by Linda Green
I stare at the child. ‘Your sister’s name is Chloe?’
‘Yes, she wasn’t named after a big black singing lady. Mummy said she wasn’t named after anyone. She just liked the name.’
I should leave it there, I know that. But I feel the need to pick at the scab.
‘How old is she? Your big sister.’
‘Nineteen. She’s a big girl. She’s all growed-up like Matthew.’
My fingers tense. Inside my stomach tightens. It is ridiculous to even think it, of course. What would the odds be? Besides, it is not that unusual a name. Not really.
‘What’s her last name?’ I hear myself asking. ‘Does she have the same surname as you?’
The child shakes her head. ‘No, she has Mummy’s old name because she didn’t have a daddy.’
‘And what is it? Her name?’
‘Benson,’ she says. ‘Chloe Benson.’
I nod slowly and close my eyes. Something agitates inside me. As if someone has put their hand in, swished everything around and brought some debris to the surface. Things I don’t want to see or think about. Snapshot images. A strand of hair. A stab of anguish. I should have realised. It is obvious now. Obvious why Matthew picked the child.
Something rises from deep within me. Surges up, rushing through my veins. I think for a few moments that I can hold it in, keep a lid on it. But when I open my eyes I do not see the child any more; I see her sister standing in the courtroom at the inquest. Standing knee-deep in a puddle of conceit. The girl who does not think she is to blame. I can see where she gets it from now, of course. She is her mother’s daughter. Both of them so damn sure that they haven’t done anything wrong.
I put my face closer to the child’s. The words, when they come, practically spit at her. ‘She is worse than naughty. She destroys lives. She doesn’t think about anyone apart from herself. It’s what comes from having a mother like yours.’
The child recoils in her chair, her eyes wide and staring. ‘I want to go home. I want my mummy.’
‘She’s not a good enough mummy to look after you. That’s why I’ve been asked to take care of you.’
‘Who asked you?’
I take a moment before replying.
‘Matthew asked me. He knew you were in danger.’
‘How did Matthew know?’
‘Matthew sees a lot of things that other people don’t.’
‘How did he see me?’
‘He saw you fall in the park.’
‘I didn’t see him. I didn’t see any big boys.’
‘Well he saw you.’
‘Was he playing hide-and-seek?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I suppose he was.’
I take her hand before she has a chance to protest and lead her upstairs to Matthew’s room. She wrinkles her nose as soon as she enters.
‘Did you have an accident? Is it because you’re poorly? Otis had an accident once when he was poorly and he’s a big boy.’
I start stripping the bed, yanking off the sheets and freeing the pillows from their cases. I will not have her contaminating my home. I will not allow it.
‘What are you doing, piano lady?’
‘Stripping the bed,’ I shout, ‘to get rid of the smell.’
‘Why does your wee smell?’
‘It’s not my smell I’m getting rid of,’ I say, lowering my face to hers. ‘It’s your sister’s.’ She stares at me, her eyes wide, her frown deepening. But all I see is her sister staring back at me. Dark, little button eyes. Turned-up nose. A mouth that spouts nothing but lies.
‘How did Chloe do a smell in Matthew’s bedroom?’
‘She came here,’ I say. ‘Came here uninvited. And she took Matthew away from me.’
She frowns again. ‘Chloe’s on holiday. She went with her friend. Her friend is called Robyn not Matthew. Robyn is a big girl she used to go to school with.’
So the tears were crocodile ones. Put on at the inquest to try to make people feel sorry for her. Her life clearly didn’t stop that day. She’s off gallivanting with her friend. That is how much she cared about Matthew.
‘She’s a bad girl, your sister. That is what comes of having a bad mother like yours.’
I push past her and hurry downstairs. I need to get the smell out of my nostrils. Get the images from my head. Simply looking at the child now fills me with repulsion. I need to get away from here but going on holiday with the child is now clearly out of the question.
