The Nothing Girl (22 page)

Chapter Eleven

I was reading quietly on the sofa and Thomas was watching one of those hospital dramas where everyone is having inappropriate sex with everyone else.

Mrs Crisp slipped into the room.

‘It’s the police, Mrs Checkland.’

My heart knocked painfully against my already battered ribs and I skidded into full-blown panic.

‘Where?’

‘Just pulling up in the yard.’

Someone knocked at the back door.

I stared, paralysed with fright.

This time last week I would have thought – Marilyn! Now I wondered if Aunt Julia had been making mischief.

‘
What if she has?
’ said Thomas calmly. ‘
Falling down stairs is not an indictable offence, especially if carried out in the privacy of one’s own home. It’s probably only about Marilyn again.
’

I said to Mrs Crisp, ‘Where’s Marilyn?’

‘In the field. Sharon will get her inside as soon as she can.’

I had another horrible thought. What had Russell done with Marilyn’s owner? Was his body buried in the garden? I’d never even asked. What sort of wife was I?

I asked, without hope, ‘Where’s Russell?’

‘Taken Kevin and gone out somewhere.’

Someone knocked again.

‘I’d better go and let them in.’

I nodded.

‘Remember, Mrs Checkland, you’re not well.’

I thrust my book under the cushions, flicked off the TV, pulled up the blanket, closed my eyes, and prepared to deceive the police to the best of my ability.

Mrs Crisp re-entered noisily. ‘Are you awake, Mrs Checkland?’

I opened my eyes, artistically.

It was only one police officer and she was a she. She was also a sergeant, a few years older than me, and her stocky figure was made bulkier by her vest. But I knew her. She’d been head girl at my school. And she knew me. It was Marjorie Bates. I remembered her heading the charge, sweeping down the hockey pitch, the day we snatched victory from Rushford St Winifred’s in extra time. And now she was Sgt Bates. As Sgt Bates she radiated solid, calm, good sense, so she stuck out like a sore thumb at Frogmorton.

I smiled and indicated she should sit. Mrs Crisp disappeared to distract her with tea and as much cake as she could eat.

I know all about the police. I watch TV. I know that any investigation is always headed by a senior officer with a drug habit, or a dodgy past, or marital problems, or tottering on the verge of a mental breakdown. His or her team always consist of stunningly good-looking, ambitious young officers doing each other down at the slightest opportunity and also having masses of inappropriate sex. There’s always opposition from unhelpful senior officers more concerned with politics than catching criminals and the serial killer usually turns out to be one of the team. At any moment she would set about me my own telephone directory until I confessed. To anything.

‘Good morning, Mrs Checkland.’

I refused to be lulled by good manners.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ she said. ‘Especially when you’re not well. Was it an accident?’

Still not knowing why she was here, I pointed to the stairs. She got up and had a look.

‘That must have hurt.’

I nodded. It had. It still did.

She sat back down again.

‘It’s just a few quick questions.’

About what? I hoped Sharon had remembered to bring Boxer in as well, otherwise there would be SHOUTING and everyone within a ten-mile radius would know we had a donkey. A stolen donkey.

‘Do you know a young man named Kevin Price?’

Oh my God. Kevin. He was wanted by the police after all and they’d tracked him back to us. They’d found him.

I sat up and began the only slightly exaggerated struggle to speak, giving her plenty of time to say she would return when my husband was here. If she could catch him. He was never bloody here.

She waited patiently.

I seized a piece of paper and wrote ‘Sorry. I have a stutter,’ and passed it to her.

She smiled. ‘Not a problem.’

Great. I’d got the only police officer in the country who’d done sensitivity training.

I used the time to think. There was no point in lying. Everyone knew Kevin lived here. It’s not as if we’d tried to hide him.

‘
I don’t think that’s the problem,
’ said Thomas. ‘
We may need to ask ourselves what he was up to before he came to live with us.
’

I remembered the squeaky voice saying: ‘Give me your bag, lady,’ and the complete absence of any sort of threat.

‘
Yes. Not the most efficient mugger in town.
’ said Thomas.

She was still waiting while I, a formerly respectable member of society but now married to someone who wasn’t, formulated and dismissed plans for Deceiving The Law.

