Elizabeth Is Missing (19 page)

“Nothing, Frank,” I said. He dropped his hands, and my spine lengthened, my bones rose up. I felt light, too light, as if I might float into the sky and disappear. I wished he’d weigh me down again, but I couldn’t think how to ask.

“I miss her,” he said. “Miss having her about the place, her bits of things. I don’t know what they are. Hair things and bits of material. Bottles of scent.”

“Evening in Paris.”

“Yeah, that’s it.” He stared down at me. “You remember better than me. Come and have a drink.”

I didn’t say no, but I must have looked doubtful.

“Oh, come on, Maud,” he said. “I thought you weren’t a kid any more. Come and have a drink. Does me good to talk about her, you know?”

I knew. Ma and Dad hardly ever talked about her and I felt as if saying her name at home was forbidden. And here was someone who wanted to remember her properly, with words. I let him lead me to the end of the street and down the hill.

“What else does she have, Maud? What else? You remember.”

“A blue suit?” I began. “And lipstick. Victory Red. And an old compact that matches her perfume. Silver and navy blue stripe.”

“Yeah, that’s right. What else?”

“Shoes with buckles down the front, a green, scalloped tea dress, those earrings that look like sweets . . .” Thinking about what Sukey wore made me look down at myself. At my brown T-bar shoes and open-knit socks. I didn’t notice Frank stopping, and so I walked into him for the second time.

“Hide your school tie, for God’s sake. We’re here,” he said, and went in.

It was a pub. The Fiveways. It had what Dad called “a reputation” and I felt a shiver of apprehension. I’d never been in a pub before and I thought perhaps I shouldn’t go in then, and so I dithered, playing with a button that had come off my cardigan. I didn’t want to leave the familiarity of the pavement, but I desperately wanted to talk about Sukey, and so I dropped the button against the hinge of the cellar door. Somehow the idea of it waiting out here, for me to come back, made me feel better and I pushed the slim half-door open and went in after Frank.

It was smoky inside and the air was hot, and I couldn’t see Frank at first. I wandered in the direction of the bar and felt a hand on my back. “Go and sit over there before the landlady sees you,” he said, pushing me towards a table by the door. “I’ll get you a drink.”

I felt a stab of nervousness at that, but I went and sat down on a wooden stool. The bar was a few feet away, with dark-clad men’s backs lined up in front of it so I could hardly see the woman serving.

“Back so soon, Frank?” I heard her say. “Must’ve only been gone a couple of hours.”

I leant an elbow on the table. It was slick with spilt beer, and wetness seeped through my cardigan. I was taking it off when the door opened and a thin, sweating man walked in.

“Hello, girlie,” he said, hanging over the table.

A drop of his sweat hit my chest, bleeding into my school shirt, and I thought of Ma’s tears on the silk of Sukey’s nightdress. I watched the circle of moisture spread flatly, turning the fabric transparent and tried not to breathe so that it wouldn’t stick to the skin underneath. The man said something but I couldn’t take it in, only aware of his breath against the top of my head. I was starting to sweat myself, with fear, and I couldn’t bear the idea of mine mingling with this man’s.

“Is that a yes, then?” he said, and I turned my face away.

Frank had started to come towards me, and he winked as he walked. I felt odd, as if I had somehow taken Sukey’s place. Here I was in a pub with her husband, being bought a drink. And where was she? Had we switched places? Was Sukey at home with my parents, playing Patience and listening to the wireless?

Frank put the drinks down on the table. He looked at the sweating man, moving very slowly. “Can I do anything for yer?” he asked.

The man raised two moist palms as he backed away and I gratefully picked up the nearest glass. I could see Frank was having beer and I hoped he hadn’t bought the same for me.

“Ginger ale,” he said. “That all right?”

I nodded and breathed a sigh of relief. The noise in the pub grew as more people piled through the door.

“ ’Ello, Frank,” someone said as he brushed past. “You both back down south again?”

“That’s right,” Frank said, keeping his eyes on me.

I stared down at my bare knees, rubbing my nails over the reddish patches.

“You look just like her, you know?” Frank said, putting a hand to my chin.

I smiled. I wasn’t convinced, but I smiled all the same and Frank leant towards me for a moment, closing his eyes at me like a cat.

“How are things at your place, then? Just the same, are they?”

