Текст книги "Lost Girls"

Автор книги: Celina Grace

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Chapter Twenty Four

Aunt Effie was asleep when I arrived. She lay on the hospital bed, her body almost lost beneath the covers; she barely made a mound under the blankets. Her white hair, usually so carefully set, looked limp and yellowed under the harsh strip lights. Her housekeeper, Jane, was sat by the bed reading Take a Break magazine.

"I thought you said she only broke her collar bone?" I said, when Jane and I were in the corridor with the door pulled closed behind us.

Jane shrugged helplessly.

"She's a very old woman, Maudie. She can't bounce back like you or I could. If you ask me-" she lowered her voice and moved a little closer to me. "If you ask me, she won't recover from this. It's too much of a shock to the system."

I was shocked again, by the jolt that this gave me.

"But-" I said, not even sure of what I wanted to say.

Jane patted my arm. Her eyes were limpid with sympathy.

Aunt Effie hadn't moved position on the bed but her eyes were open. I stood for a moment by the side of the bed, hesitating, and then sat down.

"Maudie," she said, her voice a hoarse whisper.

"Do you want some water or something?" I asked. I couldn't get the tone of my voice right – I sounded too lighthearted, falsely jovial.

"Maudie," she said. "I'm sorry."

“Don’t worry,” I said, thinking she was going to apologise for dragging me up here. I said it automatically, without thought.

"I'm sorry," she said again, in her cracked old voice.

I felt something, a tremor of curiosity. Or was it fear? What was she apologising to me for? "Sorry for what, Auntie?"

She moved her head from side to side on the pillow.

"We were wrong," she said. "I think now we were wrong. You should have been in a hospital, you should have had treatment much earlier. We didn’t realise how bad things were."

I went cold. She'd never spoken about that time, never. It was as if it had been rubbed out of existence. It might not have happened.

I was silent. She cleared her throat. “If I thought you’d ever do what you did, we wouldn’t have hesitated. Maudie, you do understand?" Tears were shining in her eyes, the whites webbed with tiny threads of blood. “You don’t know how bad I feel that we didn’t see what was happening. I should have known what you were going to do.”

"It’s okay," I said. I couldn’t believe we were actually talking about it, the bad time, openly. I had a vision of myself then as they must have seen me; face down in a pool of vomit on the bathroom floor, and winced, as if something sharp had just pierced me.

"I'm sorry," she said again. Two tears welled up and flowed into the wrinkles by her eyes. "We thought we were doing what was right. Your mother – she-"

"My mother?" My heart was thumping – I could scarcely hear myself above its beats.

"She – she – that's why we were so afraid. They let her out for the day."

"What are you talking about?"

The tears were clogging Aunt Effie's already hoarse voice; I could hardly understand her. "She ran away with you," she said. "We didn't know she'd done it. We thought she was safe at the hospital and you were in the garden."

"What?"

I felt like taking that frail little body before me by the shoulders and shaking as hard as I could. The strength of the urge to do this shocked me. I had to clench my fists to stop myself grabbing her, shaking her, forcing her to make sense.

"She took you from the garden," she whispered. "We thought she was safe at the hospital but she wasn't. We could have lost you both that day."

I could barely speak for frustration, my teeth clenched, hissing out my words in a slow whisper.

"What are you talking about?"

She ignored me. I thought, suddenly, that she wasn't even talking to me, not directly; she was confessing to someone else, something else that only she could see. I stepped back from the bed, clenching and unclenching my hands.

Aunt Effie's eyes closed. I could hear her breath rattling through the phlegm in her throat. She coughed and her eyes flew open. I held myself rigid for a second, terrified that she'd died, but after a moment, I could make out the barely perceptible rise and fall of the blankets on the bed. I put my hands up to my head, pressing inwards. I could feel each heartbeat pulse in my temples.

The door opened inwards and Jane's head poked around. "Are you okay?" she asked.

I nodded. I couldn't be bothered to say anything else.

She gave me a look I couldn’t fathom. “Well, I’ll just be outside if you need me.”

I waited for a little while. I had each elbow clasped in an opposite hand and I could feel my arms shaking. I tried to take deep breaths while I worked out what to do.

