The Playground

by Jane Shemilt

  Poppy is kind of waiting to see what she feels; she likes it mostly because Sorrel looks more as she used to, though she hasn’t grown that much; Mum says that’s to be expected and she’ll catch up eventually. She misses Dad and she’s never not thinking about Ash, but she can’t tell Mum. Grace was really helpful, she said it gets better; it’s not that the sadness gets smaller exactly, but that you get stronger so it’s easier to carry. She can just about imagine how that might work.

  Izzy misses the noise and the lights. She’s bored, to be honest, but they had to come, obviously. Sorrel’s getting better, so everyone’s happy about that, but her memory hasn’t come back, maybe it won’t. Mum’s loads better; she talks about Dad sometimes, they’re both just relieved he’s in prison. Everyone loves tennis, but she misses the games they used to play. They could always start playing them again, you know, in a bit.

  17. April

  Eve

  “Where’s Ash’s tractor?”

  “Tractor?” Eve echoes Sorrel’s question sleepily. Across the lawn, the old house glows pink orange in the spring sunshine, the windows are wide open. The interior will be silent and flooded with light. Grace is writing somewhere inside that quietness. Behind the house, sheep are dotted all over the Downs, smaller ones among the larger ones. April is hot this year, hotter than usual; it’s as though summer has come early. The grass is thick. She hasn’t worn shoes for a week. Sorrel is lying on her stomach next to her, drawing pictures on a pad of paper. Half awake, Eve feels, imagines she feels, another presence, a head near hers. A blond one, green eyes staring up into the branches of the cypress tree above them. A life unlived, alongside hers. For once the pain has receded enough so she can feel the edge of contentment—not happiness, not yet.

  “You know, the red one.”

  “It’s in a bag, sweetheart, in the loft, back at home.” Then the question hits her; she sits up, the blond head disappears, she puts her hand on the grass where he would have been. Sorrel has a new memory. She must keep calm, mustn’t exclaim, mustn’t even hug her.

  “What did he use to do with his tractor?”

  “He ran it over my tummy. It tickled.” Sorrel starts humming. She is coloring in: brown branches, green grass, a big yellow sun. “It was a nice tractor. I liked it.”

  “I liked it too, sweetheart. It was a lovely tractor.”

  Sorrel smiles, choosing a yellow crayon for the buttercups.

  “He had some other toys too, but I can’t remember them. What did we call his little teddy with the vest, for instance?”

  “Sparkly Teddy. Honestly, Mummy.”

  Eve presses her palms to her eyes; she mustn’t cry either. “I know. Silly me. How could I have forgotten that? It must be this place.”

  This place. The green branches stir like great flags above them; a group of ponies graze in the next field. There are thrushes on the lawn. A place where Sorrel’s memories can seep back safely. Across the grass Melly is playing tennis with Izzy, Poppy and Blake on the other side of the net. Charley is being ball boy. The children call out the score and make swooping runs to the ball, often missing. The white lines have disappeared into the grass, the net is full of holes.

  “Anything else, darling?”

  “Anything else what?” Sorrel’s china-blue eyes study hers seriously. There was a time when she’d imagined them closed and covered over with earth.

  “Anything else about Ash’s toys?” She shouldn’t ask but she can’t help it.

  Sorrel frowns and goes back to drawing; she’s started a house now: a red block with a path, a brown door, symmetrical windows.

  Eve texts Eric. Sorrel remembered Ash’s tractor and Sparkly Teddy. Out of the blue.

  Go carefully, he texts back.

  Eve sighs. At least Melly will celebrate. “Let’s go and see what the others are doing.”

  She takes Sorrel’s hand and they walk across the lawn. Melly puts down her racket and walks toward them, she is barefoot too. Charley and Poppy collapse gracefully onto the grass, arms and legs spread wide. Izzy is leaning over the fence, feeding grass to a pony on the other side, her hand tightly cupping his muzzle. Blake begins to practice his serve and Izzy pulls up clumps of grass by the edge of the court where it grows dark green under the shelter of an overhanging apple tree. The smell of sun-warmed net mixes with the sharp ammonia smell of the ponies. Sorrel is lagging behind, staring at Izzy as if transfixed.

