Elizabeth Is Missing (5 page)

Helen always makes sure I have them before we leave the house. She stops short of checking I have my teeth in, but she makes a special point about the glasses. I think she thinks I’ll start bumping into things if I forget them. So I always have one pair on a chain around my neck—ready for any reading eventuality. They’re not helping much at the moment. I’m looking for a sweater. A nice sensible colour and thin wool. Just like we used to wear. If I can keep that picture in my mind, I don’t think I’ll forget what I’m looking for. But I haven’t come across it yet, and I’m ready to drop.

I dig into a square bin full of socks, sagging against the side, my arms lost in the fabric. An image of my mother battering a mass of clothes against the sides of a suitcase blinks into my head and is gone. “I can’t understand why it’s so difficult to find a
normal
sweater.”

Helen and Katy sigh, and I wonder how long we’ve been walking around, how long we’ve been searching. I’m starting to regret this trip. It’s a pity, because I used to love shopping. But the shops are so different now, everything jumbled together, jumbled about. So many odd colours. Who is it wears these bright orange things? They must look like road diggers. Young people will wear almost anything, it appears.

Just look at Katy. Seems funny I should have a granddaughter with “piercings,” though I suppose she is considered quite unremarkable by other teenagers. Perhaps I would have “piercings,” too, if I were young now. She leans on a rail of floral skirts, mimicking my own pose; only Helen stays completely upright, standing in the middle of the lino path, forcing other shoppers to dodge past her.

“Mother, we’ve shown you a hundred sweaters,” she says. “You’ve rejected them all. There are no more left to show you.”

“Can’t have been a hundred.” I do get annoyed at Helen’s exaggerations. “What about over there? We haven’t looked in that bit yet.” I point to the other side of Women’s Wear.

“Grandma, we’ve just come from there.”

Of course we have. Have we?

Katy pushes herself away from the skirts, hooking a cream sweater off a rail next to her. “Look, this one is nice. It’s the right sort of colour.”

“It’s ribbed. No good.” I shake my head. “I can’t understand it. All I want is a sweater with a round neck. Not a polo, not a V. Warm, but not too thick.”

Katy grins at her mother before turning to me. “Yes, and it can’t be too long, but mustn’t be too short—”

“Exactly. Half the sweaters don’t even cover your belly button. And I know you’re making fun, Katy,” I say, though I only know after I’ve started to answer. “But it’s not much to ask, is it? A normal sweater.”

“And a
normal
colour. Black or navy or beige or—”

“Thank you, Katy. You may laugh, but you can’t really expect me to wear one of these odd colours. Puce or magenta or teal or whatever they are.” I can’t help smiling; it’s nice, being teased. Elizabeth often teases me, too. It makes me feel human. At least someone assumes I’m intelligent enough to get a joke.

My granddaughter laughs, but Helen puts her hands up to her head, surveying the rails and rails of clothes. “Mum, can’t you see that to find a sweater that is the length, thickness, colour, neck-type, and goodness knows what else that suits you personally is an impossible task?”

“I don’t see why. When I was young I could always find the right sort of sweater. They had more choice in those days.”

“What—during rationing? I doubt that.”

“They did. Or at least you could always find someone to make you what you wanted. And Sukey used to bring me beautiful clothes.”

My sister always dressed very stylishly, especially after she married. She cut things up and made them new, of course, but still Ma used to wonder where she got the money, never mind the coupons, and Dad would shake his head, talking about the black market. I got a lovely velvet bolero from her once. I wore it far too often, for very ordinary occasions, and wished later that I’d saved it for best. I was wearing it the last time I saw her.

She had come through the kitchen door while I was cutting the bread. I’d changed out of school uniform into a dress and my bolero, but couldn’t match my sister in her duck-egg-blue suit and Lana Turner pin-curls. She was seven years older than me, and ten times more sophisticated.

“Hello, Maud,” she said, kissing me on the top of my head. “Where’s Ma?”

“Putting on another cardigan. Dad’s getting the fish and chips.”

Sukey nodded and sat down at the table. I pushed the teapot into a beam of light, thinking that would keep it warm for a little longer. Our kitchen was usually dark until just before sundown, when the rays would make it through gaps in the dense bramble hedge in the back garden. We used to time our evening meal to catch those last few moments of sunshine.