Aunt Effie coughed. I could see her eyes opening again and, for a moment, I contemplated running away. I steeled myself, pulled up a chair and sat down again by the side of the bed.

"Auntie," I said, gently. I said her name again, more loudly this time. Her eyelids fluttered open and she looked at me.

"What was I saying?" she said, faintly.

I gritted my teeth. "You were telling me about my mother. What about her, Auntie? What did she do?"

She cleared her throat again. "I'm not feeling well."

"You started this," I said. "You have to tell me."

I got her some water and helped her drink it. I had to hold up her head but I didn't do it well; I must have been too rough because she winced and the water ran down the side of her neck. She pawed feebly at her wet nightdress and I wrenched a bunch of tissues from the dispenser on the nightstand and thrust them at her.

"Thank you," she said and something in the way that she said it, in a small, childlike voice, got through my anger. I could feel my eyes filling up with tears and rubbed them away.

Eventually, she dropped the damp wad of tissue on the floor and lay still.

"What happened?" I asked.

My anger had passed as suddenly as it had appeared – I merely felt very tired and my head buzzed. I rubbed at my temples.

"Your mother was a very lovely person," said Aunt Effie, eventually. "But she wasn't very – stable. I think we all knew that, quite early on. Your father knew it."

She stopped speaking. I dropped my hands to my lap.

"And?" I said.

She sighed again. "She was always very lively, very animated. Very vibrant. I suppose that's why we didn't notice she was slipping. She was just slightly more – more excitable than she would have been normally. And then, all of a sudden, she wasn't there anymore."

"What do you mean?"

She turned her head towards me.

"Oh, I don't mean literally," she said. "But we lost her. She turned into somebody else, somebody quite different." She fell silent for a moment. "We lost her," she repeated, quietly.

"What was wrong with her?"

"I believe the diagnosis was schizophrenia."

I looked down. The word reverberated in the quiet room.

"What happened?"

Aunt Effie shifted a little under the covers.

"She was having treatment," she said. "In the hospital. It seemed to be working. She was very – very distressed to be parted from you." I could feel my eyes begin to fill again and blinked hastily. Aunt Effie went on. "Your father brought her home for the day so she could spend some time with you. He only left her for a moment. When he came back to the terrace, she'd taken you and the car."

"Taken me?"

Her voice cracked a little. "You were only a baby. You were in your pram on the terrace, Mrs. Green had gone indoors for something. When we checked, you were gone."

I could feel dread creeping upwards through me, like a rising tide of ice water. I tried once to ask the question but my voice failed. I felt faint and the room shimmered. I tried again. "The car crash – the crash – it wasn't an accident, was it?"

Aunt Effie was silent.

"Was it?" I barely recognised my own voice.

"No," she said, eventually.

I heard myself sob. It shocked me. "She meant to do it?"

Aunt Effie reached out a hand to me but I ignored her. "Oh, my dear," she said. There were tears in her eyes. "She was ill. She didn't know what she was doing."

I stood up abruptly. I had to get out of this room; it was suffocatingly hot. I had my hand up to my scar.

I heard Aunt Effie say my name but, by that time, I was already through the door.

I drove to Caernaven. I didn’t allow myself to think on the way. I just stared at the road ahead and looked past the windscreen wipers that moved endlessly back and forth. It was raining steadily and the mountains were shrouded in mist. I parked the car outside the front door, gravel spraying up as I braked a little too hard. Mrs. Green opened the door before I could use my key.

“Maudie,” she said, sounding surprised. “I wasn’t expecting you for a couple of hours.”

“Sorry,” I said. I felt as though I were speaking through clenched teeth, although of course I wasn’t. My voice felt strangled. “I got here quicker than expected. Do you mind if I get myself a drink?”

She looked even more surprised. “No, of course – I’ll just put the kettle on.”

“A proper drink.” I was past caring what she thought.

In the kitchen, she poured me a modest glass of wine from a newly opened bottle. I had to restrain myself from grabbing it from her.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” I said. For a second, I thought of asking her about my mother and then thought better of it. I didn’t want to hear anything more about it.

“I’m just going up to my room,” I said. I took the bottle with me, not caring what she thought.

Up in my room, I sat against the radiator, shivering. I drank my wine in gulps, choking over it. My head felt as if it had been recently released from a vice.

