Beneath the Surface (2 page)

The TV channels flashed in front of Abigail as she stabbed away at the remote control again, but she couldn’t concentrate. The minutes ticked by loudly on the clock on the mantelpiece. There was still no sign of them coming up the path.

At six o’clock Abigail switched the television off and moved to the seat in the bay window. It was still light outside. She considered walking around the block, just to see if she could spot them coming back, because six o’clock was the girls’ bath time and they never missed it.

She pulled aside her mother’s unfashionable net curtains for a better look. The wire holding them up sprang against her touch. It would only take a sharp tug and she could have the whole lot down, she thought.

Her eyes scanned the line of semis on the other side of the road but she could only see as far as number 24. After that the road bent to the right and the oak tree that stood tall in their neighbour’s front garden obscured the rest of the street. Her mother’s bedroom window had a much better view. Abigail decided to check from that one, just quickly though in case they returned. Despite the uneasy feeling settling in the pit of her stomach, she still hated it that her mother would know she was worrying about her.

‘Mum?’ she called automatically as she reached Kathryn’s bedroom door. As expected, there was no response and so Abigail tentatively pushed the door open, peering round it before stepping in. Something wasn’t right, but for a moment she couldn’t tell what.

Abigail stood by her mother’s bed, running her fingers across the pale blue duvet cover when she noticed the throw wasn’t there, the one her granny had crocheted as a wedding present for her mother’s marriage to her real dad. Her paternal grandmother, of course – her mum’s mum would never lift a finger to crochet.

Did its absence mean anything? Somehow it seemed to do so. Abigail backed out of the room and on to the landing, where she could see into her own bedroom and the bathroom. Both doors were open and she didn’t need to go into the rooms to see everything looked normal.

‘You’re being stupid, Abigail,’ she said aloud over the sound of her thumping chest.

‘
So how come you feel so nervous?
’ the voice inside her head whispered back.

The girls’ bedroom door was closed. Not just pushed to, but someone had gone to the trouble of shutting it properly. Abigail’s hands were clammy as she rested one against the door, where wooden letters spelt out the names Lauren and Hannah. She prayed she was overreacting; she was certain she had to be. But still she held her breath as slowly she pushed open the door.

Whatever Abigail expected it hadn’t been what she saw. Throwing one hand to her mouth, the other clutched tightly onto the doorframe, her body grew numb; her legs felt like they would give way. Every hair on her arms stood on edge as she stared at the little girls’ bedroom.

Abigail took the tissue from the policewoman. Her hands shook as she wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She hadn’t realised she had been crying until she’d seen the woman take the box of tissues off the mantelpiece and pull one out for her.

The policeman finished scribbling in his pad and looked up at her. ‘So you haven’t heard anything at all from your mother?’ he asked.

‘Of course not.’

‘Not a note or a—’

‘No,’ said Abigail, ‘I told you, nothing.’

The policewoman held a hand in the air, a gesture that stopped him asking more. He shrugged his shoulders and sat back in his chair, running a hand through spiky gelled hair. The policewoman then spoke again, asking more questions, questions that seemed futile, given the situation.

‘Abigail, is there anything more you can think of,’ she eventually asked, ‘anything that might help us piece this together?’

They sat in heavy silence, waiting for Abigail to speak.

‘Abi,’ she said finally. ‘People call me Abi.’

The policewoman nodded.

What should she say? There were so many things Abi could tell them. Like she didn’t trust her stepfather, that she hated her controlling grandmother, or that her mother was so mad, she could have driven off the edge of a cliff. In the end she simply said, ‘My mother obviously hates me.’

The policeman looked up at her under raised eyebrows. He seemed eager to wrap things up. She hadn’t liked him the first time she’d met him, when Tasha was arrested for shoplifting. Abi was with her at the time but the police had no choice but to let her go as she obviously had no idea her friend had pocketed six packets of cigarettes. He’d flashed her a look on that occasion that seemed to say, ‘
I really have better things to do with my time than waste it on kids like you
.’ She wondered why he had chosen a career in the police force when it obviously bored him.

