Girl in the Window

She brings me a cushion for the hard, plastic chair. My whole body is so sensitive these days. I’m already starting to feel weak, but I don’t say anything about it. I hope Dad gets home soon. I’m not sure how long I’m going to last.

I glance at the photos on the fridge. Me and Dad making silly faces, Mum posing on a bridge, a picture of my aunt and uncle in Poland. There’s one missing – the one of me and my brother Marek. I’m sad, but not surprised. Dad and Marek haven’t spoken since he dropped out of uni and went off around Europe.

Dad is home early to my relief – and the expression of delight on his face as his large frame and bald head fill the kitchen doorway makes it all worthwhile.

He’s still in his work clothes, dirty from his day at the building site, but he does his funny version of a traditional Polish celebration dance round the small kitchen. Mum hastily moves crockery and pans out of the way so nothing goes flying and I am laughing so much it actually hurts.

‘Moje kochanie,’ he says, gently stroking my hair. ‘It’s so lovely to have you down here and not exiled upstairs. I hope this is a sign of good things to come.’

‘I only wish Marek was here to see you too,’ Mum says, sighing.

‘So do I,’ I tell her, getting a pang as I imagine my brother here too, grinning and high-fiving me.

Dad tuts scornfully.

‘Dad!’ I protest.

‘Let’s not spoil the evening talking about him,’ Dad says firmly. ‘Give me two ticks to get changed and when I come down, we’ll talk about something else, something happier.’

Mum winks at me when he’s gone and picks up her phone from the worktop. ‘I’ll take a photo of you at the table and we’ll WhatsApp it to him,’ she says quietly. ‘Marek will be so pleased.’

Dad comes back down and Mum serves up.

‘Well, what’s new?’ Dad asks.

‘We had a visit from a policeman,’ Mum says. ‘Very handsome he was!’

‘I hope he didn’t stay long then,’ Dad teases. ‘This about what you saw the night before, Kasia?’

I nod and Mum tells Dad what he said.

‘I hope they find the woman,’ I say. ‘I just want to know she’s OK.’

‘Well, you did the right thing reporting it,’ Dad says to me. ‘The rest is up to them.’

I know Dad’s right. There’s nothing else I can do.

‘I thought we were going to talk about happy things,’ says Mum.

‘Hey, yes! How about this for a happy thing?’ I say, smiling.

I tell them about winning the writing competition and they are both thrilled. Dad gets up to do another celebration dance but Mum tells him to stop or he’ll get indigestion.

‘I want to get well enough to go the award ceremony,’ I tell them. ‘And I want you both to come with me.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ says Dad, ‘but you know how things are. It isn’t always easy for me to get time off. It’s a big project, this sheltered housing, and we’re a month behind already. Hopefully by then we will be back on track.’

Although I want Dad to be there, I’m mainly pleased that he’s not even questioning the idea that I’ll be able to go myself.

‘It’s exciting Kasia, but you need to be careful,’ says Mum. ‘We’ll have to see how you are nearer the time.’

Mum may be more realistic, but I prefer Dad’s optimism. Although as she speaks I realise that the room is starting to spin. I don’t want Mum to be right, but in the end I have to tell her. ‘I need to lie down.’

‘Let me help you back up to bed,’ she says. ‘You’ve done really well, but that’s enough for now. I can bring you up dessert if you’d like some.’

As I stand up, panic rises in my chest. ‘Mum – I don’t think I can do it – I don’t think I can get back upstairs. I need to lie down now!’

‘Lie on the sofa for a minute,’ Dad suggests. ‘Here – take my arm.’

He helps me into the front room where I collapse on to the sofa. I still feel like I’m on a boat in a storm and the panic is overtaking me. I want my bed – I want to be in my room.

After twenty minutes, I don’t feel any better. Dad sits down beside me.

‘I want to go to bed,’ I tell him.

‘I’ll help you, kotku.’ He holds out his arm.

I shake my head. ‘I can’t stand up, Dad.’

