You Don't Have to be Good (17 page)

‘What?’

‘It’s me.’

‘Bea?’

Laura rapped on the glass. She watched the shape retreat and become indistinct. After a while it became visible again from the left, where the kitchen door was.

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me, Laura.’

Margaret thought for a moment, put her hand to her lips and looked back towards the kitchen.

‘Beatrice?’ she said again.

‘We’ve come to look for her,’ said the voice.

‘She’s not here yet.’ Margaret put the chain on the door and opened it a crack.

Laura stood up and said, ‘Granny. It’s me, let me in.’

‘Well why didn’t you say so?’ said Margaret and shut the door. She removed the chain and opened it again. Laura came in and Chanel hesitated outside.

‘Come on,’ said Laura.

Mute, Chanel followed Laura and stood beside her in the hall, tugging the hem of her skirt.

Margaret put her head out and looked up the street.

‘Well, where is she?’

‘Who?’

‘Who brought you?’

Laura moved into the kitchen and reached for the biscuit tin on top of the fridge.

‘Have you got any of those chocolatey ones, Granny?’ She prised open the lid and looked inside.

Chanel thought they ought to be getting back and said, ‘Laura . . .’

‘Want one?’ said Laura, offering her the tin.

Chanel looked inside. Pink wafer ones, dry plain ones, round ones with jam in the middle, custard creams, but no McVitie’s Milk Chocolate Digestives. She took a custard cream and tried not to drop crumbs as she ate.

‘Did Bea bring you?’

‘We’ve come to get her.’

Margaret gave a little sigh and filled the kettle. She looked around for the teapot.

‘Bea’s not here.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Well she might have come in while I was having a nap. You ought to get those teeth seen to, you know.’

Laura looked across the hall at the closed door of her mother’s childhood bedroom.

‘I’ll just check.’ She squeezed past and put her hand flat to the bedroom door. She listened. ‘Bea?’ she said.

She turned to look back at the kitchen, where Chanel was taking another biscuit and Margaret was opening cupboards, searching for the teapot.

‘Chanel,’ hissed Laura and waved her over.

Laura opened the door. Two single beds with mauve candlewick spreads stood side by side. The window above them was draped in nets. Chanel wrinkled her nose. It smelt of cats.

Laura sat on one bed and Chanel sat on the other.

‘We should go,’ said Chanel. She felt homesick here.

Laura looked about her. The room was bare. No sign remained that two girls had grown up here.

‘She’ll probably be back soon.’

‘No she won’t. She’s not coming. Come on, my mum’s gonna kill me. What time’s the train?’

‘Shut up a bit.’

Chanel pulled up her tights and raised her zipper to her nose. ‘Is your nan a bit, you know . . . ?’

Laura pulled an exercise book from her school bag and ripped a page out of it. Kneeling on the carpet she scribbled a note.

‘What’s that say?’

‘It’s to Bea.’ Laura signed it with several kisses. ‘Just letting her know we’ve been looking for her.’ She slid the note under the pillow then straightened the shade on the bedside lamp. ‘She’ll see it when she gets here. Come on.’

They paused in the hallway. Margaret was in the lounge, looking out of the window, watching the sea. Laura took a stamp from the drawer in the hall table.

‘We’re off now!’ she called. ‘Thanks for the biscuits.’

Margaret turned and waved. ‘Oh. Mind how you go then.’

Outside, Chanel hurried to keep up with Laura. They walked back up the main road alongside the beach. The sun had disappeared behind a blanket of grey. They passed a large complicated sign warning of tides and currents. She couldn’t understand how anyone would want to live in a place like this and she wished they had never come.

‘So your granny’s a bit . . .’

Laura kept walking. She was sniffing and her jaw was clenched. At a postbox she stopped and dropped the postcard to Bea inside.

‘She’s a bit, you know, what’s it called?’ persisted Chanel as they made a dash for a traffic island and stood stranded in a heavy rush of cars and coaches and vans.

‘Yeah,’ Laura said . . . ‘She’s—’

A continental juggernaut sped inches from them, drowning her words.

‘What?’ yelled Chanel.

‘She’s a bit gone!’ shouted Laura.

K
ATHARINE WASN’T
sure she could endure an evening at the Elliots’ but Richard had persuaded her it would do her good.

