by Abby Davies
The strange sound from outside stopped. I stared at the blinds above the dark brown cabinet and listened. Nothing. I scanned the room. Mother had nailed her new pop art print to the wall next to the one she’d brought home last month, which was of a singer called Elvis Presley. The new silkscreen print was of a very pretty lady with curly blonde hair. Mother hadn’t told me who she was yet. Like the Elvis Presley picture, it was eye-poppingly bright and colourful. I liked it a lot. It made the kitchen less gloomy.
I glanced at the pop art calendar pinned to the wall above the Formica table. Mother had circled today’s date in red pen. In the Friday, 23 April box she had written the words LITTLE DOLL’S BIRTHDAY – collect second present. Guilt lifted its hot, prickly head.
I heard something else. Jumped as the front door slammed. Heard the locking and bolting of the door.
Mother’s back.
I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and turned on the cold tap.
A moment later Mother giggled and I turned around, my heart thumping hard. Mother stood in the entrance to the kitchen wearing opaque sunglasses and a floppy sun hat. She carried a large black holdall in her sinewy arms. She placed the holdall on the kitchen table and looked at me. A smile spread across her face as she took off the sunglasses and hat and dropped them on the table.
‘This is your surprise!’ she said, spreading her hands wide.
‘What is it?’ I said, mustering up as much excitement as I could to conceal the frantic pounding of my heart.
She grinned. ‘Open the bag and see.’
I put the glass of water on the counter and reached the table in two steps. Outside, in the other world, everything remained silent.
Mother leaned over the bag as I took hold of the silver zip and tugged, wondering why she had not wrapped the present. She’s probably too excited to, I thought. The zip caught on the black material. I struggled to loosen it and Mother pushed my hands away.
‘Let me do it,’ she snapped. She ripped the bag clean open and squealed excitedly, her hands balling into fists against her pale cheeks. ‘Look, Mirabelle, look! Isn’t she perfect?’
I stared, unable to speak. Inside the bag lay a little girl. She was curled up on her side, her tiny chest rising and falling steadily, her eyes closed. She had long, fair eyelashes that fluttered every now and then as if she was having a dream or a nightmare. Her hair was the same butter-blonde as mine, but curly rather than straight and no way near as long. Like me, her milky skin was freckle-free. She wore a pale blue dress, a white cardigan and sparkly, silver tights. There were no shoes on her feet.
‘Isn’t she perfect?’ Mother repeated, stroking the little girl’s cheek.
‘Who is she?’
‘Her name’s Clarabelle. Such a pretty name for such a pretty little doll, don’t you think?’
I swallowed with difficulty, my mind racing. ‘Where’s she from?’
‘Utopia,’ Mother said dreamily.
I hesitated. There was a fiction book in Mother’s bookcase called Utopia, which meant it couldn’t be real. My textbooks had taught me the difference between fiction and non-fiction, so I knew that much. I swallowed. ‘Where’s she really from, Mother?’
Mother’s head whipped around, her hair spraying out like sparks of fire. She glared at me, nostrils flaring. ‘Don’t you like her? Don’t you like your present?’
I took a step away from the table. ‘I think she’s perfect, Mother, I do. I just want to know more about her, that’s all.’
Mother’s eyes narrowed and she tilted her head to the side. ‘If I tell you she’s from Utopia, she’s from Utopia.’
I nodded and glanced at the sleeping child, a queer, sick feeling working its way up my throat like thick treacle.
‘Thank you for my book, Mother,’ I said.
‘That’s fine. Tell me what you think of her, of Clarabelle.’
Mother watched me intently. I looked at the child’s face, thought about how oddly similar our names were. Mirabelle and Clarabelle.
‘She’s beautiful and, er, really small. She must be quite young.’ I paused, telling myself to be brave, ‘How old is she?’
‘She’s five,’ she said. ‘I rescued her.’
The sick feeling eased a little, ‘You rescued her?’
