by Lizzy Barber
Mamma. The pendant.
I’ve never seen her wear it before. Who could have taken it from her, and why have they sent it to me now?
Don’t think, just ride.
I reach the town centre and turn right down to the Sails’ road. A group of kids are shunting scooters along the sidewalk as I pull up at William’s house and lean my bike against the fence.
Ally, one of William’s sisters, spots me and bounces out of the group. ‘Anna!’ I brace myself as she rushes into me with a hug, trying to relax my shoulders and accept her tactility. I can smell the rainwater on her, kicked up by the wheels of the scooter and leaving muddy brown splashes on her bare legs. ‘Hey, Kate!’ she shouts over to her sister on the other side of the road. ‘Look, it’s Anna!’
The twins are nearly twelve years younger than William, and are adored by their family, for all their sassy behaviour: measuring out each temper tantrum with infectious giggles, and the perfectly timed bear hugs I am learning to accept. The girls are moon-eyed over William, the only one who can truly tame then, and in return he treats them with all the gruff affection a big brother should. It makes me wonder what it would be like to have siblings; to have anyone apart from just me and Mamma.
Ally grabs my hand and propels me towards the front door with a dismissive wave to her friends. Across the road, Kate, the softer and less bold of the two, kisses each one in turn and then shunts her scooter over to us.
They push open the door, which has never been locked in all the time I’ve known the Sails, and kick their shoes off into the open hallway.
‘Hi, Mommy,’ their duplicate voices chime at Hilary in the kitchen, bent over the oven with a large dish between her gloved hands. The smell of roasting chicken and baking pastry permeates the air, and I realise that she’s making chicken pot pie. She made it one of the first times I came around to visit, and I told her how much I loved it. My heart swells a little at the thought that she remembers.
The girls lean over her bowed form and give her simultaneous kisses on the cheeks with easy affection, then Ally tugs on her apron and sticks a pointed finger out at me, lingering in the doorway. ‘Look, Mom, we found Anna.’ Her finger moves to point at my left foot. ‘She cut her ankle. It’s bleeding.’
I glance down and, sure enough, a sticky, deep purple line of blood is smeared across the outside of my ankle, just below the hem of my skirt. There must’ve been a loose wire at the back of my bike; I hadn’t even noticed. Now I focus on it, an itching pain swells from the source, and I feel faintly queasy. I’ve never been good with blood.
‘Oh, honey!’ Hilary shuts the oven door and scurries over to take a look. ‘Grab a seat. Katherine, get the first aid kit.’
Kate scampers out of the room as Hilary pulls out a chair for me from around the circular dining table. She kneels in front of me and gingerly takes my foot in her hands, turning it to get a better look at the wound.
Ally leans over and her snub nose wrinkles into a disgusted sniff. ‘Gross,’ she declares it.
‘Ally, don’t be a nuisance.’ Hilary waves her away and accepts the green first aid box from a returning Kate. ‘The two of you get washed up for dinner. You smell of mud and the grass stains I’m never going to be able to get out.’
She gives Ally a pat on the butt, then turns her attention to my foot as the girls clatter away and up the stairs. ‘Well, it’s not deep.’ She angles it towards the light to get a better look. ‘It’s just a little jagged. Here, let’s clean it up.’
She pulls an antiseptic wipe out of the box and rips it open. A spritz of alcohol hits my nostrils as she rubs it over my ankle, then she scrumples it and places it beside her on the white tiled floor. Its centre is now stained a rusty orange. I peer down to assess the damage. The cut is rendered a pale, crusty line, flecked with congealed blood. I’m both disgusted by it and compelled to prod it to test the parameters of the pain.
‘Am I going to need a tetanus shot?’ I ask as Hilary clicks the case shut and stands to throw the wipe in the trash. I’m surprised that this is it, that there is no further dressing or administration required. I remember once falling as a child: I was in the garden, playing with a rake which was far too big for me, twirling around and singing. I tripped on the end of it, banged my head and burst into immediate tears. Mamma was there, and she raced me straight to the bathroom to assess me. I escaped unscathed, but she warned me that if I’d fallen and cut myself on the rake end, I would have caught tetanus – such a frightening, alien word – and bacteria would leak through into my body from the cut, and release toxins that could cause suffocation or, even worse, death. I was quietly cautious during playtime from then on. No rakes. I never did need that tetanus shot.
