The Doves #2
“She’s not the girl in the wallpaper, is she?” asks the woman.
No, says Daya. That’s Robin.
“Why does she hide?” asks the woman.
She’s scared, says Daya.
“Of what?”
Everything, says Daya, with a child’s scorn.
“Is Raven scared?” asks the woman.
No, says Daya. She says it very decidedly.
“Why is Raven outside?” asks the woman.
We sent her outside, says Daya.
“Why?” asks the woman.
Don’t ask her to come in, says Daya.
“Why not?” asks the woman.
She doesn’t want you here, says Daya.
***
The woman sits and looks at the bad corner.
The eyes watch her from inside the wallpaper.
“Come out,” says the woman.
The eyes watch her.
“Please,” says the woman.
The eyes watch her.
“I won’t hurt you,” says the woman.
The eyes watch her. But there is a blink.
“Please come and sit next to me,” says the woman. “You don’t have to hide. Come and sit next to me.”
You mustn’t look at me, whispers Robin.
“Okay,” says the woman.
If I come out, says Robin, you mustn’t look at me.
“Okay,” says the woman.
She keeps her eyes on the carpet as Robin comes out. Robin crosses the room. Robin sits beside her on the sofa.
The woman can see the dirtied white of Robin’s nightgown out of the corner of her eye.
A hand smooths the befouled garment down the thigh. The arm is thin. The flesh is loose. The woman can see the hollow between the bones. The hand is mottled grey. The fingernails are broken and bloody.
The woman feels Robin notice her attention.
You mustn’t look at me, says Robin.
“I’m sorry,” says the woman.
The woman sees Robin wringing her hands in her lap.
“You’re so thin,” says the woman.
I’m hungry, says Robin.
Keeping her eyes averted, the woman brings Robin food. Robin eats it. She leaves bloody finger marks on the bowl.
I’m hungry, says Robin.
***
It is the eighth night.
The woman lies in the dark, facing the wall. Daya is sitting on the bed.
Can I get into bed with you? asks Daya shyly. Paloma says it’s alright, as long as I ask you and you say it’s okay.
“Okay,” says the woman.
She feels the bed clothes being pulled back. Daya climbs into bed behind her.
“Who’s Paloma?” asks the woman.
Paloma looks after us, says Daya.
“Is Paloma the lady in the loft?” asks the woman.
No, says Daya, that’s Jemima.
How many are there? wonders the woman inside her own mind.
Daya giggles, as if she heard.
“Why is Jemima so sad?” asks the woman.
Just is, says Daya. Always is.
Again, the child’s contempt for weakness.
“Why is she in the loft?” asks the woman.
Her things are up there, says Daya.
Daya moves.
Can I cuddle you? asks Daya.
“Okay,” says the woman.
The woman feels Daya snuggle up against her back. She feels Daya’s little hands, little arms, reaching around her, embracing her.
She expected Daya to be cold but she’s not. It would almost be better if she were. She’s not warm either. She’s nothing. Not cold, not warm. Just there. It isn’t even really a physical sensation. It is more like an understanding. Even so, it is a touch. A soft and gentle and harmless touch.
Why are you crying? asks Daya.
“I’m happy,” says the woman.
Silly, says Daya.
There is satisfaction under her performance of scorn.
***
The next day, the woman goes back up into the loft.
She hunts. In a far corner, a dark corner, she finds a box under the insulation.
She opens the box. She drops it. She lunges away from it.
She crawls across the loft floor towards the hatch.
She throws up through the hatch, the vomit splattering the carpet below. She lies there, panting, sobbing.
Put him back, whispers Jemima from the dark corner.
The woman crawls back over to the box. She picks up the little curled, mummified body and puts it back in the box. She puts the box back where she found it, and covers it again.
She says “I’m sorry” as she descends and closes the loft hatch.
“I’m so sorry.”
***
It is night again. Daya lets the woman turn away from the wall, to face her, as long as she keeps her eyes closed.
“You’re so thin,” says the woman, holding Daya in her arms.
I’m hungry, says Daya.
“I’ll make you something to eat,” says the woman.
There’s no point, says Daya.
***
In the night, the woman hears footsteps in the gravel path that surrounds the house. She listens to them crunching past, going far, coming near, going far.
Someone is walking around the house.
The footsteps stop outside the bedroom window. There is a tapping, a scratching, a fumbling at the glass.
Let me in, says a voice outside.
It’s Raven, says Daya.
Let me in, says Raven.
You mustn’t let her in, says Daya.
“I won’t,” says the woman.
Do you promise? asks Daya.
“I promise.”
I want you to stay with us, says Daya.
“I will.”
Don’t you want to leave?
“No. I’ve got nowhere else to go. I want to stay here with you. With all of you.”
But mostly me?