He rested a hand round his glass and a bead of moisture dripped slowly on to his thumbnail. It seemed to linger a moment on the cuticle before dropping like a tear, and I was distracted as I answered. “Not really. Ma and Dad are very worried—”

“Wotcha, Frank?” a fast-looking woman shouted across the pub. “When you going to give me them nylons you promised me?”

Frank turned slightly to nod at her before letting his eyes drift back to me. “And Douglas?” he asked. “He still there, is he?”

“Where else would he be?”

“Well, I don’t know, he might have gone and grown up. Might have stopped hanging round your mum, waiting for handouts.”

“He’s our lodger. He doesn’t get handouts.”

“Your lodger, yeah. That’s what you think.” He took a long drink of his beer and someone pushed past just as he was lowering his elbow, jolting him so that beer ran down over his sleeve. “Fucking watch it!” he said.

I waited for him to say sorry for the swearing, but he didn’t. Instead he gulped down the rest of his drink and stood up. “I’ll get another round,” he said, and when he came back he had a glass of whisky or brandy or something, too. I bit my lip as he put it on the table. “You do look just like her,” he said. “You’ve got that same disapproving expression.” He raised his glass in a mock-toast and I pushed my own away. “I’ve been in jail for two weeks.”

“I know. Douglas said.” I wondered if I could ask about the coupon fraud or if it would make him angry.

“Douglas would. He would know all about it.”

“This the missus, Frank?” said a man in his shirtsleeves, rolling his cap in his hands. “Bit young for you, isn’t she?”

Frank swore at him.

“Come on, Frank. Get a sense of humour.”

“Tell you what, Ron. I’ll get one when you start being funny.”

Ron let his cap unfurl with a flourish. “Fine. Fine,” he said. “Only being friendly.”

“Go and be friendly somewhere else.”

“You got a right one here, love,” Ron said, raising his eyebrows. “Hope you can handle him.”

I frowned after him as he walked away. “People seem to think I’m Sukey,” I said.

“No, they don’t.”

“They do. You said I look like her. Everyone else seems to think so, too.”

“You don’t look that much like her, Maudie. You’re still a kid. You look like a kid.”

I was hurt. “Why d’you bring me to a pub then?”

“I wanted a drink, that’s why. And because I wanted to say something to you.”

I finished my ginger ale and twisted sideways on the stool.

“Eh, eh,” he said, reaching over to pull me round again. “We’re having a conversation here. Look at me.”

“What is it you want to say, Frank?” I said, annoyed and wanting to go home. “Ma and Dad will be expecting me.”

“My God, you bloody sound like her as well. You’ll be telling me I’ve had too much to drink next.”

“You probably have had too much.”

“Yeah, well, so would you . . .” He looked down at the floor and sat like that for so long that I thought he’d forgotten me. I pulled my beer-damp cardigan on. “And so your parents don’t want anything to do with me,” he said suddenly. “They think I killed her, or something.”

I didn’t know what to say, and I stared at him, thinking that his hair and even his stubble looked angelically blond in the light from the bar.

“Your dad wrote me a letter,” he said to his beer glass. “Want to see what it says?”

I didn’t answer, but he fished a crumpled envelope from his jacket pocket and threw it into my lap. It was the note I’d seen Dad push through the door when we’d been to Frank’s all those months ago: “I know this is your doing. You won’t get away with it.” I was shocked. I had thought Dad was leaving a message for Sukey.

“Well, he never liked me. Wasn’t much I could do about that. ’Specially with that little rat-faced idiot whispering in his ear all the time.” He looked up at me with narrowed eyes and a curled lip. “He told me to keep away.”

“Who did?”

“Your fucking lodger.”

I left after that, telling him it was the third time he’d used bad language and wincing at how much I sounded like Dad. I found the button from my cardigan on the way out, still nestled in the cellar door’s groove, and I pressed it hard into my palm as I walked home.

“Fucking let go of me, you fuck,” a woman shouts, twisting her body round. A policeman holds on to her arm and signs a book on the counter. “Fucking pigs,” she shouts again.

I try to block her slurred voice from my ears and slowly drop the last two Polo mints on to the floor. When they’re gone I start on the plastic pearls, breaking them from their string and sending them tiptoeing across the room. I wonder if this hallway’s been used for a film. It’s very familiar. There is a big glass lantern hanging from the ceiling and a shiny black-and-white floor. I concentrate on these things, rather than look at the people. I don’t want to think about the people. The shouting woman is led away through a door, but I can still hear her, and a man on the bench next to me starts to sing.

