The Hiding Place (26 page)

She finds a bench to stretch out, checking with a wary finger the ache between her ribs. She’s got pills somewhere, but she’s too tired; a ragged fatigue clots her
up inside. She will lie down but she will not sleep. No more bad dreams.

~

Rose is lying down too, on the bed in which her own mother died a week before, but she doesn’t care; in fact she’s glad. She shuts her eyes but is amazed to find
them open again a few seconds later. Not seeing the ceiling with its long crack like a fork of lightning running overhead, nor Terence’s punch catch her on the side of the face, nor her
father standing in the garden, shaking Fran like a rag-doll in his hands. But her mother she sees again, rising from the bed in a shift of the curtains, a smatter of dawn light ghosting the wall.
She sees her out there with Martineau, walking quickly along the street and turning into the alley. Rose must hide. She’s hit the Jacksons’ window with Celesta’s ball. But they
are looking at each other, Martineau holding her mother, his hands running up and down her arms. It’s such a gentle thing that Rose doesn’t recognize it. A negotiation is taking place.
Mrs Jackson’s voice comes out of nowhere, over the rooftops, caught in snatches on the wind that twists through the alley,

Fire, Missus! Your house is on fire!

So bright and high that Rose has to stop herself from joining in the song,

And your baby is gone.

~  ~  ~

Rose or the dog is breathing heavily; I can’t tell who from up here. The effect is tantalizing, like the hiccups: just when you think it’s over, another note drags
itself through the air. It makes the space between the sounds seem bigger. I fix on the chest under the window. The nightmares rise and fall like gulls on the horizon; something is being
unearthed.

Drink, says Rose. We’ll need drink. Put that down.

I’m making a list. Bread, butter, ham, tomatoes, dog food.

And cake.

Cake? I say, not expecting this addition.

I
like
cake, she says, Anyway, there’s no rule is there, saying No Cake at the Wake?

She’s teasing me. She leans over, takes my pen, underlines it twice.

I must have got the habit from Mam, I say, She used to make lists all the time.

Did she now? says Rose tartly, Well, I don’t think it’s genetic. Tea. For those who don’t like whisky. Put that on your list.

We’ve been circling like this for half an hour. Every time I mention the past, I feel a stony resistance from Rose. This morning when I got up, she was already at the
kitchen table, eating chocolates, dipping her finger in and out of the plastic tray to gather the flecks. She wore a strange expression – full of glee or spite, I couldn’t tell which.
It put me on my guard: more than thirty years on, I still couldn’t trust her.

I’ve just had words with Old Mother Riley, said Rose, Doesn’t want the dog in her vegetable patch. Even though he’s a Parsnip.

She let out a loud laugh and shook the tray of chocolates at me.

Montelimar or Turkish Delight? she offered.

I wanted to talk about the funeral arrangements. If the social services were trying to find us, I wouldn’t be the only one to come back. I didn’t know who to expect,
but Rose was living here; she must have had some idea. She skidded round my questions.

I’ll be there, she said, beaming, And Mrs Riley; the old girl’s looking forward to it. Celesta will do the decent thing, I reckon. She wouldn’t miss the opportunity to buy a
new hat.

Surely there’ll be others? I said, Luca – Fran?

Rose made the same ducking motion that she did last night. No reply. I forgave it then. But something came clear this morning, finding myself in my old room in the bed with the
dip in the middle and the dawn light leaking through the curtains. It was a reflex: I looked for Fran.

Rose pulls the scrap of paper towards her and holds it, longsighted, at arm’s length.

Neat, she says, sounding surprised, as if the lack of one hand meant the other would be useless.

Why shouldn’t it be?

Dad used to call you The Sinister.

As she says it she contorts her body, pulling her arm up into a claw and leaning to the left. It looks obscene, like a caricature from a silent movie. She’s doing me, at
five years old. Then just as quickly she composes herself, hunches over the list and retraces each word; colours in the letters. An embarrassed flush creeps up her neck. I hold my voice steady.

Do you think we’ll see him?

Rose speaks calmly. It’s worse, somehow, than shouting.

You think he’s gonna turn up, do you, just because she’s died? Just because
you
finally decided it was time to come home? I’ve been here all my life, Dol. If Dad wanted
to show, he’d have done it before now.