‘Lucky you have a strong father then,’ he says. He’s standing now, smiling and holding out both arms.

‘Dad!’ I exclaim. He hasn’t carried me anywhere since I was about five years old.

‘I’ve carried heavier weights around the site today,’ he assures me. ‘Look at these muscles.’

Before I can protest he has me in his arms and is lifting me. Much as I hate being treated like a child, I enjoy feeling safe and warm and held and I am more grateful than anything when he lowers me gently on to my bed.

4

I can’t get up the next day or the next and, apart from crawling to the bathroom next door, I don’t try to do much else. The only other thing I stand to do is draw the curtains – open in the morning and closed at night. I know Mum would do it, but I want to look out – remind myself that there is a world out there.

This evening I look across the road and I can see a light on upstairs in the room opposite mine at number forty-eight. Someone is drawing the curtains there too. I briefly catch a glimpse of the figure but it doesn’t look like the man or woman who live there. It’s someone skinnier – a girl, I think. Was it her I saw in the window the other night, when the woman was abducted?

Now that I’ve been downstairs, my small bedroom is feeling even smaller than it did before. Lying in my bed, all I can see is the pale pink walls, painted when I was six, matching pale pink curtains, my wicker chair by the window, and a white desk and white wardrobe against the wall. On the wall is a small picture – a Polish village scene with a girl outside a church – that once belonged to my grandmother. And I have a tiny bedside shelf for my glass of water, phone and clock.

My duvet cover makes my room look more grown up – it’s silky pink with splashes of purple on it. There’s no room for my cello in here and maybe that’s for the best. It’s downstairs in the corner of the lounge and I am glad not to have to look at it and be constantly reminded that I can’t even pick it up, let alone play it.

Marek’s room is a little bigger than mine and Dad asked if I wanted to swap when Marek went to uni. But I didn’t – his room is painted black and orange, which would have taken many coats of paint to cover. And anyway, I didn’t want to think of Marek as having left home. I thought he’d be back in the long holidays, and even when he’d finished uni. I’m still glad his room is as he left it, waiting for him to come back.

I lie in bed, sleeping, listening to podcasts and audiobooks on my phone, meditating and thinking of ideas for stories. Then my mind turns to Josh. I like him so much. Only Ellie knows how I feel. I wish I’d had the courage to say something to him while I was well. I kept hoping he’d speak to me, but maybe he’s shy. He’s in the year above me but we were both in the orchestra – I could have said something then, but I didn’t. He’s probably going out with someone else by now and I wouldn’t blame him. He has no idea how I feel about him, so it’s not as if he’d be waiting for me to get better.

I get a message from Marek. He’s seen Mum’s photo of me sitting downstairs, and his message is full of excited smiley emojis, along with a photo of a frozen pizza, with the caption ‘My job is cheese sprinkling!’

Dad had better not see that!

I reply, telling him about the writing competition, and get more excited smiley emojis back. I think about telling him about the abduction, but I’m too tired to text that much.

I lie back and think about the award ceremony again. I just have to get well enough to go. I must.

A few days later, I’m feeling a bit better. I don’t feel like attempting the stairs again but I’m mostly OK being out of bed. I sit on the floor and open my chest of drawers, just for something to do. There I find the Get Well card with the cheerful yellow sunflowers on it. I open it and run my finger over Josh’s signature. I wonder if he ever thinks about me now. The card is also signed by the other twenty-four members of the orchestra but his is the only name in there that really matters to me. He’s an amazing violin player and when we’d finished orchestra practice he used to meet my eyes sometimes and smile. I’m sure something would have happened between us one day.

I put the card back in the drawer. My legs are hurting from sitting on the floor but I don’t feel too bad otherwise so I stand stiffly and sit on my wicker chair by the window, looking out. I still feel like I’m on a boat – but it’s a gentle rowing boat now. I watch as the woman at number forty-eight comes out, bumping the grey buggy with a rain cover over it, down the steps to the street. She hurries off up the road and I glance up to the window above. There’s no one there.

