The Amazing Mind of Alice Makin (15 page)

‘You all right, dear?'

Mrs Gilbey looks uncomfortable. Pink-faced. Dewy-lipped. Dabs a handkerchief. Doesn't seem to be herself. I nod and smile, but inside I'm nervous. I shouldn't be. After all, it's only my mum we're visiting in hospital and she's not really even ill or anything.

‘I bet you'll be glad to see her?'

I nod again.

She fiddles with the rings on her fingers. Twists and turns them. Normally she gives off calm like a slow, shy sea sucking on a sandy beach. Today she seems fidgety.

‘Mum is all right, isn't she, Emma?'

She smiles. ‘Right as rain.'

She looks at her watch as the number 78 crawls into view. There's a small cheer – then, as we see it's already nearly full, a not-so-small moan. The queue shuffles forward.

‘A few little complications, that's all. That's why they've got her in early. Get her resting. Your mum does too much.'

We get to the platform of the bus. I grab the rail and swing on. Hold out my hand to Mrs Gilbey. She takes it and we're on. Downstairs is full. We corkscrew up the sharply winding stairs. Before we can sit down the conductor rings the bell and the bus lurches off. We both half fall into the last two empty seats.

‘She needs to get off her feet a bit.'

I nod. Feel guilty, as if it's my fault she doesn't get off her feet a bit. I've got the window seat. Look out and down on the people below.

‘It will be different for you when she has the baby and comes home, you know. Babies have a habit of taking over, becoming the centre of attention.'

She says it like it will be a problem, but it won't be. I'm hardly the centre of attention now, so the baby isn't going to make any difference. All the same, the tone of her voice makes me feel uneasy, like she's trying to warn me about something.

The number 78 from Aldgate to Cambridge Heath stops and starts as it hiccups its way to the hospital. Mrs Gilbey looks at her watch too much. The way people do when they're not really looking at the time at all. The conductor whistles up the stairs. Sways expertly to the rhythm of the bus. Dances in perfect time to its movement. Swings down the aisle punching out tickets, calling everybody ‘love' or ‘mate'.

When Mum told me about the baby it felt odd. As if it was nothing to do with me and she was telling me just to be polite. She didn't seem to be able to find the right words, acted as if it was something complicated. It wasn't. It was simple. She was going to have a baby. I was going to have a brother or sister.

We both sit in silence on the rocking, jerking bus that is tired of being a bus and wants to be a horse in a Wild West rodeo. I expect her to ask me about Reggie. She
doesn't. I'm glad, I've gone over every detail I can remember of what has happened since he moved in and came to our school. Turned my mind into a laboratory. Dissected each incident. Put it under the microscope of my memory to see if there are any clues. Any vital piece of information I might have missed. Anything he has said or done that'll help me get to the truth.

I wonder what Sherlock Homes would do in my position. Not much, probably. He was lucky. He only ever had to solve real problems. Track down flesh-and-blood people. I bet no one ever talked to him about mind-touching. All he had to worry about was good old Moriarty, or perhaps that should be bad old Moriarty.

After a few weeks I shut up the laboratory. Give my mind and my memory a rest. Trouble is, you start to remember things that never actually happened. You begin to fit things together that don't fit.

The hospital is a big old Victorian building – a red brickwork cake in a marzipan of grime. I look up. A hundred windows look back down. I wonder which one of those rooms Mum is in.

Mrs Gilbey buys some flowers from a stall. Then we go in and face a warren of angled corridors; a maze of doors and turnings, more doors and more turnings. I know now how a rabbit feels. The smell of cooking hangs like an invisible fog. We wade through yesterday's menus: stale liver and bacon, rice and custard.

Mrs Gilbey knows the way. Clutching the flowers, she walks purposefully until we reach Saint Katherine Ward. She nods at the nurse sitting by the door as we go in, who stops writing and smiles at us.

Mum is lying in a bed at the far end of the ward. Her hair is down, and twists in long curls over the pillow. I feel my step quicken. I want to run. To throw myself at her. I make myself walk. Try not to look at the other patients. Just focus on her.

