The Girl Who Never Came Back (3 page)

Silence fell between the two women for a moment.

"Sorry," Charlotte added, realizing that maybe she'd gone too far. "I didn't mean to push."

Without replying, Ruth turned another page in her magazine.

Sighing, Charlotte turned and looked back over toward the river. She expected to spot Sophie still playing in the grass, but her niece was nowhere to be seen. For a fraction of a second, a spark of concern leaped through Charlotte's chest, before she reminded herself not to be as precious and domineering as her sister. Sophie was an intelligent young girl, and Charlotte knew that she needed to be granted a little freedom. The poor girl probably had enough trouble with her over-protective parents, without needing an over-protective aunt to make things worse. Waiting for a moment to see Sophie bob back into view, Charlotte eventually decided to force herself not to be so goddamn attentive.

Leaning back in her lawn chair and trying to ignore the loud, screaming silence emanating from her sister, Charlotte finally realized that there was no way she could relax. With a faint sigh, she got to her feet, muttered something about going to check on lunch, and started to make her way toward the house. Arguments with Ruth could be fun, but they were also emotionally draining, and Charlotte often felt pretty dirty and moody once they were over. She knew that the best thing to do would be just to remove herself from the arena for a few minutes. As she reached the kitchen door, she glanced back at the river, hoping to spot Sophie somewhere down there. There was no sign of the girl, however. Pausing for a moment, Charlotte reminded herself not to be as panicky as her sister. Figuring that Sophie was just out of sight, probably playing on the tow-path, she headed inside.

Twenty years ago

"You did not!" Ruth shouted, her bright blue eyes filled with pure fury. "You're a liar!"

"I did
so
go and see the witch," Charlotte snapped back, determined to wind her sister up as much as possible. She already knew that she was going to be ratted out to their mother, so she figured she'd have to get her revenge the only way she knew how: by pushing every one of Ruth's buttons until, hopefully, her sister's head would finally explode in a fit of pique. "She gave me a hairbrush and told me to tell you to stop being so mean!"

"You're not funny, you know," Ruth continued. "You're not even smart. You're just being stupid all the time, like it's some kind of hobby!"

"No," Charlotte replied, "you just -"

"You think you're being funny when you say stupid things," Ruth added, clearly warming to her theme, "but really you're just being an idiot. Everyone thinks it, Charlotte. You're the only one who thinks all these stupid things are actually impressive. Everyone else just thinks you're a little idiot."

"Actually -"

"They all laugh at you behind your back," Ruth continued. "Everyone always talks about how stupid you are. They make fun of you and say that you're really stupid." She paused, getting a little out of breath. "They can all see right through you. Even Daddy!"

"Shut up about Daddy," Charlotte replied, as the pain continued to rumble in her belly. Something was wrong, but she didn't know what.

"Daddy thought you were stupid too," Ruth said with a cruel smile. "I heard Daddy talking to Mummy one day, and he was saying that he thought you were
really
dumb and that you'd probably always be dumb and you'd grow up to just be a big dumb -"

"Shut
up
!" Charlotte shouted, lunging at her sister and knocking her down onto the living room floor, before trying to pin her arms to the carpet. "Shut up!" she shouted again. "You're so -"

Before she could finish, Ruth slammed her knee into Charlotte's stomach and pushed her away, quickly following through with a kick to Charlotte's leg.

"Mummy!" Ruth shouted. "Charlotte's hitting me again!"

Charlotte turned to Ruth, ready to punch her, but at the last moment she heard the door open.

"What's going on in here?" her mother shouted. "Charlotte, what are you doing to your sister?"

"Nothing," Charlotte growled.

"She hit me," Ruth said, getting to her feet and running over to the door, while rubbing her hand over an imaginary injury on her arm. "She hit me twice because I told her she was being stupid when she jumped into the water today."

"Is that true?" her mother asked, rolling Ruth's sleeve up. "I don't see anything, darling," she said calmly, before turning to Charlotte. "Did you strike your sister?"

"No!" Charlotte shouted, close to tears but determined not to let her emotions show. "She's lying!"

