by Linda Green
‘To his grave,’ I say. ‘She’ll have gone to his grave.’
*
I work it all out as I drive into town. It was the front door I heard when I woke. There’s a bus at half past seven. She’ll have been on it. I should have remembered. Even with everything that has gone on this past week I should have fucking remembered. She’s my firstborn, possibly the only daughter I have left, and I’ve let her down. Again.
I shake my head. I don’t blame her for hating me. I don’t blame her one little bit. It’s hard to imagine any mother screwing up quite so spectacularly as I did. But it’s also hard to work out how you can unintentionally hurt someone so badly when you love them so much.
The roads are starting to get busy. I tap my fingers on the steering wheel as I wait at the traffic lights on the main road. When they finally go green, I turn right and take the first left. I only realise as I do so that I will be driving past the park. A coldness runs through me. I haven’t been back since. It is too painful, even watching the video on Alex’s phone last night felt too close. My hands start to shake on the steering wheel. I keep my eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead but even so I can see it out of the corner of my eye. The wall, the trees, the roof of the butterfly house. The sights and sounds and smells of the day rush back to me. I drive on, gripping the wheel tightly. I still see the green in my rear-view mirror, the big lush tops of the trees. I want to stop the car and go and shake them, demand that they reveal their secrets, tell me what they witnessed. Because nobody else seems to fucking know.
It is half past eight by the time I pull up in the cemetery car park. There are only two other cars there. According to the sign it only opened at eight. I wonder if Chloe got here earlier than that, if she was waiting outside when the gates opened.
I only realise when I walk through the gates that I do not know where Matthew’s grave is. I didn’t go to the funeral, which was fair enough as I didn’t know the boy. But Chloe didn’t go either. She wanted to but the funeral was private, strictly family only. It was like a second bereavement to Chloe, not being able to say goodbye to him. I told her to go, that she had every right to be there. She didn’t though. Said she didn’t want to cause any more upset than she already had.
She’s come since, of course. With Robyn the first time and after that on her own. She even allowed me to drop her off once and wait because it was cold and wet and she didn’t have enough money for the bus fare. I asked if she wanted me to go in with her but she just gave me one of her looks. When she got back to the car she didn’t say a word, just nodded and we drove home in silence.
I know I should have tried harder, taken all the knock-backs and kept trying, but I think I was scared, scared that I was pushing her further and further away and maybe what she needed was space to try to come to terms with this in her own way. Turned out to be a load of bollocks, but that’s what I thought.
I look around me. The trees are still in full leaf and it’s hard to see past them to the far side of the cemetery. I look at the gravestones at the end of each line as I walk. Most of them are old, very old, from a time when it seemed you were lucky if one of your children made it into adulthood. But then I get to an area where there are some newer graves, children’s ones. One has a photo of a baby in the headstone, another has a collection of soft toys around it. The carving in the stone is new and easy to read as I pass. The boy was four years old when he died.
I hurry on, trying not to think, trying to block it all out. I am here for Chloe. She is the one I am looking for today. And then I turn a corner and see her, standing by a headstone underneath a huge tree fifty yards in front of me. She has her head bowed and her back to me. I wonder if I should say something as I approach but the truth is I am scared to do so in case she runs away. I have had enough of seeking and I do not want to give her the opportunity to hide.
I walk up to her and take hold of her left hand. She turns to face me, her eyes red and puffy, a frown on her face. It seems to take her a second or two to realise that I should not be here. I wonder if she is going to pull her hand away and run but she doesn’t.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say quietly. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
She screws up her eyes and collapses into my arms, crying like a little girl again. I pull her in tight to me like I used to do. I stroke her hair, pull a soggy strand of it back from her face and stroke her cheek.
‘I miss him so much,’ she says.
‘I know. I know you do. And I’ve been so crap because I should have been there for you, but I knew it was all my fault and I knew you blamed me and I think I was scared that if I kept trying to reach you you’d push me further away.’
‘I don’t blame you.’
‘Well you should,’ I say, wiping another of her tears away. ‘Telling you to dump him when I didn’t know him from Adam. I thought all teenage lads were like your father, that they just needed a kick up the arse sometimes to show some commitment. I didn’t know he was such a sensitive lad.’
‘Yeah, but I did. I should have realised how he’d react. I shouldn’t have pushed him that far.’
‘Yeah, but he was messing you about – all that crap about keeping things secret. I knew it was doing you in, that’s why I said summat. I didn’t want you to let him walk all over you.’
I look up at the sky, wipe the tears from my own eyes.
‘I didn’t even want to break up with him,’ says Chloe. ‘I just wanted him to stand up to his mum It was like she owned him, like she didn’t want anyone else to have a piece of him. She was such a fucking control freak.’
‘She was probably just being overprotective,’ I say. ‘It’s hard letting go, you know, when your little girl or boy grows up.’
She looks at me and I wish so much that I could reach inside and remove the ache in her heart, take all the hurt away with a cuddle and a kiss and the promise of an ice cream later. I can’t though because this is proper, grown-up hurt. Love and death and grief and loss, and it all came to her so, so early.
