Kate Atkinson - Case Histories

Who took Olivia? Did Victor come creeping across the grass in the night and dig her out of the tent with his big shovel hands while Amelia slept? Her own father? Why not? It happened all the time, didn't it? And did he keep Blue Mouse as some terrible souvenir? Or was there a more innocent explanation (but what?).

They had always found refuge in thinking of Olivia living a different life somewhere else, rather than being dead. For years and years the three of them had woven a story for Olivia – snatched in the night by a figure very like the Snow Queen, only kind and loving and coming from a more temperate kingdom. This empyreal creature had been desperate for a little girl of her own and had chosen Olivia because she was perfect in every way. The fictional Olivia was brought up in the most luxurious paradise their girlish imaginations could conceive of – wrapped in silks and furs, fed on cakes and sweets, surrounded by dogs and kittens and (for some reason) peacocks, bathing in golden baths and sleeping in silver beds. And although they knew Olivia was happy in her new life they believed that one day she would be allowed to return home – which was always the unquestionable consummation of this wishful narrative.

As they grew, so did Olivia, and it was only when Julia reached adolescence (her hormones releasing enough energy to power a small town) that Olivia's other, fabulous life faded away. Yet it was so strongly embedded in Amelia's consciousness that even now she found it difficult to believe that Olivia might actually be dead and not a thirty-seven-year-old woman living in an Arcadian bower somewhere.

Julia came into the living room and squashed herself onto the sofa between Amelia and Sammy, where there was clearly no room for her. "Go away," Amelia said to her. Julia produced a bar of chocolate and broke a piece off for Amelia and a piece for the dog.

"I mean, it's not impossible that Olivia's still alive," Julia said, as if she had been listening to Amelia's thoughts (what a horrible idea). "Perhaps she was kidnapped by someone who wanted a child, and they brought her up as their own, so she forgot about us, forgot she was Olivia, just thought she was someone else, say… Charlotte –"

" Charlotte?"

"Yes. And then when the kidnappers were on their deathbed they told her who she was. 'Charlotte, you are really Olivia Land. You lived on Owlstone Road in Cambridge. You have three sisters – Sylvia, Amelia, and Julia.'"

"How likely is that, Julia?"

Amelia changed the channel until she came across Now, Voyager, and Julia said, "Oh, leave that on."

"Your bath will overflow."

"Milly?"

"What?"

"You know what you were saying about Victor?"

"What?"

"If he ever interfered with me. That's such a stupid term, such a euphemism. What it means is did Daddy ever make you suck his cock or did he ever stick his fingers inside you while he jerked himself off –" Amelia couldn't bear this. She concentrated on Bette Davis looking tragic and tried to block out the obscenities Julia was spouting.

"Whichever way you look at it, it's rape," Julia concluded. "And no, since you ask, he didn't. He tried though." Amelia wanted to put her hands over her ears. She wanted to be deaf.

"He tried? What do you mean he tried?"

"He tried to stick his hands down my knickers once but I just screamed the place down. He was trying to explain fractions," she added as if that were somehow relevant.

That would be Julia, she would scream. Amelia would simply have let him do it. Only he didn't, he'd never tried to do anything with her. He'd never interfered.

"What did he do to you, Milly?" Julia asked gently, putting her hand on Amelia's forearm as if she were sick or bereaved. Amelia had caught him once with Sylvia. She had walked into the study without knocking, which was absolutely forbidden, so she must have been in one of her dreamy moods, and there had been Daddy with Sylvia and ever since she had tried to forget what she had seen. Sylvia facedown on Victor's desk like a half-crucified martyr, her skinny white buttocks exposed, and Victor preparing himself – Amelia shook Julia off and said harshly, "Nothing. He never did anything, I would never have let him. Go and get your bath, Julia."

Amelia woke up with a start. It was dark and silent in the house, no ghosts walking, only the slight electrical buzz of the street lamp outside. Amelia couldn't remember if Julia had got out of the bath and had to get up to check that she hadn't drowned silently. The bath was empty, the bathroom dripping with cold condensation. There were towels thrown around everywhere. Julia was safely in her bed, her bedclothes in the usual disorder and her poodle hair still damp. Her breathing was heavy and regular, although Amelia could hear a gurgling in her chest. Julia's lungs always sounded as if they needed wringing out, like dishcloths. What would she do if Julia died before her? If she was the last one left? (Sylvia didn't count.) Sammy, asleep on Julia's bed, woke up and wagged his tail when Amelia came in the room. Amelia straightened Julia's covers and the dog slipped clumsily off the bed and followed her out of the room.

On the way back to her own room Amelia paused outside Olivia's closed door. Sammy looked at her inquiringly and she turned the doorknob and walked into the room. Moonlight shone diffusely

through the filthy window. She lay down on her back on the small bed. Sammy flopped to the floor. The effort made him groan.

On the last day of her life, Olivia had woken in this bed, looked at these walls. Would she have died if she'd slept here and not in the tent? If only Amelia could go back, take Olivia's place that night, fight off whatever evil it was that had taken her. If only Amelia could have been chosen instead.

The girl had a tube of sweets clutched in her hand – garish-colored things that were probably made entirely of chemicals and E-numbers. She offered one to Theo and he took it out of a sense of politeness. It tasted vaguely of petrol or lighter fluid. It didn't taste as if it could do any good to growing bones and minds. Theo never bought sweets, and although he loved chocolate he didn't like buying it in shops because of the disapprobation this always attracted. Fat people weren't supposed to eat anything, but they were especially not supposed to eat confectionery, so instead he belonged to an online "tasting club," which meant that every month a chocolate company sent him a new selection to try and in return he sent back a review ("creamy and delicious, the hazelnut praline gives just the right amount of contrast") that felt oddly onerous, like doing bizarre homework. That was how he rationed his chocolate consumption, just the one box of something creamy and delicious every month.

He didn't really care about his cholesterol and his blood pressure. He would be happy to die of a stroke or a heart attack. "Strokes don't necessarily kill, Dad," Jennifer e-mailed crossly from Toronto. "They're more likely to leave you incapacitated. Is that what you want?" Perhaps she was afraid she would have to look after him, but he would never do that to her. As far as Theo was concerned the parent-child relationship was one way, you gave them all your love and they were under no obligation to pay a penny back. Of course, if they did love you then that was the icing on the cake with cherries on top. And chocolate shavings and those little silver balls that cracked your fillings. Laura used to love those. He always decorated the cakes he made. Cakes, pastry, scones – he'd learned how to make everything after Valerie died. He turned out to be a much better cook than his wife.

He hired a woman to come in and clean twice a week and a girl, a student, to pick them up from school and look after them until he got home from work. Otherwise he did everything himself – housework, child care. He went to PTA meetings, parents' evenings, took the girls to birthday parties, threw birthday parties in return. The other children's mothers treated him as an honorary woman and said he would make someone a wonderful wife, which he took as a compliment.