‘I suppose,’ she sighed. And then, ‘But it’s true, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Mr Merridew was right. I mean it didn’t even have any dates on it.’ She meant the gravestone. She was right. I didn’t know much about graves but I remembered the dates from my father’s headstone: so precise like rules that can’t be broken. ‘It’s like she died without even being born.’
‘What?’
‘What would that be like,’ wondered Anna-Marie, ‘if you’d never been born?’
I turned again to look at her. She looked kind of funny like a, well, a little girl. I mean that’s silly, I know. She was a little girl, of course: younger than I am now. I’d just never really noticed before.
‘What? I don’t know.’
She’d always seemed so much older.
She shrugged. ‘Well, what about other people? What about me and Tommie? You were born, so do you think we’d miss you if you hadn’t been? And what about your mum? I mean if you were supposed to be born, but weren’t, wouldn’t you leave a hole?’
‘I don’t … A hole?’
‘For people who would have known you. I wonder if people can tell there’s someone missing. Do you know what I mean?’
The funny thing was I did. I knew exactly what she meant.
It was just like the secret room. It’d looked like a nursery but it hadn’t felt like one. It had been more like a picture of one. There was no memory of a child at play; no ripples in the air caused by long ago games. The dolls and stuffed animals were nameless and unloved. Had that cot ever been slept in? Had the mobile ever turned, turned, turned so slowly sending tired eyes to sleep? It wasn’t a room of ghosts, but of ghosts of ghosts, of shadows of shadows: of absence, of nothing, of less than nothing.
‘Which is worse,’ wondered Anna-Marie, ‘living, knowing you’re going to die, or never living at all?’
‘What?’ Which was worse? Neither filled me with glee. ‘If you never lived,’ I insisted, ‘you wouldn’t know any different.’
‘I wonder,’ said Anna-Marie.
And she was right to wonder. That’s what I think. It’s like Norman said: who isn’t kept awake at night dreaming of the things they should’ve done but didn’t, of the chances they missed that they should have taken, of the things that needed to be said but weren’t? How is that different from a life unlived: a life without love, without friendship, without touch? What might have been said that went unsaid? What might have been done that went undone?
They’re like pale ghosts of ghosts who never cry, never lie, never shout, never shiver; that gaze in the broken mirror aching for all this: for joy, pleasure, love, affection, trust, truth, friendship, for everything they’ve been denied. And do we miss them? Do we miss their presence? Do we notice their absence? No, because they’re only dreams: echoes without sound, smoke without fire, consequences without events. And yet, something of them remains, for sometimes when I’m dreaming I think I’m awake; and although my eyes are closed I believe them open.
The best I could manage was a kind of grunt.
A breeze lapped at the edges of the leaves. I watched the ducks and ducklings and the wide Vs they left in their wake. Two fat teardrops were rolling down Anna-Marie’s cheeks. Her blue hair shimmered, snot bubbling in her left nostril.
I was so confused. I had no idea what to say but, ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘It’s summer and—’
‘Oh, Peter, grow up!’ She snorted loudly and the snot disappeared. ‘Nothing lasts forever,’ she sighed drawing the back of her hand across the space between her mouth and nose. ‘The summer won’t last forever. The lane doesn’t last forever.’
‘It might.’
‘Oh, Peter,’ said Anna-Marie, her voice sounding sad and tired, ‘you’re such a baby.’ And then she said: ‘What are you most scared of?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ she sighed. ‘What are you scared of?’
I glanced at the trees and their darkness. I couldn’t admit to being scared of them, could I? I didn’t want to own up to anything I might regret.
‘I’m scared that Kat will decide she doesn’t want me around and no one will care about me,’ I said. ‘What about you?’
Anna-Marie stood in silence a long time, staring blindly, her long fingers playing her hair. When she finally spoke it was so soft I had to ask her to say it again.
‘Everything,’ she said. ‘The future. Everything.’
