The Girl in the Red Coat (25 page)

2 YEARS 210 DAYS

My new anatomy books had shiny, brightly coloured covers. I sat with Lucy on her sofa and scoured them for information about the baby swelling in her stomach. ‘Look, look,’ I said, ‘there’s the umbilical cord, see how it attaches.’ She ran her fingers over the lines of the diagram in wonder.

‘I don’t want to know the sex,’ she’d said before her scan. I didn’t have to ask why. Secretly, I’d sighed with relief when their child was born a boy. Jack: a healthy squalling savage package of strong limbs and early-sprouting teeth. I searched his little face for clues; as if he might bring news from the primeval soup from which he came, that unseen land where babies spring from and little girls disappear into. But all I found was more mystery.

‘She doesn’t have any relatives close by,’ Paul had said. ‘Having you around will fill the gap.’ It wasn’t just kindness this time, the way they drew me in. That day, I rolled up in my clapped-out car with the emergency calendula cream in my glove box. Lucy had sounded desperate on the phone.

‘Thank God,’ she said, answering the door. ‘He won’t stop screaming.’

Jack was on the floor on a plastic changing mat and the room smelled faintly of sick.

‘Take his nappy off and put some of this on,’ I said. ‘And
let him kick with his skin exposed. That’ll calm the rash down.’

She leaned over him and stripped off his babygro and plastic nappy and smeared the cream on the red angry rash.

‘It’s awful, isn’t it?’

‘Ah, just needs some fresh air.’

The room was unkempt, scattered with teething rings, a tower of clean baby clothes not yet sorted and a baby bath half full of cooling water, the surface slightly scummy from cream and talc. Lucy’s hair was frayed at the ends now there wasn’t time for fortnightly visits to the hairdresser and she was still in her dressing gown. It wouldn’t bother Paul, this new Lucy – but I imagined it would bother
her
, who’d always been so smooth and tidy.

‘Thanks for coming,’ she said. ‘This is so hard, he’s teething badly too.’

‘Any time. You know that.’

She slumped onto the sofa with a towel still tucked over her shoulder. ‘Lorna was around last week. We used to be such mates but I don’t seem to have much in common with them all now. Jack threw up down my back and she couldn’t wait to leave. I feel much more comfortable with you.’ She laughed. ‘It’s strange, isn’t it?’

‘Baby sick is nothing now compared to what I see in my job.’ Jack had quietened and was kicking his legs, the rash already turning from red to pink.

‘I bet.’ She paused. ‘Graham was asking after you again.’

‘Oh yeah?’ I looked out of the window. I hadn’t told them of my one night with him and was sure he wouldn’t either. Maybe for me, I was ashamed – I didn’t want them to think I’d treated their friend badly.

Jack started to cry again. ‘He needs taking out,’ I said, ‘a dose of air will sort him out.’

‘Probably.’ She was quiet for a minute. ‘Would you have time to do it? I’d kill to get my head down for half an hour.’

Instantly I was on my feet and the room was tipping around me, threatening to slide Jack from his mat. ‘I don’t think so, Lucy.’

‘OK, OK. That’s fine, it was just a thought – you probably have things to do.’

‘No, it’s not that. It’s …’ I fumbled around for words, my hands hanging uselessly by my sides. What I wanted to scream was:
I lose children, don’t I?
Instead, I pressed my lips together and stood mute.

‘Beth, it’s fine, either way.’ She’d guessed. ‘If you like we could take him out together.’

‘You’d trust me, you really would?’ I burst out.

‘Yes, of course. Gladly.’ I saw the gesture she was making –
it wasn’t your fault, Beth
– and I wanted more than anything not to fail.

I took a deep breath to ease the fluttering in my stomach. ‘I’ll do it.’

Lucy wrapped him up in a quilted jacket and hat and pulled and adjusted the knobs and levers on the impossibly expensive bucket-shaped pushchair.

‘You sure you’re OK?’

‘Yes, yes. You get your head down. Look,’ I gripped the handles of the pushchair, ‘we’re great. Aren’t we, Jack?’

Then I found myself outside with the front door clicking shut and me and Jack contemplating each other in the cold grey light. It had been raining and the ground was still wet.

Outside, he stopped crying, like I knew he would. Once
in the fresh air he forgot his niggling pains and gripes and calmly watched the world go by his pushchair, the wheels making two lines on the wet pavement. I spoke to myself in my head, saying reassuring things – ‘There we go now, nice and easy. We’re just out for a walk to help your mummy. She’s tired.’ All the time trying to drown out that other voice, the one that was saying: ‘You’ve lost one, you could lose another. You have to blink – it could happen in that moment.’