The sound of crying drifts down from upstairs. I brought her here but now I don’t know what to do with her. I wonder if I should call the police. Tell them about the mistake I made. But it comes to me then, the realisation of what they will think. That I did this on purpose. They will have me down as some kind of stalker. Think I planned all this out as a way of getting back at the family. Because it makes perfect sense, if you think about it. I have a motive, and revenge is a very powerful thing. They will think I tracked the mother down, followed her in the park, waited until her back was turned and then pounced. They wouldn’t believe me for a moment if I said I didn’t know who the child was when I took her. I mean you wouldn’t, would you? It all sounds like such a perfect plan. Such a carefully thought-out way to hurt the person whose own daughter hurt you so much. An eye for an eye. They will laugh at me if I try to tell them otherwise. Tell me my story borders on the absurd. And I can’t say I would blame them. Imagine what a jury would make of my defence that it was a coincidence. That I had never met the mother, had no idea who she was, when her husband, both daughters and son had all been in my house. It is almost as if the mother laid a trap. Lured me to the park. Behaved so badly knowing that I would not be able to stand by and watch. Made me take the girl because she knew that once I had her, they had me. There would be no way I could give her back without landing myself in trouble. And so here we are. I am stuck with her child. I can either be a prisoner in my own home or give myself up and probably go to prison for the rest of my days. It is not much of a choice to make.
I sit down heavily at the foot of the stairs. Fool that I am, I have walked into this with my eyes open. Too ready to give of myself. To put the welfare of others first. This is why people walk on by nowadays. Because it is always the good people who end up on the wrong side of the law. The police won’t listen if I tell them about the child’s mother. They won’t be interested in her neglect. They haven’t got the intelligence necessary to work out what has happened here. They will simply want to close this case and get back to whatever it is they do on quiet days in Halifax. Play cards, probably. Or do they play games on their computers these days?
It comes to me suddenly, the only thing left to do. I will not give her back and I will not stay here waiting to be found. There is another way out. For both of us.
I hurry back upstairs and go to the wardrobe in the guest room, take out the clothes she was wearing on the day I found her and carry them through to Matthew’s room, where I lay them on the dry side of the bed.
She stops crying and her face looks up at me expectantly.
‘Are you taking me back to the park? Have the big boys gone now? Will Mummy be waiting for me?’
I do not reply, simply start dressing her, making sure she looks presentable. I don’t want people to think I didn’t look after her well. When she is ready I turn her to face the mirror.
‘I don’t look like Matthew any more,’ she says. And she is right. She doesn’t.
She follows me downstairs asking constant questions which I do not answer as I fill Melody’s bowl with biscuits and top up her water. I pick up my bag, take my keys from the pot on the occasional table in the hall and turn to the shoe rack, where her lime-green Crocs lurk ominously on the bottom rack.
‘You’d better put those on,’ I say, pointing. She sits down on the floor in one swift movement, in the way small children can, and a few seconds later is back on her feet again.
‘Right, let’s go,’ I say.
‘Where are we going? Are we going to
the park?’
‘No.’
‘Are we going on holiday?’
‘No.’
I reach for the door handle, see my shaking, bony hand before me. I turn back and take Matthew’s waterproof from the peg.
‘Is it raining?’ she asks. ‘I haven’t got my wellies. Grandma says Crocs are no good when it’s raining because of the holes.’
I slip her arms into the sleeves and pull the waterproof around her.
‘It’s too big,’ she says. ‘My arms are all flappy.’
It’s only until we get to the car.’
‘Have you got a car? I didn’t know you had a car. Why haven’t we been out in it? Why didn’t you drive me back home?’
I open the door.
‘It isn’t raining,’ she says.
‘I never said it was,’ I reply, pulling the hood up over her head. ‘But you still need to wear it.’
I take her hand and hurry towards the car. It is a red Nissan Micra. It is reliable. At least it was the last time I drove it. My fingers fumble with the key fob. I open the rear passenger door.
