‘DADDY!’
They were going to visit the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, one of their regular haunts, and Ava couldn’t wait. Mike Bonney was accosted by his daughters, who sought through his pockets with the thoroughness of macaques, and he handed them each a tube of sweets. They tore off the wrapping, and devoured them rapidly, as if they’d never had sweets before.
‘Like gannets, they are,’ said Colleen even though she didn’t know what a ‘gannet’ was. She let them go with Mike without further comment, still feeling sore from Detective Sergeant Delahaye’s mordacity.
They took the flats’ gloomy stairwell instead of the lift, their voices echoing as if in caves. Ava had had to move her Red Book from the alcove behind the bin because the police might search everywhere for clues so she’d had to tuck it behind the large heavy wardrobe in the girls’ bedroom.
Outside the block of flats, there was no sign of Trevor: his recent car, an Austin Princess, wasn’t parked outside his flat. There was no sign of anyone, and no traffic going up or down Cock Hill Lane.
Mike tutted. ‘Come on! We’ve a bit of a walk.’ He shook his head. ‘Police have blocked off everywhere.’
‘Did they ask you questions, Dad?’ Ava asked in a cheerful voice. She was getting good at this impersonation of Normal Girl. It was even better than Mrs Poshy-Snob, Northern Lad and even Tennessee Tara.
‘Yes, but I couldn’t help them, though. I didn’t know the poor kid,’ said Dad.
They walked past Deelands Hall, the last place Mickey had been seen alive, past the local shops outside which the two self-employed delivery boys, Nathaniel Marlowe and Karl Jones, sat chatting on their bikes with large trailers at the rear. Karl ignored them but Nathaniel tipped an imaginary hat at the girls.
Dad switched the radio on as he drove the Ford Anglia along Callow Bridge then through the Village. As they neared the scene, Ava fell silent.
The Flyover loomed alongside them like a concrete behemoth, and the car turned in below it then out the other side. Ava craned her neck to see. There was a white tent in that far corner with people in overalls pointing out things to the police. A long line of uniformed police officers were walking with spooky slowness across the embankment, their eyes focused on the ground, looking for evidence. There were police dogs: German Shepherds. Ava didn’t worry, though: the dogs were trained to look for more specific scents and, even if they sniffed their way to the Bonneys’ door, Ava might have some explaining to do but she still hadn’t killed Mickey.
White tape, uniformed police and flashing lights sealed off Cock Hill Lane’s basin. Dad swerved right and then they were on their way, soundtracked by ‘Fade to Grey’ on the radio, a song that always transported Ava to another world. The Bristol Road South took them past their school to The Austin, the gargantuan car factory that dominated the area with its myriad roadways, huge plains of stationary new cars, stained brown buildings with mullioned windows, and thousands of men workers.
Dad asked about school and Ava answered with indifference. She suspected he knew how bad it was without being told. Ava swung the conversation to TV and music – but not the news. Ava was experienced at keeping secrets. The only person in the universe she trusted was her closest friend John but he was away on holiday visiting his dad in Ireland so wouldn’t be back until next week, and she didn’t even know if telling him would do any good. But John was sensible when it came to the serious things, and talking to him always made her feel better. There was no point telling Dad: he’d make his lips tight as a cat’s arse then take them home so Mom would have to deal with it.
Why had she spoken up? Why had she told Delahaye about the Moors Murderers? Around strangers, in front of their mother, she usually remained shy and silent but there’d been something about the detective. Like her English teacher, Mrs Rose. Both made her feel it was safe to speak up, to be listened to, to be considered as a person. It helped that she’d really liked looking at him, the way she liked looking at David McCallum in Sapphire and Steel.
Ava daydreamed, and switched off for once until Dad patted her hand. Ava again wondered if her father felt guilt about having left them, not so many years ago. When he’d gone, life had been frightening: they’d no money, hiding from the Rent Man and the Telly Man and from any man who suddenly felt bold enough to make ugly passes at Colleen when they knew there was no husband to protect her.
