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‘I’m not, though.’ Tilly smiled.
Mrs Forbes smiled back. ‘Do you enjoy school, Tilly?’ she said.
‘Not really. A lot of the girls don’t like us very much. Sometimes we’re bullied.’
‘They hit you?’ Mrs Forbes’ hand flew to her mouth.
‘Oh no, they don’t hit us, Mrs Forbes.’
‘You don’t always have to hit people,’ I said, ‘to bully them.’
Mrs Forbes reached for the nearest chair and lowered herself into it. ‘I expect you’re right,’ she said.
I was about to speak when Mr Forbes came back into the room. He was still wearing his shorts, but he had added a flat cap and a pair of sunglasses, and he was carrying a letter. He reminded me of my father. Whenever it became hot, he swapped his trousers for shorts, but everything else he kept exactly the same.
Mr Forbes placed his letter on the sideboard, and sat on the sofa with such force, the aftershock almost suspended Tilly in mid-air. He began tying his shoes, tugging at the laces until little fibres of fabric hovered in the space above his fingers. I stood up to give his legs more privacy.
‘So you can cross this off your list for a start, Dorothy,’ he was saying. ‘Although there’s plenty more to be getting on with.’
He looked over at me. ‘Will you be staying long?’ he said.
‘Oh no, Mr Forbes. Not long at all. We’ll be gone as soon as we’ve lent a hand.’
He looked back at his feet and grunted again. I wasn’t sure if he was approving of me or the tightness of his shoelaces.
‘She gets very easily distracted, you see.’ He nodded at Mrs Forbes with the brim of his cap. ‘It’s her age. Isn’t it, Dorothy?’ He made a winding motion at the side of his temple.
Mrs Forbes smiled, but it sat on her mouth at half-mast.
‘Can’t keep a thing in her head for more than five minutes.’ He spoke behind the back of his hand, like a whisper, but the volume of his voice remained exactly the same. ‘Losing her marbles, I’m afraid.’
He stood, and then bent very theatrically to adjust his socks. Tilly edged to safety at the far end of the settee.
‘I’m off to the post box.’ He marched towards the hall. ‘I shall be back in thirty minutes. Try not to get yourself in a muddle whilst I’m gone.’
He had vanished from the doorway before I realized.
‘Mr Forbes.’ I had to shout to make him hear.
He reappeared. He didn’t look like the kind of person who was used to being shouted at.
I handed him the envelope. ‘You’ve forgotten your letter,’ I said.
Mrs Forbes waited until the front door clicked shut, and then she began to laugh. Her laughing made me and Tilly laugh as well, and the rest of the world seemed to creep back into the room again, as if it wasn’t quite as far away as I thought.
Whilst we were laughing, I looked at Mrs Forbes, and I looked over at the girl on the mantelpiece, who laughed with us through a corridor of time, and I realized that they were a perfect match after all.
*
‘I didn’t know we’d actually have to do actual housework,’ said Tilly.
Mrs Forbes had left us tied into aprons up to our armpits. Tilly stood on the far side of the room, rubbing Brasso into a sleeping West Highland white terrier.
‘It’s important that we don’t arouse suspicion,’ I said, and took the last garibaldi back to the settee.
‘But do you think God is here?’ Tilly peered at the dog and ran the duster over its ears. ‘If God keeps everyone safe, do you think he’s keeping Mrs Forbes safe as well?’
I thought about the cross around Mrs Forbes’ neck. ‘I hope so,’ I said.
Mrs Forbes returned to the room with a new packet of garibaldis. ‘What do you hope, dear?’
I watched her empty them on to the plate. ‘Do you believe in God, Mrs Forbes?’ I said.
‘Of course.’
She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t look at the sky or at me, or even repeat the question back again. She just carried on rearranging biscuits.
‘How can you be so sure?’ said Tilly.
‘Because that’s what you do. God brings people together. He makes sense of everything.’
‘Even the bad things?’ I said.
‘Of course.’ She looked at me for a moment, and then returned to the plate.
I could see Tilly beyond Mrs Forbes’ shoulder. Her polishing had become slow and deliberate, and she willed a whole conversation at me with her eyes.
‘How can God make sense of Mrs Creasy disappearing?’ I said. ‘For example.’
Mrs Forbes stepped back, and a mist of crumbs fell to the carpet.
‘I’ve no idea.’ She folded the empty packet between her hands, even though it refused to become smaller. ‘I’ve never even spoken to the woman.’
‘Didn’t you meet her?’ I said.
‘No.’ Mrs Forbes twisted the packet around her ring finger. ‘They only moved into the house a little while ago, after John’s mother died. I never had the chance.’
‘I just wonder why she vanished?’ I edged the sentence towards her, like a dare.
‘Well, it was nothing to do with me, I didn’t say a word.’ Her voice had become spiked and feverish, and the sentence rushed from her mouth in order to escape.
‘What do you mean, Mrs Forbes?’ I looked at Tilly, and Tilly looked at me and we both frowned.
Mrs Forbes sank on to the settee.
