‘You two wait here,’ she said, and slipped into the room. Tommie and I squeezed into the gap and watched her. The room was neat and tidy with two beds, a chair and a desk. There was a little sink against one wall and posters and pictures for decoration. There was a perfumey smell—I mean you could tell it was a lady’s room.
Anna-Marie wandered around brushing her hand across the top blanket of one of the beds, rearranging the mugs and spoons on the little tray next to the kettle. There were a few stray biscuit crumbs on the tray and she licked her finger to pick them up and flick them into the wastepaper bin.
She sat down at the desk and began sorting through the contents like a spy in search of secret information, replacing everything just as she found it. Finally, she selected a pen from one of those pots like they make on Blue Peter. She studied the nib and, to check that it was in working order, drew a thin line across her finger tip. Then, laying the pen to one side, she took a book—it looked quite new—and opened it slightly, as you do with a new book in a shop, so that you can put it back on the shelf without having to pay for it.
Having treated it so carefully, Tommie and I gasped when, having found the very first page—the one that doesn’t really have any writing on it—she tore it from the book. One quick rip.
‘Anna-Marie …?’
‘Sssh!’
She replaced the book, reassuring herself that the tear would remain unnoticed, at least until the book was opened, before taking the empty page and writing across it—not much just a few words—before returning the pen to its pot and folding the paper into a small cube. Pushing herself back from the desk she again appeared to be searching, this time finding a little gap between the desktop and the side of the drawers. Her fingers squeezed the square of paper and pushed it into the space, tapping it a couple of times to make sure it was properly wedged. She got up and pushed the chair back into its original position and, with a final glance around the room, closed the door, joining us in the corridor.
‘What did you write?’ asked Tommie.
‘That’s for me to know,’ said Anna-Marie.
‘Well, can we go now?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Anna-Marie with a shake of her head. ‘That was only a diversion. This,’ and she pointed to the next door, a big silver five and a name card I couldn’t quite read, ‘is the one we’ve come to see.’ She tappety-tap-tapped on the door. ‘I made enquiries,’ she said, ‘by telephone,’ before cooing, ‘Hello.’ When there was no answer Anna-Marie reached out with the flat of her hand and pushed against the door, opening it easily.
This room was simple. There were a few shelves but they were empty and the only things hanging from the walls were curtains. There was a bed in one corner and in the other, beside the window, was a chair. And in the chair was an old woman. She looked like a pile of monkey bones bundled into a waxy, wrinkled bag of skin. She was sleeping, her head tipped slightly to one side, her mouth open and sloping, and a bead of dribble trickling down one of the deep trenches in her walnut face. Or maybe she was dead. It was certainly hard to think of her as being real. I mean in the way that I was real or Anna-Marie. Or even Tommie.
But it was funny. Didn’t old people surround themselves with souvenirs, just like Tommie had kept that hat from the zoo, to remind themselves of what it was like when they were young and death seemed more like a dream that would never come true? When my father was ill he’d surrounded himself with pictures of me and my mother and other things that he liked, like my first tooth and this little cardigan with pink lace and those butterfly earrings I told you about. He wanted to be close to them so that, I think, if he remembered them well enough when he was alive it would be like he might remember them after he died. Or maybe he thought he could fill himself with so much of what it was to be alive that it would be like he hadn’t died at all. The old lady didn’t have anything like that but then, I thought, maybe some people didn’t want to remember. Or maybe she just wanted to forget.
I was always a bit scared of old people but fascinated too just like I was with vampires and werewolves and other monsters. All those weird creatures who looked like they might be real people but weren’t really. They were only reflections of what real people were like. Like that picture of a tiger, I suppose, but one drawn by a four year old with scratchy, dry felt-tips that have had the caps left off.
Anna-Marie stepped up to the chair and bent towards the old woman. ‘Hello, Mrs Goodwin,’ she said. ‘It’s Anna-Marie. Anna-Marie Liddell.’
The old woman moved and then her eyes began to fidget around behind her lids. Her head jerked. When her eyes finally blinked open they reminded me a bit of Kat’s, grey and smoky, but wet and cloudy like smoke from a fire that’s been put out with a tin-bucketful of water.
