Then finally, that Wednesday, we were on our way, Mum and Dad in the front seats of the car, me folded into the back. Driving all the way through town, seeing places and shops I passed all the time: Costa, Oxfam, WHSmith, estate agent, hairdresser, a new bridal boutique. They were the same but everything was different.
On her lap, Mum was holding the card we’d bought. So formal. Like we’d been invited to a birthday party. Mum’s idea, but all three of us had had to go to choose it. I’d watched Dad thumb through all the ready-made messages: ‘Congratulations.’ ‘With Sympathy.’ ‘New Home.’ No one makes cards for an occasion like this. In the end Mum chose one labelled, Blank inside for your personal message. What were we supposed to write? I’d told Mum to just put: With love from us all – cousin Jess, Auntie Lillian and Uncle Fraser. Now Mum was running her fingers round the edges, giving the envelope a turn each time she reached a corner. The seams were sharp enough for paper cuts.
I closed my eyes. Behind my eyelids, my cousin rose up, the bright flick of her hair. So real, so close I could practically feel her. The memories came sweeping like a tide. Scraped knees, bug bites, skipping ropes, cartwheels. Her face, close up, like a copy of mine: same nose, same freckly forehead, same mouth, only the frame of her hair different between us, hers butter yellow and mine dark brown. Hand in hand and breath for breath, the pair of us at three, five, eight years old—
I opened my eyes. In the front seats, my parents were skirting an argument.
‘We should have left earlier. You knew there’d be traffic.’ That was Mum.
And Dad: ‘I know. But we’ll be there by five-thirty at the latest.’ We were past the church now and heading round the one-way system.
‘Yes, Fraser. But they said five. I saw you write it down.’
Dad’s hands tightened on the wheel. ‘Lillian,’ he said. ‘Not now.’
‘You know it might upset her. Arriving late.’
‘Listen-’ Dad switched on the windscreen wipers, smearing wet across the glass. ‘I don’t know anything except that we’re her family and they’ve asked us to come. I for one will be so damn happy to see her and there are bigger things to worry about than being a few minutes late.’
He pulled the handbrake as we stopped at the south-side traffic lights. Thank you, Dad, I wanted to say.
But even he had told me to prepare myself, his face all kindly and solemn when he’d knocked on my bedroom door last night. Dad was like that, always wanting to talk about things, always wanting stuff out in the open. I had to understand, he’d said, Abigail would look different, would be different now. Was I prepared for that? I couldn’t just go running up to her, jumping on her, hugging her. She would need time.
I’d nodded, pretending to agree. But he had never known Abigail like I did.
The lights were green now and we were moving again. But in the front, my parents had both gone quiet. Mum was looking away out of the passenger window. I couldn’t see her expression, only the angle of her head, the stiffness in her neck.
We took the turn-off onto Springfield Road and I craned forwards to look out of the front windscreen. Up ahead, my aunt and uncle’s little patch of front garden was surrounded by a huddle of men and women. I recognized the set-up at once. Journalists, their collars raised against the untimely spring rain. For weeks, months, they’d reported her missing. Now they would write the best headline of all, the perfect ending to our story. I wondered what Lena would make of all this. She’d refused to believe it would end this way. That argument we’d had when we were thirteen, when I’d yelled that her parents’ divorce was stupid and she’d flung back, Jess, don’t you get it? Real life isn’t happily ever after. In real life, my parents are getting divorced and your cousin is never coming back! It took me weeks to forgive her for that but what did it matter now? I’d been right.
The seatbelt was tight around my shoulder. The journalists looked as keen as bloodhounds. ‘Go round the back,’ I said to Dad. He nodded silently and heaved the wheel. As the car jounced over a speed bump, Mum put a hand to the dashboard to steady herself. She didn’t have to say anything – the gesture was enough. ‘Sorry,’ said Dad.
We parked on the narrow, pot-holed road behind. Here the street was empty, just a dog barking somewhere with a steady, grinding bark. We got out of the car. Through the misty air, I could see up to where the road became a dead-end, to where a scrubby path led off through lopsided railings. Off to the sleek tracks of the railway line, where the fast trains didn’t stop, just thundered through. I remembered how Abigail had always wanted to go up there. We weren’t allowed though, Auntie Anne had been adamant – a girl had once fallen from the bridge down there. Still, Abigail used to stand and stare until I’d grab her arm and yank her back, off up the road to the corner shop or playground.
