The Alibi Girl

And then I see her. In her blue ballet tutu and blue tights and gelled back bun. She’s swinging on the bike racks behind Chelle. That’s when my holiday begins properly – the moment I start running along the platform towards Auntie Chelle and she sees me coming and shrieks with delight and I crash safely in her embrace and she lifts me up and we hug so tightly and I breathe the familiar jasmine scent of her curls. The nearest thing I have to a mum is a perfumy waft that comes from Dad’s second wardrobe. Chelle is a living breathing mum and it’s all I can do to stop touching her.

‘How’s my precious girl?’ she cries, stroking my cheeks with her thumbs and gazing down at me with tears in her eyes. ‘Oh we’ve missed you, Ellis. We’ve all missed you so much.’ She cuddles me against her.

‘I’ve missed you too.’

And she sets me down and Foy skips over and hugs me as well.

‘Look, I got you a surprise,’ she says and then holds out her hands and I have to pick one. I pick the one that has a little cat pencil topper inside it. Then she opens her other hand to reveal a tiny fold of paper. She’s drawn me a picture of us standing on top of our castle with our swords pointed up to the sky. Standing around us are some of our army – The Knights. Monday Knight, Tuesday Knight, Thursday Knight and our Chief Knight, Saturday. Our own personal bodyguard service.

‘That’s us,’ she giggles.

‘I love it!’ I say. ‘Did the storm blow the castle down? I was worried.’

‘No, it only took the roof off so Isaac and Dad patched it up. It’s really strong now. Dad found us a sheet of wavy plastic for the top. Come on, let’s do this,’ she says and leads me over to the bike racks while Chelle talks to Dad. I don’t catch their conversation – it’s usually boring brother-sister stuff. They don’t hug like we do.

Me and Foy sit in the back of Chelle’s car and pretend we’re being chauffeur-driven by our servants. Foy is the Duchess of Fowey because that’s the place she’s named after, and I am Lady Kemp of Ashton Gate because I live near Ashton Gate. We are so stinking rich that we have our own castle and every animal you can think of. We are off into town to buy new saddles for the unicorns and bamboo for our pandas.

‘Yes, turn here, Jeeves,’ says Foy with a dismissive wave of her hand as Chelle’s car turns at the traffic lights into the road at the back of the church where we usually park. Dad’s come along to have a quick bite in town before his train back to Bristol.

‘Dad, can you come and stay at the pub as well?’ I say.

‘I can’t love,’ he says. ‘I told you, I’ve got work.’

‘What work is that?’ asks Chelle.

‘Got a job with a mate doing a bit of cash in hand.’

‘Sounds lucrative,’ she says. And they don’t talk about it anymore.

‘It’s for the Three Little Pigs,’ I say, ‘building houses for them.’ Nobody laughs.

We park up in the pay and display behind the big church.

‘Mum, can we go to Wimpy?’ asks Foy.

‘Yes, you two go on ahead and order. I’ll have a Coke.’

‘I’ll have some chips and a Coke,’ says Dad. ‘I’ve got a quick errand to run actually so I’ll meet you all in there.’

‘What errand?’ says Chelle.

He checks his phone, then puts it back in his pocket. ‘Well there’s this princess, you see, and she’s been asleep for a thousand years and if I don’t climb up this big tall tower and give her a kiss, she won’t ever wake up. So I’ll dash off and do that and I’ll be back, alright Squish?’

He yanks my plait and wiggles Foy’s bun and we both laugh and then he rides off like he’s on his horsey, which makes us laugh even more. ‘I won’t be long.’

Chelle’s not laughing.

Me and Foy have cheese burgers and chips and strawberry milkshakes and scoff them greedily as Chelle sits taking the ice out of her Coke and placing it in the ashtray.

‘How many Easter eggs have you got?’ Foy asks between red-saucy mouthfuls.

‘I don’t know. Dad packed them in my case to give to Chelle.’

‘We’ve got to buy some, Ellis,’ says Chelle. ‘He didn’t get round to it. As usual.’

‘Oh right.’

‘We’ll nip to Woolworths on our way to the car. And I must do the bank.’

‘Maybe that’s what his errand was?’ I suggest.

‘I doubt it,’ Chelle smiles, stealing a couple of Dad’s untouched chips. ‘Woolworths is nowhere near the betting shop, is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Anyway, never mind him. What would you like to do this holiday, Miss?’

This is my favourite bit of any holiday – the bit before it all begins. She leans forwards, like she’s telling us both a great big secret. ‘Everything,’ I say, licking at the dried line of tangy ketchup around my mouth. ‘I want to do everything!’

