Elisabeth Carpenter - 99 Red Balloons

‘Jean?’ she says. ‘You remember Jean?’

‘I couldn’t remember her name, but I remember Emma coming to live with us.’

‘Hmm.’ She turns back to looking at the concrete garage. ‘I thought you girls had forgotten about her. She was no good for Emma.’ She picks up her drink.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that she used to go off drinking for days and leave that poor little girl on her own in that disgusting flat of hers.’

‘Did you call social services?’

Mum puts her drink on the table and turns to face me again.

‘Social services? Have you any idea how they treated children? No? Well, it wasn’t good back in those days. One of the wives – in one of the villages we stayed in a long time ago – had experiences of being in care and it was horrific.’ She grabs the glass, downs its contents, and pours another. ‘Jean came to me a few weeks after we took Emma in – her husband had died in a car accident years before, though I never asked around to see if it were true. She asked if we’d look after her daughter permanently. She’d met a new man… he didn’t like kids. God knows what Jean said to the authorities for them to agree to it, perhaps that we were distantly related, I don’t know. She knew we couldn’t have another after you – everyone did, bloody wives. You tell one and you tell them all. I didn’t know that then, of course. Emma’s always needed a bit more looking after than you did. She was always so vulnerable. You were always so strong, even when you were little. Do you remember that boy you liked – what was his name? Luke – that was it. You went with him to the pictures when you were thirteen. Emma wouldn’t come out of her room all afternoon. She was so lost without you, she made you stop seeing him. Isn’t that right?’

I do remember that. I had liked Luke for years – since we started secondary school. In Year 9 he’d asked me to go and see Demolition Man – it was a fifteen certificate, so I was going to tell my dad we were going to watch Hocus Pocus .

‘Can you believe it?’ I said to Emma on our walk home from school. ‘After all these years. I thought he’d never guess that I liked him.’

Emma didn’t reply.

Luke was due to pick me up at one o’clock the following Saturday. When that day came, Emma never got out of bed.

‘Are you sure you should go? ’ Mum said as she and I stood on the landing outside Emma’s bedroom door. ‘You can’t leave that poor girl on her own.’

‘I’m not leaving her on her own,’ I said. ‘You and Dad are here.’

‘What’s all this commotion?’ said Dad, coming up the stairs. ‘I’m trying to read the paper in peace.’ He joined Mum and me; all three of us standing too close together on the small landing.

‘Mum won’t let me go to the pictures,’ I said. ‘After I told Luke I was going. And you both promised.’ I folded my arms, pouting.

‘Of course you can go and see the film.’ He looked at Mum. ‘Why are you saying she can’t go?’

‘I should’ve known you’d take Stephanie’s side. You always do. You’re thick as thieves, the pair of you.’ Mum folded her arms too. She nodded to Emma’s door; there was a name sign on it that was pink with silver stars. ‘Remember what that poor girl went through.’

Dad narrowed his eyes at Mum. They stood there for ages, just staring at each other.

‘She’s going,’ he said. ‘And that’s final.’

Mum had simply shrugged. The doorbell had sounded and I ran down the stairs, relieved to get away from the drama.

I feel a speck of rain on my face. Mum is staring into the pitch black at the end of the garden. I need a drink. I can’t believe she’s bringing up all of this now. My mind’s working hard just to keep up with what she’s saying.

‘You know,’ she says, still looking into the darkness. ‘Dad always took your side. Every time. It was like he wanted nothing to hurt you.’ She takes a sip of her wine. ‘I suppose he loved you more than he did me.’

I roll my eyes, knowing she can’t see me. ‘That’s not true, Mum. Dad adored you. You know that.’

‘Sometimes it’s hard to remember things like that,’ she says. She turns on the plastic chair to face me. ‘I thought you’d be a quiet child. But you were always angry at me; I couldn’t do anything right. If I said the sky was blue you would have argued that it was green.’

‘I don’t remember being like that. Why would you think I’d be quiet?’

‘I don’t know.’

Perhaps she thought I’d take after Dad. Or she might be annoyed that I’m more like her than we both wanted to admit. How can she say I was always angry at her when I was only a child?

She could be right. Sometimes I can look at her – as I’m doing now – and it’s like I don’t know her at all; behind her eyes lies a stranger.

‘Maybe it’s because I compared you with Emma,’ says Mum. ‘She was so reserved, needed so much more looking after. After what she’d been through with that terrible woman.’

‘Emma’s not as weak as you think,’ I say.

‘And to answer your question,’ she says, ignoring what I just said. ‘Jean is not the type of person to go on a bounty hunt to find her daughter and steal her child. She’s known all these years where her daughter was and never once has she come to say hello, or even sent her a birthday card.’

Mum’s thoughts are all over the place – it takes me a few seconds to catch up.

‘But how do you know that she knows where Emma is?’

The plastic chair tumbles down as Mum gets up.

‘Because I’ve written to her every year since she left her.’

I don’t think I can face David on my own, but I’ve been ringing Jim all afternoon and there’s no answer. Mobile. He’s got a mobile phone – he wrote the number on a card.

It rings ten times before his answering machine sounds. I dial again. And again. On the third attempt, a woman answers. She sighs before speaking.

‘Hello, this is Jim’s phone.’

‘Hello? It’s Maggie. Is Jim there?’

‘Ah, Maggie. Jim told me all about you. I’m afraid Jim’s been poorly. I’m at the hospital.’

‘Poorly? He never mentioned it.’

I perch on the arm of the settee next to the phone table.

‘Well, that’s Jim for you.’

‘I’ll ring for a taxi – I’ll be there in half an hour.’

I wait for her to say not to bother, that he’ll be out in a few hours, but she doesn’t. I hang up the phone quickly. I didn’t ask who I was speaking to. It must have been one of the nurses. But then, if it was, how did she know about me? It must be his back. And he can witter on to anyone about anything.

I put on my coat and wait by the front door. The house is so quiet I can hear the ringing in my ears.

The hospital isn’t big, but I’ve no idea where I’m going. I stand at the end of the queue for reception. Why hadn’t Jim told me he was ill? I’ve been so self-centred. He’s always there to listen to my problems, I’m always going on about them. I’ll make it up to him. I’ll cook him his tea every week: my homemade steak pie with mash. He’ll love that – it was Ron’s favourite.

There’s a tap on my shoulder.

‘Excuse me. Are you Maggie?’

It’s a woman – in her fifties I presume. Her hair is short, styled nicely with a lot of hairspray; it doesn’t move when her head does. Her earrings coordinate with her necklace, and I bet the nail varnish on her hands matches that on her toes.

‘Yes. How did you know?’

She smiles. Her eyes are red. She looks the type to wear mascara, but there’s none on her lashes. My heart starts thumping hard and it’s getting harder to breathe.