I was stunned. Everything? ‘What do you mean?’ Every thing? That was a lot to be scared of. ‘The future?’ I’d never really thought about the future or things that might happen tomorrow or the day after and certainly not what might happen next year or the year after that. Of course I knew things changed. That was why we’d come to Amberley. That’s what consequences were all about but it seemed there was enough going on now without—
‘It’s like Alice,’ sniffed Anna-Marie. ‘Now that we know who she is, doesn’t it make you sad? Think about all the things she might’ve done. Think about all the …’
What did that mean: ‘Now that we know who she is’? What did we know?
‘I’m just scared of what’s going to happen,’ went on Anna-Marie. ‘Not people dying and stuff. Not really. I don’t think I’d care if my mum died. Not particularly. And I’m not scared of dying myself, whatever Mrs Carpenter says. I’m more scared of what’s going to happen if I don’t. I mean the future, when I have to grow up and everything. I mean, going to Secondary School and everything. Sometimes I think … Sometimes I know my life’s just going to be horrible and that I’m going to be horrible. And the worst thing is that I can’t do anything about it. I’m just going to watch it all happen like I’m a character in Crossroads or something.
‘I don’t know why,’ said Anna-Marie answering the question I was too stupid to ask. ‘I feel like a parcel under the Christmas tree on New Year’s Day, just sitting there waiting: waiting, waiting, waiting for a Christmas that’s already gone. But I’m scared too, not knowing what will happen once I’m opened. Do you know what I mean?’
I didn’t.
‘I knew you would,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘I mean, everything’s just … crap. I don’t mean to be like I am but I can’t help it. It’s like there’s somebody else who makes me do things or say things. It’s like the stuff I say to you and Tommie: it’s like somebody else says it. I always want to be nasty to people. I don’t know why.’
‘Tommie likes you,’ I said.
‘I know,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘He’s my best friend.’
‘But you’re always nasty to him.’
‘I said: I don’t know.’
‘I like you.’
‘I know,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘I just wish I did.’
But then I had an idea. ‘What about the fair?’ I said. ‘You could go to the fortune-teller. There’s going to be one. Melanie’s drawn about fifty posters. I mean if you want to know about the future.’
‘Good grief, Peter!’ she cried. ‘What are you …? That’s all mumbo-jumbo. Besides, after all this, Mrs Carpenter and everything, my mum’s not going to let me go to the fair in a month of Sundays. Not that that’s going to keep me awake at nights.’
I stood up, my feet numb from the cold river, and hobbled towards Anna-Marie. I closed my eyes and leaned up towards her to kiss her cool, wet cheek. But before I could she slapped me hard once—twice—three times on the side of the head. My ear echoed and throbbed. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she said, adding under her breath, ‘Creep!’ We stood for a long time in silence. My thoughts were unsettled like the stars on the moving water. Occasionally Anna-Marie would sniff—she was close but the sound seemed to come from a distance, a distance beyond the river, beyond the trees, beyond the fields and villages. It was as if she were drifting away from me. And each time she sniffed I was reminded that I had failed. I didn’t know how and I didn’t know what I could have done to change it. But I knew that I had failed.
But I still wanted to do something—anything—to make her feel bette
r, so I sat down sideways so that I could see her and told her what Mrs Finch had said.
Anna-Marie was quiet for the longest time after I’d finished, and then she said, ‘Tell me again what Melanie’s mum said about Karen’s mum. The bit about how she never told her what happened.’
I didn’t know why that bit was particularly interesting but I told it again, repeating Mrs Finch’s words just as I remembered them.
Anna-Marie nodded, the smile on her lips as soft as the night sky.
‘What?’
And then she shook her head. ‘Peter,’ she said, ‘what are the chances, do you think, that you are the stupidest boy on the planet?’
I was about to complain but then I didn’t. After all, when you thought about it, the chances were probably quite high.
We wandered back towards the cottages. A small car had pulled up outside Tommie’s and Tommie, sitting in the back seat, waved and leapt about when he saw us.
‘Hi!’ he shouted. He wriggled his way over the passenger seat. ‘Wow, you two are up late! Dad! Dad, come and see Anna-Marie!’
A short man, flabby like a deflated balloon, with thin hair dragged across his scalp got out of the car. He stared at us.