I stare dubiously at the untended ankle. ‘Maybe a Band-Aid?’
‘Oh Anna, I shouldn’t think so. It’s really barely a graze. The cycling probably just made the blood flow faster to the cut, which makes it look worse than it is.’
I will myself not to press her further at the risk of sounding fussy, but as she clears away the box I am compelled to wash my hands, to rid myself of any potential areas of infection. I feel her eyes on me as I set the tap to hot and lather my hands with the liquid soap next to the sink, but she says nothing. I wonder how much William has told her about my life at home, or how much she will have gleaned from her brief interactions with Mamma.
‘We’re home!’ The sound of the front door slamming turns Hilary’s attention off me as William and Pastor Timothy appear in the hallway, returning from the church, where, once a month, William helps his father with the youth group meeting.
‘Daddy!’ The twins, with their ceaseless energy, bound downstairs to greet them, as Hilary and I follow in more measured pursuit.
I can’t help notice, standing among them, how alike William is to his parents. They are the parts of his whole – his mother’s hair, his father’s eyes, her chin, his height – such that he may not look solely like either one of them, but it’s easy to see where the original has spawned the replica. I try to visualise that photograph of my father, hanging in the kitchen at home: is there any aspect of him that I can truly claim as mine? I see nothing definite, but something lingers: fingers holding mine over the keys of a piano, measured singing as each note is pressed, twin-kle twin-kle li-ttle star, and then it’s gone, like a cloud of sand being kicked up underfoot.
What part of Mamma is me?
Dinner is loud and warm and energetic. It’s so noisy I want to cover my ears to soften the reverberation of their easy chatter in my head – everyone clamouring to be heard at once. Timothy and William go over the events of the meeting, and enter into a long debate about the dwindling numbers of the youth congregation, and ways they can attract more young people to church. Feeling bold, I dare to suggest, ‘Movie nights?’ And Pastor Timothy tells me that’s a great idea, and writes it down. William reaches for my hand under the table and squeezes it. I squeeze back.
Hilary brings out a birthday cake, not home-made (‘What do I look like – Martha Stewart?’ she asks in mock indignation) but fresh from the bakery in town, and alight with pastel-striped candles that I blow out as everyone at the table sings – messy, out of tune, happy. I can’t remember if I’ve ever had a birthday cake before. The flames flicker across the piped writing – Happy Birthday, Anna! – and I’m sure it can’t be just that causing my face to feel hot, for a glow of warmth to overtake me. Is this what it’s like, for everyone else?
I want to linger over the washing-up for ever, but then the last piece of cutlery is put in the drawer and there is nothing left for me to dry or tidy away. ‘Will,’ I murmur, edging close to him in the guise of wiping the countertop, ‘please, I have to speak to you. Alone.’
His lips pinch together and he nods his head, once, twice. ‘Dad, would it be all right if Anna and I hung out upstairs for a little while? Just to spend some more time together?’ I see his parents exchange glances over our heads. I wonder if they’d be more appalled or less
if they knew the real reason for our seclusion.
Pastor Timothy looks at his watch, and then nods his approval. ‘OK, William, but not too late: Anna has school tomorrow. And with the door open please.’
In the silence of William’s room, we look at one another across his navy tartan throw. His room is large, with a wide bay window overlooking the back garden, but somehow it feels airless. I haven’t realised it until now, but I have been dreading this moment.
‘Anna, what’s going on with you? I’ve never seen you so jittery. Is this about the park?’
I play with the edge of the throw, winding the woollen tassels around my fingers. Words gather and dance away from me. I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to think about it. I want to go downstairs where it’s warm and safe; where my memories don’t frighten me and thoughts aren’t creeping into my head that I’d rather keep far, far away. I breathe in so deeply my lungs constrict, and then I look up at him, the throw forgotten as I knot my fingers together, over and over.
