Touched (15 page)

Rowena sobbed and put her face in her hands.

‘Hold tight,' he said and gazed momentarily into her eyes. He squeezed her hand. ‘I'll see you as soon as I can.'

 

In the night, there was no sleep. Image upon image processed past her: her children were taken from her by the court, the adoption services, inevitable if you
lost
two of five, three of six, the sums merging in her head so she was sweating and crying and begging her pillow.
Jennifer, Jennifer
, she sobbed. While Eva had always wandered, especially now they lived in the country, Jennifer trod a safe path between home, village and friends' houses, with occasional excursions across the fields to Brinden with her sisters. Douglas woke intermittently and threw his arm around Rowena, or sighed heavily at her sleeplessness; once he paced the floor and left the room and she heard the sounds of him muttering Jennifer's name as he urinated loudly. He crashed back to sleep, and she rose to go to the bathroom herself and heard the noises so openly now, the creaks and murmurings from along the passage. She almost didn't care.

She walked through the house in her nightdress, and the sounds subsided but the smells were there in force, the landing thick with perfume, with – she had to face it – with urine, and, as she descended the staircase at that end, the air was hung with mildew, with sour wafts of cat. Was there canary there too? No, that was in her imagination. She gagged. The stains were now spreading from above the arch to the middle of the ceiling, a crazy feathering of yellow, brown, rust on the paint, mould fingering towards the centre, its path interrupted by loosening sections of plaster, and spreading into plump furry accretions that recalled again Mrs Crale's old wallpaper, the birds that were decapitated by Pollard's blows. ‘Oh God,' murmured Rowena. ‘God,' she said more loudly, crying in some way for help.

‘I seen your bairn,' said the old Scottish man the next day.

‘Where?' Rowena gripped him.

‘By the stream.'

‘By the stream?' said Rowena rapidly. ‘What was she
doing
?'

‘Chatterin' away. As to a wee bairn. But there were none there.'

‘Oh, you mean
Eva
?'

He looked puzzled. ‘The lassie who dresses as the dead. As the departed. Like her grandmammy. As the—'

‘Evangeline,' snapped Rowena, the neighbour's small wizened face with its hen eyes boring into her, and she felt that same impulse to hit him. ‘You saw her?'

‘Aye.'

‘Where did she go afterwards?'

‘I dinnae know.'

Rowena swore under her breath. ‘Well, tell the police you saw her.'

‘Aye. I will do that.'

‘And if you see her again,
tell her to come home,
then fetch me. Tell her she won't be in trouble.'

‘She will though, aye? Your mister will take a belt to her.'

Rowena went back to the house, sobbing. Douglas was betraying a new tone of urgency in his somewhat aggressive dealings with the police and she wanted to be near the phone. She gazed, all afternoon, out of the window, keeping Rosemary, Bob and Caroline inside, close to her. She had been prescribed a stronger dose of Librium. The light was mobile in the next room.

Freddie. Freddie is here, she thought – Freddie, who doesn't exist. My own girls are gone,
gone
, and all I have is a lost boy.

Eventually, Caroline and Bob went for their naps, Rosemary sat in her bedroom, and Rowena stood alone by the window. She gazed and gazed through different panes, the distortions of each small section of glass altering the view of the green in cloud, in rain, in silver silence, and she was increasingly aware that, should she look round, there would be someone behind her. She didn't look, but there was the knowledge of being watched, of someone small playing, the smell of grubby, sugary skin pressed against her back, and she stood there rigidly, the only movement the tears running down her face.

ROWENA CONTINUED TO
look through the rain as the boy played behind her, a presence as sure as the clouds that darkened the room, while the faintest shiftings of joists sounded upstairs. She couldn't look at him or he would scutter away, a collection of shadows, so she resisted him with her back, and tears made her face sore as rain twined down the window.

Was she to call him Freddie? He had never had a name. ‘Freddie,' she murmured aloud, to try it out, and she was reminded of Eva again, as she followed him up the stairs, because he was pulling at her with a hot sticky hand, and she would look after him now, when it was too late. Too late. He needed a mother's arms.

On the landing, he was gone, but there was Eva's skirt.

‘Oh!' Rowena let out a cry.