  “Sorrel remembered Ash’s tractor,” Eve tells Melly, becoming conscious that Izzy’s head is now inclined toward them, her body tensed; she seems to be listening. Eve stops talking; she doesn’t want Izzy to start asking Sorrel lots of questions.

  “That’s wonderful.” Melissa’s eyes are shining.

  “Let’s play hide-and-seek,” Izzy announces suddenly. “Sorrel, you can have a head start. There’s lots of hiding places in the house.” She covers her eyes and starts to count. “One, two, three . . .”

  “I’m too sleepy,” Charley murmurs from the lawn. “It’s so hot.”

  “Me too.” Poppy sighs. “I can’t be bothered to move.”

  “Four, five, six,” Izzy continues.

  Sorrel’s anguished scream catches them all off guard. She begins to run away across the lawn toward the house.

  “Wait, Sorrel. It’s only a game.” Eve begins to hurry after her, but Sorrel has a head start and is running fast. She is wearing sandals and her feet crunch rapidly over the gravel drive.

  “Why’s she so frightened?” Melissa has caught up with Eve and is jogging beside her.

  “God knows. Ow, watch out, Melly.”

  They have reached the wide gravel sweep in front of the house. The sharp stones hurt their feet and slow them down. Izzy flashes past them with an easy burst of speed, her sneakers scattering the gravel.

  “Thanks, Izzy,” Melly calls. “Tell her we’ll play rounders instead.”

  Izzy doesn’t reply; she is running up the wide stone steps that lead into the house. Sorrel has disappeared already. Above them the house stands serene; the windows of every floor up to the attic are wide open to the sun.

  Grace

  The pencil makes soft scraping sounds that melt into the silence of the attic. Grace prefers writing with a pencil, the ideas seem to flow better. She brought a stool up from the kitchen and a camping table she found in the garage. She has placed them by the window for the breeze, though today there is almost none. She is nearly at the end of her story; this is the hard part. House or prison? Warm weather or cold?

  Her own kitchen was bleak the day they left, the flat no longer felt like home. Martin had been gone for several weeks—was that why? Her concentration wavers, she glances outside. Blake is practicing his serves, Charley lying in the sun. The others have disappeared. Grace looks down at her writing, growing less certain. If the story begins in a home with the woman, should it end in prison with the man? Or is that too predictable? Begin in a kitchen overlooking a garden and end, with less certainty, in another garden.

  The door to the attic opens. She hears the light patter of footsteps run up the wooden stairs. She puts the pencil down, listening to the harsh breath sounds. Boxes are moved in the next-door attic room, then silence descends again punctured by ragged breaths. Hide-and-seek, that delicious waiting fear. This is the perfect house for it; she starts writing again. A few minutes later there is the quiet click of the attic door shutting. Footsteps ascend, slower, stealthier ones. The seeker, playing the game. The steps reach the top of the stairs, pause, then enter the adjacent room. A bike or a carriage is wheeled out of the way, boxes are moved.

  “Got you!”

  Grace’s smile lasts until she hears Sorrel’s scream.

  “I hate this game.”

  “Which one?” Izzy sounds amused.

  Grace gets up quietly.

  “Hide-and-seek.” Sorrel is crying. “No one came to find me last time.”

  “But I’ve just found you,” Izzy says; there is laughter in her voice now. “
We can play something else if you like. How about the flying game?”

  By the time Grace reaches the door, Izzy is by the large open window that comes almost to the floor, the kind that should have bars across it, because if you fell you would tumble at least forty feet to the ground. Izzy is lifting Sorrel, which looks easy because the child is still so small. She is swinging her around toward the window, which is very near where she is standing. Grace moves fast but Poppy moves faster. Poppy has climbed the stairs, Eve and Melly are right behind her.

  Melissa

  Melissa sits in the armchair in the corner of the kitchen she designed, with its ancient dresser and the saffron walls. The room is full of the people she loves but they won’t stay much longer, they will leave soon and return to their own homes, their own lives. She’s Izzy’s mother, after all, Paul’s wife. The kind of woman to be avoided from now on.