‘The thing is, Chloe, I know it hurts and I know it always will, but what I’m so scared of is that you’re going to beat yourself up over this for rest of your life.’
‘But I can’t stop thinking about him.’
‘I know, but at some point in the future I want you to give someone else the chance to find out what an amazing person you are. I want you to give yourself permission to be happy again.’
She shrugs and turns back to his gravestone.
‘They’re beautiful,’ I say, looking at the red roses she has left there. ‘May I?’ She nods. I crouch down and read the card attached to them.
‘I’m so sorry. Love you and miss you for ever. Sparrow x’
I stand up and wipe my eyes.
‘It’s what he always called me,’ she says. ‘I told him about the Chloe bird thing. He said it made him smile, said he wished we lived in a world where everyone had a bird named after them.’
I smile and take hold of her hand.
‘You know, all I ever wanted was to be like you,’ she says. ‘The way you brought me up on your own when you were only the same age as I am now.’
I shake my head.
‘What?’ she says.
‘All I ever wanted was for you not to be like me. That’s why I gave you all those bloody lectures about not getting yourself in trouble.’
She is silent for a moment.
‘I did sleep with him,’ she says. ‘Just the once, though. She found out, his mum. Went mental. I think she had a screw loose, to be honest.’
‘She hasn’t left any flowers,’ I say, looking down.
‘No, she never has. None that I’ve ever seen, anyway. Robyn heard from someone that she’d cracked up a bit, lost her teaching job at The Grange. She does piano lessons from home now.’
The blood inside me comes screeching to a halt against the wall of my chest. I feel myself thrown forward. My head hurts with the sudden impact. Chloe grabs hold of my arm as my legs buckle beneath m
e.
‘What?’ she says. ‘What is it? Are you OK?’
‘He lived near the park, didn’t he? Matthew lived near the park.’
She nods.
‘That’s where Otis goes,’ I say. ‘That’s where he goes for his piano lessons. And Alex takes Ella to the park until it’s time for them to pick him up. What’s her name? What’s Matthew’s mum’s name?’
‘Muriel,’ she says. ‘Her name is Muriel.’
24
Muriel
‘I don’t want to close my eyes. I don’t like it here. I want to go home.’ The child tightens her grip on my hand. I feel my body sway slightly in the breeze. I am teetering on the edge, in every sense of the phrase.
‘Matthew always liked it here. It was one of his favourite places.’
‘Is he coming today? Is he bringing the picnic?’
‘No. He’s not.’
‘Why not?’
I glance at the child. She is trying very hard not to look down. It is a moment or two before I can get the words out.
‘Because he’s dead.’
She looks up at me, a frown creasing her brow. I am aware of a tear running down my cheek. I try very hard to ensure it isn’t followed by another one. It is though, shortly after the point when I realise she is squeezing my hand.
‘When did he die?’
‘A year ago today.’ I inch forward, aware that my big toe is now sticking out over the edge.
‘Did he have cancer? Lots of people die from cancer but you can’t catch it from someone.’
‘No. No, he didn’t.’
‘What did he die from? Was it something Chloe did?’
I close my eyes for a second. I could do it now. I could step out from the edge. I have her hand. She would fall with me. There is nothing she would be able to do about it. And all things would be equal then. An eye for an eye and all that. Her mother would understand, truly understand what I went through, am still going through every second of every day. Her life would be blighted for ever like mine. The child grips my hand tighter. I wonder if she knows on some subconscious level what I am going to do. I don’t think she does. I glance down and see her looking up at me with enquiring eyes. And I realise that I do not want her to die thinking that about her sister. I do not want her to have that shard of guilt in her heart.
‘No,’ I say. ‘It wasn’t her fault. It was mine, actually.’
She gives a little laugh, like I have just said something ridiculous.
‘No,’ she says. ‘You’re his mummy.’
I look down at her. We stand there for a while in silence, the breeze playing with the bottom of my skirt and gently flapping the sleeve of her waterproof jacket.
‘Ah, but I loved him too much, you see.’
‘You can’t die from that. You can die from being run over by a car or from being shot by a man with a gun – or from melting but only if you’re a snowman like Olaf in Frozen.’
I find myself smiling unexpectedly.
‘Did your mummy take you to see that film?’
‘Yes, and Otis came too but he said he didn’t want to because it was a girls’ film, but I saw him crying when Olaf nearly melted. He said he didn’t afterwards but I saw him. And I said I didn’t want an Elsa dress last Christmas, but I do now and Mummy says I might get one for my birthday if I’m good.’
I nod, unable to stop another couple of tears squeezing themselves out of my eyes, and ask, ‘When’s your birthday?’
‘Next month. September the 29th.’
‘It’s this month actually. It’s September already.’
‘Is it? How many sleeps?’
I bite my lip and look down. I deserve to be down there, lying in a heap on the rocks. I know that only too well. But she doesn’t.
‘Twenty-four,’ I say as I step back from the edge.
‘I’ll be a big girl then, won’t I?’
‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘Yes, you will.’
I take another step back. Something rushes into the void inside me. Fills it until it is in danger of overflowing. It is soft and warm and comforting. ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘It’s time to go.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘There’s somewhere I need to go. Somewhere I should have gone a long time ago.’