‘I’ve always felt as if there were some parts of myself that didn’t quite add up. It’s like – it’s like, you know when you’re in the bath, and the surface is covered with bath foam, so thick you can’t see through, but occasionally a part of your body will break through to the surface: a knee here, or a toe there? And it’s as if you’re not a whole at all, but pieces, broken up?’ William’s eyes narrow. My words are heavy, stumbling. ‘I feel like that’s me. Like I’m parts of a whole, but that there’s part of me that’s missing.’
My throat tightens – even as the words form I feel foolish – but I force myself to continue. ‘And then there’s this dream I’ve always had. A voice. And I know how stupid this sounds, and that you don’t believe that dreams have meanings, but I’ve always felt there was more to this. That there’s something I need to remember. Then we went to Astroland, and there it was: the missing piece. Not the whole thing, but something that convinced me it wasn’t a dream at all. It was a memory.’
A sigh heaves in my chest. My cheeks feel hot; William’s room dances in front of me. His hands on mine: cool and rough; his voice, soft but urging. ‘Anna, what is it you remember?’
I close my eyes, and with a rush I am back there. The carousel looms in front of me. I see the flashes of pink and green and yellow, and the bobbing pattern of the horses on their endless route to nowhere.
And I’m not looking in. I’m looking out.
The horses are surrounding me, and the outside world spins in a sea of crowds and rides and concrete. I am trying to get the attention of someone, waving manically at them, but they’re turned away, not noticing me, and then they wander off, and I kick the horse in frustration, as if trying to race towards them. ‘Giddy-up,’ I whisper into its mane. The ride is slowing down, but whoever I’m trying to reach still hasn’t seen me, and instead I feel someone’s arms on my sides, helping me down, coaxing me off the platform, onto concrete, and then hurrying me away along a shadowy path.
As we move further from the carousel, I glance up at this stranger taking a subtle but firm hold. And I see it: the pendant, dangling from a neck, the lily’s stem curled like a serpent’s tail.
In the present, a choke rises in my throat. It overwhelms my body with shakes and I gasp for air as I bounce between hot and cold. I feel like I’m drowning in it – all these memories, all these images, all this truth.
And so, if only to escape it, I open my eyes. ‘Will, I think someone took me.’
ROSIE
10
On Monday night my parents fight. It always happens this time of year, despite the lengths they go to the rest of the time to pretend that everything’s all right. It’s as if they spend their year stuffing all their thoughts and feelings into a drawer like unwanted clothes, but eventually it gets too crammed and bursts open.
I know the real reason, though; I’ve paused on the stairs, one foot hovering above the next tread, and heard the late-night whispering from behind their bedroom door. I’ve seen glances across the room when I’ve tried to dig, to mention the trust. I know they’re both spiralling towards the end of May. I know there’s no news. I know they’re terrified. And they still haven’t said anything to me or Rob.
So it’s not surprising that they blow up. What’s surprising is that it’s Dad who starts it.
We’re in the kitchen. Dad has just got back from work and Rob and I are at the table, Rob on his phone and me on my laptop, writing notes on the causes of the French Revolution for History. The perfect picture of domesticity.
Dad says he wants to hold a party, to commemorate the anniversary of Emily’s disappearance, and to thank all the people around us who’ve been involved in the case. Mum loses her temper, tells him that she doesn’t think a ‘party’ would exactly endear us to the press, who already use any opportunity they can to show us ‘cavorting’ in our celebrity. The venom with which she says ‘party’ would make you think Dad has suggested that we charter a yacht and ask the media to fund it.
‘Just what they want, David: “Archers Spend Taxpayers’ Money to ‘Celebrate’ Daughter’s Disappearance”. You’re mad.’
Dad fights back, says it’s the proper thing to do, and accuses her of kowtowing to the press; of caring more about what they would say than about the people we should be thanking.
And then Mum hits him with the sucker punch: ‘You weren’t watching her.’ She says it quietly, almost a whisper, and even as the words are emerging I can see she regrets it. And it’s as though the whole room freezes – I swear, even the dishwasher pauses.
Dad turns very white, and his lips go all thin and his fists clench, and then he chokes out, ‘Fuck you.’ The violence of it infects every corner of the silent room.
