Just Like the Other Girls(47)
‘Fancy a game of hide and seek?’ asked Viola. Katy could see something mean glinting in her eyes. It was dark, despite the full moon, with shadows elongating the trees so they looked threatening against the inky sky. She definitely didn’t want to play hide and seek in the woods.
‘I thought we were going trick or treating,’ she said feebly. The other girls looked at each other and laughed.
‘No. Trick or treating is for babies, like we’ve already said. Hide and seek is for big brave girls,’ said Viola, standing in front of Katy. ‘And you’re going to be the one to count. Okay?’
No. It definitely wasn’t okay. Katy didn’t want to be left alone in the clearing to count while the others hid. She didn’t want to be left alone at all. But she could hardly say that for fear of looking like a baby. She wanted – she needed – Viola to like her. To respect her. If Viola hated her Elspeth might send her away. She couldn’t bear to go back to that children’s home. Or the one before. That place had been even worse, with bars at the windows and a teenage boy who tried to get her into trouble and hid a penknife under his pillow, threatening to cut her if she told. She’d never had a proper family. She hadn’t known her dad, and her mum had preferred going out and partying to staying at home and looking after her. Until that dark day three years ago when she had fallen asleep on the sofa and never woken up. She had sat with her mother for a full night and a day before she realized that something was very wrong and had gone to get Gladys, the sweet older lady from next door. That day she’d lost the little family she’d had and she couldn’t lose this one. So, she found herself agreeing meekly and stood by the tree, her eyes shut while she counted loudly into the night. There was the smell of damp and bonfires in the air. She heard the scurry of footsteps, the bark of laughter, then nothing. Just the haunting shriek of a fox and the rustling of branches.
After she’d finished counting, Katy called their names, then wandered around the clearing, desperate to catch sight of Viola’s white dress or Cassie’s green cloak, hoping they were hiding behind the thick tree trunks. But eventually, when it was obvious they’d dumped her in the woods and weren’t coming back, she screamed for them, her throat hoarse from crying.
She tried to find her way out, but all the paths looked the same and she was sure there was something up ahead, its yellow eyes watching her, slinking through the undergrowth. An owl hooted from one of the trees and there was another sound, something animalistic and frightening. In desperation she ran back to the clearing, tearing her costume on brambles and branches in her panic, slumping at the foot of the large oak tree where they’d left her, rocking and crying, her arms folded around herself as though to ward off the horrors. She was going to die. She knew that with a certainty she’d never felt before. She was going to be killed in these woods. And if she did die, would anyone care?
She wasn’t sure how long she was out in the cold and the dark, for sheer terror numbed all her senses, but eventually she heard voices. Adult voices and then, like a miracle, Huw and Elspeth were standing before her, Viola hovering behind them, crying. Huw scooped her up in his big bear arms and carried her through the woods, through the night.
21
Una
Elspeth is sitting in her favourite chair in the lounge, pretending to read a book. I’ve come to realize it’s her way of sending me to Coventry, as my mum used to say. When she’s in this mood I have no choice but to sit there with her. I have nothing to read as I left my book upstairs, and the one time I brought it down with me Elspeth had stared at me disapprovingly, as though I was slacking. As if I couldn’t do my job properly unless I sat, watchful and quiet, like a guard at Buckingham Palace. She even made a disparaging comment about how I should be ‘expanding’ my reading material to ‘open’ my mind. So I stare into space and try not to feel uncomfortable while, every now and again, puncturing the torturous silence with ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ which she always refuses, probably because she doesn’t want to give me the luxury of going down to the kitchen to talk to Aggie. I’ve come to understand that this is what Elspeth likes to do best: play mind games.
I’ve not heard from Lewis since our kiss the other night. And I have a feeling I won’t. There was something final, almost aggressive, about that kiss. I felt it was his way of saying goodbye to me. It would be hard to make it work, what with Elspeth detesting him. I called Peter a few times to tell him about my meeting with Lewis, but he didn’t answer his phone and I never left a message.
I make an excuse that I need the loo, anything to get away from Elspeth and her moods for a few minutes. I sit in the toilet just off the huge hallway for longer than I need to, staring at the china-blue patterned wall tiles and the ornate bone-white basin. I feel lonely and isolated. When I was working at the home and was having a bad day I had Cherry to gossip to. Here, there’s no one I can chat to who understands how I feel, who’s in the same position. The only other people who have been here before me are dead.
When I return to the lounge, she’s no longer there. I feel a flutter of panic. What if she’s wandered off somewhere and fallen down the stairs? Kathryn will accuse me of being negligent. I rush down to the kitchen, but it’s empty. Aggie is out shopping for ingredients for dinner tonight. Maybe Elspeth’s gone upstairs to lie down. I dart out of the kitchen and I’m just about to mount the stairs when I hear music coming from the direction of Elspeth’s study. It sounds old-fashioned, something classical I vaguely recognize. I’m as silent as I can be on the flagstone tiles in my socked feet. I’ve never been in Elspeth’s study before. It’s usually locked. Now the door is open an inch or so and I stand outside, watching through the crack. At first I can see a mahogany desk and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that span the whole wall to my left. But then I glimpse Elspeth.