Burial of Ghosts

Chapter Ten

Perhaps because of the pill I felt strange the next day, disconnected. When I woke up Jess was hanging out towels to dry in the yard. The spin on the automatic had gone, so they were very wet. They were heavy and they dripped and she had to struggle to peg them up. I wondered briefly if I should use some of my money to buy a new washing machine, but I didn’t go out to help her.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ She turned, the plastic laundry basket in her arms, and saw me watching from the kitchen door. It wasn’t cold but I was wrapped up in a big sweater.

‘Dunno. A touch of flu.’

She accepted that without question, though she looked at me again more closely. Then she fussed inside to make a hot lemon drink.

‘Go to bed,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring it up.’

‘I’ve got to go out. Work, sort of.’

She accepted that too. She didn’t like it but she let me go.

The evening before I’d been to the library in the village to look in the Tyne and Wear phone book, hoping to track down an address for Kay and Ronnie, but they must have been ex-directory. I could have put off tracing Thomas’s mother for another day, waited until I felt better, but, like I said, I’m an obsessive. I couldn’t let it go.

In the photo she’d shown me in North Shields, Mrs Mariner’s grandchildren had been wearing bright yellow sweatshirts with St Cuthbert’s Primary School in big brown letters on the front. There was only one St Cuthbert’s school in Whitley Bay and that was in the phone book. I arrived there too early. It was an old-fashioned place built of grey stone, still showing the separate boys’ and girls’ entrances over the doors. The yard had been marked for hopscotch and it was surrounded by black wrought-iron railings. When a class came out with a basket of skipping ropes and balls for PE I walked on up the street. I didn’t want to be noticed staring in at the kids. There was a café near the old bus station and I sat there drinking stewed tea which had been poured from a big iron pot, watching the hands of the clock move round towards three. It only occurred to me when I was leaving that I should have had something to eat.

There was a bunch of mothers waiting by the gate, a couple of grans, a sprinkling of self-conscious dads, an assault course of pushchairs and prams. I stood on the edge of the group, trying to look as if I belonged there. I was starting to panic. Little girls in yellow sweatshirts all look very similar. How would I recognize them?

‘I’ve not seen you here before.’ It was a middle-aged woman, comfortably, scruffily dressed, slightly overweight.

‘No.’ A pause, more panic. ‘I’ve come to collect my sister’s kids.’ Immediately I thought, That was really dumb. Then, pleading, in my head, Don’t ask me the names, don’t ask me the names.

‘They’re always late on a Thursday. Hymn practice. That Mr Cryer, he does go on.’

‘Oh.’ I felt my breathing become more regular, tried to remember the instructions of the yoga teacher in the hospital. ‘Right.’

She turned away to chat to someone else.

In the end when they ran out I knew them straight away. They were in the first group, very tidy in identical pleated skirts and patent leather sandals. They seemed to be heading straight for me, their faces shiny with enthusiasm, their plaits bouncing. I knew they were bursting to tell someone about their day and I almost knelt to listen. They’d have books full of stickers and gold stars and I wanted to see them. But they hurtled past me to the middle-aged woman who’d put me right about Mr Cryer and hymn practice. She finished her conversation with a mother who looked as if she’d just come from the gym, while the girls pulled at her jumper and demanded her attention.

It wasn’t Kay Laing. I’d seen a recent photo of Kay in Ronnie’s office at the garage and even if she’d suddenly put on weight, the woman with the sculpted hair wouldn’t have been seen dead in leggings which were going bald at the knee and a jersey covered in paint. This was the childminder. She gave me a friendly nod, took the girls by the hand and walked off.

I waited until the lollipop lady had seen them across the road and then I followed. The woman didn’t look round. Finally she was taking notice of what the children were saying, smiling and murmuring encouragement. They’d arrived at a small rank of shops facing onto a wide pavement. The woman opened the door of a newsagent’s and held it for the girls to go in. I looked at the desirable property displayed in an estate agent’s window on the other side of the road, then watched their reflection in the glass as they came out carrying ice creams.

‘Lizzie Bartholomew. What are you doing here?’

He’d come up on my blind side. There was a jolt of adrenaline in my system which made me want to run, but I turned slowly to face him. For a moment, because I’d been so focused on the woman and the two little girls, I couldn’t place him.