Mother nodded. She bent down and lifted the little girl out of the bag. Kissing the girl’s forehead, she left the kitchen and walked through the dining room into the living room where she placed the child on the sofa and covered her with the crochet blanket. I watched Mother perch on the edge of the sofa and stroke the child’s face over and over again, a faint smile on her thin lips.
‘If I hadn’t saved her, she’d be dead right now,’ Mother said softly.
‘What do you mean, Mother?’
‘That’s enough, Mirabelle,’ she said, her tone sharpening.
She picked up the little girl and I watched her carry her out of the room. I listened to Mother’s feet travelling up the stairs, heard her turn at the top. She’s taking her to the spare room, I thought.
The spare room that I haven’t been allowed in for months.
Mother came downstairs two hours later. Curled in the rocking chair trying to focus on my book, I looked up at the sound of her footsteps and opened my mouth to speak but she walked straight past the living room door without glancing in my direction.
‘Mother?’ I said, rushing after her into the kitchen.
She slapped butter onto slices of white bread, added spam then pushed one slice down on top. My stomach grumbled and I waited for her to hand me my sandwich, but she walked past me out of the kitchen with the sandwich in hand.
‘Mother?’ I repeated.
‘I’m busy. You can make your own lunch. You’re plenty old enough for that now.’
I felt like I’d been slapped. She left the room and went back upstairs.
Mother always made me my lunch if she was home, which she usually was, and she always, always made me my lunch on my birthday. One year she placed a candle on the sandwich and told me to blow it out and make a wish. That was on my seventh birthday. That year I had wished that Polly would come back, but of course she never did.
On my eighth birthday Mother had brought me a red cupcake covered with the most delicious white cream. When I had blown out the candle, I had silently wished to go outside into the back garden just once before I died. Mother had not given me any more birthday candles, but I had still made the same secret wish when I turned nine, ten, eleven and twelve: to go into the back garden before I died.
My shoulders prickled. A headache hummed in my temples.
I had not made this year’s birthday wish yet. There was no point in wishing for the back garden because Mother had already said no. Perhaps when I was older … if I live that long.
I drifted towards the blinds. A layer of dust feathered each wooden panel. I drew my finger along the bottom panel and inspected the pad of dust on my fingertip. It was grey and furry. Mother’s and my skin and hair and who knows what else was hidden in there amongst the million other particles of dirt and grime. Gross, like the smell of gone-off spam.
I rinsed the dust off my finger, my gaze lingering on the blinds. Behind those blinds lay wooden boards and behind those boards lay glass. Behind the glass lay the back garden, where the strange sound had come from. I listened intently and heard nothing. All was quiet out there right now. Perhaps it had been my imagination playing games, driven wild by my desire to go out there and experience the other world.
I glanced at the kitchen door. It too was blacked out, boarded up, locked and bolted so no light could invade the cottage.
My chest twittered with the closeness of outside. There would be grass and flowers and maybe a lovely, adorable robin showing off, like Mary Lennox’s robin. A creature I could talk to besides Mother, even though it could not talk back. Someone, perhaps, who loved me.
Mother loves me.
But now she’s got Clarabelle, she won’t love you any more.
‘Mirabelle.’
Mother! I whipped my head around but she wasn’t there. The kitchen was empty.
I frowned, puzzled, scanning the small shadowy space, the abandoned hallway beyond.
I took a step towards the hallway then stopped. My gaze fell on the frantically patterned paintings Mother had nailed to the kitchen-hallway door last year to ‘brighten up the place’. She called them psychedelic. Said they made her feel alive. They made my eyes sting and my brain cringe, but I didn’t dare tell her that. I looked at the floor and blinked away the manic patterns that had painted themselves into my eyelids. My headache was worsening. Stabbing pains set my temples on fire. I needed painkillers, but Mother had the key to the medicine cabinet. Said it was the safest way. She kept my vitamins in there too. I had to take a vitamin pill every day. Mother gave me one each morning. It was called a multivitamin. Mother said it would help keep me healthy. She used to be a nurse, so she knew everything there was to know about things like that. She stopped working when I was born. She said her grandfather left her a lot of money when he died so she didn’t need to work any more.