“Yes,” says the woman, hugging Daya tight.
You’ll stay with me?
“Yes.”
No matter what?
“No matter what.”
You won’t change your mind?
“No.”
Promise?
“Promise.”
In the morning, the woman finds bloody finger marks on the outside of her bedroom window.
***
The woman searches. She has decided to try to find out, to understand.
“Where are you?” asks the woman.
I’m here, says Jemima from the darkness in the loft. I won’t leave him. He’s mine.
“No,” says the woman, “I mean where are you?”
Jemima says nothing.
“I mean… your baby is there…” says the woman, pointing to the insulation that covers the little box, “but where are you?”
I can’t tell you, says Jemima.
“Why not?”
Paloma says I mustn’t.
***
“Where are you?”
I’m here, says Robin from beside her.
“No,” says the woman, “I mean where are you?”
Ask Daya, says Robin. You have to ask Daya. And Paloma.
Out of the corner of her eye, the woman sees Robin wringing her bloody grey hands in her lap.
***
“Where are you?”
I’m here, says Daya happily as she snuggles up against the woman in bed.
And I don’t ever want to leave, says Daya.
“No,” says the woman, “I mean where are you?”
Daya wriggles.
You’ll see, she says. Come and find me. Paloma will show you. If I ask her to.
***
The woman walks to the village. She goes to the village library.
She asks to see the local newspapers. She is taken down to a cellar.
This all happens long before computers. The local papers are in the cellar.
Piles and piles of them. Years and years of words growing brittle and yellow in the musty dark.
“Can I…?” begins the woman.
“Do whatever you like,” shrugs the youth who led her down the stone steps. “Nobody will care. You’re the first person who’s ever asked to see.”
He leaves her.
It doesn’t take her long to find them. She knows when and where to look. She looks in the years after she stopped coming to her grandfather for the summer holidays.
Jemima was the first. She was 11 when she disappeared. She was walking home from school. They found her bag. They never found her.
Then it was Robin. Robin was 13. Robin finished school, went home alone, and waited for her Mum to get back from work. Mum got back from work and Robin wasn’t there. She’d been there. They knew because she’d started to make herself a chocolate spread sandwich.
Then it was Raven. She was 12. She ran away from her foster home. It was the third time she’d done it. She always came back. Or was brought back. Until the last time.
Then it was Daya. She was only 9. The entire family were at home, asleep. Daya shared a bedroom with her older sister. The family awoke one morning to find a window open and Daya gone. A year later, the sister swallowed as many of her mother’s pills as she could steal.
Then it was Paloma. She was 18. A student from Spain, working as an au pair. Her employers went to London to see a show, leaving their children - twin boys - in her care. When they came back, the boys were screaming and Paloma was gone.
The papers say the same things about all the girls. Bright, happy, popular. Parents worried sick. Except Raven. Raven has no parents. They call Raven “troubled”. They mention her “record”.
The woman sits back.
Jemima was there the longest. She grew up in the house. She had a child in the house. The boy in the box.
My uncle, thinks the woman.
Eventually, there were so many children in that house, he’d needed a nanny. And so, Paloma.
The woman looks around. She sits at the heart of a labyrinth of yellowed paper. And around it, bare concrete walls.
She thinks of that new, grassed-over mound in the grounds of the house.
A cellar, thinks the woman.
Yes, says Paloma from the corner behind her. A cellar.
***
It is snowing. The moonlight makes the snow blue.
“Here?” asks the woman.
Yes, says Paloma from the darkness. Yes, here. Come.
The woman followed Paloma back from the library, back from the village, from patch of darkness to patch of darkness down the lonely road. Paloma led her past the little hill, to the detached garage.
The woman reaches for the cord to turn on the bulb.
No, says Paloma.
The garage is full of junk. Paloma speaks to the woman from behind the old bookcases and mattresses and garden tools.
Here, says Paloma.
Here, says Daya.
“Daya,” says the woman.
Paloma looks after me, says Daya.
Yes, says Paloma, I look after, I look after.
The woman looks around.
Here, says Paloma.
Paloma’s grey, thin arm reaches out from behind one of the piles of junk. It reaches through the legs of an upside-down wooden chair. It points to a moth-eaten rug that sprawls on the dirty slab floor. It points with ragged, skeletal, blood-caked fingers. The woman stares at the broken fingernails.
There, says Paloma.
She points again. She jabs the air.
The woman lifts the rug.
The woman finds the slab that doesn’t quite match, that isn’t sealed down the way the others are.
The woman lifts the slab and drags it to one side. It is heavy, and takes a long time and much effort.
Panting, the woman looks down into the hole and sees the steps.
Here, say Paloma and Daya in unison from the darkness at the bottom of the steps.
There is a smell from the hole.
The woman hears something behind her.
The woman looks up.