by Connie Monk
It was early in September, soon after Ali’s second birthday when Leo called ‘casually’ while Bella and Ali were in the garden at The Retreat and Harold half dozing on the bench. Nothing in either Leo’s manner or Louisa’s hinted that the scene had been pre-arranged so that he would be there when she told them about her forthcoming visit to her parents.
‘One night would be long enough, but it’s a long way to go for such a short time, so I shall stay for a second,’ she said, not looking at Leo and pleased with herself and with him too for playing their parts so well.
‘On Tuesday, you say?’ Leo commented with no real interest in his voice. ‘That means there will be nowhere for you to retreat to on the Wednesday, Bella. That’s the day I have arranged to go to Reading to chat up our main agents there. Then I thought I’d look in at the Cattle Market, remember? You and Dad will be on your own.’
‘I’m quite capable of looking after Dad,’ Bella answered, her tone telling them that in her opinion it was usually she who looked after him.
So, following their plans, on the Tuesday afternoon Louisa headed towards Newquay where she would spend the night with her parents, and on the following morning Leo set off as if for Reading. Once he had travelled far enough to be free of being recognized he changed course as planned and they met on the seafront in Weymouth. It was a town neither of them knew, so it gave them a feeling of being cut off from everyday life and people. The place was quietening down for autumn now that the school term had started and they had no trouble in booking a room for the night for Mr and Mrs Harding.
There was no better way of putting distance between herself and the duty visit to Cornwall, and Louisa meant to enjoy every minute. Walking along the promenade with Leo, the thumb of her left hand almost caressed the cheap gold band she wore on her third finger. It was as make-believe as everything else in their relationship but into the few brief times they had together they had to cram enough to give them memories to keep forever. Like addicts puffing greedily on their drugged cigarettes, so they filled every moment day and night. The sun shone on them and they lay on the golden sand as though they hadn’t a care in the world – she wearing the bathing costume she had remembered to pack, he in trunks he had had to buy. They swam in the sea. Their day was magic; there was a quality of unreality about it, for never had they spent what might be seen as typical seaside holiday time together. But if the day was magic, by night they were firmly on earth, two human beings hungry for every bodily pleasure, whether driven by love or lust.
At about the time Leo and Louisa were meeting in Weymouth, little Ali tugged hopefully on Harold’s trouser leg, looking up at him appealingly. It was a morning of brilliant sunshine, very different from the storms of the previous two days.
‘Ball? We take the ball, Grandpa?’
‘The grass will still be wet – don’t let her sit on it, Dad,’ Bella called as she saw them making towards the grassy patch.
‘Right you are, my dear; I’ll take care of her. We’re going to have a game of football, eh, Ali?’
Drawn to the window, Bella watched them, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. In a minute she’d go up and tidy the bedrooms, but there was no hurry – Leo had set off early for his drive to Berkshire, where he’d told them he had an appointment to see a supplier. After that, as it was sale day in Reading Cattle Market, he was looking forward to going on there, sure to meet farmers of his acquaintance. Harold and Bella knew this was a part of his job he liked best. Mixing with the farmers was always good for business. He had said he would be home by tea time. With Louisa visiting her parents, Bella had nothing to hurry for. Without realizing it, the smile spread across her face as she watched the two playing on the postage stamp lawn, hearing the whoops of excitement from both of them as they kicked the ball. She took up her cleaning tools and went upstairs. Dad was a darling, she thought, and had a momentary feeling of shame at how often she was irritated when he seemed not to know what he was doing. She honestly tried her hardest not to let it show when she felt angry and frustrated; he couldn’t help being the way he was, and she thought of how much he loved Ali. Really Ali was his salvation – when he was with her he forgot to be frightened that he couldn’t remember things. Hearing them playing together, Bella smiled again as she started her daily bedroom tidying.
About an hour later she came back down, beds made and bedrooms tidied. She went to the pantry to start to assemble what she needed to cook for lunch. It was then that the silence was broken by the telephone bell.
‘Bella, it’s me,’ came Leo’s voice. ‘This must be a quick call – I’m in a kiosk and haven’t much change. I’ve just arrived at the Cattle Market and who should I bump into but Eric and Jane Gibbons—’
‘Who?’ He spoke so enthusiastically about these friends, people she had never heard of. She felt shut out.
‘Gibbons, Eric and Jane Gibbons – you remember. I must have told you I was best man at their wedding. Haven’t seen them for ages. Dreadful how we get swamped with daily living and forget to keep up with old friends. Anyway, we’re going to make the most of it. They want to see how much they get for their cattle and then they’re taking me home for the night. A thick head night unless I’m mistaken,’ he added, laughing. ‘Is everything all right at home? Tell Dad who I’m with, although he probably won’t remember.’
‘Of course I’ll tell him. Have a good—’ but before she could finish her sentence she heard the pips and they were cut off.
