‘Really? Tess, that’s great. We’d love to see you back on form.’
Christ, she’s genuinely excited about this. I’m not even that enthusiastic about my vices any more. I strain my jaw into a smile, which sets off a throbbing in my temples, and I go back to slump behind my desk and pretend to look at spreadsheets until Nadine goes to a meeting in another building. Then I go to the Café Nero over the road for another Americano. I smoke a cigarette outside with the coffee before returning to my desk to browse the Net-a-Porter website for clothes I can’t afford, ones that will turn me into Soraya and Adrianne. My phone rings. It’s Dad again. This time I pick up.
‘Tess.’
His voice sounds different, strained and breathless.
‘Tess,’ Dad repeats.
The phone feels suddenly heavy in my hand.
‘Dad,’ I say.
‘Something’s happened, Tess.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m at home. The police are here.’
The edges of the room begin to blur.
‘What’s happened?’
Cassie puts down the folder she’s holding and looks over to my desk.
‘Tess, I don’t know how to tell you.’
‘Stop it, Dad. You’re frightening me.’
Cassie’s by my side. My throat tightens, I can’t breathe. I know now why he’s been ringing. I know what he’s going to say.
‘Sweetheart,’ he says. ‘It’s her. They’ve found Edie.’
Chapter 2
Edie: August 1993
Edie gulped in the smoke drifting towards the kitchen door. Tess was helping Dad pile up the coals on the barbecue. Soon, the blackened lumps would stop smoking and Uncle Ray would cook her burger. It had to be Uncle Ray. His were the best, not burnt on the outside and raw in the middle like Dad’s. Then they’d cut the cake, open the presents and it would really feel like their birthday.
She ran out onto the lawn calling to Tess, who turned around just as Mr Vickers came out of his back door. The smoke was billowing across the garden and over the fence. He waved his arms around as if about to suffocate. Dad was too busy fussing with the coals to look up. In the end, Mr Vickers stomped back into his house and slammed the door.
Edie grinned at Tess, who rolled her eyes, old sucking lemons. They laughed and Edie grabbed Tess’s hands and span her round. Sucking lemons, sucking lemons. She leant back and they span faster, round and round. Edie tipped her head to the sky and was momentarily blinded by the high sun. She closed her eyes and absorbed the heat, leaning further back, spinning faster and faster.
‘Too fast, Edie,’ Tess said.
She sounded far away. Blood rushed round Edie’s head. She felt as if her feet could lift off the ground and she would fly.
‘Too fast, Edie.’
She relaxed her grip. Tess’s hands slipped from hers and she shot towards the lawn and landed flat on her back. She opened her eyes to the empty blue sky and started laughing before pulling herself onto her elbows. Tess was splayed in the flower bed. Edie laughed harder. Dad ran over from the barbecue.
‘Tess, love, are you hurt?’
Tess’s face was scrunched up ready to cry.
‘I’m OK,’ she said quietly and rubbed her arm.
Dad pulled her to her feet.
‘Are you sure you’re alright?’
‘Yes, Dad.’
He glanced down at the flattened flowers, the pretty blue ones he’d planted for Mum. They were difficult to grow in the heavy clay soil, but he had found a way. He didn’t say anything about them and brushed Tess down instead.
Edie jumped to her feet. Tess still looked as if she were about to cry. She mustn’t cry, not on their birthday.
‘I’ll get you some lemonade,’ Edie said.
She ran into the kitchen via the side door. The dim light and cold contrasted with the day outside. Edie looked through their lounge to see Auntie Becca bustling her way through the front door, two bowls of salad, a lasagne and a trifle balanced in her arms.
‘I thought I’d bring these, Gina.’
A blur of black and tan tore past. Auntie Becca’s knees jerked forwards and her body fell backwards into the wall, as her Welsh terrier rushed to jump up at Edie. She flapped him away. He sniffed the bottom of the stairs, gave one bark, before running through the kitchen and out into the garden.
Mum dashed towards Auntie Becca.
‘Are you alright?’
