‘So, you’ll want to see her room? We kept it the same.’
‘I ought to be goi…’
The words trailed off because Chris had no intention of leaving. She would see the room, then tell Mrs Howland the truth and they could be out of the house before the real journalist arrived. She traipsed behind Mrs Howland up a steep dark stairway. Her shame at her duplicity increased as she saw Alice, running up and down these stairs, waiting on the landing outside her parents’ bedroom door in her new Brownies outfit or to wake them up on Christmas morning. Chris had adopted the stories Alice had told her and made them her own memories. Her mother had done what good liars do: she had kept as much to the truth as possible. So she had said her Dad was a postman and Chris knew the weight of his huge postman’s cap as the peak slipped over her eyes. Her arms ached, and her stomach swooped as they swung her high into the air between them with a one-two-whoaaghgh!
Chris had no better idea than Kathleen Howland what had happened to Alice after she failed to return home that afternoon. But she did know where to find her.
Alice’s mother didn’t open the bedroom door immediately and from the way she hesitated Chris thought for a wild second that there was someone in the room. She steeled herself in readiness. Then Mrs Howland let the door swing slowly open and stood aside.
Chris recoiled. ‘You go first.’
‘No dear, it’s better if you do. It’s not a big room.’
Chris practically stormed in to show Mrs Howland she wasn’t afraid.
The room was indeed small. There was just enough space for a child’s dressing table with a chair, a built-in cupboard and the bed. A beam of sunshine, thick with motes of dust, slanted across the faded candlewick bedspread and a white fluffy rug beside the bed. On the other side of the alcove to the cupboard was a set of shelves on which books – Enid Blyton, Winnie-the-Pooh, Alice in Wonderland and another called Ballet Shoes – were stacked neatly. On the shelf above were three Sindy dolls, propped up against the wall in symmetry. They looked brand new, but had been in her Mum’s stories so couldn’t be. Chris nearly made a sound as she spied the neat parade of shoes: brown sandals with crepe soles, silk ballet pumps, small Wellington boots, yellow woollen slippers with ladybird buttons. Two top shelves were empty. Alice had not stayed long enough to fill them.
There were no pictures on the walls, the dressing table was bare save for an ebony hairbrush and matching hand mirror that were unlikely possessions for an eight-year-old. Chris was disappointed: the room yielded no secrets. The things in it looked new, so obviously bought recently and never used. She realised that what she had most dreaded and most wanted were clues, a trail of signs that would link her to the Alice she had grown up with. Yet if Chris had believed in ghosts, or indeed had believed Alice was dead, she would have been convinced the house was haunted, for Alice’s presence filled the room.
‘What’s in the cupboard?’ She adopted the blunt curiosity of a reporter. One more minute and she would tell Mrs Howland the truth.
‘I’ll show you.’ She was used to showing people around her house, anticipating their questions, managing their responses. She tried twice to raise herself off the soft bed where she had been sitting, then with the air of a confident owner, sure of the verdict of the potential buyer, she opened the cupboard doors. Lavender talc clouded into the room and made Chris sneeze four times in quick succession.
‘Bless you.’ Mrs Howland had a kindly voice. So far Chris could see no resemblance between this calm, sensible woman and the neurotic obsessive described in the articles. ‘Sorry about that. The powder keeps the must at bay. Funnily enough I got that tip from dear Doctor Ramsay. Doctors have to deal with a lot of unpleasant odours, of course.’
Chris nodded sagely as she gazed at the open cupboard. It was crammed with clothes. At the bottom were plastic bags out of which Chris could see folded garments peeping: jumpers, tee-shirts, some with labels still attached. At the top was a charnel house of soft toys, beige, fawn and brown.
‘Most of this is new,’ Chris exclaimed, before she could stop herself.
‘I see things she’d like, dresses she’d look so pretty in, tops and such. I can’t resist them.’
The cupboard, packed with toys and clothes, was a shrine to a well-dressed, well-loved child. Chris recognised a shirt identical to the one she had worn about six years ago. Her mother had got it out of her catalogues. As a child Chris had learnt to submit to keeping things because they fitted, for it was she who would have to take them to the post office if they were too big, too small or just too horrible. Nowadays, she bought her own clothes, scouring charity shops or spending hours in Red or Dead, and dressing just how she wanted. Chris had always suspected that Alice bought her the clothes she would have liked to wear herself. Here was the living proof. A whole bloody wardrobe awaited her.
‘There’s something you should know…’ But Mrs Howland was speaking:
‘It’s not that I don’t know how it looks. I know she’s gone. I like, just for a little while, to feel what it’s like to choose something for my daughter. I get such pleasure, you know, well you will know. The cashier thinks I have a little girl, and so we can share the experience. Now I tell them she is a grandchild, a godchild. I’m too old to be her mother. Just to stroke the cloth and agree how hardwearing the cotton is, shake our heads at the scrapes they get into. I let myself be that person for a little while.’
‘My Mum still gets cross if I stain my clothes, she still treats me like a kid,’ Chris replied without thinking as she knelt before the mound of plastic bags.
‘The sales people are happy to go along with you. They only say what you want to hear. They are meant to make the customer comfortable, so that we enjoy what they call the buying process. I did a course on selling, for a job in Hanningtons, oh, this was years ago. Before Steve died. My back couldn’t take the standing…besides I didn’t like leaving the house empty every day.’
‘Did Alice wear any of these clothes?’
‘All the things on this side.’ Mrs Howland seemed anxious to prove the truth behind what Chris could see was only a stage set. ‘The skirt I found in Exeter, and the blouse too, we went there when Alice was six. This cardigan was hers too. She loved pink.’ Mrs Howland shook her head as she straightened the limp woollen sleeve. Then rousing herself: ‘I don’t keep all the new things. I take them to charity. Or return them, saying it’s wrong on her or doesn’t fit. They understand, children grow quickly, and they’re so fussy these days.’ Kathleen sat down heavily on the bed. Her tablet was wearing off. She would take another one after the girl had gone. She wanted her to leave now, but she owed her a proper time for coming all this way. But then there would be another visitor. Kathleen was alone a lot less than people knew.
She didn’t tell the girl that Steve had broken the mirror in Alice’s dressing table.
‘That’s seven years bad luck.’ She didn’t get cross with him often, just that one time.
‘We’ve had our share, what’s another ruddy seven years?’
Kathleen clasped her hands to prevent the girl seeing the tremor.
‘I know she’s dead.’
Chris was beside her.
‘Dead? No, she’s…’
‘After all this time, I don’t kid myself. If she were alive, she would have come back, wouldn’t she? I don’t really think she’s stuck at nine years old. People think I’m not quite the full… If Alice were alive she’d be a grown woman. She could come home if she wanted. Even if she treated me as a stranger, she’d have to at least visit.’