The years she stole, p.33
The Years She Stole, page 33
‘We’ll see what my dad’s got to say about that.’
‘How is he?’ She sounds concerned. Yeah right, that’s faux concern if ever I heard it.
‘Cold,’ I say.
She doesn’t understand. Then thinks she does. ‘I see. Distant. Bit frosty. Hard to reach out to. Plus ça change, eh, Rach? Plus ça change.’
She’s sounding almost pally. How dare she!
‘No, he’ll be cold. Seeing as he’s sitting outside in the car.’
She takes a deep breath. Well, she wasn’t expecting that. She sits there, thinking. I can see panic is rising up inside her. Finally she says, ‘Does any of this make sense to you?’
‘In what way?’
‘When you found out. Was it a surprise?’
‘Of course.’
‘Not even a part of you thought, well that all feels familiar. Like you knew it had happened subconsciously.’
‘No. Not a bit.’
She takes this in.
‘Do you remember, Rachel? Do you remember the little song I used to sing to you? It always made you happy.’
‘Of course I don’t. I’d just been born.’
And then, very quietly, while staring at the table, she starts to sing:
‘Itsy bitsy spider climbed up the waterspout,
Down came the rain and washed the spider out,
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain,
Itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again.’
She then looks me straight in the eye.
‘Please don’t hate me, Rachel. I named you.’
That pierces my skin. Like she has ownership of me. I don’t want her to have ownership of me. And yet, and yet . . .
‘I’m not sure what I think of you, if I’m honest. But I doubt my dad’ll be as confused.’
‘You’re not bringing him in here,’ she says quickly. I can see she is petrified.
Good. I want her to be. Maybe that’s what I wanted all along. For her to feel the same sort of fear and anxiety that my mother must have felt all that time I was missing.
Well, maybe this is the result I was aiming for.
I see beads of sweat on Pam’s forehead. Rather repugnant beads of sweat. No beauty there.
She is, she’s scared.
‘Maybe you could apologize to him,’ I suggest, and I notice her eyes darting round the room, like she’s never been here before. Like she’s trying to work out where she is and whether she’s safe.
‘I shouldn’t worry, Pam. I don’t think he’s going to kill you. I don’t think he’s got it in him. He’s actually quite a nice person.’ Why am I trying to make her feel better? So I add, trying not to let myself down, ‘Unlike some.’
She’s speaking again. ‘Will you excuse me a moment? I need to use the bathroom. I was on my way when you arrived.’
And she gets up gracefully and almost glides out of the room, quite the performance.
I feel my belly tightening; my whole chest seems to tighten with it. It’s as if my body is going into spasm. I lurch forward and grab hold of the table, then lower myself into a chair. A gripping pain clutches me inside. And then I feel it subside. I know why this is happening. This is happening because, despite what I claimed, that song, and the singer, they sounded so familiar. The familiarity, the circumstances, they’re so overwhelming. I do, I must have some memory of my time with Shirley. I can, I can remember something. Well, remembering isn’t the right word, but something is stored inside me from those days. And it just comes flooding back, as if my DNA is recalling it, and the effect it had on me.
I suddenly feel very calm. I feel so calm I could sit here all night, just savouring the feeling of the song. It has placated me, put me back on an even keel.
It is so distracting a feeling that it takes me ten minutes or so before I realize that Shirley/Pam has been gone a long time.
And then I realize that I am chilly. And it’s the sort of chilly that can mean only one thing in a house such as this. The front door is open.
But why would the front door be open?
I get up and move slowly to the hall. I look up the stairs and see that the bathroom door is ajar. Shirley/Pam cannot be in there.
‘Pam?’ I call. And there is no response. ‘Pam?!’
I pull the front door further open to see if she’s outside. And that’s when I see there are two sets of footprints in the snow. Mine arriving and someone else’s leaving. The leaving prints were not there when I arrived.
Pam has run away on me.
