The Memory Game (15 page)

Raven is humming
to herself; her voice is rich and strong and I think she must be a pretty good
singer. There’s a small fire in the grate throwing flickering shadows over her
face.  She turns over a card and frowns before laying it across one that
is already turned. They look like playing cards, but they have other
pictures on them. I suppose they must be tarots or something, but I’ve never
seen any up close before. I look over her shoulder, but whatever it is she’s
seeing in them means nothing to me.

I take a seat on
the floor in front of her. Strangely, since my mum told Bethany
that Raven came clean about not being able to hear me, I have more faith that
she is for real.  I wonder if the fault is with me; perhaps I’m not
talking to her properly.  Is there a right way to do it?  I close my
eyes and try to concentrate, but everything is muddled up in my head and all I
can think about is what just happened in the hallway of my house.

I open my eyes
again. ‘I wish you could hear me,’ I say to Raven.

Raven doesn’t
look up from her cards; instead, she takes another one from the pack and turns
it, poring over it.

‘I don’t know
what to do,’ I tell her.  ‘None of this makes any sense.’

Raven looks up
and for a moment I think maybe she’s heard me, but she stares straight through
me and reaches for a steaming mug to take a sip.

‘I can’t
understand why I’m still here. 
If it’s not for my mum
and not for
Bethany
, then why?
  And why can only Bethany
see me?  She’s right – it should be Ingrid seeing me, not her, it was
Ingrid that I was crazy about.  And even if I’m supposed to be here to
protect Bethany, I can’t do
anything anyway.  So why leave me here? I’m pointless, just an annoying
shadow.’

Raven leans back
in her chair and cradles her mug, closing her eyes.

‘I tried to tell
mum I was sorry for what I said about the baby.  I never meant that I
wanted her baby to die, even if it is half Roger’s.  I would never mean
that. And now Bethany doesn’t want
me around either. What am I going to do if I don’t have her?’

Raven’s eyes are
still closed.  I wonder if she’s falling asleep.

‘Please, please,
Raven
.  I just want to know what I’m supposed to
do…’

She doesn’t even glance up at me; she just sits there with her eyes
closed.  Through the tiny window behind her the sky is dotted with fat
snowflakes, falling faster than before.  Bethany
never did tell me how that sort of snow feels.

I lie against Dad’s gravestone,
hugging myself, even though I’m not cold. I know he’s not there, but that
doesn’t stop me from hoping.

‘Why did you
have to leave us? Why did you have to go and climb in that stupid machine and
get stuck? Mum would have had your baby, not Roger’s… there’d have been no
Roger and we’d have been a happy family: me, you, Mum, my baby brother…’

I rub my sleeve over my eyes and gaze up at the dots of snow, spiralling
down to earth. I look across at the church.  The tree is up outside now,
only strung with simple white fairy lights, but it looks sort of magical all
the same.  Slices of yellow light shine from the church windows and it
looks like there is a fair crowd in there. Just then, the muffled sound of the
organ striking up reaches me, and then layers of voices breaking into song. I
cock my head and recognise the first strains of
Silent Night
. There’s
nothing special about the way it’s being sung, in fact, there are bum notes and
bad timings all over the place, but they’re all singing it as if they have this
shared joy for the words and the meaning, and it has me listening,
captivated.  We were never a religious family, but Mum took me to so many
of these services when I was a little kid.  It was like a part of our
Christmas traditions, when you went to the carol service, you knew that Christmas
was close.  I always said I hated them when she made me go, but I
didn’t.  Part of me wants to go in and sit amongst them now, sing along
and pretend that they know I’m there. But I don’t think I will go in. 
Maybe it’s no place for the dead.

Yarrow Lane is disappearing under a
crust of white.  My feet make no marks in the fresh snowfall as I find the
place where my blood is still in the earth.  I came back here one night
after Bethany and I had visited
that first time, and someone had left flowers to mark the spot. No more
appeared though, and those ones had gradually wilted every time I came back.
Now they’re buried under the drift; all that’s left is the heart that Bethany
carved on the tree with my name in it. I sit down on the roots and turn my face
to the sky, longing to feel the cold wetness on it. I have to remember.

Looking at the
ground again I can see tiny paw prints. 
My foxes?
 
