Winter Wood (10 page)

And yet there
was
something here, she knew it, something playing hide-and-seek with her memory. Something that she wasn't quick enough to catch. She had felt it as she sat in the gardens with Sam that day, and she felt it now. Maybe she was searching in the
wrong place, after all. She rested her chin in her hands and let her eyes wander where they would.

How young that little nurse looked, standing there all proud and upright, arms at her side. The dark uniform was at least a couple of sizes too big for her – very nearly scraping the ground – and the white pinafore sagged slightly, so that you could only just make out the sign of the red cross on her chest. Hair tucked away under some complicated piece of headgear. A bit like a nun. Yes, a bit like the drawing that—

Midge was jolted backwards in her chair, her whole scalp tingling with the shock of realization – and recognition. She looked across at the piece of paper that still lay upon her bed, and then back at the computer screen.

‘
Oh my God
 . . .' The words came out of her in a whispered gasp. ‘It's
you
. I can't believe it. You're right
there
 . . .'

How could she have missed it? How could she have not seen it straight away? The dark eyes gazed out at her from a face that had grown a little thinner, a little older. The extraordinary cloud of hair had disappeared altogether, either cropped short or hidden away beneath the nurse's headdress. And the smile looked different too – more relaxed maybe, not so forced. But it was still her. Absolutely and unmistakably
her
. Celandine.

Midge gaped at the screen, her head turning somersaults, quite unable to believe her luck. If she hadn't sat next to Kerry on the coach that day, she'd
never
have discovered this. Never in a million years.
And if Tadgemole hadn't given her that funny drawing, then the similarity to the girl in the photo might never have been noticed. But there she stood, Celandine, as clear as day.

At last she had a lead, a real starting point. This one amazing photograph told her so much. Celandine had not just disappeared, or gone ‘into an asylum' – not as a patient, anyway. Here she was, out in the world, with a proper job and an identity. She had become a
nurse
, not a nun, working in the same clinic as her uncle, Josef Wesser. He was quite a well-known man, it seemed, in which case there would surely be records of what had happened to his niece?

Tomorrow she would email the Butterfly Farm, and make a start. But for tonight Midge was content to just sit and gaze in wonder at the picture on her screen, amazed at how much she had discovered in such a short time. This was all meant to be, she was certain of it now. It wasn't just down to pure luck.

With that thought, Midge turned round and looked at the other picture of Celandine, the one that hung in shadows upon her wall.

‘You
want
this to happen, don't you?' she whispered. ‘You want me to find you, I know you do. Well, I'm trying.'

MIDGE FINISHED WRITING
her email and signed it ‘Margaret Walters'. It sounded more grown up than ‘Midge', she thought, and so it might be taken more seriously.

Yes, that seemed OK. Midge went through the email for spelling mistakes, and then hit ‘Send'.

What now? There was nothing much more that she could do, other than wait for a reply. It was exciting,
though. The Butterfly Farm
must
have kept records of some sort, otherwise how could they have got the information to put into the brochure? She looked again at the onscreen photograph of Celandine in her oversized nurse's uniform. How old would she have been then – fifteen? Fourteen? They surely wouldn't have let her work as a nurse if she'd been much younger than that, and yet she looked tiny next to the two men. Small for her age, probably. Midge nodded to herself. She knew what that felt like.

But she must not waste this time, whilst she was waiting for a reply. She must think. It was important to keep thinking.

Brmmmmm – blatt-blatt-blatt . . .
The cement mixer had started up. That meant the builders were here. Already. Midge growled with frustration – so much for being able to think. She left her room and clumped down the uncarpeted stairs, edging past the open toolboxes and sheets of plasterboard, the tubs of emulsion, the tubes of sealant . . .

Would they
ever
be finished? It was like some kind of torture, living in this perpetual noise and mess. It seemed especially unfair to have to put up with it on Saturdays, when she was supposed to be
relaxing
, for goodness' sake.

Mum and Uncle Brian were having one of their talks in the cluttered hallway. Here was a kind of no-man's-land between the separate partitions of the house – their bit, and Uncle Brian's bit – and it was here that the two of them often stood, planning the day's operations.

‘So, you can pick up the printer then?' Her mum.

‘Yeah, I can do that. I'm seeing the chap about the kitchen equipment at eleven, then over to talk to Alan Lavers about wine at two-thirty. I can get the printer on the way back. What about you?' Uncle Brian was wearing his tweed jacket, and for some reason he had a pair of binoculars around his neck. He looked more like he was off to a day at the races than a series of business meetings.