So, no accident then. No accident. Was it suicide? Or was she just too mad to remember she was driving? I thought of my own brush with death, face down on a vomit-soaked carpet, and groaned aloud. My own mother had tried to kill me. Why? Because she knew she was going to kill herself and couldn’t bear to leave me behind? Had she wanted to prevent me suffering the same affliction in the future, snuffing me out before I had a chance to follow in her footsteps? Well, what a failure she’d made of that. In the depths of her mental torment, had she forgotten about me, strapped into the baby seat? Had I screamed as the wall rushed towards us? I thought of what her injuries must have been, and flinched. Had Angus identified her? What must he have thought as he contemplated what was left, the crumpled, ragged, ripped-apart body, the parts of it they’d managed to salvage from the wrecked car?

The pressure in my head screwed itself tighter. I could hear myself sobbing on every outward breath. Angus. All these years he’d lied to me. So many secrets in one family. How many more were there, waiting out there, waiting to spring?

I managed to get to my feet. Oblivion had never seemed so necessary. I ransacked my bathroom, looking for something, anything that would put me out for the night. I found three sleeping tablets, Temazepam, rolling around in one of the drawers. God knows how long they’d been there. As I washed them down with wine, I found myself wondering how dangerous a move this was. Perhaps they would kill me. Good, was the only answer my mind came up with, and I lay on the bed and waited for sleep, or some other kind of black curtain. Whichever came first.

Chapter Twenty Five

“You look like death,” were Matt’s first words to me as I walked through the door of the flat.

“Thanks a bunch.” I handed him one of my bags. “Nice to see you too.”

“Sorry.” He dropped the bag on the floor, drew me against him and kissed me. “That was a bit rude. You don’t look like death, but you look very tired. Better?”

I leant against his broad chest, closing my eyes.

“How was it up there?”

I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to forget what I’d heard, push it back down into the shadows.

“I’ll tell you later,” I said. “I’m too tired right now.”

I flopped onto the sofa, groaning softly. Matt handed me a little pile of envelopes.

“Your post,” he said. “Want a drink?”

I nodded. On the top envelope, my name and address were written in a hand I didn’t recognise. I tore the envelope open and scanned the single page within.

Matt was clinking about in the drinks cupboard. As I stared at the page, I became aware he’d asked me a question.

“What?”

“I said, vodka tonic do you?”

“Yes, fine.” I carefully folded the paper up and put it back in the envelope. “Matt, I have to go out tomorrow. I’ll probably be out most of the day.”

“Oh darling, you’ve only just got back. I haven’t seen you for days.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” I couldn’t face a row. “It’s stuff to do with the estate. I have to deal with it.”

Matt handed me my glass. “If you must, you must. But I’ll have forgotten what you look like soon. We must make a bit of time for us, Maudie.”

I nodded and sipped my drink, only half listening. All I could think about was the note in my pocket and the meeting with Jessica in the morning that it promised.

I had never been to the London Aquarium before. As I made my way slowly through the dimly lit rooms, bathed in a bluish glow, I thought to myself that I must come here more often. It had a peaceful sense to it, despite the hordes of school children that thronged the corridors and pressed their faces up against the glass. I drifted from one underwater scene to another, moving slowly through the dappled light and feeling calmer than I had in weeks. The three fingers of vodka I’d consumed before I left the house helped too. Drinking in the morning was supposed to be a bad sign but the way I was feeling, it was a lifesaver.

Eventually I came to our meeting place. I found a seat on one of the plastic benches opposite the shark tank and rested there, watching the sharks move their perpetual circles, spiralling up to the top of the tank, and then moving back down to my eye level. There was something hypnotic in their endless circling.

Jessica's arrival was heralded by a slight breath of the perfume she wore. I kept my eyes on the shark tank but I became aware of her sitting next to me.

“Hi, Jessica," I said quietly, not looking at her.

"Hi, Maudie."

We were quiet for a little while longer. I could feel the warmth of her arm through my sleeve and felt obscurely comforted.

"Horrible, aren't they?" she said, after a while.

I turned to look at her. "The sharks?"

"No, the screaming kids. Nightmare."

I laughed. "They are a little noisy, yes."

