As She Left It (20 page)

And as they got to the turnoff to Meanwood, Opal waited to see if Karen would raise her head and look out to where her parents lived. Lived or died, no odds to her, apparently, because she didn’t look up and didn’t turn away. Her grip on the edge of her paperback didn’t loosen or tighten. The bus went past the junction and kept on out of town and Karen read her book, and Opal stared at the side of her cheek and wondered what it could mean.

Therapy, she decided by the time they’d cleared the bypass. Karen had been to therapy and put it all behind her. Maybe giving up on old Margaret was part of her “recovery.” Maybe she’d let go and moved on and learned not to blame herself for anything. Opal had met that type before, and she couldn’t stand them. So calm and sure of themselves, they were more like robots than real people. Ask any of them for something you really needed and you were on your own. Big part of therapy, that was—learning to say yes when you wanted and no when you wanted—and not worry about anyone else and what
they
wanted at all. Opal had asked a woman in the Co-op a favour just that spring. Asked if she could borrow her caravan down the coast—pay rent for it and everything—just so she had somewhere to go where she wouldn’t see Baz, somewhere to think things through. And the woman had looked her straight in the face and said, “I’m going to say no, Opal. I don’t want you to stay in my caravan, so I’m going to say no.” She had even smiled. “I don’t find it easy to say no. This is a big step forward for me.” So Opal had said she really needed somewhere quiet to be on her own for a while and she couldn’t see what harm it would do anyway, and the woman had said that she was very comfortable with her decision and it would be a better world if everyone said what they thought. And so Opal said she thought the woman was a selfish bitch, and that was the end of that. Opal ended up in that crappy little bedsit, and then she left the Co-op anyway.

She blinked and came back to the present again. The bus was slowing and Opal looked out of the window to see where they were—not that she would know; somewhere in the suburbs—then she looked back towards Karen and her leg kicked out so fast that she banged it hard against the back of the seat in front. Karen was standing. Opal stood up and, limping a bit, followed her to the front of the bus. They were the only two getting off here.

“This int Ilkley, love,” said the driver, seeing her waiting there. Opal smiled and said nothing. “You’ve paid through to Ilkley,” he said. “You don’t have to change.” Karen was listening, not quite turning round but paying attention. Opal smiled again. The bus had stopped now and opened its doors with a hissing sigh. Karen stepped down.

“You all right?” said the driver.

“Not feeling very well,” Opal said. “Just the heat. I’ll get back on the next one along.”

“You can’t use your ticket,” said the driver. “You’ll have to buy another one. Maybe if you moved to the shady side? Or here—have a mint.”

Karen had turned a corner out of sight, and the driver’s hand was hovering over the lever to close the doors again, so Opal just took both steps in one and launched herself out onto the pavement.

“Thanks,” she said, but the driver was already looking the other way.

She trotted to the corner and stepped boldly round the wall and hedge that hid the side street from view. Karen was still in sight, walking along at a good pace, past pairs of neat little semi-detacheds with cherry trees on the verges outside the gardens, even if most of the gardens themselves had been paved over to make parking for cars. Karen turned another corner, not looking behind her, not seeing Opal, but still Opal thought she had better hang back a bit. When she did finally start walking again and turned into the new street—more pairs of semis, and some bungalows too—she couldn’t spot Karen at first. Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw one of the front doors opening and there was Karen on the step. Opal slipped a few paces onto the hard standing of the house she had stopped at and ducked down behind the car parked there. She gave one quick glance at the front window—if the car was there someone must be in—but what choice did she have? Up the street, Karen didn’t go inside but just stood on the step waiting. Then, after a minute, a little girl about three or four, dressed in a pink sundress, bounced out of the door and down the path to the road. Karen followed, rummaging in her bag. She found something, took it out, and pointed it—
like a gun
, Opal thought—but then the sidelights on a car flashed on and off, and the little girl opened a back door and climbed in. Karen got into the driver’s seat and pulled away, passing where Opal was crouched, the little girl staring out at her and then twisting round in her seat to keep her in view as long as she could before they disappeared on their way.