‘OK,’ the policewoman said eventually. ‘Tell us what happened next. When you opened the door, what did you do?’

Abi’s heart pounded at the memory. What did she do? She didn’t do anything, she told them; she just looked. Because what else could she have done? As Abi looked into the room she saw everything and nothing. Everything was gone. Nothing was left.

Every toy, every picture … every little trinket the girls had accumulated in the two and a half years of their lives was gone. The pink cotton duvets with the embroidered fairies, the lamp that threw shadows of butterflies onto the ceiling, the books about princesses that Abi read to them every night, the pale blue china tea set she had found for them in a charity shop, the doll’s house her daddy had made her when she was little … All gone.

Abi stared at the room. At their bare matresses, at the drawers to the chest lying open, exposing their emptiness, no longer holding the little dresses, pyjamas and everything else that usually spilled out of them. At the empty shell of a room, only that morning so alive with the sound of the girls’ laughter.

Their existence had been completely removed from the bedroom. It was as if they had never been there in the first place. But then Abi noticed something, tucked almost out of sight at the back of one of the beds. Wedged against the wall was Ted, Hannah’s blue teddy that Abi had given her when she was born. The blue teddy Hannah slept with every night. As she pulled Ted free, Abi clutched him to her chest and cried because in her heart she already knew they had all gone, and had left her behind.

*****

‘And so what do
you
think has happened?’ the policewoman asked her.

‘They’ve gone,’ Abi said. ‘My mother’s left, and she’s taken them away from me.’

The policeman shuffled in his seat and regarded Abi. A look of scepticism flashed across his face before he coughed and rearranged his features back to their blank expression.

But Abi knew that was what had happened; she just didn’t know why. And the thought was unbearable because she had no idea where the girls were, but worse than that when she was going to see them again. She’d never spent more than one night away from them.

‘Can you think where they might have gone?’

The policewoman’s question broke her thoughts.

Abi shook her head. She had no idea and couldn’t make sense of it. Why would her mother leave and take the girls and not her? Why hadn’t she said they were going, even if she didn’t intend to take Abi?

‘Maybe we could go and see the bedroom?’ the policewoman suggested. Abi nodded and stood up at the same time as the doorbell sounded, startling them all.

‘Are you expecting anyone?’

‘No,’ Abi said, going to the window to look out. ‘Oh, it’s my grandmother.’ Her heart sank. Whatever Eleanor was doing here Abi had little doubt it would make the situation any easier. In fact it didn’t pass her by that her grandmother’s timing couldn’t have been worse. What was she doing there?

‘Oh?’ The policewoman sounded interested. ‘Do you want me to answer the door?’ she asked, when the doorbell rang again and Abi didn’t move.

‘No, I’ll go.’

Abi left the room and walked into the hallway. She knew everything would change as soon as Eleanor entered the house.

‘What do you think?’ she heard the policeman whisper. ‘Something doesn’t feel right. Do you think she’s making it up? They haven’t just gone on holiday?’

‘And taken everything?’ the policewoman said. ‘I can’t imagine that. Oh, I don’t know,’ she sighed. ‘Let’s just see what the grandmother has to say.’

Abi knew why they thought it didn’t seem right. Why would they? Because surely no mother would just up and leave her daughter, taking her two youngest ones with her? Who in their right mind would do that?

Dear Adam,

I woke at four again this morning. I’m telling you ‘again’ like you know I’ve been doing that lately, which of course you don’t. Sleep was something I found easy with you. Just the feel of your body lying beside me sent me into a deep, dreamless and peaceful sleep. But these days I’m restless. When I wake my body is wrapped so tightly in the duvet, like I’ve been wrestling with it, and my head is bursting with thoughts I can’t rid myself of. They dance in my mind, prodding at me for attention. It’s the same as it was all those years ago, after my mother left. I was gradually able to ignore them back then but these days I can’t. Every time I manage to think of something else, my mind flicks back.

‘Tell me what brought you to see me,’ Maggie said to me this morning.