‘I'm on the phone for the next two hours at least, trying to get some sense into Stubbing's lot. Useless twerps. I'm tempted to ditch them altogether. Why do they make these promises if they can't keep them? It simply isn't professional. Oh, hi, Midge. What are you up to, darling?'

‘Thought I might go and throw myself into the cement mixer,' said Midge. ‘Or make a cup of coffee. I haven't decided which.'

Mum laughed. ‘Poor baby,' she said. ‘It does all get a bit fraught, doesn't it? Never mind. Just keep thinking ahead to May the first. That's when we open for business – come hell or high water. While I think of it, Brian, we need to talk about shrubs . . .'

Midge began to wander off. This was all too dull for words.

‘. . . and I thought maybe we could go over to that new place at North Perrott – Almbury Mills? Barry was telling me about it. It's huge, apparently . . . garden centre, furniture, cafés, bookshops.'

Midge pricked up her ears. This wasn't the first time she'd heard that name: Barry. Yes, it had come up a
couple of times lately – Barry this, and Barry that. Barry says we could have got it in Argos at half the price. Barry thinks that white's a far better choice than magnolia. Midge grabbed her jacket and paused by the front door, pretending to search her pockets – trying to appear as though she might have to go back upstairs for something she'd forgotten.

‘Oh, yes,' said Uncle Brian. ‘I know where Almbury Mills is. Must be about twenty miles away, though. We could make a day out of it. Maybe the kids'd like to come. What do you think, Midge?'

‘Sorry? What did you say? I wasn't listening.'

‘Your mum says perhaps we could . . .'

‘Who's this “Barry”?' Midge said. She just blurted it out, and saw the quick look of confusion in her mum's eyes. So. It was as she'd suspected, then.

‘Barry? Well, he's a friend, darling. A friend.'

‘What, like a boyfriend, you mean?'

‘Well, not exactly. But . . . you know. I'll tell you later, sweetheart. We'll have a proper conversation.'

‘Is he going to be moving in with us, then?'

‘Whaaaaat?
No
, he's not going to be moving
in
with us. Midge . . . where are you—?'

But Midge was off. She opened the front door, slid through the gap, and immediately pulled the door firmly shut behind her – not slamming it exactly, but not far short.

The cold morning air was acrid with diesel fumes from the cement mixer, and now the big digger thing had started up as well. What a racket. And honestly –
Barry
. Who in their right minds would allow
themselves to be called Barry? Nobody. Didn't she have enough to worry about already, without all this?

One of the workmen gave her a cheery wave as she hurried down the front path, and Midge had to wave back at him just out of politeness.

Two days later, on the Monday evening, she had an email from the Butterfly Farm.

Midge clicked on the email attachment and opened the file. There were three or four newspaper clippings
about the clinic. One of them had a picture of some men – airforce pilots apparently – all sitting in wheelchairs and looking unaccountably cheerful. There was another picture of a group of art students at work, who by contrast looked rather serious. No pictures of Celandine. Midge quickly scanned the columns of text, searching for some mention of her great-great-aunt. There was only one, and they'd got her name wrong.

 

 

And that was it. The other articles were about Dr Lewis and Dr Wesser, and about the art college leasing the building in 1978, but there was no other reference to Celandine.

Midge sat back in her chair and stared at the screen. She was so disappointed.

Finding this link to Celandine had seemed such a breakthrough, but now she felt as though she was just as far away as she had ever been. How could she hope to track down someone who had disappeared nearly thirty years ago, and who was an old lady even then? And how old, seriously, would Celandine have to be if she were still alive? Midge tried to do a quick bit of mental arithmetic. A hundred and two? A hundred and three? Something like that. Something ridiculous.

But she couldn't give up. Not yet. Not until she really knew that she was beaten. Maybe she'd email the local gazette and see if they had any more information, go to the library perhaps . . . or maybe she should try and persuade her mum to fork out for a search on one of those ancestry sites. Not tonight, though. There was homework to be done.

On Wednesday evening Katie came over, and the two of them had supper at Uncle Brian's. Midge felt envious of Katie, chatting away, nothing more on her mind apparently than shoes and mp3 players, and the ‘amazing' exploits of some celebrity or another. Didn't she ever wake up in the night and gasp with fear and wonder at the
truly
amazing things that had happened to her? Didn't she ever think about that day when she had actually seen the little people? If she did, then she never let on.