The Nowhere Girl: A completely gripping and emotional page turner

by Nicole Trope

  ‘And yet you never told me any of this?’ says Molly. ‘How could you have just kept it from me?’ Suddenly she is angry again.

  Her mother’s hands cease their continuous movement and she looks up at Molly. Molly can see her getting ready to apologise again, to tell her she made a mistake, and she shakes her head. She doesn’t want to hear the same things over and over.

  Her mother goes back to cutting out the cookies, biting down on her lip to prevent any more apologies floating out.

  ‘Could I speak? Did I have any words at all?’

  ‘You could say single words. You said words like “cat” and “dog” and “up”. Things that I would expect to hear out of the mouth of a one-year-old rather than a two-year-old.’

  ‘Anything else? Anything that could help me find out where I came from?’

  Her mother sighs, picks up the last full tray and slides it into the oven. The smell of baking cookies fills the air, reminding Molly that she’s in a safe space. The scent always makes her think of home, of the sweet warmth that has always permeated her mother’s kitchen.

  ‘Mum,’ she says now, aware that her mother hasn’t answered the question. ‘Anything else?’

  Her mother takes a deep breath. ‘You cried very quietly.’

  ‘Well, that must have been good.’

  ‘No,’ says her mother, shaking her head, ‘it wasn’t good. The first week you were here you bumped your head on the edge of a bookcase and I saw you do it but you just kept on walking so I thought you were fine, but then you sat down to play with some toys and I came over to where you were and there were silent tears running down your cheeks. You had hurt yourself, you were in pain, but you didn’t make any noise. It was… it was awful.’

  Molly stares at her mother and is overcome with a deep sadness. For a moment she forgets where she is sitting and she feels far away. She feels another space around her, a cluttered, dirty space filled with harsh smells. She hears her own voice but it doesn’t feel like her voice. ‘I wasn’t allowed to make a noise. If I made a noise, then he hit me again,’ she says quietly, the words escaping her lips.

  Her mother stares at her, takes a deep breath. ‘How… how do you know that?’ she asks, shock making her pale.

  ‘I…’ Molly shakes herself a little, bringing herself back to the bright, clean kitchen and the smooth countertop beneath her hands. She rubs the surface compulsively, seeking comfort. ‘I don’t know, I just felt it… I mean, I read about it on the blog, but right now, right now I felt it. I wasn’t allowed to make a noise.’

  ‘Have you spoken to the woman who wrote the blog? Have you asked her about your situation?’

  ‘I have but it has nothing to do with me. Her sister is dead so it can’t have anything to do with me.’

  ‘Are you sure she’s telling the truth?’

  ‘Why would she lie? Meredith could live anywhere in the world. I imagine I just connected with the blog because I’ve had a similar experience.’

  ‘I don’t know, Moll, I looked it up after you told me about it and I don’t know how it’s possible that you would remember the things she writes about if you weren’t involved in some way. I think she’s Australian.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Maybe it’s the way she writes but also the picture she uses on her blog – the one with the clouds and the sun peeking through has the Three Sisters in it; you know, the formations in the Blue Mountains.’

  ‘Yes!’ exclaims Molly. ‘That’s why it was so familiar.’

  ‘It may just be a stock image off the internet but it may mean she’s Australian, and if she is… you just never know, do you? I don’t want to send you off in the wrong direction but I cannot believe that you would have had such an emotional reaction to her words if you weren’t connected in some way.’

  Molly knows that this must be true. ‘Why did you call me “Molly” she asks suddenly, hoping that she had somehow managed to tell the police her real name.

  ‘Oh,’ says her mother, ‘we had always planned to name our first daughter Molly, after the books I used to love as a child, you know, the Milly-Molly-Mandy stories? I think I read every story at least a hundred times when I was growing up. I planned to have three daughters, one name Milly, one named Molly and one named Mandy. Your father thought that wasn’t a great idea but he did agree to your name. We read the books to you, remember?’

  Molly does remember. ‘I loved that she shared my name.’

  ‘You did.’ Her mother smiles.

  Molly rubs her eyes with her hands, feeling a headache coming on. It’s too much. The emotional toll of the discussion is simply too much.