She went back to cutting what looked like being the last of the runner beans. After a few minutes it struck her that Harold and Ali were very quiet outside and curiosity took her to the window that had been her vantage point earlier, expecting to see that they had finished with the ball and found another, quieter game. There was no sign of them. He must have carried her to the fields. She smiled to herself as she dug in the sack of home-grown potatoes to count out enough to make a topping for the cottage pie. Ali loved cottage pie and she was such a neat little person, sitting in her highchair she could feed herself beautifully and seldom tipped her spoon upside down when she put it in her mouth.
With Leo out all day there were only the three of them for lunch and so, with everything ready to be put on the table, she started out to the field to fetch them back. The only person in the first field was Ted Johnson, busy collecting bean poles to be cleaned and stored for the following year.
‘I thought I’d find Dad and Ali here, Ted. Did they go on to the next field? That’s a long way for him to carry her on his shoulders and she couldn’t walk it on this uneven ground.’ She started down the edge of that field towards the gate into the next.
‘You won’t find them there. I’d know right enough if they’d crossed my patch. Perhaps he’s taken her to see Miss Harding – more likely there than walked off down the lane by the wood.’
‘She’s away. She went yesterday to stay with her parents. But still, Dad wouldn’t think of that. I expect that’s where they are. I’ll go and fetch them back. Thanks, Ted.’
But she soon found there was no trace of them in the direction of The Retreat. If it had been just Harold she might have been vaguely concerned but not really worried; he had lived here for the best part of his life, and couldn’t get lost even if he tried. But what was he doing with Ali? She wasn’t a girl given to hysterical panic, but in that moment Bella’s mind was filled with ghastly images: he wasn’t normal, half the time he seemed not to know what he was doing. And he had Ali … he’d taken Ali … but where? Perhaps they were in the wood on the far side of the farm. She would be frightened – she’d never been there before. It wasn’t a nice wood with space between the trees, it was dark and there were no tracks made by use. ‘Ali!’ she shouted, not once but over and over again.
‘No sign?’ she heard Ted calling after her. ‘We’ll give you a hand looking.’
Seeing the three of them, Ted, Geoff and Jo Marsh, the only remaining seasonal worker who would be with them for another month or so, Bel
la’s spirit lifted. With all four looking, in no time they would find where Harold had taken her. And in that same second, as her confidence took a boost from the sight of them, Jo shouted, ‘Look, there he is. He’s seen us, he’s waving.’
Eight
‘Good. You can help us. We’ve lost the ball, you see.’ Harold’s voice held a note of excitement, as if they had come to join in the game and now the fun would be in looking for the ball.
‘Where’s Ali? What have you done with Ali?’ Never in her life had Bella known such a sick feeling of fear, but Harold didn’t recognize it.
‘Looking for the ball. Now you’ve all come we’ll soon find—’
Terror destroyed all Bella’s previous efforts to be gentle with him, to remember what he was like when first she met him.
‘Damn the ball! Where have you left Ali?’
Her shrill voice was so unlike anything he was used to that it at least turned his mind away from looking for the lost ball. Instead he looked first to the right and then the left, as if he would trigger a memory of where he had been.
Ted Johnson took command. ‘You three spread out and look. He may have taken her into the wood. I’ll take the guv’nor home and leave him with Eva. She’ll give him a bite to eat. Don’t you worry, Bella, we’ll find her. Soon as I’ve handed him over I’ll come straight back.’
‘Dad, try and think. Try and remember, please.’ Bella voice was no more than a croak, evidence of her battle to hold back her tears.
‘Did you go in the wood?’ This from Jo Marsh. ‘You can get in just down further, there are planks cross the ditch. Did you do that? If she’s in the wood we shall hear her screaming, she’ll be getting scratched to bits. It’s a right jungle in there and she’s just a wee mite.’
‘Come on, Guv,’ Ted took Harold’s arm, ‘you and me’ll get back home where Eva’s waiting to give you a bit of lunch.’ Then, to the others: ‘If you’ve found her before I get back, just make for home the way we came and I’ll meet you.’
‘She can’t be lost, Ted, not really lost – you know what I mean?’ For recently they had all read a lot in the paper about a child who had gone missing, disappeared without trace while playing in her own back garden which backed on to common land, and the police could find no clues. The word ‘kidnapped’ sent a chill of dread through Bella.
Yes, Ted knew what she meant right enough. ‘What? Here? This land all belongs to the farm. He’d have registered if he’d seen any stranger about. Don’t let yourself get ideas like that. We shall bring her home, never you fear. Come on now, Guv, or your dinner’ll be getting chilled.’
Like an obedient child, Harold let himself be ‘quick marched’ back to a surprised Eva waiting for Ted with dinner ready in her cottage while the other three split up. But there was nowhere to search except the wood and, as Jo had said, if that’s where she was she would surely be screaming.