‘Dan Meech!’ So pleased with myself for remembering that it sounded as if he were a long-lost brother. I thumped him on the back because that’s what he would have expected. Nothing soppy, though once I’d fancied him like crazy. We’d gone out a couple of times at university but, it seemed he liked his women blonde and willowy. He’d dumped me for a girl on his course because he said we were too like mates. An excuse of course. She was stunning. He’d been doing performing arts. She was passionate about ballet. How could I compete?

I thought I’d carried this encounter off well, but he said, ‘Hey, Liz. Are you OK?’ And put his hand under my arm as if I needed him to steady me.

Looking past him into the street, I must have sounded absent-minded.

‘Yeah, Dan. Course.’ The childminder and the little girls had disappeared. ‘Look, Dan, I’m in a real hurry. I’ll have to go. See you around.’

I sprinted down the street. When I turned back briefly, Dan was still standing there in his baggy trousers, looking as if he’d been set an exercise in his mime class: ‘express surprise and confusion’. He always was a drama queen.

Still I couldn’t see the childminder and the two kids. I was scared they’d already gone into one of the houses and I’d have to go through the whole charade of playing doting auntie by the school gate again. I wasn’t sure I could handle that. This was turning into the smart bit of Whitley Bay. Big Edwardian houses were set back from the pavement. Through painted wooden gates I glimpsed long back gardens with fruit trees and striped lawns. The streets were parallel, running off the main road, where the row of small shops gave the impression of a village. I didn’t see it as a place where the childminder would live. The houses round here went for a lifetime’s earnings. She was taking the girls to their own home and I didn’t even know which street she’d taken from the main road.

I stopped running. I was just drawing attention to myself. People were staring. I must have looked wild. Again I forced myself to breathe more slowly into the pit of my stomach, then began a systematic search. The streets were straight. Although trees had been planted at the edge of the pavements, I could see to the end of each one. There was a group of kids walking down the first I tried, but they were older, loaded down with violin cases and bags of books. There was no adult with them. The second was empty.

That was it. Time to give up. Perhaps I could find Dan again and persuade him to come for a drink. I really needed a drink Last time I’d heard, Dan had been working for a community theatre group and he was always broke. I could probably buy half an hour’s company for the price of a pint. Or two. Then I heard voices behind me. Children’s voices. The minder was carrying a plastic bag with Alldays Convenience Stores printed on the side. They’d been in a shop all the time and in my panic I’d run past them.

I was standing on the pavement like a prat, looking crazily around me. There was nowhere to hide. The woman came up to me and stopped.

‘That was quick,’ she said.

‘Sorry?’

‘You’ve got rid of your sister’s kids, then?’

‘Yes.’ She must have thought I was a halfwit. ‘Change of plan.’

‘Do you live round here?’ There was envy in her voice which confirmed that she didn’t.

‘Nah. I wish. Just meeting a friend.’

We smiled conspiratorially. For a moment it was us against all these rich bastards in their big houses. Then she moved on.

I stood at the corner and watched her go, counting the houses until she went in. She didn’t look back. The Laings’ house had a storm porch with a blue front door and there was a magnolia tree in the front garden. I wouldn’t miss it if I came again. I wasn’t sure what to do. I had a choice. A drink with Dan or make an effort to see Kay. A late-afternoon pub, quiet, with only a couple of serious drinkers to compete for the landlady’s attention, seemed attractive. Dan would be up for it. We could talk about university, catch up on the news of old friends. He’d probably still be on the main road, expressing confusion and surprise. But I wanted to meet Kay Laing. It was already a quarter to four. Kay was an infant teacher. The kids would be gone by three-thirty at the latest. There’d be clearing up to do, a staff meeting perhaps, but she could be home at any time. Without being conscious of taking a decision, I leaned against the phone box on the corner and waited, watching the traffic grow heavier, my eyes fixed on the blue front door.

She arrived home nearly an hour later. I knew it was an hour because I checked my watch, but it seemed as if I’d only been there for minutes. I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking about. She was driving an electric-blue Corsa. It was new. Not something Ronnie would normally stock and not something picked up at an auction. She pulled into the side of the road, so I thought she was going to leave the car there, but she opened the door of the double garage and drove into one side. Five minutes later, the childminder came out through the front porch. One of the children waved to her from a bedroom window, but she didn’t notice. She walked down the street in the opposite direction. I waited until she was out of sight before approaching the house.