‘Pam?!’ I shout out into the night. And then decide to follow the footprints. I slip, I slide, and I’m fearful of falling and hurting the baby, so I do a sort of sideways walk, which for some bizarre reason I think will keep me upright. The footsteps head into the woods. They’re visible, crisp and deep and even, as the old Christmas carol says. And even here amongst the trees I can see them; the moon must be pretty full tonight and reflects off the snow. I know now where she is heading.
‘Pam?!’ I shout again.
And then they disappear into the stream. Gone. They are no more.
It’s too cold for me to walk in the water so I edge my way along the bank of the stream, knowing I am getting closer to her. Somewhere an owl hoots and I hear myself shouting, ‘Oh shut up, don’t be such a cliché!’
But the owl doesn’t answer back. I hear the machine-gunfire flutter of wings as birds in trees nearby make their escape as they sense danger approaching.
But then I feel that gripping pain again and I am rendered useless and have to sink to my knees. I am wet and cold now, and shriek out in pain. What is going on? Is the baby telling me not to follow? When the pain subsides I force myself to my feet and carry on.
It’s now that I hear a man’s voice calling me; Les must be following. He’s clearly had enough of waiting and has gone to the house and found it empty. He too must be following the footprints.
‘Rachel?!’
And more flapping of wings. The water beside me is getting noisier now as I know I am nearing the section where it bends into the river. A few trees are blocking my view of the intersection. I grab hold of one, and pull myself round to see.
And there she is. She is standing in the river. The water is up to her waist. The current laps past her. Her dressing gown floods out all around her, like a pool of black ink under the bright moonlight. Her body is twisting as the quicksands pull her down. Her back is to me. I see the silver thread, the word ‘PERFECT’.
‘You coward, Shirley! You fucking COWARD!’
I want to get in and pull her back, but I don’t know if I have the strength.
Another gripping pain shoots through me and I realize what is happening. I am two weeks early; can my contractions really have started already?
As much as I hate her I want to save her. I step forward to the water’s edge.
I hear Les behind me.
‘Rachel! What you doing?’
‘I don’t know!’
The alarm in his voice brings me to my senses.
‘Is that her?’
‘Yes!’
‘Leave her be.’
‘But . . .’
‘Let her get on with it.’
Her body isn’t sinking. She slips and rights herself. Why isn’t she sinking? She always said these were sinking sands. Did she make it up? Just to scare me, a little white lie to stop me from being naughty? She slides again and then moves further away.
‘Pam! What are you doing?!’
It’s a pointless question. She probably can’t hear, as the rushing of the water seems to be getting louder now. And also, it is quite clear what she is doing.
The question is . . . what am I doing?
I am scared of more pain. My body is recovering from the last contraction, and I realize I have two options.
I either go in the water and try to save her.
Or I stay here and try to save my baby.
This is a no-brainer.
I feel an arm around me, pulling me back.
‘Just leave her, bab. Just leave her.’
I fall into Les’s embrace, unable to look any more.
It’s over. The past is over. It’s the future that’s important now.
But then I hear a scream. She is screaming at me. I turn, look.
‘What’s she saying?’ I say to Les.
And she screams again.
‘DO YOU FORGIVE ME?’
But before I can answer she slips under the water and is gone. She has reached the cusp of river to ocean. The currents have carried her away.
And in that moment I am glad that Shirley Burke’s parents never insisted she learned to swim.
EPILOGUE
4 Woolf House
Tavistock Place
London WC1H
15 January 2018
Dear Margaret,
Thank you so much for the beautiful knitted sailor suit you sent for Otis. It fits him like a glove. Well, like a sailor suit. THANK YOU YOU’RE A STAR!
I stayed away from Pam’s funeral – feel I can call her that now, not sure why – just because I couldn’t be arsed, basically. I couldn’t be bothered getting involved in the dramas of whether her family went or where it took place or what she was called. Not my circus – not my monkey. Though I did get a much nicer surprise than the others I’ve had recently when it turned out she’d paid off her mortgage and left the proceeds of any house sale to me. Blood money, I know, but it means I don’t need to go back to work once my maternity leave is over – no point telling the boss that yet, though; make him sweat. I can be a lady of leisure. Just like yourself!