And then Mum slams down the wooden spoon she’s been holding, and turns to Dad full-on. ‘No. Fuck you. You weren’t watching her. You were on the fucking phone.’
As if there is some sort of unspoken agreement, Rob and I slip out and go to our rooms, and the shouting recedes behind us.
We’d been to a parade that day – the day Emily disappeared – and then a character signing at the castle. Emily was getting tired and fractious, but then she saw the carousel and became completely entranced by it. We waited in line for an hour, and when we got to the front, Mum realised I needed changing. There was no way Mum and Dad were going through the queue again, so she took me off to the bathrooms. Dad would go on the ride with Emily and we’d all meet up after. But Emily was stubborn, wanted to be the only one actually riding the horses, barely wanted him on the ride at all, and so as a compromise he stood on the revolving platform, along with several other reluctant, jet-lagged parents.
Dad was working for a big international record company then, all fast-paced and no-nonsense – not his sort of place at all. When he told them he needed to take this break, they’d given him a mobile – new and so expensive at the time – and told him in no uncertain terms to answer it if it rang. So, when the phone buzzed in his pocket, he was terrified not to take it. He couldn’t quite hear the caller’s voice over the blaring music, so he walked a little way off. When he finally rung off, the ride was slowing down. It ground to a halt just as Mum came back from the loo and was scanning the crowd to find them. It was then that he saw the empty carousel horse. And it was then, in that single moment, that everything changed.
There was the initial, gentle panic. The thought that she’d just wandered off, perhaps mistaken someone else for Dad, and was now working her way back to them. Then the escalating alarm with every call of her name. And then the park authorities called in. The closing off of the park. Police. Helicopter and ground searches. The ensuing fifteen years of appeals and investigations that have led nowhere.
In those dark, early days when the press were grabbing on to any angle they could, I know Mum had actively spoken out against their wildly insensitive claims – that Dad was neglectful; that they were bad parents, for allowing Emily to ride the horses herself; that that’s what the
y got for taking such an elaborate holiday. I know she could have only brought it up today out of desperation, rather than any deep-seated conviction.
Even so, I stay in my room, out of the way, as the argument dulls and fades, and I hear the slam of their bedroom door.
On my desk, the piece of paper lies open. I have folded and unfolded it so many times now that deep creases have formed in the folds, and the paper now fails to stay flat. MissMarple63. Astro7402. MikeD. A hole is beginning to niggle into the centre of the list. The cracks in the paper seem to be echoing the cracks in my own family: if I don’t do something soon, they’ll both fall apart.
There’s a knock on the door, and Rob’s head appears around it. His hair is tousled, and his face looks blotchy and dry, as if he’s been rubbing it profusely with a towel. I don’t embarrass him by asking if he’s been crying.
‘Hey.’ I discreetly fold up the piece of paper and secure it in my tracksuit pocket. ‘You OK?’
He nods, and then he lowers his eyes to the ground and leans on the door frame, all gangly-teenage-boy limbs. He’s gone through a growth spurt in the last year, already taller than me, and it’s as though his brain hasn’t quite connected with his body yet, to master how to accommodate the extra length. ‘I’m hungry.’ It comes out like a whine.
‘Are they …?’
‘In their room. With the door shut. The chilli’s burnt.’ He crosses his arms, but I see his lower lip wobble.
My stomach grumbles. It’s gone nine o’clock. Dinner was the last thing anyone was thinking of. ‘Come on.’ I slide off the bed, nod towards the stairs.
We order two pizzas. And potato wedges. And a bottle of Coke. It seems both decadent and necessary. We eat it on the living room floor, yanking the slices off so fast that thick strands of melting cheese drip down our forearms, burning our lips and tongues as we race to fill our empty stomachs. This, at least, is easy to fix.
We don’t hang out much, Rob and me. Part of me thinks it’s the guilt, like we’d be leaving her out, like it’s not fair. But it’s nice, sitting like this, on cushions stolen from the sofa in the other room. Rob drops a circle of pepperoni on his cushion, and looks at me in horror when he removes it to find an oily red stain remaining.