Elizabeth Is Missing (16 page)

I hadn’t been sleeping and my brain seemed to be too hot and tired to work properly. I forced myself through the kitchen door one morning, on my way to school, and found that I couldn’t make it to the end of the road. I was walking for what felt like miles, but had barely got past Mrs. Winners’s gate. I looked back towards home but it seemed to have moved further off, as if it was going out for the day, same as I was. I didn’t know what to do and so I just stood still for a moment, hoping to get my breath.

And of course it was Mrs. Winners herself who found me, collapsed on the pavement, not unconscious, but not quite right in the head, either. I remember the feel of the pavement, chalky under my hands, and the smell of perfume as Mrs. Winners came out of her house. I remember thinking it was really lovely, the way a warm sweater is when you’re cold. I kept breathing in the scent as she helped me up and back to my house.

I was in bed for weeks and weeks after that, staring at the light patterns on the walls and straining to hear the radio in the sitting room. Ma had it brought up to my bedroom for a while, but it made me sleep fitfully, and what I needed most of all was rest. Both my parents were very worried, I found out after. Dad hardly ever came in to see me because he was sure I would die and he couldn’t face it, what with Sukey gone.

Ma was more anxious about my mind. She said I talked a lot in my sleep and some of it frightened her. I’m not surprised I talked. I must have been really delirious at one stage because there were several times when I thought Sukey was lying on her old bed, staring at me. And once when I saw Douglas doing the same.

I had lots of strange visions. I saw Sukey with her hair tangled, telling me she didn’t have a comb, and I kept saying, “I gave you one, Sukey, don’t you remember?” And I saw hundreds of snails all over the ceiling. And, once, I saw the mad woman leaning over me, her teeth bared and her umbrella raised. And I heard songs over and over, silly Vera Lynn songs that I didn’t even like. And I thought I heard mice scratching in the skirting and bombs dropping over the town, and my friend Audrey calling me. And there was the constant roll of waves close to my ear, though I had no shells to listen to. And one time I was sure someone had come in the back door, but when I called down I got no answer.

“It’s nice to be home,” I say to Helen. “Nice to be back in my own home after all this time.” We’ve come from the hospital. I had to go because of some problem. What was it now? Anyway, it’s nice to be home.

“You were only at the hospital for a few hours, Mum. Don’t overdo it.” She drops her car keys on to the coffee table.

“No, Helen,” I say. “It was longer than that. Several weeks. Perhaps months. A long, long time.”

“A few hours,” she says again.

“Why must you argue? I’m just saying that it’s nice to be back.” I hit my hand on the chair arm and it makes a muffled thud. It’s all bandaged up.

“Okay, Mum, you’re right,” I hear Helen say. “It is always nice to be home again, isn’t it? And I thought you’d feel better after a visit. I know it wasn’t very nice, I know it was a bit sad, but at least you can stop worrying now.”

I don’t know what she’s wittering on about. Can’t she see my hand’s a giant white cocoon? I can’t move it like this. “I don’t think I need to have these bandages on any more,” I say. “I think it’s about time I removed them, don’t you?” I start to unwind the white strips of material.

“No, no, no! Mum, please.” She rushes towards me and cradles my hand in hers. “You have to keep them on until the sprain has healed. It will be a little while yet.”

“Nonsense, Helen,” I say. “I haven’t sprained it. It doesn’t hurt.” I pull away from her and wave my hand in the air to prove it.

“Even so. Leave it on, for me? Please?”

I shrug and tuck the hand between my thigh and the side of the chair so I don’t have to look at it.

“Thank you,” Helen says. “Shall I make you some tea?”

“And a little bit of toast?” I say. “With some cheese?”

“Maybe later, Mum,” she says, leaving the room. “The nurse said you should cut down a bit.”

Oh, yes. I forgot. The nurse says I’m getting fat. She says it’s because I forget when I’ve eaten.

“You’re not getting fat,” Helen calls from the hall. “You just need a better diet. More varied. Less bread-based.”