  ‘I should go. I think I need to lie down.’

  ‘You can lie down here, love, you do look a bit worn out. You need to rest as much as possible.’

  ‘I know, but I think I want to go home. I’ll be fine, Mum. Thanks though.’

  Anne comes over to the other side of the counter where Molly is sitting and wraps her in a long hug.

  At the front door, Molly kisses her mother on the cheek. ‘I’ll call you later,’ she says.

  ‘Molly, one last thing…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘In the beginning you were terrified of Dad, of your father. You wouldn’t let him near you for months. You didn’t scream or cry but if he came near you, you would run away and climb into your bedroom cupboard.’

  ‘Right into the cupboard?’ Molly asks woodenly, smelling again the mould smell, seeing the paint she would peel with little fingers.

  ‘Right into the cupboard. You would only come out if I came and got you.’

  Twenty-Seven

  2 February 1987

  Margaret

  * * *

  Vernon doesn’t return for over a week. Margaret sleeps as much as she can and Alice’s bruises fade and mottle. ‘Stay inside,’ Margaret tells her, and Alice rolls her eyes at her mother’s stupidity. She should be back at school but there’s no way she can go.

  When Vernon returns, he brings fish and chips for dinner and the promise of oblivion in the form of two large bottles of vodka. ‘Thought you two might be hungry,’ he says, his words slurring a little. He studies Alice. ‘You should be more careful,’ he tells her.

  Alice doesn’t greet him but gobbles the fish and chips. The fridge and the pantry are empty. Margaret feeds her body the only thing it needs. She noticed this morning that she was feeling a little better, that the shaking had diminished and her nausea was not as bad, and she thought, Maybe I can stop, just stop. But then he walked through the door and the spirit called to her like a lover would, its gentle warmth more precious than anything in her world.

  Margaret sips at the vodka she has poured into a glass. If it’s in a glass, then she’s just having a drink with dinner, like so many others do; slurping it from the bottle is different. Margaret wants to be the kind of woman who just has a drink with dinner. She tries to not see the way Vernon looks at Alice, letting his eyes roam up and down her skinny body. ‘Alice is going to sleep with me tonight,’ she whispers, the burning alcohol giving her a moment of courage.

  ‘Like fuck she is,’ sneers Vernon.

  Alice doesn’t even look at her, just drops her shoulders, surrenders to it, surrenders to it all. Margaret wants to save her daughter, to grab the child by the hand and run as far as they can run, but the creeping tiredness is upon her again, bringing her hopeless reality into focus. She cannot even take care of herself.

  ‘Clean up this fucking mess,’ Vernon says after dinner. The promise of punishment for not doing what he says is blatantly clear.

  Alice slides off her chair. ‘I’m going to watch TV.’ Margaret knows she will sit hunched on the couch as long as possible, hoping that Vernon will pass out before he can touch her. She can remember doing the same thing when he first moved in.

  Why can’t you do something, you stupid woman? she asks herself but doesn’t have the energy to reply, even in her own head. She wishes she was dead and
gone. She eyes the kitchen knives, wondering if one of them would do the job. The idea of being asleep forever is liquid and beautiful inside her.

  She shuffles around the kitchen, shoving things in cupboards slowly as though her bones are wearing away with each movement.

  The fish and chips came wrapped in white paper with a newspaper cover. ‘Just like the old days,’ Vernon said when he first started buying them from the shop at the end of their road.

  Margaret picks up some paper that has dropped on the floor and peers at it. It’s old, from more than a week ago.

  * * *

  Sydney Morning Herald

  21 January 1987

  Questions Asked After Toddler’s Death

  Questions about child safety are being asked after a toddler was killed in a car accident on the Pacific Highway near Mount Colah last night. It is understood that the toddler was unrestrained in the back seat of the car when it veered off the road and into a pole.

  * * *

  Margaret stops reading before she gets to the end. The accident happened so close to where she lives. She imagines it had been her, that her car had been drivable and she had been on the road, alcohol controlling her body, her mind. She also didn’t have a car seat for Lilly. She closes her eyes and sees her car smashing into a pole on the side of the highway, hears the crunch of metal and the shattering of glass. Would that be an easy way to die? Would she have taken her children with her? Would they all have been better off?