Tommie ran round to him, seizing his hand. ‘Come on, Dad.’
The man shook his hand free. ‘Don’t grab me,’ he said. His voice came through his nose. ‘I’ve told you before not to grab me.’
‘You remember Anna-Marie,’ said Tommie, ‘don’t you? Oh, and this is Peter.’ He was wearing a little brown cap saying ‘zoo’. The letters were made with a snake and two octopuses.
‘Hello, Mr Winslow,’ said Anna-Marie.
The man sighed and grunted, but he didn’t come out from behind the car.
‘Guess where we’ve been,’ said Tommie.
Anna-Marie glanced at his cap. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Some kind of museum?’
‘No: the zoo!’ cried Tommie. ‘It was brilliant. We saw the tigers, didn’t we, Dad? Real live tigers!’
‘Here’s your bag,’ grunted Tommie’s father. ‘I’m going now.’
Tommie looked disappointed. ‘But, Dad,’ he cried, ‘are you going to say “hello” to mum? You promised.’
The little man’s moustache twitched. ‘Don’t whine at me,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you before about whining.’
‘Sorry, Dad,’ said Tommie. He went to kiss his father on the cheek.
‘And you can cut that out for starters,’ said the man backing away. ‘I’ve told you before about all that stuff.’ The man dumped Tommie’s small bag on the pavement outside his front gate. As he did so, Tommie smiled. ‘My dad,’ he whispered.
Anna-Marie nodded and smiled.
With a grinding of gears the car lurched into life and departed. As it did so, Tommie’s front door flew open and Mrs Winslow squeezed into view. Before Tommie could bid us goodnight he was grabbed by the collar and sucked into the house like the last gulp of water down the drain.
I turned to Anna-Marie and saw her blue-moon face. ‘At least he’s got a dad,’ she said.
Anna-Marie was right of course. I mean about not being allowed to go to the school fair. On top of that, Mrs Carpenter told her that she had to stand outside her office, nose to the wall, ‘every minute of every playtime,’ until the end of term, and demanded that she be escorted by her mother to and from school each day. And Mrs Liddell made a prison of her daughter’s bedroom, banning her from going out up to and including the fair. Tommie and I would meet each Saturday morning and look up at our friend’s window to see her golden hair glowing at the top of her tower and her blue eyes haunting us.
24
We, Tommie and me, couldn’t bear to see her watching us, Anna-Marie I mean, from her bedroom window, so we would hide beneath the branches of the willow tree. We could escape the morning heat and the leaves touched the ground providing a curtain, a perfect camouflage, behind which we could sit and talk.
‘There’s something funny happening,’ declared Tommie. As the days had passed he had grown increasingly convinced that there was more to Anna-Marie’s imprisonment than just a broken vase. He adjusted his glasses and frowned to show that he didn’t mean ‘funny-funny’. ‘Think about all the things that have happened,’ he said. ‘We discovered the secret room; you broke that vase; Anna-Marie got punished.’ He showed me the piece of paper on which he’d listed these events and the chewed pencil with which he planned to list others.
‘You got hit on the head.’
‘Yes,’ said Tommie snapping his fingers, and writing it down. ‘Before that, Mr Gale shouted at me in class. Do you remember? That was your first day at school.’ I couldn’t believe that Mr Gale had never shouted at Tommie before that. And I wasn’t sure that that was the kind of thing he thought it was anyway. ‘What I mean,’ he insisted, ‘is that it can’t all be coincidence.’
Well, of course, it wasn’t coincidence. Even I knew that. It was like Anna-Marie’s jigsaw—
‘But,’ said Tommie, ‘it’s like every time we’re about to discover what’s happening something distracts us.’
‘Oh, what about the butterflies?’
‘Butterflies? What butterflies? What are you talking about?’ Beneath the leaves of the willow his face looked all green.
‘What? Sorry, I—’
‘You’re not even listening,’ he snapped. ‘I’m trying to solve the mystery and you’re … Listen, there must be something that has caused all this to happen.’ He ran his fingers through his dark, curly hair. ‘What about when Mr Merridew killed the Beast?’