  Izzy is in the ballroom at the front of the house being guarded by a policeman. Melissa has to restrain herself from getting up and going to find her; she wants to look into her daughter’s blue eyes and ask her why. Izzy’s angry, she might be in the mood for telling, although admittedly not to her mother. Izzy had stared at her with thwarted fury in the attic; she’d always gotten her own way, though no one, surely, could have guessed that would be murder.

  Sorrel cuddles into her mother; she is holding a little blue woolen horse that Poppy bought her from the village shop last week. Poppy stands near her sister and Charley is on the floor by the stove, with Venus on her lap. Blake, looking dazed, sits next to Charley, his arm around Noah’s neck. Grace leans against the wall by the door while the policewoman settles her broad frame onto a stool next to Sorrel and Eve.

  Eve holds Sorrel tightly as though she will never let her go. “You’re safe, my darling. You needn’t be scared.”

  “I ran upstairs to hide, ’cause I was frightened.”

  “I know, poppet.”

  “Last time I hid no one came.”

  “Last time?” Eve puts her cheek on Sorrel’s hair.

  “Izzy made me go on a hide-and-seek adventure, just me and her; we walked along that railway line, well, we had to run.” Her voice wobbles. “She put me in this thing and she said everyone would come and find me but they didn’t and it was dark and I couldn’t move properly and . . .” The tears overflow.

  Eve holds her close, murmuring into her hair

  Melissa’s hands tighten on the arms of the chair. The car that was sliding over the road has hit the bank and overturned. Her life has smashed to pieces. It was Izzy, not Paul. Her daughter, not her husband. He’d tried to tell her. “Izzy’s ill,” he’d said. “You need to get her some sort of help.” How was she to know, after all his lies, that he was finally telling the truth and that it was Izzy who’d been lying all along?

  “So you ran upstairs today because you were scared.” The policewoman’s tone is soothing. Sorrel stares at her with unblinking eyes. “I’m wondering if you can tell us what scared you so much?”

  The kitchen is silent, though there are lots of little background noises. The humming of the fridge, the cat purring, the children shifting positions on the floor, the dog sighing, the comforting sounds of everyday life.

  “When she fed the pony she put her hand over his nose; I thought he wouldn’t be able to breathe. Then I remembered she did the same thing to Ash and he couldn’t breathe.” She pushes into her mother, twisting the blue horse in her hands; her voice lowers to a whisper. “He went all still after a bit.”

  The silence in the kitchen deepens, even the comforting noises seem to stop. Everyone is holding their breath. Sorrel looks up at Eve as if checking she is still there; Eve kisses her; her face is blank as though wiped clean by horror.

  “I’ve already been told a little bit about what happened to your brother,” the policewoman murmurs gently. “It would be so helpful if you could tell me more, just so I can get it straight in my mind. So you were there in your brother’s room . . .”

  “Yes, I was.” Sorrel nods several times; her eyes are very wide. “I went to see him because he wouldn’t stop crying, but Izzy was already there. She had her hand tight over his face then she took her hand off, then she put it back like she was playing a game.”

  Eve closes her eyes. Melissa wants to get up and run away, anywhere but here. She doesn’t want to hear these words that will be in her mind forever; she will never be rid of the pictures that go with them.

  “She picked him up.” Sorrel is twisting the horse around and around in her hands. “His head was hanging in a funny way, a bit like a doll.” She looks at Eve again; her voice gets higher. “She looked up and saw me.” Eve’s lips tighten but her hand strokes Sorrel’s hair gently.

  “And then?” the policewoman prompts quietly after a while. “What happened then, Sorrel?”

  “She didn’t say anything; she just took him away. I ran back to bed and pulled the cover up. When she came back, she pulled my cover down and said she would kill me if I told.” Sorrel’s voice drops to a whisper. “I wet the bed.”

  Eve lowers her face to Sorrel’s. “You don’t need to tell us anything else, my darling.”

