She was sitting right there,
under the tree.
The apple tree.
Eating an apple.
In the summer. Last summer. Before
the girl went missing.
Ginny thought she was imagining it at first.
The girl would have had to climb the wall
at the back of the garden. From the meadow.
It was the girl
the missing girl
Becky Shaw.
Ginny’s sure of that now.
She wasn’t missing, then.
She was sitting under the tree, the
apple tree.
Eating an apple.
Scrumping, they called it once. Children don’t do it
now.
More likely to see them smoking
and whatever else
down at the park, by the
cricket pavilion.
Breaking windows.
This seemed – quaint.
She looked like –
this girl
she looked like –
but it may just have been a trick
of the light.
One of Ginny’s moments.
She had those.
After Jacek’s death. He’d died six years ago.
It may as well have been last week.
She’d see someone who looked like him, out and about,
at the market,
in the distance,
in a passing car.
And for a moment it would be
it would really be him.
It was something she’d heard about, before.
Before.
But she’d not known
she’d not been told
how uncanny it would be.
It was always someone who looked exactly like Jacek,
for that short moment
and then they were just
gone.
It could take days to shake the feeling off,
sometimes.
And this girl in the garden, under the apple tree, she looked
she looked like Laura.
Exactly like Laura.
Laura was Ginny and Jacek’s daughter. She was grown now. She’d be –
thirty-three.
And this girl was Laura
at that age
to a T.
Different clothes, of course.
But the shape of her, the way she carried herself.
It was
Laura.
Ginny remembered Laura carrying herself
like that.
The look had come into her overnight.
They’d seen the woman in the girl.
It had been sudden.
They’d seen her realising what kind of woman she would be, and
playing with the part. Dressing up
in different poses.
They’d seen her wishing herself
out of reach.
She’d wanted away.
That had been obvious.
Ginny could remember wanting away
from her own mother
just the same.
And the cheek.
The cheek she’d started giving them, giving Jacek and Ginny.
It was hard to know where it came from.
It nearly
broke Jacek
to hear it.
It was hard
to live through. People talk about the terrible teens
it’s an awful cliché but
there’s truth in it, but
they didn’t know how bad it would be.
It was hard
to live through. They didn’t know what they were doing
wrong.
They didn’t know what had got into her, sometimes.
Drink, they suspected, or
worse.
The police talked about drugs, later.
And boys, no doubt. Older boys.
Laura couldn’t imagine the dangers she was
getting herself into, and
they could. They could.
That was part of the problem. She just
she wouldn’t believe
they were worried about her.
She’d wanted excitement, adventure. She’d wanted
nothing to do with them.
After
after everything they’d done for her, everything
they’d given her.
They resented that. Honestly. They were angry with her
for that
sometimes.
But they didn’t
they didn’t drive her away.
They didn’t.
*
It wasn’t Laura
in the garden
under the apple tree. Of course it wasn’t.
It was some other girl. It was Becky Shaw,
although she didn’t know that then.
She was looking at Ginny with,
she wouldn’t say insolence,
although some people would call it that.
It was confidence.
There was a challenge.
A way of setting the shoulders.
As if to say, what?
What’s your problem, Mrs?
That was the face she had on her.
What’s your problem?
It wasn’t rude, as such. It was more,
she couldn’t imagine what problem Ginny might have,
seeing her sitting in the garden like that,
under the apple tree, eating an apple.
She wanted to get a rise, and Ginny didn’t give her one.
Ginny thought that might take the wind out of her sails.
She said good afternoon, and she got on with the jobs
she’d come into the garden to do.
There was blackfly all over the runner beans.
She could feel the girl watching,
the apple halfway to her mouth.
She could almost hear the air coming out of her,
she was that deflated.
It became a waiting game, after that.
Both of them waiting for the other to speak.
Well. The girl had no idea.
Ginny knew about that game.
She’d had a lot of practice.
Not that she wasn’t furious.
But she didn’t want to give this girl the satisfaction of seeing how she felt.
She could see
that was what the girl wanted.
It was all very reminiscent.
She picked off the new crop of runner beans.
She wiped down the leaves and stems with a soapy cloth.
The blackfly were all over.
The girl gave in, eventually, and spoke first.
She asked if Ginny would report her.
It seemed an odd thing to ask.
She told the girl she imagined the police had better things to concern themselves with than the theft of a single apple. And she didn’t know the girl’s parents, so she could hardly talk to them either.
The girl shrugged, and looked at Ginny.
Daring her to do something, really.
Ginny was tired of the attitude.
If she’d been twenty years younger she might have
taken steps towards her,
and raised a hand.
Not to actually clip her one, but just
to let her see, let her see that Ginny meant business.
But she was too
slow
for nonsense like that now.
Young lady, she told her. I think you should leave.
The girl loved that, of course.
