The Lost Child

‘Righto, will do. I’ll get the sparky in tomorrow to give it a once over. By the way, when Bob was in the loft clearing out he found a box of stuff, it looks like personal stuff, papers and that, so we didn’t skip it. I’ve left it in the garage.’

‘OK, I’ll go through it when I get back. Thanks Dan.’ More junk to dispose of, and she’d thought she’d got rid of it all. Jean had hoarded junk like a squirrel hoards its winter meals.

‘So’ he said, his tone softer, ‘you coming out for that drink with me when you get home or what?’

Elaine could feel the blush creeping up her neck and flooding her cheeks. ‘Do you ask all the old maids that employ you out on dates?’

‘Only the good looking rich ones’ he quipped. She could hear his smile in his voice.

‘Well, it looks like I’m going to be penniless by the time you lot are finished, but you’ll be rich. Perhaps you could spend some of your ill-gotten gains on a decent pair of specs.’ she parried in return.

‘Ha ha very funny, I mean it though, we’re going out.’

‘We’ll see, I’m going now.’

‘I mean it – you and me, dinner, wine…’

‘Bye Dan.’

‘Candlelight, music…’

‘Goodbye Dan,’ she said less firmly than she should have. Even then she hung on, waiting to hear that comforting chuckle before finally ending the call. She was too embarrassed to admit to herself how much she was enjoying the light-hearted flirtation. And much too frightened to admit how much his invitation terrified her. The gawky, frightened teenager was still inside, holding on with a grip of iron.

*

Elaine woke abruptly from a tangled and tormented dream. Blessedly brought to wakefulness by a rapid hammering on the cottage door. Bleary and harassed she fought the cloying sheets and once free stumbled across the bedroom to the window. Below her stood the sulky kid, Brodie. Elaine squinted at her phone, which lay on the bedside table. It was only nine. She wondered, with ill temper, if all the guests were so rudely awoken here.

The hammering started again. By the time she had reached the bottom of the narrow stairs, her feet squirming on the cold wood, the girl had started her third demand for attention. She was persistent, Elaine would give her that. Almost on the point of shouting, she hauled the heavy door open. The terse response she had planned stifled by the fact that the girl was holding something out to her. A basket, lined with gingham and containing homemade bread and fresh eggs. So fresh that they were still feathery and warm.

‘Miriam said to bring you this for your breakfast, sorry if I got you up’ the girl said. She ran her eyes over Elaine, appraising her from her tousled head and crumpled pyjamas to her cold, bare feet. Her eyes rose and settled just below Elaine’s chin.

Instinctively Elaine reached for her neck, covering the naked scar with her hand. ‘Brodie, isn’t it? Come in.’ she said, swallowing down her embarrassment. As the girl passed her, Elaine grabbed a woollen scarf from the coat pegs and covered her neck quickly, despite the fact that the day promised to be lush and warm with fat yellow sunshine. She would rather be uncomfortable than show off the scar.

Brodie hovered in the kitchen doorway, ‘Should I put this in here?’ she asked, holding up the basket and appearing nonchalant. She was clearly pretending not to notice the incongruous addition of the scarf. It made Elaine look like a woebegone snowman.

‘Yeah, anywhere.’ Elaine said, waving her hand. ‘Look, I’m just going to go and find my dressing gown, why don’t you put the kettle on?’ She felt bad that she’d been so offhand. The child clearly felt awkward.

Back in the kitchen, more comfortable now that she was swathed in thick fabric that covered her modesty, Elaine contemplated her young guest. Brodie was busily making coffee unaware that she was being observed so closely.

A thick curtain of dyed black hair swung out from underneath a black hoodie – both, Elaine assumed, intended to shade the pale, intense little face. There was a thinness about the girl, despite the bulk of baggy clothes that hung as a sullen statement from her small frame. Rapid hands with red rimmed, bitten nails moved deftly as she filled the cups with instant coffee before presenting the finished article for approval. With her pale skin and dark hair she looked like a shy geisha compelled to please her host. Her efforts made Elaine feel like smiling. An urge that was rare.

‘Thank you, that looks perfect.’

‘I always make the drinks at home, I’m used to it. Miriam and Esther only drink tea, I’m lousy at tea and they use that bitty stuff, not teabags, so I leave them to it.’ Brodie said it with a shudder that implied that loose-leaf tea was the stuff of the devil.

This time Elaine did smile. She pointed to the basket. ‘It’s really kind of you to bring breakfast, would you like to stay and share it?’

Elaine watched a flicker of eagerness flit across Brodie’s face before it was quickly replaced by a look of resignation. ‘Better not, Miriam will think I’m bugging you.’

‘Well, it didn’t seem to bother her when she sent you across to bring it. Besides, I want you to stay, it will make it worth cooking.’

Brodie’s response was to give an acquiescent shrug. It made Elaine think that the girl wasn’t used to experiencing her presence as something desirable. It was a concept that caused her to experience a sensation of inexplicable sadness, far out of proportion to anything she would have expected to feel for someone she had only just met. She recalled the incident with the ashes and felt a flush of shame.