‘Alice?’ said the old woman and a glance ricocheted like a pinball between Anna-Marie, Tommie and me: ten thousand points! ‘Alice?’ Her voice was a froggy-croak, dry like a dusty sand dune.
How did this woman know about Alice?
She—the old woman—reached out and touched Anna-Marie’s hand. Her eyes widened further as her spindly fingers traced the ridges of Anna-Marie’s knuckles like a blind woman reading that writing that’s all lumps and bumps. ‘Bless me,’ she said. ‘You’re real.’
‘It’s me, Mrs Goodwin. It’s Anna-Marie. Do you remember? Anna-Marie Liddell.’
Anna-Marie had a lot of smiles and not all of them were very nice: mickey-taking smiles, sarky smiles and smiles when you’d said something stupid. But the smile she smiled now had none of that nasty stuff. It was like an orange with all the pips taken out or a weekend with no homework: just sweetness and kindness.
‘Anna-Marie? Is it really? My angel?’
‘Yes, Mrs Goodwin. I’ve brought someone to meet you.’
‘Mrs Goodwin?’ muttered the old woman. ‘Mrs Goodwin?’ She laughed like she had sawdust in her throat. ‘Nobody calls me that any more, my dear,’ she said. ‘I’d almost forgotten it was me.’ The chair creaked as she shuffled her skinny bottom from side to side. ‘They call me Maggie you know, dear. When I was a little girl like you, you see, everybody used to call me Maggie. A name’s important, don’t you think? The name, or names, you’re given; the names you choose. When I was called Maggie,’ she said, ‘I was a Maggie. I felt like a Maggie. I used to play in Everlasting Lane and run through the woods like a wild child and up to Finches’. Dirty face, dirty hands. And when I was older, you see, I would go up into the fields behind Cloisters with,’ she chuckled, ‘with the boys from the farms.’ She just went on and on. It was like listening to the radio. I mean the radio keeps talking whether you’re listening or not and she was just the same. ‘But when they started calling me Margaret or Mrs Goodwin, you see, or mother, poor Maggie died. They might as well have put me in a brace. It’s like being wrapped in chains. It’s like being locked away. Such a change,’ she murmured. ‘Such a change, you’d think I would have noticed it happening. But … no. And now I’m Maggie all over again.’
‘Mrs Goodwin?’ said Anna-Marie.
‘ “Would you like a drink, Maggie? Oh, you haven’t finished your toast, Maggie. Have you made a mess again, Maggie?” ’
‘Mrs Goodwin?’
‘I sometimes wonder what she would make of me now: little Maggie I mean. Would she think me worthwhile?’ The old woman’s breath came out of her with a sigh but she looked up at Anna-Marie and grinned like a chimpanzee. ‘And how’s your mother, dear?’ she asked. ‘And your father? What a lovely man. And, bless me, who are your friends?’
‘This is Tommie,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘and this,’ she tugged my sleeve closer, ‘is Peter.’
‘Peter?’ muttered the old lady, ‘Peter?’ as if trying to solve a puzzle. And then a strange kind of growl came out of her throat.
‘No,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘it’s Peter: your grandson.’
And it was funny because I suddenly remembered once when my mum was taking my dad to hospital and I had to go and play with this little boy next door. We were p
laying sword fighting. He had a really good sword, it was wooden but it had a proper handle. My sword was only really a cardboard tube and wasn’t very good at all, so after a while I went into the kitchen and found this knife with a big handle and a sharp edge. We chased each other round and round the house for ages until I hid behind the sofa and waited to catch him by surprise. He didn’t even see me coming and I slashed my weapon through the air like Errol Flynn in that film.
Suddenly he fell to the floor. I could see where there was this thin line across his forehead all the way from one side to the other. And then this flap of skin above his eye began to uncurl and show all his blood and stuff underneath. He, the boy, I can’t remember his name, stared at me for a moment, just sitting there like a little statue as the blood began to ooze out and run down his face.
And then he began to scream.