“Is Douglas in?” Sukey leant forward a little to look down the hall, towards the stairs, as she spoke. “Is he sleeping here tonight?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t he be?” I laughed. “He’s our lodger. Sleeping here is what he pays for.” I looked up from my task of laying the cups out. Sukey wasn’t laughing; her face was pale and she couldn’t seem to keep still. She twisted the ring on her finger and spent an age arranging her jacket on the back of a chair.

“I’d thought I might stay,” she said finally, and must have realized I was staring, because she suddenly smiled. “Is that so odd? So wrong?” She seemed to be genuinely asking.

“No,” I said. “You could stay in my room. Your old bed’s still there.”

Ma came down the steps into the kitchen, greeting Sukey and kissing her. “Your dad’ll be back with the fish in a minute,” she said. “Have a cup of tea. Pour it, would you, Maud?”

“Thank you, Polly,” Sukey said, the way she always did if I made tea.

“Shall I make your bed up now?”

“Never mind, Mopps,” she said, her voice low. “I’ll have to think about it first.”

I poured the tea, feeling like I’d missed something. Dad arrived and we laid the hot fish and chips out on plates, the stinging smell of vinegar rising on the steam. Sukey seemed calmer now, but she dropped her teaspoon when Ma asked how Frank was.

“Well enough,” she said. “He’s going away this evening, taking a load up to London. They’re packing the van up now, which is why he couldn’t come. All these people moving back home.”

Sukey’s husband had inherited his parents’ furniture-removal business and spent the war helping people move out of bombed buildings into new lodgings. Now he was helping them to go back where they’d come from.

“Perhaps you can come over for your dinner while he’s away?” Dad said. “Be nice to see you more often.”

“Yeah, I could. Just while Frank’s gone. It’s such a big house, and it seems silly to eat on your own, doesn’t it?”

“
Sure
does,” Douglas called as he came into the kitchen. He collected American phrases from the films and used them as often as possible. It was irritating, but both Ma and Sukey had told me I mustn’t mind, because of him losing his mother in a night raid. “How you
doing
, Sukey?” he said as he took his place at the table and began on his dinner.

“Fine, thanks, Doug.”

We ate quickly, not wanting our chips to get cold. Dad told us about a change in his rounds since another worker had come home from the army, comparing his new postal routes with Douglas’s milk rounds, and Ma complained about the queue at the butcher’s. I only half listened, distracted by Sukey, and then by Douglas. I couldn’t help trying to anticipate where he would put in the next bit of American slang. It tended to come out strangely twisted by his Hampshire accent.

“I was thinking of going down to Tub Street, to the
movies
,” he said, when he’d finished eating. He was looking at Sukey, and the last of the light showed the places on his face where his stubble didn’t yet join. There was a C-shaped patch of smooth pink skin on his cheek, and another under his chin.

“Bye, then,” Sukey said, opening her compact and pressing the puff to her nose.

She swiped it expertly across her forehead, reminding me of her promise to teach me how to use make-up, and Douglas watched her for a moment before going off to get his coat from the hall. If only there was a kind of make-up for Douglas, I thought, a compact with powder to fill in his beard.

When Ma got up to clear the dishes and Dad went to put the greasy newspaper in the outside bin I leant towards Sukey. “Are you going to stay tonight?” I asked her. I’d been thinking during dinner and had come up with several possible explanations. “Has something happened between you and Frank?”

She shook her head. “I told you, Mopps, I need to think. In fact, I’d better be getting back now. Bye, Ma, Dad. See you.” She was nearly at the door before I remembered.

“I got you a gift, Sukey.”

She smiled, properly, genuinely, for the first time.

“It’s for your hair,” I said, spoiling the surprise slightly. I’d bought two matching combs on Saturday at Woolworth’s, one for her, one for me. They were fake tortoiseshell and covered with crudely moulded birds, but when I’d held them up to the light the wings had almost seemed to flutter.

“It’s beautiful. Thank you, darling,” she said, opening the tissue paper and sliding the comb into a wave of hair above her ear.

She kissed me before she slipped out the door, and I still had her lipstick on my forehead when Douglas came back from the pictures. He laughed as he smudged it off with his thumb. I remember thinking it was funny, because when he teased me about it he mentioned the exact shade: Victory Red.