"She jumped in the river," Ruth said. "Smell her hair. She stinks. And then she wanted to hide it by brushing her hair, but she didn't have a hairbrush so she went to the cave because she said that imaginary witch could give her one."

Charlotte took a deep breath, trying to hold back her tears.

"Charlotte, is this true?" her mother asked.

Although she knew she should lie and claim that none of it happened, she also didn't want to give Ruth the satisfaction of thinking she'd caused her to get into trouble. She figured she might as well just own up to everything and show them both that she wasn't ashamed.

"I just wanted to go swimming," she muttered, already painfully aware that she was losing this argument. It was at times like this that her mother and sister seemed to gang up and work together to make her feel as if she was an outsider, and she was already starting to feel hot and sweaty at the thought of being looked down upon yet again.

"Okay, Ruth," their mother said after a moment with a weary sigh, "why don't you go to the kitchen and get some juice or something."

"But -"

"Please, Ruth."

Obediently, Ruth turned and headed to the door, but not without glancing back at Charlotte and flashing a self-satisfied smile that made it clear she felt extremely pleased with herself. Yet again, she'd managed to win the day and leave Charlotte looking like the bad sister.

"So what's this all about," their mother said once Ruth was out of the room. Fixing Charlotte with a strict, stern gaze, she waited for an answer. "You're eight years old," she continued eventually, "and yet you still spend your time willfully disobeying my rules and going on about some kind of ridiculous fantasy -"

"There's a witch in the cave," Charlotte whined, with tears rolling down her cheeks. "There
is
! Just because you haven't seen her, doesn't mean she's not there!"

"And you've seen her, have you?"

Charlotte paused. "Not really."

"Then how do you know she's there?"

"I've heard her," Charlotte continued, aware that she was losing the argument. "I've dreamed about her."

"And do you think dreams are real?"

Charlotte took a deep breath. She hated the way she always started crying when she was being told off. She felt that her more adventurous side had abandoned her, leaving her timid side to face the music. She tried to say something, but her voice was filled with tears and she knew there was nothing she could say or do to change her mother's mind.

"I give up," her mother said after a moment. "If you want to live in a childish fantasy world filled with stupidity, then by all means, go ahead. You'll regret it one day, my girl, but by then it'll be too late. Do you understand? You're supposed to keep moving forward in life, but I can't stop you if you want to go backward, Charlotte. There's only so much I can do to save you from yourself, and I can't keep wearing myself out, trying to make you change."

Charlotte closed her eyes, trying in vain to stop the tears from escaping. She suddenly felt completely exposed and dumb, as if her mother's words were stripping away the very last of her armor. Her mother always had a way of making her feel dumb, and once again it was working. Wiping her face, she finally opened her eyes and realized that her mother was staring at her from the other side of the room.

"I'm sorry," Charlotte sobbed, her bottom lip wobbling. "I just -"

"Sorry doesn't cut it," her mother replied. "Not this time. If you want to live in a fantasy world where a witch lives in a cave at the bottom of the garden, I can't stop you. Just don't blame me when you finally realize that you've made a horrible mistake. And when your sister is living a full and happy live as a grown-up and you're emotionally stunted, don't expect me to apologize for being a horrible mother, because God knows I've tried to help you." She paused. "Go to your room, Charlotte. I'm sick of the sight of you for today. I'll call you down when it's time for dinner."

"Can I eat in my room?" Charlotte asked.

"If you like," her mother replied. "I don't care."

After pausing for a moment, Charlotte turned and ran through to the hallway before making her way upstairs as fast as possible and finally bounding into her room, pushing the door shut and collapsing in a heap of tears onto the bed. She hated herself for crying, and she felt as if Ettolrahc must be completely disappointed. Rolling onto her back, barely able to see a thing through the tears that filled her eyes, she stared at the ceiling and tried to find her adventurous half. All she felt, however, were the wails and cries of her timid half, and no matter how long she waited and how hard she looked, it was as if her adventurous half - by far her
best
half - had deserted her completely, no doubt disgusted by her inability to stop crying.