It’s raining heavily now – big drops streaking down my window like bars, reminding me of the prison my room has become. It’s hard to see through the rain, but I try. There’s no one looking out across the road. Cars splash past in the big puddle by the bus stop. The haziness makes everything seem unreal. It’s like the rain is trying to wash away what I saw – washing it all away, wiping the slate clean, a fresh start.

I can’t remember it clearly now. Maybe none of it happened at all. But if it did, what happened to that woman? I can’t help wondering about her.

It’s a week later when I pluck up the courage – and have the energy – to go downstairs again. And it’s fine! I stay for a whole meal, and also get back upstairs by myself too. I do it again, each day stretching it out a little longer, and I don’t have any ill effects.

I feel full of hope – I’m finally getting better – and I want to do more.

Mum comes into the living room, waving a parcel at me. ‘I’m just popping next door,’ she tells me. ‘The delivery man left it here this morning, when he couldn’t get an answer.’

‘I could take it,’ I offer.

Mum looks at me in surprise. ‘Are you sure you feel up to it?’

‘It’s only next door. And it would be good to get outside. Let me, Mum. I’ll be fine.’

‘OK,’ says Mum, but she’s looking very doubtful.

‘Is it forty-three?’ I ask her. ‘Won’t they be at work?’

‘No – forty-seven,’ says Mum. ‘Mrs Gayatri.’

‘How did she manage to miss a parcel?’ I comment. ‘She never goes out.’

‘She does sometimes,’ Mum says with a shrug. ‘Perhaps she was having a nap or just didn’t hear the door.’

‘OK. I won’t be long,’ I tell Mum.

It’s weird putting on outdoor shoes when I’ve worn nothing but slippers for months, and I’ve rarely been out of bed enough to even need them. My shoes feel hard and uncomfortable in contrast.

‘Put your coat on,’ Mum fusses. ‘And your scarf.’

‘It’s only next door!’ I say, but I do it anyway.

I take the small package and step out of the house – so happy to actually be outside. I wonder what Mrs Gayatri has ordered. It’s rectangular but not heavy. We don’t see our neighbours very often. There’s a young couple on the other side, at number forty-three. We only know their names because they sometimes have parcels delivered while they’re at work, and Mum takes them in. I don’t remember Mrs G ever having a delivery before, though.

We don’t see her much either, though I used to sometimes see her weeding her front path. She’s the only person round here who has pots and flowers and bushes out the front. She’s not very chatty, but she always has a smile and says hello if we pass her. Of course, since I’ve been ill I’ve only seen her from my window, on her rare walks up the road to the shops.

The cool breeze makes my cheeks tingle as I stand on Mrs G’s front step and ring her bell. I feel a buzz of excitement and breathe in deeply. It’s one step closer to normal life. There’s no answer and I wonder if the bell is working. I wait a few moments, try again and then resort to the old-fashioned lion’s head knocker. I listen but can hear no sound from inside. The lion’s face is snarling at me and I’m about to turn back home because my legs are beginning to throb, which sometimes happens when I’m standing still. Then I hear a small sound – a definite movement from inside.

‘Mrs Gayatri?’ I call. ‘It’s me – Kasia from next door. I have a parcel for you.’

The door opens and Mrs Gayatri peers out nervously. She seems more shrunken and wrinkled than I remember, but her eyes are soft and kind.

She smiles. ‘Hello, dear. I haven’t seen you for a long time. I wondered if you’d gone away to college.’

‘No. I’m fourteen.’

People often think I’m older because I’m tall for my age. I have Dad to thank for that. Mrs G is short – shorter than me.

‘I’ve been ill – I am ill. It’s ME – Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,’ I tell her. ‘I get exhausted after I do anything.’

‘How awful for you,’ she says.

‘This is the first time I’ve been outside for months,’ I tell her.

‘Goodness, is it really? You poor girl! So, what can I do for you?’

‘I’ve just come to bring you this.’ I hold out the parcel. ‘The postman left it with us. I’m sorry, I can’t stand for very long and I’ll have to get back now.’