A layer of red flannel petticoat beneath a sprigged flounce caught in the corner of the tongue-and-groove door; a hand opened the section again swiftly and quietly and then released it, and the wall was once again as it ever had been.

Joy flooded through Rowena.
Here
was her darling daughter. She cried thanks to God in the sky, in the clouds and heavens. If Evangeline was here, Jennifer was somewhere at large too. She was, she was; she had to be.

Rowena heard Eva's voice and caught her breath. Her heart was thumping so hard, she thought that surely its reverberations must drum on the wood, but she made herself still in her light-headedness, and she listened.

She heard murmurings, seemingly a conversation rising and falling through the noise of rain on the roof, and strained to hear the words. Eva! Her dear mad daughter, there in that horrible cupboard. Through her bewilderment was the blessed relief that the panic was over.

‘. . . please,' said Eva gently.

There were whisperings, silences, a tangle of words. Rain thundered, subsided, regathered force, blocking out all other sound. Rowena pressed her ear harder to the wood, but she could distinguish only an occasional word through the onslaught.

‘. . . your medicine . . . potatoes . . .
Poll
ard,' she heard.

She heard the word ‘Grandmamma' followed by a crooning like a lullaby. She is quite mad, Rowena thought sadly.

She waited. She ran her fingernails lightly under the beading, crouched down, and when the rain was at its most torrential, she pushed the section of tongue-and-groove very gently until it opened a little.

For a few seconds, she watched what she could see of Eva, a thin and dirty-haired girl leaning over the bottom shelf in that choking cupboard, now close and dark with rain.

‘Sweet Grand
mamm
a,' she said, and she seemed to be rubbing the bedding on the shelf. ‘You need to
stay
warm.' She was leaning over the lower bunk, and there were more murmurings barely audible to Rowena.

‘Eva,' said Rowena gently.

Eva screamed. In one movement, she stretched herself further over the bed, yanked an eiderdown over the pillows, then stood in front of the wadded shelf with its unseemly heap of bedclothes. She stayed there, visibly trembling.

‘Thank God,' said Rowena in a croaky whisper. The room was cooler yet ever thicker with sour odours. She saw the canary behind glass, now listing so its lumpy body was bent almost double, and jolted away.

‘Eva?' She took Eva into her arms, covering her head with kisses. ‘Come down,' she said, pushing her towards the door. Rain pelted the skylight.

‘I will return,' said Eva as they left.

‘No, you will not,' said Rowena quite fiercely.

‘
Je Reviens
,' said Eva very clearly.

‘My God,' said Rowena. ‘That. That – perfume. You sound – you sound quite
mad.
Don't, don't darling. This has got to stop.'

On the landing, Rowena pulled Eva to her again, and Eva lay her head against her mother's shoulder. Rowena stroked her hair.

‘Come back to us, Eva,' she said. ‘You're so thin. My darling, you are so thin. Please. What are you
doing
up here? This horrible, horrible old room.'

Eva smiled. She shook her head.

‘Have you seen Jennifer?' said Rowena in a low voice.

‘No,' said Eva.

‘Really?' said Rowena, her voice catching in her throat. ‘Are you sure?'

‘I'm sure.'

Rowena nodded slowly, her head heavy.

For the first time in many months, Eva put her arms around her mother. ‘I am here,' she said in her low slow voice. ‘That
means
Jennifer will come back too.'

‘How can I know that?' said Rowena, but a hope rose through her.

After a bath and a meal that she ate in hungry silence, Evangeline stood up quite abruptly and began to walk out of the room.

‘Where are you going?' said Rowena.

‘I need to go back up,' said Eva, and began to hurry towards the staircase.

‘You do not,' said Rowena, following and putting her hand on Eva's shoulder. ‘Sit down on the sofa. You are
not
going up to that horrible creepy cupboard.'

‘I need to,' said Eva, a hard expression appearing on her face.

‘Certainly not,' said Rowena with fresh force. ‘Sit down. Tell me. Tell me
now
, Eva, where you've been all this time.'

Eva smiled. ‘In the fields, Mother.'

‘You've been here, haven't you? You've been in that room?'

‘I need to get back up there.'

‘You are not going up there.'

‘I need to look after her. She can't be on her own.'

‘
Who?

