The Lost Child (29 page)

Fortunately she had brought plenty of food with her, so they wouldn’t need to venture into the village and could spend their time in the small house, which had little of the charm of Meadowfoot Cottage, but all of the relief of no attached memories. It was a bland little place, functional and habitable but nothing more.

Elaine had a clear view of the churchyard from the bedroom window and watched the graveside ceremony with detachment as Brodie put their food away and made coffee. She could see Miriam, her plump form swathed in respectful black, as she scattered her handful of earth on the coffin. Surprisingly Alex wasn’t there, and only a few of the villagers had turned out to say their goodbyes. Elaine wondered if it was because Esther hadn’t been popular or whether Miriam had asked people not to attend because of the press melee. In either case it was a poor turnout for a life long lived. She couldn’t feel sorry for the dead woman, in fact she was hard pressed to feel anything any more. Leaving Dan had shut her down and all her emotions were in a blissful stasis. Only the sight of Miriam had stirred something, a slight frisson of pity too weak to break through. Feeling like an idle voyeur Elaine let the net curtain drop from her fingers and turned away.

Brodie had made them beans on toast for lunch, her
piece de resistance
. Elaine was disinclined to eat it, she felt queasy and something about all those little beans slithering over each other on the plate was quite repulsive.

‘Do you mind if I leave this?’ she asked, ‘I’m not feeling too good.’ She worried about the look of disappointment and concern on Brodie’s face.

‘What’s up?’ Brodie asked, moving the plate away from Elaine who was beginning to look quite grey.

‘A migraine I think,’ Elaine said, narrowing her eyes to decrease the light that was entering them and causing the fireworks at the edges of her vision.

‘I think you’re allergic to this place,’ Brodie said. ‘Go up and lie down, I’ll bring you your tablets.’

Elaine did as she was told and gratefully slipped into velvet darkness where the pain lurked in the black edges of dreams.

*

Brodie wasn’t happy, coming back had been a mistake. She felt as though something dark and brooding was pressing in on them and she didn’t like it. Hallow’s End didn’t want them. The fact that Elaine had got another migraine almost as soon as they had arrived was proof in Brodie’s book that they shouldn’t be there. The place was evil and she wanted to get out as soon as possible.

She crept upstairs to make sure that Elaine was asleep. Relieved to find that she was, Brodie crept down again and took her phone outside, scrolling down to Dan’s number – only to find when she dialled it that she didn’t have enough credit to make the call. Elaine’s phone was in a bin at Gordano services, she had disposed of it in a fit of irrational weirdness that Brodie couldn’t fathom. Who binned a perfectly good smart phone? There was no alternative but to trek into the village and find a phone box, if such a thing existed these days. She couldn’t recall having seen one before, but then again she hadn’t been looking. With only a tiny reservation about the wisdom of leaving Elaine alone, she set off. Hood up and hands in pockets she hoped that no one would recognise her and give her grief.

An hour later she had given up, the call box on the village green took cards only and with only a pocket full of change she couldn’t even buy one of those. The post office had been shut and there was no way she was going to attempt to get into the pub and use their phone. In desperation she trudged back to the little house by the church wondering what the hell people did before phones were invented. Then she remembered the vicar, he’d been quite nice when she’d met him by the folly. Vicars were supposed to be helpful, so there was good chance he’d let her use his phone. Brightened by this new solution she quickened her pace and headed for the church.

She found him in the vestry, changing out of his robes after Esther’s funeral. The sudden appearance of a black clad hobgoblin in the sanctuary of his church seemed to frighten the living daylights out of him and it took him a few moments to recover while Brodie explained her urgent need for telecommunication. Brodie had expected him to quiz her and ask questions she wasn’t sure she could, or wanted to, answer – but he was in a hurry to get to Esther’s wake. With brisk efficiency he led her to the rectory and let her use the phone in his study while he waited by the door impatiently checking his watch.

Dan wasn’t picking up, so to the vicar’s dismay Brodie phoned his mobile. She left a message on his voicemail telling him where they were and asking him to come because Elaine was ill again. Feeling guilty for having used church facilities, and knowing that vicars weren’t paid much, Brodie offered the harassed cleric fifty pence for the call. It was all she had, and it seemed meagre even to her. The vicar had laughed, closed her hand over the coins and told her that she probably needed it more than God did. With that he had chivvied her out, no doubt pressed by the prospect of the dry sherry and paste sandwiches that awaited him at Hallow’s Cottage.