‘Thank you, dear,’ she says. ‘It’s nice to see you. And if you ever fancy a change of scene – or company – you are welcome to pop in. And I mean that.’

I nod and smile. I always thought she liked keeping herself to herself. She doesn’t seem to have many visitors. But there’s a look of longing in her eyes as she says, ‘I mean that’ and I think she is genuinely lonely.

‘Everything OK?’ asks Mum as I come back into the house. She’s standing by the door and she gives a big sigh of relief. She’s clearly been waiting for me, worrying. I made it. I went next door to deliver a parcel and came back again.

‘Don’t make a big deal of it, Mum,’ I beg.

‘It’s progress, Kasia – progress,’ Mum says softly.

I nod. I am mega pleased with myself, though I’d never admit it to Mum.

Back upstairs I rest in bed for a while and then go and sit by the window. A few people are walking along the pavement, each in their own separate world, though they are only metres apart. A man on his mobile, a woman with smart high-heeled boots, a teenage girl with a bobble hat. A silver car appears and slows down near the girl. There’s something weirdly familiar about the scene, and my heart skips a beat as I remember the abduction. Is this the same car I saw? Is it going to happen again – to this girl? I am frozen to the spot.

The car pulls over, parks and a man gets out. He glances towards the girl. I hold my breath. She’s still walking, she hasn’t noticed the car. Fear rises in my throat – but the man is walking the other way. He’s heading for the barber’s on the corner. He goes inside.

I look again at the silver car and realise it isn’t the same kind. It’s a three door and a completely different shape.

My eyes turn towards the upstairs window at the house opposite. The curtains are closed and there’s no one there – but then I see one curtain move. A hand – a face – dark eyes, looking out. Then nothing. Again, I didn’t see clearly, but I’m sure it’s the same face I glimpsed before and I’m even more certain now that it wasn’t the face of the woman who lives there. This face is narrower, younger. A girl. Who is she? She disappeared so quickly.

The couple have a baby, but I’ve never seen a girl come in or out of that house. If she’s the one who was looking out of the window, then why did the woman lie about anyone else living there?

5

‘Mum, did you know there’s a girl living over at number forty-eight?’ I ask. ‘As well as that couple and their baby. ‘I’ve never seen her go out. Don’t you think that’s weird?’

‘A girl? I’ve not seen a girl,’ Mum says as she picks up an empty mug from my bedside cabinet. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ I tell her.

I start watching the girl’s window more closely. I’m certain she’s real. A couple of days later, I see her again, just as I hear Mum coming up the stairs. I call her urgently. I want her to see the girl – to prove that she exists. Mum comes running, thinking something’s wrong.

‘Mum – look! She’s there now! The girl!’

I only turned away for a second, but as Mum reaches the window and I turn back, the girl has gone.

Mum peers across the road. ‘I don’t see her, mój kotku. What’s so interesting about this girl?’

‘I think it was her,’ I tell Mum. ‘I think she was the one who saw what I saw, when that woman was dragged into the car. And the police didn’t speak to her, did they? Should I call the police again and tell them?’

‘But the police went and talked to the people in the house, and nobody saw anything. You know that,’ says Mum. ‘If a woman was abducted, surely someone would have missed her by now and reported it. They found no one missing, did they? Maybe you mistook what you saw?’

I shake my head. ‘I know what I saw – and there is a girl across the road. I’ve seen her too. And I never see her go out.’

‘Someone could say the same about you,’ Mum comments.

‘Yes. Maybe that’s it!’ I exclaim. ‘She could be ill like me – and that’s why she doesn’t go out. Perhaps the people across the road didn’t want her stressed with questions and that’s why they didn’t mention her to the police?’

‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ says Mum. ‘If unlikely.’

‘I want to go across the road and ask them,’ I tell Mum. ‘Maybe we could even be friends?’

‘Oh Kasia. I don’t want you going round there annoying them. If you really think this girl exists and she might be stuck inside, ill like you, then perhaps I could go over and ask for you.’

