The Girl Who Came Back Read online

  We continue walking for a few steps. We’re past the obelisk and the end of the High Street. There’s a postbox on the corner and Mum goes in the opposite direction, heading towards a stone church with a towering steeple. The road has narrowed to barely a lane in either direction. There are small pebble-dashed houses on either side, but no pavement. Like a scene from a postcard.

  ‘Does the café name mean anything?’ I ask.

  Mum stops again and so do I. She turns to face me, then places a hand on my shoulder. She squeezes. I’m flesh, blood and bone.

  Real.

  ‘Of course it does,’ she replies. ‘Via’s is named after you. I always hoped this day would come.’ She gasps. ‘I never forgot.’

  There are tears in her eyes which she blinks away before squeezing the top of her nose.

  ‘Do you want to go to the house?’ she asks. ‘The new one. We can talk there, perhaps? If that’s what you want…?’

  ‘That sounds good.’

  She turns back towards the church at the end of the road. ‘The car’s parked over there.’

  ‘I can drive myself.’

  ‘Oh.’ She snorts in part-surprise, part-amusement. ‘Of course. You’re…’ she starts counting on her fingers.

  ‘Eighteen.’

  ‘Right. Eighteen and a half. You can drive, you can vote, get married. You can do anything now…’ She tails off and then adds: ‘Where are you parked?’

  I point in the direction she indicated. ‘That way, near the post office.’

  We start walking again and there’s a surreal moment as she makes small talk about how the council introduced free parking because the locals made a fuss about the old charge. Small-time politics and letters to the local paper. It all feels very normal, the type of thing that’s enormously important to a tiny number of people.

  When she finishes the story, she laughs and then I join in. What else is there to do? This is village life. All that time away, all the unanswered questions, and we’re talking about free car parking.

  We round the row of houses and follow a low drystone wall that rings the church until we’re in the car park at the back of the post office. There’s a big sign about how it’s closed on Thursdays and a sandwich board advertising discounted travel money.

  Mum points to a black 4x4-cum-tank. Mine is the battered silver Fiat a few spaces along. She stops at the back of her vehicle and faces me once more. I’m a new puppy that needs to be smoothed and petted, to be hugged and loved. Everything’s there in her face. She offers a hand and then withdraws it, wary of letting me out of her sight in case I disappear once more.

  ‘I’ll follow you,’ I say, digging into my bag for the car keys.

  She presses her weight from one leg to the other, still not ready for a goodbye, no matter how temporary. Like if she looks away, even for a moment, I might be gone again. She touches my arm, the gentlest of brushes with the back of her hand but it says more than her words.

  ‘Do you want to come with me instead?’ she asks, although it’s not really a question. It feels like a ‘no’ would devastate her. ‘It’s not far,’ she adds. ‘I can drop you back later if you want…?’

  From nowhere, I’m a little girl again, strapped into the front seat of the car being chauffeured around. ‘That sounds good,’ I say.

  Three

  It’s all stone walls, large detached houses, overgrown hedges and vast expanses of green as Mum drives out of the village. The road narrows, widens and then narrows again as she heads through the country lanes. She’s at least ten miles per hour under the speed limit, slowing steadily for all the corners, even though she must know when they’re coming.

  After a few minutes of green, we reach another row of houses and I realise we’ve looped around the outskirts of the village. There’s a newish out-of-place estate of red bricks and cluttered on-road parking, then more hedges as the houses become further spaced apart.

  Mum’s place has a large pebbled driveway that crunches under the wheels. There’s a large lawn at the front and the house itself is twice the size of the old one. It must have at least four bedrooms as well as the attached garage.

  We’ve not spoken the entire trip but I’ve felt her looking sideways to me, perhaps wondering if anything about the village or journey has been familiar. Maybe it’s that she wants to check I haven’t gone anywhere, or that she hasn’t woken up from the dream.

  She parks in front of the house, not bothering with the garage.

  ‘This is home,’ she says.