Two, three streets away, all the newbuilds started to look the same. I thought of making my way back. ‘Stop it, you’ve only been gone five minutes,’ I scolded myself. Jack liberated a hand from his blankets and waved to me. His mitt had dropped off and was dangling from his sleeve by a thread. Up ahead I spotted the bright blue railings of the park Lucy had mentioned.

I’d never been there before – it was brand new, chunky play equipment in Lego colours. As I wheeled him in I tutted at the dogshit bagged up and hanging from the railings: ‘Why do people do that, Jack? Naughty, isn’t it?’ I was muttering anything, to keep calm.

The playground was deserted and I wheeled him over to the slide, wiped the rain off it with my scarf, and sat on the end. Jack waved madly and grappled with his straps like a prisoner. Dare I? I stood and did a 360-degree turn. We were alone. My fingers shook slightly as I unclicked the buckles, lifted him from the pushchair and cradled him in my hands on my lap.

‘Hello Jack.’ I smiled down at him and he gurgled and reached for my hair, delighted at last to be free.

I tried to discern Lucy and Paul in his blue eyes, his strong little nose but could see neither.

‘You’re yourself, aren’t you?’

How strange, I thought. This new little boy who is almost part of me through Paul; he doesn’t know Carmel. There’s no mark of all this on him. As he grows up her name will be that of a girl from a fairy tale. He’ll grow up and the world moves on, and on and on. I glimpsed something, the future moving in a blur ahead.

‘Perhaps I should call Graham,’ I said. ‘What do you think?’ He seemed to point at me and I laughed. ‘No, I don’t think so either.’

‘You two look happy,’ said Lucy as we returned. She’d got dressed and put her hair up in a ponytail.

‘Yes, yes – we are. I’ll do it again soon,’ I said, ‘if you like. Give you a break.’

Climbing into my car to leave I had a kind of singing energy that was almost a discomfort. The feel of Jack in my hands had unscrambled something in my heart, tugging at its dense knot, and a strand had come loose.

Gramps says: ‘Idaho is the last place in this land you can be free. No government interference here.’

Government interference doesn’t sound a good thing when he says it. That’s why we’ve come here. I know it’s also because he wants to get away from Pastor Munroe – that he was turning into Gramps’s boss too much. I know because Gramps told me, ‘He’ll have you for his own if we’re not careful.’

I asked him, ‘Why d’you say that when you’re my grandad?’ But Gramps just covered his eyes up with his hands like he was really worried it could happen.

We don’t need him anyway now because there’s plenty of money. The dollars spill out of the cut-out Bible. We can’t even close the cover. Dorothy tucks away the spare ones underneath her pillow, then pats the top of the pillow, like she’s putting babies to bed.

I look over the fields and all the plants there look like they’re waving to me and Melody sitting on the steps. What with the sunshine and everyone being in such a good mood I realise I’m happy. At first I don’t recognise the feeling, it’s been so long. I feel guilty again for a moment, about being happy when Mum’s dead, but I know she liked me being happy and when I think that I feel peaceful again.

Ahead I see the old farmer; we’re parked in his field. He’s walking over to Dorothy and there’s an orange pot under his arm with a lid.

‘Bite of supper for you and your family.’

He peeks over at me and I think he looks scared.

Dorothy asks, ‘How is she?’

Last night I laid hands on his wife. Her skin felt as dry as an old bit of paper. Their house smelt strange but when I said this to Silver after, she giggled and said, ‘Pig feed.’ I didn’t know what she meant till I saw the pig in the garden this morning.

‘She’s brighter today. Asked for breakfast. I swear, I haven’t seen her eat an egg for I don’t know how long.’

He looks over again and ducks his head down so he doesn’t have to see me. I feel creepy all of a sudden. The feeling doesn’t go until he’s gone back to his farmhouse.

‘Melody, if I tell you something will you swear to keep it secret?’

Her eyes have gone big but she nods.

‘When I’m grown up I’m not going to do this for Munroe and Gramps any more.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m going to do it somewhere proper – where there’s no praying and singing – somewhere like a hospital.’

‘Does Pa and Pastor Munroe know?’

‘No. You’re the only person. Promise not to tell?’

‘I won’t ever. But you have to be careful, I don’t think they’ll like that.’

Dorothy comes over with the orange pot under her arm.

‘Looks like you’re getting to be the star of the show.’

She says it like it’s not a nice thing. Like I’m showing off on purpose. When I don’t answer she heaves the pot further up in her arms.

‘Well, no time for chat. Let’s see what the old man’s gone
and provided and whether we want to pass it through our lips.’

There are bright spots on her cheeks and she seems to be in a hurry for something, though we’re not going anywhere. In the morning I find out what.

I know, as soon as I wake up – Dorothy’s gone.