Somehow, Auntie Becca had held onto all the dishes. Mum took them from her and put them down on the kitchen counter. Edie examined them. The trifle looked alright, but there was no point in a lasagne when they were having a barbecue and Mum’s salads looked better than the pile of limp leaves in Auntie Becca’s patterned glass bowls.
‘Thank you, Gina,’ Auntie Becca said.
She straightened up and smoothed down her trousers with her palms.
‘These look good.’ Mum indicated towards the food. ‘Lucky they didn’t end up on the floor. That dog’s quite a handful.’
‘Oh, Pepe. He just gets so excited in new houses. Likes to make himself at home everywhere. I took him to my aunt Jeanie’s the other day, he jumped straight on her lap. I’m surprised she let him leave, she was so besotted,’ Auntie Becca said. ‘And happy birthday to you, Edie.’
She pressed Edie into her squishy belly. Hugs from Mum meant having sharp hip bones poking into her ribs. Even so, hugs from Mum were better.
Auntie Becca let her go.
‘And let’s find Tess,’ she said and walked towards the back door.
‘Bring the salads will you, Edie?’
‘Where’s Uncle Ray?’ she asked.
‘Finding a parking space.’
Edie ran from the kitchen, through the lounge and out of the front door.
‘Edie, help Becca first,’ Mum called after her.
The street’s narrow two-up two-downs left little room for cars, but Ray was parked right outside and talking to Valentina Vickers. Edie was running so fast she only just managed to skid to a stop and avoid crashing into them.
Valentina took a step back.
‘Happy birthday,’ Uncle Ray said.
He picked her up and hugged her. She wrapped her arms around his neck. Uncle Ray’s hugs were even better than Mum’s.
‘Happy birthday,’ Valentina said. ‘I made a cake for you and Tess.’
A round yellow tin decorated with white flowers was perched on the roof of Uncle Ray’s car.
‘Wow, thanks, Valentina.’
‘You’re welcome.’
She smiled at Uncle Ray and walked off into her house.
‘Why did Valentina want to speak to you?’ Edie asked.
‘Oh, nothing much,’ he said. ‘Her old man made her come out and say I have to leave him plenty of space when I park.’
It sounded like the sort of things Mr Vickers would say. Edie looked at Uncle Ray.
‘Old sucking lemons,’ they said together and laughed.
He set her back down on the pavement.
‘You’re getting too big for that, you know.’
‘Aww, Uncle Ray,’ Edie said.
‘Well, maybe for a little longer.’
Edie smiled, grabbed his hand and began pulling him towards the house.
‘Come and see the cakes, we’ve got two now. What present did you buy me?’
‘Presents?’ Uncle Ray struck his forehead with his free hand. ‘I knew I’d forgotten something.’
Edie turned and smiled. Uncle Ray would never forget.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Wait and see.’
*
‘Looking good, Gina.’
Uncle Ray kissed Mum on both cheeks when he came into the house.
‘What’s that?’ Mum asked, looking at the tin.
‘Valentina made us a cake,’ Edie said.
‘That was nice of her,’ Mum said. ‘Take it outside with the salads, will you? Becca’s been calling you for ages.’
/>
Edie took the bowls and cake out to the garden. The smoke had disappeared and the barbecue glowed silver and red. The table stood in the sliver of shade by the back wall of the house. Auntie Becca sat beside it and Pepe lay underneath.
‘It’s better away from the heat,’ she said.
Edie put the food down. Auntie Becca was right, it was getting hot. Dad had been fussing about the plants for weeks. Had they enough water, had he overwatered? Their garden wasn’t like the others on the street. She could see them over the low fences. They were either paved or looked like junkyards. No one else had an array of flowers and shrubs and a winding pebble path. Raquel, their neighbour on the other side, had laughed and asked what the point was, but her mum said it was a nice change to have something pretty out there.
Edie looked back to the kitchen door. Where was Uncle Ray? She was starving; he should have started by now. And afterwards she could show him the new dance moves she’d practised.
‘Uncle Ray, where are you?’
He didn’t reply at first.
‘Uncle Ray.’
‘Coming,’ he said eventually.
