The Hidden Girl (16 page)

It had sat on a shelf in the spare bedroom in their London flat for two years. Then it had gone into a cupboard, and a year later into a box.

She thought of the little boy who had nearly been hers last summer. If she hadn’t been so bloody pig-headed and stupid and committed. If she’d just told Jane she wasn’t taking that trip to the States, she would have been there that Monday morning to meet his social workers with Will – calm and ready. Not rushing in like a loon, waving flowers, yelling about the time.

The little boy would be here now, and none of this would be happening. This blue denim elephant would be his.

Hannah cried into its head.

Next day Will woke with a hangover for the second time that week, on the sofa in the studio. This time, however, his head felt as if it was in a clamp. He groaned as he shifted his back, and tried to remember how he’d ended up here.

Unable to move without a searing pain shooting through his temples, he checked his watch. Nine fifty-five.

What day was it – Thursday?

He tried to sit up and couldn’t.

Shit. Matt would be here any minute.

Will ran his hands over his three-day stubble. A taste lingered in his mouth. Of the weed, and the wine and . . . Clare. He sat up, grimacing as his back pulled.

Fuck.

The memory of kissing her came back. And then of the phone conversation with Hannah on the balcony.

He stretched his arms ahead of him to loosen the muscles, trying to recall what he’d said. He’d been angry with Hannah. Angry-after-six-pints angry. Just like his old man.

He tried to stand up, knowing he’d done something bad. Whatever he’d said, he shouldn’t have said it drunk.

A wave of nausea hit him.

He grabbed the bin just as the door opened and Matt walked into the studio.

Hannah sat, that same morning, in the kitchen, with the duvet wrapped around her. She’d woken on the floor of the second bedroom in the middle of the night, shivering, with the blue denim elephant under her head.

Her breath in the bone-cold kitchen danced with the rising steam from the tea. She held the hot china in her palms till it was almost unbearable. She watched the Victorian wall outside.

The ridge of snow at the top was smaller. The snow was melting. Iced water dripped from the ivy.

Tap-tap-tap.

She regarded the schedule in front of her; took the board scrubber and wiped it clean.

After a while she stood up. A green six o’clock shadow glowed through the hastily painted white kitchen walls.

Holding the duvet around her, she set off aimlessly through the downstairs rooms.
You’re trying to create this home that’s not ours
. She saw the cracks, and holes, and lumps, hidden by paint. Was she?

One thing she did know: Tornley Hall was starting to feel like a tomb.

She had to get out of here. Go for a walk, and think.

As Hannah pulled on her coat and boots, she saw her phone charging on the hall table. She hadn’t even turned it back on last night to check if Will had rung back.

She couldn’t deal with it right now.

Leaving it on the table, she turned left out of Tornley Hall and went up the lane.

Dark patches of tarmac were already appearing on the road, and a few brown cat’s tails and green stalks of seagrass had emerged from the snow-covered marsh. A magpie with brilliant blue feathers flew past.

Hannah searched for a path across the marsh.

Uncertainty
.

Will’s words came at her like a dog attack.

How did you go through IVF, and all the challenges of the adoption process with someone, and then feel uncertain?

As she approached the bend, a familiar engine roar came from up ahead. Knowing the way Dax drove, she dived into the side, her left boot dipping into a ditch of icy water. His red truck zoomed precariously round the bend and skidded to a halt. The window came down. A radio blared.

‘No painting today?’ Dax yelled cheerfully, turning it down.

Hannah dragged herself out of the ditch, surprised at how grateful she was to see him. How lonely she felt.

‘No, I’m going for a walk, down to the sea.’ She went to say ‘actually’ and stopped.

‘Why’s that?’ Dax asked, apparently flummoxed at this idea.

‘Why?’ Hannah replied. ‘I want to go for a walk. Which way is it, Dax? Is there a path?’

Dax’s head ducked down. The passenger door flew open, nearly banging her into the ditch again.

She approached, expecting him to produce a map. Instead he swung upright again and took the handbrake off. ‘Come on then.’ He motioned her in.

‘But I’m . . .’

‘Come on! Got to be down Graysea by one.’

She sighed. What was it with him? She couldn’t seem to say no. Dax was clearly wasted out here – he’d do great things somewhere in government.