Animals are pretty much the only friends I have now, but even the foxes seem to
be absent tonight. Maybe I’ll go and talk to George, the horse.  But that
would mean going to Bethany’s house
and I’m not sure I can look up at her window, knowing she’s in there and
doesn’t want me around.

What if I left
the village? Would I disappear as soon as I reached beyond the boundary, just
disintegrate?  What if I didn’t? What if I just kept walking and didn’t
stop, what would happen then? Maybe I’d just fade quietly away.

I get up and start to walk, down the lane, away from everything I know.
Maybe I’ll keep walking until I get to the very top of Scotland. 
Then where?
  Would I be able to walk over the
sea?  Would I be able to keep going forever?  What if I wander around
for the whole of eternity and nobody else but Bethany
ever sees me? The idea makes me feel empty, like my soul has been scooped out
and thrown into the ditch along with those last traces of my body.  Maybe
I don’t want to go – not like this anyway.  First, I should say goodbye.

When I get home Roger is just
letting himself in the front door so I follow him in.  A smell wafts out
to greet me.  I screw my eyes tight and try to remember what it is. 
It’s soft and light, kind of fluffy… baby lotion, maybe?  Mum used to use
baby lotion all the time, when I was little.  It reminds me of being hugged
on her knee, gathered up in her arms while she stroked my hair, and I suddenly
have this heavy ache in my heart.

‘Where have you
been?’ Mum asks as she meets Roger in the hallway. ‘You didn’t go to see him,
did you?’

Roger shakes the
snow off his coat and hangs it over the radiator. ‘He was in the pub, where I
thought he’d be.’

‘Please tell me
you didn’t say anything.’

‘Of course I
did; what was the point in me going otherwise?’

Mum starts to
wring her hands. ‘I wish you hadn’t.’

‘I’m not having
the likes of that little freak upsetting you.’ He puts a hand on Mum’s belly.
‘You don’t need that right now.’

‘I don’t think
she meant any harm, though.’

‘It doesn’t
matter what she meant or didn’t mean – you can’t go around saying things like
that to grieving families, it’s just not right. Someone needs to tell her.’

‘But how did she
know about the baby?’ Mum asks quietly. ‘The more I think about it the more I
wonder if she was telling the truth.’

‘Don’t be
silly,’ he says, taking Mum’s elbow and guiding her to the living room, ‘David
could have told her that before…’ I think he’s going to say
before he died
,
but he sees Mum’s face and stops himself.

‘But that was
the argument we had just before he left for his paper round.  We didn’t
tell him I was pregnant before then. How could he have told anyone?’

Roger shrugs.
‘Perhaps he saw her when he was out delivering.’

‘She hardly knew
him at school, she said so.  Why would he stop to tell a girl he hardly
knows about something like that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Maybe she’s telling
the truth –’

‘She’s
not!  That’s a ridiculous idea. And you can’t keep blaming yourself for
the way you reacted on David’s last night. I know he’s dead but it doesn’t
change the fact that it was a vicious thing to say. He knew how much it had
hurt you to lose the baby before… to say that was plain evil.’

‘He was just
upset,’ Mum says taking a seat on the sofa. ‘It was a shock; I didn’t handle
telling him well.’

‘Lisa… he was
fifteen, not five. Old enough to accept that things change and that people
can’t always be the centre of the universe.’

‘But he was the
centre of mine. 
For a long time, anyway.
 It
must have been hard for him.’

‘He certainly
made it hard for me,’ Roger grunts as he goes into the kitchen and fills the
kettle. I go and sit next to Mum on the sofa. She peels back her sleeve and
scratches at her scars. Then she seems to shake herself and covers them up
again.  Her hand moves to her belly and she strokes it.

‘What do you
think he’ll do to her?’ Mum says as Roger comes back in.

He shrugs.
‘Willis?’ Mum nods. ‘Probably give her a good talking to, just like she needs,’
he says.  ‘She’s a sandwich short of a picnic anyway, just like her old
man.’

‘That’s not
fair,’ I say to Roger.  ‘You don’t know her.’ I leap up from the sofa and
pace the room. My thoughts are whirling like a tornado.

‘But what if
it’s true what they say about him?’ Mum asks Roger.