Finally, as haltingly as I could, I said, ‘I know
a
Kevin.’

‘What’s his last name?’

Oh great. Now I had to admit we’d given refuge to someone who’d refused to tell us his last name. No, hang on, she’d said the name. What was it?

Her smile became slightly more steely and I folded like a badly made origami swan.

‘Don’t know.’

‘You’ve been putting him up for – what – six months now and you don’t know his name?’

‘It’s Kevin,’ I said, defensively. ‘We’re not complete idiots.’

Thomas snorted unhelpfully.

‘Does this Kevin live here in this house?’

‘Oh no,’ I said, glad to be able to reassure her. ‘He lives in the stables.’

Silence.

‘
Oh, well done, Jenny,
’ said Thomas. ‘
Now she probably thinks he’s feral.
’

‘He has a nice room there,’ I said desperately, in case she thought he shared a stall with Boxer, and then realised, too late, that if she asked to see it she couldn’t miss the world’s hottest donkey, also snugly ensconced in our stables, and very possibly the world’s hottest donkey’s ex-owner bricked up in a cavity there, as well.

I considered having a relapse.

‘Well, I’m sure his mum will be very grateful to you for taking him in,’ she said.

What?

‘When he comes back from wherever he is,’ she grinned at me, but not unkindly, ‘can you give him this?’

She pulled out an envelope with Kevin’s name on the front and put it on the table.

‘His step-dad’s gone. Arrested him myself,’ she said, displaying a certain satisfaction. I was certain telephone directories had been involved. ‘His mum’s been ringing round his friends. She traced him as far as Rushford and then he dropped out of sight so she asked us to have a go. It wasn’t hard. In fact I wish they were all this easy. You’re quite high profile here, you know. So if you could just see he gets that.’

‘Don’t you want to see him and give it to him yourself?’

‘No, no need. I’ve just popped in on my way somewhere else. Good afternoon.’

Russell, just for once, didn’t see the funny side.

‘Well, you should have been here yourself, then,’ I said, somewhat snappily.

There was a pause and then he said, ‘Aren’t you going to ask where I was?’

‘No.’

‘You really haven’t got the hang of this being a wife business at all, have you?’

‘There’s never anyone around to practise on.’

He looked as if he might say something and then caught sight of the envelope. ‘What’s this?’

‘She brought a message for Kevin. From his mum. His step-dad’s gone and I think his mum might want him back.’

I began to struggle to my feet, picked up the envelope, and set off in search of Kevin.

Who stared at the envelope for a long time.

‘I expect you’d like some privacy,’ I said, tugging at Russell, who was a bit of a stranger to the concept of privacy. Fortunately he was still brooding over my brush with The Law and put up no resistance.

Kevin disappeared. I saw Mrs Crisp watching Sharon. Russell was watching me. I thought I might go and have a bit of a lie-down. I needed to talk some of this over with Thomas. I needed another point of view.

Russell insisted on helping me up the stairs.

‘
I’m not sure that was the wisest thing to do,
’ said Thomas, as I lowered myself into the window seat. ‘
In fact I don’t think it’s a good idea to be alone with him at all at the moment.
’

‘I know’, I said, ‘but I don’t think even I’m going to fall down the stairs twice running. Besides, I have you to look after me.’

Something in his silence made me look up.

‘Don’t I?’

He still didn’t answer. I felt again that cold hand of premonition,

‘Don’t I?’

He went to stand in his usual place in the corner. He still didn’t speak.

I said in a whisper, ‘Thomas?’

He looked across the room at me and I could see he was crying. All the old familiar fears came flooding back. Everything clenched. I felt the blood drain from my face, leaving it stiff and cold.

I said again, ‘Thomas?’

Finally, he looked up. Two long, dark, tear stains ran down his face. I hadn’t realised, but I was crying too.

‘Thomas, are you leaving me?’ and waited to hear him say, ‘
Of course not. I’m here for as long as you need me,
’ because that was what he always said and it was certain that I never needed him more than now.

He sighed heavily. ‘
I have to go.
’

I panicked.

‘No you mustn’t,’ and struggled to stand up. I think I thought if I could just get my arms around him then I could somehow physically restrain him; stop him somehow, anyhow, from leaving me.

