The Astonishing Return of Norah Wells (5 page)

Norah stands in the hallway, her hair dripping, her eyes red. Louis looks up at her, his head cocked to the side.

‘I guess I deserved that, eh, Louis?' she says.

She notices that her hands are shaking.

When Ella left, Louis had stood for a while by the front door, and then he'd come back to join Norah.

She'll understand; she just needs a bit of time.

Norah climbs the stairs to the room she used to share with Adam. Louis pads behind her. In the bedroom, she goes to sit on the bed: it's new too, a big white sleigh bed straight out of a fairy tale. The bed she and Adam had shared was two singles pushed together. Norah had always felt the dip between them:
the rift valley,
she'd joked.

Louis stops outside the door and wags his tail.

‘Come on Louis!' She pats the bed beside her.

He doesn't move.

‘What's wrong?'

He yelps and shakes his head.

Norah looks at the white carpet and the white bedspread and the white curtains. They remind her of something. A sick feeling settles in her stomach, though she can't work out why.

‘Come on, buddy, you look like you could do with a nap.'

Norah and Louis used to take naps together while Willa slept and Ella was at school. Neither of them slept well at night. Norah listening for her girls waking up, needing her, Louis watching Norah to make sure she didn't sleepwalk. It was his job to find her and nudge her back to bed.

She'd missed those nights, the bedroom door left open, Louis sneaking in and settling between them: the biggest, softest hot water bottle in the world, Adam shifting in his sleep and moaning and telling her to kick the dog off the bed.

You're jealous of the dog?
She'd laughed. Except it hadn't been far from the truth.

Some nights Ella came in too, and with Willa asleep in the cot beside the bed they were all together, the five of them. At times like that she'd thought that maybe she could bear it, that Adam would wake up and see how amazing it was to have children, to be a family, that he'd fall in love with the girls like she had, but then, in the morning, she'd feel alone again, holding a thousand puppet-strings that yanked so hard she thought she'd split apart.

Had Adam slept here in the months after she left? Had Louis kept him company? And when did he take a new woman into his bed? God, had the girls come in when she was here, like they had with Norah?

She looks at Louis, his paws on the doorframe, his eyes shining.

‘Are you happy I'm home, Louis?'

He whines and bows his head.

She remembers the day she left, how Louis hadn't left her side, how he'd followed her around the house as she packed, watched her dig her trumpet out from under the stairs, walked with her to the front door and then, sensing that there was something wrong, he'd dumped his big body on the doormat. She'd kissed the top of his head and whispered
Look after them, Louis
, and then she'd stepped over him and left.

Norah had imagined the draught blowing past Louis as the door shut. As she'd turned round to look at the house one last time she'd seen him standing at the kitchen window, barking behind the glass like in a silent film. He must have seen the Miss Peggs coming out, beckoning Norah in, and then, a while later, when she came out again he was still at the window and he'd watched her walking down Willoughby Street for the last time.

It had taken all her resolve not to turn round and run back to him.

 

Louis twitches his tail and edges one paw over the threshold.

As he walks over she spots a photograph on Adam's bedside table. It's of him, the girls – and Fay.
If you need help, ask Fay, she'll know what to do
, that's what she'd written in her note. She's relieved to see that Adam had put aside his prejudices and taken the advice. When Norah left she knew that the girls would need Fay: a warm, female influence, the godmother she'd chosen for Ella. The one person she knew she could count on.

Norah lies down on the bed and stretches out her hand:

‘Louis?'

He leaps onto the bed, nuzzles in under Norah's arm and falls asleep.

The pocket of Willa's school skirt buzzes. She puts down her recorder, takes out her phone and reads the screen:

Ella gave Willa the mobile for Christmas. She bought it second hand on eBay.
This way we can always be in touch,
Ella told her.

They're not allowed mobiles at school, so the kids have got really good at keeping them hidden. If Willa wants to call Ella back, she'll have to go to the loo.