"At least it means we can talk freely," she said, somewhat mysteriously. She shrugged off her long black coat and folded it over her arm. "Thanks for meeting me. I didn’t know whether I should phone – anyway, how have you been?"

For a moment, I considered telling the truth. That I’d found out my own mother had been as mad as I’d once been and had committed suicide whilst trying to murder me. That my family had conspired to keep this a secret. That I’d been drinking more and more heavily, more and more secretly, since I’d discovered this. I considered telling her this for a millisecond and of course, rejected the idea.

“Oh I’m fine,” I said. “Not bad. How have you been?"

She didn't answer at first. She looked upset. I was about to say something and then she caught my eye. Her face smoothed out and she looked normal again.

"I've been okay," she said. "Things have been a bit – a bit of a struggle. A bit. I’ve been wondering – wondering what to do. I'm okay now though."

She didn't elaborate and I didn't want to press her. For a moment, I wished passionately that we could jump forward in time, to a friendship renewed three years down the track, where we'd got past the awkwardness and the back stories and were simply able to be ourselves again, as we had once been before.

"Let's wander," I said, wanting to break the silence.

We left the shark tank and walked on. Jessica stopped at a tank filled with jellyfish, floating like gently undulating, translucent balloons in the water. We were briefly alone, and she moved forward to look more closely. The blue light from the tank fell onto her face and as I watched her, I had a sudden sense of horror; it was visceral, like a whole-body shudder. She looked drowned, her skin bleached out, her eyes unseen in black hollows.

I must have made a sound. She turned towards me and the illusion was gone. I stood there with my hand up to my mouth, swallowing.

"What’s up?" she said.

I managed to put my hand down, shrug and smile. I could not shake the image of her drowned face. Perhaps the Aquarium had been a mistake. I'd managed to forget about Matt's words to me outside the pub. Now all my fears were crowding back, flooding back.

"Sorry," I said to Jessica. "I've just got to nip to the Ladies. Will you wait here for me?"

I prayed she wouldn't need to come with me.

"I'll wait here," she said.

I scurried away. I kept seeing her blue, drowned face in my mind. It had been a momentary illusion, caused by the weird water-light.

                 A few moments in a locked cubicle were enough to calm me. I took a few deep breaths before I pushed my way back out through the line of women and young children.

"Come on," I said to Jessica, who was where I'd left her. "Let's get out of here."

We began walking along the South Bank, downriver. The Thames was high, its thick, brown waters roiling and churning in the wake of the many boats that sped or chugged along it. A bitter wind was blowing and we both hunched into our coats. We wandered into the West End. We walked aimlessly for a while and found ourselves drifting onto New Bond Street.

"Oh, my favourite boutique's up here," I said. "Do you mind if we have a quick look?"

Jessica shook her head. She was looking at the windows of the shops with an odd look on her face, a look that was blank and hungry at the same time. Daylight was fading now and the lights in the windows looked extra welcoming, a soft cosy glow illuminating the wares within. We reached the door of my favourite shop and I pressed the buzzer.

"It's Maudie Reynolds," I said to the assistant. "I'd like to have a look at your new range, if that's okay?"

Inside, the chilly saleswoman thawed and greeted me by name, something that made Jessica's eyes go wide, to my secret inner amusement. I'd shopped here so often I'd opened my own account.

"It's just so much easier," I explained, wondering if I was trying a little too hard to justify myself.

“What was that, madam?” said the saleswoman.

“Oh, nothing,” I said. I waited until she’d moved away and then rolled my eyes at Jessica, to make her giggle.

There were at least three dresses that I immediately wanted. I made a beeline for them and then hesitated. It felt odd, somehow, indelicate, to be spending money on myself in front of my best friend. She was standing by a glass-topped drawer of jewellery, necklaces and bracelets and rings in delicate, filigreed platinum, laid out in tempting rows on white velvet underneath the glass.

"Nice, aren't they?" I said, coming up beside her.

"They're lovely," she said. Then she leaned in and spoke in a murmur. Her voice stirred the hair by my ear. "A lovely price too."

"Oh well," I said, a little uncomfortably. "I suppose so."

"Nice though," said Jessica. She squeezed my arm and then went to move away.