The envelope in Mum’s hand was crumpled, creases running across the creamy paper. She handed the card to me and looked up at the house, the brown brick walls and white-framed windows gazing back down at us. She dug in her pockets like checking for loose change or bus tickets. ‘What are you looking for?’ said Dad.
‘I’m not – nothing.’ Mum took the card back.
Dad drew a hand down the bristles of his cheek, as if to smooth things out between them.
‘Let’s just go in,’ I said.
I pulled down the sleeves of my jumper and tucked my thumbs in the cuffs, a move that always annoyed Mum. But for once she said nothing, just hitched up the zipper on her coat and headed through the little wooden gate at the bottom of the Whites’ back garden. I followed behind and Dad brought up the rear, careful to drop down the latch of the gate after him as if there was something inside that might want to escape. On the slippery decking, Mum rapped on the whorled glass of the back door. We could hear sounds from inside and I could see wavering shapes. We waited.
‘Knock again,’ said Dad. ‘Maybe they didn’t hear us.’
‘Annie knows we’re coming to the back. I texted her from the car.’
‘Well, just knock again.’ He was reaching past her to bang once more when the door swung open and there was Auntie Anne.
I’d expected her to look filled up with happiness. Instead there were muddy circles under her eyes and a restless flush on her cheeks, like someone with a brand new baby – hair a bit rumpled, skin a bit pale. I tried to look past her, to catch a glimpse of Abigail.
My aunt ushered us in through the doorway and into the fug of the kitchen. Dad stepped on the back of my heel and mumbled another apology, and I was pressed up against the scratchy wool of Mum’s coat. We stood crammed in with them between the blue kitchen units and shiny wall tiles. Mum held out the card to no one in particular until Uncle Robert reached out and took it. The twins stared at me, wide-eyed. In the background a kettle came to the boil, thrummed and thrashed then clicked itself off. There were fresh mugs laid out and a full jug of milk, but no one got up to pour the hot water.
I undid the Velcro fastening on my jacket, the sound a huge big scrape in the room. It was hot in here, way too hot. I pushed my fringe up off my face. Next to Auntie Anne, framed by the doorway to the hall, was a figure.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. But still nobody moved.
They’d said she’d look different, but she didn’t to me. All right, so her skin was pale and she was heavier than me now but shorter. Her hair was an odd colour and she was wearing a weird combination of clothes. In bunched leggings and one of my uncle’s huge T-shirts, she was wrong-shaped, wrong-sized, coloured in all wrong, but all that was like a costume I could see right through. I pushed forwards past Mum, past the chairs and the table and the waiting kettle.
I came to a halt in front of her. I could hear the sighing of her breath as it drew in and out – in time, it seemed, with mine. I held her gaze and she held mine.
‘Welcome home, Abigail,’ I said.
Across the great chasm of time, it was like the years were winding up, rethreading themselves. There was the tiniest pause, then, �
�Hello, Jess,’ she replied.
I smiled and summoned the magic words from long ago, when we were best playmates. Words that worked just the same for our fifteen-year-old selves.
‘Come on then,’ I said. ‘Let’s go up to your room.’
The house smelled the same as it always had – a scent of pine from some cleaning product, and the smell of oil and sawdust from Uncle Robert’s overalls. Behind me, as we climbed the stairs, words floated, my aunt’s hushed voice: ‘… the house was empty and the police haven’t traced him…’ I let the words fall away behind us.
On the landing, we came to a halt. Sam and Laurie’s bunk beds showed through the open door to the left and next was my aunt and uncle’s bedroom. Opposite that, the bathroom, and at the end of the hallway a spare room, for guests. Abigail gestured to the door nearest on the right. ‘Here’s my room.’
She was right. It had always been hers. But I hadn’t expected the transformation.
She pushed the door wide and led me through. Pictures, teddies, board games, books. Skipping ropes, rosettes, the blue flopsy at the head of her bed. The articles, paperwork, search posters all gone, and all the belongings of eight-year-old Abigail laid out once again.