‘Right, well, we’re doing our Easter egg hunt on Sunday and then we’ll all go for a ride out in the country to that nice tea place and have poached eggs and soldiers—’

‘Yeah!’ says Foy. ‘They have a wicked climbing frame there, bigger than the castle. And they’ve got the dogs we played with last time, remember?’

I do remember, every second of it. One of the dogs had a thorn in its paw and we reported it to the lady and she gave us a free scone each.

‘And then we can go asparagus picking up the farm on Monday, cos there’ll be nothing open in town. And the boys will be around so I’ve asked if they’ll take you out flying kites again, or maybe some fishing down at the stream. How about that?’

I’m so excited I could burst but I settle for kicking my heels against my chair.

‘Can they take us to the cinema as well?’ asks Foy.

‘Yes, I’m sure they can,’ says Chelle, sipping her Coke and looking at the time.

‘We can go to that burger place they took us to last time,’ I say. ‘Where we got the free Frisbees.’ The Frisbees that kept going over the beer garden wall into the stream and Isaac had to keep climbing over the wall to fish them out.

Paddy and Isaac are the two best boy cousins I could ask for. Isaac’s fifteen and sporty, and always working out on the machines in the old stable behind the cellar. Paddy’s twelve and he’s more into art and styling his hair. Isaac’ll be starting his GCSEs soon. I hope he still has time to chase us around the car park on the bikes.

‘Can we have chicken pie and mash one night please, Auntie Chelle?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

I love it when that’s the answer.

‘And chocolate sponge and alien sauce?’ says Foy.

‘Yeah, baby! Oh that reminds me, I’ve got to nip in the comic shop and pick up Stuart’s birthday present.’

‘What is it?’

Chelle rolls her eyes. ‘His dream Tardis.’

‘Not a big Tardis though,’ says Foy. ‘A little one with a little Doctor Who inside and a Dalek and it plays the theme tune when you open the door.’

‘He’s had his eye on it for a while,’ says Chelle.

‘Can I buy him something as well?’ I ask. ‘Maybe a Doctor Who comic?’

‘Yeah he’d love that. Do you want me to look after your pocket money?’

‘Dad’s looking after it for me.’

‘Okay,’ she smiles, looking towards the door as a family with pushchairs struggle in out of the rain. ‘How is he at the moment, sweetheart?’

‘He’s okay.’

‘How much did he get for the car in the end, do you know?’

Foy dances her little unicorn pencil topper along my arm. ‘How much?’

‘Yeah. He’s sold it, hasn’t he? That’s why you came on the train.’

‘He said it was having a service today.’

‘Ah, right. My mistake. Finish your burger, love.’

All the ice in Dad’s drink melts and his chips go cold so Chelle tips them in the trash. He sends a text to Chelle that he’ll meet us at the car at 3 p.m. instead. So we do Woolworths for the eggs and Chelle banks the takings at NatWest and me and Foy steal armfuls of leaflets for our bank, which the castle doubles up as sometimes.

We’re back at the car by 2.55 p.m., but Dad isn’t there. By 3.15 p.m. we’ve played I-Spy, Yellow Car, the memory game, and Foy and me have planned all the things we’re going to do in the castle when we get back – first paint the walls, then we must clean the carpet and deadhead the window box. Then play Banks. And then we have to do a supermarket run because the dinosaurs are getting low on tins of Jurassic Chum.

At 3.25 p.m. Chelle puts another hour on the car cos there’s still no sign of him.

‘I’m sorry, hon, I know he’s your dad but he does my bloody head in sometimes. Why is he so unreliable?’ she huffs. ‘There’s nothing consistent about him at all.’

Foy picks up Miss Whiskers and makes her growl and roar around Chelle’s neck until she reacts, turning round in the driver’s seat and swatting it away.

‘Will you stop that, please? I’m not in the mood.’

Then we see Dad coming.

‘Uh-oh,’ says Foy, and Auntie Chelle slams the driver’s door when she gets out. Me and Foy laugh at first but then we see her shouting at him and they both stand in front of the car, him being barked at like a stranger at the gate. Foy winds down the back window so we can hear what they’re saying. Chelle’s patting down his jacket and she wrenches something out of his grasp and holds it up – small pieces of paper.

‘Can’t fucking stay away from them, can you? You utter loser.’

We aren’t laughing then. The F word makes Foy go quiet and then cry.

I hold her hand. She grips mine tightly.

