‘Well, first off,’ he replies, ‘she looked awful. She was overweight, refused to let anyone brush her hair, bathe her, brush her teeth. So she was a mess. And that was basically why Noelle left her with me. She’d had this perfect little baby and she’d totally fucked her up because she did not know how to parent and she’d ended up four years later with a monster.
‘And no, Poppy wasn’t sad. Poppy loved being here with me. When she was with me she behaved. She didn’t have tantrums. She didn’t demand chocolate spread on everything. She sat and we talked and she learned and she read and when Noelle left her here she was happy. Really happy. And of course’ – he shrugs – ‘neither of us had any idea that we would never see her again after she dumped her with me. We thought she’d be back. And by the time it was clear that she wasn’t coming back, Poppy and I were a team. I genuinely don’t think she’s suffering because of not having Noelle in her life. I think …’ He glances up at her. ‘I think it was a blessing.’
Laurel’s eyes flick to Floyd’s and then away again. A thought passes through her head, so fast and so unpalatable that she is unable to keep hold of it.
Poppy stands at the top of the stairs. She hangs off the banister, her head tilting at an angle, her hair swinging back and forth.
‘Laurel,’ she says in a stage whisper. ‘Quick. Come up!’
Laurel looks at her quizzically and then says, ‘OK.’
‘Come in here. Quickly!’ Poppy pulls her by the hand into her bedroom.
Laurel has never been into Poppy’s bedroom before.
It’s a small square room overlooking the garden. She has a four-poster bed with white muslin curtains and the walls are painted white. Her duvet cover is white and her curtains are white with a fine grey stripe. There a chrome lamp on her white bedside table and white bookshelves are filled with novels.
‘Wow,’ says Laurel, stepping in, ‘your room is very minimal.’
‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘I like keeping it all simple. Sit,’ she says, pulling out a white wooden desk chair. ‘Look. My Christmas present for Dad arrived. Tell me what you think?’
She opens the door of a white wardrobe and pulls out an Amazon delivery box.
Then she pulls out a large mug with the words ‘UNBEARABLE COFFEE SNOB’ written on it.
‘Oh!’ says Laurel. ‘That’s fabulous! He’ll love it!’
‘Because, he is, isn’t he? He’s ridiculous about coffee. You know that stuff he has to have otherwise he says he’d rather drink water. Grown in Ethiopia with water from angels’ tears …’
Laurel smiles and says yes, lots of people are a bit weird about coffee these days and she really can’t tell the difference and she’s the same with wine, it all tastes the same to her unless it’s bad and as she’s talking her eyes pass across the detail of Poppy’s room and she stops and clasps her chest.
‘Poppy,’ she says, getting to her feet, taking a few steps across the room, ‘where did you get those candlesticks?’
Poppy glances up at the top shelf of her bookshelves where a pair of chunky geometric silver candlesticks are displayed.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘they’ve always been there.’
Laurel reaches to pick one up. It’s hugely heavy in her hand, as she’d known it would be. Because they are her candlesticks, the candlesticks taken in the burglary four years after Ellie disappeared, the candlesticks she’s always been certain Ellie took.
‘I don’t really like them,’ says Poppy. ‘I think they were Mum’s. You can have them if you like.’
‘No,’ says Laurel, putting it back on the shelf, her stomach churning over and over. ‘No. They’re yours. You keep them.’
Forty-nine
Then
Ellie lay on the bed. The moon shone down on her, waxy blue; the foliage outside rustled in a sharp breeze, crackling and popping like distant fireworks. She tried to swing her legs off the bed, but they were too weak. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. Six days ago? Maybe seven?
She was partway to delirium, but still aware on some subliminal, terrifying level that she had been abandoned. She could hear her baby crying upstairs from time to time and an ache would emanate from her heart to every point on her body. But she had no voice to call with and no will to live. Her head was pulsing, aching, sending her strange pictures, flashes of imagery, like scenery lit up at night by lightning flashes. She saw her mother, stirring a teabag in a mug. She saw her father, zipping up his jacket. She saw Theo, throwing a ball for his little white dog. She saw Noelle, turning over her homework, sliding her glasses up her nose. She saw a house they’d rented in the Isle of Wight one year. She saw the pale brown pony that stood in a field at the bottom of the garden, eating apples from their hands. She saw Poppy, lying on her back on Ellie’s bed, making Os with her tiny red mouth. She saw Hanna, twirling her head round and round, her waist-length ponytail spinning above her head like a propeller. She saw her own funeral. She saw her mother crying. Her father crying. She saw the corpses of her dead hamsters sprinkled on top of her coffin like sods of earth.
She saw herself floating above her coffin.
She saw herself floating higher and higher. Below her she saw her room. Her sofa bed. The grimy, unwashed bed sheets, the tangled knot of duvet. The plastic cages filled with death. The bin overflowing with empty crisp packets. The blocked toilet bowl streaked brown with rust and bacteria.
She crossed her arms across her chest.
She closed her eyes.
She let herself float higher and higher until she could feel the clouds against her skin, until she could feel her mother’s arms tight around her, her breath against her cheek.
Fifty
When Poppy was around two or three years old I decided to put my house on the market. You were giving me a little money here and there for her upkeep but I was too proud to ask you for more and, besides, it had never been about money, none of it. But I was poor then, Floyd. Like properly poor. I could only work when Poppy was with you and she was only with you half the time. So I decided to release some equity. We didn’t need a big house on three floors. We’d make do in a small flat.
But then of course I remembered the spanner in the works.
That girl. That bloody girl.
She’d passed over at some point. I don’t know when exactly. It was for the best, I’d say. Yes, it was for the best. According to the papers they’d scaled back the search for her. That to me said they had her as a runaway. So I decided to make it look that way.