  “I tried to tell you about him not being able to breathe, I really tried, but you didn’t let me say.”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Eve sounds desperate and sorry at the same time. “I thought you meant when he was drowning. It was making you upset, so I stopped you. I’m sorry.”

  She tried to tell me too, Melissa remembers, but I’d thought the same as Eve; I hadn’t allowed Sorrel to finish either.

  It’s agonizingly simple to work out what must have happened next from Izzy’s point of view: when her first plan for Sorrel didn’t work, the memory loss must have been a gift. No wonder she wanted to stay close to the family. She must have been watching Sorrel all this time; watching and listening for the first hint of her memory returning, as it did today. She would have framed the fall as a terrible accident and they would have all believed her. Melissa grips the arms of the chair tightly; her hands are sweating.

  Grace pushes herself away from the wall. She touches Eve lightly on the shoulder, goes to the fridge, and, taking out a jug of lemonade, she collects three glasses and leaves the room.

  Sorrel wriggles off Eve’s lap, takes Poppy’s hand, and walks out of the kitchen, pulling her sister after her. Poppy rolls her eyes at Charley but she doesn’t let go of Sorrel’s hand. The policewoman follows, Melissa thinks, to check that Sorrel’s really all right. Charley and Blake hurry after them.

  The room is quiet. If Eve shouted or screamed it would be fair; if she wanted to kill her, she would understand. After a few minutes Eve lifts her head; she looks bereft rather than angry, confused as though nothing makes much sense.

  “I can’t understand why Izzy had to kill Ash.” Eve’s face is white. “Even if I could, I don’t think I’d be able to forgive her. I know she suffered at Paul’s hands, but—” She is unable to continue.

  “I don’t know why either.” Melissa stumbles over her words. “I’m sorry. I’m so very, very sorry, though that sounds pitiful. Ridiculous. I had no idea, none. I don’t think I know anything anymore—”

  “Well, I suppose I know two things.” Eve stands up.

  Melissa waits, head bowed.

  “We let things happen which we shouldn’t have done, all of us,” Eve begins bravely. “And the other thing is . . .” Eve’s voice begins to falter. “. . . something about us, about being friends, about how good that’s felt this year. The trouble is . . .” She is speaking through tears. “I don’t know what to do with that feeling now. Eric used to say I should do what my heart tells me to do, but . . .” She wipes her eyes with her sleeve and attempts a smile. “. . . how the hell does that work when my heart is broken?”

  She leaves the room, and seconds later the front door bangs. She has gone to her children.

  The wood in the range slips lower. Noah comes over and rests his head on Melissa’s lap. She is glad of the w
arm weight, the gentle eyes. The low sun through the windows strikes the pans above the stove, the copper glows like flames.

  18. April—Same Day

  Grace

  Grace gives the policeman a glass of lemonade and asks him if he wouldn’t mind waiting outside. He has a tattoo around his wrist, nice eyes. Fit-looking. He parks himself, feet apart, just inside the door. “Sorry, love, I need to stay close. She’ll forget all about me in a minute.”

  The police van and the social workers are due to arrive in half an hour. Grace and Izzy are alone in the yellow-painted room at the front of the house, the old ballroom. There are deep alcoves and an expanse of floor, constructed for dancing and perfect for secrets. You might think that your words would fly up into the dusty cornices and disappear among the cobwebs; you might imagine there would be no consequences. Grace pours lemonade into the two remaining glasses, pulls a couple of armchairs to the window and sits in one, sprawling a little, relaxed or pretending to be. Izzy is pacing in circles like an animal in a cage.

  “Sit down, won’t you? Try to relax, have a drink.” Grace points to the glasses on the table between them.

  Izzy sits in the armchair, her back to the door, and stares at Grace. She doesn’t touch the lemonade.

  “You’re good, Izzy, very smart,” Grace says, nodding. “We all thought it was Paul. The tiara in the car was clever. He didn’t stand a chance.”

  “Don’t forget the abuse.” Izzy’s mouth twists in a smile. “It mightn’t have worked without that.”