The Girl in the Red Coat (29 page)

FIVE YEARS 201 DAYS

The house is agitated today. Everything stirs. I don’t know why but neither I nor it can calm down. The wind makes the tree knock on the wall. Floorboards creak and groan and even the walls seem to sigh.

Into that the phone ringing down the hall. The tenor of the sound is different: sharp, insistent, and I hurry down the stairs to answer it. There must be an open window somewhere; coats hanging by the stairs stir like restless spirits wear them, the yellow leaves of the phone book that the phone sits on riffle open and closed enough to make me worry the ringing phone will be pitched to the floor.

I wonder if it’s Graham because I did phone him that day, the day I first looked after Jack. We’ve not been lovers again but around once a month we meet and walk or eat dinner together. He reminds me how he once smoked a cigarette for me. But it won’t be him: it’s daytime, he’ll be teaching gangling youths in a big airy classroom.

When I lift the receiver I get the feeling I’m just in time, that the caller was about to give up and the line click dead. It’s a terrible line, pops and hisses sound in my ear.

‘Beth?’

‘Yes.’

More whooping noises.

‘It’s Maria. Beth, I need to come and see you, I’ve got ––’ Then the whoops chatter so much they drown her out. I shake the receiver in my hand as if I could rattle them to the floor.

‘What is it?’ I shout down the receiver. ‘What have you got?’

Then click, buzz. The line’s gone dead.

‘No, no.’ My voice echoes up the stairs. I put the receiver down then twice it rings again. But it’s worse now and the phone’s been colonised by evil mocking noises – half electric, half ghostly – so they’re all I can hear.

For a moment I stand frozen. A fantasy pops in my head – unwanted, unbidden – of the phone ringing and a voice asking: ‘Mum? Mum, is that you? I’m coming back to you now. I’m getting closer, Mum. Mum, Mum, Mum, Mum.’

Maria calls back on my mobile and says they’re reviewing the case and will be out to see me. ‘Your house phone has a life of its own,’ she laughs.

I pace and prowl the sitting room. There’s a feeling of events gathering pace. I tell myself I’ve felt that before; it’s my imagination. The house agrees with me, it’s gone silent now. Sulking under thin cold sunshine.

‘How can you bear staying in that house?’ a friend had asked me once.

‘But how could I ever leave? One day I might open the door and there’ll she be,’ I’d replied.

But the next morning there’s a sour taste of whisky in my mouth when I wake up on the sofa. Something I haven’t had for a long time. The armrest’s bent my head back so it feels sore and stiff. I feel dull, flat. It’s probably nothing, like the rest of it. See, this is how I got here. Over the
years, slowly, slowly. Signs and clues emerging like seals’ heads among the waves only to disappear again, leaving me scanning the horizon. The first few years: the sightings – Scotland, Belgium, South America. The police tried to weed the craziest ones out but still they came, sometimes thick and fast. Sometimes nothing for weeks on end. The red coat was what people remembered and it was seen everywhere: a special army of red-coated children popping up all over the globe. It became a distraction, one that the police tried to veer away from because who knows what happened to that coat? But long after she’d vanished she was known in the papers as the Girl in the Red Coat.

Of course, every time I reached a state of breathless anxiety. But each time the sightings faded to nothing – it was another little girl, someone else’s child. Or never to be seen again: an apparition that appeared across the world from time to time, like a sighting of the Virgin Mary in the clouds. Paul started a local fund to pay for the private detective. We’re onto something exciting, they’d say, a sighting on a bus in Luxembourg, in Sweden, in Brisbane. Often I’d get letters –
Sweetheart, I know where your little girl is. I’ve been a psychic for twenty years and I can see her clear as day. She’s still wearing a red coat.

I’ve had so many false alarms I’m immune to them. But who am I kidding? Coffee gets me wired and awake. Graham calls and I tell him what’s happened.

‘Would you like me to be there?’ he asks. ‘I have a free period.’

I surprise myself by saying, ‘Yes.’