“Shit!” Opal said. She stood up and, still limping a bit from where she had banged her knee, hurried to the corner. Karen’s car was out of sight already, well gone. “Shit!” she said again. “Bugger it!”

She could walk all round the other streets of this suburb—or whatever it was called—and hope to see the car, but for one, Karen had headed back towards the main road, and for two, if she lived close by she probably wouldn’t bother with her car anyway.

She could give it up, catch the next bus back to town and come again another day, wait in a taxi at the end of the street and … except taxi drivers probably wouldn’t follow a car in real life. Or borrow a bike from someone. One of the Joshis, except how subtle would that be, following Karen on a bike, pedalling like a maniac trying to keep up? She’d be seen for sure.

Then Opal stopped her pacing, hobbling, whatever it was. Idiot! Why did she need to keep from being seen? What was she going to do, anyway? She was going to walk up to Karen and ask her a load of questions. She could have sat beside her on the bus and started then!

“Stupid arse,” she said out loud, and she went back to the car she’d hidden behind and leaned her bottom against its boot, like it was home base or something, shaking her head and calling herself more names. She’d forgotten all about it being in someone’s front garden and the possibility that they might come to the door and start throwing plates at her. Or—since this street wasn’t really a plate-throwing kind of place—might come to the door and take a photo of her to show the police so she’d get done for trespassing.

TWENTY
-
SIX

A
ND THAT’S WHERE SHE
was, leaning there, when Karen’s car came back around the corner and stopped in front of her, pretty much blocking her way.

“I told you!” said the little girl, craning to stare at Opal. “She was hiding. Like a baddie. I
told
you she was here.” Karen turned round and said something Opal couldn’t hear. The little girl sat back sharply, taking herself out of view, and Karen turned round and smiled at Opal through her open window. An awkward smile, with a bit of swallowing.

“Sorry,” she said. “My little girl.” She rolled her eyes. “Too many cartoons! She said you were—”

“I was,” Opal said, not taking a moment to think it through. Karen was so embarrassed that she might just put the car back into gear and slide away again before Opal could stop her. She pushed herself up off the boot and walked over to the open window. “I was waiting for you, Karen,” she said. Karen blinked, and Opal thought she swallowed again.

“Do I know you?”

“You haven’t seen me for a while,” said Opal. “Maybe you don’t remember me.” This time Karen definitely swallowed, pretty hard. “It’s about—” She stopped, dropping her voice. That little girl wasn’t even old enough for school yet; maybe she didn’t know. “It’s about Craig.”

Karen whipped her head round so fast Opal almost missed her expression.

“You sit here, Jodie,” she said. “Mummy’s going to talk to this lady.”

“Wanna come,” said the girl, whining and wriggling in her safety seat.

“You just sit here like a good girl. How many times do I have to tell you?”

Jodie instantly stopped moving and clasped her hands together between her chubby knees. Opal had a flash of Miss Fossett, perched on her kitchen chair.

When Karen turned back, the look on her face had been smoothed away, but she was pale, Opal thought, looking yellow behind the tan or makeup that gave her face its colour, and she fumbled a little as she got out of the car and closed the door again.

“Do you mind if we stay out here?” she said, nodding towards the front door of the house. “I don’t want to be out of sight of her.”

“Oh!” said Opal. “No. I don’t live here. Your little one—Jodie?—was right enough. I was kind of hiding out here, watching for you. I live—”

“You were on the bus,” Karen said, as if just remembering.

“Yeah,” said Opal.

“You followed me?”

“Yeah,” Opal said. “Sorry, but I really want to talk to you.”

“About”—Karen moved away from the car—“about Craig?”

“Yeah. And his dad.” Now, for sure, Karen Southgate—if that was still her name—changed colour, and Opal thought it was definitely makeup on her face, not tan, looking bright and streaked now as all the blood faded away from under it. Her lipstick had mostly gone over the course of the day too so that her lips, turning blueish, only had a bit of red left on the outside edge at the top, like a little red moustache.

“Who
are
you?” Karen said.

“Opal Jones,” said Opal. “From Mote Street. You probably don’t remember me.”

“Mote Street.” Again, it wasn’t a question, just an echo.