She sat up straighter and made herself comfortable.
Her whole expression was very familiar.
*
There were so many times Ginny had ended up facing Laura like that.
Especially
as she got older.
They were such difficult years.
They kept thinking she would
grow out of it.
They thought fourteen would be the worst age, then fifteen, then sixteen. Kept themselves sane by talking about what it would be like
to have a civil conversation again,
when she was
older.
But they never saw it.
She walked out of the front door one day and she never came back.
She was seventeen.
There was so much silence.
After all the noise. All the slamming of doors, and the shouting.
Laura had never been
violent, but
there was a lot of aggression,
a lot of upset.
They were always on edge. It was difficult to sleep.
Laura would come home at all hours.
When she didn’t come back, they would be worried sick about her. And when she did come back she would be making a racket, causing a scene.
Out of her mind, sometimes. By then they thought she was
involved with drugs
of some sort.
It was exhausting.
So when she left, there was just –
this
silence.
This blessed silence.
As though a storm had passed.
They were worried sick for her, of course. And they missed her.
The pain was physical.
But it was so quiet.
And they slept.
Ginny would never have imagined sleep could be possible with a daughter away,
away in the world, and no idea where she’d gone.
But they slept.
It was one way to escape.
She’d left a note, which didn’t say
enough.
There were letters in the post, and later there were photographs.
She wanted them to know she was okay.
She looked happy. She was
happy
without them.
That was difficult.
The police said there was nothing they could do, once the letters arrived.
If she’s safe and well and she doesn’t want to come home, they said,
there’s nothing we can do.
They were embarrassed, honestly. Ashamed.
They didn’t like the thought of what people would say.
They felt rejected.
They were worried that people would think they must
have been terrible parents,
for their daughter to just
leave, like that.
So they didn’t tell anyone.
They said she’d gone to London, to work.
They said she was staying with a cousin of Jacek’s.
They changed the subject when it came up.
It seems ludicrous, now. But
they thought she’d be back.
People must have known
something wasn’t right.
But people don’t pry.
The letters kept coming, and the photographs. Always with different postmarks.
Later, when they thought about moving house, they didn’t dare.
She wouldn’t know
where to send the letters,
they thought.
There hasn’t been a new picture for six years now,
but there will be. Laura won’t let her down.
She has her own life. Ginny can be happy for her.
She probably has children, now.
A child.
It’s impossible to know, but it seems likely.
She wonders, sometimes, whether having a child
would make Laura want to come back.
She has pictured it,
sometimes.
Laura
at the front door,
with a pram.
Or holding a baby.
Smiling. Apologising.
Asking if she could come in.
Or with an older child, the two of them
holding hands.
The child too shy to talk to Ginny, at first.
Or the child grown old enough to
ask questions, to
want answers, to
make her own way to Ginny’s house.
A strange child standing at the door.
So, of course.
When Ginny saw this girl in the garden,
under the apple tree.
She did wonder.
The girl had so much of Laura about her.
*
She’d asked her to leave, but
she wanted her to say who she was.
She wanted to know who she was.
So she kept her talking.
She asked how she liked the apple, and
the girl shrugged.
She told her she’d picked it a bit early, and it would likely be sour.
The girl shrugged.
She asked if she’d hurt herself coming over the fence.
The girl shrugged again.
Doesn’t it hurt your shoulders, Ginny asked; all that shrugging?
The girl was trying not to smile, Ginny could see.
Ginny asked if she lived locally, knowing full well that she didn’t.
I’m here on holiday, she said.
Because I don’t know what it’s like where you live, Ginny told her,
but in these parts people think it bad manners to go climbing over other people’s fences.
Okay, the girl said.
It sounded as close as she would ever get to an apology.
It was enough for Ginny.
When you leave, she said, I’d prefer you to go out through the front gate here. Like a normal person.
The girl did smile then, finally.
Ginny asked if her parents knew where she was.
The girl said her parents wouldn’t worry about her for a few hours. She said they knew it was safe round here, and they trusted her.
She was very sure of herself.
Will you know how to get back? Ginny asked. The girl nodded.
She stood up, brushing herself off and picking up a bag she’d been sitting on.
My name’s Becky, she said, holding out her hand.
Ginny unlocked the front gate, and told her to get a move on.
Becky squeezed past her, and mumbled something that
may have been thank you. Or may not.
Up close, she’d looked nothing like Laura at all.
But she’d had that spirit.
Ginny wanted to tell the girl’s parents something about this. One day. She wasn’t sure it would help. But she thought they might like to know.
If their girl had gone off
the way Laura did, she’d be,
she’d probably be
okay, Ginny thought.
She was younger than Laura had been
when she left,
but even so.
She’d seemed mature.
She’d seemed sensible.
They live their own lives in the end, no matter what you do.
She’d be okay.
She wanted the parents to know.