Ava became a surrogate husband, therapist, cheerleader, guard dog and scapegoat. She was forced to write letters to the Solicitor and the DHSS because her writing and language surpassed her mother’s: complex, adult correspondence she was expected to produce on command. Relentless worrying, and repeat visits to the DHSS building they had to pretend they never visited because of their mother’s shame in having to. With its stuffy waiting room and dead-eyed clerks; Colleen’s children lying around her feet like exhausted hounds.
Ava knew already that, if she was to survive childhood, she not only had to understand but she also had to make excuses, lie, keep secrets; keep her misery silent. Her mother was exhausting. Colleen saw all women as competition in a non-existent pageant, and any woman who slighted her in any way was ‘just jealous’. Though jealous of what, Ava had no idea. Colleen was beautiful, but she was also a poor single mother with three children packed in a tiny flat, and a dodgy boyfriend no one was supposed to know about yet everyone did. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones – especially if that glass house was mostly mirror and the only view was an embittered reflection.
The girls couldn’t talk about this and couldn’t mention that. They were Colleen’s Mirror-Mirror-On-The-Wall, and Christ help them if their response was anything other than You Are, Mommy. Colleen was a terrifying short-cut troubleshooter who hit with anything to hand: hairbrushes, cutlery, keys; Woman’s Own. She was irrational and her punishments were far too severe for the crimes committed. It was ridiculously scary how quickly their mother lost control. They were good girls due to fear, not love. They were scared of her and scared of losing her because she was all they had, and Ava could no more change things than she could change the weather.
The girls’ relationship with their stepmother was complicated. Ava wanted to like Valerie but the woman had stolen Dad from Mom – that’s what Mom always told them. They had to show loyalty to Mom, not only because it was the ethical thing to do but because Colleen so vehemently insisted on it, that the truth according to her was that Daddy had left them, not her, that his absence was their fault and not hers; that if they hadn’t been born then he would’ve stayed.
* * *
They entered the museum through its majestic portico, Ava already happy as the familiar smells of old wood and stone settled on her like a welcoming touch. Voices echoed even though voices were hushed as in all mausoleums and the girls respected that hush, wanting to be good for their dad. In the art gallery, the sisters slid along the floors until their father whispered, ‘Girls!’ and they ran to his side, to listen and learn. He worked in the car factory but he should have been an artist, and he knew what he was talking about.
They loved the museum’s zoology section: to Entomology – insects with their exoskeletons, their bones worn on the outside like armour. In Ornithology, Ava studied the flight birds’ skeletons with their knees on back to front, their outsize rudder-like sternums, their hollow bones; their gossamer skulls.
In the Prehistory section, they laughed when Rita squealed with fright as she did every time the life-size model Tyrannosaurus Rex roared from concealed speakers. But Ava was at home with the Mammals, especially the placentals rather than the marsupials whose skeletons always freaked her out. There were stuffed examples from every family, the old taxidermy worn through to suede in places. Ava studied the preserved beasts, wanting to know how the process worked, this craft of making animals last a little longer than mortality allowed. The polar bear (Ursus maritimus – 210 bones; 42 teeth) was close to the glass and Ava pressed her own cheek as if against its furry one, traced the lines of its massive head with her bitten fingernail.
‘What part of the skeletons links mammal carnivores together?’ her father asked her. Ava ransacked her brain for the main carnivore families: ursidae, canidae, felidae, mustelidae . . .
‘The carnassial tooth,’ said Ava, and her dad’s smile of affirmation was worth a thousand tubes of sweets. Whole life stories were told through bones and their teeth – especially humans (Homo sapiens – 206 bones, 32 teeth). Bones exhibited behaviours under certain conditions: living bone had a lovely powder-blue tinge, and dead bone turned rubbery in acid, turned brittle when burned, and was especially beautiful when bleached.
She wondered about the fox, where he was now. She put her hand into her pocket and thumbed the tips of her blue pencil.