Simon Lelic: The Child Who

Would Leo have recognised her, if he passed her on the street? Would Megan have? The answer scares her, every time. Place the woman side by side with the sketches they had drawn up, for instance, and you would not assume you were looking at the same person. Ellie might have seen her face on a lamp post and not realised she was looking in a mirror.

Megan shifts to disguise the shiver.

‘Who’s this?’

She glances at the tip of Leo’s finger, at the chin nestled on her daughter’s shoulder. She turns back to face the road.

‘Her friend. Samantha. Maybe more than a friend – I haven’t worked it out.’

‘Have you met her?’ Leo’s eyes do not move from the photograph.

‘No. But she keeps saying.’

Leo shakes his head slightly, ousts air through his nostrils. It is a mannerism, in the course of the drive, she has become used to.

‘Look,’ he says. ‘Look at her grinning.’ Ellie, he means. Their daughter. ‘You remember what she used to be like in photos? How she used to scowl? You had to sneak up on her just to get a shot. Remember?’

She does. She smiles.

Leo shakes his head again. He turns to the window and seems to register for the first time where they are, where they are headed. He peers along the motorway and frowns. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’

Megan just laughs.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ she says. Then, ‘An hour, I’d say. Maybe less. Are you hungry? There’re some services coming up.’

‘No. Keep driving. Unless you’d like me to?’

Megan’s hands slide to greet each other on the steering wheel. ‘I’m okay.’ She glances and Leo catches her.

‘What?’ he says again. ‘What’s wrong?’

This time she allows her exasperation to show. ‘You,’ she says. ‘Being nice. Offering to drive.’ She glares at the tarmac.

‘What? What’s wrong with that? You’re tired, I expect. I should have offered earlier.’

‘You know what I mean.’ She glances again and sees that he does.

‘Look. Meg. She wrote to you. She didn’t write to me.’

Megan says nothing.

‘You only did what she asked you to. I can hardly blame you for that.’

She shakes her head, expels a breath. Leo turns away, as though happy to leave it at that.

Megan, though, is not. ‘I had no right.’

‘Meg—’

‘I didn’t! If it were you… If you’d been me…’

‘Please. Don’t start that. She asked you not to tell me. She told you not to.’

‘But it was up to me. Wasn’t it? Whether or not to agree.’

‘I’m not sure it was, actually. Knowing our daughter, I’m not sure you had very much choice in the matter.’

‘I could have argued, though. How do you know I even argued?’

‘Because I know you.’

‘But…’ Megan sighed. ‘So many times. So many times I nearly called you. And I was always going to, you know. It was only ever a question of when.’

‘You’ve told me now, Meg. I know now. Let’s leave it at that.’

‘I was terrified, Leo. You understand that, don’t you? I couldn’t have faced losing her again. I kept saying to myself: after the next time I see her. Or the next letter she sends. I’ll tell him then.’ Megan turns from the road, watching for Leo’s response. ‘Can’t you be angry at least?’

‘Because that will help, do you think?’

‘Yes!’

Leo shakes his head. ‘I can’t. Not with her. Not with you.’

Megan glowers but her husband just watches the road. ‘It was my fault too, you realise. She ran from the both of us, not just you.’

‘I know.’

Megan is thrown momentarily by his answer. Which part of what she said, exactly, is he agreeing to?

Leo notices her expression and shrugs a smile. ‘We made mistakes, Meg. Both of us, just like all parents do. But mine were bigger.’

He does not give her time to consider an answer.

‘Can I see them again?’ he says. ‘The letters?’

‘What? Yes. Of course.’ As though he should not even have to ask. As though at any point in the past six months, all he ever had to do was ask.

He dips into the footwell towards her handbag.

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I almost forgot. My purse. It should be in there.’

Bent double, he shows it to her. ‘What do you need?’

‘At the back. Behind all the receipts. There should be two twenties.’

He rummages, finds them. They unfold by themselves and he holds them out.

‘They’re yours,’ she says and smiles at his frown. ‘She gave me a cheque, made me promise to cash it. Said if ever I got a chance, I should slip the money into your wallet.’

Two twenties. The same number as were missing, when Leo finally got round to counting, from his bedside drawer. The place Ellie found them. The place, looking for the magazine article that had so angered Megan, she had discovered Vincent Blake’s notes.

Leo folds up the money. ‘Petrol kitty,’ he says and takes his time tucking them back in the place he found them. He takes out the letters instead and leans back with them piled on his lap. He casts his focus through the windscreen, at the spots of lazy rain and the cars beginning to bunch at the approaching junction.

‘It’s the thing she regrets most, you know,’ Megan tells him as the car slows. She checks for some reaction. ‘The note,’ she continues. ‘She doesn’t say so in the letters but it’s what she told me. Last time. I know she meant it.’

Leo looks at the letters in his lap. He picks up the topmost envelope. He puts it back and flips the pile the other way up.

‘She was angry, Leo. Scared above all. Especially when she saw what that man wrote.’

‘I don’t blame her,’ Leo says. ‘I told you.’ He takes a letter – the first one, this time – from its envelope. He lifts it closer to his face as though he were short-sighted. For everything else that has deteriorated about him…

No. Not deteriorated.

For everything else that has altered about him, Megan knows there is nothing wrong with her husband’s eyes.

He is smelling it.

She turns to conceal her smile. He seems to notice and coughs his embarrassment. He angles his head to show he is reading.

If he asked her to, she could read the letter to him. Mum , it starts. I don’t really know where to begin . She has committed to memory all twenty-seven lines, as well as all fifty-six from the second letter, each and every one of the third, fourth, fifth. And sixth. There are six letters in total. The first arrived with the photograph last autumn, for no reason that her daughter has been willing so far to reveal. Because she is happy, is Megan’s guess. Because her happiness has given her strength. The other letters came one at a time every four or five weeks. Not enough. Not nearly enough. Especially as they say so little: gossip, mainly, about Ellie’s friends. But that she has friends is in itself wondrous. Her friends and also her smile. Plus, now, they have met. Three times; roughly once in each of the past few months. At Ellie’s suggestion. Only ever at Ellie’s suggestion. Which is fine, not fine, all Megan can ask for. It is building. Re-building. It is killing her but it is making her whole.

Mum. I don’t really know where to begin.

She looks at Leo. She watches him read. She turns back to face the road and recites the lines in her mind along with him.

‘Here. Or a bit further in. This is the nice part. The expensive part. Acton’s cheaper. Closer to Ellie, too. Although I’m not even sure I can afford Acton.’

Leo, she can tell, is exaggerating his interest. He is impatient. He would rather not have taken the detour.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I’ll turn around. Head back to the ring road.’