‘She bought Stuart a birthday present,’ says Chelle. ‘So you owe me a fiver.’

‘I haven’t got it, Chelle.’

‘You spent your ten-year-old daughter’s pocket money? Jesus Christ.’

Foy buzzes the window up. ‘I don’t like it when Mum gets stressy.’

‘It’s always Dad that makes her stress.’

Chelle deep-breathes and gets in the car. He follows and she starts the engine. None of us say a word until we get back to the station. Chelle leaves the engine running. Dad pokes his head through my window and fist-bumps Foy, making the sound of starburst sprinkles coming out of his hand. He kisses me on the nose.

‘You be good, Squish, alright? Call me every night.’

By the time we get out of town and the car’s streaming along through the green countryside towards Carew St Nicholas, I’ve forgotten about the row between Chelle and Dad – my mind’s too full up with the possibilities that lie ahead. As we turn the corner down into the village and round the bend into the vast car park at the back of The Besom Inn, I spy Paddy and Isaac on their bikes, doing wheelies and bunny hops.

‘Isaac’s got a new bike!’ I say. I can’t wait to get out of the car.

‘Yeah,’ says Chelle. ‘It’s a Hellcat Something Something with front suspension and something-else splashbacks, apparently. He got it for his birthday. He said you could have his old one.’

‘REALLY?!’ I cry. ‘Ah wow!’ I spy it straight away, leaning up against the skittle alley wall, all shining silver and red with the word Apollo written on the downtube.

‘He’s pumped up the tyres for you specially,’ says Foy.

I leap out of the car and run across to Apollo, wheeling it over to Isaac.

‘Hey, Ellis. Like your new bike?’

‘Yeah! I love it! Can I really have it?’

‘Yeah, no sweat. I pumped the tyres up for you.’

‘Not you again, Smellis,’ says Paddy, wheeling over and skidding to a halt beside me. He tickles my ribs and chases me across the car park but lets me win, like always.

After an hour of wheeling around we go inside the pub and find Uncle Stu closing up the bar for the afternoon. I give him a hug and we help ourselves to crisps and cans of Rio. The pub is a rabbit warren of low ceilings, oak beams and a warm orange glow from every doorway. There’s a pervading smell of old log fire and spilled beer and somewhere a fruit machine plinks and whooshes.

Upstairs, there are four main bedrooms and two unused ones called the back bedrooms, housing old toys and various pub bric-a-brac, old tankards and unused bar stuff like beer mats and ice buckets. My hands run along the wallpaper, bumping over the little chips and dents. I want this holiday to last forever.

And once Foy’s changed out of her ballet stuff, we ride, four of us into nature, along the lanes towards the playing fields, me and Foy stopping every so often to pick up dinosaur food, or petrol for the Lamborghini or the Ferrari, or new school shoes for some of our kids. We have forty in all, but we live in a castle so there’s definitely room.

My ten-year-old self needs this. A break from worrying about Dad and his angry phone calls and disappearing acts in the night. I need weeks of itchy legs and Wham bars and cola cubes and board games played the wrong way and bare feet on cold evening grass playing Mad Rounders with leeks and sprouts. I need to run until my sides stitch and make up dance routines to Madonna songs with Foy.

I need to fly kites and make nests from cut grass in fields wider than oceans, in sunshine that warms our backs and stretches our shadows to look like giants. To jump on desert rock furniture and lava carpets and create assault courses from old fire guards and broken chairs and table cloths. To play for hours a day in our secret places where adults don’t go – the quiet churchyard over the wall from the pub, the castle, our duvet dens – places where time is decided by the colour of the sky, not clocks and watches, and my limbs are powered by fizzy drinks and melted ice lollies.

Where every morning Chelle says ‘Rise and shine, Clementine,’ when she opens Foy’s bedroom curtains and takes us downstairs for milky coffees and bacon sandwiches. And we help Stuart stock up the bar and he gives us five pounds to spend at the shop. And we buy felt tips and sketchpads and blue bootlaces and we take it all up to our castle in the tree where we draw our wedding dresses and watch over our land where popcorn fields sway in the wind and unicorns run wild and a T-Rex stalks the land, looking for half-open tins of Jurassic Chum.

And where everyone calls me Ellis. Or Elle. Or Ellis Clementine Kemp, when I’m naughty. Or Smellis or Elly Belly Cinderelly. But always, always Ellis.

If only I’d known then that everything would soon be taken from me – even my own name.