Mother would never tell me what happened to my father. I had a million questions, but I wasn’t allowed to ask any of them. Usually, if I tried to bring it up she got very angry and looked like she was going to cry. It made me think he was a horrible man and I didn’t want to think that. I wanted to think he was like Sara’s father in A Little Princess, or Baloo from The Jungle Book, even though he was a bear. Sometimes I daydreamed about him, about my daddy. In my mind, he was a tall man with light brown hair and sparkly eyes and the kindest smile …
My head was splitting in two. It crumpled up the picture of my imaginary father and stamped on it with dirty feet. I put one hand to my forehead and grimaced at the pain.
Before I could stop myself, I left the kitchen and crossed the hallway. At the bottom of the stairs, I stopped. My skull felt like a cracked egg. I had always suffered from headaches but this was the worst one yet.
‘Mother?’ I called. My voice came out small and pathetic.
I grabbed the banister, leaned against it as a wave of nausea swirled in my throat. I pulled myself up one step then another.
‘Mother?’
Another step and another. Another and another and another. My head was splitting open.
I reached the top of the stairs and dropped my head between my knees, but that made the pain worse. I lurched into the bathroom and threw up in the peach sink, my whole body shaking, head spinning.
‘Mirabelle! Are you all right?’
‘Am I dying now, Mother?’ I croaked.
‘No. Hush now, Little Doll. You’re not ready to go. I’m not ready for you to go yet. Remember our little rhyme?’ she said, placing a gentle kiss on my head. ‘If dolly has a headache, or breaks an arm or two, just kiss the place to make it well, that’s all you have to do.’
I breathed. The pain withdrew its claws.
It was Mother at my side. Mother who was concerned about me. Mother who was rubbing my back and whispering reassuring words and unlocking the medicine cabinet and giving me painkillers and removing my make-up and helping me undress and running me a bath and tucking me up in bed and smoothing my hair back from my hot, damp forehead.
Mother loves me.
Yes, she does. She really, really does.
After a while, Mother closed my bedroom door softly and I shut my eyes against the pain, which was dying much more quickly than I thought it would. I remembered Mother’s reassuring words and soft touch. Her worried eyes.
I slept.
Chapter 3
A mewling sound woke me. I sat up straight in bed and strained my ears. Someone was crying. Someone young. Clarabelle.
My head ached but the horrific pain from last night had gone. I got out of bed and crept towards the door of my bedroom. I tried the door handle, relieved to find it unlocked. Sometimes Mother locked me in without any explanation. Usually I heard nothing and remained in my bedroom studying for hours before she came to let me out. The longest she had ever left me was six hours. The little gold clock on my desk had told me so. She had apologized that time and given me a big hug, which had made it all better.
The mewling sound was still there so I crept out onto the landing and tiptoed past more of Mother’s psychedelic prints towards the spare room. I felt sure that Mother would be angry if I spoke to Clarabelle without permission, but the temptation was too great. Mother was the only person I had ever spoken to and here was a living, breathing, different person. If I didn’t take this opportunity, I knew I’d go mad with curiosity.
I hesitated halfway across the landing and listened, training my ears in the direction of downstairs. Nothing. Not even a whisper of Mother.
Go for it.
The brown carpet ate up my footsteps as I tiptoed the next couple of steps to the spare room. Ever so quietly, I knelt down and put my ear to the door.
‘Clarabelle?’ I whispered.
The crying stopped abruptly. The little girl said nothing, but I could hear her ragged breathing.
‘Clarabelle? Are you OK? It’s Mirabelle. I live here with Mother …’
There was no response, only a loud sniff.
‘Clarabelle? Please speak to me,’ I pleaded.
Silence. Another sniff.
‘Please?’ I said.
A few more sniffs.
I turned to go.
‘My name’s not Clarabelle,’ she whispered. Then she started crying again.