And then his mother came into the room and saw that there’d been an accident and she began to scream too. And the two screams together were like a snake with razor-fangs and a poisoned tail wrapping its coils around the room. And the snake grew longer and stronger until it filled my head and I tried to grab at its throat to squeeze it in to silence.
Because the scream said: ‘Peter, this is your fault!’
And, you see, when Anna-Marie said my name and the black holes of the old woman’s eyes stared at me and opened up like little mouths with thin grey lips, that’s just what my grandma did: scream. Like those two screams together: the little boy and his mother.
Anna-Marie, Tommie and I all stepped backwards startled by the sudden noise, hands clasped to our ears. We took another step back as she began to stand, struggling to pull herself upwards on arms no thicker than Kat’s walking stick. She wouldn’t stop screaming. I thought my brain was going to burst. She raised her arms, long and thin, and began to wave them at me, trying to hit me. She looked like a featherless ostrich, blind and thrashing around, her beak open and screeching.
Somewhere we could hear or feel doors slamming and people running, summoned by the wailing siren of the old woman’s howl.
We turned, of course, and ran: out of the room and stumbled through the shadows of the darkened corridor. We clattered down the stairs but as we reached half way Mrs Finch and her pink overalls appeared blocking our escape. Her face exploded with anger but I couldn’t make out her words what with my grandmother’s pain still filling my ears. Anna-Marie faltered but only for an instant. She swung her leg high over the banister and spun out into the open air landing with a clunk on the floor below. Tommie’s legs weren’t as long but he followed her anyway. And I, in turn, flung myself over the rail towards the floor beneath. Pain shot through me as I crashed to the ground but nothing broke and, like my friends, I was too afraid to worry about the grazes on my knees.
Anna-Marie was already at the door and with the sound of other voices and feet rushing in our direction she seized the handle and pulled ferociously. The door opened with a shuddering rattle and we flew through and ran like lunatics forcing our way, scraped and scratched, through the leaves and branches which would no longer separate for us.
The ground raced beneath us, gradually slowing as the shouts and the screams disappeared and we were once again surrounded only by the birds, the bees and the gentle splish-splash of the river. Finally, finally we stopped running, our hands collapsing to our knees as we gasped and wheezed. My heart was jumping and bumping around inside my chest. I felt as if I had a big load of vomit just waiting to burst out of me. Better out than in, my dad used to say, but although my throat was gagging nothing would come until I looked up to see Anna-Marie sat on this tree-stump trembling and watching me with tears in her eyes.
‘Oh, Peter,’ she said, ‘what did you do?’
And then I was sick. Not much but, well, enough.
30
We were sat together, cross-legged, Anna-Marie and me and Tommie, beneath the swelling curves of the willow tree. Early morning sunlight peeked through the canopy, eyes twinkling. The summer breeze made the willow leaves rise and fall like the ribs of a sleeping man. A stronger touch and leaves parted revealing glimpses of the outside world.
The summer term had drifted towards the holidays like a disabled dinghy towards a sunlit beach. The man on the television warned that the weather was turning with thunder and lightning to come. And you could feel it too. You could feel it in the air. You could see it in the sun, burning and sinking beneath the horizon each evening like a great glowing beach ball. It was the last day of term and as her days at Dovecot were coming to an end, puffed out one by one like the candles on Melanie’s birthday cake, Anna-Marie had unpeeled like an apple, the skin all gone and only the pale flesh remaining.
Nobody was talking and the silence was big. Too big. As big as the fields and the sky gaping like the top and bottom of an open-air sandwich with me, alone and lonely, standing right in the middle of one of those fields, only the crowless sky to keep me company.
Nobody was talking but we were all thinking: Anna-Marie nibbled her white lip, her face all droopy and sad, grey curves like tiny moons beneath her eyes; Tommie clutched his football on his lap, picking at the stitching between the leather, occasionally drumming his fingers on its tight surface. I don’t know what they were thinking about although I thought I could guess.