I stood in the doorway, on the threshold, as if by entering I’d break some spell. Then softly as I could, I stepped into the room and stood beside Abigail at her childhood dresser. On the polished wood a little glass frog squatted on a lily pad, its bulging eyes crossed and goofy.
‘Albert McCroak,’ she said. I made him take a few hops across the dresser and landed him gently beside her. As she slid a finger down the smooth curve of his back I noticed the tip was stained nicotine yellow, like our granddad’s used to be. ‘Ribbit,’ she said. I grinned.
She looked up at me, as if waiting for what I might do next. Above her bed was the volume we used to always read. Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I pulled it down and sat on the bed, opening the book across our laps as she sat down next to me. I could smell the tang of her teenage sweat and I listed towards her as the mattress dipped. I knew she didn’t want to be hugged, not just yet, but I let our shoulders touch, let the clumped mess of her hair tickle my cheek. As we turned the pages in a hypnotic rhythm, whole worlds passed before us, stories we’d lived within, once upon a time. I’d never let myself forget them. I could feel the heat of her against my arm. ‘We used to read these to each other,’ I said.
She ran her hand over the pictures – beautiful watercolours I knew so well. ‘The Frog Prince,’ she said. ‘Hansel and Gretel.’
So she did remember. The relief was like little bubbles in my chest. I leaned across and helped her flip forward. ‘You always liked this one – with the donkey and the cat. The Bremen Town Musicians.’
‘Yes. With the robbers.’
I turned more pages, searching for other stories she’d know, other ones to make her smile. ‘Some of them were scary,’ I said, ‘but you were never scared.’
Abigail let the book slide from her lap and suddenly uncurled herself from the bed. I had to steady myself as the mattress shifted. What was it? It was like some word of mine had pinched her somewhere, snagged on something. She went to the window and folded back the curtains, peering out into the street, that narrow street we’d parked on. It was like she was still wondering when we’d arrive. Or waiting for someone else entirely.
The bedroom door creaked, and I jumped.
‘Girls?’
Mum, come to check up on us. On the nightstand, the clock read ten to six. We’d have to be leaving before long, I knew. Mum had said we shouldn’t stay too long. We didn’t want to stress Abigail or tire her out. Or ourselves. I could read in Mum’s eyes how she wanted to reassure me: Don’t worry, it will get easier, she’s still adjusting, try not to mind…
Don’t you get it? I wanted to say back. Nothing is different between us. I haven’t changed and neither has she. But Abigail wasn’t saying anything, just standing with her forehead pressed against the window. In that moment, I saw my cousin as Mum did – like a stranger, awkward, not knowing where to put herself, even though she was right here, home, in her own room.
Silently, I got up and put the book of fairy tales back on the shelf. I felt hollow. I couldn’t even find my voice to say goodbye, just swallowing empty mouthfuls as my cousin turned around, pressing the heels of her hands on the sill behind her. There’s no way Mum expected what Abigail said next, and she even caught me giddily off-guard. It was just the kind of announcement she used to make when she was eight:
‘Auntie Lillian, please, can Jess stay the night?’
We sat up in her room like little mice while downstairs the adults argued, trying to decide what to do. They hadn’t planned for this, there was no protocol. What if it was too much too soon – but then if Abigail herself had asked? Upstairs I rolled my eyes and my cousin giggled, with that funny hiccupping laugh I remembered so well.
Finally, Uncle Robert put up a camp bed in Abigail’s room and Auntie Anne made up the guest bed for Mum and Dad. She found us spare toothbrushes, and I could sleep in my T-shirt. As so we did, we stayed the night. All of us under one roof.
Sitting crossed-legged on the squeaking camp bed with her Mickey Mouse lamp on the floor between us, I didn’t need to think of where she’d been, or who with, or what had been done to her there. I only needed to see her here. When my aunt brought the twins up to say goodnight, they hovered in the doorway, twining themselves round the frame. They’d been so little when she disappeared, only nine months old, too little, I imagined, to remember anything. Me though, I remembered everything. We listened to the thumps and bumps of the adults making their ways to bed. When at last the house fell quiet, it was just the two of us alone.