‘Ignore me, I’m getting muddled.’ She patted the back of her neck, as if she was checking to see that her head was still firmly attached. ‘It’s my age.’
‘We just can’t understand where she’s gone,’ I said.
Mrs Forbes smoothed down the tassels on one of the cushions. ‘I’m sure she’ll return in good time,’ she said, ‘people usually do.’
‘I hope she does.’ Tilly untied the apron from under her arms. ‘I liked Mrs Creasy. She was nice.’
‘I’m sure she was.’ Mrs Forbes fiddled at the cushion. ‘But I’ve never spent any time in that woman’s company, so I couldn’t really say.’
I moved the garibaldis around on the plate. ‘Perhaps someone else on the avenue might know where she’s gone.’
Mrs Forbes stood up. ‘I very much doubt it,’ she said. ‘The reason Margaret Creasy disappeared is nothing to do with any of us. God works in mysterious ways, Harold was right. Everything happens for a reason.’
I wanted to ask her what the reason was, and why God had to be so mysterious about his work, but Mrs Forbes had taken the list out of her pocket.
‘Harold will be back soon. I’d better get on,’ she said. And she began running her finger down the lines of blue ink.
*
We walked back along the avenue. The weight of the sky pressed down on us as we pulled our legs through the heat. I stared at the hills which overlooked the town, but it was impossible to see where they began and where the sky ended. They were welded together by the summer, and the horizon shimmered and hissed and refused to be found.
Somewhere beyond the gardens, I could hear the sound of a Wimbledon commentary drifting from a window.
Advantage, Borg. And the distant flutter of applause.
The road was deserted. The beat of an afternoon sun had hurried everyone indoors to fan themselves with newspapers and rub Soltan into their forearms. The only person who remained was Sheila Dakin. She sat on a deckchair on the front lawn of number twelve, arms and legs spread wide, her face stretched towards the heat, as though someone had pegged her out as a giant, mahogany sacrifice.
‘Hello, Mrs Dakin,’ I shouted across the tarmac.
Sheila Dakin lifted her head, and I saw a trail of saliva glisten at the edge of her mouth.
She waved. ‘Hello, ladies.’
She always called us ladies, and it turned Tilly’s face red and made us smile.
‘So God is at Mrs Forbes’ house,’ said Tilly, when we had stopped smiling.
‘I believe he is.’ I pulled Tilly’s sou’wester down at the back, to cover her neck. ‘So we can say for definite that Mrs Forbes is safe, although I’m not very sure about her husband.’
‘It’s just a pity she never met Mrs Creasy, she could have given us some clues.’ Tilly kicked at a loose chipping, and it coasted into a hedge.
I stopped walking so suddenly, my sandals skidded dust on the pavement.
Tilly looked back. ‘What’s the matter, Gracie?’
‘The picnic,’ I said.
‘What picnic?’
‘The photograph of the picnic on the mantelpiece.’
Tilly frowned. ‘I don’t understand?’
I stared at the pavement and tried to think backwards. ‘The woman,’ I said, ‘the woman.’
‘What woman?’
‘The woman sitting next to Mrs Forbes at the picnic.’
‘What about her?’ said Tilly.
I looked up and straight into Tilly’s eyes. ‘It was Margaret Creasy.’
Number Two, The Avenue (#ulink_4ee98d60-e6cc-577d-9291-265a970856b4)
4July1976
Brian sang to the hall mirror as he tried to find the parting in his hair. It was a little tricky, as his mother had insisted on buying a starburst design, and it was more burst than glass, but if he bent his knees slightly and angled his head to the right, he could just about fit his whole face in.
His hair was his best feature, his mother always said. Now girls seemed to like men’s hair a little longer, he wasn’t so sure. His only ever got as far as the bottom of his jaw and then it seemed to lose interest.
‘Brian!’
Perhaps if he tucked it behind his ears.
‘Brian!’
Her shouting tugged on him like a lead. He pushed his head around the sitting-room door.
‘Yes, Mam?’
‘Pass us that box of Milk Tray, would you? My feet are playing me up something chronic.’
His mother lay on a sea of crochet, her legs wedged on to the settee, rubbing at her bunions through a pair of tights. He could hear the static.
‘It’s the bloody heat.’ Her face was pinched into lines, the air in her cheeks filled with concentration.
‘There! There!’ she stopped rubbing and pointed at the footstool, which, in the absence of her feet, had become a home for the TV Times and her slippers, and a spilled bag of Murray Mints. She took the Milk Tray from him and stared into the box, with the same level of concentration as someone who was trying to answer an especially difficult exam question.
She pushed an Orange Creme into her mouth and frowned at his leather jacket. ‘Off out, are you?’
‘I’m going for a pint with the lads, Mam.’
‘The lads?’ She took a Turkish Delight.
‘Yes, Mam.’
‘You’re forty-three, Brian.’
He went to run his fingers through his hair, but remembered the Brylcreem and stopped himself.
‘Do you want me to ask Val to fit you in for a trim next time she comes round?’