I have a note that the nurse made for me:
Are you hungry? If not, don’t make any toast
. I’m surprised they let me decide for myself if I’m hungry. No wonder you hear about old people starving to death in hospitals, what with nurses telling them to stop eating all the time. Beneath the note is a list of care homes and I feel a sudden weight on my chest. Am I to go into one? I listen to Helen in the kitchen, to the innocent sound of cups being taken down from the cupboard. Would she? I look at the list more carefully. My hands are shaking. There are a few names with cross-throughs, and lots more with question marks. One or two of the cross-throughs have “NOE” next to them. What does that mean? NOE. It looks like my handwriting, but Helen’s is very like mine.
Mill Lane NOE
. Or perhaps more like NoE. North of England, perhaps. Is that where the home is? My God, that’s it. But how would I ever see Helen or Katy if I moved there? This one is crossed through, though, and maybe that’s why: too far away. I relax a little. Still, I don’t want to go into a home. Not yet. I’m not old enough. I must tell Helen. I must call her now and tell her. As I get up to find the phone the bits of paper fall from my lap on to the floor.

“Damn and blast,” I say, getting on to my knees to shuffle them together. My left hand won’t move. It’s covered in white bandages, though I can’t see why; it feels fine. Perhaps Katy was playing nurse again. Well, I can’t keep it like this. I pull at the end of the material and unwind it. A piece of plastic falls away as I do. The hand looks crumpled and pale. Katy did it too tight. I hope she doesn’t grow up to be a real nurse. I start to scoop up the bits of paper and a sharp pain shoots through my thumb. I cry out.

Helen rushes into the room. “What happened?” she says, breathless.

“My hand, my hand,” I say. Waving it at her. It doesn’t hurt so much now I’m not trying to use it, but the memory makes me rock about and wail.

“I told you not to take the bandage off,” Helen says. “Christ sakes, Mum.” She holds my wrist tightly and starts to wrap the material round again. “What are your notes doing on the floor?”

I look at the bits of paper; one has a list on it. “I don’t want to go into a home, Helen,” I say.

She stops winding. “You’re not going into one, Mum.”

I nod, but I can still see the list lying on the carpet. Helen looks, too.

“Oh, God. I thought you’d chucked that list away. That’s your old list,” she says. “For . . .” She stops and narrows her eyes. “Don’t you remember? What you were looking for?”

I have to tilt my head to frown at her, but my neck muscles are still tight from shock. What could I have been looking for? “Elizabeth,” I say, and I feel as if my limbs are suddenly lighter; my back straightens. “So it’s ‘no E.’ No Elizabeth.”

“Right.” She finishes safety-pinning my bandage and pulls the notes into a pile. “Only you don’t need these numbers any more, do you? And we were going to put the list in the recycling so you don’t call the care homes again.”

“Were we?” I say, snatching at the paper. “I think I’ll hang on to it for a bit, anyway.”

Helen tries to tug the list from my grasp, but I won’t let go and she soon gives up. “Well, that was a waste of time,” she says. “I’ll finish getting the tea.”

“And a little bit of toast?”

Toast was practically all Ma would allow me to eat that summer I was ill. Thin soup with dry toast; creamed rice for a treat. I knew I was nearly better the evening she brought me a little mutton chop.

“Though I don’t know how you deserve this,” she said, resting the tray on my lap. “What with all the bread and jam you had at breakfast.”

“I had porridge for breakfast, didn’t I?” I said, hardly paying attention, my mouth watering at the smell of the meat. “You gave it to me.”

“Yes, and then soon as I was out to the grocer’s you sneaked down for bread and jam. Half the loaf’s missing.”

“Ma, I didn’t—”

“Maud, love. You can have whatever you want, I’m glad you have an appetite again, but I have to plan what I’m going to do with our rations and—”

“Ma, really,” I said, chewing my first mouthful quickly and swallowing so I could defend myself properly. “I didn’t have the bread. It wasn’t me.”

“That’s funny. Can’t have been your father.” She moved my glass of milk a fraction and unfolded a tea towel for me to use as a napkin. “D’you think Douglas would take food? Doesn’t seem like him.”

It really didn’t seem like him, but there wasn’t another explanation. “I suppose he could have come back and made a sandwich to take on his late-morning rounds,” I said.

“I gave him a good breakfast, though,” Ma said, looking offended. “I never send him or your father off without that.”

I wiped my mouth and shrugged. “Perhaps he took it for someone else.”

“What, you mean he’s feeding someone? If he is, I’ll be wanting their coupons.”

“There was someone in the house,” I say, hanging on to the banisters. Why won’t anyone believe me?

“I do believe you, Mum,” Helen says. “But it was just a carer. A new carer, that’s all. She wasn’t a burglar. There was no need to call the police. Mind out the way, will you?”

