I walk on her right side, between her and 1 Bluebell Lane. With the distance and my body in-between, I don’t think the Lump would see her even if he is watching. It is none of his business anyway. I would say she is my niece if it came up in conversation. Just in case.
We walk on, Rosie and I, stomping and striding through the snow.
She starts to move ahead and pulls away.
I am not sure whether to take longer strides to catch her up or simply follow in her footsteps.
I walk behind her by the trees as we approach the open field, just a long stretched-out blanket of white.
I cannot see the trodden-in paths to either side that I usually walk up and across and down and back home. She ploughs straight on, towards the centre of the field. Her head is down, and I cannot tell if she is concentrating on her footsteps or is troubled or perhaps even angry in some way. I feel I have done something wrong.
I am not sure what that might be. Perhaps I should have addressed what she said more fully. Expressed sympathy and concern. I am now ready to do that. But I do not know what to say, nor how to say it. I do not want to push or probe. I must show that I care. If she wants to say more, I will listen to her. I am here for her.
We carry on in a straight line across the field. On and on we go. One foot down. The other pulled out of the snow and forward. Next foot pulled out and another step on. And so on. Each time, the snow threatens to hold tight to my boot, dragging it off.
She is pulling further away from me almost with every step.
And I am struggling already to keep up with her pace.
My legs are heavy and my breathing increasingly ragged.
I hear myself breathing heavily. Puffing in and out, louder and louder. I sometimes forget my age and my health; I need to remember I should be on medication for this and that and the other. I’ve stopped taking the cocktail of tablets, but it takes time to come off them completely.
I wonder what would happen if I fell to the ground now, face first in the snow. What she would do. Whether she would make her way back to the cottage. To find my old-fashioned telephone on the sideboard in the living room. Call 999. An air ambulance helicopter hovering over the fields as I gasped my last breath.
Or whether she might leave me there dying, soon to be covered by another heavy snowfall, and make her way back to the cottage. I have a sudden mental image of her sitting by the fire, a tea cake on the end of my toasting fork. Fluffy would lie there, his head on her lap, gazing up and waiting for her to give him a corner of the tea cake, as I have always done.
She stops suddenly and turns and looks back at me. A serious expression on her face. She’s been thinking about something important. Worrying. That she now needs to share with me.
I am here for her. I will be supportive. Whatever it is.
“I can’t really read and write. Not properly. Will you teach me?”
And I find myself feeling relieved. Not being sure what I expected her to say at that moment.
And I am nodding and smiling and saying I’d love to. I feel happy. There’s a sense of relief. I don’t quite know why.
We sit, side by side, at the dining room table. The breakfast things have been cleared away. We are ready to begin.
Paper, pencils, rubbers and pencil sharpeners in front of us. Dug out from the backs of drawers.
And a Winnie The Pooh book, too. A favourite of Lucy’s.
I must admit I was surprised Rosie could not really read or write, but delighted that she asked me to help her. That she would share such an admission with me. That she sees me as a father figure. It took all of my willpower not to hug her on the spot.
Instead, I led the way home through the snow. She followed eagerly. Bumping into me once or twice from behind. I had no idea how to start teaching an adult to read or write, nor which came first. Reading or writing? Chicken or egg? I really did not know.
Once we got back to the cottage and had taken off our hats and gloves and coats and boots, I headed straight for my old computer on the desk in the corner of the kitchen. Rosie stood by my shoulder as I started it up and entered my password. As she leaned forward, I thought she might rest her chin on my shoulder in her excitement to find out more. But she did not.
Lots of conflicting advice, as you’d expect from Professor Google!
But most seemed to suggest starting by learning the letters of the alphabet.
Writing them out and matching them to simple words. Apple. Bird. And so on.
A rushed-through breakfast, and here we are. Rosie watches me as I write A a, B b, C c and so on, carefully across the paper. She sits up and then back as I continue through the alphabet and down the sheet of paper. She’s huffing in frustration as I get to K k, L l, M m. I slow a little just to tease her. I think she realises and sits still. I am not sure whether she is playing along or being a sulky madam. I speed up, and she sits forward and seems pleased when I get to X x, Y y and Z z.
