2018
LIBRARIES. THAT’S WHERE PEOPLE GO to find information, isn’t it? It’s Monday. Josie has been and gone and the afternoon looms ahead of me, long and empty. It’s time to find out about Lucy. Why are my memories of her disappearance so foggy? Why is no one looking for her? I refuse to be in a muddle about something so important. Ever since I saw Lucy I’ve been plagued by disturbing images and feelings, incomplete and incoherent flashes of memory. I wish I could stop them, put the lid back on, bury them in whatever deep, dark hole they’ve surfaced from. If I can find out what happened to Lucy, I’m sure they’ll go away.
I use the downstairs loo before I leave the house. It will be hopeless otherwise. I’ll get halfway along the road then have to turn back. Daniel says I should have everything I need, what with Josie coming in and going to the shops for me twice a week, and his Friday evening and Sunday visits. You shouldn’t need to go out, Mum, he says. But this feels important. This is about Lucy.
I set off down the road; the leaves rustle along the pavement and gather around the war memorial. The man on the radio earlier said there was a storm blowing in. Strong winds. I keep my head down, my coat tightly fastened.
The walk to the other end of town feels long and I’m tired by the time I reach the library. I enter through the modern sliding doors and have a little sit-down in a red leather chair that looks more like something from a fairground ride, half a spinning teacup. The arms are too high for me to rest my elbows on comfortably so I keep them in my lap. I watch people come and go: a man in a grey suit, a girl in a pair of low heels that go clickety-click across the polished entrance floor, a woman with silver hair holding the hand of a small child.
After a few minutes, I feel suitably rested and decide it’s time to push myself up from the chair. The library hasn’t changed much since I was a girl, although the librarians don’t use stamps and cards anymore. It’s all done by computers. There are barcodes to be scanned, and alarms that go off; it’s more like Tesco. As I make my way along the aisles of books, light spills in through the high Victorian windows and onto the worn carpet. People sit at tables, working on their laptops. I can hear singing coming from somewhere. The wheels on the bus go round and round. I hum along as I walk slowly amongst the shelves; cookery, travel, foreign languages. The horn on the bus goes beep beep beep . . .
I find myself in front of books with dark spines and loud fonts and look up at the section sign: CRIME FICTION.
I take a book, easing it out carefully. It’s got one of those plastic covers on it and it’s called Killing Floor.
‘It’s good, that one.’
I turn to find a young man standing next to me, not much more than a boy. He’s got bright brown eyes and scuffed trainers. The boy is looking at the book in my hands. I push it quickly back onto the shelf. ‘I don’t think this is what I’m looking for.’
He takes a step closer. ‘I can recommend something, if you like? I’ve read lots of these. What sort of thing are you after? Hard-boiled? Courtroom? Spies? Nordic Noir? They’re my favourite right now. All that snow and frozen fjords. It’s enough to chill you before you even open the first page.’ He shivers.
I frown. ‘I don’t like hard-boiled,’ I say, thinking of the overdone eggs my mother used to give me.
‘I can reach the top shelf for you. All the Christie is up there.’
The boy is looking at me earnestly, wanting, for some reason, to help. Some people are like that. They think all old people need help.
‘And there’s a section of large print books too. I’ve seen them.’
‘I don’t need large print. I’m not blind.’
The boy blinks. ‘Oh, sorry. I just thought . . .’ He trails off and looks down at his trainers.
‘I’m after information,’ I say. ‘About a crime.’ Was Lucy’s disappearance a crime? I’m not sure.
The boy looks at me with interest. ‘What, a real crime?’
‘Well, a disappearance. Lucy Theddle. She disappeared in 1951.’
The boy’s eyes grow big. He whistles. ‘That’s a long time ago.’ He seems impressed.
‘Yes. I was fifteen.’
The boy stares at me, perhaps trying to see beyond the wrinkles and the white hair to picture me at fifteen. I gave up dyeing my hair years ago but I like to keep it tidy. I don’t want to look like one of those old bats sitting on the porch of the Windy Ridge care home, hair sticking up all over the place, matchstick legs poking out of grey socks, their expressions vacant. I brush my hair each morning and Suzanne takes me to the hairdresser’s every three months – an act of charity on her part.
When I was a girl my hair was brown and mousy. My mother made me wear it above my shoulders as she said it was more respectable for a girl my age. Lucy’s hair was long and fair, thick and wavy. I think a lot of girls were envious of it, that she was allowed it so long, even though that wasn’t the fashion then. She often had it in two plaits. I remember the green ribbons she wore. Green to match our uniform. I realise the boy is still staring at me.
‘Old people were young once, you know.’
The boy laughs. ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ He adjusts his rucksack on his shoulder. ‘So what happened to her then?’
‘I don’t know. I’m trying to remember.’
The boy considers this. ‘Have you tried googling her?’
This, I know, is something to do with computers. ‘No,’ I say. ‘I haven’t done that yet.’
‘We could give it a go.’ He shrugs. ‘If you want to.’ He gestures towards a cluster of large computers at a group of tables in the corner. ‘There could be something about her online. I’d look on my phone, but the bigger screen might be better.’
‘I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,’ I say, cautiously. ‘Although I’m afraid I’m not much good with . . .’ I wave my hand in the direction of the computers and the boy grins.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll show you. I’m Halim, by the way.’