‘OK,’ she says before turning with me and leading me back up the path.
*
I haven’t been since the funeral. To visit would have been to acknowledge it had happened. To put Matthew firmly in the past tense. That’s why I visit him in the park instead. Where he is very much in the present.
The first thought I have when I arrive at the cemetery is that I won’t be able to find Matthew’s grave. The funeral was all very much a blur. I have a vague recollection of being guided to the graveside, possibly by Malcolm, or even the vicar, I can’t be sure.
And then I see the tree and it comes back to me, the sense of wonder that they should have chosen this plot for him. ‘Underneath the Spreading Chestnut Tree’, I used to sing to him at the park when he was a toddler. We used to do the actions to it. It always made him smile.
That they had chosen for him to lie here is the closest thing I have felt to comfort. It almost makes me believe there is a god. Almost but not quite.
The tree is in full leaf, as it was on this day last year. I sometimes wish I had asked Malcolm to take a photograph of it. I didn’t, of course, because that is not the done thing at funerals. But I wish now that I hadn’t cared so much about that.
As I walk towards the tree, the child’s hand still firmly in mine, all I can think about is what it must look like in autumn when the colours are rich and golden. And in spring, when the buds bring promise of what is to come.
‘He’s there,’ I say. ‘Underneath that chestnut tree.’
‘Does everyone get a tree when they die?’
‘No. Not everyone.’
‘Is it because Matthew was special?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, I think it is.’
She is quiet for a moment, seemingly deep in thought. As we draw closer I can see flowers on the grave. Fresh ones, presumably left this morning. Red roses. About two dozen of them.
‘Who are they from?’ the child asks.
‘I don’t know.’
The child lets go of my hand and walks closer. She has taken the waterproof off now. I said she could. There doesn’t seem to be any point in keeping it on any more.
‘Look,’ she says, picking up a card and and running back to me with it before I can tell her not to. I hold it in my hand. I think I know before I look at it. I think that is why my hand is shaking.
I read the words and swallow hard, conscious that my vision has blurred. She did not come to the funeral. I put a notice in the Courier, a death announcement. I got them to put ‘Private Funeral, Family Only’ in bold letters. It was my way of letting her know she was not welcome. It must have been hard for her, not coming. Not having the opportunity to say goodbye. I didn’t really think about that at the time, I was so consumed by my own grief. And then later, when I saw her at the inquest, when she read out her statement, said that he hadn’t told me about her because he knew I wouldn’t be able to bear it if someone took him away from me, I was glad I hadn’t allowed her to come. Glad she hadn’t been able to take him away from me in death as she had done in life.
I look down again at the card, step forward and put it back among the flowers. Back where it belongs.
‘Who are they from?’ the child asks.
‘A friend. Someone who loved him very much. Who misses him almost as much as I do.’
She comes and holds my hand without being asked to.
‘I’m glad Matthew had a friend like that,’ she says.
‘Yes.’ I nod, wiping my eyes. ‘So am I.’
25
Lisa
Alex’s phone only rings once before he answers.
‘I’m with Chloe,’ I say. ‘She’s OK. What’s the name of Otis’s piano teacher?’
‘Just tell me, please.’
‘Miss Norgate,’ he says. ‘I don’t know her first name but I write the cheques to Miss M. Norgate.’
‘Muriel,’ I say. ‘I think she’s called Muriel. I think she’s Matthew’s mother. She lost her job teaching at The Grange. Chloe says she teaches piano lessons from home.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘She hates us, Alex. She blames Chloe – me as well, probably. She’s got a grudge against our family.’
‘Fucking hell. Are you sure?’
‘I don’t know. Let me put Chloe on. She’s been there, Matthew’s house. Tell her what it looks like, where you go for Otis’s lessons.’
I pass the phone to Chloe. I see her nod repeatedly, watch as what little colour she has left slides from her cheeks.
I take the phone back. ‘It’s her,’ I say. ‘It’s the same person.’
‘Oh Jesus.’ There is a slight pause before Alex continues. ‘She cancelled, didn’t she? She texted to cancel his lesson. On Saturday. The day after Ella disappeared. And she’s got a cat. Ella always strokes her cat.’
‘Is Claire there?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘Phone her now. Get her to tell Johnston straight away. Get them to go to her house and see if Ella’s there. We’re going there now.’
‘Lisa, don’t do anything stupid.’
‘What, like get my own fucking daughter back?’
‘You know what I mean. Don’t knock on the door or let her see either of you. You don’t know what state she’s in.’
‘I do. I know exactly what state she’s in. Call Claire now. Tell her everything. Get her to send someone straight away.’
We run back to the car, past the grave of the four-year-old, further and further away from it. She could still be alive. Ella could still be alive. She’s been taken, kidnapped, except she would have gone quietly. Because Ella knew her. She probably chatted all the way to her house.
My mobile rings as we get to my car. It’s Claire.
‘Lisa, we’re on our way there now. Plain-clothes officers in an unmarked car. You’re not to approach the house before we get there, do you understand?’