  I follow her to the door and she fumbles with her bag, muttering about never being able to find her keys. ‘They’re in here somewhere,’ she insists, her fingers rifling through the various pockets before she eventually holds them aloft. ‘Damn things,’ she adds. Her hand is trembling as she unlocks the door.

  Inside and we’re straight into an echoing hallway. There’s a view all the way through to the back garden, a tunnel of light beaming through the house, and I find myself drifting along the hall, into the kitchen until I’m staring out to the lawn beyond the window. It’s a little ragged, the grass creeping into the flower beds along the side, unmown for a week or three. There’s a tree at the furthest end, casting a thick shadow towards the house, and everything is enclosed by high hedges. There’s no gate, no way out other than through the back door.

  Mum is at my side and she rests a hand on my lower back. She doesn’t say anything but she doesn’t have to. Her daughter and back gardens don’t mix.

  ‘This way,’ she says softly.

  I follow her into another hall, along the wooden panelled floor and then into a conservatory. It’s a few degrees warmer than the rest of the house, offering another view of the back garden. There’s a bookshelf full of CDs and books, the spines faded by the sun. A skylight is open, allowing the vague thrum of chirping birds to creep inside. Mum sits on the washed-out sofa but I’m drawn to the bookcase, picking up the framed photograph from the top shelf.

  Like everything else, it’s been bleached by the sun. The once green grass is a tea-stained brown, the blue sky is grey and murky – but the little girl in the centre is still clear enough. Her blonde pigtails are now a grainy sand colour, the green frog on her T-shirt a swampy brown. She’s smiling, holding up what looks like a plastic spade.

  ‘That was taken a month or two before everything happened,’ Mum says. She’s blinking rapidly, keeping any tears at bay. Trying to be strong. ‘Every time it was sunny, you’d want to be out in the garden.’

  She sighs and takes a deep breath.

  I have an urge to find a mirror, to compare the girl from the photo to the woman I am. The blonde hair must be similar but I wonder what else we have in common. I can’t believe my cheeks are as rounded as the girl with the frog T-shirt, but then a five- or six-year-old looks nothing like someone who’s eighteen.

  After placing the picture back on the bookshelf, I turn and realise Mum is standing right next to me. She tugs the longer bits at the side of my fringe again and I let her. She has a faraway, vacant stare and it’s only when she blinks that it feels like she’s back in the room.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says, taking a step backwards. ‘I can’t believe it’s you… that you’re back. I know I said I kept on hoping but I’m not sure that’s true. Sometimes I hoped you’d be back but other times… I don’t know. People said I had to move on, to stop looking backwards, but it’s not as if you can turn it off.’

  She bites her lip.

  ‘It’s all so… strange,’ Mum adds. She tails off and glances upwards momentarily. She gulps and then licks her lips. Her eyes are wet.

  She isn’t wrong. I was close to chickening out in the café and there’s still a part of me that wishes I had. It would have been easier. I could’ve gone back to my other life.

  In my mind, my mother was almost mythical or dream-like.

  A mother. A mum.

  Here, now she’s in front of me, she’s real. An actual person with emotions and expressions. The t
hings I’d planned to say, the things I have to say, feel inadequate.

  It isn’t only her. It’s me. I thought it would be easy, that I’d be strong, almost emotionless. But seeing this real person in front of me has changed that.

  She sucks in her right cheek once more but not the left. This is what she does when she’s thinking.

  She isn’t a mother any longer, she’s my mother.

  ‘If you don’t want to talk about things, that’s fine,’ Mum says. ‘We can sit here if you want…?’

  ‘We can talk.’

  Her chest deflates as she lets out a long breath of relief.

  ‘Can we have something to drink first?’ I ask.

  ‘Of course.’

  We move back through to the kitchen and then it’s more small talk about whether I want ‘normal’ tea or something else. After that it’s talk of milk and sugar and which mug would I like. Anything and everything to avoid the inevitable. She hurries around the kitchen in a blur but keeps drifting back towards me as if to make sure I’ve not disappeared into thin air. Minutes later and we’re back in the conservatory, taking up opposite ends of the sofa. It might be faded and raggedy but it’s certainly comfortable.

