Beneath the Surface (12 page)

Lately memories were flooding back, ones she hadn’t given any thought to for years. It was almost like a valve had opened up in her head and was allowing dribs and drabs of her past to seep back in when she had thought she had managed to keep them out.

Kathryn pulled the duvet off. It was too hot in the bedroom and she was sweating under the covers. It was the fourth night that week she hadn’t been able to sleep and she considered asking for more tablets from Dr Morgan, although he was often reluctant. He didn’t believe medication was always the answer for Kathryn and had asked her to come in and see him about some things soon. She had agreed, what harm could it do? Her old doctor was dead now and she had to get used to someone else taking care of her.

Slowly easing herself out of bed, Kathryn realised how drained she felt. All she wanted to do was get back into bed and sleep for the rest of the day. But her eyes, despite their heaviness, were wide open, as if searching for something. Her body might be telling her to sleep but her mind wasn’t at rest.

Hannah hadn’t come home until eleven the previous night even though she had promised she would be back by ten. Kathryn could hear her mother’s voice telling her she couldn’t control her own daughters. She feared Eleanor was right about that too and there was little she actually was capable of.

Knowing she wouldn’t get back to sleep, Kathryn crept down the stairs and into the kitchen. She filled the kettle and sat at the breakfast table, waiting for it to boil. Her fingernails were in a state, she noticed, inspecting her hands that were splayed on the table in front of her. Bitten like a child’s. She must have been absent-mindedly chewing them again. The nail on her right thumb had been gnawed so low the flesh was starting to bleed. ‘Damn,’ she muttered under her breath as she looked for a plaster, pulling out kitchen drawers. She knew she had bought plasters the other week, only it wasn’t obvious where she had put them. Everything in her kitchen had a place. Her plasters had a place. The girls would joke about how organised it was, yet now she couldn’t for the life of her think where those wretched plasters were.

The more she looked, the more aggravated Kathryn got. Heat was rising at the back of her neck, bubbling under the surface of her skin. Even in her thin nightie she felt the need to flap the top of it to cool herself down. It was all so stupid. The blood on her thumb had already dried up, but the fact she couldn’t find the plasters made her determined not to stop until she did.

‘Mum?’

Kathryn heard the voice but didn’t stop pulling out drawers and opening cupboards. They had to be somewhere; plasters didn’t just vanish.

‘Mum, what are you doing?’

‘I’m looking for something,’ she muttered.

‘What are you looking for?’ Lauren asked. ‘Mum!’ she grabbed Kathryn’s arm, causing her to swing round and face her. ‘What are you looking for?’

Kathryn stopped and stared at Lauren, wondering why her daughter looked concerned. Then out of the corner of her eye saw the chaos she had created. The room was usually so pristine; if she hadn’t been standing in the middle of the mess she would have assumed they’d been burgled.

‘Well, who knew we had so much stuff?’ Kathryn said.

Lauren stared at her in disbelief. ‘It’s not usually tossed around the kitchen. What were you looking for anyway?’

‘A plaster,’ Kathryn said, holding her thumb up.

‘For what?’

‘It was bleeding.’

Lauren grabbed the thumb and held it up to her eye. ‘Bloody hell, Mum! I can’t believe you made all this mess for that.’

‘Please don’t swear.’

‘Have you even looked in the medicine box?’ Lauren said as she started packing everything back into the open drawers.

Ah, the medicine box! Of course, that was where they would be. How silly she hadn’t thought to look there.

‘Yes, although only quickly,’ Kathryn said. ‘Don’t do that, Lauren. I’ll tidy this away.’

‘How old is some of this? Do you throw anything away?’ Lauren held up a postcard and looked at the back. Kathryn recognised the picture: Morrie had sent it from Scotland three years ago. She took the postcard out of Lauren’s hand and shoved it back into the drawer.

‘I said please don’t worry about it, Lauren. I can tidy up.’

‘Maybe we could sort through it, then you’ll know where everything is.’

‘I do know where everything is,’ Kathryn replied. ‘I don’t need to sort through any of it.’

‘Seriously?’ Lauren asked, gathering papers and tins and boxes from the floor. ‘You know what’s in every one of these?’

‘Paperclips, elastic bands, pens, stamps … Yes, I know what’s in every one of them, Lauren. I’m not losing my mind, thank you,’ she snapped.

