A Kind of Vanishing (8 page)

‘Ah, Elly, there you are. What kept you?’ He scrumpled up her hair, gently urging her forward out of the shadow of the porch towards the ghost girl. ‘Well, now you can stop sulking around the place moaning. We’ve found Anna.’

‘Alice actually. Nearly right!’ Eleanor was impressed that the woman could move her neck like a pigeon. She splayed her hands in the direction of her daughter as if introducing a circus act.

‘Like
Alice in Wonderland
! Your favourite book, isn’t it, Alice!’ She gave a squeal.

At this Alice moved her head, which startled Eleanor, as she had grown used to the idea that she wasn’t real. She guessed, without forming the words, that her father made Alice’s mother scared. A lot of people behaved strangely with him. The glistening lady with damp hands, who had tried to teach Gina the flute, got a blotchy neck after encountering him in the hall. Her mother had said it was because he was a doctor and they were idiotic enough to think he could see them without their clothes on.

Suddenly Eleanor remembered hearing about Alice. She was the girl who had moved into the cottage next to the village shop. Her Mum was receptionist at the local surgery, and her Dad was Charbury’s new postman. The bubble gum girl had confided to Eleanor that there was an Alice who could stand on her head for over fifteen minutes. It must be this one. For a moment Eleanor’s unalloyed admiration for this supposed feat overcame her objection to the proposed arrangement.

She was astonished to find her mother outside too. Isabel was walking up and down outside the dining room window, her arms folded tightly as if she was cold; her high heels crunched small holes in the gravel. She was dressed for going out in her turquoise trouser suit and full make-up. Eleanor had thought she was in bed and, although pleased she was up, she was disheartened that she would soon be gone.

Isabel’s two eldest children were too grown up for the ruthless tactics they had adopted four years earlier when Lucian and Gina, aged six and eight with a tearful Eleanor in tow, had hidden their mother’s jewels in seed trays stacked in the potting shed to stop her leaving. The plan had failed. The jewels were found and the gardener was dismissed on the basis that he had boasted to Lucian about stealing a car when he was a boy. The children said nothing, not even to each other and the secret grew like a deadly plant. Gradually they stopped playing together and only formed expedient, if uneasy alliances. These were fluid at first; any two of them might side against the third or close ranks against outsiders, but as they got older Gina and Lucian sealed an unspoken pact, freeing them of guilt and adroitly placing amorphous blame on their little sister. Isabel was smoking, eyes hidden behind sunglasses that reflected the group clustered around the porch. She addressed no one, her voice husky from smoke and hours of silent darkness:

‘She’ll stop my daughter getting into mischief. Gina’s too old to play, although she’ll keep an eye. I am sure Alice is a sensible girl.’

Eleanor’s heart sank as her mother gave one of her very short smiles, which made the girl in the dress shimmer with lacy trembles. She glared at Gina, leaning triumphant against an Ionic column, acting too old to play. They avoided looking at each other in case it was all too clear what was really in their minds.

The four years between the sisters was beyond argument, but this chasm, usually represented by Gina’s devotion to horses, had been widened recently by new differences in their experience. The past week had seen Gina clamped to a hot water bottle with period pains and the failure of a boyfriend (who her family said didn’t exist) to appear at the Hammersmith Wimpy as arranged. Eleanor and her friends’ only interest in boys was around how to win back Eleanor’s champion marble from Chris Thornton who had unfairly refused to risk it in further games. The sisters had little to say to one another.

It was proposed that the friendship between Eleanor and Alice start immediately. Eleanor’s mother had her ‘out-
of-bed
’ voice: higher than usual, with one ‘darling’ every minute,listing rules like other Mums. She made Eleanor promise not to do anything foolish and to make sure that every day they were back in time for tea.

Every day? Was Alice going to be there from now on? Eleanor’s spirit was dampened. In resigned tones she enquired: ‘What time is tea?’

‘Four. Same as always, darling!’

Eleanor had flinched as hands tugged at her hair, straightened her collar and smacked invisible flies off her chest and arms. Looking up she could see herself reflected in her mother’s sunglasses: a dark shape with no face. She mechanically took Alice’s outstretched hand and glumly led her upstairs to where they were to play, properly like good girls, until Alice’s mother, who was called Kathleen, came to collect her.