I came back, I say, not meaning to sound defensive.

Oh aye, she says, Not before time. And for what, exactly? She raises her head at last. It reminds me of Mrs Riley;
There’s nothing worth having
. I had been asking myself the same
question all week. There were so many things I wanted. Packing my bag, sitting on the train, lying down last night and listening to Rose’s snoring, I thought I would find someone I could say
it to.

I want to lift my mother’s head from the track. I was only five, I couldn’t do it then. I want to stop her at the moment she turns and walks away from me, burning like touchpaper in
this house. There’s hammering, and darkness, and a high wailing sound which lives inside my head. I want a cure.

None of this could be shared with Rose. She was making herself perfectly clear; her past wasn’t mine, and I couldn’t be part of it. Her likes and dislikes were written in the slant
of her eyes: she despised Celesta and my mother; she admired Luca. Marina, my father, Fran, they were dismissed with a flick of the head. And me – I was still Crip. Couldn’t be trusted
to make a list: left-hander with no left hand. It was damning.

~

I get a cup from the dresser and rinse it in the sink; the tap-water smells like a swimming pool. Through the kitchen window I can see the yard and two wan dahlias leaning over
Mrs Riley’s fence. At the bottom of the garden, squatting in the uncut grass, is the rabbit’s cage in a camouflage of ivy and moss. The water leaves an acid taste in my mouth.

What’s he up to? says Rose. She thinks I’m watching the dog. I’m working out a way to persist.

Mam had friends, I say.

Rose makes no reply. She draws a series of loops on the paper.

What about Eva?

You’ve left it a bit late for all that, she says, exasperated now, I’ve told you who’s coming. There won’t be no one else.

The clouds give up a wedge of sun, filling the kitchen with light. Rose sits back and admires her handiwork. The list is illegible now, a forest of swirling lines and winding
snakes. I’m thinking about a crucifix and an inky stain spelling FRAN. I’m thinking about tattoos.

I want to find Fran.

Well you won’t, she says, finally, You can’t find what isn’t there, Dol! Try Eva, if you’re really that bothered – see for yourself if she wants to come.

Rose sighs heavily, folds the list, tears off the bottom edge. She writes down the address.

~  ~  ~

Elgin Court is on the same road as Whitchurch Hospital, separated by a mile of chestnut trees shedding splotches of light on the path. Lizzie Preece brought me this way when we
came to visit my mother. The ground was barbed with fresh green cases, split like wounds. She said we could look for conkers on the way back, but we never did, because after that there was my
mother, sneaking me through a break in the fence and on to the railway line at the back, and after that there was the search party, the pelting rain, my mother waving me goodbye with one hand
pressed to her mouth. That is how she comes to me, putting the piece of flint to her ear as if she might catch the sea in a stone; feeding me berries that tasted of nothing. It seemed as though we
had walked for miles. We sat on the black grass of the embankment and looked at the tracks. My mother took something from her pocket.

I’ve got us a present, Dol.

Hundreds and Thousands. The packet had a picture of a clown on the front. I licked my finger and dipped it into the rainbow of dots.

Enough left for a trifle, she said, folding the packet carefully and stowing it away, Shall we go home and make one?

I thought she meant our home.

For hours afterwards, sitting with Lizzie Preece, waiting for my new mam and dad to arrive, I would find the tiny beads of sugar in the gaps between my teeth. Crunching, like a bit of gravel or
stone.

My mother would have been seventy-two this year; Eva must be near the same age. Too young to be in a home.

~

All the women wear brown stockings and floral print dresses. All the men are asleep. The room is large, low-ceilinged and open-plan, with armchairs evenly spaced to form a
semicircle. It looks like a hotel foyer, but the television in the corner is a giveaway: no sound, a strike of sunlight dissecting the screen. A tiny woman peers at the close-up faces of people
arguing. The rest of them sit in their chairs, taking turns to sigh. While I’m waiting, I study the residents. There’s no sign of Eva’s peroxide bun with its streak of nicotine
running up the side: these women are pastel rinsed, woolly permed. One of them wears a fur hat in jealous auburn which she habitually checks with her hand. If any of them is Eva, I tell myself,
it’s bound to be her. I’m wondering if giving me this address was one of Rose’s peculiar jokes, when there’s a clack of heels behind me, and a high, sing-song voice in the
style of a breezy hostess.