He left Brodie on the doorstep of the rectory and she watched him hurry away, his jacket flapping in the breeze that his brisk walk had created. He looked like fat, lame crow lolloping along the lane. She felt bemused, she had always thought vicars were patient, caring people. Shrugging her shoulders at the revelation that they were just as unlovely as everyone else, she made her way back to the rented house. Secure in the knowledge that Dan would be coming to their rescue soon, she allowed herself to smile.

Once inside she didn’t want to wake Elaine, so made more toast and coffee and settled down with an old copy of Country Life, which seemed to have come with the house. It bored her rigid. There were only so many bespoke kitchens a fifteen-year-old girl could be amused by. Besides, there must be a hell of a lot more rich people in the countryside than she had imagined if they published a magazine just for them. Anyone else would have to win the EuroMillions to afford any of the houses. It was a joke when people like her had to live in grotty council flats. The thought reminded her of Shirley, and she felt a pang of grief for the sad, mixed up woman who had tried to be her mother. The thought left her feeling strangely hollow and tearful, something which she hadn’t anticipated. For all of Shirley’s faults she had at least tried to be a mother, even if she had been really lousy at it. The faint scars on Brodie’s arms were proof that at one time she had attempted to hate Shirley, but had ended up hating herself more. She remembered the time Shirley had found out about the cutting and had cleaned and bandaged the wounds without recrimination. In that moment Brodie felt utterly lost and lonely, she was in a strange house with only a magazine (which couldn’t have alienated her more) for company and she wanted Elaine. Migraine or not, she needed her sister.

The bedroom was empty; the only evidence that anyone had been there at all was the rumpled duvet and the dent in the pillow. With mounting apprehension Brodie stared at the space that Elaine had occupied just a short time before. Remembering the last time Elaine had wandered off in Hallow’s End, Brodie began to panic. Memories of the dark tunnel made her shiver and tears threatened her diminishing composure. Knowing that Dan wouldn’t arrive for another few hours at the soonest she ran from the rented house and began to scour the area for any sign of Elaine.

*

Elaine was having the most extraordinary dream. In it she was on her knees in the centre of the conclave of rhododendrons where she had scattered Jean. There were no signs of her pretend mother, wind and weather had mingled her with the earth and air and there was a feeling of peace inside the meeting of trees. Elaine felt strangely benign and detached, as if she were looking in on a little diorama of something that had once happened to another Elaine. This other Elaine looked up from the ground as the leaves and branches moved and Derry squeezed his huge frame into the gap. ‘M-m-m-mandy’ he said, but the other Elaine said, ‘No Derry, it’s me now.’ She took his huge hand and squeezed it as if to tell him that he didn’t need to worry.

‘G-g-g-g-g-ave you to J-j-j-ean. Sh-sh-sh-sh-she was s-s-ad. L-l-l-l-l-l-looked after you.’

‘Yes, she did Derry’. The other Elaine rose to her feet and led Derry from the trees. ‘You can go home now. I’m OK,’ she waved him away though he seemed reluctant to leave her.

The edges of the light which lit the scene were sharp and angular, full of zigzags and flashes which made it hard to see the dream and follow where the other Elaine was going. She recognised the lavender path and could make out the other self as she walked along it trailing her hands throughout the fragrant flower heads. Soon the other Elaine reached the house, walking through the knot garden and towards the terrace where the old man sat in a steamer chair. Elaine saw in her dream that his head was covered with an ancient Panama hat and that his knees were draped with a blanket. He looked frail and wasted as if he was made of tissue paper and would disintegrate at the slightest touch. He spoke to the other Elaine as she approached.

‘Ah, my dear, I wondered if you might come back. Have you found yourself yet?’ His voice was thin and wheezy; it had no vigour and made the other Elaine frown with concern and dip her knees to hold his fragile, age-speckled hand.

‘Not quite yet, but I’m hopeful,’ she said.