‘All your stuff is here,’ I said, looking round. It was like I was only taking it in properly now. I knelt on the camp bed and ran my fingers over a row of frilly rosettes pinned to the wall. Now, close up, I could see the Blu Tack marks from where Anne and Robert had had their notes, their pictures.
This rosette was for second place in a dancing competition, aged seven. I laughed. ‘You hated ballet.’
She rubbed her cheek. ‘I know. But Mum liked me to go.’
I sat back down. ‘You loved reading, stories, that was your thing. And you were good at drawing. But mostly we made up our own games.’
She nodded, sliding down into the cocoon of her duvet. ‘I remember. Tell me again, Jess, how it was between us.’
So I did. I told her about the games we’d played, the ones we’d disappear into whenever she was upset. Dress-up, make-believe, once-upon-a-time. The thousand imaginary worlds we created, the nights we wouldn’t let each other fall asleep because we didn’t want to say goodbye. As I talked, other scraps of memory flickered: arguments, tantrums, Auntie Anne losing patience. Our games, though, had made everything all right.
‘It can be the same now,’ I told her. ‘Just like before.’ I’d been waiting to say that to her all this time. Now we were together and nothing could hurt us. Just like catching each other in the game of Do-you-trust-me? I didn’t say the rest, but I think she knew. I’ve only been waiting for you.
I snuggled down in the warmth of my sleeping bag. My eyes grew heavy, I was so warm, so happy. I could hear her breathing, steady and deep. After a while, I switched off the lamp, and we went on lying there in the soft dark. Maybe I dozed off in that darkness, just for a moment, because when I next looked over she was sitting up in bed, staring at the far wall like it was a TV screen or a stage. I could see her – just – in the light from the landing, filtering under the bedroom door. She didn’t look like Abigail in that moment. I didn’t quite feel like myself. Something had shifted in the space between us, something had entered the bubble I’d made.
Maybe that was what made me ask, made me shape the question. A sudden need to fill a blank, a hole. My skin tingling like when we’d tell ghost stories, torches under our chins, my words came out slow, dreamy, as I whispered:
‘Abigail –
what was it like?’
At first she went on staring at the wall, not moving. I wondered if she hadn’t heard me or whether she was pretending. I suddenly wondered if she was even awake. But I could see her eyes glistening in the dark. She leaned towards me, turning her head.
‘It isn’t like anything,’ she said.
Chapter 5
Friday 31st May:
Day 5
ANNE
Abigail slept so much more soundly that night. I knew because I stayed up, haunting the landing, listening, checking long after Robert said, come to bed. I pictured them in there, our family’s two daughters, sleeping together as they used to as children. It had always been like that between them; calming each other like no one else could. There had been something unbreakable between them, something that hadn’t broken, even now. Listening to Jess’s whispers, finally my heartbeats slowed and I could slip away to my own room across the hall, leaving the door open, knowing she was only calling distance away.
By the morning, I had made a decision; I had woken with one bright thought in my head. Beside me, Robert was still asleep, his hefty, lion-like shape a mound under the covers. I thought of Jess, asleep in Abigail’s room, of Lillian and Fraser next door, all of us gathered together. Why not take the opportunity? What better chance to show what she meant to us? Careful not to wake my husband, I eased back the blanket and slipped out from the warmth, and at first I pulled a jumper on over my nightdress, then took both off and got properly dressed. No one else up, the house fizzing with cold, I went downstairs.
In the kitchen, I opened every cupboard and took out bowls, plates, side plates, knives and spoons. All the boxes of cereal we had I pulled out: Shreddies, Weetabix, Coco Pops, Frosties. We had five flavours of jam in the cupboard: strawberry, apricot, blackcurrant, raspberry and the one that had always been Abigail’s favourite: cherry. I set them all out so she could choose anything she wanted. I dug out a butter dish from the back of the cupboard – an old wedding present we never used – and unpeeled a hard block of butter from its wrapper. In the fridge I found orange juice, apple juice, milk; I laid out yoghurts with individual spoons. When the kettle boiled, I made a heavy pot of tea, and even folded eight napkins from a roll of kitchen towel.
Little White Lies Page 3