I’m toying with buying myself a little flat in the New Forest, so you won’t have got rid of me just yet. And Otis will need to see his Aunty Margaret, won’t he? Who else is he going to get his drinking skills from when he’s ‘of age’?
I’m in absolute love with him, of course. He’s completely adorable. His smile doesn’t just light up the room, it lights up the whole block, the whole postcode. See photos enclosed. Fortunately he looks like his dad and not like me, thank God for that! Jamie was a pain in the arse at the birth, once he finally got there (I know, I didn’t want to have the baby so far from home, but then I didn’t want to be abducted at just a few hours, etc.). He fainted when he made the mistake of looking down at my lady bits. Plus ça change, eh, Margaret? Plus ça change! He’s got a new boyfriend. This one’s an architect. I give it six weeks.
I spoke with Cliona on the phone last night and I’m going to plan a weekend staying at hers once I feel more confident about travelling with Otis on the train. So once I know when that is I’ll give you a bell.
My dad continues to be a little star. That’s the big positive I take from all this. And with his encouragement I’ve decided to start doing some voluntary work for a (tiny) charity that helps families who have had children go missing. I find it quite daunting, but at the same time my experience is so weird I need to make something positive out of it. If that makes sense. Les stayed at the hospital with me all the time I was in there. Determined to not let anyone take Otis, of course! Bless him, I don’t think he slept for a week, and he now bombards me with texts every few hours checking up on the grandson. I think him and his missus are even toying with a move down south to be nearer to him. In that respect I feel very lucky. See? Not all bad.
I can’t begin to fathom how Jane/Linda must’ve felt when I was taken. The thought of Otis not being by my side makes me physically sick. I am starting not to judge her so much. I know it’s a cliché and I know it’s obvious, but what she went through was so appalling I can’t be too harsh on her for how she was as a result.
I’m going to take Otis out for a walk in a minute and post this. He is such a happy baby so I’ll try my best to keep it that way. There are so many lovely parks round here, and there’s a special one that’s aimed at kids, so we go there every day. Adults can only go in there if accompanied by a child, so he’s my free pass now!
Thanks again for the sailor suit. You are very generous. One day soon I will get around to sending some photos.
Lots of love, Margaret, hope life is treating you okay and you’re not missing me too much. The ten o’clock club just WON’T be the same without me! I might have to start my own: Bloomsbury Division.
Miss you . . .
See you soon . . .
Rachel xxxxx
ALL SHE WANTS
There are some things in life you can always rely on. Living in the shadow of your ‘perfect’ brother Joey, getting the flu over Christmas, and your mother showing you up in the supermarket.
Then there are some things you really don’t count on happening: a good dose of fame, getting completely trashed at an awards ceremony, and catching your fella doing something unmentionable on your wedding day.
This is my story, it’s dead tragic. You have been warned . . .
Jodie Xx
‘Utterly original, sharply written and very funny’
JOJO MOYES
THE CONFUSION OF KAREN CARPENTER
Hello. There are two things you should know about me:
1. My name is Karen Carpenter.
2. Just before Christmas, my boyfriend left me.
I’m not THE Karen Carpenter. I just have the most embarrassing name in Christendom. Particularly as I’m no skinny minnie and don’t play the drums.
I can’t even sing. I’m tone deaf. I work in a school in the East End. (Where I came third in a ‘Teacher we’d most like to sleep with’ competition amongst the Year 11 boys.)
My mum’s driving me mad. She’s come to stay and is obsessed with Scandi crime shows and Zumba.
Oh yeah. The boyfriend. After eleven ‘happy’ years, he left me. No explanation, just a letter sellotaped to the kettle when I got in from work. I think I’m handling it really well. I don’t think I’m confused at all. What was my name again?
