client’s party empty-handed.’
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ he says, tutting. ‘I can follow simple instructions, you know.’
‘Right. You won’t leave it too late, will you? The traffic’s going to be mad, what with all the diversions around Parliament and along the river.’
‘We’re nearly done,’ he says tersely. ‘I’ll be back in plenty of time. It’s only Putney, for God’s sake.’
‘No, it’s Richmond. Why don’t these things ever stay in your head?’
I remember the clock on the kitchen wall showing ten past one. I remember running through my checklist of things I still had to do: finish cleaning the house, put the laundry away, bath, do my hair and make-up, sew a button back on to my party dress, iron Brian’s shirt, cook a light supper of tuna steaks, basil and tomato, wrap the luxury chocolates I’d bought from Borough Market to give to the party hostess. I remember thinking it was just as well Amy had a sleepover at Dana’s, as I didn’t have time to worry about getting her tea or watching over her to make sure she ate it.
I remember I used my teeth to sever the thread securing the button to my dress. That the ‘snap’ resonated in my head and the needle pricked my palm. I remember it was half past two, the time I’d agreed with Dana’s parents that one of them would pick Amy and Dana up from the playground and take them home for the sleepover.
I remember the pewter light of dusk through the window as I cleaned the bathroom, in readiness for my long, bubbly soak. I remember rubbing the bath’s ledge vigorously, the way I caught the pumice stone and sent it flying, the spider’s-web crack in the bathroom mirror. I remember lying in the bath and thinking it was just as well I wasn’t superstitious, as I could do without seven years’ bad luck. That I could get a new mirror in the January sales.
I remember the bang of early fireworks, the momentary glare in a rapidly darkening sky. I remember my anger growing like a sting from a nettle, as Brian still wasn’t home.
I remember the phone ringing at four fifteen and my sharp tone as I answered it with ‘What’s the excuse this time, Brian?’ I remember the awkward pause before the voice at the other end of the line said that it was Mrs Bishop and asked if Amy was still coming to the sleepover.
‘She’s not there?’ I said.
‘No. Dana says they had a row, so I reckoned maybe Amy weren’t coming no more.’
‘You didn’t pick her up?’
‘There weren’t no need. Dana came home and said Amy was gonna go home too. God knows what the row was about, but right now, Dana says she never wants to see Amy again.’
I wonder if those words, tossed out in temper, haunt the Bishops as much as they still haunt me.
I remember the sudden shock of the cold as I went out into the street to see if Amy was coming. I remember a passer-by with a bottle and a party hat smiling and wishing me happy New Year. That I barely mumbled the same thing to him.
I remember the black void beyond the open park gates, my fear of what might lie in the bushes I would have to pass to get to the playground. I remember thinking that Amy might be scared too. I remember my calls across the park being lost in the bangs and whizzes of fireworks and the celebratory blasts on car horns.
I remember coming home to get a torch from the kitchen drawer and picking up the phone instead. The call being diverted to Brian’s voicemail reassured me he was on his way home on the tube. Or ignoring me as he downed a pint with his colleagues in a pub.
I remember my phone calls to Amy’s other friends, working through the names like a teacher at registration, ticking them off in my head. I remember their parents, their assurances that Amy would turn up, to give her a little bit longer, that kids always lose track of the time.
I remember my finger hovering over the ‘9’ on the phone’s handset, scarcely believing I was considering pressing it three times. I remember thinking it was futile. That I was overreacting, wasting police time. She’ll turn up the instant I call them, I thought, and tut at me for being such a stress-head.
People all over the world were watching the clock, but no one watched it as closely as me. Time was leaden. Laden with a desperate dread. I remember the pop of boiled-dry pans, the acrid smoke. Telling myself not to worry or panic about Amy, that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation. I remember wishing I could imagine what that might be.
I remember the thud of my heart at the sound of a key in the lock, how disappointed I was to see Brian, how his beery breath filled the hall.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he snapped. ‘So I’ve had a few drinks. Big deal. It’s New Year’s Eve, for fuck’s sake. The turn of the century. Of the millennium. And anyway, we’re getting a cab to the party.’
I remember him glaring at me as tears welled in my eyes.
‘Now what?’ His face froze. ‘Oh shit! The champagne. I’ll go and get it now.’ He turned and fumbled with the door latch. ‘Christ, Beth, it’s really not worth getting worked up about. It’s only champagne.’
‘It’s Amy,’ I said. ‘She’s not come home.’
‘She’s at Dana’s, isn’t she?’