She pushes by, and I watch her running a cloth along the skirting board. She leans and swishes her hands along, like some sort of athletics. Like those exercises we were supposed to do when we were young. Bending from the waist to keep trim. They always showed fields full of women doing them at the same time. Smiling. It never made me smile to do them.

Helen follows the skirting into the sitting room, and I follow her. “One two three four, one two three four. Keep smiling, girls.”

“What are you on about? God, it was embarrassing. Heaven knows what she thought. You accusing her like that. Telling everyone you were being robbed. By the carer,” she adds, when I look at her blankly.

“What would you do if you came down to breakfast and found a stranger in your kitchen?”

“Not a stranger, a carer.”

“Yes, yes, so she says. But how do I know she’s telling the truth? She could be anyone.”

Helen lets her hands drop to her sides and leaves the room. This is supposed to mean something. I push my toes into the carpet as I go after her, careful not to slip, careful. “I’m not safe in my own bed,” I say, though I’m losing track of what it is I’m in danger of. Surely it wouldn’t be possible to slip over when I’m in bed. “Helen, where exactly is it best to grow summer squash?” She doesn’t answer, and when I get to the hall it’s empty. “Oh, where have you gone?” I say. “Why d’you keep hiding?”

“I’m not hiding,” Helen says, coming out of the dining room. “I’m trying to get the soil off the walls. You’ve scuffed it over everything. Again. I don’t know how you manage it.”

She scrubs at a low bit of wall, moving up the stairs. I watch her heels on the steps, bouncing, and follow slowly, trying to place my feet in exactly the same position, trying for the same bounce. It’s better walking after another person. You can see how the steps work, and you can trust where they are when someone else has tested them first. I watch closely, but I don’t notice when she stops, and my shoulder bumps her on the hip.

“Oh, Mum, will you stop following me?” she says. “Stay in the kitchen, I’ll be back in a minute.”

I tramp back down and look out of the window. There’s a cat on the lawn and I try to open the kitchen door, but there’s something wrong with the handle. “You’ve left me open to attack here,” I say to Helen when she reappears. “With these flimsy locks. And this door is made of Bakelite or something, what’s the use of that?”

“The wooden one was rotted through. What was the use of that?”

“And I want that thing removed from outside the door. It spits the key out to anyone.”

“Not unless you have the code.”

“Well, someone’s been writing it down. Leaving it for burglars. I’ve got one of the notes here, look.” I find my bag and unzip the pockets; it’s awkward because my left hand’s bundled up in a sort of mitten, but soon I can push my right-hand fingers into the creases of fabric. Each one seems to be full of tissues, twisted like the limbs of trees and fraying into dust at the edges.

“How are the carers supposed to get in if we take the key safe away? And that’s your old bag, Mum. What are you looking for? There won’t be anything in there.”

She’s right: the only bit of paper in here is an envelope. Addressed to Elizabeth. Did I say I would post it to her? I must have forgotten. I hope it wasn’t anything important. I turn it over, trying to remember. There is a note taped to it:
From Elizabeth’s house
. And underneath:
Where is Elizabeth?

Where
is
Elizabeth? I look at the envelope sadly. I suppose I should send it on. But where to?

I’m craving apples as I push my finger into the corner of the envelope. The crisp paper tears at the crease, and soon it is past repair so I may as well open the letter properly. I rip the envelope flap into scruffy shapes. There’s just a slip inside, from the library. An overdue notice for a book. The library van has tried to collect it for the past few weeks. It is overdue by months and the fine is more than ten pounds. I feel funny about having opened it now. Post is property, and opening it is like breaking and entering. My postman father was always very definite about that, and he’d be furious if he could see me now. He nearly caught me opening a letter of Douglas’s once.

The address on that envelope, to “Mr. D. Weston,” was in Sukey’s handwriting. That’s what made me snatch it up from the kitchen table. Ma always left our post in a heap there; Douglas’s along with ours. I never got anything, except occasionally a postcard from Uncle Trevor or a note from Audrey, but I liked to look through the pile anyway, trying to work out who the letters were from. Ma’s sister, Rose, had pretty but messy handwriting, and Uncle Trevor’s was very black, with deep marks in the paper. Audrey always left blotches between her words, and I could picture the sides of her hands stained with ink. I knew Sukey’s writing of course, though she didn’t send us letters. It would have been a bit funny, seeing as she was only about ten streets away. I think we got one when she was on her honeymoon, but that was the only time.