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.
I came here initially to help out in a practical way. The constant sight of people sleeping rough on the streets of London finally got to me, and I wanted to be useful. But Sharon’s training sessions were an eye-opener. ‘Always be polite and friendly,’ she told me and the other new volunteers. ‘But if you can’t help them because they don’t have an official referral, don’t give them any reason to get nasty with you. And that includes smiling too much. Got it?’
I got it.
The woman looks away, and I smile at the baby in the pink romper suit instead. She stares back at me with large, solemn blue eyes.
Sharon starts rummaging for an information leaflet for the woman. I put down my pen and examine the parcel, unsure what to make of it. At first glance I assumed it was another donation to the food bank. They come in quite frequently from anonymous donors. It’s not particularly heavy though. And it’s addressed to me personally, not the food bank, which is unusual in itself.
An early wedding present, perhaps?
I tear off the brown-paper wrapping. It’s a plain cardboard box and inside is a snow globe.
I freeze, staring down at it.
I see the face of a familiar, smooth glass sphere, glittering water inside, half buried in a heap of protective white polystyrene chips.
It’s Rachel’s snow globe.
My fingertips touch the glass, hesitant. I could be mistaken. Must be mistaken, in fact. It can’t be her snow globe. How could it be?
But when I brush away a few polystyrene chips, there on the black plastic plinth below the glass is my sister’s name. Printed long ago in block capitals onto a stick-on label that’s now smudged and peeling slightly at one corner.
RACHEL.
My hand starts to tremble.
‘What on earth’s that?’ Sharon asks, peering over my shoulder.
The woman with the baby has gone, I realise.
Hurriedly, I cover the snow globe again and close up the cardboard box. ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘I mean, it’s personal. Not for the food bank.’
‘Okay, well, when you’re ready . . . I’ve got a Mrs Fletcher here with a referral note from social services.’ Sharon sounds impatient, as though I’ve been caught slacking. An East End accent that thickens when she’s annoyed. Salt of the earth, as my father might say. Not that Dad is ever likely to come into the food bank and meet my boss. Thankfully. ‘Could you possibly see to her if you’ve got a moment? Family of two adults, three teenagers, wheat allergy.’
‘Of course, sorry.’