‘Edie.’
Before I can say anything more, he’s beetling off to the computers, and by the time I reach him, he’s already done something to make one of them light up, pressing buttons and moving a black object around on the table. He pulls out a chair for me and I have to say I’m grateful. I can’t remember when I last had a little sit-down. It can’t have been recently.
I watch his fingers as he moves them quickly over the keys. His hands are smooth, unblemished. I look down at my own hands, wrinkled and liver-spotted. The thin skin at my wrists sags. I used to have nice hands, once. My mother was obsessed with her hands, moisturising them constantly. She always wore gloves to do the dishes, for any housework. She said dry hands, worn hands, were an indication of a lowly status. Are you putting cream on your hands, Edie? she used to ask me, making me hold them out so she could see them. You don’t want your hands to give you away now, do you? For a long time, I could never work out what she meant. I saw my hands as the mirror of my soul, telling people something about me I didn’t want them to know. I kept my hands behind my back, or sat on them, terrified they would leach out my secrets.
‘Ah, here we are.’
A blank page appears on the computer screen.
‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’ I ask.
The boy laughs. ‘Nah, I’m in the sixth form. I’ve got a free afternoon. I like to come here to work. It’s quiet, you know. Fewer distractions. And it gets me out of the house. Actually, right now I’m killing time. I’ve got a driving lesson in half an hour.’
I nod, knowing all about wanting to get out of the house, about killing time.
‘My granddaughter’s taking driving lessons,’ I say, pleased to have remembered.
Halim moves the black object and a tiny blinking line appears on the screen. ‘What did you say the missing girl’s name was?’
‘Lucy Theddle.’ I spell the name for him and watch the letters appear on the computer inside a rectangle. He presses a button and a lot of writing comes up. I squint at the screen as Halim’s eyes scan the writing.
‘Hm. There’s not much. A Wikipedia page, at least. Let’s have a look at that.’
I make a murmur of agreement, as if I know what he means. There was talk, a few years ago, of getting me ‘online’, as Daniel called it. Daniel thought it might be useful for me, and Amy said she’d help. Suzanne was against it though. I overheard her telling Daniel it would be a waste of time and money – just like the mobile telephone. They decided it wasn’t worth it in the end and I was glad. It’s difficult to learn new, complicated things at my age and they were probably right: I never use the mobile phone Daniel insisted on buying. Carrying a telephone around with you all day is just silly. Amy looks at hers constantly. When I asked her about it, she said she ‘checks it’ to see if anyone’s got in touch. How ridiculous. We don’t go to our front doors several times an hour just to check if someone is there, do we? I told Daniel, if he needs me, he can call me at home on the usual telephone. If I don’t answer I’m most likely out, or dead, in which case I won’t be worrying about answering the telephone, mobile or otherwise.
‘This is the Wiki page: “Disappearance of Lucy Theddle”.’
I look at where Halim is pointing but the words are difficult to read, being so far away and against the bright light of the screen.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll read it.’ He pulls up a chair next to me. ‘“Lucy Theddle, born 8th September, 1935, was an English schoolgirl who disappeared on the 12th July, 1951, aged sixteen. Lucy was last seen cycling along the country roads”—’
‘She had a lovely new bicycle,’ I interrupt.
Halim nods then carries on reading. ‘“Lucy is thought to have been wearing a navy skirt and a cream embroidered blouse. A white bicycle, belonging to Lucy, was found the following day in a field close to the side of the road. A small suitcase containing clothes, a toothbrush, an apple and ten pounds was found next to her bicycle”.’ Halim uses the object on the desk to move the writing on the screen. ‘“Despite an extensive search and police investigation, no trace of Lucy Theddle was found and the reason for her disappearance was never known”.’ He leans back in his chair. ‘That’s really frickin’ sad. All that time, and nothing . . .’
‘It put Ludthorpe on the map. That’s what Reg said.’
‘And you knew her?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I say. ‘And now I’m trying to find out what happened to her.’
‘Why?’ Halim asks, gazing at me. ‘I mean, I think it’s great, don’t get me wrong. I’m just wondering, why now?’
‘Because I knew her well,’ I say. ‘And because if I can find out what happened to her, no one will be able to tell me I’m in a muddle or that I can no longer live on my own. They’ll all see – I’m as sharp as a pin, that’s what Arthur always says.’
‘You could just try sudoku,’ Halim suggests. ‘It’s what my grandmother does.’
I shake my head. ‘I do the crossword. But now I’m going to find out what happened to Lucy.’
I don’t tell Halim about eating the Parma Violet, about seeing Lucy outside the Post Office last Tuesday afternoon, how I’d forgotten her completely for all this time. I don’t mention the dark thoughts and the incomplete images, and the feeling I know something terrible.
‘Well, it will certainly be cool if you do find out what happened.’ Halim looks doubtful. ‘Kind of a tough one, though. An unsolved mystery. Decades old. No clues. The police must have looked for her for years . . .’
‘There are clues,’ I say. ‘But they’re buried, that’s the problem.’
Halim looks up, his eyes gleaming. ‘Buried where?’
I blink and gaze across towards the windows. I can see the tall church steeple beyond the houses. The sky has filled with clouds again.
‘Me,’ I say, turning back to Halim. ‘I think the clues are buried in me.’