"Come back," she whispered through the tears. "Please, I'm sorry, come back."

She waited, but even though time passed and the room became darker as the afternoon sun began to dip in the sky, no-one came. Although she turned and looked at her shadow, she soon realized that the only movement came from the rise and fall of her own chest as she breathed; Ettolrahc wasn't playing or dancing or doing anything at all. Dry-eyed, Charlotte turned and stared at the ceiling and realized that there was only one voice in her head. The other voice had completely vanished. It was as if, disgusted by Charlotte's tears, Ettolrahc had vanished entirely.

Today

"You wind her up on purpose," Tony said as he chopped a cucumber for the salad. Glancing over at Charlotte, he smiled for a moment before looking back down at the chopping board. "You know all the right buttons to push."

"She's my sister," Charlotte replied, taking a lettuce leaf from the bowl and nibbling the end. "We invented each other's buttons." She paused for a moment, feeling a sudden sensation of concern, as if a shadow had passed momentarily over her heart. Blinking a couple of times, she realized that the sensation had faded just as quickly as it had arrived. "Anyway," she added, "she likes it, or why would she invite me to come and visit every fucking weekend?"

"True," Tony admitted.

"Then again," Charlotte continued, "the invitations have increased tenfold since you-know-who came to live with you. I know Ruth likes to have me as a buffer against Mum, but I still think it's more than that. I think she likes being pissed off at me. It's her only hobby. Believe me, Tony, my sister is a messed-up woman. I guess someone should've warned you before you married her, huh?"

"I'd figured it out by the end of my first date with her," he said with a smile.

"I wouldn't let her hear you say that," Charlotte muttered, liking this slightly spiky side of Tony's personality. He always seemed so put-upon and obedient, slavishly acceding to Ruth's every whim while working long hours to keep the family's finances buoyant, but good old Tony was capable of a few sneaky comments here and there. Charlotte was starting to think that she saw a side of him that Ruth never even suspected. Tony was a man who wore jumpers, and there usually seemed to be little more to his personality than the question of what color jumper he happened to be wearing on any given day. Lately, however, Charlotte was starting to feel as if she'd been wrong to write him off so easily.

Looking out the window for a moment, Tony narrowed his eyes a little. "Where's Sophie?" he asked suddenly.

"Playing."

"Where?"

"Dunno," Charlotte said with a shrug. "Just... playing?"

"She's not on the lawn," Tony replied.

"Down by the river?" She turned and followed his gaze, and although she couldn't see her niece anywhere, she was quite certain that she couldn't have gone very far.

"Huh," Tony muttered, before glancing to her. "Does Ruth know?"

"My overprotective sister?" Charlotte paused. "God knows. Doesn't she have some kind of alarm that goes off whenever Sophie's more than ten feet away?"

"Don't give her ideas."

"If such a thing existed, she'd buy it."

"That's what worries me," Tony muttered.

"Don't worry so much," Charlotte replied with a sigh. "You're as bad as Ruth sometimes. Sophie's not an idiot. She won't..." She paused for a moment. "She's smarter than I was at her age," she continued eventually, "if that's what you're worried about." She watched as Tony continued to make the salad. "Ruth referred to me as the special one again," she added eventually. "Is that my new nickname?"

Tony smiled.

"
Is
it?"

"She's not a witch, you know," Tony said after a moment. "She's got a good heart. Things just sometimes come out a little wrong, that's all. All she cares about is Sophie. That girl is her world. Sometimes I think we should have had some more children, just to ease the pressure on Sophie a little."

"And you think that obsession is healthy?" Charlotte asked, picking up the cucumber stump. She ran her fingers over the tip for a moment, hoping that Tony would notice. Although he was a good man, and a fiercely loyal husband to Ruth, Tony was a chronic masturbator, and Charlotte occasionally amused herself by using mildly provocative words and actions to send her brother-in-law mumbling off to the bathroom, where he'd spend five minutes alone before emerging with some vague comment about a bad stomach. She knew she was being cruel, but Charlotte still enjoyed playing this little trick on poor, oblivious Tony.

