The Drowning Girl

‘Really, you don’t have to,’ she says.

‘I think we should,’ I say.

I’m still wearing the blue silk blouse. I can’t take it off with Lennie there.

‘We’ll be downstairs,’ says Karen. ‘Remember to take the clip too.’

I catch sight of myself in the mirror. I’m not so sure now that Karen’s clothes suit me: the paleness of the fabric makes my face looks hard and tired. The gloss has gone from the day.

When I go downstairs, Sylvie is ready and waiting to leave, she has her shoes and coat on. She has her back to Karen and Lennie, her face quite still, no feeling in it, her eyes fixed on the door. Lennie has stopped crying now, but she’s pressed into her mother, frowning at Sylvie’s back, with Karen’s skirt clenched fiercely in her fist. It’s happening again: I’m leaving Karen’s house embarrassed and ashamed.

CHAPTER 5

Outside it’s dark and cold now. We can see the smoke of our breath as we pass beneath the street lamps. Sylvie slips her hand in mine. I feel her small, cool touch: my anger seeps away.

She walks slowly, as though her shoes weigh her down.

‘I’m tired, Grace. I don’t want to walk. My feet hurt.’

We could catch the bus, but I’d rather save the fare.

‘Will you walk if we go past Tiger Tiger?’ I ask her.

‘And see my house?’

‘Yes. The shop will be closed now, but we can look in the window.’

She nods.

‘I want to see my house,’ she says.

It’s only a slight detour. Tiger Tiger is in a row of expensive shops two streets down from Karen’s, next to the organic deli. It specialises in dolls’ houses and handmade wooden toys. The shops are all shut up now, but at Tiger Tiger the lights are on in the window. We stop there, looking in.

Some of their most impressive things are in the window display—a rocking horse with mane and tail made from real horsehair, some jointed German teddy bears, all the dolls’ houses. There’s a castle with exuberant crenellations; a Gothic mansion with ivy painted all over the walls; a splendid Georgian town house that has the front pulled back, so you can see the family of beribboned mice that live there, the wallpaper with cabbage roses, the tiny button-back chairs. As a child I’d have adored it, this enclosed, enchanted world. But Sylvie gives it only the briefest of glances.

Behind the lit part the rest of the shop is in shadow. The marionettes that hang from the ceiling catch briefly in the headlights from the road. There’s a vampire with clotted bloody fangs, a pale anorexic princess in a wisp of silk, a witch. The witch has hair like cobwebs and gappy teeth and white and vacant eyes. The marionettes look a little sinister, hanging there in the quick thin shafts of light that pass across them, their hair and the fringes on their outfits shivering very slightly in the movement of air from some secret vent or opening: the air in the shop must never be quite still. When I was a child they’d have frightened me, but Sylvie isn’t frightened. She often seems so afraid, yet the things that usually terrify children—gaping mouths with teeth, or zombies, or heads apart from bodies—never seem to worry her.

‘There’s my house,’ she says, with a slight sigh of satisfaction. ‘There it is, Grace.’

The one that she loves is the smallest one—really only a cottage, with slate-grey tiles and roughcast whitewashed walls. This always surprises me. I’d have thought she’d have gone for the mansion or the Georgian town house. I feel again how I don’t know her, can’t predict her. The house is squat, symmetrical, like the houses she draws. Maybe that’s why she likes it. It has shutters at the windows and moss is painted on the tiles.

Lights from the shop-window shine in Sylvie’s eyes; her whole face is luminous, looking at it. She presses up to the glass, her face flattened against it, her hands on either side of her face, the fingers splayed.

‘That’s my house, isn’t it, Grace?’ she says again.

I bend to her.

‘Yes. That’s the one you like the best.’

She’s pushing against the glass as though she could push through. I worry that she’ll set off an alarm, that perhaps the window is wired.

‘Who lives there?’ I ask her.

When she turns her head towards me, you can see the perfect oval, blurring at the edges, where the glass has misted with the warmth of her breath. She has a puzzled look, a little frown stitched to her forehead: as though there’s something obvious I haven’t understood.

‘Me, Grace,’ she says. ‘That’s my house. I told you.’

‘It’s like the ones you draw,’ I say.

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, just stands there looking in.

‘I want it, Grace.’

‘Sweetheart, I know you do.’

When I crouch beside her, I see the marionettes reflecting in her eyes in tiny immaculate images.

‘I really really want it. Will you buy it for me, Grace?’

‘Perhaps one day,’ I tell her.

I’m always vague when she asks, in case my plan goes wrong. I never know when something will happen to throw out my calculations—a rise in fees at the nursery, or Sylvie growing out of her dungarees or her shoes. I have a special account, and each week I save just a bit, just as much as I can manage. By February—when it’s her birthday—if nothing goes wrong, I hope I’ll have enough. This gives me a warm, full feeling—that I can buy this doll’s house for her. I see her in my mind’s eye, playing with it, intent, with a quiet, composed face, the look she has when she’s concentrating; singing to herself in a breathy, tuneless hum. I brush my lips against her cool cheek, feeling a rush of love for her.

Because we are happy together for the moment, I try to talk to her about the afternoon.

‘Sylvie, what happened at Karen’s?’

She doesn’t say anything.

‘Why did you say that to Lennie?’ I ask.

Her face is blank, giving nothing away. She shrugs. It’s almost as though she’s forgotten.

‘She’s Lennie, and she’s your friend,’ I tell her. ‘She got upset when you said that. Friends are precious. You don’t want to upset your friend.’

She turns from me. I wish I hadn’t said it.

‘I want to go home now, Grace,’ she says, in a flat, expressionless voice.

We walk home mostly in silence. She says her feet hurt.

CHAPTER 6

Welford Place has an old-fashioned, country-house glamour, all burgundy and gold, with chandeliers. Matt greets the head waiter, and we are led to our table. I feel so different from usual, my hair heaped up, and wearing these pale, grown-up clothes. I’m aware of men’s glances brushing against me.

Our table is by the window, looking out over the river, and the curtains are looped back, to frame the view. The night outside is festive: in the trees on the opposite bank there are strings of lights like coloured beads, their jewel colours reflecting in the dark river water.

‘It’s beautiful,’ I say.