“Can I help?”

The girl at the make-up counter is dull against the lit-up glass, dressed in white, her face various shades of beige. All around her are gold and see-through powder compacts, open like clams. What I need is the bottom half of a blue and silver one, but I won’t find it here. “I want some lipstick,” I tell the girl.

She nods and waves limply at a plastic display.

“Victory Red,” I say.

“I’m sorry?”

“I wanted Victory Red.” The sweet wet smell in these places is overwhelming. I feel like I’m breathing through molasses. Helen and Katy are trying on various perfumes a few feet away, making faces and coughing. They are looking for a gift for Carla, because she did something, or didn’t do something, or because I did something.

The girl looks at the stand, pulling out several little tubes and replacing them roughly. They clack against the plastic. “I don’t think we do that one,” she says. “How about this?” She holds up a shiny, squarish cylinder. The sticker on it says “Seductive Scarlet.” Sounds promising. I take it from her and draw a streak over my hand, the colour seeping into the wrinkles.

“Yes, that’s nice,” I say, handing it back. “But I’d prefer Victory Red. Do you have that?”

“Sorry we don’t do that one.” She smiles and slouches against the counter. There’s a sour smell under the perfume that makes me think the shop uniforms are all nylon.

“Really? What a nuisance. Why’s that?”

“It’s just a bit old-fashioned. Why not have this one instead?”

I want to ask Katy’s opinion, but I can’t see her. Or Helen. I walk past the other shining counters. No sign of them. The light drops as I move into another department, full of glistening leather bags and cheap jewellery. The racks are over twice my height and crowded with goods which reflect the spot lighting into my eyes. Music is blaring out, the words seem to tumble from the singer’s mouth chaotically, and I feel as if my balance is going.

Somehow, I get tangled with a display of long bead necklaces. One strand round my coat button, another attached to my glasses’ chain. My hands aren’t steady enough to undo the clasps, and the more I pull the worse it gets. I start to think I’ll be trapped here for ever. Sweat collects along my spine. A girl comes towards me, not Katy, and a sudden sense of panic makes me rip the button from my coat. I leave my glasses, still attached to the beads, dangling sadly against the rack, and I back away on to the escalator, teetering at the edge of a step and gripping the handrail for support. There’s a stripe of lipstick on my hand, suffocating my skin, and I rub my other hand over it, suppressing the ghost of a shudder. I’ve always hated how the stuff smudges.

The department I arrive in is cookware and glass. The music, bouncing off the hard surfaces, is so loud I can hardly think. My specs are gone and I search in my bag for the pale silk case. These second-best glasses feel funny on my face, and I have to keep adjusting them as I wander amongst the shelves of crockery. I can’t think what I’m here for, and no inspiration comes. The cut-glass vases and stoneware lasagne dishes give me no clues. I stand and read out the cleaning instructions on a metal wok: “Remove stubborn residues with a sponge scourer or nylon cleaning pad only. Do not use metal scourers or any abrasive cleaners.”

A woman with orange fluffed-up hair gives me an odd look as she walks past. How long have I been here? I can’t see the time. I might have been standing next to this shelf for hours. If I could just find a member of staff . . . I hear a shop assistant ask someone if they need help, but I can’t see over the stands and I can’t tell which side the voice is coming from.

“That is the last one, but my manager might give you a discount, as it was on display.”

I rush one way, but there is no one there, so I hurry in the opposite direction. As I turn a corner, my bag catches something on the edge of a shelf. There is a smash. I freeze. “Waterford Crystal,” I read from the display. There’s a couple of seconds’ silence. No one comes. I start to move away.

“Oh!” A woman in the dark-blue shop uniform hurries to my side. “You’ve broken this vase. Look, it’s smashed to bits. You might have to pay for that,” she says. “It’s a hundred and twenty pounds.”

I begin to shake. A hundred and twenty pounds. That’s a fortune. I feel tears come into my eyes.

“I’ll have to find my manager. Will you wait here?”

I nod and take out my purse. I have two five-pound notes and one twenty, as well as a bit of change. I can’t work out what it all comes to, but I can see that it’s not nearly enough.

“What should I do? Take her address?” the woman says, coming back. She looks over the shelves at someone I can’t see and then asks for my address.