I’m showered and changed and waiting at the window for half an hour before they both end up arriving together. I
feel a rush of affection for Maria as I see her coming up the path, the wind tugging at her raincoat. Her hair is cropped close to her head and I get the feeling she couldn’t be bothered with the femininity even of a neat bob any more, and got rid of it once it became a distraction. Graham bends his head and smiles as he says something to her and an unexpected wave of tenderness for him leaves me almost gasping.

‘Beth, how lovely to see you,’ she says. Close up, she looks older, of course. But something else too. She’s given in to her serious nature. Funny how if you don’t see someone for a while you can observe how their character and their daily thoughts have seeped into their bones, sunk into their muscles.

She sits on the edge of the sofa. ‘How are you, Beth? You’re looking well.’

‘My job keeps me going these days. I don’t know what I’d do without it.’

‘That’s good. Listen, it’s mainly a review but I won’t beat about the bush because I know you’ll be anxious about this. It’s a slim chance and I don’t want to get your hopes up.’

I smile; the platitudes haven’t changed. I’ve grown to like them. She uses them because she’s not confident about forming her own words, I can see that now.

‘Of course.’

She takes a folder out of her case, the plastic kind with a zip all the way round it. There’s a photo inside, blown up to A4. Graham perches on the arm of my chair and puts his hand on my shoulder.

‘I want you to take a look at this and see what you think.’

It’s the face of a girl. Her head’s half turned from the
camera, revealing one eye. There’s a look in it I can’t quite fathom, or put my finger on. A clump of hair, curled in a loose corkscrew, blows across her face. It’s shadowy, taken from a distance.

A terrible pain grips my stomach, sudden, unexpected. It makes me cry out.

Maria is by my side in a flash. ‘Beth, what is it? I’m so sorry if this is upsetting you …’

She’s crouching down on the floor, looking up, and her face is full of concern.

‘It’s her.’

‘Now then, we can’t be so sure. We’ve done a computer model from a photo you gave us. It seems to match, but honestly, Beth, we can’t be sure. The hair in the way, the coat collar on the other side. It stops us measuring the jaw …’

I’m gripping the photo so hard it’s shaking and Maria gently prises it from my fingers.

‘Where was this taken?’ I reach up for Graham’s hand and his strong slender fingers weave with mine.

Maria’s back on the sofa now. She’s worried, I can see, worried she’s taken this too far, too soon.

‘It’s a group of drifters in America. The police there took photos of them, a good few years ago now, before they moved them on. They’ve got a database and a friend of mine’s been working out there. They’d forgotten to stop her access to the database so she does a trawl now and then. Just looking, really. I guess we’re a nosy bunch by trade. When she saw this she called me up.’

‘Oh God, let me see again.’

She lets me have the photo but she’s reluctant now. I sense it in the way she hands it over. The photo’s black and
white so I can’t see the hair colour. But it’s better like this; you can see the bare bones of a face. I put my finger onto the cheek in the photo. I’m not so sure now. Is my memory of her fading? The idea is terrible.

‘She’s lovely.’

‘Yes, Beth. She is.’

‘What else? What else can they tell you?’ I’m frantic now; I need to calm down to show her she can pursue this without me falling to pieces.

‘Not much. I’ve spoken to the policeman who took the photo. It was in the southern states and they were camping illegally. He thought they might be gypsies, or Mexicans without visas. It was a couple of years ago now so his memory’s a bit hazy. He remembers the girl because she didn’t seem quite the same as the rest of them. But the next day they were gone and I suppose for him it was problem solved.’

‘Why did he take photos?’

‘I guess it’s a bit … well, it’s a tactic I suppose.’

‘What, to intimidate them?’ Already I want to protect this girl.

‘To persuade them to move on.’

Tonight, everything stirs. I go to the window but I can’t see out. The light’s on and inside the glass there’s just my reflection.

‘It’s alright, darling,’ I say fiercely. ‘I know you’re there.’

The dress is laid out on the stage. Gramps must have done it when I went to the toilet. It makes me feel funny looking at the dress all empty. It’s in a spotlight, blue on white. Round the neck and the bust there’s the silver nylon lace and it glitters in the light. For a moment it’s like it’s me lying down on the stage flat and empty and the real me, the one that’s looking, isn’t there.