I finish bottom right on the paper with Z and a long zzzzzzzzzz whilst making a buzzing noise like a bee. “Zzzzz, zzzzz, zzzzz,” I say, imitating a bee. “‘Zed’, we call it here,” I add. “In America, they pronounce it ‘zee’. Rhyming with bumblebee.” I glance at her; she does not seem to know what to say. She licks her top lip with her tongue as if she is focusing on the alphabet.
I draw, on a separate piece of paper, an A followed by a little a, and draw an apple although it looks more like a peach to me. “A is for … a peach.” I laugh, turning my head from side to side at what I have drawn. She looks at me blankly. “A is for apple,” I add. “You draw an apple and do a capital A and a –” I search for the correct word “– small a.”
She draws an apple that looks like an apple.
A slightly stilted A. And a rather scrawly a.
She looks satisfied. A glance and a half smile towards me.
I’m not really sure what to say or do next, other than to think of words that begin with a. “Words starting with A,” I say. “Have an ‘ah’ sound … apple –” I look round the room “– armchair … ah … armchair …” My mind wanders, trying to find something else. I glance out of the window.
Widow Woman is walking by. The fat Labrador on a lead. The two grandchildren, too. Older boy. Younger girl. I cannot remember their names. They are on their way to the fields. They do not look this way.
Widow Woman has her head down and is concentrating, not wanting to fall over. Forwards or backwards.
“Arse,” Rosie says and laughs. I laugh, too.
“You know some words, then,” I say cheerfully.
She smiles and nods and drops her head down shyly. Then back up with a look of mischief on her face.
“Only rude ones.” And she laughs again, easy with me now.
“Spell it, then. Arse,” I say. Why not? Have to start somewhere.
She puts her head down, the tip of her tongue poking out of her mouth as she concentrates. She writes slowly and carefully. A stop-start scrawl. A back-to-front r, I think. A pause for thought. Letters rubbed out. Another go. A sense of frustration. She scribbles over what she has written. Then, in block capitals, writes F U C K. Looks at me to see what I say.
“Well, some words are easier to spell than others,” I say neutrally, then add, “Why not write down the words you know how to spell. Rude ones, if you like.”
Rosie looks at me and, head down, writes OFF next to FUCK. Glances up. Sees my bland face. Writes SHIT. Then CUM. Then TITS. I smile benignly, which seems to encourage her. One after the other, she writes down all sorts of swear words, in block capitals. I watch her until she stops, and I then check them.
“I think that’s O-C-K-S, not O-X,” I say, pointing to one word. “But other than that –” I count up the words “– it’s nine out of ten.” I write “9/10” and put “A” next to it.
She leans forward and writes “STAR” next to the “A” and draws a little star, too.
I laugh. She has some reading and writing ability already. Whatever she
has said.
Has had some teaching. Somewhere. Sometime.
I wonder if she can do joined-up writing. Read a simple book.
“You’re smart,” I say. “Can you do joined-up writing?”
She looks at me.
Writes oh-so-carefully on her sheet of paper.
Turns it towards me. Has that serious expression on her face again.
She has written what I assume is her real name. Alice Beech.
“Hello, A … A … Alice. B … B … Beech.” I smile widely.
I offer her my hand. She hesitates and reaches out to shake it. Then laughs.
“I prefer Rosie,” she replies. “Call me Rosie.”
And we carry on. A is for apple. B is for bird. C is for … I ignore Rosie’s suggestion and write car and do a little scribble. Rosie repeats what I have done. Her car looks better than mine.
On we go, working our way through the alphabet. I think we will try to get through a third of it today before stopping to prepare for lunch.
And we look at each other on and off and smile. We laugh at my drawings. And admire hers. She has a talent. No doubt about it. There is more to this young lady than meets the eye.
