The Girl in the Red Coat

47

All day I’ve wanted to read my letter but I won’t while Gramps is there and now disaster’s struck. The truck’s died right in the middle of nowhere.

We get out and walk and I take a blanket at the last minute in case Gramps wants to sit down.

‘Let’s flag down a car,’ I say, ‘and ask for help.’

Gramps stops in the road. ‘We wouldn’t know who they were. Whether they would be friend or foe. No, I remember there’s a town a few miles over that way.’ He jerks his head towards some hills. ‘We’ll find help there.’

We carry on walking and maybe he’s right anyway because when the odd car does go past, the people inside just look and I guess they’re thinking ‘itinerants’ like Dorothy used to say they did.

It gets so quiet it feels kind of spooky and the sky seems to be pressing down on us hard. The hills around us start turning black. I’m walking right behind Gramps. I think: it’s just the two of us rattling around this lonely world now. We might as well be in our own little chain gang of two. Even if I had a sharp saw in my hand I couldn’t cut through metal like this. It puts its dead weight around your leg and holds you there.

I decide to concentrate on Gramps’s back, large and heavy in his black coat. There’s drops of cold moisture growing on the felty fabric.

‘What can you see?’ I ask eventually.

He scans ahead. ‘Not much, there’s a light some way over there though.’

I duck out from behind him and look. The lights are twinkling bright but they look like a long way off.

‘That looks further than a few miles. Maybe we should have gone the other way. Back towards the city.’

‘Oh no, no. That was even further and we’d be walking into the city with no vehicle or weapon. We might be set upon. We might be robbed and beaten.’

‘I suppose. Well, we’ll have to carry on walking then.’

So we do, we leave our footprints in the mud beside the road. I feel glad for some reason — that we’re leaving some sort of trace. We stay as far off the road as we can in case a car comes past and can’t see us in the twilight and runs right over us. Ahead of me Gramps starts slowing down, his limp is making his body judder and the drops on his jacket swing about as if they were hundreds of children and he’s their father and they’re clinging onto his back for dear life.

‘Gramps, let me go ahead of you. You can’t see anything with your head all bent down like that, except for your shoes.’

‘I can’t,’ he pants. ‘I’m done for. We’ll have to stop.’

‘We’ll stop for a rest and maybe you’ll get your energy back so we can carry on. Or maybe we should get back to the truck and sleep there for the night and think about what to do in the morning?’

‘No, I’m done for,’ he says again. ‘I can’t take another step — my hip feels like it’s on fire. We should say some prayers. We’ve never needed help so much.’

I can see his face in the fading light, twisted in pain, and truly I’m worried then, we’re so alone.

‘Here, sit by the side of the road,’ I say and Gramps slowly lowers himself down so he’s sitting on a grassy bump. He holds onto my arm as he does this so he doesn’t lose his balance and fall onto the ground.

‘What have things come to, Carmel? We’re being sorely tested. When I think of how things could have been.’

‘We could pray like you said. For help?’ He’s forgotten about doing that.

‘Yes, yes. Only …’

‘What?’

‘I’m so weary. Do you think you could lead the prayers? This one time?’

I think about it for a minute. This will be unusual for us. ‘Yes, I guess. If it would help?’

I crouch down next to him so he can hold my hands in between his. I know he likes to do this and I think it might be him trying to catch some healing from me, on the sly, but I don’t mind, not really.

‘Say whatever comes into your heart,’ he says.

I close my eyes. ‘Dear world.’ I think hard about what I want to say. ‘Sometimes you are a very difficult place to live. Please if you could — will you send us a new truck. And some more dollars would help us too.’ I go quiet because I’m praying about seeing Nico again and I don’t want Gramps to hear that bit. I open my eyes then and see Gramps looking at me and he doesn’t look pleased.

‘That wasn’t a very pious sort of prayer.’

‘But you said to say what came into my heart.’

‘You can’t ask for worldly goods and for them just to be delivered to you, Carmel. God is not a catalogue. He doesn’t own a car lot.’

I sigh. ‘OK, I’ll try again.’

‘No, I think that’s enough from you.’

‘But —’ I don’t want to say it but I’ve got the real urge to pray about Mum now. And to say I hope she can see us here, even though I know she can’t.

‘No more praying, I don’t know if God would want to hear that sort of prayer.’

I decide to save my prayer about Mum for later. I stand up then and that’s when I notice something.

‘Look, Gramps, look. There’s a ditch behind you.’ It’s just as well we stopped praying when we did as there’s not much light left and if it had gone completely dark I wouldn’t have seen it.

I’ve never been so excited to see a ditch in my whole life. I go and jump right into it and crouch down, feeling with my fingers.

‘It’s dry. Dry as a bone.’ I jump out again. ‘We can sleep here for the night.’

Gramps seems almost pleased someone is telling him what will happen.

‘Well, if you say so, child.’