She puts up her hand and calls out, ‘Excuse me, Mr Mann?'

The classroom is full of high-pitched screeches from everyone's recorders, so it takes a while for Mr Mann to notice.

‘What is it, Willa?' Mr Mann calls above the noise. When he raises his voice it comes out high-pitched and squeaky like the recorders.

Willa stands up. ‘Can I go to the loo, please?'

‘To the ladies, Willa.' Mr Mann is big on manners.

‘To the ladies.'

‘It's nearly home time, can't you wait?'

‘I really need to go.' Willa grabs her crotch.

Mr Mann frowns and jerks his head to the door, which Willa takes as a cue to leave.

 

Willa sits on the loo, looks up Ella's number and presses
call
.

Ella answers on the first ring. ‘I need you to do something, Willa.'

Willa doesn't like the sound of Ella's voice: it's hard and jerky, like when she's talking to Mummy.

‘Okay.'

‘I'm not going to pick you up today.'

Willa grabs a straggly bit of her bob that's longer than all the other bits and puts it in her mouth.

‘Did you hear what I said, Willa?'

For a second, Willa chews her hair and then takes it out again. ‘So who's going to get me then?'

‘No one.'

‘You want me to walk home alone?' Willa's never done that before.

The loo seat feels cold under Willa's bum. She lets out a small trickle of pee and hopes that Ella doesn't hear because it's kind of gross to listen to someone peeing when you're talking to them on the phone.

‘Fay's coming.'

Ella calls Mummy Fay, which is what you do when you're older and want to sound cool. Willa doesn't think she'll ever want to call Mummy anything other than Mummy, even when she's as big as Ella.

‘But she'll be late,' Ella goes on. ‘And she'll probably come with someone.'

‘The No One Woman?'

‘The what?'

‘The woman we saw this morning, standing on the doorstep.' Willa's been thinking about the No One Woman all day. She's even asked Louis about her, but he's not being very talkative today. It was the Miss Peggs who taught Willa how to be psychic. They said it was easier for children and animals because they were closer to the spirit world. Except Louis doesn't always pay attention when she's trying to get in touch.

Willa's thought about how the woman looks just like Auntie Norah in the photos on Ella's wall. And if she's Auntie Norah, she's definitely not No One. She lived with Ella and Daddy before Willa was born and Ella loves her more than anyone in the world. Except for Willa. Ella always says she loves Willa best of all.

‘Yes, the No One Woman. Now, you need to concentrate on what I'm going to say next, Willa.'

Everyone's always saying that.
Concentrate, Willa. Listen, Willa. Don't daydream, Willa.

Willa rips off a bit of loo paper and wonders why it's hard and stiff, more like the tissue paper they use for art than the soft, padded, flowery-smelling loo paper Mummy buys.

‘Willa?'

‘Yes, I'm listening.'

‘When it's home time, I need you to wait outside the school gates – and to stay there, even if it takes ages for Fay to get you.'

‘How long's ages?' Willa wanted to get home early to check on Mrs Fox. She'll be giving birth soon, so Willa needs to prepare the den under the gooseberry bush.

Ella doesn't answer Willa's question. Instead, she says: ‘And when Mr Mann asks where Fay is, you need to make a real fuss.'

Ella's always trying to get Mummy in trouble.

Willa's tried to get Ella to explain why she doesn't like Mummy, but Ella won't say. Willa can't understand why anyone wouldn't love Mummy. Mummy is the warmest, kindest, most thoughtful person she's ever met, and when she's grown up she wants to be just like her.

‘But Mr Mann knows that you're the one who picks me up from school,' says Willa.

‘Well, tell him that I'm busy so Fay's coming instead.'

‘And No One Woman?'

‘Yes.' Ella pauses. ‘So you've got it, Willa? You need to act really upset. Make sure No One Woman feels guilty.'

‘Why would No One Woman feel guilty?'

‘It'll remind her of something.'

‘I don't understand.'

Ella sighs down the phone. ‘Just turn on the tears, okay? I'll explain later.'

