A Kind of Vanishing (29 page)

Eleanor pinpointed that moment on the doorstep as the sloughing off of her life and the first steps towards resurrecting Alice. As she unwittingly took part in a crude rehearsal for a reunion that could never be, she had decided to make it come true. She would be Alice living her life somewhere in the world, just as Mrs Howland came to hope she was. Yet even Eleanor was impotent to undo a tragedy. She had read enough fairy stories to know that an evil deed once done cannot be undone. Eleanor’s childish chatter that day could only be one of the cruelties of everyday life.

Both men were unequal to their parts, they could only stand helplessly until Doctor Ramsay snapped into action, talking like a telegram.

‘Have work to do. Back to London tomorrow. All go!’ He promised to be back in an hour.

Steve Howland leaned on the gate as the doctor’s car roared away, tyres screeching. He had not said a word and stayed where he was looking down the street in the direction that Alice had walked that last afternoon. He had thoughts he could not share, crude inventions about what had happened that Kath would be right to dismiss as jealous and even rude. So he said nothing. At last his wife called him inside to join in the tea with Doctor Ramsay’s daughter.

Eleanor was disappointed that, unlike the other time she had visited, Mr Howland did nothing during the tea without Mrs Howland prompting him. She had been looking forward to another tour of the tools in his garage and the go on his soldering iron he had promised her the time before to make up for Alice spoiling the tea.

She had pattered after Mrs Howland into the kitchen with wary steps, mindful of this first visit. Suppose Alice had been hiding brilliantly and had planned the tea as another surprise. Then she reminded herself that Alice reappearing could not happen. She relaxed at the sight of the neat, empty kitchen. Of course there would be no chocolate covered Alice lying in wait. This meant Eleanor had the opportunity to see the room properly and she admired the six plates propped up on shelves above the fridge. There were cat faces on them, a fluffy ginger with flourishing whiskers made her think of Crawford, so she told Mrs Howland about her cat and her visits to Mrs Jackson. The table was hidden beneath plates of cakes and jelly with a gigantic jug of orange squash right in the middle. Eleanor gaped at the mountain of food and swallowed. This time, she had no appetite. She was pushed firmly towards the chair that Alice had been sitting on when they found her coated all over with food that day.

‘Would you like some of your own cake, dear?’

‘No, that’s for you, thank you.’ Then remembering her lines. ‘It’s a present from me.’

‘Aren’t you lovely!’

It was finally growing cooler in the graveyard. The sun had left it altogether, but neither woman noticed as Eleanor recalled that she had forced herself to eat a large number of cakes and two bowlfuls of jelly, only by thinking of one mouthful at a time, chewing then swallowing, chew-swallow, chew-swallow. The trick was not to look at what was on her plate. This became her approach to life. A minute at a time and don’t look down.

When she left, Mrs Howland gave her the Crawford plate. This was a nice surprise, for although Mrs Howland had smiled and nodded as she talked, Eleanor had been sure she was not listening. Nor was Mr Howland because he nodded in the wrong places and mostly never spoke at all. Mrs Howland made him wrap the plate in newspaper, and then because he went into a trance she took over. There was a gap on the shelf where the plate had been. Eleanor saw Alice’s father notice this too.

As they got to the door, Mrs Howland rushed upstairs. Eleanor stayed in the hall with Mr Howland. She had tried smiling up at him, but he was like her clockwork sparrow and couldn’t strut or peck without Mrs Howland to work him. He had tapped at the barometer, which was pointed at
Rain
and Eleanor was just thinking that this was her chance to mention the soldering iron, when Mrs Howland came down again. She had held out her fist to Eleanor and then splayed out her hand to reveal a small purse. It was Alice’s purse. It had her name inside. She had tried to write all of it but had done ‘Alice’ in such big letters that there was only room for an ‘H’ and an ‘o’, which Eleanor had thought made her sound more jolly than she was. It was brown leather, patterned with gold spirals laced with blue and maroon flowers. Inside there were two threepenny bits.

‘Don’t give her that.’ Mr Howland had stopped examining the barometer.

‘She should have it.’

‘No. When she comes…’ He ran his hand down his face as if a different face would be there when he had finished, like the conjuror at Christmas.

Mrs Howland had hold of Eleanor’s hand and she pressed the purse into it. ‘Don’t be spending it on sweets, especially bubble gum. That’s very bad for you.’ She had stopped smiling, and was looking at her closely. Eleanor wanted to get away.

She slipped the purse into the pocket in her dress meant for tissues and dashed down the path to the car at the gate. Her father was sitting stiffly at the wheel like Parker in Thunderbirds and didn’t look round when Eleanor got into the back. She hadn’t thanked Alice’s Mum and Dad or said goodbye. She had forgotten they were her real parents and now it was too late. She only just remembered to look back to wave as she was driven away. The cottage door was shut. Eleanor was only eight, but with perfect understanding she divined it wasn’t Eleanor Ramsay that the Howlands had invited to tea, but Alice. From now on it would always be Alice.

Once Eleanor turned into Alice she tried to blot out Eleanor and what she had done or failed to do.