‘What’s that?’

‘About how his
wife died…’

‘It’s gossip,
nothing more.’ Roger sits next to Mum and pulls her hand into his. ‘Stop
worrying about everyone else. You need to start worrying about yourself
and that little
fella
you’re carrying.’

She looks up
into his eyes. ‘But if he’s capable of that…’

‘The police
cleared him, Lisa. Nothing was ever proved.’

‘But the girl…
she had a mark on her cheek.’

Roger sighs and
lets
go of her hand. ‘That was from the cold or
something.  I don’t know. Whatever is going on in their house is none
of our business.’

‘It will be if
we’ve made things worse.’

‘For God’s sake,
Lisa, just leave it!’ Roger jumps up and stalks into the kitchen.

I stare at Mum,
trying to make sense of what they’ve just said. What did the police clear Bethany’s
dad of?  I never heard anything about it at school.  Whatever it was,
it was the sort of thing that adults discussed in hushed tones when they
thought the kids weren’t about.  And Bethany
has never said anything to me. 

The idea hits me like a smack in the face: this is it; this is why I’m
here.  I have to warn her, I have to keep her safe.

I reach Bethany’s
house so fast I feel like I’ve flown, but even as I get to the front door I
know it wasn’t fast enough. The crash of breaking china reaches my ears. I
push through the front door and run the length of the house to find Bethany
on the floor in the kitchen, shards of crockery at her feet. Her dad is
standing over her, fists clenched. He’s skinny, a whip of a man, and if I had
substance I know I could take him down. But I don’t and I can’t do
anything and the thought makes the rage boil inside me. Bethany
stares up at me, shaking her head in the tiniest movement.

‘I will not have
the likes of Roger Smith laughing at me behind my back,’ Bethany’s
dad growls. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’

‘I didn’t mean, I don’t know…’
Her voice trails off into
nothing.

‘You’d better come
up with a damn good explanation, lady.’

I can smell
something on him.  I can’t remember what it is but it smells sleazy,
unclean. He sways slightly and his words are drawn out as if he can’t
quite recall how to speak.  Bethany
scrambles back towards the wall, trying to get away from him, but he steps
forwards and she’s suddenly cornered.

‘You have to
run, Beth, you have to get out,’ I shout.

She doesn’t look
at me. Her wide eyes are trained on her dad. She’s waiting, she knows
what’s coming. I can’t believe that she’s just going to sit there and take it.
  

‘Listen to me.’
I say, trying to stay calm, ‘you’re in big trouble if you stay here this
time.  This is what I’m here for – I’m here to warn you.’

Her dad lunges
for her and she crawls out of his reach, slicing her hand on a piece of china.
Her blood smudges across the tiles as she scoots away.  He whirls around
to find her.

‘Get back here,
I haven’t finished with you yet!’ he roars.

She stumbles to
her feet and heads for the kitchen door, tearing out into the hallway.  He
lumbers after her, swearing as he collides with the doorframe.  Red
handprints trail the wall of the stairs as she runs up them.

‘What are you
doing?  Get outside!’ I shout after her. 

I overtake her
dad and chase her upstairs, but somehow he catches up and grabs her leg. 
She squeals and tries to kick him away.

‘You little
bitch,’ he snarls as he wrenches her back. She falls on her front and I try to
catch her but her chin hits the step with a sickening crack. ‘I’ll teach you to
go round folks’ houses and tell them a load of cock and bull.’ He starts to
pull her down the stairs.

‘Get off her!’ I
shout.  Bethany’s eyes are
half closed; her leg twitches feebly but she can’t seem to fight him off.
‘Beth, wake up!’ She looks in my direction but I don’t think she’s really
seeing me.  Her mouth is bleeding; it looks bad but I can’t tell. ‘Why
aren’t you fighting back?’

She seems to
focus on me now.  ‘Because it’s easier not to,’ she whispers. Her arms
drag limp over the stairs above her as she’s jolted down the steps, one at a
time.

‘Think you can
get away from me!’ Bethany’s dad
roars.

‘No!’ I shout.
‘Beth, get out!’

She’s in reach
now and Bethany’s dad flips her
round and smacks the back of his hand across her face.  She whimpers but
doesn’t try to escape as he does it again.