5

Friday, 25th October

Kaden is out at 6 a.m., doing little sprints up and down the seafront. I only went out to put the Smarties by the gate for Alfie but I decided to sit and watch him as it was such a peaceful, bright day. So I’m sitting on the front steps, looking across the road at the doughnut van and wondering what time he opens. I hold my glass of Strawberry Nesquik. I think about Us again. Me and him supermarket shopping, the baby sitting in the trolley seat and him making faces at her. When I’m thinking about him, I’m not thinking about Tessa Sharpe. I need him in my life. He can protect me from The Three Little Pigs. He can be my brave Saturday Knight with bulletproof shield and a lance that will pierce the hearts of my enemies.

He always seems so busy though. If he’s not jogging, he’s working. And if he’s not at the gym he’s gone off somewhere on his motorbike. I don’t like to impose.

But if I don’t impose, I’m going to keep thinking about it. About Tessa. Wondering if she knew what was happening when those big hands were around her neck. Wondering how long she panicked before the breath was squeezed out of her. Wondering if she heard Death creeping into her bedroom.

Kaden eventually appears, vest sweated through, lost in music. I call out, ‘Hiya.’

He sees me as he’s climbing the steps to the front door. ‘Oh hey, Joanne,’ he puffs, yanking out one of his earphones. His neck’s all sweaty again but the big news is he’s wearing shorts. And he has the most wonderful legs. Tanned, toned, soft blond hairs all over but I’ve never minded that. He’s never looked lovelier. Beads of sweat trickle down his forehead and into the nape of his neck.

‘How are you today?’ he puffs.

‘Yeah, I’m okay thanks,’ I say, gesturing towards my Nesquik.

‘Nice. How’s Emily?’

‘She’s fine. Thanks. Asleep, for now.’ I roll my eyes like Mums do when they’ve been up all night with their babies. ‘What are you doing today?’

‘Got to have a shower and then it’s work at nine. You?’

‘Work this afternoon,’ I shrug. ‘That’s about it.’

I feel like I have left it open for him to ask me to spend this morning with him instead but he doesn’t. One of the cats leaps up onto the wall and startles him – Tallulah von Puss. We share a laugh and he tickles her chin as she nuzzles his hand. So he’s okay with cats too. He is all kinds of perfection.

‘Saw a poster that looked like her a few streets away,’ he says, frowning to inspect her labelless collar.

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. Little white patch here and everything,’ he says, stroking her chest.

‘Oh yeah, I saw that one,’ I lie. ‘That isn’t her. This is Tallulah von Puss.’

‘I think that one was called Pedro. Anyway, I best get going. See ya.’ He jogs up the front steps to the door. I wait for him to take a second look back at me, like men sometimes do in films when they’re secretly in love but they can only say it with their eyes. But he doesn’t.

And Tessa Sharpe’s dead face comes screaming into my mind again.

I hear the first notes of Emily’s cry inside so I gulp down my Nesquik, pick up my crumby plate and go to her.

Me and her. Me changing her. Me cuddling her in the middle of the night when there’s nobody else to. It’s just us. It always would be just us, wouldn’t it? And in a heartbeat I’m annoyed, my head is full of thunder and lightning. I wish, for a second, that I was Tessa Sharpe.

And then I feel awful, like my insides are rancid. How could I wish I were dead even for a second? After everything Scants has done to protect me? Because being dead means this all being over, that’s why. All this running and hiding and lying. I can just be Me. Ellis Who Died. Rather than Joanne Who Barely Existed. I don’t want to be the Me they tell me to be. The Me that Scants says I have to be. It doesn’t stick.

Today I’ve told work I’m going to be late as I have to attend a funeral. And it’s true; I am going to a funeral. June Busby’s funeral. Whoever June Busby is. I heard them talking about it at Leonard Finch’s funeral last week and I asked the vicar about it. I wonder if they’ll have those mushroom vol-au-vents again after; they were delish.

I’m not disrespectful when I attend these gatherings, far from it. And I’m rarely asked for identification. I like going because funerals are family occasions and I like being around families, even if they aren’t my own. People are usually so taken with peeking into the papoose to try and see Emily, they aren’t bothered that I’m neither family nor friend. I could be a neighbour, a work colleague, someone the deceased met down the park while feeding the ducks. Maybe I gave her a lift to aerobics. Maybe I walked his dog for him in his final weeks. They’ll never know.

I haven’t brought Emily today. I wanted to go alone. I’m all in black as I walk funereally through the fog towards the big cemetery gates. I see the coffin in the hearse. Dark brown. Brass handles. Small floral arrangement on the top with a card. A large black car follows closely behind. They both stop at the doors.