She climbed into the truck.

‘Dax,’ she said, shutting the door. ‘Do you ever ask anybody if they actually want to do something, or do you just make them do it?’

‘Ha!’ Dax roared. ‘Ha!’

For the first time in a while, Hannah smiled. ‘OK, but if you could just show me the path, that would be great.’

He turned the radio back up and raced off, not waiting for her to buckle up. When it became apparent there was no seat-belt, she clung to the door with one hand and to the seat with another.

His truck reminded her of Dad’s van, full of newspapers and rags and tools, but less tidy. There were old tracksuit trousers rolled in a ball in the footwell; a cup with a dirty ring-mark in the drink-holder, and food wrappers. It smelt of diesel and dogs.

Dax raced along the narrow roads, whacking his gear stick in and out.

Loud pop music played on the radio, the soundtrack to his crazy driving. It made talking impossible, but right now that suited her fine.

Will’s words came at her in the cold light of day.

I can’t believe you gave up your job like that
.

Jane can’t, either
.

That one had hurt as much as anything; that Jane – who’d given Hannah her first desk job at TSO, then fired up her passion for human rights and sent her abroad aged twenty-four to do things she wouldn’t have dreamt she was capable of – was disappointed in her.

Dax braked as they met a car head-on. With no self-consciousness whatsoever, he placed his arm behind Hannah and reversed at speed back into a lay-by. The other car passed. A gruff wave. And on again.

Around the next bend Dax swerved sharp right onto an unpaved road, so narrow that Hannah knew she’d never attempt it in a car. She wasn’t even sure if it was a road – more like a cycle lane lined by high verges of grass. A small sign in the bushes up ahead said ‘Graysea’.

‘Oh no. Dax, listen!’ she shouted over the music. ‘I just wanted to find the path, so I could walk there.’

‘You want me to show you the way or not?’

‘Yeah, but . . .’

She gave up and sat back.

As the truck bumped along, with the marsh on one side, hedges on the other, strangely it reminded her of a TSO trip. Of bombing along in a hired minibus or Land Rover, in blasting heat, in crazy, beeping traffic – kids sitting in the backs of trucks, cows on the road, the local driver she’d hired double-overtaking on hills; Hannah reassuring the journalists in the back that it was all fine, when in truth she was wondering if any of them – including her – would ever get home.

She’d never felt so alive.

Will said he was upset that she’d given it up.

She felt a burst of anger towards him. How could he say that, after what had happened last summer? She’d ruined it for both of them, because of her job. Did he have no idea how hard it had been to leave TSO? How hard it had been to give up such a huge part of who she was? Did he not realize what a sacrifice it had been for her?

Dax drove, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the windowsill. She glanced at him. She couldn’t imagine Dax bowing down to anyone. If ever there was someone who knew who he was, and where he came from, she suspected it was Dax.

His head was thrust forward. His eyes darted left and right.

A second later she knew why.

Dax slammed on the brakes and his arm flew across her chest as she jerked forward.

A pheasant scurried across the road.

‘Shit!’ she said.

‘Come on, fella, or we’ll have you for dinner,’ Dax said, removing his arm, and accelerating at speed again. ‘Hold on!’ His arm shot out again.

Hannah grabbed her seat as the truck hit a short upward slope and burst out with a little skip onto an area of high grass.

The grass parted like theatre curtains and the sky opened up – and there was the sea.

‘Wow,’ Hannah said, as the truck came to a halt.

She’d never seen a beach in the snow. It stretched, a white arc, into the distance, bordered by a grey line of shingle, melted at the water’s edge. The sea was flat and salty-grey; dirty packs of ice and flotsam surfed the current.

‘I didn’t realize it was quite so close,’ Hannah said.

‘What d’you think was here! Ipswich?’ Dax snorted.

She smiled, irritated. ‘Well, no one would know how to get here, if they didn’t live locally.’

A woman walked in the distance with two kids. Dax turned down the radio and picked up his cigarettes. He offered her one and she declined.

‘So how come,’ he said lighting it, ‘how come you ain’t got kids, with that big house?’ He opened the window and chucked out the match.

Hannah turned. ‘Bloody hell, Dax! That’s a bit rude.’