I guess I’ll have to put it on. The forces saying I have to are too much again. They are Munroe and Gramps. They are the waiting chairs. They are every Bible for sale and every believer in this field. But if I do that right now I’m worried I’m going to disappear and the dress will be everything.

I go outside to get away from it all. What I’d like to do is tear the dress to shreds but I’d get into so much trouble I hardly want to think about it. I realise I’m still frightened of Munroe and remember Mum saying if you’re frightened of someone then you should think of them in a silly situation – like in their pyjamas brushing their teeth – and they stop being frightening. When I was little I’d think of people with poo on their faces, that seemed the silliest thing you could think. But the picture of Munroe with shit over his face somehow just makes him scarier so I blank the thought out and shove my hands into the pockets of my red jacket and wander down the path kicking small stones.

Then I hear this lovely voice and for a second I can’t see
who it is and I really think the archangel Gabriel has come down from on high and is speaking to me directly.

‘Carmel.’

There’s no one in front of me.

‘Carmel, Carmel. Is it you?’

I look round and it’s Nico. I’m sure it is. It looks like him only taller, and real handsome. He’s leaning against one of the entrances to the tents, so tall and good-looking he’s better than the archangel Gabriel.

My breathing goes all funny when I see him. I’ve waited years for this to happen.

He comes right up to me and he’s so tall I have to bend my neck to look at him. ‘Hey,’ he says, ‘haven’t seen you since we were little kids.’

For some reason while I speak my hands waggle either side like I’m trying to swim because I feel I need to balance or I might fall over. ‘Nico. You sound like a proper American now.’

‘So do you.’

‘Do I?’ It’s funny but you don’t really know how you sound to your own ears.

I remember about his sister, I’m not sure if I should ask – in case. But I do anyway. ‘Is your sister, is she … here?’

He smiles and it runs over me, nice prickles. ‘No, but she’s still surviving.’ He wants to change the subject, he’s thinking of something to say. ‘Look at you – all your buttons are done up the wrong way.’

Then slowly, slowly he undoes the shiny brass buttons on my jacket and does them up the right way. All the time he’s doing this I’m shaking and I hope he doesn’t notice.

‘Carmel?’ Gramps’s voice comes floating out of the tent
towards us. I do so wish he’d go away.

‘The old man and Dorothy still taking you on the road?’

‘Dorothy’s gone now.’

‘Carmel …’ Gramps is sounding twitchy now.

‘Bye then.’ Nico reaches over and flicks one of my buttons and makes a pinging sound. ‘Catch you around.’

‘Carmel …’

I watch Nico walk away with his hands in his pockets. I want to call him back or run after him but I stand there watching. And I feel so sad to see him walking away, so deep-down sad, like he really is an archangel and he’s the only one that could ever save me.

‘Carmel, we need you here …’

Now Nico is small in the distance and it’s the sky taking my attention away from him and from Gramps. What strange light. Is it only me that can see it? There’s quiet over the camp for a minute. Over the tent selling alarms that remind you to pray and T-shirts that say ‘SAVED’ across the chest. Crucifixes to dangle in your car. Tiny white Bibles to bury with dead babies. The big tent at the entrance to the field where a prayer service is held every hour, on the hour. Even hush from there. Then floating down on the wind. A voice. It sounds like it doesn’t belong to anyone. It sounds like it’s leaking from a radio.

‘The doctors who took away Chandler’s bandages could not believe their eyes. Where there were third-degree burns only two days before, the skin was completely clear. They were astonished …’ It’s Munroe rehearsing, I realise. The voice floats and twists down the path like a plastic bag in the wind.

There’s the dress again. Waiting.

‘Where have you been, girl? Folk’ll be here soon.’ Gramps has taken his coat off and rolled his shirt sleeves up like a workman.

‘You look worried today, Gramps.’

His forehead’s crinkled up into a frown and it’s shining with sweat under the lights. Because of where he’s standing on the stage there’s a green spotlight on his face. A little explosion of a giggle escapes me.

He looks up, sharp. ‘What’s so funny, Carmel?’