‘I didn’t say you were,’ Lauren sighed. ‘And what about this?’ she added, holding up a faded brown manila envelope that had fallen out of the back of the larder cupboard. ‘What’s in here?’

Kathryn’s eyes widened. She hadn’t seen that for years. Maybe not since they had moved to the house. It was the middle of the night when they had arrived in Mull Bay. She had taken the girls’ sleeping bodies up to their room, one at a time, and laid them carefully in their beds, Lauren on the right and Hannah on the left. She could remember the night as if it were yesterday. The Bay had felt eerie, and she was alone. It had been so frightening; she had had no idea how the following day was going to pan out, let alone their whole future. Just her and the girls in a new home, where she was supposed to be spending the rest of her life, and all she could do was trust the people who’d told her to go. She couldn’t believe that was fourteen years ago, and they were still living in the same cottage. Her mother had been right: things had turned out as she had said they would. Her mother was always right.

Kathryn had stuffed the envelope at the back of the cupboard that night. The girls were too young at the time to reach the top shelf of the larder cupboard, and she had always planned to move it when she found a more suitable place but had forgotten all about it. She lurched forward, reaching for the envelope as Lauren pulled her hand back.

‘Uh-uh,’ Lauren laughed. ‘Not until you tell me what’s in it.’

‘Give it here now,’ Kathryn demanded.

‘Of course I could always have a look,’ she said, pretending to peel back its seal.

‘I said give it here now,’ Kathryn stood up. ‘That’s personal and you have no right looking at it.’

‘Fine,’ Lauren said, handing her the envelope. ‘I was only mucking about.’

Kathryn turned back to the kettle that had now boiled and poured hot water into a mug. As she did so she could feel her daughter’s eyes penetrating the back of her head. She was sorry she had snapped at Lauren but now her hands were shaking and all she wanted to do was get out of the room, and be on her own.

‘What are you doing up so early?’ she said, but when she looked around Lauren had already gone.

With a deep sigh Kathryn finished making her mug of tea. The envelope needed a safer place, not stuffed at the back of a kitchen cupboard. It was a foolish error on her part, but she hadn’t had any need for the papers inside since they’d arrived in Mull Bay. If the girls ever saw what was there, though … A safe box was needed, she decided, climbing the stairs, back to her room. That or something else she could lock. She would get one from the hardware store that morning.

At the top of the stairs Kathryn could hear the girls talking in hushed tones behind their bedroom door. She could imagine Lauren telling Hannah about the state of the kitchen and how Kathryn had snapped at her. Hannah would be rolling her eyes in response, muttering something about how typical that was, and why hadn’t she looked in the envelope; she would have.

She had always taught the girls it wasn’t right to eavesdrop but they were talking so quietly, Kathryn needed to know what they were saying. Carefully treading on the carpet to miss the creaks in the floorboards, she edged closer to the door and leaned in as far as she could.

‘I really wish you wouldn’t,’ Lauren whispered.

Silence. Then Hannah mumbled something she couldn’t grasp.
This was ridiculous
, she thought, and was about to back away when she heard, ‘Mum’s going to find out, you know. And when she does, she’ll stop you doing anything about it.’

About what?

Kathryn edged a little closer.

‘She needn’t know if you don’t say anything,’ Hannah replied.

Kathryn’s eyebrows furrowed. What were her daughters talking about?

Lauren sighed. ‘Of course she has to know. She’ll find out at some point anyway. You’re being stupid if you think you can do this without her hearing about it.’

There was silence until Lauren spoke again. ‘I really wish you’d forget all about it.’

‘I can’t,’ said Hannah. ‘Now I’ve started thinking about it, I know it’s exactly what I want to do.’

What do you want to do?
Kathryn wanted to shout through the closed door.
What is this secret I’m going to hate?

‘I’m going to find our dad,’ Hannah said. ‘And when I do, I’m going to ask him what really happened in our past, because sometimes I have a feeling Mum isn’t telling us everything.’

Kathryn froze. She would have liked to slip away to the safety of her bedroom but her legs were like lead, anchoring her feet to the carpet outside her daughters’ door.
Oh no
, she thought,
this can’t be happening!
Her heart was beating too fast, and clutching a hand to her chest, in turn she dropped the mug of tea, its dark brown liquid spreading across the carpet, splashing against the skirting board.