Hello there! Dolores! How lovely to see you.

Now
this
is Eva. She is a dazzle of mismatched colours: translucent shadow, blue as a baby’s eye, is smeared across her lids. There’s a straight orange gash
where her lips should be, horsey yellow teeth behind them. Framing her head is a helmet of silver hair. She wears an acid yellow suit, and lots of jewellery; chains and lockets do battle at her
neck, a set of bangles clatter on her wrist.

We’ll have tea in the conservatory, Mrs Powell, she says to the care assistant at her side, When you’ve got a minute. Eva raises her eyes to heaven. Can’t get the staff, her
look says. She sweeps ahead, throwing her arm out to show me her domain. A long corridor with a series of doors, one open to show its narrow bed, chintz curtains and covers, a mirror screwed to the
wall. Then straight on into the conservatory. It’s a new addition, the palms and vines are young and green, but the foliage is sparse; there isn’t enough of it to soften the edges.
Every pane of glass gives up a harsh, clean light. It’s like being in a birdcage; the smell is baking wood.

Eva clips smartly across the tiles, sits on a sun lounger and crosses her legs. One very thin gold chain cuts a little too tight into her ankle. It’s all colour – Eva, the floral
lounger, the creeping ivy behind her head, the stained wood soaking up the sun, as if in retaliation against the muzzy creams and dim browns of the sitting room. It’s hot in here but Eva
doesn’t notice; she squashes up close and covers my hand with hers. There’s nothing about her face or her smile or her chatter that reminds me of the Eva I knew; I want an ocelot fur
with its bottle of rum peeping from the pocket. I want a charm bracelet with its little boot, pixie and spinning heart. It feels like a cheat.

I can’t spend too long, Dear, forgive me. This place is so busy – never-ending! Poor loves. Now, how are you?

As I talk she blinks rapidly at me, her sky-eyes full of concern. She bends closer: I think she expects me to kiss her, her face is so near mine. I can smell her powder, and
underneath, another scent. Sharp, unplaceable. I tell her about my mother. She nods vigorously. Closer still, as if to suck the breath from my mouth – so close, I can see the raddle of lines
on her face, her forehead prickled with sweat, and her hairline, a fraction too low.

Nasty shock, she says. Suicide. On top of everything else. The gas oven, the railway track. It was my fear too, so I’m prepared for her assumption. But this isn’t how it was.

She died in her sleep, I say, repeating what I’d heard.

They never do, Eva whispers loudly, It’s just what people like to think. Take it from me, she nods confidentially, They always know when their time’s up!

The heat of glass all around us, a zigzag of yellow and green, her hands on mine: it’s beginning to stifle. The assistant comes with a tray.

I’ve brought some biscuits, she says, winking at me.

Very good, says Eva.

She releases my hand to pour the tea.

Will you come to the funeral? I ask.

Of course! she says, Would I miss that? No!

Eva takes a biscuit from a little plate. They’re custard creams; the edges are blunted and the criss-cross patterns are worn, as if they’ve been fingered,
re-used.

At your age, it’s weddings, she says, prising open the two halves of the biscuit, But for me, it’s all funerals.

She presses the square flat against her mouth and begins to lick the cream. A faint crust of icing, sticky on her lips.

Now your mother’s gone. There’ll be none of us left soon! I ask her who is left. She frowns, blinking slowly, rhythmically, as if there’s a body count going on in her head.

You could try The Moonlight, that’s still going – she says, and with a coy smile – You might find
someone
there! An old friend!

Eva lifts her cup, sips the tea and pulls a face. She clatters it down in the saucer.

No sugar! she says, Bugger!

I thought there might be some family, I say, I’m looking for Fran.

Eva cranes her neck over the fringe of the lounger and shouts into the hallway,

Mrs Powell, you’ve forgotten the sugar! Sorry, love, she says, sitting again. Sweat gathers in the creases of her forehead. She puts up an orange fingernail and scratches beneath the
hairline. The helmet of hair shifts slightly to the left.

Frank? she says, mishearing me, Oh, well now,
he
won’t show; not now they’ve found Salvatore.