I help him climb into the ditch. There’s even some ferny plants at the bottom so we’re not sleeping on bare earth. I tuck the blanket round him and make a pillow out of a corner of it for his head. He’s so tired he falls asleep almost straight away and I think about my letter and I think, dare I? Very quietly I take it out of my pocket. The sound of ripping paper makes him mutter and stir so I freeze solid. But I have to see who it’s come from. So I wait till he goes back to sleep again, hoping there’ll be enough light left when he does.

I can only just see it by the time he’s snoring.

La Casa Rosa

Durango

Chihuahua

Mexico

Dear Carmel,

I sure hope this reaches you, I sent ten letters in all to different places we used to go so with luck one of them will make it into your hands.

Oh Carmel, you see how good I write now? I made sure I went on with it and now I can write pretty good in Spanish and English. I think about you a lot Carmel.

Mom’s got us a house here. It’s got two stories and is dark pink and it’s got the most colour in the whole village. People use it when they explain directions — turn right at the pink house, or turn left at the pink house because indeed we are on a crossroad. Mom says she’s got everything she ever wanted now and doesn’t have to do nothing for nobody and never will again. Our father tried to come back when he heard we got a house. He sat outside for three whole days till she poured boiling water on him from the top window and he went howling down the street. It was sure scary and I thought we’d have to run away like before, but we never saw him again. Mom says she is in paradise. She grows flowers by the front door and tomatoes in the back yard. I dream about you sometimes. Once, you were an animal that could talk, but I don’t know what kind, it wasn’t clear.

Sometimes Mom says we should have brought you with us. I think she misses you too and she says that you could have made a fortune here on account of the Mexican mind being so gullible to religion. Then she says it would have only brought in trouble. I miss you all the time Carmel and wonder if you still write your name everywhere and if you still want to go work in a hospital, like you told me.

Silver puts on a fancy dress most days and goes and sits on the bench outside hoping to attract boys. But it’s so quiet here, most days there’s only the old yellow dog walking by and all that happens is that he might decide to stop and have a scratch at his fleas. I don’t care about it being quiet and all but I would like you to be here Carmel and we could read and write stuff together. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever see each other again though I guess not,

Your loving sister,

Melody.

I touch my finger to her name and think of their pink house in the bright sunshine which must have been got with all the dollars Dorothy stole. I’m glad for Melody but it doesn’t seem quite fair what with me and Gramps and the truck dying. I creep under a spare corner of the blanket with Gramps and say a prayer for Melody and then one to Mum. I tell Mum I love her still and hope maybe she can see us here if she’s made it into heaven. But then I change my mind about that because I’m not sure I’d like her to see me sleeping in a ditch with only a blanket over me.

*

In the morning I wake up much sooner than Gramps. There’s a strange and beautiful colour in the sky — grey and purple — and it seems to make the air around us that colour too. I slide out from underneath the blanket that’s got tangled round us in the night. I’m stiff and cold from sleeping on the ground so I pull my knees up to my chin and blow on my hands to try and warm up.

Gramps is sleeping peacefully. The blanket moves up and down as he breathes. A bird jumps on top of him and it’s bobbing its tiny head and pecking at the blanket, as if it’s going to find food there. There’s a soft lovely wind blowing round us that makes the grasses rustle. Then Gramps starts to wake, muttering and grumbling, and the bird jumps off him and flies away. Gramps sits up with the blanket half falling around him.

‘Where are we?’ He looks around us, then remembers. His face goes all hard and gloomy. ‘What now, Carmel? What now for us?’

I don’t know how to answer this so I blow on my hands some more.

He turns his eyes up towards the sky. ‘Please God, look upon our time of need …’

I look up too and watch the purple-grey clouds shift about. He carries on, praying beside me. He runs out of prayers in the end.

‘You should put your hands together when we pray,’ he says.

I shrug a bit instead, hoping we can change the subject. Thinking we should be deciding what to do now, not praying. Anyway, I feel angry with God today and sometimes I remember how Dad didn’t believe there was one and even Mum said she wasn’t sure.

Gramps takes his glasses out of his top coat pocket to clean them. Without them, his eyes look naked and pale.

‘Wilful child. God is listening to us, how can you think He’s not?’ Sometimes he seems to know exactly what I’m thinking. It’s creepy.

I don’t want to have an argument with him — even though I can see he does. I start doing star jumps to get some feeling back into my legs.

‘Well. What have you got to say?’ He doesn’t want to leave me alone. I can feel I’m getting annoyed now.

‘All this talking to the sky — the sky doesn’t care about us, it just cares for itself. And pretty soon it’s going to rain on us so we better make a move.’

But he buries his head in his hands. ‘How can you, you of all people, say such a thing? I’ve taken you on, I’ve nurtured you and now you utter this nonsense about talking to the sky. To deny when God has chosen you to be His instrument. It’s a desperate sin, child. You’ll kill me with this talk. I’m half dead from it already.’

I don’t like it when Gramps makes out I’m an angel or a saint. I just want to be a real person.

‘It’s the people, Gramps, I think it mostly comes from the people themselves.’

‘And me? What does that mean? In all these years nothing could be done for me.’ His shoulders are heaving and I think he’s about to start sobbing.

All I can say is, ‘That’s the way it is; it just is, is all. I don’t know why.’