Maggie is my new counsellor. Truthfully, I hadn’t wanted to see yet another counsellor; have someone else dig everything up again, leaving me raw with unanswered questions. Expose my lost hopes and dreams and my battered heart to yet another stranger. I saw three in the years after my mother left and none of them changed anything other than to make me feel even more alone and full of guilt.

I looked at Maggie quizzically because I had assumed she had all my notes. Dr Richards would have sent them prior to my appointment, and if she had them, she didn’t need to ask why I was there.

She smiled. ‘I want to hear it in your words,’ she said as if reading my mind.

‘Well, I guess it’s because of what happened with Adam,’ I said. ‘I suppose that’s the main reason I’m here.’

She nodded and waited for me to continue.

‘But it’s not just that. Adam and me, well – it’s brought up other things too. Things I’ve tried to forget over the years.’

‘Like what, Abi?’

‘Other stuff I thought I’d managed to cope with. Like my mother and the girls.’ There, I’d said it. ‘Things I’ve tried to deal with but since Adam they’ve been coming back to me and I can’t move them on,’ I said.

Maggie is the reason I’m writing to you. After we had talked for nearly an hour she said she thought it would help me to write things down. I told her I wasn’t sure that it would, but she told me to try anyway.

‘So what do I do?’ I asked her. ‘Just write a list of everything I’m thinking?’

‘You can do,’ she said, ‘or you could put it into a letter if you like. Personally, I think that’s sometimes a better way of releasing what you need to say. You can be more honest and direct when you have someone to target.’

‘But I wouldn’t know who to write to,’ I said. ‘I don’t have anyone.’

‘Well, you can write it to anyone you like. And you don’t actually have to send it,’ she added.

I looked out of Maggie’s window. We were in a room at the front of her South London flat, overlooking a quiet street with a park on the opposite side of the road. A man was walking his dog and another sat on a bench reading a newspaper. Both were oblivious to the people who shared their darkest secrets behind this window. Maggie had wooden shutters that were angled so it was hard for anyone to see in.

‘I don’t want to write to her,’ I said eventually.

‘Why’s that, Abi?’ she asked.

I shrugged and carried on looking out of the window, trying to show Maggie I simply had nothing to say to my mother, but already I could feel the anger bubbling up inside me, heating me up until I was sure it showed on my face. You always said I went red when I thought of her. You said, ‘Why do you get so embarrassed, Abi? You aren’t the one who should feel like that.’ But that isn’t it – it’s pure rage I feel when I think of her.

‘Maybe I’ll write to Adam,’ I said.

‘If you’d like to write to Adam, then I think that would be a lovely idea,’ she said. I saw her glance briefly at the clock on her coffee table. I had wondered why it was there when I first sat down, but then I realised it was so she could keep track of time without making it too obvious to her patient.

‘Why don’t you tell me about him? Let’s talk about someone who makes you happy.’

‘My time’s nearly up,’ I said.

At this she smiled at me and looking slightly embarrassed picked up the clock and turned it the other way round.

‘I don’t have any more appointments today. And I want to spend more time with you, if you would like that?’

Already I knew I was going to like Maggie. I nodded and she poured me another glass of water, pushed it across the coffee table towards me and waited for me to continue.

*****

We met six years ago. I was working in Morrisons in the evenings for the extra money. My supply of funds had dried up three years previously. I think I had squandered them much quicker than Eleanor had planned, but then she didn’t know the dent alcohol and drugs could make on a London girl’s money in her late teens with no one to answer to. That day I had sent off six applications for office jobs but I wasn’t hopeful. Over the month I had applied for at least fifteen positions and hadn’t had an interview for any of them. I was slowly resigning myself to a lifetime of working at New Look in the day and a supermarket at night, even though I’d always hoped for so much more when I was at school.

You were caught in the queue behind an old lady who was counting out her change coin by coin on the counter. I looked up at you and raised my eyes to say sorry and you smiled back at me and mouthed, ‘It’s fine.’ I recognised you because over the last week you had been in every night, and I had caught you watching me, but you had never before come to my till.