‘He knew though, didn’t he?’ Chris tripped over to Mark Ramsay’s grave. She stood unsteadily beside the mound. ‘He couldn’t bear what you’d done any longer and so he killed himself.’ Chris grabbed a handful of the soil and cupped it in her hands the way she made snowballs. They had done this together. She had made a snowman in the park with her Mum, she was sure of it. Until now she had totally forgotten this.

A moped puttered past on the lane and on the other side of the church a gate squeaked, followed by the clink of the latch.

‘It was an accident. ‘

‘There’s no such thing as an accident.’

‘Please come home.’

‘You’re mad. We can’t go home. It’s all over; can’t you see that? You’ve smashed things up for me as well as you. You’re sick and you need help but you have had all you’re getting from me.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘She’s going to come back with me.’ The voice was reedy but firm.

Kathleen Howland was on the path a few yards away. Her frailty augmented her aura of command.

When Jackie Masters had left, Kathleen had sat still in Steve’s chair looking at the empty grate. This time there was no offer of sugary tea; no attempt to shield her from exactly how it was.

Kathleen tilted her head and there was Alice’s photograph on the television. As the evening closed in and the living room grew dim, Alice’s eyes and nose, her pigtails and the painted seascape background faded to shades of grey. But for Kathleen her bright and cheerful smile remained just the same.

And at that moment Kathleen saw what she could do.

O
n a warm sunny afternoon at the end of August, Kathleen eased open the window in Alice’s bedroom and surveyed the street below. Cars were parked bumper to bumper: there had been a fête on the green that afternoon and the lane was still busy with people – laconic couples, darting children, hot and tired parents were straggling along the pavement leading to the station, most licking ice creams or pecking at toffee apples while lugging spoils and homemade produce from which the magic had already faded.

The curtain brushed against her face as she drew back in, she gathered it up; the material was beginning to wear. Perhaps now she would get new ones.

That morning she had pulled their suitcases down from the top of the wardrobe in the bedroom. After Steve died, Kathleen used the smaller case for her trips but as her Parkinson’s progressed even this was becoming too heavy. She had told Chris she kept it packed with essentials so that she could leave at short notice, as she had done on the morning Steve took her to the hospital to give birth to Alice. He hadn’t stayed for her birth. In those days he was on the docks at Newhaven and lost pay if he didn’t work. Kathleen emptied everything on to her bed and dragged the cases through to Alice’s bedroom.

That morning she had popped next door to the stores to see if Iris had any cardboard boxes. Iris could find only two, including one for toilet rolls for which she apologised, but really no, it didn’t matter what had been in them. What mattered was what she planned to fill them with. Kathleen knew Iris wanted to ask what the boxes were for, and if it had been anyone else Iris would have. Kathleen told her anyway.

‘I have a young friend coming to live with me. Eleanor Ramsay’s girl, Christine. The one that’s been visiting, she’s gone home to get her things.’ Kathleen cheered as the information took on life with the telling.

‘Eleanor Ramsay! There’s a name to conjure with. I always wondered what happened to her. She simply vanis…haven’t seen her for years. Doctor Ramsay never mentioned a little girl.’

‘I’m clearing out…I’m preparing the guest bedroom.’ There, now she had said it.

Iris was trying to fit sweets into the counter display, she was jamming Munchies and Mars Bars into too tight a space and had bent two of the packets, but in her determination to prolong their chat she hadn’t noticed.

‘Didn’t go to her poor Dad’s funeral, which between you and me…’ Iris continued gruffly. She had developed a trick of not finishing sentences, so that other people completed them, giving her more information. Kathleen knew this, but unlike most, preferred to indulge her. Iris Carter meant no harm.

‘Oh, she did go.’ Kathleen gathered up the boxes, fitting one inside the other. ‘Eleanor would do anything for her parents.’ This idea passed like an  crossing the sun, the brief lack of light a fleeting insight, a momentary chill. Then she added, ‘Christine’s just the same as her mother. She’s a good girl.’

Kathleen had stayed longer than she intended to show that she was like other customers and could sit on the chair by the rack of postcards nursing a mug of tea and petting the Persian cats with the best of them.

After Jackie had told her about the CCTV footage, explaining in formal tones that had frightened Kathleen before she took in the impact of the words themselves, Kathleen had been shattered. She wouldn’t have believed her. But she had seen the evidence for herself. It had made no sense until now.

As she had made her way unsteadily up to the church, her hands brushing and clutching at any surface for support to keep herself from falling, she knew that Jackie was right. Kathleen had sent Doctor Ramsay to his death. She had broken his trust. Ever mindful of his family’s need for privacy, he had lent her the tapes on the unspoken agreement that she was looking for one thing and would ignore the rest. But she had taken note of everything. Perhaps not literally, but only because her hands refused to write. She had looked out for the woman who was Jackie Masters, not because she looked like Alice, but because she was curious about her. Kathleen had spied on the Ramsays and then acted on her information. But it wasn’t for this indiscretion that she would never be able to forgive herself. It was for all the times she had shut her eyes and ears to the unpleasant in favour of a Wonderland of nice clean hands, lovely manners and unchipped tea things.