Over breakfast she learned that Brodie was fifteen, that her birthday was soon, that she had a brother who she adored and a sister who she despised and a mother who worried her in the same visceral way that Jean had worried Elaine.

Not that Brodie had stated any of this. It was just there, like an oil slick, sitting toxic and ominous on the surface of Brodie’s story. It bothered Elaine so much that she felt compelled to ply the girl with more toast in a vain attempt to mop up the almost tangible misery. When finally they had finished, and Elaine was wiping the last streak of liquid butter from her chin, Brodie surprised her with a question.

‘Elaine, do you believe in ghosts?’

She had to consider it for a moment, both because it had come out of the blue and because she didn’t have a concrete answer.

Eventually, with a pensive frown, she said, ‘If you mean the kind that go bump in the night and waft about in the form of “orbs” throwing things at gullible people on dodgy satellite TV channels, then no, I don’t. But if you mean the kind of ghosts that sit on the edge of your reality like something unrequited, the kind that you will never see and will never hear. The kind that suck at your life like greedy tadpoles, getting fat at your expense, then yes, I believe in those.’

Brodie nodded sagely, ‘Yeah, those kind. Do you think they’re dead people, the tadpoles?’

Elaine fought a smile as she thought of Jean as an embryonic frog, ‘Sometimes, maybe. Not always. I think living people can be ghosts too.’

Brodie pulled a face, ‘Yeah, I reckon Esther’s one of those. She sits there like that witch in the gingerbread house, picking and poking at her chair with her witchy fingers like she wants to eat the lot of us,’ she accompanied her words with a shudder. ‘She creeps me out.’

Elaine laughed, ‘Yeah, old ladies can do that. Is that why you asked, because of Esther?’ Elaine hadn’t met Esther, but she had formed a mental picture from Brodie’s description that didn’t incline her to want to.

Brodie looked down at her plate and prodded at a congealing lump of scrambled egg with the tines of her fork, ‘No, because of Mandy.’

If Elaine hadn’t consciously decided to be the grown-up in this conversation she would have sworn that a cold chill had swept over her at Brodie’s words. As it was she explained to herself that the creeping sensation was a reaction to sitting around in her nightwear in a north facing kitchen. Certainly not because anything sinister had just happened. ‘Who’s Mandy?’

‘My dead sister.’ Brodie said baldly. ‘She disappeared when she was three, and they never found her body, but they did find some clothes with blood on them so they think she died. My mum never got over it, it’s why she’s ill and keeps taking overdoses.’

Elaine really didn’t know what to say.

‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s really sad and that, like she was really little and it was really awful, but it was thirty years ago. Don’t you think people should get over it by then?’

‘Probably, but maybe things got stuck because she was never found. Is that why it feels like she’s a ghost?’

Brodie shook her head, ‘No, she is a ghost. She’s there all the time, everywhere. Mum has pictures of her all over the house. You can’t even have a wee in our house without Mandy watching you. She sits on top of the telly, on every windowsill – even if you open a drawer she’s there, lurking next to Mum’s hand cream and the paracetamol. I know I shouldn’t but sometimes I hate her. I hate her cute face and her pigtails and her bloody pink cardigan!’ She said it so vehemently that the force of it brought tears to her eyes. She swept them away with the sleeve of her black hoodie.

Elaine wanted to stretch out her hand, to touch Brodie and soothe her, to take her under her wing and wrap her in feathers that would keep out all ills. She even started to reach out but thought better of it as her fingers sensed the ethereal spines of misery that had sprung out to shroud the unhappy girl. ‘Perhaps…’ she faltered, ‘perhaps being here will help, give you a break from it. Step back a bit.’ she said, knowing that it sounded trite and insipid.

‘Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice.’ Brodie scoffed. ‘Let’s send Brodie for a break, I know let’s send her to the exact place where Mandy went missing, that’ll help!’ She spat the words out as if they tasted of angostura bitters.

The words smacked into Elaine like a brick dropped onto concrete. She didn’t know where to begin with all that hurt and anger. ‘I’m so sorry Brodie, I’m not really very good at this.’ She wondered if she looked as feeble as she sounded, sitting there clutching her dressing gown up around her neck like a timid rabbit caught in the trap of Brodie’s unhappiness.

Brodie stood up and sniffed, dragging her sleeve across her nose as she spoke. ‘S’all right, not your problem is it? Anyway, ta for breakfast.’ She turned and made for the door.

‘Whoa there, where are you off to? You don’t need to leave – I’m sorry, I’m a just a bit useless at this. Don’t go.’ Elaine had no idea what in the hell was drawing her to this abrasive, unhappy teenager, but she couldn’t just let her walk away.

The girl paused at the door, her hand resting on the latch ready to secure her escape. Elaine watched patiently as Brodie’s black clad shoulders sagged, the tension of the previous few minutes ebbing out of them like a soft sigh. Eventually she turned.

‘I’m sorry Elaine, you’re a really nice lady, and you cook mean scrambled eggs and I know I can be a right bitch sometimes.’ Brodie mumbled it in a typical adolescent approximation of an apology.