‘I enjoyed it HUGELY . . . a total page-turner, very entertaining, then very moving’
MARIAN KEYES
THE GIRL WHO JUST APPEARED
LONDON – THE PRESENT
Holly Smith has never fitted in. Adopted when just a few months old, she’s always felt she was someone with no history. All she has is the address of where she was born – 32B Gambier Terrace, Liverpool. When Holly discovers that the flat is available to rent, she travels north and moves in. And in the very same flat, under the floorboards, she finds a biscuit tin full of yellowing papers. Could these papers be the key to her past?
LIVERPOOL – 1981
Fifteen-year-old Darren is negotiating life with his errant mother and the younger brother he is raising. When the Toxteth riots explode around him, Darren finds himself with a moral dilemma that will have consequences for the rest of his life.
Moving between the past and the present, Darren and Holly’s lives become intertwined. Will finding Darren give Holly the answers she craves? Or will she always feel like the girl who just appeared?
‘Absolutely delightful. Jonathan Harvey writes with all his heart and all his soul’
LISA JEWELL
THE SECRETS WE KEEP
It’s hard being that woman, the one whose husband disappeared. It’s made me quite famous. I just wish it was for something else.
He went out five years ago for a pint of milk and never came back. So here I am with a daughter who blames me for all that’s wrong in the world, a son trying his best to pick up the pieces and a gaggle of new neighbours who are over-friendly, and incredibly nosy. Then we find a left-luggage ticket in the pocket of one of his old coats and suddenly I’m thinking . . . What if he’s not dead? What if he’s still out there somewhere?
You think you have the perfect life, the perfect kids, and then it’s all turned inside out. What if I don’t like what I find? And is it a chance I’m willing to take?
THE HISTORY OF US
What happens in the past doesn’t always stay in the past . . .
LIVERPOOL 1985
Kathleen, Adam and Jocelyn are three teenage friends who bond over an unconventional nativity play. They all have ambitions, they all have dreams.
Adam wants to be a writer, Jocelyn wants to sing and Kathleen – well, she wants to be an embalmer.
LONDON 2015
Kathleen is a borderline alcoholic, Adam is holding on to a shocking secret and Jocelyn is dead. Where did it all go wrong? How did having the world at their feet turn into having the weight of it on their shoulders?
Filled with Jonathan Harvey’s trademark wit, warmth and outrageous humour, The History of Us is a novel about friendship and secrets, the choices we make and the consequences we face.
THE YEARS SHE STOLE
Jonathan Harvey comes from Liverpool and is a multi-award-winning writer of plays, films, sitcoms and Britain’s longest-running drama serial.
Jonathan’s theatre work includes the award-winning Beautiful Thing (Bush Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, Duke of York’s; winner: John Whiting Award; nominated: Olivier Award for Best Comedy), Babies (Royal Court Theatre; winner: Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright; winner: George Devine Award) and Rupert Street Lonely Hearts Club (English Touring Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, Criterion Theatre; winner: Manchester Evening News Award for Best New Play; winner: City Life Magazine Award for Best New Play). Other plays include Corrie! (Lowry Theatre and national tour; winner: Manchester Evening News Award for Best Special Entertainment), Canary (Liverpool Playhouse, Hampstead Theatre and English Touring Theatre), Hushabye Mountain (English Touring Theatre, Hampstead Theatre), Guiding Star (Everyman Theatre, Royal National Theatre), Boom Bang a Bang (Bush Theatre), Mohair (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs) and Wildfire (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs). Jonathan also co-wrote the musical Closer to Heaven with the Pet Shop Boys.
For television Jonathan has created and written three series of the BAFTA-nominated Gimme Gimme Gimme for the BBC, two series of Beautiful People (winner: Best Comedy, Banff TV Festival), the double-BAFTA-nominated Best Friends, Von Trapped! and Birthday Girl. He has also written for Rev (winner: BAFTA for Best Sitcom), Shameless, The Catherine Tate Show, At Home with the Braithwaites, Lilies and Murder Most Horrid. To date he has written over one hundred episodes of Coronation Street.
