Kate Hamer - The Girl in the Red Coat

I don’t like the nights but in the day the house feels better. Dorothy and Grandad’s apartment is nice and new and they sleep upstairs in it, where I went to the toilet the first night. Their sitting room next to the kitchen has got a big leather sofa and it smells of new carpet and has a huge window that looks out of the front of the house. It’s so big I can sit in the window and I do. But where I sleep is not done because people Grandad calls developers ran out of money. The good thing about it is they got their apartment cheaper — Dorothy’s told me that twice. This morning I heard them talk about what it would be like if they owned the whole building, not only renting their bit of it. How they’d turn it into lots and lots of apartments and make piles of money out of it. They’d be like the developers. But the way they talked about it you can tell they’re dreaming about the idea, it’s not real.

There’s no television anywhere. I ask Dorothy about it but she just laughs and says her family didn’t have a TV when she was little and when they got one the people moving about inside of it frightened her and that reminds me of the feeling I had before.

I ask about Mum again. They say I can see her soon. I say I want to speak to Dad, and they say they’ve tried his phone but it was switched off because he’s inside the hospital. They’ve left a message and he’ll call back when he can, they’re sure. But in a funny way I’m excited about him being there because it means he cares about what happens to Mum. If he’s with her maybe, you never know, it’ll make them be together again. I don’t know what will happen to Lucy if they do. I can’t worry about that.

My clothes feel mucky I’ve been wearing them so long. I sit on the big steps by the door and cry into my hands. But after a while of crying I tell myself that I’m turning into a cry baby, like the girl at school called Tara who I feel sorry for because she’s special needs and drips tears onto her desk all day so her desk’s wet by home time. I go quiet and listen to the birds singing. And then — even though I know it’s not possible, not possible at all — there’s something speaking in the air, and it’s my mum’s voice. And I know it’s only in my head but I hear it muttering round in the tops of the trees. At first, I can’t make out what the tree-voice is saying but then it sighs and I hear clear as a bell: ‘ Courage, Carmel. Courage. ’

And it calms me down and I know all of a sudden whatever’s going to happen I have to have hard bits of courage inside me to help. If I carry on crying every five minutes I’m going to get weaker and weaker until I turn into a lump of soggy tissues scrunched up with snot and tears.

I make a decision. I know workhouses are places no one ever wants to go so I decide I’m only going to think of it as a castle from now on.

I ask about Mum and they say: not long now.

DAY 3

When the policewoman said, ‘I’m so sorry, I have a problem with childcare,’ I could see she instantly regretted her words by the way her incisor bit into her full bottom lip, staining it deep pink. Two policewomen — family liaison officers — shared looking after me in shifts. I felt more at ease with Sophie — she was clever and sweet-faced. I never felt under investigation with her, like I did with the other one.

‘I’m so sorry. I should never have said that, of course I shouldn’t.’ Sophie bit her pretty lip again. ‘It’s the childminder — something about her husband being taken to hospital. I don’t know what to do …’

She had the anxious, intent look of a parent needing to be in another place.

‘It’s fine. Please, don’t worry about talking about your family, it feels normal — nice. Go, you go. I’ll be fine for five minutes.’

I was exhausted and quiet for the moment. The next shift were a little late — the police car would be nosing through the country lanes as we spoke, pollen softly falling on its bonnet from the plants in the hedgerow. A television appeal was being organised for that day. It made me feel better when I had something practical to think about.

Then I was alone. I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. The house became very still and soft and I felt it was holding its breath, watching me, waiting to see what would happen next. I tried to drink my coffee. ‘You must drink,’ Sophie had said yesterday. ‘You must eat. You have to keep yourself alive .’

While I drank I made wild plans of what I’d do on her return — I’d seal up every crack in the house. I’d bring in workmen to build a gate that locked with a golden chain as thick as my wrist. I’d mix mortar in a bucket and drag stones back from the fields to lay on top of the garden wall until it reached the rooftop. Never again, I’d declare, as I worked through the night, never again will that be allowed to happen.

I’d been looking for a patch of bright red since the day she’d gone so when in my side vision a sudden flash of it slid through these crazy imaginings and past the fence outside my teeth started chattering on the cup.

As I flew to the window I spilled my coffee on the table and it splashed across the newspapers onto Carmel’s black-and-white face.

But when I looked out it was just Paul coming up the path. Through the front picket fence I could see his car parked on the road — the red through the window as he’d driven past. We hadn’t spoken since Carmel had vanished. Once, my heart would have leapt at the sight of him, even after he’d left me. Now, it throbbed painfully with adrenaline and disappointment.

His walk, everything was different about him — strangely both stumbling and purposeful. From a distance I don’t think I would have recognised him. I answered his hammering on the door and he stood there — arms hanging by his sides. He pushed past me and we stood for a second, looking wordlessly at each other.

He went and sat on the sofa. ‘Tell me what happened,’ he said, not looking at me. ‘I need to know from beginning to end. Exactly. What. Happened.’

So I did, as best I could.

‘You lost her.’

‘Yes, yes I did, Paul. It was foggy and — yes, Paul, yes, I lost her. And now, now I don’t know where she is.’

Again, like on The Day It Happened I got the sense of the ground opening up and releasing something that should have stayed compressed: the smell of mud; a deadly mustard gas seeping about the room. Our pain had a colour and a smell, it shimmered dark yellow in the morning light around our feet.

‘I’ve been questioned. They thought it might be me.’ He was angry now, like men are when there’s no action to be taken.

‘Paul, they have to do that. It’s just procedure. You must understand. I’ve been questioned too. Oh God, I’m glad to see you.’

He cut across me. ‘You lost her.’ Then: ‘It’s your fault. It’s all your fault.’ That cold chaotic stare again.

‘Paul, how can you say that? How can you be so cruel? When you haven’t even been near us for an age.’

He stood up. ‘How could I come here? It wasn’t good for her.’ He was shouting now. ‘Not with you, you looking at me so tight-lipped and hating. Children pick up on things you know — she did. She always got these marks under her eyes when I came round, dark circles. It was the stress of it. Oh, what’s the point?’ He made for the door.

‘Are you going already? Paul, please don’t leave.’ I was whimpering almost. ‘Please don’t leave me with this. She belongs to both of us.’

‘I have to.’ He pulled his palm across his eyes like he was trying to rub it all away. ‘I just … just can’t stand this. You don’t realise.’

‘But Paul, we have to stick together.’