‘She can't.'

‘Jennifer?' said Rowena with a cry.

Eva shook her head slightly. Pity crossed her face.

‘
Who?
' said Rowena again, tears sliding down her cheeks without restraint.

Eva reached up and wiped them.

‘Grand
mamm
a,' she said simply.

Rowena stared at Eva. She drew in her breath. ‘Eva,' she said in a fast furious growl. ‘Do you not realise what you're saying? What are you saying? What are you talking about? This is
illness—
'

Eva shrugged.

‘Well?' snapped Rowena.

‘What could I do?' said Eva. ‘She only wanted to
stay
in her house.'

‘This is ancient history, Evangeline.' Rowena felt heat rush to her head.

‘But how – how could I not help
to
keep her at home? How could I let you push her out of her home when all her heart wanted was to be
at
her own, own home and she needed help?'

‘Eva, Eva!' Rowena was shouting. ‘Stop! Stop! You sound
mad
. Don't you realise? If you talk like that, they will take you away. Darling. How long have you spent up there?'

‘I've been
looking
after Grandmamma,' said Eva in a low steady voice. ‘Feeding her, talking to her, sewing, mending—'

‘You've been up there, hiding up there, all this time?'

Eva said nothing.

‘Oh God,' said Rowena. ‘Those noises.' She reached across, and took Eva's wrists, holding them so hard that Eva pulled them away. ‘They will think you're mad.'

‘Who
will
?'

‘Everyone. The police. Doug – Daddy. Everyone, everyone. They will put you away if you say things like that, don't you understand?' She clutched her again, urgently.

‘I'm being shut away anyway,' said Eva sulkily.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Of course
I
am.'

‘Oh – Ragdell.' Rowena took a deep breath. ‘No, no, darling,' she said more gently. ‘Much worse than that. You speak like that and they'll put you in – I don't know – a reform school, institution, somewhere where they can help you. Treat you. ECG. I don't know—'

Eva shrugged. ‘She needs feeding, changing, lov—'

‘You must not SAY this stuff. You are not understanding me. This isn't normal. They'll give you – I don't know – a lobotomy. Don't you see? And if you say these things to the police, perhaps, perhaps they will not return Jennifer to us either when they find her. They won't think we are suitable parents.'

‘I
would
never tell the police,' said Eva in a hiss. ‘Anyway. Grandmamma needs protecting.'

‘Good God, Eva. This is the very last time you will tell these stupid tales. This is a diseased fantasy. You must, must stop, darling.'

‘I know exactly what I am telling the police of my where
abouts
,' Eva said calmly. ‘Which meadow, dwelling, field and garden I have been staying in. I planned it all out in our room.'

Rowena shook her head, her jaw slack.

‘Where is Jennifer?' she said.

‘I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.'

The front door opened to the noise of a torrent from the gutter.

‘Have the police called since lunch?' came Douglas's voice, the urgency in his tone audible.

‘Yes,' answered Rowena. ‘But nothing to report. Eva is ba—' she called before he came into the main room, instinct warning her, but he was already there and staring at Eva.

Eva had struggled to her feet, her eyes like a dazed sea creature's beneath the plastered water-rat hair of her bath.

He strode over and hit her on the cheek.

‘Douglas!' shrieked Rowena. She leapt up and tugged him away from where Eva was now standing, her eyes wide with shock. ‘Douglas!' she cried, and she grabbed his arm.

Eva opened her mouth, turned, and ran upstairs, a thin battered figure, more ghostly than she had ever been.

‘I think I
hate
you,' Rowena said to her husband.

THE POLLARDS WERE
on their annual holiday to Wales but the police wanted to inspect Brinden without further delay, and Rosemary knew where the spare key was hidden.

Early the next morning, Rowena and Rosemary accompanied the police while a lady officer was booked to interview Evangeline at The Farings. The rain had stopped, but the police van skidded on the path, and the overgrown nettles, docks and bushes soaked their legs on the path to the side door. Rowena had never seen so many snails; the large cats mewled in a chorus, aggressively rubbing against their legs until Rosemary stumbled. She had brought food for Rosie and Ginger, but when she laid it in front of them, there was a hissing, spitting fury of cats, a yowling of torn ears and despair.