‘There’s more,’ he said, grinning. ‘I’ve booked the gang in at the Shanker’s Arms for lunch. We’re throwing you a party!’
The Shanker’s Arms was the Sunnybank pub, which Dominic liked because it was where his chapter of the Labour Party had their meetings. I’d been there a few times, though politics wasn’t really my scene. Dark wood; a pool table; dart boards; a lot of old miners’ lamps hanging from the ceiling; some portraits of local celebrities by an artist called Frazer Pines who specialized in regional history. And a little suite of party rooms at the top of the building, which Dominic had hired for what he, no doubt, would have thought of as a ‘little gathering’.
‘A party?’ I repeated.
‘Just a small one. The family. And a few friends and colleagues from Sunnybank Park. Open bar, disco, balloons – trust me, you’re going to love it.’
I tried to summon a smile. That was Dominic in a nutshell. So kind, yet so lacking in empathy. His celebration sounded to me like a list of everything I feared. Noise; a crowd; the smell of beer; music blaring through speakers. Balloons, streamers, inedible cake, a drunken round of ‘Happy Birthday to You’.
I wondered if I was being snobbish. My parents would find all this vulgar. But Dominic embraced it all with a childlike enthusiasm. He was so excited, so pleased with himself and his birthday surprise for me. I couldn’t disappoint him, I thought. I had to go along with it. I thought of the way he had worked on Emily over the past few weeks. The board games, the cooking, the weekend away. The expensive new bicycle. This is how he does it, I thought. This is how he gets us to change.
‘What about Emily?’ I said.
‘She’ll be fine. It’s a private do. She’s just not allowed in the tap room.’ He put his hands on my shoulders and smiled. ‘You’ll see. It’s going to be great, Becks. The gang are all dying to meet you. Now eat up your breakfast, and get frocked up. We’re going to show you a fabulous time.’
8
King Henry’s Grammar School for Boys, July 9th, 1989
The day my brother disappeared, I was meant to be having a party. A party all of my own, the first I would not share with Conrad. Of course, the party was cancelled when Conrad failed to come home with me. Emily came with a present, but my parents sent her away. The cake, with its pink-and-white icing, stood in the pantry for over a month until my father threw it away. All our presents and birthday cards – including the one from Emily – were left on top of the wardrobe, forever unopened, gathering dust. And it was another three months before I was able to see Emily again; I had been ill, and my parents thought it best for her to stay away.
Looking back, I realize that my parents had never approved of Emily: she came from a working-class family, and her accent was common. And her sister made them uncomfortable. To them, to have an imperfect child was the worst thing a parent could endure. And yet Teresa’s parents seemed to love her all the same – a child who would never make them proud by bringing home a trophy, or write them a letter from summer camp, or wave to them from the football field. I sometimes think perhaps that was why I was such a disappointment to them. Because now I was imperfect, too. Because I had been damaged.
It took me a long time to understand what form that damage had taken. I looked the same; I felt the same; and yet something had been taken away. It wasn’t simply the stolen pieces of my memory; whatever it was went deeper. As I grew I began to feel it like an absence in my heart: a numb place where there should have been the ability to love.
How much do you love me, Becks?
This much!
And yet I don’t remember how it felt to love him. I remember saying the words – my parents made sure of that – but where the feeling should have been, there’s only that sink hole in my heart, a sink hole that has swallowed up not only my memories but the part of me that was able to love. There’s no point pretending otherwise: I don’t feel much for people. Not for my parents, or Emily, or Dominic, or anyone. Mr Smallface took that away the day he took my brother. I used to think it might come back; but it never did, although I learnt to fake it well enough to persuade the men in my life.
Emily sensed something, though. She knew something was missing. Perhaps that’s why she loved Dominic. Perhaps that’s why she had chosen my brother as her invisible friend.
How much do you love me, Becks?
He had a way of hiding a grudge and taking it out on you later.
I remembered Jerome’s words with a kind of furtive guilt. The thought that Conrad might have been something other than lovable seemed almost sacrilegious. More disturbing still was that momentary sense of recognition I’d felt at his words; that feeling of overhearing something that I wasn’t allowed to hear.
Shhhh. We don’t want to get caught.
Are you sure it’s safe?
Shh.
Voices from a haunted room. Voices from –
The sink hole.
I pushed away the breakfast tray. My cup of coffee had gone cold. Although it was July, my skin had come up in hectic goosebumps. The metallic taste was back in my mouth, and there was a ringing in my ears, as if from a bump on the head. The memory was small, but clear, like something glimpsed through a long, dark pipe. And the voices were clearer, too; as if a blockage had shifted.
Come on, man. She’s just a kid.
It’s only a joke. Lighten up, man.
I got up and grabbed the first dress I could find in the wardrobe I shared with Dom. It was green, with thin straps, one of Dominic’s favourites. I paired it with Dr Martens boots; a choice that Dom’s mother would no doubt deplore, but which made me feel more at ease. I brushed my hair and tied it back, leaving my face without make-up, and felt a little better, though my mouth still tasted like pennies.
Some memories will do that, Roy. They lie in wait under the surface. I hadn’t thought of Conrad’s friends since I was a little girl. Maybe it was the prospect of having a birthday party, but suddenly the memory was almost close enough to touch. A memory, but of what?
I sat on the side of the unmade bed and looked at the tray Dom had brought me. Coffee; orange juice; French toast. A pink rose in a jam jar. The toast had gone cold. I tried a piece. It was too sweet, too greasy. Dominic always made French toast with far too much Golden Syrup.
From downstairs I heard the sound of Dominic washing the dishes. The pipes gave a sudden, clunking groan, then a croak that was almost a word.
Water pressure, that’s all it is, I told myself automatically. There are no monsters in the drain, or lurking in the toilet bowl. No Mr Smallface, watching me.
I went to the sink to wash my hands. I looked into the plughole. There was a clump of long hair snarled into the chrome grid: Emily’s, probably, or Dom’s. Gingerly, with my fingernails, I tried to pull out the clump of hair before it clogged the drain: it came, but it was far longer than I’d thought, longer and matted with debris and scum, and under the black slime that coated it, I realized the hair was my own.
And then, as if the memory had been attached to the plug of hair, came the sound of my brother’s voice, close enough to be shocking: That’s where he lives. In the sink hole. That’s where he takes the children.
And the old and long-buried memory came gushing out like a blockage from a pipe, and I found myself falling into the dark, like Alice down the rabbit hole.