“
Que será, será
. Whatever will be, will be. We’re going to Wem-ber-ley.
Que será, será
.”

His frayed football shirt is wet and smells of beer, he swings his feet and one catches a bead, sending it skittling back towards me. I pick it up and curl it into my hand before sliding along the bench away from him.

“That’s all we need,” the policeman behind the counter says. “The next bloody Pavarotti.”

He goes to open the outside door and another policeman brings someone in, dripping blood. His nose is a mess and his eyes are rolling around in his head. “We’re going to need a doctor,” the policeman holding him says. He has blond hair which catches the light and makes me think of Frank.

“Her perfume was Evening in Paris,” I say. “And she had earrings that looked like sweets.” No one seems to hear.

“
Que será, será
,” the singing man sings, swaying over towards me. His beer smell is mixed with vomit, and he’s sweating.

“I goin’ to file a complain’,” the bleeding man says through the blood. He swings his fist, but doesn’t manage to hit anything.

I shrink further into the corner. I don’t know what I’m doing here. The lights are very bright and I’m squinting against them. Eventually I shut my eyes altogether. Perhaps this is some kind of nightmare and I’ll wake up in a minute. The noise gets louder and a policeman shouts over the top.

“No more cells, Dave! Give ’em a caution and chuck ’em out.”

There’s scuffling, swearing. Someone comes close and breathes over me. Then the noise recedes a little. I keep my head down and my eyes screwed tight. I sit like that as long as my muscles will stand it. And then, “Mum!” I hear through the noise. “Mum, it’s me, open your eyes.”

Helen is leaning over me. She strokes my arm and manages to block out everything else in the room. I put a hand to her face, but I can’t speak. I feel I might cry in relief.

“Let’s get you home,” she says, pulling me up from the bench.

There’s a Polo mint on the floor and I reach for it as she guides me through the crowd of football supporters, stepping in a patch of blood on the way out. She keeps an arm round me as we walk, and I keep an eye on the ground. When we stop to cross the road I pick an earring up from where it lies on the pavement. A striped earring, like Sukey had.

“Mum, put that down,” Helen says. Her voice sounds funny. “Where did you get it? Don’t collect old rubbish. Come on.”

She walks ahead and I drop the earring. It bounces off my body as it falls and lands in a puddle.

“I thought it was mine . . .” I say, forgetting why.

“At least now I know where the piles of junk have been coming from,” Helen says. The light glitters off her cheek as if she’s been sweating. “What were you thinking?” she asks. “Coming out at this time? I’m worried about you. Perhaps we should see Dr. Harris again.”

I can’t answer her, even if I knew the answer, even if I could remember the question, but until we drive off I can still look at the earring in the puddle. There was a time when it could have meant something, when I would have taken it home with me.

I took masses of things home with me when I still had hope of finding Sukey. Bits of paper, nail files, hair clips, an earring. A striped earring, like a humbug, which made me want to put it in my mouth and taste it when I found it lying on the bandstand steps. I couldn’t bear to walk past something that might be Sukey’s and not pick it up. I’d fill my pockets and later pack the things into my matchbox chest, or arrange them on my windowsill. Sometimes I’d examine the finds, writing down what they were and whether Sukey’d ever had anything like it. Once or twice Douglas came in asking what I’d found. He looked at the bits, touching them lightly; and he never said anything, but I felt he was searching for some significance, creating scenarios, coming up with stories for each object, ways they might point to finding Sukey or finding out what had happened to her. I started to believe I would really discover something important and so I looked even more carefully. For evidence.

Mostly I looked after school. I didn’t want to go home, anyway, to sit by the range and carefully not talk about my sister for fear of upsetting Ma or starting a row with Dad. I didn’t want to go home and change into the clothes Sukey had made. So I wandered about the streets in my uniform, scouring gutters and hedges. I often walked down Sukey’s road and traced the journey she would have made from her house to ours. Or walked the way she would have gone to the shops or the station. It was the Station Hotel where they’d found the suitcase, and if she’d left town I thought it would probably have been on the train. Sometimes I leant on the platform railings, watching the trains coming in, imagining Sukey stepping from a carriage in new London clothes. “I just went to do a bit of shopping,” she would say. “What’s all this fuss?”