Kitty, purring like a radio signal, slipped beneath the willow’s branches, her smooth fur sliding between us.
‘What about it?’ I didn’t want to think about that. The heat of the day began to seep through the branches, dripping sweat between my neck and collar. It was the day of the school fair and—
‘Tommie! Peter!’ We barely heard the first hoarse whisper of our names. ‘Tommie! Peter! Oi, cloth-ears, up here!’
We scrabbled out from under the willow tree like mice in the pantry and looked up to find Anna-Marie leaning out of her bedroom window, a big grin dangling between her ears. With her long hair hanging downwards she looked like Rapunzel.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked, as quietly-loudly as I could.
‘Keep the noise down. My mum’s having a nap; she’s not dead.’ Then she laughed. ‘Honestly, Peter, you’re such a cretin. Are you two going to the fair?’
We shrugged. We hadn’t decided.
But then Tommie said, ‘I’ll get you something.’
Damn.
‘I’m going to go to the fortune-teller,’ I said.
Anna-Marie shrugged. ‘Please yourself.’
Damn.
And then she laughed again. It was quite a difference from the night of the party. She must’ve seen my confusion. ‘Oh, and another thing,’ she said, as if it explained everything, ‘I know how to find out about Alice.’
Oh no. Why didn’t I want to hear that?
‘How?’ asked Tommie although I’d been wishing he wouldn’t.
Anna-Marie began to hum like a ghost and waved her hands in the air like a conjuror. ‘I predict,’ she said, ‘I predict a journey to the Lodge.’
‘Why?’ asked Tommie. No amount of wishing seemed to shut him up.
‘Because there’s someone there that will be able to tell Peter what happened to his sister.’
Sister? What was that supposed to mean? But Anna-Marie had already pulled her window to a close.
By the time Tommie and I arrived at the school fair it was bubbling like soup. The air was rich with laughter and raised voices: there were children dressed loudly for the Fancy Dress Competition, eating candyfloss; the old men from The White Hart sipping beer and picking at all the good in the world; and music, the kind that sounds like it’s turned with a handle, and all of it basting in a hot summer’s afternoon of bric-a-brac stalls and food on a stick and lucky dips and slides and swings.
‘People don’t do that though, do they?’
‘Do what?’
‘Beat a dog to death I mean. I mean who would do that?’
I couldn’t believe he was going on about that again. ‘But Mr Merridew—’
‘Not even Mr Merridew,’ said Tommie. He drew his pencil, folded his paper into the palm of his hand and prepared to write. ‘Tell me what he said again.’
I didn’t want to think about that. I was still trying to understand what Anna-Marie had meant about my sister. I didn’t have a sister. Did she mean Alice? But—
‘Peter. Concentrate.’ It was Tommie again. He was waving his piece of paper in my face. ‘Tell me what Mr Merridew said.’
I tried to remember, forcing my mind back inside that dreadful cottage, watching the shadows on the wall. ‘He said—I didn’t understand everything—but he said if there was a cow and it was big close up and small in the distance that maybe it wasn’t the same cow.’
Tommie looked confused, pencil suspended in mid-air. ‘Why would he say that?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Or maybe it was that the cow was the same cow whether you were close up or a long way away. Maybe that’s what he meant.’ I must’ve told Tommie this a thousand times.
‘That still sounds like a load of rubbish to me.’
‘He said children shouldn’t judge people.’
Tommie’s confusion tied a complicated knot between his eyes. ‘Why would he say that?’
‘Nothing means anything.’
‘What?’
‘He said nothing meant anything and we might as well be dead … Apart from when we’re alive.’
‘What? Stop it. That’s stupid.’
‘There’s only chaos.’
‘Stop it, Peter,’ cried Tommie. ‘Shut up! He didn’t say that! He didn’t!’
Then something new occurred to me: ‘Anna-Marie believed him.’
But there couldn’t only be chaos, could there? I mean if that was true, then you wouldn’t have to worry about consequences at all because nothing you did would matter. And if that was true, then you couldn’t do anything wrong or anything right. And then you wouldn’t have to apologise or feel guilty for anything. But if Alice was my sister, then—
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