Me? I was thinking about a different world. I don’t mean like Mars or Saturn or anything. I mean a different world just like this one, with the same trees and the same cottage and Everlasting Lane and Kitty and everything; but a world in which there was a good reason why Mrs Finch wouldn’t call Kat and tell her about our visit to the Lodge. Or, even better, a world in which we hadn’t gone to the Lodge at all and Anna-Marie had been quite happy to wander up and down the lane, pockets bursting with snacks, chatting about ponies and The Bay City Rollers instead of grandmothers and mysterious girls. But I knew she never could’ve done that, so, how about a world where I’d never come to Amberley; or a world where I’d never left.
Because it was the last day of term we were allowed to take games or toys. Tommie had brought his football of course but that didn’t count because he always did. I’d brought this game called Mousetrap. Maybe you know it. It’s this funny game where you build a machine that’s a mousetrap with slides and chutes and marbles and when you turn the handle all these things happen one after the other until your mouse is trapped in a cage. I used to play it with my dad because some of the bits were a bit fiddly and would fall over and not work properly.
Anna-Marie hadn’t brought anything, of course. She didn’t play games.
So, it was the last day of term: toys and games and no uniform and the leavers’ assembly and, in my old school, the teacher maybe brought sweets. But nobody was talking.
At least not until Tommie went: ‘We could walk the lane to the end.’
‘What?’ said Anna-Marie and glanced at her watch. ‘I don’t think the old bag would approve.’ She meant Mrs Carpenter, of course.
‘Not today,’ said Tommie. ‘I mean in the holidays. Let’s see if it really lasts forever.’
Oh. Well, maybe he hadn’t been thinking about Alice after all.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘It’s only a road. Roads don’t last forever.’
‘The Romans built a road from London,’ said Tommie, ‘to … I think it was Newcastle. My dad says.’
‘How far is it from London to Newcastle, dimwit?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Neither do I,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘but it’s hardly forever, is it?’ Tommie shrugged. ‘Is it?’
‘No,’ mumbled Tommie, ‘it isn’t.’
Could she really be my grandma? That’s what I was thinking about now. That old lady with the screaming eyes, I mean. Was she really my grandma? Part of me kept thinking it couldn’t be true but the other part, the bigger part, knew it was. When I was looking at her I knew even then, even before she started screaming. Because I could see Kat’s face in hers, even though it was so old, like I
was looking through broken glass. And I wondered if one day I’d look in a mirror and see my daddy looking back at me.
I hoped so. I’d like that.
Oh, and, of course, she was called Mrs Goodwin which was my grandma’s name too.
‘Oh, go on, Anna-Marie,’ pleaded Tommie. ‘It’ll be fun. What else is there to do?’
‘Yes, Anna-Marie,’ I said. ‘We won’t do it if you’re not coming.’
‘Fine,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Then don’t do it.’
‘Well, what are we going to do?’ asked Tommie with an exasperated sigh. ‘I mean we’ve got all summer.’ He had begun to toss his ball up in the air, whirling it until it looked like the world going round and around. ‘We’ve got to do something, haven’t we, Peter?’
‘Stop it,’ said Anna-Marie, her voice like a whisper. And then: ‘Stop it!’ so loudly my ears jumped and Tommie stopped his spinning. ‘Don’t you understand, you idiots?’ she wailed. ‘We’re children: we don’t do stuff. Stuff is done to us. Haven’t you noticed? It’s the adults who decide everything. You’ve been watching too much television, Tommie. Peter’s not in Amberley because he chose it: he was brought here whether he liked it or not. You didn’t decide your parents shouldn’t live together: they decided. You’re just two little boys with two little brains.’
‘But we do do things,’ insisted Tommie, reeling from Anna-Marie’s outburst. ‘We go down the lane and we go to the pylons and we go to the Lodge …’
The look on Anna-Marie’s face was ugly. ‘Of course we do things,’ she snapped. ‘That’s all we ever do. But that’s not what I meant. What I mean is … we don’t change things.’ She made a funny noise, half way between a cough and a sob. ‘We don’t change anything.’
I looked at Tommie. Tommie looked at me.
‘I thought we could,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘I thought if we found out about Alice, then we could change things. Maybe. I thought I could change things.’
‘What things?’ said Tommie.
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