Alice and Eleanor were only months apart in age and with the odd logic that people apply to everyone but themselves, this broad commonality identified them as like-minded and inevitable soul mates. Alice quickly established she was born three months and three days before Eleanor and this fact became the basis of a discussion, in which they quizzed each other vigorously, gleefully unearthing differences with no inclination to find shared ground. Alice archly informed Eleanor that the age gap meant that she was already on solids by the time Eleanor was born. By the time Eleanor was walking, Alice was winning prizes for dancing.

The two girls hoisted markers that, besides their material worth, set important basic cornerstones. Both of them were seasoned experts at judging the social implications of owning three Sindy dolls with full wardrobe, versus a scratched pick-up truck complete with a winding handle and a dirty length of string which could lift cars right up into the air. Alice led the way on primary facts, rapping out questions and nodding with pursed lips at Eleanor’s garbled answers, or providing the answers herself while Eleanor cast about for a hilarious response.

Alice had smaller feet than Eleanor, which she declared an advantage for ballet. She had just won a prize at school, presented only yesterday, for her dance to ‘Up, Up and Away in my Beautiful Balloon’. Eleanor knew that things were beyond hope when Alice began swooping around the doll’s house singing in a high-pitched reedy voice. She was especially unsettled, but dared not look away as Alice did a circle with her hands above her head for the balloon. There was more: last year Alice had received nine commendations for tidiness and clean hands. (Eleanor’s school did not give commendations.) Alice had been presented with her Sindy dolls on her eighth birthday, three months and three days before Eleanor’s birthday, which that year Isabel had forgotten. Eleanor announced that all dolls were sissy and that she preferred cars. She did not tell Alice that Gina had a Sindy doll with a cracked tummy from where Eleanor had bicycled over it by accident. Gina would be cross to be mentioned at all. All Eleanor’s cars had names, and were boys or girls with ever-changing relationships. Alice laughed at the names. Eleanor was incredulous as Alice assumed a
starey-eyed
expression and covering her mouth, sniggered through her fingers. This stopped Eleanor from telling her about the Citroën called Sophia who was married to the flat bed lorry called Desi, after Lucille Ball’s son, Desi Arnaz Junior. She had been bursting to tell Alice that Sophia’s family cut her off without a penny because Desi was half Cuban. It was so thrilling but she was confounded when she realised that Alice wouldn’t understand.

Eleanor knew the difference between each day because of their colour and feeling. Monday was thick and yellow like cheese, which she didn’t like. Tuesday was orange with netball and piano lessons, which she sometimes enjoyed. Best of all was Friday: toffee flavoured and deep red with a story before home time. She would rest her head in her arms on the cool pencil-smelling desk, and listen to Miss Galliver. She wished Fridays would never end, and wondered what happened to Miss Galliver at the weekends. She didn’t say any of this to Alice.

Alice liked yellow best except in sweets when she preferred strawberry. This was one thing they agreed on. Alice let Eleanor have a red Opal Fruit from an unopened packet as soon as they were upstairs, which gave Eleanor a burst of hope. After that it was always lime or lemon at the top when Alice reluctantly waved the sweets at her. Eleanor hated these two flavours but said yes to be friendly. When she suspected Alice of rearranging the sweets, she got the pain in her ribs like when her mother didn’t join them for supper.

Alice pulled a face when she saw the doll’s house, insisting it was scruffy and dirty; but admitted she liked the green sofa. She wouldn’t help put back the furniture because everything should be washed and cleaned, or they would just be rearranging the dirt. Like a surveyor, she pointed out scratches all over the front of the house, and showed with the bat of a hand how the top of the porch was splintered, the dining room windowsill was hanging off, and with the prod of another finger, drew attention to a crack in the staircase. When Alice rubbed a window ledge, and thrust her finger under Eleanor’s nose, Eleanor nodded meekly at the grey fluff. She never thought about keeping things spotless. She got on with playing.