As I get closer I can see that her eyes are shut. I stop. She looks thinner. Her face is white. Dark shadows underline her eyes, half-moons of tiredness.

The window by her bed is open. A breeze breathes gently in, rearranging the curtains. Mrs Gilbey hushes me with a finger on her lips. On cue, Mum's eyes flicker open. She smiles.

‘Hello, love. How are you?' She reaches forward to kiss me. ‘Let's have a look at you. My, you've grown.'

I get embarrassed. ‘Come off it, Mum. You only saw me three weeks ago.'

‘Proper little beauty, isn't she, Emma?'

Mrs Gilbey smiles. Nods. I go red.

‘Thanks for bringin' her.' She holds out her hand to me. I take it. Sit by the bed.

Mrs Gilbey says, ‘I'll put these in water, Mary.'

Mum sees the flowers. Yellow and white. An armful of sun. ‘Oh, you shouldn't have. They're lovely. Cheer the place up.'

Mrs Gilbey goes off in search of a vase and water.

Mum asks the usual questions about school, about me. I feel nervous. Talk too much. I always do when I'm nervous. One of the nurses gives me a look on the way to another patient. Then another on the way back. I stop talking. It suddenly occurs to me that Mrs Gilbey has been gone a long time. Mum moves to sit up. I help her plump up her pillows.

‘Thanks, love.' She looks at me. ‘Alice . . .' Stops. Can't make up her mind about something. ‘I asked Mrs Gilbey to fetch you in for a reason.' Then, as if she didn't mean it to come out like that, ‘I wanted to see you, of course, but there is something else. Something important I need to tell you.' She pats the bed. ‘Come and sit closer.'

I do. She strokes my hand.

‘Dad wanted me to tell you as soon as I found out I was expecting, but you know how things are. So much to do. Time just runs away with you.' She grins ruefully. ‘Thing is, I thought I'd have time. Didn't expect to end up in here. Still, a bit of high blood pressure isn't the end of the world, is it?'

I feel like I'm waiting for something to happen. It's a feeling I don't like. She goes on stroking my hand.

‘Then I was going to tell you just before I came in, but that was all a bit of a panic, wasn't it? Still, no excuses. I should have done it before now.'

She's making me feel worried.

‘What is it, Mum? Is something wrong?'

‘No, nothing's wrong. I'm a bit tired, but that's to be expected.'

Her fingers pick at the edges of the sheet. She fidgets. Doesn't seem to be comfortable. I wonder if my weight on the bed is getting too heavy for her.

‘D'you want me to move?'

‘No, you're all right. This all took us a bit by surprise, you know. Expect you noticed that.'

She goes quiet. ‘The thing is, I was told a long time ago . . .'

She says the words slowly as if I'm doing some exam and she's giving me clues to the answers. ‘A long time ago, I had to have an op . . . I was nineteen. Always wanted a big family.' She looks away. ‘I got ill, went to see a doctor. I had to go into hospital. They fixed me up all right, but told me that I couldn't have children; that I'd never be able to have a child.'

She stops, as if I should have understood the clues. Passed the exam.

‘I was devastated, love. Good word that, devastated, like an end of the world word, ain't it.'

She smiles but it's not a real smile, it's a tired, sad smile.

‘When I came out of hospital an old aunt who lived in the country said I could go and stay with her until I got a bit stronger. Kent it was, by the hop fields. Beautiful after all the bombing in London. So quiet and peaceful. And in the next village was an orphanage. Couldn't believe it. There I was next door to all those poor mites. It was then
that I had the idea. If I couldn't have kids of my own then I‘d work with them, help look after them.'

I feel her hand squeeze mine tightly. Mrs Gilbey has been gone too long.

‘I did really well. I was a natural, the matron said, all the kids loved me. So I decided to stay and make a life for myself there. That was me all done and dusted, life planned out, or so I thought.' She stops. Starts talking quickly like she's nervous.