‘Where’s your car seat?’ she says. ‘I have a blue car seat in Mummy’s car and a red one in Daddy’s. And a booster seat for when I go to Grandma’s.’
‘I haven’t got a car seat.’
‘You’ll get into trouble. The policeman will get cross. And Mummy won’t let me go in a car without a proper seat.’
‘Just get into the car, please,’ I say.
‘Are you taking me home? Is Mummy well again?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘That’s not going to happen. Not now. We’re going somewhere else. Somewhere very beautiful.’
I pull the seat belt across her and clip it in. She is craning her neck, struggling to see out of the window.
I slam the passenger door and walk round to the driver’s side. When I get in she is still complaining about not being able to see out. I start the engine. Classic FM comes on the radio. I squint in the bright sunlight, pull down my visor and check my mirrors before flicking down the indicator. Malcolm always used to say I drove the way people do when they take their driving test. That is the thing with shoddiness though. Once you give in to it, it’s a downward spiral.
I pull away from the kerb, wondering if anyone saw us leave the house. If they recognised her or maybe thought how odd it was that a child should be wearing a waterproof jacket six sizes too big for them on such a sunny day. I am not very good at this. It would be laughable really if it wasn’t such a serious matter.
We drive past the park and down through King Cross, past Tesco. The child’s chatter is constant but I tune it out, relegating it to the status of white noise. Like the white noise which used to get Matthew to sleep when he was a baby. I put him in front of the washing machine in his baby bouncer when he was at that over-tired stage. He would be asleep long before the spin cycle.
Hebden Bridge is busy with tourists, the type who think mooching about from one tea shop to the next is a good way to spend one’s morning. There is no shortage of them, it seems. People with nothing better to do.
I wait to turn left at the traffic lights. The white noise breaks up and becomes words again.
‘Where are we? Why aren’t you taking me home? Is Daddy going to collect me?’
I drive up the hill and bear right, out into open countryside. The trees of Hardcastle Crags shield the sun. I still remember where the car park is although it is a long time since I was here. Matthew used to know the landmarks to look out for. He was always very good at that sort of thing. I turn in, pull into a space in the far corner and pull on the handbrake.
‘Are we here?’ asks the child.
‘Yes, we are.’
She cranes her neck again. ‘Where is it? Where’s Daddy’s car?’
I get out and walk round to open the passenger door and unclip her. She scrambles out in a tangle of hot nylon and flailing limbs and starts to undo the zip on the waterproof.
‘Keep it on, please.’
‘Why?’
‘You might need it later.’
‘How long are we staying? Have you got a picnic? Mummy always has a picnic. I like strawberries best.’
I take her hand and lead her towards the footpath, worried already that the steps further down will be too steep for her to manage.
‘Mind your legs with the nettles,’ I say.
‘Are they stinging ones?’
‘Well, I don’t know of any other kind.’
‘Daddy says you need to find a duck leaf if they sting you.’
‘Dock leaf,’ I correct.
‘Do they make it better too?’
We walk on. It is further than I remember and she is a slower walker than Matthew used to be. We have to keep stopping when she gets stones in her Crocs. At last I see the ridge. A huge chasm opens up in front of us, a river snaking through far below. On the other side a massive bank of trees stretches into the distance. I stand near the edge of the ridge. I have the child’s hand in mine. I think, if he could have, Matthew would have chosen to come here. It was simply that he didn’t have the transport.
‘I don’t like it,’ says the child. ‘I don’t like looking down.’
‘Then close your eyes,’ I reply.
23
Lisa
I come round suddenly, thinking I heard a noise but unsure what it was. I seem to have discovered a mode, like the standby button on the TV, where I’m not awake but not truly sleeping either, just able to switch on instantly. I check the alarm clock. It’s half past seven. I look at Alex still fast asleep and feel a little like you do as a new mum when you wake up to find it’s morning and your baby has unexpectedly slept through the night. Although I also remember as a new mum being mad as hell at Alex for being able to sleep through Otis and then Ella waking at night. He was always apologetic in the morning, always said I should have dug him in the ribs to wake him up, but I was never quite enough of a cow to do it.