After that, Eleanor had to answer Alice’s searching questions about Gina, whom Alice had seen at the stables. Alice said she wished Gina was her sister, and with a tired sigh, breathed that Gina was so-o-o very pretty. Eleanor decided that it was the way Alice popped a strawberry sweet in her mouth and screwed up the paper between fussy palms, that made everything she said true. She tried it after Alice had gone, exactly mimicking Alice putting a sweet between pouting lips, using a wrapper Alice had left in a neat ball on the window seat to round off the effect. Immediately Eleanor was Alice.

‘She looks so different to you. I can’t believe she’s your sister. She’s just like a princess. I heard one of the riding instructors say she will be a beautiful woman when she grows up.’

Eleanor shrugged. She was revolted at the idea of Gina being any kind of woman. She was especially irked to hear that Gina had astounding poise on a horse and would be a famous equestrian one day. Alice pronounced each bit of the word ‘eck-wes-tree-an’ so that it took ages and put Eleanor off asking what it meant.

Alice wouldn’t play with the doll’s house, nor would she touch the cars or be spies. There was no game that suited them both, so after a tour of the house they had ended up each end of the wide seat in one of the playroom windows, looking down on the garden through the metal bars. Eleanor leaned forward, drumming her heels against the seat. Alice sat up straight. They avoided looking at each other as they dissected the differing merits of their teachers, the children in their class, and compared school dinners and favourite pets. It was a lifetime later when Lizzie called out that Alice’s mother had come to take her home.

Everyone said what a great success the visit had been, so Alice would just go home for lunch and come straight back afterwards. In fact it was decided that Eleanor would play with Alice every day. In those brief four and a half days Eleanor got to know every expression, every gesture: every little thing that made up Alice. Yet after Alice disappeared Eleanor didn’t give the police any clue as to where she might be, or think of anyone she might have gone off with. Eventually, to please them Eleanor had decided to let the policemen see two of her dens, knowing Alice would not be there.

Eleanor didn’t tell the policeman he was wrong when he said she must miss her friend. Nor did she confess that she was relieved she no longer had to play with Alice. But she wanted to get the answers right because then he gave her sweets. She wanted him to be kind because he had a crack in his chin like the Senator. She didn’t admit that when she thought of Alice she got a pain in her ribs. Alice’s words hurt like the chunks of flint hidden at the Tide Mills that were sharp enough to cut up Crawford’s horsemeat:

‘I know a secret about you.’

Alice had been sure she knew everything, but she was wrong about the secret.

It had rained on the Saturday afternoon so, after their illicit trip to the Tide Mills that morning, the girls had ended up in the dining room, at the long oval table, doing pictures with oil pastels and the pencils that Eleanor loved because they went like paint when the ends were wetted. The mess created by the boxes of crayons emptied on the green baize tablecloth, the crumpled sheets of discarded efforts strewn around the chair legs, was at odds with the chilly formality of the room. Over the years Isabel had redecorated most of the White House but Mark had not allowed her to touch this room, presided over by the thickly daubed oil portrait of Judge Henry Ramsay.

They had come close to their first argument during a debate about whether it was better to be deaf or blind, a subject brought up by Alice and on which she had, as usual, a firm opinion. Although later Eleanor couldn’t think what Alice had replied. She did remember that Alice had refused to answer when Eleanor asked if it was better to be alive or dead. Just as Eleanor had wondered if they could get away with being silent until it was time for Alice to go, she had spoken so quietly that Eleanor nearly didn’t hear:

‘I know a secret about your family.’

‘Secrets are stupid.’ Eleanor leaned closer to her picture: the Tide Mills from a small plane. She was the pilot, in goggles and a leather helmet.

‘I don’t care if you do.’ But she did care because she knew what the secret would be. It was what the secret always was and so really no secret at all. This time though, because she had been careful never to leave Alice on her own or with Gina, Eleanor had thought the secret was safe.

‘Not all secrets are stupid. If this was my secret I would care.’ Alice had on her teacher’s voice: stern and disappointed. She pulled her bubble-gum pink cardigan tighter around herself, implying that, as well as dusty, the dining room was cold.

‘So what is it?’ Eleanor hadn’t meant to ask. She snatched up an orange crayon to make the sun as hot as possible, and busily colouring, she pressed too hard and snapped the crayon. She felt disloyal, but was unclear who or what she had let down.