‘After all,’ he said, ‘it’s not as if you’re in mourning. Bea hasn’t died or anything. She’s taken herself off somewhere, she’s having a break . . .’

His voice trailed off as he pulled the laces tight on first one shoe, then the other. His shoes were one of the things she loved about him. He had unerring taste where shoes were concerned, rare in a man, she suspected, and the ones he had on tonight, classic black calf, with a rich sheen, had a dependable, no-nonsense air to them. Katharine abhorred nonsense. She just couldn’t stand it. It was part of what made being a mother so very testing. There was so much nonsense around even the simplest of things. But with Richard, there was never any nonsense. He was like her, the epitome of sense: intelligent, reasonable, sane and smart.

He finished with his laces, lifted his jacket off the coat-stand and called goodbye to the children. They waited for a response. Katharine stared at the floor and thought how she had learnt to tie her laces at three. She had sat on the doorstep, her mother and Bea waiting, while she tied a not very tight but very good-looking knot. ‘See that, Bea?’ her mother said. ‘Fancy being able to tie your laces at three.’ They had all looked at Bea’s black T-bar sandals, the white socks that dented dumpy calves, and Katharine had felt the rush of being best enthral her. Their mother had clapped her hands. ‘What a clever girl.’

Katharine battled a brief disturbance in her guts. She blinked in dismay. She was never sick. Absolutely never sick. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘So sorry.’

Wanda appeared from the kitchen. Her hair bounced and shone. So did her teeth. Richard beamed at her. He can’t help it, thought Katharine. It’s wired in. She thanked Wanda again for agreeing to babysit. At least Wanda knew Bea, understood the situation and would be cheerful with the children. She said she would cook something for them and seemed unperturbed that the fridge held nothing very promising in this respect. Katharine knew too that on their return the kitchen would be spotless and Wanda would find her own way home.

Earlier, the children had said they didn’t need a babysitter. Laura was old enough to be left alone, after all. Katharine would not hear of it, not since the incident with the vodka. They asked to go to Frank’s instead but Katharine refused.

‘Why not?’ asked Adrian.

‘It’s not appropriate.’

Richard backed her up. ‘No, he’s probably—’

But Katharine jumped in before he could finish, a habit of hers he had grown to ignore. ‘He’s probably out looking for Bea.’

‘Absolutely,’ added Richard, looking around for his wallet and keys. ‘After all, I expect Frank is—’

‘I expect Frank is exhausted.’

That seemed to settle it. Adrian had gazed into the middle distance then left the room. She hadn’t seen the children since.

Richard put on his coat. Katharine said goodbye to Wanda.

‘We won’t be late.’

‘You go out and enjoy yourselves.’ She waved them away.

Katharine hesitated on the doorstep, looked down and said, ‘Oh, no.’

‘Are you all right, darling?’ Richard put his hand beneath her arm.

‘Your shoelace,’ said Katharine. ‘It’s undone.’

A
S SOON
as the front door closed, the children came downstairs. Laura looked Wanda straight in the eye.

‘Where’s Bea?’ she said.

Wanda had found a tin of baked beans and was looking in the freezer for something to go with it. She made her eyes wide, as if it was all a big secret. ‘I think she’s having a holiday, don’t you?’

Adrian stood against the radiator. Wanda had a sharp chin and the straightest nose he had ever seen. Her hair was blonde, the practically white sort, like her skin. He tried to see her eyes but couldn’t put a colour to them. They should be blue but he didn’t think they were. He wondered if they were orange.

‘Mum says it’s completely
out of character
.’ Laura jerked her head up and made her arms spring out, a withering and precise impersonation of her mother’s no-nonsense demeanour. ‘And that’s why they’re worried.’

Wanda frowned. ‘Out of character? What does this mean?’ She turned the heat up under a frying pan, poured in a dollop of oil, and opened a packet of fish fingers.

‘It means that they think Bea is very reliable,’ said Adrian.

‘You know, in my country it is against the law to go missing. Here in England it is allowed, I think.’

‘What, like, in Poland they’d put you in prison if you went missing?’ said Laura.

Wanda laughed. ‘Probably.’ The fish fingers sputtered in the pan. She turned them over with a fork, something that Katharine expressly forbade.

‘That’s so stupid.’

Wanda asked Adrian to lay the table and he checked her eyes. Yes, they were orange. Well, hazel. But similar to the tiger in Woburn safari park that had walked up to their jeep, raised itself on its hind legs and glared with malevolent intent into their car.