  She thinks about Alice, sitting rigid on the couch, and about Lilly. Where is Lilly? She stares at the kitchen wall where the wallpaper is peeling and curled. It’s strange to think she had almost forgotten about Lilly, waking last night to question if the child had ever even existed. Time trips over itself and even the most significant things can be forgotten. Could Lilly have wandered away and been picked up by strangers? It’s possible and it would explain why Alice won’t tell them what has happened to her. Alice was supposed to be watching her, after all. She closes her eyes and sees her baby daughter on a road, lost and confused. She sees her get picked up by a stranger and then she sees the car she’s travelling in veer off the road and into a pole. It’s possible. Lilly could be dead. Lilly probably is dead. Vernon hasn’t asked about her again. Maybe he knows what happened to her. Could Vernon have done something to Lilly? Had he started to do the same things to her that he was doing to Alice? Did the baby fight his touch and get hurt for it, too hurt to recover? Margaret’s stomach bubbles with nausea. She cannot think about this. She grabs the bottle and takes a swig, letting the liquor burn away her thoughts.

  She scrunches the newspaper into a ball and then she gets up and pushes it into the bin, on top of the greasy remains of the fish. Wherever Lilly is, whatever has happened to her, Margaret is sure that she is better off than she would be here.

  Twenty-Eight

  Now

  Alice

  * * *

  On Monday morning, I call the number Jack has given me for an appointment with a new therapist. I wish, not for the first time over the last few years, that Ian was still alive, that he had not been taken by his damaged heart. He would only be seventy now and I would love to be able to talk to him again. I’m grateful he was still here after Isaac was born, grateful that I got to speak to him again. He went into hospital to have a stent fitted and never came home, but luckily I visited him the day before the operation.

  ‘Too much booze and too many cigarettes,’ he said wryly when I wished him well.

  ‘You wouldn’t be the first, Ian, and they can do wonders these days. I’ll see you when you’ve had a chance to recover a bit.’

  ‘You were one of my greatest success stories, Alice, you know that, don’t you?’ he said, a smile on his lips.

  ‘I bet you have thousands of success stories,’ I said, so grateful for the man who helped me turn my life around. And then a nurse came in to do some blood tests and I had to say goodbye. I didn’t know it would be goodbye forever.

  I shake my head, thinking of Ian. ‘Why didn’t you go back to therapy sooner, Alice?’ he would have said. That could have prevented me from letting myself slip into the bottle the way my mother did.

  ‘Going to therapy means you’re not your mother,’ I hear him say and I try to rid myself of the gloomy feeling I have. I’ll go and see her again today. My first therapy session is in two weeks and I want to be able to tell the therapist, a woman named Amelia, that I have said what I needed to say to my mother.

  I am hit by a sharp wind as I get out of my car at the Green Gate. It will soon be the worst month of winter. The wind and the rain and the cold will make everyone miserable and it will feel like summer will never return.

  Anika is at the desk when I sign in. ‘Your mother is not in her room,’ she tells me and she sounds quite excited by this fact.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Out in the garden.’

  ‘In the garden? But she never leaves her room.’

  ‘I know but today she insisted she go outside.’

  ‘Isn’t it cold?’

  ‘We made sure she was all wrapped up. She said she wanted to see Vernon and Adam.’

  ‘Vernon?’ I almost shriek.

  ‘Well, that’s what she says, but of course only Ed’s outside at the moment. She seems to really like him though. They speak every now and again.’

  ‘Who’s Ed?’

  ‘The young man who does the garden, the volunteer.’

  ‘Oh, yes… Is she this way?’ I ask, pointing at a door that leads out to the back, and Anika nods.

  I find my way to the vast, overgrown back garden and look around, finally spotting my mother sitting on a bench. In front of her is the young gardener that Anika has identified as Ed. As I walk towards her, I can hear her talking to him. I am quite cheered to hear her so animated.

  ‘Hello,’ I say when I get to the bench.

  ‘Hello,’ she replies, looking up at me, and then her eyes light up. ‘Hello, Alice, are you home from school?’