‘Then one day they brought you in. You were such a lovely little thing. Red hair, big blue eyes and so cheeky. You'd been caught up in a bombing raid in London. The house was smashed to pieces, but they found you still alive. Took you to a hospital in London to patch you up, then down to us. State you were in, love; still had bruises like dinner plates – and cry – I never heard anything like it. You could have screamed for England, I can tell you. No one could get you to stop, except me. We just took to each other I suppose. Ended up I was the only one you would go to. Knew your own mind even then, you did. After a while I had this idea. I had a chat with Matron; real nice she was. Said it was against the rules as long as I worked at the orphanage, but things were still so bad, with people being bombed out of their houses, getting killed in the air raids or away fighting, that what rules there were no one took a lot of notice of.'

I can hear every word that she's saying, but they have no meaning. It's as if there's a dam between us and the words
are building up like water on her side.

‘Are you listening, Alice?'

I nod.

‘D'you see what I'm saying, love? D'you understand?'

She waits for me to react. I don't.

‘I had to leave, but that didn't matter. We were together. I came back to London after the war and tried to start a new life for both of us. Wasn't easy; money was short. I was near to my wits' end at times. But we were together and that's all that mattered.

‘We struggled on for a few years until I met your dad. D'you remember that day? You were still only a little tot – about four – and animal mad! I had gone into the shop in Burdett Road; you stayed to stroke some old dog. When I came out there was this man talking to you. Think you were a bit scared, not used to men, but he seemed nice enough. I thought no more of it, but a few weeks later we were in the park, and blow me down, there he was again. He said it was fate. Like it was meant to be. We got chatting, one thing led to another . . .

‘I thought it would be good for you to have a dad: someone you could look up to. Someone to look after you. I know things ain't that good between you and him at the moment, but it wasn't always like it, was it?'

Her face brightens.

‘Here, d'you remember that time when he hid those pennies around the house, then made up the story about buried treasure? You were just a tot then. Really good story
it was. Then he drew you that map and you had to find the treasure. Your face lit up when you found them pennies. It was a picture.'

The smile goes from her face and it's like it's going from inside her as well.

‘I don't know why it all changed. Why did it all have to change?'

Her words trail off. There's a long silence. All I can hear is the ticking of a clock that I can't see. She tries to talk. Spaces get in the way of her words; words that don't want to be said.

‘I never wanted to tell you any of this, love. I thought it would make our family . . . less real. Dad wasn't happy about that. He said that now the baby was coming you'd have to know that you weren't my real child . . .'

She looks at her hands, screws them together.

She stops. Words trail into silence. There are no words in the world to finish a sentence that starts like that. It's like someone has just stolen part of my life. Told me I'm not me any more. I'm a lie. I don't belong to anyone. I'm floundering in thoughts. Struggling with questions. ‘But what about my dad – my real dad? And who is my real mum?'

Mum doesn't look at me. She's picking at the bedclothes.

‘I'm sorry, love. There's something else you have to know. When they found you in the ruins of that house there were no other survivors. Your mum . . .' She stops,
stares at the limp curtains by the bed. ‘Your real mum and dad must have been killed.'

I look around. I just want to get out. Suddenly the air is choking me. The walls are growing, towering over me. I'm a dot. A speck of dust in the room. The voices around me telescope into a whisper. Still the walls grow. Throbbing. Words drown me.

‘. . . but I love you, I love you like you're my own flesh and blood. Don't you ever forget that. I'll always love you like you was my child.'

Everything stops. Nothing moves. The curtain sways and is still. The pounding in my ears stops. I look at my mum as if for the first time. Look at her but see someone who isn't my mum. I watch as two tears fill the edges of her eyes, then brim over.

I hear myself. I hear a voice I don't recognize as mine. A still, small voice.

‘But I thought . . . I thought I
was
your child, Mum.'

I feel a hand on my shoulder. I know it's Mrs Gilbey.

‘Are you all right, Alice?' she says quietly.

I can't talk. There's only one thing I can think of doing. She tries to stop me but can't. Nobody could. I push past her.

I'm running. Through the warren of corridors leading to more corridors. Through doors opening out on to more doors. Going on for ever. I don't know where I'm going. I don't care. I run like the wind. I run like an animal fleeing from a predator. Like in a nightmare. Running. Running
to get away from danger. I hear Mum call me.