I remember being struck that he’d at least managed to remember that part of the arrangement. How the thought triggered my tears. I remember how strange it was to be in his arms again, the clamminess of his cheek, the stench of residual smoke.
He said to take it easy, give her a bit longer. I remember I found his calmness comforting, was reassured when he said he’d go out and look for her. The hero I once thought he was, back and fighting my corner.
‘I’ll come too,’ I said.
‘No, stay here in case she comes home.’
I remember going from room to room like I’d done in the games of hide and seek she loved so muc
h as a toddler. I called her name from the bedroom windows, bit back tears when I got no reply.
I remember that Brian seemed to be gone for hours, but that was probably just time playing tricks, that night when every second lumbered with a heavy significance.
I remember how I ran downstairs when I heard him come home, his ghastly pallor, the fear dancing in his eyes, the way his voice didn’t sound like his.
‘I think we’d better call the police.’
I remember how small the phone looked in his hand, how reassuringly inconsequential. How until he spoke into it we were unknown to the police. That once he’d put it down the world felt darker.
I remember the sibilant hiss of the police radios, the way the policemen dropped their heads to talk into them. They nodded understandingly when I struggled to picture what Amy was wearing, and told me to take my time.
I remember them asking if there was anyone else she might be with, anywhere else she might go, if everything had been okay at home. I remember I didn’t look up when I assured them everything was fine.
I remember disbelief seeping through me as I went through the photo albums to find them a decent picture. A recent one, they said, close up, head and shoulders only, if possible. I remember thinking that none of it was actually happening, and thumbed the pages without really looking at them until Brian took over and pulled out her most recent school picture.
‘She looks like a bright girl,’ one of the policemen said.
‘That’s right,’ Brian said, ‘not the sort that would get herself into any trouble.’
‘Try not to worry,’ the policemen said as they put their caps on in the hallway.
I remember that midnight struck as they opened the door. I remember the cacophony of fireworks on the river, like the earth folding in upon itself. I remember my terror, willing the noise to stop. And when it did, I remember that the silence was worse.
At that precise moment, according to Libby’s explanation, time rocked and rolled on the cusp between now and then, shaking out the spirits of the last thousand years, making room for those to come. Amy and Esme were caught in the churn.
That was the moment when they snagged on each other, when Amy’s soul was wrapped up in Esme’s body. When the essence of Esme was fused with the spirit of Amy.
When two became one.
By the time Libby finishes, we’re both crying, not for each other but for our different memories of the evening that changed our lives so completely. She stands up, wiping her eyes, and says she can’t take any more right now and can’t imagine I can either. Everything is muffled and distant, as if I’m in a separate room.
I don’t want them to stay but I don’t want them to go either. I have too many questions, too many doubts, none of which they can answer satisfactorily or soothe. It’s just a fabulous story in its truest sense, dreamt up by some warped individual with a taste for the macabre and a daughter with a striking resemblance to mine.
Esme hijacked in the womb by Amy! It’s laughable. Beyond ridiculous. Beyond belief. And yet I can’t discount it as completely as I’d like to. Esme’s physical resemblance to Amy could just be coincidental, but her knowledge of the minutiae of Amy’s life is too exact to be random or accidental.
And my heart. My heart. The way it skips and sinks whenever I look at Esme. Her expressions, her smile, the way she danced to the Spice Girls, the light in her eyes. I recognise them all and each of them tugs at instincts I thought I’d forgotten.
Libby is right. We all need some time to gather our thoughts, although I doubt there is enough time in eternity for me to collect all mine and put together an answer that spells anything other than madness.
When Libby writes her mobile number on a pad, her hand moves in slow motion.
‘We go back to Manchester in a few days,’ she says. I don’t actually hear the words, just see them on her lips. ‘It’s up to you what happens next.’
She mimes to Esme to stand up and take off the headphones. Esme is reluctant to let go of Bagpuss, but Libby takes it from her hands and drops it on the sofa. Esme’s lip trembles as she turns and waves goodbye, not with her whole hand, from side to side, but palm up, moving just the top half of her fingers, like Amy used to. My own hand moves slowly towards my mouth. I wonder if she thinks I am waving back instead of just trying to hold in a gasp. I wonder if I am too.
After they’ve gone, I fizz with restless energy. I ricochet from room to room, plunging in like I’m looking for something, certain that it’s there, only to find that it isn’t. That I can’t even remember what it was I was looking for. All I see is disorder and dust, squashed sofa cushions, things not where they should be.
I pummel cushions, adjust the position of Amy’s photo, think about putting Bagpuss in the washing machine. The dusters and polishes come out again.