A shiver criss-crossed my shoulder blades.
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
But the little girl would not answer. I repeated the question again and again to no avail.
Feeling strange, I said, ‘I’ll be your friend. You can trust me.’ I looked at the doorknob, thought about trying the door. If Mother caught me I’d be in so much trouble. She’d probably lock me in my bedroom for a day. Maybe longer.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ I promised, hoping another opportunity would come.
Mother was in the kitchen boiling eggs. The bubbly water made a hiccuppy, full sound. I stared at Mother’s back. She was humming to herself, her head bobbing along to her tune. It was a lively melody I’d not heard her hum before. She was already dressed in her blue bell-bottoms and orange and brown flower blouse. Her legs sprouted down from the blouse like spindly stems.
Sometimes I felt very glad she could not hear my thoughts.
I watched her for a moment longer, feeling like Harriet the Spy, noticing how light and springy she seemed. She seemed happy. Excited almost.
‘Good morning, Mother,’ I said.
She whirled around, her eyes widening with surprise. ‘Gosh, you scared me!’
‘Sorry.’
‘Let me just finish these eggs then I’ll get my purse. We can’t have you looking like something the cat’s dragged in, can we, Doll?’
I shook my head, noticing with a stab how she had not called me little doll.
We ate our eggs, buttered soldiers and salt in silence. I wanted to talk but sensed Mother would not take kindly to it, so I concentrated on my yummy yolk-dipped soldier and thought about how it wasn’t very respectful to call a piece of toast a soldier.
I was about to eat my last mouthful when Mother’s eyes focused on mine.
‘You look awful, Mirabelle.’
I looked down at my plate to hide my expression.
‘You look twice your age,’ she added scornfully.
I gulped back the lump in my throat. ‘I’m sorry, Mother.’
She tutted, finished the last of her toast and took my plate away before I could finish my last few bites.
‘Go to the dining room. I’ll be in in a minute.’
Trying not to cry, I left the room and hovered in the hallway. I was used to Mother’s comments about my appearance, but they seemed worse than usual today. Almost l
ike she’d enjoyed saying those things and seeing my reaction.
I heard the back door open and peered round the kitchen door. Mother slipped out of the back door holding my near-empty plate. The door banged shut. I frowned and scanned the empty room, wondering why Mother had gone outside and why she’d taken my plate with her. Mother never fed the birds. She didn’t like them. Called them nasty little demons. Said she hated their beady little eyes.
I stared at the back door and it stared back, tempting me over. She hadn’t locked it. My feet tingled with the desire to cut across the short space. I took a step and the distant hiss of her voice caught at my ears and I hesitated in the doorway trying to make out her words, but they were too far away. Who could she be talking to out there?
Knowing I shouldn’t, I dashed over to the kitchen sink and put my ear to the blinds. There was silence for a beat followed by a bang. I jumped and pushed my ear right up against the slats. The kitchen door clicked. It began to open and I ran out of the room into the dining room, terrified Mother would see me and know I was up to no good.
In the dining room, I waited for my heartbeat to slow down and tried not to bite my nails. The idea that Mother was hiding something from me tugged at my mind, but I was more concerned about the things Mother had said to me. And the look in her eyes as she had said them.
Mother loves me.
Does she?
Of course she does. And you do look awful. Who wouldn’t look awful after being so sick?
I stripped off my long white nightdress and knickers, hoping to please her with my readiness to be dressed and made up. Mother walked past the dining room and went upstairs. I waited for her but she did not come downstairs after a minute or five minutes or ten or even thirty. She was probably tending to Clarabelle. Her new little doll.
Shivering in the gloomy room that reeked of dead flowers, I wondered what to do. I eyed the grandfather clock in the corner, neck tingling. It was huge and black and hideous with a gold-rimmed face and spiky gold hands. It was the ugliest clock in the world. I didn’t understand why Mother kept it. She said it had belonged to her grandfather. Said it was an heirloom.