Having finished our first reading and writing session, Rosie goes back to her room with Fluffy.
I hear Radio 1 playing loudly. She will be gone until lunchtime.
I sit quietly at my computer. Searching for “Alice Beech”.
There are so many. Just a cursory glance down the first page shows dozens of them on Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram and Twitter. More than thirty on some sort of people’s directory. I click and click and click, looking at faces and places. All a waste of time, of course. I know this Alice Beech is not going to be on any of these sites. This outcast from society. Who probably has little or no knowledge of social media.
I try again; amending my search to “Alice Beech”, I hesitate and add the word “murderer”. So, “Alice Beech Murderer”. There are pages and pages and pages of entries to look through. Most linking “Alice” and “Beech” and “Murder”, but none together in the same case. I go through all of them. Searching. Always hunting for the correct entry.
One more go. This time searching for “alice + beech + murder”. Heart in mouth. There are cases. But as I trawl down them one by one, most have a line at the end, “Missing: beech+ | Must include: beech+” I try variations. Alice Beech Child Killer. Alice Beech Louis. Alice Beech Case. Alice Beech Trial. I go round again, including her father’s name, Martin, this time. On and on without success.
I click to “images”. Enter the same mix of names and words. Over and again.
Page after page after page. One after the other.
I see no faces that resemble Rosie now or as I imagine her as a child.
I sit back. Thinking. Then start over. Searching for child murders over the past decade or so. Sickening. But I have to do it. And Louis Child Murder and Alice Louis Child Murder. And so many variations of the names and words. Martin Beech included again. Alice Rosemary Beech. In case Rosie, Rosemary, might be her middle name. On and on through Wikipedia, until I have seen so many stories and so many innocent little faces and so much unrelenting horror and misery that I stop, my head hanging, unable to read on.
No Alice Beech.
No Louis. No Rosie.
And I wonder why that is.
We sit together side by side. After lunch.
On the sofa in the living room. Rosie and I and Fluffy.
Perhaps that should be side by side by side.
Reading Winnie The Pooh. When We Were Very Young, which I think may be the first Pooh book. I turn the pages over slowly, going back and forth, pointing to various poems and sketches and words. Saying the simple words. Rosie repeats them and draws in her little notepad.
We stop at “The Four Friends” poem, and I read it aloud and point in turn at the elephant and the lion and the goat and James, a very small snail. Rosie repeats the words elephant and lion and goat and tells me conversationally that she used to like stepping on snails and hearing the cracking sounds that made. I move straight on.
I look at the “Daffodowndilly” poem and point to the daffodil and say, “Da … Da,” and Rosie interjects and says, “Daddy-long-legs.” She laughs. I think she is in a silly mood, and I am not sure whether to persevere with my teaching (such as it is) or to join in the jolliness.
Rosie draws a daffodil in her pad.
Shows it to me.
It’s a perfect match for the one in the book.
There is a poem called “Hoppity”, with a little girlish figure in three sketches: one with a blue hat, another with a green hat and a third one in a red hat. I think these must all be Christopher Robin.
“Christopher Robin,” I say, pointing. Rosie does not respond. “A. A. Milne’s son … the author … his little boy … Pooh’s friend.” There is something about the spindly figures that remind me of Lucy as a small child.
Standing next to me in a river somewhere on holiday. Devon, I think. Her bare feet and tiddly toes, trying to catch fish with a small net. Me next to her, watching, encouraging. Happy days.
And I turn the page. To another poem, “Happiness”.
John and his waterproof boots, hat and mackintosh.
A smear of a jammy fingerprint on the page. Lucy’s.
I stop, struggling now with my emotions. This was Lucy’s favourite poem; I remember reading it to her over and over on that holiday in Devon. A caravan on a clifftop in the corner of a caravan park. Brixham, I think. Looking out across the bay.
Her on my lap at the table, toast and jam in front of us, me reading the poem to her. She pulls at the book with her jammy fingers to see the sketches. Here is the proof of that memory in front of me now. Taking me back in time to those precious moments. I can barely breathe.