When Ted Johnson returned from delivering Harold to Eva he could hear voices from various parts of the wood as they called Ali’s name. So they hadn’t found her. They must have crossed the ditch on that narrow bridge consisting of two planks, so he decided not to cross it but to follow the grassy, uncultivated edge to the field and continue on the same side. Surely if Harold had dumped her on the ground she would have been more likely to have stayed in the open than go into a dark and overgrown wood. Ted imagined the scene: the ball thrown and lost and the little girl being put on her own feet so that they could both look for it. Poor old Harold, Ted thought, despite the trouble his forgetfulness was causing. His heart may never have been in working the land, but young or old you couldn’t help liking him. Leo was a chip off the old block, too. Wonder if there’s any truth in the word that’s going around about him and Louisa Harding. Most men would give anything for a wife like Bella – and to be fair to Leo, he always seems nice enough to the girl. But from the gossip Eva had heard in the village store he was always stuck round at that Retreat place, just like his old man before him.
For all Ted let his thoughts wander, he looked around him as he walked. Perhaps the little lass had wriggled through a gap in the hedge and was wandering in the field of sweetcorn. But it was while that thought was forming that he noticed something colourful in the ditch. This was the first good day for a while and the constant rain had filled it. But there was something … something pink … Oh, God, no, don’t let it be too late. Oh, God, please, God, help me … He slid down into the ditch, which held about eighteen inches of water, and paddled towards the little body lying where it had fallen.
‘Bella!’ he yelled at the top of his powerful voice. ‘Bella, back here.’
In what seemed like no more than seconds Bella had fought her way through the dark and neglected wood and appeared on that side of the ditch near the plank bridge.
‘You’ve found her. Thank God—’ She stood stock still, breaking off mid-sentence as she saw the two of them, the tiny figure lying on the ground with Ted kneeling over her, trying everything he knew to try and empty her lungs of water from the ditch and start her breathing. Seeing Bella, he shook his head helplessly. She must have run towards him but she wasn’t aware of what she did as she fell to her knees and lifted Ali, cradling her in her arms.
‘No, no, please God, no.’ Sobbing, she crushed the inert little body against her, knowing that all her cries for help couldn’t bring life back. ‘It’s my fault. Oh, Ali, I let you go with him. Please, God, don’t take her, anything else but not Ali. She’s just little – she’s not even had a life yet.’
The other two had heard Ted’s shout too and were standing helplessly by. If Ted were honest he felt useless too, but he knew it had to be up to him to help Bella, so standing up he bent over her as he said, ‘Stand up, Bella, my dear, I’ll help you. Give her to me to carry.’
‘No! I want her.’ She stood up with Ted’s help but her grip on Ali didn’t loosen; in life Ali would have fought against being crushed like it. And so the procession back to the house started.
The next few hours passed like a dream, or more truthfully, like a nightmare. Eva Johnson kept Harold out of the way. With the exception of Ted, the men returned to the fields. They had orders to fill, vegetables to be prepared and boxed and taken to the station. Usually it was Ted who wrote the labels and checked the packing before the crates were loaded into the lorry, but on that Wednesday the two men worked without supervision. Neither put it into words; in fact, they went about their work in silence, but they felt this was the only way they could show their sympathy for the tragedy that had befallen Ridgeway.
Where do tears come from? Even in her misery Bella wondered whether she would ever find she had used them all, for although her crying had grown quieter it certainly hadn’t stopped. She took off all of Ali’s sodden clothes and washed her, even her hair, in the bath. Then, lifting her out, alone with her in the bathroom, she moved her face over the wet little body, smothering it with kisses. And all the while she cried, making her face red and blotchy, her eyes almost closed by their swollen and reddened lids. She neither knew nor cared what she looked like – she had only one objective and that was to make sure Ali had every trace of the ditch washed away. Then she re-dressed the little girl, putting on her best sunshine-yellow dress, little yellow socks and patent leather shoes, which brought a further torrent of tears as she remembered the excitement there had been when they had bought them only the previous week. For the last time she brushed Ali’s hair and then lowered her to lay her down in her cot.
Hearing a step by the door, for a moment she thought Leo must be home. In her present state it didn’t even occur to her that until that moment she hadn’t thought about him and now it had gone from her mind completely that he wouldn’t be home until the next day. But of course, it wasn’t Leo. Ted had telephoned the surgery and been told Dr Saunders was on his round of house visits, but Mrs Saunders suggested she could make an appointment for his evening surgery.
‘No, Mrs Saunders m’am, it’s not an illness.’ And then h
e’d told her. She’d remembered the baby and her gentle and sweet mother; she had seen them on one or two occasions when the young baby had had her first vaccinations and more recently another against polio.
‘Oh, my dear,’ she had said, her hushed tone telling him her genuine shock at the news he had had to tell her. ‘I know where he’s visiting, I’ll telephone immediately.’
And so when Bella looked up from where she was bending over the cot, it was the doctor she saw. She shook her head, her face contorting as she tried to speak.
‘No good.’ Somehow she managed to get the words out. ‘Gone. Ali’s gone.’
The doctor was no stranger to death and his manner was always kindly, but on that occasion he found himself taking Bella in his arms as though she were his own daughter. He felt helpless. Indeed, anyone, even Leo, would have been helpless against heartbreak such as this. Bella just wanted to die with her.