  She sips her tea and waits. There are thirteen years of questions but I suppose there’s only one way to begin.

  ‘I don’t remember everything too well,’ I say. ‘There was a man who came to the back gate. I think he had sweets or something like that. I went over to see what he was offering and then… it’s a blur.’

  ‘Did he grab you?’

  ‘I guess…’

  She’s looking directly at me, staring at me but I can’t return the look. I’ve twisted to face the garden instead.

  ‘I remember this fuzzy feeling, like I’m running except I don’t think it was me.’

  ‘Like he grabbed you and ran off…?’

  I shrug and the disappointment is clear as Mum lets out a long breath. When I turn back to her, she is looking towards the photograph on the bookshelf and I wonder what she’s thinking. It’s probably frustration that, after all these years, I still can’t give her the precise answers she wants.

  This is the thing I didn’t expect, that her disappointment hurts. It actually hurts. It’s like catching an elbow on the corner of a table, right on the funny bone where there’s that instant stab of pain and the moment of surprise is momentarily worse than the agony.

  I thought things would be fine. I’d shrug to myself and move on. She could deal with it – but it’s not like that at all. From not knowing her, I now want her acceptance more than anything.

  ‘I remember being in a caravan,’ I say. ‘There was this U-shaped sofa with a table in the middle and then a sink and microwave along the wall. It was really small and there was the man and another woman. They told me my name was Karen. When I said it was Olivia, they said I couldn’t say that any longer. The man took off his belt and said I’d feel it if I ever said that name again.’

  Mum has a hand over her mouth and her eyes have widened.

  ‘The woman cut my hair and then she took me into this bathroom. It was really small – there was a toilet, a sink and a shower. No bathtub. She made me stand in the shower and then she squeezed dye into my hair. I didn’t know what it was then but it was really thick and smelly. I remember the black streaks running over my arms and down my legs. She rubbed my head really hard, before washing everything down the plughole.’

  It looks as if Mum wants to say something. Her mouth is open but no words come out, so I carry on.

  ‘They made me dye my hair until I was about thirteen or fourteen. It was always black and then, one day, they said I didn’t have to dye it any longer.’

  She’s quiet for a moment and then stumbles over some words, before eventually managing: ‘Did you stay with them this whole time?’

  Her hand is trembling so much that the tea sloshes over the mug onto her hand. She winces and puts the cup down before rubbing at the skin.

  ‘They told me to call them Mum and Dad,’ I reply. ‘We moved around a lot—’

  ‘So they were gypsies?’ She stops herself and then speaks really quickly: ‘Or, um… travellers? I don’t know the correct term.’ She swirls a hand and says something about political correctness. I give her a moment as she seems, unsurprisingly, befuddled.

  Another shrug. ‘I wasn’t allowed out for a while,’ I say. ‘I don’t remember it all properly but the door was locked a lot. There was always food but they’d tell me off for crying. There was a PlayStation and a telly. I didn’t want to play at first but that was all there was to do.’

  ‘How long did that go on for?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I rub my head, messing up my hair. ‘Sometimes it feels like a dream or a TV show. It’s grey round the edges, like watching someone else do something. I think it was a few weeks. Maybe a month, or longer. I was allowed out to play, but only in front of the caravan. There were other kids.’

  She sighs long and hard, before rubbing her eyes. There’s more blinking and then she stares directly at me. It’s so intense that it’s as if she’s trying to will the information from me. ‘Didn’t anyone say anything about you not being there and then, well… being there?’

  ‘I don’t remember…’ I tail off, scratch my head and then look up. ‘It’s hard to explain. They made me call them Mum and Dad and then, I guess, they sort of became my mum and dad. That was normal. I forgot about things. It was typical to be on the road, or parked in a field. The other kids knew my name and I knew theirs. I suppose I became Karen…’

  She stares at me, biting her lip as if she doesn’t trust herself to actually speak. It looks like she’s in pain and it’s the absolute worst thing. I don’t know why I thought this would be easy, that I could walk into someone’s life, look them in the eye and change it.

