The curtain brushed against her face as she drew back in, she gathered it up; the material was beginning to wear. Perhaps now she would get new ones.
That morning she had pulled their suitcases down from the top of the wardrobe in the bedroom. After Steve died, Kathleen used the smaller case for her trips but as her Parkinson’s progressed even this was becoming too heavy. She had told Chris she kept it packed with essentials so that she could leave at short notice, as she had done on the morning Steve took her to the hospital to give birth to Alice. He hadn’t stayed for her birth. In those days he was on the docks at Newhaven and lost pay if he didn’t work. Kathleen emptied everything on to her bed and dragged the cases through to Alice’s bedroom.
That morning she had popped next door to the stores to see if Iris had any cardboard boxes. Iris could find only two, including one for toilet rolls for which she apologised, but really no, it didn’t matter what had been in them. What mattered was what she planned to fill them with. Kathleen knew Iris wanted to ask what the boxes were for, and if it had been anyone else Iris would have. Kathleen told her anyway.
‘I have a young friend coming to live with me. Eleanor Ramsay’s girl, Christine. The one that’s been visiting, she’s gone home to get her things.’ Kathleen cheered as the information took on life with the telling.
‘Eleanor Ramsay! There’s a name to conjure with. I always wondered what happened to her. She simply vanis…haven’t seen her for years. Doctor Ramsay never mentioned a little girl.’
‘I’m clearing out… I’m preparing the guest bedroom.’ There, now she had said it.
Iris was trying to fit sweets into the counter display, she was jamming Munchies and Mars Bars into too tight a space and had bent two of the packets, but in her determination to prolong their chat she hadn’t noticed.
‘Didn’t go to her poor Dad’s funeral, which between you and me…’ Iris continued gruffly. She had developed a trick of not finishing sentences, so that other people completed them, giving her more information. Kathleen knew this, but unlike most, preferred to indulge her. Iris Carter meant no harm.
‘Oh, she did go.’ Kathleen gathered up the boxes, fitting one inside the other. ‘Eleanor would do anything for her parents.’ This idea passed like an crossing the sun, the brief lack of light a fleeting insight, a momentary chill. Then she added, ‘Christine’s just the same as her mother. She’s a good girl.’
Kathleen had stayed longer than she intended to show that she was like other customers and could sit on the chair by the rack of postcards nursing a mug of tea and petting the Persian cats with the best of them.
After Jackie had told her about the CCTV footage, explaining in formal tones that had frightened Kathleen before she took in the impact of the words themselves, Kathleen had been shattered. She wouldn’t have believed her. But she had seen the evidence for herself. It had made no sense until now.
As she had made her way unsteadily up to the church, her hands brushing and clutching at any surface for support to keep herself from falling, she knew that Jackie was right. Kathleen had sent Doctor Ramsay to his death. She had broken his trust. Ever mindful of his family’s need for privacy, he had lent her the tapes on the unspoken agreement that she was looking for one thing and would ignore the rest. But she had taken note of everything. Perhaps not literally, but only because her hands refused to write. She had looked out for the woman who was Jackie Masters, not because she looked like Alice, but because she was curious about her. Kathleen had spied on the Ramsays and then acted on her information. But it wasn’t for this indiscretion that she would never be able to forgive herself. It was for all the times she had shut her eyes and ears to the unpleasant in favour of a Wonderland of nice clean hands, lovely manners and unchipped tea things.
Kathleen was glad that at least Steve had not lived to know the truth.
Steve had known all along.
She unlatched the church gate and leaned on it briefly to get her balance. As she shut it behind her and strode without support towards Mark Ramsay’s grave she was clear. She would take Chris home with her. If in any way she had failed her daughter, she did have a chance to save another child’s life.
Now, Kathleen imagined Chris filling the cupboard with her clothes, and the house with her bright chatter. She hadn’t expected to feel so elated at the prospect. Eleanor was unhappy about it, but accepted it. Kathleen had told Chris her mother was not a killer. She had promised Eleanor that for the while, she wouldn’t say more.
People would assume Chris was her substitute for Alice. They would be right. Yet no one would replace Alice. Kathleen had learnt that time was not a healer, it only clarified the loss. Now she knew nothing could bring her cherished little girl back.
She worked quickly, packing the cases and the boxes with the contents of the shelves and most of the toy cupboard. She had already got rid of the new clothes and since the day Chris had first appeared on her doorstep, Kathleen had bought nothing else in Alice’s name. She stuffed the rest in bin bags and stacked the bags and cases on the landing. As she worked, a cacophony of inner voices squawked in protest, disapproving and reproving. The heap of possessions didn’t amount to much. But then nine years was not much of a life.
Chris was coming back at lunchtime the next day. Preparing the room had taken Kathleen over three hours. The sheets were not dirty, but she remade the bed because it must be made for Chris, not for Alice who would never need it. While she had been staying, Chris had insisted on sleeping on the settee in the living room. When she returned it would be different. Kathleen laid a sprig of lavender under her pillow and as a finishing touch placed a vase of wild flowers by her bed – scabious, buttercups and sow-thistle – a taste of real countryside for a girl escaping from London.
A life for a life.
Through the open casement came the twitter and squabble of birds bustling on the guttering, and the jingle of the shop bell. When they had moved in, Kathleen had been so happy and those sounds, which she hadn’t noticed for years, had orchestrated her happiness. Perhaps they would again.
She needed dopamine; sorting out the room had used up her resources. Although Kathleen accommodated the disease, she would not give in to it. In the last few weeks her Parkinson’s had accelerated, flaying her outer layer, exposing raw flesh to the elements and making her anxious about the simplest things. When the effect of the drugs wore off she was engulfed in a terrible sadness and time shrank so that it was only yesterday since Alice had vanished and she had raked through her mind for a clue everyone had missed. Take the ‘c’ out of Alice and replace it with a ‘v’. She had played this spelling swap in the hospital after Alice was born. Then everything had been alive, everything was Alice.
She had stripped the room of Alice’s belongings and of the clothes that had never belonged. Kathleen had so often stood in this room imploring Alice to give her a sign that she was present. Downstairs the telephone began to ring. It would be Jackie Masters. Kathleen hadn’t answered her calls and she wouldn’t today. Through the floor she heard the monotone voice leaving another message. Jackie would not give up, but she dared not sound frustrated.
Kathleen was the blackmailer now.
Just as Kathleen was about to go down to get her supper, she spotted something glinting on the carpet by the bed. She got down on her knees. It was a round lump of green glass, thick as a pebble, smooth on two sides. It looked like a jewel, the deep green enriched by the sunlight. It must have been in the cupboard. She had heard a thud as she hauled out Alice’s skating boots. Kathleen raised herself on to the bed and sat with the glass in her palm. It was cold and weighty. There was one tiny air bubble that only enhanced its perfection. Kathleen didn’t recognise it. As she closed her hand around it she felt her anxiety leave, and more than at any other time she had been in Alice’s bedroom, this was the sign she had asked for. Alice was with her; she would never leave home again.