He came out of the kitchen door, ruffling Edie’s hair as he came past.
‘You’re so impatient,’ he said. ‘There’s no rush.’
But Edie was in a rush. It wasn’t really her birthday until they’d eaten burgers and cut the cake, then she’d be a year older. She’d be allowed to do new things and go new places. She wouldn’t be a child any more, or at least, she’d be less of one. Not so grown up Uncle Ray wouldn’t give her proper hugs.
Auntie Becca had left her seat in the shade.
‘Get the meat on, Ray. You always boast how good you are.’
‘What is it with everyone today? We’ve got all the time in the world,’ he said.
‘Where’s my lemonade?’ Tess asked.
‘I forgot,’ Edie said.
Tess’s face turned sullen.
‘Look, I’ve something to show you,’ Edie said. She pulled Tess over to the table. ‘Valentina made it for us.’
She opened the cake tin. Tess peered into it. Inside was a chocolate sponge with chocolate icing, a ring of violet sugar flowers and in matching lettering, the words ‘HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY EDIE AND TESS’ had been piped across the top.
‘Wow,’ Tess said. Her face lit up, the fall forgotten.
Edie picked off one of the flowers.
‘Edie, don’t,’ Tess said. ‘It’s for afters and it doesn’t look right now. Look, there’s a gap.’
‘Open up.’
‘Edie, you shouldn’t.’
Edie winked at her. Tess opened her mouth. Edie placed the flower on her tongue. She took another and put it in her own mouth, closed her eyes and tilted her head to the sun, so that all she could see was red. The sugar flower’s sweetness spread across her tongue. She opened her mouth and laughed. This was going to be the best birthday ever.
Chapter 3
Tess: June 2018
The last time I saw Edie she was slipping through a gap in the hedge at the back of our school. One moment she was there, the next she was gone, like Alice Through the Looking Glass. And like Alice, I thought one day she’d return.
My train is sitting at a red signal, a fire on the line outside Coventry is causing delays and we’re already forty minutes late. People tut and glare at their phones. I’m the only one hoping the signal stays red.
We’ve received calls before to say a body’s been found. Only to be told later that it’s too old, too young, the wrong height. This will be another mistake. So why is my heart thudding against my chest, why is Dad so certain it’s her this time, when he’s been through so many scares before, why do I dread the train ever reaching its destination?
The gap in the hedge led to a route home via the canal. The police searched its towpath repeatedly in the week after Edie’s disappearance. Only her leather school bag was found, flung in the water, its strap caught on the bars of a discarded shopping trolley. In it were her schoolbooks, comb, Discman and a purse holding four pounds twenty-two pence in change. She even left one of her records, a Northern soul track Ray had given her.
The police brought the bag to me.
‘Do you recognise everything, is anything missing?’ a policewoman asked.
‘The photograph,’ I said.
‘What photograph?’
‘Edie keeps a photograph of us. She always carries it with her.’
It was the sole copy of a family portrait, the negatives lost long ago. In it we’re about three or four years old. Edie is sitting on Mum’s lap, looking up into her face. Mum gazes back, smiling. Dad’s turned towards them, proud and protective. I’m on Dad’s knee, swivelled away from the rest of the family, pointing to something out of shot.
There aren’t many snaps of Mum; we didn’t own a camera. Uncle Ray took them. I have the one of Mum at nineteen, just before she married Dad. She looks so like Edie, tall, slender, graceful. Her expression is difficult to read, a half-smile flickers round her lips, her eyes slightly turned from the camera, as if a full gaze would be giving too much of herself away. And there are pictures of birthdays and Christmases. But Edie loved that one of us all together, when we were very young.
‘Are you certain she had it? When was the last time you saw it?’ the policewoman asked.
‘I’m not sure, but she’d never leave it. She must have taken it with her.’
‘She may have removed it from her purse or lost it months ago.’
‘She wouldn’t remove it or lose it,’ I said. ‘She took it with her.’
The policewoman smiled, made a note and started asking me if Edie had been in any trouble recently.