  I’ve had my life changed in the past. One sentence and – BANG – everything’s different. I was on the other side then but now I know what it’s like to deliver the sledgehammer blow.

  What it’s shown me is that I’m not the person I thought I was.

  I’m not as strong as I thought I was.

  I thought I could say the words and feel nothing – but I can’t. I want to be liked. I want my mother’s approval.

  ‘I didn’t know where I was,’ I add. ‘We’d be on a patch of land in the middle of nowhere, or on the outskirts of some village. I was only allowed to talk to the other kids who travelled in the other caravans. I didn’t understand England or the UK then, let alone Europe. I had no idea where we were, or who anybody else was. If I ever said anything out of turn, I’d be locked in the caravan again.’

  Mum nods but I have no idea what she’s thinking. Her eyes are huge, eyebrows high like she’s one of those Botox junkies who are permanently surprised.

  ‘Did you go to school?’ she asks.

  ‘No. There were books – and I read a lot – but that was all.’

  ‘How did you escape?’

  ‘They wanted me to get married when I was seventeen. It’s what everyone does.’

  ‘You were with them for ten years…?’

  Mum sounds like she can’t believe it but I don’t know what else to say. She’s so stunned that she starts to cough. She stretches for a box of tissues and conceals her mouth while turning away.

  When she’s settled once more, I add: ‘I didn’t want to marry him. It was like one of those old royal weddings where the prince from one country marries a princess from another and it’s supposed to bring everyone together. My family wanted to be connected to another.’

  It’s already out before I realise what I’ve said.

  Mum’s eyes widen and it’s too late. ‘Your family,’ she says.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I, um—’

  I have no idea what I’m going to add to that, but she cuts me off anyway, speaking so quickly that the words run into one another: ‘But you didn’t go through with it…?’

  She’s looking at my han
ds, searching for a ring that isn’t there.

  I shake my head. ‘I ran away one night. It was really different then. We lived in the same caravan but I had my own key and was allowed out. I waited until everyone was asleep, stole a bit of money from the drawer in the kitchen and then left. I didn’t tell anyone. We were in this place outside Sunderland and I got on a train. Hid in the toilets when the ticket inspector came past, so I didn’t have to pay. I stayed on it all the way to King’s Cross.’

  ‘In London…?’ Mum asks as if there’s another King’s Cross, but I think it’s more shock than anything else.

  I nod.

  ‘This happened a year ago?’ she asks

  ‘A year and a bit,’ I reply. ‘It was a couple of weeks before I turned seventeen.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘Walked around. Everything was so big. I was used to caravan parks and fields and wasteland. Sometimes we’d get takeaway but we’d never eat out. I’d never been to a cinema, or the theatre. I was used to seeing the same people every day – or sometimes I wouldn’t see anyone. Then, suddenly, there are people everywhere. Lights everywhere. Shops and restaurants; pubs and hotels and noise. It was really disorientating.’

  Mum nods along. She touches my arm once more. Only a second or two but she’s making sure I’m still there. Still real.

  ‘I’m still like that when I go to a big city,’ she says.

  ‘I didn’t know anyone. All I had was the money I’d taken – a couple of hundred quid – plus a bag with a few clothes. I didn’t have a change of shoes. I didn’t know where anything was and I’d never used a mobile phone. I was walking into the shops, pubs and restaurants asking if there was work. Eventually I ended up in this café – like yours but grubbier. The guy behind the counter said there was nothing but then he followed me outside and beckoned me into this alley. He said there was cash-in-hand shifts going if I could keep quiet. I know now that it was all a bit shady but, at the time, it felt like he was being nice.’

  ‘Was he… kind to you?’

  She sounds like she’d be heartbroken to hear anything else and I nod.