It was a silly voice, thought Claire; a voice designed to carry . . . a voice that thought it was musical, but instead rang with all the beauty of cheap jewellery. As if she’d spoken out loud, the woman suddenly looked straight at her. Claire blushed, and smiled. The woman flashed her teeth back, and shook her head.
‘Dogs! Worse than children! Oh, except your little one, I’m sure she’s a delight! Aren’t you, Missy?’
Lorna kept her eyes stubbornly on the tabletop. Claire could see her jaw clenching.
‘She’s a little bit timid of dogs, that’s all. A little shy,’ Claire apologised.
‘Oh, she couldn’t be with Benji! No-one can be, he won’t let them, will you? Will you?’ She poked at the disinterested dog. ‘Go and trot over there, Benji, and make friends with that lovely little girl!’
Lorna stared wildly at Claire. ‘Tell her to stop talking to me!’ she muttered.
Claire stroked her head with one hand and warded off the dog with the other.
The woman shrugged. ‘All right. Benji, come here. Come here, I said!’ And the dog, who had advanced only a couple of inches, lay back down, relieved. The woman ostentatiously turned her back on them, and took up her book again.
Claire and Lorna ate their food, the coldness emanating from the woman with the dog preventing them from speaking to each other. Stupid of Claire to make a fuss about that dog; the woman might remember her from that, and that would make her remember Lorna. Claire watched the girl squirt ketchup in the yolk of her gelatinous egg, then sop white bread in it. Something would have to be done about her table manners, as well as her eating habits. All that junk food crammed into the cupboards back at the house. At the supermarket, Claire had been weak; she’d made Lorna stay in the car, alone, while Claire shopped, because it wouldn’t do for anyone to see them together in such a crowded place, with cameras and everything. She’d compensated by buying all the sugary rubbish that Lorna loved; but she couldn’t go on living on Pop-Tarts and bags of crisps. Her skin was sallow, the nose overlaid with tiny pinprick blackheads. No ten-year-old should have bad skin. But then, once the weather was better, once she got some sun, and got used to eating fruit . . .
Again, that little inner voice piped up, a jeering voice – And then what? What are you going to do, Claire? Live happily ever after? Pass her off as your daughter? What are you going to do? You can’t keep this up for ever. All someone has to do is link the missing girl with the teacher who didn’t come back to work – the worryingly obsessive teacher, the lonely, grief-stricken teacher, who’d gone a bit potty – and it’s all over, Claire. And that’s the best option; what if Pete finds you first?
Outside, the rain lashed the windows and rattled the sign outside.
‘Not fit for dogs,’ murmured the waitress.
The blonde woman shut her book with a snap and shoved it into a large patchwork shoulder bag. The dog, sighing, clambered up and trotted to the door with her, hesitated, and then stoically walked out into the rain before it was dragged out.
‘Hope she’s got a car,’ the waitress said as she collected Lorna’s smeared plate. ‘Not a day for walking.’
‘No.’
‘You just here for the day, then?’ The waitress wasn’t going anywhere.
‘Up from Truro,’ Claire answered with reasonable truth.
‘Lonely here, in the off season. We don’t get many people this time of year, especially not little ones. I keep the place open just to give people a bit of shelter on days like this. You two and that lady were the only people here in days.’
‘Christmas is slow I suppose?’
‘Yes,’ the woman answered vaguely, looking out at the rain. ‘It’s getting slower each year. Should sell up, my son tells me. You in the market for a café? No? Well, it’s not like I gave you the hard sell, eh? Stay here until the rain eases. No point in you getting soaked.’
She went back to the kitchen. They heard her singing tunelessly along to the radio.
‘It’ll get worse you know, the questions,’ Lorna muttered. ‘We have to think about what we’ll tell people.’
Claire bowed her head. ‘I know.’
Lorna leaned conspiratorially across the table. ‘I mean, I should change how I look. Suppose I cut my hair really short . . . d’you think I’d look like a boy?’
‘Oh Lorna–’
‘I could. George from the Famous Five did it. Can you cut hair?’
‘Not really.’
‘Let’s go to a town then and get my hair cut. And if I only wear jeans and stuff—’
‘Lorna, oh Lord, I don’t know. I don’t know how, but maybe we should go back?’ She took a deep breath, kept her eyes on the table. ‘Tell the police?’
Lorna was silent for a long time. ‘We can’t,’ she said flatly, finally. She was drawing spirals on a paper napkin, her mouth set in a firm line. ‘We can’t. I won’t let you.’
Claire tried to smile. ‘We can explain, about the things that have been happening to you. We can keep you safe. Lorna, I’ll do my very best – I want to keep you with me,
Maybe—’
‘NO!’
‘Keep your voice down, Lorna!’ Claire whispered.
‘Or what?’
‘Or we’ll attract attention.’
‘Well, that’s what you want to do, isn’t it? Ooooh, let’s go to the police.’ Lorna’s voice was a falsetto facsimile of Claire’s. Her face was twisted.
‘Lorna, love, I know this is . . .a strange time, and it’s hard for you, but I will not be spoken to like that.’ Claire, shaken, remembered her teacher voice, and she watched Lorna’s face flush red with fury. The spirals became darker, pressed into the thin paper with more force.
‘We’ll get my hair cut,’ she hissed. ‘And we’ll get a telly.’
‘I want you to remember your manners.’ Claire’s voice cracked a little.
The spirals became loops, which turned into a series of jittery lines. A tear splashed onto the tabletop. ‘Don’t shout at me!’ Lorna whispered.
‘I’m sorry, but—’
‘Just don’t shout. Please?’ She let the pencil drop. The lines had just begun to turn into loose hearts. ‘I can’t . . . you being mad with me. Shouting.’