It’s too quiet. I’m remembering things happening in the night too. There was creeping about and whispered voices. I sit bolt upright in bed gasping, the truck feels so weird. The bunk beds are empty. Most of their things are missing.

‘Gramps?’ I call out. Maybe he’s gone too? Maybe I’m on my own.

I tiptoe over and stand outside his curtain, seeing if I can hear anything. I do – I can hear breathing.

‘Gramps,’ I call a bit louder. ‘Is it you?’

There’s no answer so I crawl under the curtain. Gramps is just one big lump in the bed – on his own.

‘Gramps, wake up. Something’s happened.’

He’s got a tracksuit on in bed and he looks different when he’s just waking up. His face is pinker and it’s funny seeing him not wearing glasses. I realise I’ve never seen him in bed before even though he’s so close behind the curtain.

‘What is it? What is it?’ He reaches up to the shelf and feels about for his specs.

‘Dorothy and the twins. I think they’ve gone.’ I feel like I’m going to cry.

He sits up and puts his glasses on. He looks more normal then.

‘Perhaps they’ve gone for a walk, or to get something.’ He gets out of bed, swinging his feet onto the floor so they’re
resting on the bunch of roses on the rug. His toenails look a bit old and crusty. It feels funny being so close together with him – I can even smell his sleep. He comes out of the curtain just in his sleep tracksuit and he’s never done that before.

‘Look, lots of their things have gone.’ I’m opening their closet and there’s only a couple of their really old dresses. I start sniffling. Even if she was mean sometimes and I’d decided she’d never be like my mom, I didn’t want Dorothy to go – and specially not Melody. I don’t want to be on my own with Gramps.

His face goes tight and I see his forehead pressing out under his white hair that’s messy because he hasn’t combed it yet.

‘In the night like a thief …’ he says quietly.

‘Maybe she’ll come back?’ I say and I wipe my nose on my nightie sleeve.

He goes behind the curtain and comes back with the money Bible. When he opens it up it’s as empty as a coconut and he stands there staring at it for a while. We look round to see what else has gone and call out to each other.

‘The new saucepans.’

‘The good pillowcases and the backpacks.’

‘My watch,’ his forehead looks like it’s going to explode this time, ‘and my notebook.’

‘Why would she take that?’ I wanted to read that notebook again.

He goes behind the curtain and I hear ‘evidence’ – though I don’t know if I heard right. He gets dressed and I do the same on my side. Then he tells me to get in next to him, in the front of the truck where Dorothy normally sits, and we drive round for a long time looking for her. We go to a
coach station and walk round and there’s people waiting with cases and backpacks and coaches coming in and out but no Dorothy. No girls.

‘Perhaps she’s gone back to Mexico, she liked it there being warm all the time,’ I say. We’re back in the truck now. It feels funny being in her place in the front. It feels like everything really has changed.

‘They must have been carrying a lot,’ I add. I can imagine them, walking down the dusty road with saucepans tied to their backpacks.

‘She’s probably got husbands, being fattened up in the sun, for the twins,’ Gramps says. His mouth has gone into a thin line. I can’t see his eyes, the white of the sky is on his glasses.

I gasp. ‘They’re only eleven. Eleven is too …’

‘They marry them off early there. Goddam Mexico. They’re heathens, barbarians.’ I’ve never heard him say ‘goddam’ before. I think of Dorothy’s skulls and wonder if that’s what he means. If he knew about them all along.

Gramps is still talking: ‘Heathens. Those girls will be married off by the time they’re twelve. That was her plan, that was the plan right from the start. Lying thief.’

I look out of the window. Poor Melody, poor Silver. Being married to a man when you’re only twelve. I think about them on their wedding day, in identical white dresses with great sticking-out skirts. They’d be marrying hairy
grown-ups
– maybe Dorothy would even find twin men for them to marry, so they’d match. They wouldn’t really love them even, they wouldn’t feel the way I do about Nico. They’d be shuddering inside those dresses.

And it’s silly but the very worst thing that I can’t stop
thinking about is: Melody won’t be able to have her writing lessons now. She was starting to get good at it too. She liked it more than anything.

When we get back to the campsite and Gramps has gone to get water I look round at all the gaps they’ve left and remember those flittering butterflies in Dorothy’s eyes – the thoughts she kept from Gramps. I sit on my bed and it feels so quiet and lonely without them I don’t know if I can bear it. I get my pillow so I’ve got something to hold onto.

That’s when I see it. The book with Mercy in it that’s a passport. It was hidden under my pillow and I know, I know it must have been Melody who slid it under there before she left.

She wanted to leave me with someone. For me not to be all on my own without another child. I open it up and Mercy’s white little face looks back. I slip it inside my pocket and decide to keep it for ever. She can be my sister now, that’s what Melody meant.