The family members get out of the car. A man with a ginger beard and blond hair. Black suit. People gravitate towards him, shaking his hand, a manly embrace. A We’ll get through this shoulder clasp. I’m handed an A5 white booklet.

Celebrating the life of June Miranda Busby.

The entrance music is listed as The Carpenters’ ‘Yesterday Once More’. I flick to the back page. The exit music is ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’. Leonard Finch’s exit music was ‘Oklahoma!’ which everyone seemed to find amusing for some reason.

There’s a Welcome and Introduction by the Celebrant – Miss Gloria Andrews, whoever she is and whatever a celebrant is. Posh word for a priest, I suppose.

Then a hymn – ‘Make Me a Channel of Your Peace’. Loads of verses.

Then a Eulogy and a family tribute, read by June’s son Philip. Then another hymn. Then the Committal. Which is the bit when the coffin goes behind the curtains and, presumably, gets burned.

‘You will come to the pub for a cuppa, won’t you?’ says the son, Philip, to the man standing next to me looking over the floral tributes.

‘Yes of course,’ says the man.

‘Yes of course,’ says I. And the son Philip looks at me and smiles graciously. He doesn’t need to know who I am – being there is enough for him to know his mother was cherished.

I only started going to people’s funerals after my dad died. I couldn’t go to his – I was still in hospital and they said I wasn’t well enough. I’ve only ever visited his grave in Scarborough once, and Scants told me not to go back again. Never go back, it’s too dangerous. Keep going forwards. To where though? Where am I going?

I’ve tried to get out and about and meet people like Scants keeps telling me to, but it’s not like it used to be as a kid. Back then you’d just say Hey, do you want to play Tig or Pokémon? and they would. Adults are full of suspicion and fear. Children themselves I find very easy to talk to. When I’m down at the pier or the beach or the arcades on my mornings or afternoons off, I can strike up conversations very quickly with kids. We have similar interests. Similar goals in life. Mainly, short term happiness. They don’t think about tomorrow. I daren’t.

Scants finds this too weird. No more playing with other people’s kids, he says. It’s not friendship, it’s grooming. Join a club instead, do a course, get some hobbies. Meet people your own age.

But adults are untrustworthy and devious. Adults do bad things.

The only things I like doing besides eating and watching DVDs is going down the arcades and playing ‘Guitar Hero’ or bowling with Matthew or dressing up the cats. I don’t go scuba diving at weekends or play lacrosse on a Wednesday night or anything like that. I’m not sociable or vivacious enough to ‘join a club of likeminded people’. Who does that? What kind of Louisa May Alcott world does Scants live in where people just go out and, god forbid, introduce themselves to new people?

I’m not one of life’s joiner-inners, I am one of life’s stay-at-homers.

Except when I have to work. Or I need a doughnut.

‘Hey, Charlotte!’ comes the cheery greeting from inside the doughnut van as I’m walking along the front to work.

‘Hi Johnny,’ I say. ‘How are you?’

‘I saw you the other day. Had some doughnut holes for you. I called out.’

‘Oh. Sorry. I can’t have heard you.’

‘You seemed in a rush. Where’s your baby today?’

‘At the childminder’s. I had to go to a funeral this morning.’

‘Ah no. Anyone close?’

‘No, not close. Got a nice few hours to myself now to finish my novel. Thought I’d treat myself first.’

‘Ahhh good idea,’ he says, lowering the frying basket into the bubbling oil. ‘Give me three minutes, I’ll put a fresh batch on for you.’ He moves his batter mixing bowl to the back bench and I slip into Charlotte Mode – my spine instantly lengthening as I flick my scarf over my shoulder.

‘Thank you. I need all the sugar I can get today. Got a big rewrite underway.’

‘That’s not good,’ he says. ‘Your editor didn’t like what you’d done?’

‘No, I completely messed it up actually. Had to cut around 40,000 words. It’s fine though, I’ve had worse. Every book seems to get harder to write.’

‘Wow, 40,000 words? You must write pretty fast.’

‘Yeah I do. I can dash that off again in a week, it’s no biggy. Ooh, I’ll have a Lilt as well thanks, Johnny.’

‘Not a problem,’ he says, grabbing a can from the fridge. ‘Not seen you about much lately, Charlotte. Thought you might have found another doughnut man.’ He winks but it doesn’t feel MeToo-ey, just friendly. It’s pretty comforting in a town where nobody knows my name and offers me nothing in the form of family.