He said, ‘
No, don’t. You’ll hurt yourself,
’ but I didn’t care. I ran as fast as I could and put both arms round his neck. He lowered his head and breathed into my hair and for the first time ever, it didn’t work.

We were both crying.

Eventually, he said, ‘
Stop. Jenny, please stop. You’ll make yourself ill. Please, sit down. Sit here on the bed. I promise I won’t leave if you let go. Please, let’s not hurt each other now.
’

So I slowly let go and sat on the end of the bed. He stood very close and I reached out to touch him. If I could just keep hold of him … in every sense of the word.

‘
All right now?
’ he said. ‘
Are you able to speak?
’

I swallowed and nodded, determined to be calm.

‘
Jenny, the time has come for me to go. You don’t need me any more.
’

Calm flew out of the window. ‘Yes, I do. You know I do. I’ll always need you. How can you go? How can you go now? You know what’s going on. How can you say I don’t need you? You can’t leave me. Thomas you can’t go. You mustn’t go. I can’t do this by myself. Thomas, please.’

‘
Shhh,
’ he said, gently and the smell of warm ginger biscuits filled the room again
.
‘
Hush, Jenny, you’ll make yourself ill.
’

‘I am ill,’ I sobbed, fear and anger roiling around inside me. ‘I’m ill and I’m hurt and I’m in trouble and you’re leaving me.’

I got no reply. Shaking my hair off my face I could see he was crying as hard as I was. I rubbed my nose on my sleeve and gently reached to wipe his tears away.

‘If this is hurting you so much then why are you doing it?’

He thought for a while. ‘
I came to you when you were a child. A confused, frightened child who needed a friend. I’ve stayed with you all these years as your friend. And we are, Jenny, we’re good friends. You are very dear to me.

‘
But now, you don’t need me any more. No, no, don’t say anything just yet. You really don’t need me to tell you what to do. Just recently, you’ve married, stolen a donkey, listened to and helped poor Mrs Crisp, seen off a bully, rescued a cat, and stood your ground with your husband. And now, young Kevin is sorting himself out and you’ll help with that as well. It’s true, Jenny, you don’t need me to tell you what to do these days. You can decide and do these things for yourself. You’ve outgrown me.
’

‘How can you say that? You know what’s happening here. How could you leave now, of all times? How can you leave me to face this alone?’

‘
But you’re not alone any more. You’re positively festooned with people and animals who wish you well. You can cope with whatever comes your way, Jenny. You always do. You must have noticed.
’

‘But you’re my friend. We’ve been together for so long. You can’t just go.’

‘
I can and I must.
’

‘Must? Why must you go? I need you here.’

He said sadly, ‘
You think you do, but you don’t. And as for “must”… Do you remember when we met?
’

‘Vividly.’

‘
You were so distressed. Do you remember?
’

I nodded.

‘
Somewhere … somewhere there’s a little boy. He’s six. He’s hiding in a cupboard and they’re looking for him. Do you understand now why I must go?
’

I was too choked to speak. I could understand. I did understand. But he was my Thomas. My dear friend. And still my only friend. He’d been my constant companion since I was thirteen. He’d protected me from the bullies at school, kept me calm when things overwhelmed me, guided me, laughed with me, brought me joy. I remembered his excitement and enthusiasm in the big DIY store and again in the art shop. I remembered his kindness, his strength. I saw him running across the moors, golden and beautiful.

And free.

He read my thoughts.

‘
You do understand, don’t you? I know you do. You’re my Jenny. You’ve grown up to be an exceptional young woman and I’m so proud of you.
’

He paused.

‘
We’re not supposed to have favourites, but you’re the favourite I haven’t got. Don’t forget me, Jenny.
’

As if I ever could.

‘You’re going now? Right this minute?’

‘
Yes, I have to. It’s always easier not to draw this out.
’

I was crying again, struggling with this thunderbolt. Only a couple of hours ago, we’d been watching TV together. How could this be happening? I stood and wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his hard neck, smelling the smell of him.

‘
Jenny, you have to release me.
’

‘You mean, if I don’t, you can’t go?’