Rosie does not seem to notice my anguish and presses on cheerily. She touches a sketch of John in his hat and coat and boots on the page and says, “Wellington boots,” with an air of triumph. The poem states “waterproof boots”, but I do not correct her. She draws a picture of the figure of John as I pretend to cough and splutter and wipe my eyes with a handkerchief from my pocket.
And then the moment has passed.
We move on to another poem. One that is not familiar to me.
And the lesson continues on its way.
After tea, we sit, Rosie and I, in the living room with blankets around our shoulders.
I am in the armchair, finishing the last few pages of 10 Rillington Place. Rosie is on the sofa, drawing in her pad with her pencils, Fluffy stretched out alongside her. He has transferred his affections very quickly.
We are at peace, the two of us.
Rosie glances up, looks towards the window into the dark of night and sits back, startled. She then turns her head away and pulls the blanket around her.
The Lump is at the window, his stupid face pressed against it. “Hello?” he calls out, as if he cannot see us in there. “Hello?” Louder now. It’s something important, maybe even urgent. Life-threatening.
I move quickly out of the living room to the hall and front door, pulling it open in my controlled fury. How dare he sneak up on us like that, spying, peering through, expecting to see God knows what.
“What do you want?” I say sharply as he steps back from the window and onto the path, his face dull and uncomprehending. I do not turn the outside light on. I do not want to make him feel welcome. He can stay in darkness.
“Tea bags,” he says in his raised, slightly high-pitched voice. The campness in contrast to his huge bulk. “I’ve run out of tea bags. Do you have any … and milk?”
No please. No thank you. No manners at all. I can barely suppress my anger. I am able to control it these days. Even though I am now off my medication. So I can live a happy, balanced life.
I stand there looking back at him shivering in the snow in his ridiculous bobble hat and coat. If I tell him to go away, to clear off, politely or not
so politely, I wonder what he will do. I have heard him lose his temper before, over the fence, when both his parents were alive. The shouted oaths, the sudden rise to fury, the sound of glasses and crockery being broken. The storming off. And then the silence of the Lumps.
If I agree and go and get him a handful of tea bags and a jug of milk, this will be the start of a series of visits, for bread, for washing powder, for goodness knows what, as he starts to rely on me rather than making the long walk into town and back. He will forever be at my door. Disturbing Rosie and me.
“Have you got any?” he says quite abruptly, interrupting my thoughts. There is no politeness there. He is not asking a favour. He is demanding his right. This ignorant simpleton of a man.
“Wait there,” I answer as firmly as I can without sounding angry. “I’ll see what I have.” I just want him gone as quickly as possible.
I walk to the kitchen. There is a two-thirds full box of 240 tea bags on the side. I tip all but a handful out onto the worktop surface. Go to the fridge where I have four bottles of fresh milk, two opened, one green top, one blue top for my cereal, both half full. I empty half of what’s left of the green one into the blue one, leaving a quarter-full green bottle of milk for him.
“Here,” I say, thrusting the teabag box, with its half-dozen bags, and the two-to-three-inch full bottle of green-topped milk at him. “It’s all I have; take it.” I suppress the urge to add, And don’t come back. Ever, you cretin.
He stands there for a moment or two, holding the box and the bottle, as if processing what I have just said.
“What do you want?” he says.
I shake my head, not understanding.
“I have money,” he says. “In my pocket.” He nods to his left side, but makes no move to reach for it with the box in one hand and the bottle in the other.
“I don’t want anything for them,” I answer. Even if I did, I would not put my hand in his pocket. “Gratis … free … they’re yours.” I wave my arms about. That’s it. Sorted. Please go. He just stands there.
“Well,” he says finally, and I expect him to add something conciliatory about having half each, that we should share it, and I am ready to reach in and take a few of the tea bags back. Just to be rid of him. But still he stands there. On and on. And does not add anything to it.
The Girl Downstairs Page 13