Forget Her Name
Jane Holland
Prologue Through the glass, everything is white, white, white. The winding road into the village resort, the Swiss chalets in the distance, the ski slopes, the high Alps beyond, all of them laced with thick, deep, white snow like a Christmas postcard.
Leaning both hands against the chill window frame, I press the tip of my nose to the glass. My breath mists up the glass in a wobbly circle round my face. The fog it makes on the window is stronger each time I exhale, the only warm thing in the room; then fainter as I breathe in. It’s hard to make anything out through that fog. I don’t really need to see outside though, since it’s all the same lumpy, formless white. Even the sky is too pale to be grey.
It feels as though every drop of colour has been sucked out of the world, and this is what’s left over. Total white. Pure as a pill.
Daddy comes back at last, snow still clinging to his boots and coat. He stamps his feet, looking at me.
‘Cat,’ he says heavily.
I run towards him for a hug, and we hold each other. He feels cold, too. Like a snowman.
I ask in a small voice, ‘Where’s Rachel?’
When he doesn’t answer, I peer up at him, trying to read his face.
Daddy is pale, like the snow-laden sky. Even his lips are pale. He brushes my blonde fringe out of my eyes, gazing down at me. He hates the way it flops over my face, but I like the way I can look out at the world through it. Look out and know they can’t see in.
‘I thought your mother already spoke to you. I thought she told you—’
‘I didn’t believe her.’ I raise my voice, trying to make him understand. ‘Mum tells lies. She’s always telling lies.’
‘Sweetheart, don’t say that. You know it’s not true.’
I’m shaken by his calm acceptance of what is happening. He shouldn’t be here in this horrid little room, talking to me. He should be out there, doing something to help my sister. She’s the one who needs him today. Not me.
‘Where’s Rachel? Tell me.’
‘I want you to listen very carefully, okay? No, you need to stop shouting and listen.’ His hands drop to my shoulders, and he squeezes lightly as though to emphasise his words. ‘I know this is hard. The hardest thing you’ve ever faced. But what your mother told you is true.’
‘No, no . . .’
‘Rachel is dead and we’re never going to see her again. Never, ever again.’ He pauses, searching my face. ‘Do you understand me, Catherine?’
I feel numb. Like I’m out there in the cold with Rachel. Like nothing will ever be the same again.
‘Yes, Daddy.’
‘What did I just say? Repeat it back to me.’
‘Rachel is . . .’
‘Say it.’
‘Rachel is dead.’ I hear my voice wobble on those momentous words, and his face blurs through my tears.
I sniff loudly and look away. I hate crying. It makes me feel like a kid again. A little kid after a nightmare, helpless and frightened in the dark, even though I’m twelve now. Practically a grown-up, Mum always says.
His hoarse voice nags at me. ‘And?’
He’s crying too, I realise.
I push my own unhappiness away and focus on his. It’s hard, but I can just about manage it without collapsing.
My sister is dead.
I struggle to understand what I’m feeling, but my thoughts slip out of reach even as I try to grasp them, bobbing away on a tide of grief, refusing to be pinned down. All I feel right now is this appalling numbness, and beneath it, a wicked, secret, niggling sense of relief.
‘Rachel is dead,’ I whisper, ‘and she’s never coming back.’
Chapter One
The woman cradling the baby starts crying again just as Sharon dumps a brown-paper parcel on my workstation.
‘For you,’ she says shortly, ignoring my startled glance, then turns to the crying woman, who is gazing in despair at the shelves of tins and packets she’s not allowed to have. ‘As my colleague told you, we need a letter of referral before we can release any food,’ she tells the woman. ‘I’m sorry, love. Those are the rules at the Tollgate Trust and we have to abide by them. Perhaps if you speak to someone at the benefits office? They have a fast-response scheme if it’s an emergency. I can give you an information leaflet from the council if that’s any help.’
The woman has a telltale split lip, and a fading bruise on her cheek. Teary-eyed, she glances at me as though hopeful that I’ll intervene.
I look down at the paperwork on my desk instead, fiddling with my pen. I used to smile in a sympathetic manner when people came in without referral letters. But as Sharon explained to me, that often makes the situation worse.
‘A smile can be taken the wrong way,’ Sharon told me after a few uncomfortable incidents in my first week. ‘They’re already upset, yeah? So if you say no, but with a big smile, it looks like you’re taking the piss.’
Most of the people who come in here are lovely people, really lovely. But a few of them are definitely on the edge. One man with mental health issues threatened to punch me in the face. Another spat at me, and the police had to be called. We’re on the edge of Chalk Farm here, which is North London. Not a bad area, but there are pockets of trouble.