And the ambulance is here and the medics are in the living room. Someone is saying there’s nothing they can do. They say Alice is gone, even though that can’t be right. She can’t be gone. She can’t be dead. Not dead. Not Alice …
They’re sitting side by side at the big oak kitchen table. Dad’s arm is round her and she’s glad because, although it’s still warm outside and the Aga is on, she can’t stop shivering. There’s a policeman sitting opposite them at the table, asking questions about when she last saw Alice. If anyone has been hanging around the house. Was Alice worried about anything? She tries to answer, but she’s crying, doesn’t want to, but can’t stop and her nose is running and there’s nothing to wipe it on. Dad’s saying: ‘Can’t this wait? She’s in shock.’
And it must be hours later because Mum is back, pacing up and down and doing something with her hands like the woman Rosie saw in Macbeth last year. Mum hasn’t touched Dad or Rosie and hasn’t cried. She looks angry: white and angry. As if it was their fault – Rosie’s and Dad’s. Maybe it was. For letting Alice stay home on her own.
She’s all sweaty now in her thick dressing gown with her bra and pants underneath still damp from tennis. Wants to have a shower, to feel clean, but wanting that seems wrong, somehow.
‘Marion, darling, you must sit down.’ Her dad leads Mum to a chair at the table, but she shakes her head and goes to sit all hunched up on the big squashy sofa in the far corner. He stands looking at her for a minute then says, ‘What about something to eat? Rosemary must be hungry.’
She is a bit, although she feels bad about that too. She shouldn’t want to eat now Alice is dead. Alice is dead. Alice is dead.
Dad’s talking again. ‘Come on, Rosemary. Let’s make some sandwiches.’ He won’t stop talking and Mum won’t stop twisting her fingers together.
At the kitchen counter he cuts bread and asks Rosie to butter it. Then he slices tomatoes and puts the kettle on, gets milk out. He keeps saying it’ll be all right.
It won’t be. So why say that?
He stands behind her and rubs her shoulders. ‘But I’m afraid it’s going to be nasty for a while, my darling. And we have to be brave and stick together.’ She doesn’t know what to say, just carries on buttering. Remembers she should have washed her hands first. He puts ham on the bread. She wanted cheese, but it doesn’t matter. Alice is dead.
‘Rosie?’ He’s cutting the edges off the ham to fit perfectly on the bread. Mum never bothers about that. ‘The police will want to talk to you again, but don’t worry, I’ll be with you. Just tell them what happened. You didn’t do anything wrong and you didn’t see anything so …’ He seems to need an answer.
‘OK.’
‘Just tell them it was the same as always. Keep it simple. I’m afraid the police aren’t all that bright as a rule. So don’t confuse them. I don’t know when you got back, but I’ve told them we arrived home at almost the same time, so you’d better say that too.’
Joe
Joe could see Hannah sitting in the kitchen as he closed the back gate, but when she saw him she stood and headed into the hall, probably going back upstairs. He made two mugs of tea, praying she hadn’t locked herself in the bathroom as she often did these days.
She was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling, as usual. Her hair looked damp, so at least she’d washed properly this morning. He’d heard Loretta trying to persuade her to have a shower yesterday. ‘Make you feel a bit more yourself,’ that’s what she’d said. As if they could ever be themselves again. Their real selves: Lily’s mum and dad. Not: the parents of the dead teenager.
Of course, the tea had been a mistake because, as soon as she realized he was coming in, Hannah swung her legs off the bed and made to leave. He thrust the mugs onto the chest near the door, great dollops slopping over the side, and grabbed her arm. ‘Hannah, please. Please, I’ve made us some tea.’ She didn’t turn, but at least she stayed where she was, rubbing the red marks left by his fingers. ‘Sorry, love, didn’t mean to hurt you, but sit down, please. Have your tea.’
He took a chance and sat on the bed with a mug in his hand. Still not looking at him, she pulled out a handful of tissues and dabbed at the slops, then took the other mug, went to sit at her little dressing table, and stared out into the street. They drank in silence for a few minutes.
When she put her mug down – she always drank her tea really quickly, they used to joke about her asbestos tongue – he knew he had to speak before she disappeared again. He gulped at his own drink, coughed, as a few drops went down the wrong way, but forced himself on.
‘I went to see them at The Children of Light.’ Her head jerked up. ‘They said Lily was involved. Called her Sister Lily, for God’s sake. Did you know about it, Hannah?’
A nod was all he got.
‘Why, love? Why would you let her go there after all you said about them?’
Her hands were in her hair and her voice was croaky. ‘I couldn’t stop her.’
‘Was it this boy? Did he get her involved?’
‘It was nothing like that, Joe.’ It was the first time she’d said his name for so long. And he waited for her to go on, hardly daring to breathe. She still had the wet tissues in one hand and she looked down at them dripping onto the dressing table. Finally, she placed the soggy mess in front of her, shaking her head and wiping her hand on her skirt. When she turned her eyes were glassy.
‘She went looking for her real father. Wanted to find her biological dad.’ He couldn’t breathe. Just waited. Her voice was so quiet he had to strain to hear. ‘She thought it was one of them – at The Children.’
Breathe, say something. ‘And was he? Did she find him?’ He’d never asked her about this other man. It never seemed to matter – before. ‘You’ve got to tell me, Hannah. And tell the police. If she found him, you must know what that means. Talk to me, Hannah, please.’
She stood, but her face was blank again and she was staring past him, shaking her head. ‘I can’t. I can’t talk about that.’
He was on his feet too; part of him wanting to hold her, to tell her it was all right. Another part wanting to shake her, to wake her up and make her think of Lily.
He was so tired.
She clutched herself and pushed past him, and he heard the click as she locked the bathroom door.
Rosie
‘Oliver and I are planning to move abroad.’ Rosie expected her mother to turn to her, say something, start to cry even, but she just trudged onwards. Rosie had called her that morning, suggesting a walk and, knowing what she was going to say, she had winced at Marion’s obvious delight.
‘Oh, darling, yes, that’d be lovely. Let’s go to Rye Harbour. The wild flowers at the nature reserve will be beautiful just now. I’ll come and pick you up.’
They didn’t talk much during the drive and it wasn’t until they were walking along the main path towards the sea, the salt marshes on their right and the river on their left, that Rosie broke the silence. It had turned chilly and their only company was a couple of small boats chugging down river to the sea and some little black-and-white seabirds shrilling overhead. The flowers her mother had hoped for were there, but their colours were muted in the mottled light, their petals bothered by the breeze.
Rosie pulled her collar around