‘Ha! What are you, thirty-summat?’ He dragged on his cigarette, a wicked glint in his blue eyes.

She laughed. ‘God, you say what you mean, don’t you?’

He blew out smoke and tapped the ash. ‘Can’t have ’em, I reckon. What is it? Your bloke shooting blanks?’

Hannah snorted indignantly. She opened the window to let out the smoke, not caring if he took offence. ‘No, he’s bloody not, Dax. God, what are you like?’

‘Ha-ha!’ He guffawed again, showing surprisingly white teeth.

She sat back in the seat, watching the tide retreat, taking more snow with it. Oh, who cared any longer?

‘Well, as you’ve asked so nicely, the reason I’ve been decorating is because we’re waiting to adopt.’

‘Are ya? What, from China or someplace?’

‘No . . .’ she said. ‘From foster care. Here. Or from London anyway.’

‘Oh, right.’ He took another puff and blew it out with a whistle. ‘Someone what someone didn’t want?’

She glared. ‘That makes it sound simple. No. Probably a child who’s been removed from their family because the parents are struggling to look after them, or the child’s at risk. Sometimes it’s a child whose parent has died.’

She watched the muddy sea, realizing she was speaking about the adoption as if it were still going ahead. As if Will had not declared his
uncertainty
to her.

Dax reached into the side-pocket and pulled out a hip-flask. He took a swig and offered it to her.

She sniffed. Whisky.

‘Good for the cold, my granddad used to say,’ he said with a grin.

She didn’t know why, but she took it. It set her throat on fire, and she coughed and handed it back. Dax shook his head again, as if she was an idiot.

She wondered what she was doing, sitting in an oily van with a man with the manners of a wolf, drinking whisky.

‘So that’s why I’ve been decorating,’ she continued, even though he hadn’t asked. ‘Social services are coming to make sure the house is suitable for a child, and to meet Will’s family in Thurrup.’

‘What, they going to give you a test or summat?’

‘Yes, that’s right – a sit-down exam in how to change nappies.’

Dax stopped, mid-puff.

‘I’m joking,’ she said. ‘No, we’re approved to adopt – that doesn’t change – they just need to check nothing’s altered because we’ve moved. That’s why we’re trying to do it so quickly, in case a child comes up soon. We don’t want to miss one.’

Dax looked cynical. ‘That bloody house needs pulling apart, not painting.’

‘I know.’ She nodded. ‘I’m starting to realize that. And we will do it. It just needs to look good enough for now, when they come. Have you got kids, Dax?’ she asked, to change the subject.

Dax’s gaze settled on the woman and children disappearing around the headland. ‘Do I look bloody stupid?’

She found the door handle. ‘OK, well, thanks for the lift. And for yesterday.’

Dax threw the butt out of the window. ‘You can help me now, if you want?’

‘Doing what?’ She let go.

Dax didn’t reply. Instead he turned up the radio, slammed into gear and accelerated onto the shingle beach.

‘Where are we going?’ Hannah asked, alarmed. The truck hit the shingle, listing at an angle, spraying snow as it raced along the beach. She grabbed the seat to stop herself falling sideways.

‘Are you allowed on here?’ she shouted.

‘By who?’ Dax shouted, swerving around driftwood and rocks.

She was going to mention the council, but suspected he wouldn’t care.

The truck sped along, stones skittering out of their way, the engine growling. A few seconds later they skidded around the headland and came to a stop outside a tin-roofed house on the marsh, right by the shore. The yard was full of old cars. An elderly man looked up. He was unusually tall, with long skinny legs and a red face and white hair. He wore a boiler suit like Dax’s, a black hat and gloves. He regarded Hannah with rheumy eyes, with an unnervingly still expression that made her look away.

Dax flung his door open. ‘Come on then.’

She stepped out onto a slushy path.

The elderly man turned away. He pointed to a stack of tyres and mumbled something indecipherable to Dax, before walking off on his long, spidery legs.

Dax picked up a tyre. ‘Ten of these.’

‘Oh, OK,’ Hannah said, taken aback.

As Dax carried his to the truck and threw it onto the back, she tested the weight of the second one. She decided to roll it to the truck. Dax took it from her and threw it into the back as if it weighed the same as a loaf of bread. Without speaking, they carried on like this: her rolling, him lifting.