I get up straight away, pull my dressing gown on and leave the room, closing the bedroom door behind me. The house is quiet, too quiet somehow, even allowing for Ella’s absence. I go to Ella’s room first. It has become a ritual, checking in on her like this while the rest of the house is sleeping. I don’t know whether there is a deluded part of me which actually expects to find her in there one morning or whether it is simply that it makes me feel close to her, but I can no longer imagine starting the day without doing this. I lie on her bed as usual, breathe her in, stroke her pillow, see her in my head smiling back at me. And then, as usual, reality kicks me in the teeth and all I hear is the silence of the room, all I see is the empty bed and all I smell is my own grief.
I get up again, tired of the relentlessness of it all, and go back to the landing. My next stop is Otis’s room. Even in a week I have learned how to feel my way around his bed in the dark more expertly. I find his foot – for some reason I always seem to find his right one first – and follow his body upwards, as if making sure he is all there. Satisfied, I leave the room.
I pause outside Chloe’s room and think for a second about going in to check on her but decide against it, knowing I would get my head bitten off if she did happen to be awake. I go to the toilet then head downstairs. I don’t know why I look at the front door as I reach the bottom but I do. Something is making me uncomfortable; something is different. And then I see it – the top and bottom bolts are undone. Alex fitted them a couple of days ago. Said he thought they may help me sleep. I opened my mouth to say something about shutting the stable door but thought better of it. He was trying his best. I understood that. I know he slid them across last night. I watched him do it. Did he go outside in the night and forget to shoot them across again? Or has somebody come in? Could they be in the house now? I freeze and listen for any sounds but all is silent. I go to each room downstairs and check the windows but nothing is broken or forced. I would have heard it anyway if someone had smashed something. What I heard when I woke didn’t sound like glass break
ing, it was more like a door shutting. I hurry back to the hall and look at the shoe rack. Chloe’s Converses have gone. She has other shoes but she never wears them. Her jacket has gone from the peg too. I run upstairs and into her room. The bed is empty. She has put the duvet back as if she has never slept in it. She has gone. I am losing all my fucking children one by one. I check on the chest of drawers. Her mobile isn’t there so she does at least have that with her. I creep back into our bedroom, grab my phone, take it back to Chloe’s room and call her. It goes straight to voicemail.
‘Chloe, it’s Mum. Ring me. Or text me. Please let me know where you are and that you’re OK.’
Perhaps she’s gone to Robyn’s. I’d ring her but I don’t have her mobile. I sit down on the bed, trying to calm myself. She’s nineteen years old. She’s entitled to go off on her own, she’s just been to bloody France. But that was different, that was a holiday, I knew where she was going. I drove her to the fucking station. This is different. She doesn’t just take off like this. Maybe it’s the reconstruction this afternoon; maybe she’s worried about it. Perhaps she’s changed her mind and doesn’t want to go.
I stare at the calendar on the wall opposite. Seven days since I saw Ella. The seven longest days of my life. I count off the days, my mind replaying the events of each in my head on fast forward until I get to today. Friday, 5 September. There is an uneasy feeling in my stomach. And something is agitating inside my head. Knocking softly at first but, when I fail to listen, soon hammering at my skull. I see the scrunched-up tissues on Chloe’s bedside cabinet and look, for the first time in ages, at the small photograph in a frame she keeps on it.
‘Fuck,’ I say out loud. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’
I run through to our bedroom and wake Alex up. ‘Chloe’s gone,’ I say, watching as his eyes struggle to focus. ‘It’s Matthew’s anniversary. I completely forgot.’
‘Oh shit,’ he says, sitting up.
‘I’m going to go after her; you hold the fort here.’
‘Where are you going?’