When we first got together, Brian found it endearing that I’d try and solve any problem or upset by reaching for the contents of the cleaning cupboard. The balm of scented aerosol sprays was better and cheaper than hard drugs or alcohol, he used to say. But his amusement turned to bemusement and irritation at living in a chemical fog and being afraid to leave anything slightly out of place.
‘It’s obsessive,’ he said. ‘A bit of dirt never hurt anyone. The reverse actually. We need it to maintain a good immune system.’
I didn’t care and took no notice. Vigorous dusting and washing blunts the angst, releases endorphins and keeps the house spotless – if only for a while.
In the front room, I pick up the wireless headphones Esme was wearing. When I go to turn them off, I notice the switch is already in the off position. For a moment I think she must have turned them off herself when she got up to go. Then I notice the display on the hi-fi system; the CD was paused just thirty seconds into track one. For all her twitchy dance moves, lip-synching and head dips, Esme was listening to every word Libby and I said.
I feel foolish, vulnerable, violated. But her deception has backfired; whatever her ploy has gained her, it has undermined what little trust I had in her. Amy would never have been so sneaky.
I move over to the table where I keep my computer and jolt it into life with an accidental touch of my hand against the mouse. I sit for a moment to catch my breath, entranced by the glow of the computer screen.
I shuffle papers and pens, dig my fingers into slabs of Blu-Tack. Sweep the lot into the bin when I hear voices outside. I run to the door, put my ear against it. There’s no one there. Not this time. The panic subsides and I tiptoe away from the door. Reach for the banisters.
I sit halfway up the stairs for what seems like hours. It’s where I spent much of the first two years of Amy’s disappearance. I forced myself to get up each morning but my resolve evaporated before I’d even made it halfway down. I would sit in limbo, head propped against the banisters, lost in an awful blankness, colourless and constant, like a concrete tomb. I could see nothing, no way forward, no way out.
Now that solid, static nothingness begins to undulate like mist in the wind. I want to believe that Amy has returned, and tease myself with the chance of a second bite at a future that never happened. Possibilities tingle. Hope surges. But there is something else too: a creeping fear, insinuating doubt, and in between them, madness.
I’ve been close before. Like that time in Tesco when I saw the little girl in what I thought were Amy’s clothes. I shouldn’t have tried to take her hand. Didn’t even know that I had. Her screams brought her mum running. And the security staff. They only let me off when one of them recognised me. Their pity was as hard to take as the mother’s accusations. She looked at me in the same way I imagined every mother in the country would: reproachful, disgusted, appalled at my lack of care and attention towards my own daughter.
Public sympathy was on my side when news of Amy’s disappearance first broke, but as time went on and she still wasn’t found, sympathy turned to accusation. What was I doing letting her go to the park on her own when it would soon be getting dark? W
ere preparations for a party really more important than my only child’s safety? Everyone else could see it might be asking for trouble; why hadn’t I?
The press insinuations went beyond saying I was responsible for Amy’s disappearance; they claimed I was directly involved in it. Their speculations were discussed at length on Mumsnet and news websites, despite police assurances that there was no evidence to implicate me. Even so, I was vilified as a monster and as big a danger to children as whoever had taken Amy.
The few friends I had – former work colleagues and mothers from Amy’s school mostly – had their doubts too. I could see it in their eyes when they dropped by. Their questions about the events of that night had the unmistakable twang of accusation and disbelief.
I shut them out and refused to take calls or answer the door. It wasn’t long before they stopped calling or emailing me altogether. I was glad they did. I was free to grieve without worrying if I was doing it properly or convincingly. I no longer had to watch them leave my house knowing they were going back to their own children, safely tucked up at home.
But my solitude gave fantasy room to roam. I began to think that wishing for something long and hard enough would make it happen. Or if I pretended nothing was wrong, nothing would be.
That’s how I came to be found in Mothercare with the nappies and baby powder that somehow got into my handbag. And why I turned up at Heathrow for a flight to Disneyland Paris with a ticket in Amy’s name but no child by my side. I even insisted that the airline page Amy Archer, even though I could tell the staff recognised my daughter’s name. But I didn’t know they’d called the police at the same time. Amy’s name echoed in the departure hall long after the flight had gone and Brian had collected me from the airport’s medical centre.
I’ve heard voices too. Voices that weren’t there. Amy. Laughing. Singing. And other voices, saying I’m bad. Mad. Need help. Brian’s voice maybe, or my shrink’s, or the public’s. Maybe it’s God.
I wouldn’t know. I can’t tell anything any more. Black might just as well be white. Day night. Esme Amy.
The Second Life of Amy Archer Page 4