"Do you want one?" I said, blurting out my request. It took me by surprise but the second I'd said it, I could see I'd surprised Jessica more.

"You what?"

I pointed. "Do you want one? One of those?"

She came back to the cabinet and looked down, then looked back at me. I could see both incredulity and suspicion competing for control of her face.

"What do you mean?" she said, frowning.

"I mean, do you want one?"

She looked at the cabinet again. "Well, of course," she said, "But – "

"Because I'll buy you one," I said, my words rushing over one another. "I mean, I'll buy you one. Whichever one you want."

She looked back at me. "You'd buy me one?" she said, and her tone was wondering. "You would?"

"Of course," I said. I could feel the smile stretching my face. It suddenly seemed like such a stupid little thing, a gesture I should have made a lot earlier. "Call it – call it a welcome back present."

She started to laugh then. There was still a wondering note in her voice and her eyes didn't leave my face. She was looking at me like she'd looked so intensely beforehand, when we hadn't spoken, when she'd just been a figure in the street, but the message beaming from her eyes was so different. She looked... happy.

"That's very kind of you, Maudie," she said, quite formally but with a bubble of laughter still trapped in her throat.

"You're welcome,” I said, and this time I squeezed her arm.

She drew in her breath when they put my credit card through the till reader and the price came up, but I waved her away. "It's a gift!" I said. "Don't worry about it. God knows I owe you some birthday presents– "

Even outside in the street, her hand kept straying to her pocket, where she'd put the little velvet-covered box. I was touched. I wanted to buy her something else, to see that look of happiness on her face again, but thought I'd better not. Not until next time we met, anyway.

"You're very generous, Maudie," she said.

I shrugged, a little embarrassed as I always was when people mentioned money.

"Well, I suppose it's easy to be generous when you've got money."

  "Hah," said Jessica. "You'd think that would be the case, wouldn't you?”

We walked on a little further.

"Isn’t that the case?" I said.

   "Nope," she said. "People with money who are generous are rare. The tight bastards are more usually found."

“True.”

“Except for Angus,” she said. “He wasn’t tight.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“No, that he wasn’t," I said. I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice. "That’s one thing he wasn’t.”

A crowd of school children swarmed around us briefly, speaking French. We watched them walk and run down the street.

“He lied to me, Jess,” I said.

She glanced warily at me. “Who did?”

“Angus. And Aunt Effie – remember her? They all lied to me.”

“They did?”

“Technically, they didn’t,” I said. I could hear myself, as if I were listening to someone else speaking flatly. “They withheld information, I think is the term. It comes to the same thing, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

I hesitated for a second. It hurt so much to even think of the words to use. But I did use them. I told her what Aunt Effie had told me. As I finished speaking, I could feel the tears start to come.

Jessica grabbed my arm. “Don’t cry,” she said. “You’re always crying and what good does it do?” I looked at her, startled out of my misery. “Get angry, Maudie. Stop being so passive.”

“What?”

“Crying never gets you anywhere. I know that. So people treat you like shit – are you just going to sit there and take it?”

I stared at her, taken aback.

“Are you?”

I felt my shoulders slump. “Probably. I don’t know what else to do.”

She remained with her hand on my arm, staring at me. Then she stepped back. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re right,” I said. “I just – oh, I don’t know–”

I had the sense she was struggling not to say more. She opened her mouth and shut it again.

     "What is it?" I said.

     She held her breath for a second and then let it out in a sigh. "Nothing," she said. "It's nothing. It's just-" She hesitated again. "It's just – I'm sorry, Maudie."

     "Sorry?"

    "Yes, I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry you're upset."

     There was another moment of silence.

Jessica lit a cigarette and, as she spoke, wisps of smoke trickled from her lips. “There’s a bar, in Hoxton, on Shade Street. It’s off Old Street – it’s called the Sticks Bar. Can you be there tomorrow night? Eight o’clock?”

“Of course.” I said it too quickly, almost talking over her.

“It’s time for my story now.” She said it again, almost too quietly for me to hear. “Yes, it’s time for my story now.”

I felt a leap of something; fear, anticipation.

“I’ll be there.”

She regarded me for a moment, without speaking. Then with a quick sharp nod, she turned away. I watched her walk away from me down the street, before the crowds swallowed her up.