When they sat down to eat, Wanda gave him six fish fingers without even asking. She was nice, not like a tiger at all.

‘I’m doing a YouTube Missing video for Bea,’ said Laura.

Wanda thought that was an excellent idea and that Bea would love it.

‘I’ve got to say if she had any distinguishing marks.’

Adrian had arranged his peas in a double helix down the centre of his plate. He was eating the fish fingers sandwiched between pieces of bread.

‘The little finger on her right hand is bent where she shut it in the car door,’ he said. ‘Like this.’ He showed her.

Wanda asked whether he was going to eat his peas. He shook his head.

‘No, children don’t eat green things.’

‘And why is that?’

‘It’s the yuck reflex. Makes you gag.’ Adrian gave a demonstration. ‘It’s a survival mechanism. Anything green is liable to be rotten or poisonous . . .’

‘Or vomit,’ added Laura. She started jiggling one leg and chewing her lip. ‘Can I go finish the YouTube thing?’

‘Of course,’ said Wanda, scraping Laura’s peas on to her own plate. ‘Don’t forget her tattoo.’

There was a silence. They watched her forking peas into her mouth.

‘What?’

‘Bea has a tiny one.’ She pulled up the bottom of her jumper, and drew down the top of her jeans. ‘Here. Just below the bikini line.’

‘A tattoo?’ said Laura. ‘What of?’

‘Of a bee, of course.’

Laura flicked her eyes over at Adrian. She wasn’t sure this was the Bea she knew at all.

I
T WAS
a relief to be out of the house and moving. Katharine just wished they didn’t have to arrive. It reminded her of when the children were very small, babies really, and how she would drive round the ring road for an hour to avoid getting home. It was the mess and the clamour she couldn’t bear. She preferred to arrive home after seven when the nanny had prepared them for bed. Bea had been invaluable with the children in those days. More often than not she would be there when Katharine got back from work. Her job was so much more flexible than Katharine’s.

It wasn’t Katharine’s fault she was the clever one. She had worked damn hard to get where she was. Hours she used to spend on her homework, absolute hours, while all she remembered Bea doing was eating peanut butter sandwiches and watching
Blue Peter
and
Magpie
. Even at weekends Katharine would get up, cycle to her riding lesson, come back, do a few hours’ homework and then go into the lounge to find Bea was watching
Champion the Wonder Horse
in her pyjamas. That was one reason Bea was always . . . not fat exactly, but heavy. ‘A big girl,’ was what people said of Bea. ‘Stolid,’ aunts would agree, followed by, ‘Isn’t Katharine getting tall? And
so
slim,’ and the pride spread inside her then like a sugary drink. But there was no doubt she had worked hard to get where she was. She and Jane had been the only medical students in their year to get Firsts, and what people didn’t understand was that while her life might seem luxurious compared to Bea’s – two cars, six-bedroomed house, three foreign holidays a year – it hadn’t been without a lot of hard graft. After all, Katharine had not taken a series of gap years after school as Bea had. And Katharine had actually gone to university, unlike Bea, who, despite the gap years, never quite got round to the university part of it. ‘Gap from what?’ Katharine thought now, remembering Bea’s announcement that she was going travelling again at the age of twenty-five. She tried to recall where Bea had gone during that time. France? Spain? She had never really asked for details; she’d been too busy. She had gone straight into training after her degree, worked herself to the bone, endured that punishing housemanship for three long years, snatching a few hours’ sleep a night, woken by her bleeper at three in the morning because the twenty-three-weeker had gone into cardiac arrest. Oh, the horror of those nights, trembling so much she couldn’t work the buttons on her clothes, arriving at the intensive care unit blind and stupid with exhaustion to find a white-faced infant in its Perspex basin looped up with tubes and lines and the monitors flat-lining all around. The panic of those night calls. The wordless dread at the prospect of child death. Sometimes, often with heart cases, death had already occurred and she would have to snip at the stitches there and then, no time for gloves or iodine, her own heart beating so hard she couldn’t keep her fingers still. Somehow she would expose the tiny heart, already showing the dull blue lustre of the lifeless organ, and would try to palpate it with her own clumsy fingers the way they had practised on a sheep’s heart in medical school. Often the baby died. They were too tiny, too ill. Trying to save them was just going through the motions.