I wish I hadn’t of laughed. Now I’ll have to explain.

‘You remind me of something. That’s all.’

‘What thing?’

I don’t want to say. He doesn’t like me talking about
before.
’Course he never says this, I just know, and
before
gets blurry for me now even if I did want to talk about it.

‘Mum took me to a pantomime …’

‘Pardon?’

‘It’s like a play. There’s a princess and a prince. And two funny women that might be men …’ I’m trying to remember now. ‘But the thing I liked most was the genie. He came out of nowhere in a puff of smoke and the light on him was green and so were his clothes. But I can’t remember if he was supposed to be bad or good …’

He cuts in. ‘Sounds like a pile of Godless fakery to me.’

I knew it would make him cross.

‘Time to get changed, Carmel.’

Then he’s gone but his face seems to flicker still in the green light. I walk up to the dress and Gramps’s face is there too in the folds – where a tummy should be. I sweep it off the stage with one hand and give it a good shake. It’s only a stupid old dress, I tell myself, far too small for me now.

A waft of icy air drifts through the open flaps of the tent. I unbutton my jacket but I’m not going to take anything else off, not today. Anyway, I don’t want to feel the dress against my skin – to feel all the summers, all the people that have grabbed onto my hands. I don’t want to feel Dorothy right next to me. So I slip it over my jeans and my T-shirt that says ‘Frank’s Chicken Shed’ on it that we got free one time for eating chicken wings.

‘There, there she is. My girl, my girl.’ Gramps’s voice is almost a wail coming from the back of the tent. ‘Come, child, do it up. It’s half falling off you.’ And he comes over and starts buttoning me up at the back and nearly choking me.

‘You’ve got your other clothes on underneath.’

‘I’m cold, Gramps. Can’t you feel the cold sneaking around?’

He shakes his head and wipes the sweat away from his forehead to show he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

‘She’s trussed up in that dress like a killed deer. ’Bout time you took her shopping, Dennis,’ Munroe grumbles and Gramps wants to answer him back, I know he does, but Munroe’s turned away already and he’s slotting a CD into the player and cheesy music fills the tent. We face each other in a triangle with things unsaid in each of our mouths and it’s almost a relief that a family arrives, pushing a girl about my age in a wheelchair up the aisle.

Then there’s fake smiles plastered over Gramps and Munroe’s faces and I go sit on the steps of the stage to be quiet.

Then they come and it’s like they’re never going to stop – until all the seats are full and there’s people standing at the back and crowding into the aisle and Munroe’s rubbing his
hands together. The sneaking cold is driven away and the tent feels like the roof is going to melt right off.

Finally, Munroe takes the stage and the coughing and the talking and the shuffling stops dead. He starts pacing up and down, silent – working himself up. When he goes past the microphone you can hear his breathing – heeeehaaaaw heeeeehaaaaw.

When he’s worked up enough he launches himself at the microphone all spitty and excited.

‘I can feel the holy spirit right here. Right now. Hey, I’m expecting the roof to blow off any second the power of it’s so mighty …’ There’s lots of shouting from the crowd but then the music changes. He times it all beforehand – I’ve seen him do it.

‘Now there was this little boy. Name of Chandler. One day when his parents were out back little Chandler decided to do a very wicked thing. He decided to play with a box of matches. Little children here – don’t you be doing this. It was also a foolish act and when you hear what happened next you’ll find out why. What Chandler didn’t know was that his pyjamas he was wearing – ’cos it was nearly bedtime – were of the flammable variety …’

I stick my fingers inside my collar and give my neck a good scratch. I see the girl that came in first, the one in the wheelchair, is staring at me, she’s parked up right at the front. She gives me a wispy smile. Her skinny knees in black tights are half covered with a red-and-white polka-dot dress so she looks like Minnie Mouse. She’s got the most gorgeous shoes; they rest on the metal platform of her wheelchair and they’re gold with red jewels on them and they even have really high heels but I don’t suppose it matters, she doesn’t
walk on them anyway. They’re just for show.