Over the years I repeated to Dad, Uncle Ray and Auntie Becca about the photograph, that Edie would never leave it behind, she took it from her bag, which means she must be alive. None of them listen. Perhaps Edie knew that too, that only I would realise its significance. A message to me alone.
So I never believed she was dead, never gave up hope, but my heart still thuds as the train lurches forwards for the final stretch of the journey. Is it Edie?
Chapter 4
Edie: August 1993
‘This one’s called “The Snake”.’
Even though Edie had heard it a hundred times before, Uncle Ray always announced the songs. It was part of the ritual. And this time it was her record player, the one Uncle Ray and Auntie Becca had got her for her birthday. Tess had got a portable CD player. But Edie knew she had the best present. All Uncle Ray’s Northern soul tracks were on vinyl and that first crackle before the song came on, then the drum roll, gave Edie goosebumps.
As the trumpets came in, Uncle Ray swung his leg sideways before stepping left then right. He didn’t sing along like Edie, his arms and legs slid into patterns and his eyes focused on the middle distance.
‘Spin,’ Edie shouted.
He kicked one leg high then brought it down with a snap, sending him swirling so fast the stripes on his T-shirt blurred. Then he was back into his diamond pattern steps.
‘Your turn,’ he called to Edie.
She’d been practising. Uncle Ray had made her a cassette of some of the top tunes, as he called them, though a few of her favourites were missing. She couldn’t play it on the stereo in the lounge if Dad was watching TV, which was most of the time. So she practised upstairs, which she preferred anyway, because Tess wouldn’t try and join in. With her clumsy hopping about, she looked like a puppet with half of its strings cut. At Christmas, Uncle Ray had bought them their own cassette player for their bedroom, which Edie loved. But Tess said she felt bad because Dad had wanted to buy it for them and couldn’t afford it. Edie thought if he wanted to buy them stuff that much, he’d get a job.
Auntie Becca came in and leaned on the kitchen door frame.
‘You should be outside on a day like this, Edie. It’s your birthday; everyone else is in the garden. It won’t be summer forever.’
Edie ignored her and kept
swinging her hips from side to side before copying Uncle Ray by kicking her leg up by her head, then pulling it down to put her into a spin.
Auntie Becca shook her head.
‘I’m not sure you should be teaching her that, Ray,’ she said. ‘She should at least be wearing trousers.’
Edie didn’t listen. She was watching Uncle Ray’s next move. He lunged to the side with his right leg and dragged his left foot along the floor behind him. Edie followed. They stepped left together. Edie squealed and hissed the ‘s’ of snake in the chorus.
‘Ray,’ Auntie Becca said.
‘Give it a rest, Becs,’ he said. ‘We’re just having a bit of fun.’
Auntie Becca shook her head again and left.
Why didn’t Auntie Becca ever want anyone to have fun? Edie thought. It didn’t matter, she was gone now and Edie was going to dance how she liked.
‘What are you doing?’
Tess was at the kitchen door. Edie and Uncle Ray were too intent on their dancing to reply.
‘What’s this one?’
Edie did another spin. Tess jumped into the room and started skipping from side to side, trying to copy Edie.
Mum came in from the kitchen just as Uncle Ray was changing tracks. He put down the single he was holding and swapped it for another.
‘This is “You Didn’t Say a Word” by Yvonne Baker,’ he announced.
‘My favourite,’ Mum said.
She pushed the sofa as far as it would go against the wall and moved the coffee table into the alcove by the fireplace.
She began to dance, singing along to the track. Edie hadn’t seen Mum dance in this way. She was good, better than Edie, despite all her practice. Not as good as Uncle Ray, but nearly. Tess was now bouncing up and down, oblivious to the beat.
Auntie Becca came back and stood at the door, looking as if the entire family had gone mad. Dad stood behind her and stared at Mum.
‘Come and dance, Dad,’ Tess said.
‘Not just now, Tess,’ he said.
‘But Dad,’ Tess pleaded.
She grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the door.
‘Come on, Dad.’
He danced a few steps, just moving from side to side before looking over at Mum and Uncle Ray with their coordinated jumps and spins. He moved back to the door.
Someone You Know Page 2