Kathleen was glad that at least Steve had not lived to know the truth.

Steve had known all along.

She unlatched the church gate and leaned on it briefly to get her balance. As she shut it behind her and strode without support towards Mark Ramsay’s grave she was clear. She would take Chris home with her. If in any way she had failed her daughter, she did have a chance to save another child’s life.

Now, Kathleen imagined Chris filling the cupboard with her clothes, and the house with her bright chatter. She hadn’t expected to feel so elated at the prospect. Eleanor was unhappy about it, but accepted it. Kathleen had told Chris her mother was not a killer. She had promised Eleanor that for the while, she wouldn’t say more.

People would assume Chris was her substitute for Alice. They would be right. Yet no one would replace Alice. Kathleen had learnt that time was not a healer, it only clarified the loss. Now she knew nothing could bring her cherished little girl back.

She worked quickly, packing the cases and the boxes with the contents of the shelves and most of the toy cupboard. She had already got rid of the new clothes and since the day Chris had first appeared on her doorstep, Kathleen had bought nothing else in Alice’s name. She stuffed the rest in bin bags and stacked the bags and cases on the landing. As she worked, a cacophony of inner voices squawked in protest, disapproving and reproving. The heap of possessions didn’t amount to much. But then nine years was not much of a life.

Chris was coming back at lunchtime the next day. Preparing the room had taken Kathleen over three hours. The sheets were not dirty, but she remade the bed because it must be made for Chris, not for Alice who would never need it. While she had been staying, Chris had insisted on sleeping on the settee in the living room. When she returned it would be different. Kathleen laid a sprig of lavender under her pillow and as a finishing touch placed a vase of wild flowers by her bed – scabious, buttercups and sow-thistle – a taste of real countryside for a girl escaping from London.

A life for a life.

Through the open casement came the twitter and squabble of birds bustling on the guttering, and the jingle of the shop bell. When they had moved in, Kathleen had been so happy and those sounds, which she hadn’t noticed for years, had orchestrated her happiness. Perhaps they would again.

She needed dopamine; sorting out the room had used up her resources. Although Kathleen accommodated the disease, she would not give in to it. In the last few weeks her Parkinson’s had accelerated, flaying her outer layer, exposing raw flesh to the elements and making her anxious about the simplest things. When the effect of the drugs wore off she was engulfed in a terrible sadness and time shrank so that it was only yesterday since Alice had vanished and she had raked through her mind for a clue everyone had missed. Take the ‘c’ out of Alice and replace it with a ‘v’. She had played this spelling swap in the hospital after Alice was born. Then everything had been alive, everything was Alice.

She had stripped the room of Alice’s belongings and of the clothes that had never belonged. Kathleen had so often stood in this room imploring Alice to give her a sign that she was present. Downstairs the telephone began to ring. It would be Jackie Masters. Kathleen hadn’t answered her calls and she wouldn’t today. Through the floor she heard the monotone voice leaving another message. Jackie would not give up, but she dared not sound frustrated.

Kathleen was the blackmailer now.

Just as Kathleen was about to go down to get her supper, she spotted something glinting on the carpet by the bed. She got down on her knees. It was a round lump of green glass, thick as a pebble, smooth on two sides. It looked like a jewel, the deep green enriched by the sunlight. It must have been in the cupboard. She had heard a thud as she hauled out Alice’s skating boots. Kathleen raised herself on to the bed and sat with the glass in her palm. It was cold and weighty. There was one tiny air bubble that only enhanced its perfection. Kathleen didn’t recognise it. As she closed her hand around it she felt her anxiety leave, and more than at any other time she had been in Alice’s bedroom, this was the sign she had asked for. Alice was with her; she would never leave home again.

Kathleen placed the glass on the lace doily spread out on the bedside table, where it looked just right. She would give it to Chris as a welcome present. She knew that Chris would treasure it. She would tell Chris that it would bring her luck.

As she unsteadily descended the stairs it occurred to Kathleen she had kept very little to remind herself of Alice; no school reports, no books, no toys. All that Alice had owned was bagged up on the landing or shoved in the rubbish bin; except for her pink cardigan and some photographs. Kathleen had been ruthless. This made her pause on the last stair. Steve was standing by the barometer, tapping the glass with indirect admonishment. If Alice had stayed, Kathleen wouldn’t have kept all her things. Now Alice would be grown up and living in a house of her own. She would have other possessions, more fitting for a forty-year-old. The room would have been a guestroom for when Alice and her family came to stay. Alice was beside Kathleen, always approving; urging her lovely old Mum onwards.

Once Kathleen was by the front door her feet refused to move. She could hear the tweeting of her tablet timer by the cooker, but she was stuck fast to the floor. At last, only by steadying herself on Alice’s arm, she was able to make big strides and reach the kitchen. As she shakily placed a yellow tablet on her tongue and swallowed water with drainpipe imprecision, Kathleen told Alice she had been thinking about what Chris liked to eat. Alice agreed that Kathleen would have to ask Chris to help her cook, for these days she found it harder to prepare food.

They both wanted Chris to feel entirely at home.