When people say they'll explain later it's usually because they don't want to answer your question and hope that, by
later
, you'll have forgotten.

‘But I can't.' Willa has never been able to cry.

‘Pretend, like when you played Annie last Christmas.'

But playing Annie on stage isn't the same as being Willa at the school gates in front of Mummy and Mr Mann and No One Woman. Anyway, Willa wasn't any good at acting. She'd only been cast because she's got red hair and freckles and because they wanted her to bring Louis in to play the part of Sandy, Annie's dog.

‘You can call Fay, but you need to wait a bit, make sure she's really late. And when she turns up,' says Ella, ‘I want you to sulk.'

Willa's not very good at sulking either.

‘Willa?'

‘I'll try.'

‘Try hard. It's important.'

‘Why are you being so mean?'

‘I'm not. I just need you to do this. For me.'

Willa doesn't see how any of this is meant to help Ella.

‘Why can't you come and collect me?'

The going-home bell rings. It bounces off the tiles in the loo. Mr Mann will be wondering why Willa's taken so long. Mr Mann knows that sometimes Willa needs to be reminded where she's meant to be and what she's meant to be doing.

‘I'm going out,' says Ella.

‘Out where?'

‘Nowhere.'

If it were nowhere, Ella wouldn't be going to all this trouble. And anyway, Willa knows where Ella means. She means she's going to Sai's, which Daddy has
expressly forbidden
.

Willa hears the squeak of Mr Mann's shiny black shoes in the corridor outside. He's not allowed to come into the ladies because he's a man, just like he has to go out of the room when they get changed for gym.

‘Willa? Are you in there?' he calls.

‘I've got to go, Ella,' Willa whispers.

‘Who are you talking to?' asks Mr Mann.

‘No one.' Willa puts her mobile away, flushes the loo and comes out.

‘What have you been doing all this time?'

Willa thinks this is a bit of a rude question. She's on the loo – it's obvious what she's been doing.

‘Nothing. I lost track of time.'

‘Willa Wells – away with the fairies again.' Mr Mann shakes his head but he smiles too. ‘Well, you missed the end of music. Come and put your recorder away.'

Willa follows Mr Mann's squeaky shoes back to the classroom.

Ella takes the bus to the recycling plant.

As soon as she finished her phone call with Willa, she texted Dad:
Call me. It's urgent. Ella.
But he hasn't replied. She has to tell him what happened with Mum and make sure that he gets her to leave before Fay comes home from her shift – and before Willa gets back from school. Up until now, she's hated Fay's family meetings, because most of them were about Ella having done something wrong. She'd suggested, once, that they should rename them
sort out Ella meetings
. No one had found it funny. Anyway, she wants one now. A meeting with just the four of them – Dad, Fay, Ella and Willa (and Louis, he's always at the meetings) – a meeting with only one item on the
agenda
, as Fay calls it: getting Mum to go back to wherever it is she came from.

Ella folds her arms. A fat, ugly crow has settled in her stomach and it's flapping and squawking and pushing against her ribcage.

As soon as Ella steps off the bus at the bottom of the hill, she's hit by the smell of rubbish being churned through the plant and the noise from the machines that shred people's thrown-away lives. She remembers coming here with Mum when she was little, how they both held their noses and made faces and rolled their eyes and laughed until their sides hurt. They always laughed at the same things.

At least Dad gets to work in an office now, one of the many changes since Fay turned up and took over. At the time, it used to make Ella feel sick, how Fay tried to rub Mum out of their lives. Now she realises that Fay was right – Ella should have forgotten about Mum and moved on like everyone else.

She takes out her phone. There are more tweets from her followers, the people around the world who've helped her look for Mum.

She's lucky to have you
:
that's what @onmymind tweeted three hours ago. Before Ella found Mum at home.

There are some responses to the tweet she's just sent about it being her worst day ever.