We go quiet for a while, then he starts talking through his fingers because he’s still got his head in his hands.

‘Sometimes I think someone is after us, Carmel.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘I see him. I catch glimpses of him. In the mirrors of the truck, or through a window …’

‘Who, Gramps? What are you talking about?’

‘He wants you. He wants what’s mine. He’ll go to any lengths …’

I shout then, because it seems that’s the only way anything will get through to him. ‘Gramps, who? Why would he be after us?’

‘To rescue you. To take you back.’

‘Rescue me from what?

‘From me …’

‘Gramps, you’re not making any sense. Who is he? What does he look like?’

He opens up his fingers so I can only see one eye. ‘I don’t know. All I’ve seen is a hat. Sometimes a raincoat. He looks different every time.’

I sigh. ‘Gramps, I think you’re imagining things. You have to stay calm, you can’t go round thinking about men in hats. Why are you always thinking that I’ll be taken off you?’

‘You’re right. You belong to me.’

‘No, I don’t belong.’ I kick at some tall grass. ‘I’m not a parcel. Anyway, I’ve never asked why you got to keep me?’ My forehead might look like a garlic bulb now.

‘You know why, child. Your father didn’t want you. I took on the burden, the responsibility, that he was too selfish to bear.’

‘But,’ I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, ‘he might have changed his mind by now?’

I stick my toe in the dirt and scrape it around because I know I shouldn’t have said all this but he’s silent and when I look down at him again the expression on his face makes me freeze. Without warning, the prickles are there, racing right over me.

‘Maybe we should just end it here,’ he says.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘I mean, end it. For both of us, for once and for all.’

I really shout then. ‘Shut up! You stupid old man. You —’

He stands up like his hip’s not hurting him at all, and the blanket falls to the ground. I see a terrible flash of his old power then and his shoulders go back and his arms seem to grow bigger.

‘You’re not a child, you’re a fiend.’

Then it flies out of my mouth. ‘Who’s Mercy, Gramps? Who is she?’

‘She’s you.’

‘No, the other one. The real one in the passport. What did you do with her? Where is she?’

He goes quiet and still. ‘What do you know about Mercy, snooper?’

The prickles nearly make me fall over they’re so strong.

‘Nothing. I want to know she’s alright. Is she? You hurt her, didn’t you?’ I’m yelling now. ‘What happened?’

He looks like if he punched something now it would fall down dead. ‘Be quiet, fiend,’ he roars.

But I don’t stop, I can’t. ‘So I’m a fiend now? Suit yourself then,’ I yell and I shove my hands in my pockets and jump out of the ditch and start marching down the road. Then I stop and look back. ‘You know what? I reckon Mum was right all along not talking to you. It was your fault you fell out, wasn’t it? She wouldn’t have wanted you to keep me.’ I turn and start walking off again.

‘Carmel,’ he calls after me. ‘Carmel, come back. No one else wanted you. There — that’s the truth.’

I feel my head drooping as I walk.

‘Carmel, please. Please.’

I hear his pitiful cries and I walk on a few steps further, then the energy seems to run out of me. I look back — he’s standing there, bent and huge, and I can only see him from the knees up because he’s standing in the ditch. But it doesn’t make him look funny. It makes him look creepy and powerful, like a wizard.

‘Carmel, help me. Help me to get out. You can’t leave me here.’

I don’t feel angry any more, just limp and useless.

‘Carmel, let me phone the pastor. At least at the gathering we’ll be fed and watered, they’ll take care of us.’

I don’t know what it is. Whether it’s the years of being with him and trying to remember I’m Carmel and not Mercy. Or all the missing Mum and Dad I’ve done. Or being dressed up and shown about like someone from a circus. But all of a sudden I feel perhaps one night he’d done this thing to me. He’d cut me open and taken Carmel out and she’d looked like the solid doll in the middle of Russian dolls. She had my face. And he’d put in its place a doll with his face painted on and set it with a timer, ready to go off at this exact moment at the side of this road.

I start feeling sorry for myself. How I long to be normal. To chat with my friends and try on scarves and shoes, and have proper birthdays with presents like mobile phones. To sleep in a proper bed with coloured fairy lights around it and my school bag ready for the next day. I see these kids in every town we go. They’re inside the diners and giggling about secrets, the way me and Sara used to. As they talk and laugh they stir their tall ice-cream drinks with the long spoon in their hand. Their nails are pink, the colour of sweets, and their eyelids have sparkly stuff on them.

I feel the Gramps doll inside of me and I wonder how I’m ever going to get it out. He doesn’t look powerful now, he’s bent over, making little cries like a kitten.

‘It’s OK, Gramps. I won’t leave you here.’

I sigh and my energy inside seeps onto the road, ready to drip, drip into the ditch and round his feet. I close my eyes and feel the wind on my face. ‘Don’t worry,’ I tell him. ‘Everything will be alright.’

‘That’s my girl,’ he says, and holds out his arm to be helped out of the ditch. ‘Now then, we mustn’t fall out like this again. Now it’s only the two of us — we have to take care of each other.’