She stared at the mess.
Get a cloth
, a voice inside her screamed.
Clean it up before it stains!
Her head was pounding at the thought of Peter, though, and how there was no way she could ever let the girls find him, and all she could do was sink to the floor and watch as the fibres of her cream shag pile soaked up what was left of her tea.

Dear Adam,

I shunned the idea of looking for the girls on Facebook over and over again. I knew all it might take would be a few clicks and I would see their sixteen-year-old faces looking back at me. But every time I considered the idea, I became paralysed with fear of the unknown. As soon as I saw them I’d be opening up a Pandora’s box that I would never again be able to close the lid on.

At least that was how I felt until this morning when a rush of courage swept over me and before I could talk myself out of it I started searching. I typed in their names – Hannah and Lauren Webb, but nothing. I tried Eleanor’s surname, Bretton. I even tried my own, Ryder. I couldn’t imagine why Kathryn would change their names to my dad’s but it was worth a shot. I searched the endless photos of Hannahs and Laurens around the UK but the more faces I looked at, the more I wondered if I would even recognise the girls now. Maybe I pass them on the street every day and I don’t know it. Maybe they’ve been standing in front of me in a queue and I could have held out my arm and touched them, but I didn’t see their little rosebud mouths or freckly noses in their teenage faces. I have no idea what the girls look like any more and now what I want, more than anything, is to know.

Sometimes when children go missing people do special pictures of them years later, showing what they might look like now. I want to see them, Adam. I can’t bear that I have no idea what they look like any longer. The only pictures I have are in my head, of the way they looked at two years old. How would I ever recognise them now?

*****

The night they left I opened the door to my grandmother. She was draped in a long fur coat that skimmed her ankles. It made me feel sick to look at her, no interest in what animal suffered to dress her. She nodded to the police car on the road and asked why it was parked outside our house. I told her they were inside; I said my mother had disappeared.

‘Say that again,’ she said slowly.

I told her again that Kathryn had gone, and the girls too. We continued to stand on the doorstep. I could hear the two police officers talking in the living room and saw Eleanor look over my shoulder and into the hallway beyond. She hesitated, then looked back at me. ‘Do you know where?’

‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘Why do you think the police are here? I’m scared,’ I added suddenly, though hating to admit it to her. ‘Where are they?’

She looked at me again with her hard cold eyes and then pushed me aside and strode into the house, full of purpose. I wondered what she was going to say to them, whether they would recognise her from the newspapers. I had a sudden feeling that everything would be taken out of my hands and I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

*****

I left my job today. Maggie asked me what I plan to do with my time and I told her if I were better qualified, I’d love to study. She said it was a great idea – many mature students were learning new crafts later in life – and asked why I thought I needed to be better qualified. I told her that I had dropped out of school at the age of seventeen with only a handful of GCSEs. I wasn’t sure I was cut out to be a student.

‘How many GCSEs do you have?’ she asked me.

‘Five,’ I said. ‘All grade C.’

‘That’s not bad, Abi.’

‘Considering, you mean?’

‘No, not just considering.’ She paused. ‘Why don’t we talk about what was happening at that time, at home?’ she suggested hesitantly. ‘Your last couple of years at school.’

We’d touched on this time in my life twice before, a while back. But both times I’d clammed up and she hadn’t brought it up since. She says she knows when I don’t want to talk about things because I start biting my bottom lip. I hadn’t realised I did it until one occasion when I bit so hard it bled.

To be fair, it was a miracle I managed to get five of anything. But there was a time before that when I really enjoyed school: learning excited me.

When I was thirteen our art teacher, Miss Jennings, asked us to collate a picture made from scraps of rubbish. I wanted to do it well because I was keen to get a good grade. Miss Jennings suggested I took Art as one of my options for the following year and I liked the thought of it so I made an extra effort with the collage. It became a map of the world. I carefully chose materials to represent countries. Italy’s heel was filled with dried penne and the sea made out of labels from tuna and sardine cans. She gave me an A* and asked me to show it to the headmaster, who told me he was impressed with such a show of originality. I was so excited! I rarely took much home to show my mother but of course I wanted to take that.