“I live across the road from your mum and dad and, Karen, I don’t know if anyone’s told you but—”

“Did they send you to find me?” The sound of her voice was like nothing Opal had ever heard before, somewhere between terror, rage, and the mumbled sleep talk of someone coming round after anaesthetic.

“I’m really sorry,” Opal said. “No, they didn’t send me. They don’t know I’m here, but I’ve got to say, if you want to see them—especially your dad—if you want to make sure you see him again, you better not leave it too long.”

“I don’t—” she said, but it came out as a yelp and from the car a small voice said, “Mummy?”

“One minute, Jodie!” Jodie stopped straining against her belt but kept staring out at the pair of them with round eyes. Opal could see the white all the way round the blue, the clearest part of the little girl’s face inside the shade of the car.

“Okay, that’s one thing,” Opal said. “I think you should come and see Margaret and Denny. That’s one thing, yes.” She was steeling herself. This woman was really hard to talk to—barking at her kid, couldn’t care less about her parents. “But also, I want to talk to Robbie if you can help me find him. Tell me his address maybe? If you know it?”

“But who
are
you?” Karen said.

“I told you,” said Opal. “Opal Jones. I live across the road from your mum and dad. I’m Nicola’s daughter. You must remember Nicola.” Karen nodded, but very vaguely. She was studying Opal hard, or maybe just staring at her and thinking hard; Opal couldn’t say.

“But you were long gone by then,” she said. “Why are you asking me all these questions?” Opal thought to herself that she had only asked one question, really, but she didn’t say so. “What’s Robbie to you?”

“Nothing,” said Opal. “Except him and my mum were friends. Good friends. And after … what happened … because of them being friends, the police were at my mum. Like she was a suspect. Nearly.”

“And are they still?” said Karen. She was staring very hard at Opal and her chest was starting to heave again.

“The police?”

“Friends. In touch. Together.”

“No,” Opal said. “Or otherwise I’d know his address, wouldn’t I?”

“Right,” Karen said.

“And actually my mum died.”

“But before she died,” said Karen. “Did she tell you anything. Did she know anything?”

“No!” said Opal. “Jesus! Of course, she didn’t. But the police thought she did. They searched her house and everything. Ripped it to pieces.” Karen was blinking hard, and Opal realized she shouldn’t have made it so clear she was thinking of a thing hidden, not a boy hiding. She hurried on, trying to cover up the horrible pictures she might have conjured with more and more words. “And now I can’t ask her why the police did that, and I just want to know, and I thought Robbie might be able to help me.”

“My husband would never have harmed a hair on his head,” Karen said. “I’ve never said any different.”

“Of course he wouldn’t,” Opal said. “I just want to find him and talk to him.”

“Where do you get the nerve?” Karen’s voice was loud.

“Mummy?” The little girl had undone her belt and was kneeling up on the front seat now.

“I really didn’t mean to upset you,” Opal said. “I know you must—”

“You don’t know
anything
,” Karen yelled at her. “You weren’t even there.”

“I know, I know,” Opal said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think how it would sound. Look, like you say, I wasn’t there. I went away when I was twelve. I never saw my mum again before she died. I must have flipped out or something to be bothering you like this. But look—that’s what I’m saying to you. If you don’t go and see Margaret and Denny and let them see your little girl, you might end up with all these things you want to know and want to say but it’ll be too late. How can you be right here and go past them on the bus every day?” Karen was staring, stunned, her arms hanging at her sides, and it was Opal shouting now. “I was a little kid, and I had a good reason. I must have, eh? And at least I was in Whitby, which is a half-decent way away, but you could be there in ten minutes in your car and how
can
you?”

Something very strange was happening to Karen’s face now, red patches climbing up out of her shirt collar and spreading over her neck, creeping around the corner of her jaw and bringing her face back to rosy life, instead of the yellow mess it had been. And since her chest was heaving up and down, Opal couldn’t help thinking that it was those gulped panicky breaths that were pumping the colour up into her face. And she wanted to tell the woman to slow down, calm down, before all her blood ended up in her head and the rest of her just fell in empty crumples onto the ground.