I love her. I don’t know why but I love her on sight and she’s looking at me and smiling and I smile back and put my hand up and give her a tiny wave and she lifts a skinny hand and waves back.

Munroe’s finished his story about Chandler who went up in flames so even his fingers had a flame coming off each one so it was like his tenth birthday had come early with each finger lit like a birthday candle. He’s onto something else now.

‘… it’s like we’ve all got personal cell phones we can keep in our pockets and in the directory under G there’s a direct line to God and we can talk to Him any time, any time …’

Him talking about phones gets me thinking. There’s a secret pocket in my coat with some money Gramps doesn’t know about – an old lady gave me a couple of dollars extra for laying hands on her husband – because I’ve been planning one day to have my own phone. I haven’t got nearly enough but I might have when I’m older and then even he won’t be able to stop me. And maybe I could try and phone my dad. Can I remember his number? Only the very beginning bit but there must be a way of finding numbers out. And he might be pleased and he might not. He might have another little girl now with Lucy – but it could be just to say hello, surprise, how you doing?

But then the people facing me come back pin sharp into focus and all the steps I have to go through to phone Dad seem so big and confusing I wonder if I’ll ever be able to manage it.

It’s Gramps’s turn. As they change over I hear Munroe
saying, ‘Keep it short, Dennis,’ and my cheeks burn for Gramps. He doesn’t say anything for a good while and the crowd gets restless. Get on with it, Gramps, I think, you’re losing them, and I nearly jump up and shout Hallelujah or Amen like I did this morning in the car. But finally Gramps has started.

‘Acts Eight. Twelve to sixteen – “so they carried out the sick on the streets and they laid them onto beds and pallets that, as Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them”.’

His finger is pointing up to heaven and he gets carried away so he moves without thinking out of the white spotlight so he’s green again. I sigh.

And then the girl and me are staring at each other. We can’t stop it. It’s like we’ve fallen in love or something. Only not like it is with Nico. Not trembly and excited. I love her like I’m a knight on a horse and I want to gather her up and make everything better for her – to look after her and keep her safe. She peeps out under her long red fringe at me with her big soft brown eyes. Now my palms are burning, itching. I concentrate on her to see what light she has burning inside her but it’s hard with the spotlights being different colours. I think there might be light enough inside her, I’m not sure. Everything’s wrong today. What with the green lights and Munroe and his story about little Chandler who I’ve never heard of.

I feel a stab in my heart as a thought pierces – what if it’s all not true? What if this thing, this thing I think is a gift, is only an idea Gramps has put there? I bring the thought up to my face and look at it and it lies an ugly lump in my hands. I don’t want the thought to be right and I try to rub
my hands together to squish it and make it disappear, but I get covered in it and it’s terrible. The one time I really want to feel the swelling warmth in my fingertips, the hum going through me – the one time when I want to reach out to this lovely girl and lay my hands on her and say, ‘You can get up now. Take off those high heels because they might be hard to walk in at first, but walk, walk right out of that wheelchair’ – I can’t because all I can feel in my hands are cold dead stars. I have to concentrate on not moaning I feel so bad.

Gramps must have finished now without me realising, the coloured spotlights are drowned out by big white ones and I hear him saying, ‘Whoa now, each will have their turn. You have to line up,’ because people are pushing and pressing forward and some have dollars in their hands that they’re waving about; Dorothy would’ve loved it.

They’ve let in too many people – the ones lined up at the back are pressing forward and I feel very tiny squashed against the stage. Where’s Gramps? I look round for him and catch a glimpse of his face, he’s come off the stage and he’s trying to fight his way through the crowd but he can’t and his face is all pushed out of shape. Then there’s a terrible screeching sound from the microphone and the crowd around me cover their ears and hang back and at least I can breathe a bit. I put my fingers up to my face and I must be crying, it’s wet round my eyes. Because I’ve realised the one person I need to heal – to lay hands on and rearrange the torn and twisted insides – is Mum. And I never will, but if not her, then it has to be this girl.

The feedback screeches again and then it’s Munroe’s voice booming out. ‘Stand back, folk. Stand back right now.
Mercy will be seeing everyone today. You need to wait your turn.’