Ella looks for a message from @blackislight. She's a goth so she's a bit gloomy and cynical, and sometimes writes things which upset Ella – like that Ella should forget about Mum and move on, but this time Ella wants to read her. At least she won't give her any crap about giving Mum a chance.

Wow. Don't hope? Ella's been living on nothing but hope. But @blackislight's right, isn't she? From now on Ella will stop expecting good things to happen. She'll live one day at a time. She'll stop hoping.

Ella retweets @blackislight's message and puts away her phone.

Then she walks up to the secretary sitting at the desk outside Dad's office.

‘I've come to see Dad.'

After looking Ella up and down, the secretary's eyes settle on the Holdingwell Academy crest on her jumper. ‘Shouldn't you be at school?'

‘I'm sick.'

The secretary raises her plucked eyebrows.

‘I've been sent home.'

As she dials the extension to Dad's office, the secretary swivels her chair away from Ella and makes the call. She cups her hand over the mouthpiece and whispers.

When she turns back, she says, ‘I'm afraid he's in a meeting.'

The crow flaps in Ella's stomach.

‘Tell him it's his daughter. It's urgent.'

‘He's very busy.'

The crow flaps harder.

‘You spoke to him?'

‘Yes…'

‘So the meeting can't be that important, not if he's answering the phone.'

The secretary looks at Ella and blinks. ‘He said he's not to be disturbed.'

Ella ignores the secretary and crashes through the door to his office. ‘Dad!'

He's sitting at his desk, looking like death.

‘I went home,' says Ella.

Dad stares at Ella, his eyes wide. The vein on his forehead pokes out.

‘Oh Ella —'

‘She wasn't kidnapped. Or murdered. She
left
, Dad. She walked out on us.'

Dad stares at her.

And then it hits Ella. All those years of trying to get Ella to back down, to move on, to stop her stupid @findingmum campaign.

‘You knew, didn't you?'

He doesn't answer.

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘We tried —'

‘
We
?'

‘Fay and I tried to explain —'

‘This has nothing to do with Fay. This is about you, Dad. This is about you lying to me.'

Dad gets up, comes round the desk and pulls out a chair.

‘Please sit down, Ella. We can talk about this rationally.'

Ella ignores the chair. ‘You lied to me.'

Dad leans against his desk.

‘You wouldn't listen.'

‘You should have tried harder.'

He reaches a hand out to Ella. She steps back.

‘Why did she leave?' Ella hears the wobble in her voice.

Dad drops his hand to his side. Mum's only been home for a few hours and already he looks like the old Dad, shrunken and sad – and weak. Ella blamed Fay for changing him, but now she gets it: Fay helped him. She'd helped them all. After all these years of thinking that if Mum came home everything would be better, it hits Ella as clear as day: Mum leaving was the best thing that ever happened to them.

‘She left because I wasn't good enough.'

‘Good enough
at what
?'

‘It's complicated.'

‘That's not an answer.'

‘No, I don't suppose it is. I wasn't good enough at being a husband. At being a dad – I never grew up.'

‘That's not true, Dad —'

Adam looks right at Ella. ‘And you know what the worst bit was? I was too blind to see it. That's why she had to leave.'

Ella wants to hug Dad, to tell him that whatever it is Mum made him think about himself, it's rubbish. That you don't walk out on your family. Not ever. It doesn't matter how bad things get, you stick it out. But she wants to scream at him too. For not forcing her to face the truth, for letting her carry on with this whole ridiculous search.

‘I hate her.'

‘Please, Ella —'

‘What? You going to try to defend her? Explain how there's a single good reason to abandon your kids?'

‘I need you to calm down, I need you to understand…' he reaches out and touches a strand of her hair. He'd always done that, ever since she was little. She thought it made him think of Mum. It's one of the reasons she'd grown it: she thought it would help Dad remember Mum.

‘It's going to be okay, Ella. I'll work it out. We'll work it out together.'

‘It's not going to be okay.' Ella clenches her fists. ‘Not until you tell her to leave.'