"Do you want to know Ruth's approach to being a mother?" Tony replied, putting the knife down and turning to her. His eyes briefly settled on the cucumber tip in Charlotte's hands, and he was obviously a little uncomfortable. "Whenever she's not sure what to do," he continued, "she just tries to imagine what your mother would have done in that situation, and then she does the exact opposite. A complete one hundred and eighty degree march the other way."

"Sounds sensible," Charlotte said, before looking up at the ceiling as she heard a chair leg shifting in one of the rooms upstairs. "Mum was never much good at anything," she added, "apart from drinking, shrieking and going to church. We both recognized her deficiencies when we were younger, but maybe Ruth twigged a little sooner."

"She blames her, you know," Tony replied.

"For what?"

"For what happened to you." He paused, as slow, shuffling footsteps made their way across the bedroom floor directly above the kitchen. "Ruth thinks it all boils down to Helen being inattentive and disorganized, and believe me, when the red wine has been flowing of an evening, she's not shy about voicing her opinion loudly, broadcasting it to the whole house."

"Seriously?"

He nodded. "She ends up strutting around the sofa, lecturing the rest of us about how
awful
life was in this place back when you were children. She doesn't even notice half the time that your mother's nodded off. She just keeps on ranting, gesticulating wildly with her hands as if she's on-stage at the Old Vic. Maybe you'll get a glimpse of it tonight, if you're really lucky."

"Jesus," Charlotte muttered, already starting to tense up now that she knew her mother was coming down to join them. "I had no idea that things were so bad between them."

"Many's the argument that's raged into the wee small hours," Tony continued. "I think she deliberately doesn't do it when you're here, but on those weekends when you don't come to visit, all hell usually breaks loose. Ruth's got a real temper when she drinks, and she lays into your mother with a kind of ferocity that can be really shocking. I usually have to gently persuade her to come up to bed. Pour a few gins down her throat, that sort of thing, then settle her in, wait until she's passed out, come down, escort your mother to her room, check on Sophie, and then finally, do you know what I do?"

Charlotte shook her head innocently.

"I come down to the empty living room," he continued with a faint smile, "and I pour myself a whiskey, just one, and I drink it alone, in silence. Nothing could be sweeter."

"I can understand Ruth bashing Mum, though," Charlotte pointed out, glancing at the door to the hallway as she heard her mother making her way down the stairs. "Christ," she muttered, "here comes Lady Macbeth, right on cue."

"Where's Sophie?" her mother called out, her voice old and frail but filled with indignation. "Sophie? Where are you, sweetheart? Granny's got something for you!"

"She's outside playing," Charlotte replied, taking a frustrated bite of an asparagus spear.

"Where? Where's she playing?"

"Outside."

"Where outside?" As she reached the bottom of the stairs and shuffled into view, supported by her walking frame, Helen glared at her daughter. "Is someone keeping an eye on her?"

"Yes, Mum," Charlotte replied.

"Who?"

"God."

Sighing, her mother pushed her walking frame to the kitchen table and, with a series of pained gasps, lowered herself into a seat. "It's okay," she muttered eventually, "don't try to help me. It's good for me to battle on alone. Your father would be shocked, though. He'd wonder what kind of a daughter we'd raised, that she doesn't even come and offer her mother a little assistance." Reaching down, she felt her swollen ankles. "Oh, the pain," she said quietly, but just loud enough to be heard. "Sometimes I don't know what I'm going to do."

"I know what you're gonna do," Charlotte whispered under her breath.

"Lunch should be ready soon," Tony replied.

"The pain," her mother continued, clearly determined to discuss her health. "It's so bad today."

Smiling, Tony grabbed the sherry bottle from nearby and placed it on the kitchen table. "Would you like a drink, Helen?" he asked, already knowing the answer as he fetched a glass from the cabinet.

"Do you think it might help with my ankles?" Charlotte's mother asked, her milky eyes already fixed on the bottle.