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ I say, disappointment settling over me.

  The young man, who is currently pulling at some weeds around the bench, looks up and nods at me.

  ‘Vernon and I were just talking about you,’ says my mother.

  I swivel my head around desperately but obviously there is no one but the young gardener, me and my mother.

  ‘I’m Ed, Margaret, remember,’ he says softly.

  ‘Oh… oh, yes, Ed of course. You’re not Vernon. You’re too young.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he says.

  ‘Vernon went to prison. He killed a man and he went to prison. Did you know Vernon went to prison, Alice?’

  ‘Yes, I know, Mum. I don’t think we’ve formally met before, I’m Alice,’ I say, holding out my hand to shake Ed’s.

  He stands up, wipes his hands on his trousers and then clasps my hand in his. His hand is freezing and rough, splattered with leftover soil. ‘Yes, I’ve heard all about you,’ he says.

  ‘Ed helps me with my computer,’ says my mother.

  ‘That’s… nice,’ I respond.

  ‘I’m only a volunteer here,’ he replies. ‘I’m doing a degree in computer science.’

  ‘That’s great,’ I say. ‘Where has the other man gone – the older man?’ I ask.

  ‘My uncle,’ says Ed, ‘he’s not been well.’ He resumes his digging.

  I watch him for a moment, wondering at the futility of trying to keep such a large, wild expanse of garden in shape. He stands upright, shaking his head, and then he looks around him. ‘I never seem to achieve anything,’ he says to my mother.

  ‘I think you do a beautiful job, Vernon,’ she replies.

  ‘Who’s Vernon?’ he asks me.

  ‘He’s a man we used to live with, a terrible man,’ I say without looking at him.

  ‘He’s not terrible, Alice, and you know he wants you to call him Dad.’

  He’s not my dad, he’s not my father, he’s not my anything. I reme
mber shouting those words at my mother when I was twelve years old, horrified that she kept exhorting me to call the man who was abusing me ‘Dad’.

  I look down at my feet. I don’t know why I keep doing this to myself. She doesn’t understand what she’s saying and I’m sure there’s no malice behind it, but it feels malicious. Malicious and hurtful.

  ‘I’m cold, Alice,’ says my mother. ‘And very tired. I think I need a nap.’

  ‘I’ll take you in then.’

  Ed walks away from us, carrying a handful of weeds.

  ‘Are you sending me emails, Mum? Did you send me Lilly’s stuffed frog?’ I whisper just loud enough for her to hear. I don’t expect a reply but I need to ask the question, to voice my fears aloud.

  She catches my gaze, her eyes bright, and I feel almost burnt by the intensity of her gaze.

  ‘Maybe I am… I know how to use the computer, you know. Vernon taught me.’

  Shock renders me silent.

  ‘Why would I send you emails?’ she asks and she smiles. ‘What did you do? What did you do, Alice?’

  I shiver but not from the cold. I hear a ringing in my ears. It’s her, she’s doing it.

  ‘Do you know where my daughter is?’ she asks.

  ‘I…’ I begin but before I can form a coherent sentence she sighs.

  ‘I wish she would get home from school. She’s been there a long time. Do you know where Alice is?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I have no idea where she is at all.’ I push my tongue into the gap in my mouth. I am sitting with a stranger. I have no idea what’s going on in her head and I feel too weary to try and figure this out.

  ‘Let’s go in,’ I say, helping her stand up from the bench.

  ‘Goodbye, Vernon,’ she calls as we walk away but Ed doesn’t reply, just raises a hand in goodbye.

  Once we’re back inside, I help her to her bed, and in a few minutes she’s asleep. I have once again lost the chance to talk to her, losing her to sleep like I used to all those years ago. Instead I take a look at her computer. It’s still connected to the internet and the search history tells me that they’ve been using the soothing videos a lot but nothing else. I search up Gmail and, using my phone, I type in the username of the account I got the emails from. As my fingers hit the keys, I’m aware of feeling slightly crazy. My mother has not been sending me emails, it’s impossible. The account name pops up and asks for a password. ‘Well, of course it does,’ I say to myself.