‘We must be hopeful my dear, we must have that. Alas I am still searching, but I may find myself by the end. It think it will be soon,’ he said, a beatific smile on his wasted face.

The other Elaine looked sad, ‘Will the end make you happy?’

‘Oh yes my dear, I think it will. Like Peter Pan said, it will be an awfully big adventure. Who knows, I might even find my marbles, just like Tootles.’ He gave out a wheezing laugh that sounded like the last gasp of leaking bellows. He raised her hand to his lips and dropped a gentle kiss on her skin. ‘Now run along and find Ada, I think she would like to give you a cup of tea. To make up for everything that happened.’

The other Elaine nodded and rose to her feet.

The Elaine who watched sensed darkness and tried to call out, to beg her not to go in, but her voice had been stolen by the other Elaine and she could do nothing but watch as the inky shadows of the house swallowed her ghost self. She was afraid, she didn’t want to go in, fearful things lurked in those shadows but she was forced to follow the scene as it played out and the other Elaine wandered through the rooms searching for Ada.

She found the woman in the morning room looking almost as frail and worn as her brother. At first sight of the other Elaine Ada gasped and reached for the pearls, which looked dull and listless against her greying skin. Elaine was surprised to find that she remembered those pearls. ‘You!’ Ada cried. ‘Why have you come?’

The other Elaine smiled, ‘Albert said you would give me tea. Tea makes everything better. And I came to play with Alex.’

‘There is nothing for you here, you shouldn’t have come. You’ve taken enough from us.’ Anguish twisted Ada’s wrinkled skin and forced her to turn away from the apparition.

The shadows closed in on the watching Elaine as she saw the other-self shrink before her eyes. ‘But I’ve come to find Mandy, she’s here somewhere. I lost her,’ the other Elaine said as she got smaller and smaller like Alice in search of the key.

‘You are her, you foolish child. And she was a nothing. You are a nothing. Do you think that a snit like you has the right to bring down a family such as ours? Crawl back to your gutter and leave us in peace.’ Ada tugged on the pearls so hard that the string broke and the precious, creamy beads were sent skittering to the four corners of the room.

‘Now look what you made me do, you evil girl!’ Ada screeched as she fell to her bony knees and scrabbled on the floor for her darling sea-born babies.

The Elaine who watched had to look away, the scene before her was one of wretchedness and despair and it had shrunk the other Elaine to a mere shadow. A child of three, afraid and tearful – a child who wanted to run from the room in search of comfort and loving arms which would protect her and take her home. Ada crawled across the floor, gathering her pearls and muttering. ‘We thought you were dead. There was so much blood. Esther knew what to do, she always knew what to do and we thought you were dead.’ The old lady got to her knees and faced the child. ‘We couldn’t let everything be ruined by a silly game gone wrong. He was only playing, it was just an accident, he was just a boy and we thought you were dead. We were too late and we thought you were dead. I was so frightened, a thousand years of a good name, a reputation to uphold and all ruined by a silly game. He didn’t mean it, but you were dead, and there was so much blood. But Esther knew what to do. She always knew what to do. We carried you into the tunnel and locked you away. No one would ever find you there, and we could keep him safe. He was only a boy, and he didn’t mean to do it, it was just a game. Don’t you see? We thought you were dead.’

Then it was Elaine who was running, trapped inside the body of the child, breathless and terrified as she ran straight into the arms of the monster. The thing of her nightmares, the beast under the bed, the creature in the wardrobe who had dogged her midnight terrors all her life. He was laughing at her, his breath foul and laden with the tang of alcohol. He grabbed Mandy’s arms, and made her wince and squirm. It rendered Elaine, trapped inside the tiny body, frozen and defenceless.

‘Well, well, well, look who we have here.’ the monster laughed, his clammy hands clutching and pinching the skin on her arms, ‘If it isn’t my little friend Mandy. Want to play a game Mandy, cowboys and Indians wasn’t it?’ his voice was a narrow, foetid hiss.

He pulled back his arm, balled his hand into a fist and punched. From inside the tiny frame Elaine felt the lights around her vision dim and the velvet darkness take its place as Mandy was blanketed in unconsciousness. The image of Alex Gardiner-Hallow’s face floated, like a photographic negative, for just an instant before the blackness won.

*