"I think it might," Tony replied with well-rehearsed sincerity. It was a routine that they went through every day, as Helen sought to make it clear that she wasn't drinking out of
choice
, but because she required the medicinal effects of a glass of sherry. Several glasses, in fact, and she was usually pretty wasted by the end of lunch. Everyone in the house, including her mother, was happy with this arrangement.

"Go on, then," she said, her frail, shaking hands gripping the bottle and removing the lid before she poured herself a glassful that went all the way to the rim. "I'll try it and see if it helps. You never know, do you, until you give something a whirl."

"Careful you don't pickle yourself," Charlotte muttered.

"What's that?" her mother asked as she took a sip. "Oh, that's good sherry," she added, acting as if the taste was unfamiliar. Sliding the bottle closer, she examined it closely, as if she'd never seen such a thing before. "Very good indeed. Where did you get this from, Anthony?"

"The same place he gets it from every day," Charlotte whispered. "Your regular fucking supplier."

"They have it in the supermarket," Tony replied, barely able to keep from smiling. "I can get some more if you like it, Helen."

"Oh, not on my account," she replied a little haughtily. "I just thought it might help with my ankles. That's all. They've been so swollen lately, I can barely even sleep at night." Wincing at the pain, she reached down and rubbed the swellings again, as if somehow she thought that might help. "I'm lucky not to be bedridden," she added. "Dr. Jasper gave me some pills, but I don't know if they do anything. Nothing seems to change much, but then maybe they'd be even worse without the pills. It's so hard to know, and that doctor, I think he's from India, and as much as I want to trust him, I find it terribly difficult. Not because of race, you understand, but because of culture."

"Is she getting worse?" Charlotte whispered to her brother-in-law with a smile.

"Hello," Tony muttered, staring out the window, "someone's on the prowl."

Following his gaze, Charlotte watched as Ruth stood by the river with her hands on her hips, as if she was pissed off about something. "God forbid that Sophie should be allowed to play alone for more than a few minutes," Charlotte muttered.

"She's just worried that -" Tony started to say, before catching himself at the last minute.

"That Sophie might fall down the same rabbit-hole that I fell down?" Charlotte asked with an amused smile.

"She's hardly the first over-protective parent in the world," Tony replied. "They've been around since time began, and I dare say they'll be around long after we're all gone. Every parent fusses over their child."

"
Almost
every parent," Charlotte replied, glancing back at her mother as the old woman's trembling hands refilled her sherry glass. "Some just muddle through and then expect to be treated like parent of the fucking year even though they barely even broke a sweat."

"Ruth's a good mother," Tony continued. "I know I joke about her sometimes, but I shouldn't. If every child had a mother as caring and kind, the world would be a much better place. Maybe she goes overboard from time to time, but the benefits outweigh the downsides every time, you know." He added the last of the tomatoes to the salad. "She went through hell when you were missing, you know," he continued. "She was just at the age to be able to really understand it. She doesn't talk about it much, but I know it's on her mind. Try not to give her a hard time."

"She's a rubbish sister," Charlotte replied, "but maybe she'd have been a useful mother."

Tony smiled.

Staring out the window, Charlotte watched as Ruth stood by the riverbank, undoubtedly calling Sophie over and demanding that the poor girl came back up to the house. She wouldn't blame Sophie for resisting such calls, and in a way she hoped that her niece might have the gumption to actually push at her boundaries a little, but she was quite sure that Ruth's control was too strong. The woman wanted to organize her daughter's every waking moment. Charlotte was quite certain that, in the unlikely event that she ever had children, she'd be much less hands-on.

"Don't you ever wish that Sophie would do something a little naughty?" Charlotte asked after a moment. "Just something... shocking? She's so fucking obedient all the time, it can't be good for her. Show me a kid who grew up respecting all the rules and doing exactly what she was told, and I'll show you a kid who never really developed a personality of her own. It's completely natural to want to ignore what your parents say. You know what I think? I think you should be more worried about Sophie if she
doesn't
try to disobey you every so often. I mean, fuck, the kid needs to exercise her imagination, doesn't she? Is she ever even naughty? Does she ever do
anything
wrong?"