‘Would you, Mum? Thanks! That’d be great.’

Mum goes downstairs and I sit at the window and watch her cross the road to number forty-eight. It’s the man who opens the door. I can see Mum talking, but she isn’t there long.

I wait eagerly for her to come in and back upstairs.

‘So?’ I ask. ‘What did he say?’

‘Well, I asked – you saw me. And the man had no idea what I was talking about,’ she tells me. ‘I felt embarrassed, Kasia.’

‘What did he say?’

Mum gives me a quizzical look. ‘He said there’s no girl there.’

‘What? Did he speak English? Maybe he didn’t understand,’ I say, bewildered.

‘He had an accent, but his English was clear enough,’ says Mum. ‘Perhaps you imagined her. Or maybe a girl was there and now she’s gone – I don’t know. But she isn’t there now and I think you should put your mind to other things.’

I go and lie down on the bed – but I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t understand what’s going on. The man must be lying – but why would he? I’m sure I saw her! Only glimpses I know, but why would I imagine it? If only she wouldn’t always vanish so quickly . . .

As I think more, prickles start running up my spine. And then I start having properly crazy thoughts, like, what if the reason she vanishes so quickly and that no one else has seen her, not even the people who live there – what if that’s because she’s . . . a ghost?

Today I looked out of the window – even though I know that I should not – and I was shocked. I saw the ghost of myself – looking back at me. A girl in the window opposite. She peered out, just as I did, her shadowy shape a mirror-image of mine, though her hair was light, her face pale. Is she a ghost, just as I am? Is the whole street perhaps full of ghosts like me, and we know nothing of each other’s plight, or why we can neither live nor our souls rest in peace?

6

I look out of the window as often as I can that evening and the next day, but she doesn’t reappear. Then, in the evening, I see the woman coming out of the house. She’s on her mobile. She walks up past the bus stop towards the shops, barely glancing left or right as she crosses the road.

She’s deep in conversation with someone and I can’t help wondering what they’re talking about. Perhaps she’s telling a friend how the house gives her the creeps – especially that small front bedroom. She gets a chill every time she’s in there and it makes her shudder. She wants to move.

I know this is just my imagination running riot but as I watch, the woman turns and walks back to the house, still speaking in an animated way into the phone. She isn’t going anywhere – she just came out to talk privately. Maybe she was nervous of speaking about the weird atmosphere in that room. She can’t tell her husband. He’d think she was crazy. And she can’t explain it but she feels as if she’s being watched.

She looks like she’s shouting into the phone now. She’s so loud I can hear a bit of it but I can’t make out the words and anyway, I don’t think it’s English.

The woman is back at her front door now. She glances up in my direction as she takes a key from her pocket, and she sees me. I pull back from the window, embarrassed, partly about being seen amd partly because of the story I’ve been making up. I wait a minute and then look out cautiously again. She must have gone inside.

The ghost theory keeps going round and round in my head even though I try to ignore it. I don’t think I believe in ghosts but right now I can’t think of another reason why I keep seeing a girl that nobody else sees – not even the people who live there.

When I feel up to it, I ask Mum to bring me my tablet so I can do some research. I can’t spend too long on it or I get headaches.

I start by looking up the address, forty-eight New Weald Road. Maybe I can find out who lives there, or even if anyone has ever died there. I don’t expect to find anything, but at least I’m doing something.

The first Google entries are property pages, house prices and homes for rent and for sale. Then there are the shops, the hairdressers. There’s a report on a burglary at number 249. A bus route being diverted. I keep scrolling through pages. It’s very boring and my head soon starts to hurt, so I stop.

I lie down and decide to try meditating, which a doctor said might help me. Mum wasn’t impressed with the suggestion, but I found I quite like it. I have an app on my phone and it is definitely relaxing and something I can do without effort. Mum is baking downstairs. The smell wafts up and I start by visualising a piece of cake in my mind, focusing on that and nothing else.

Thoughts keep drifting back, though, even as I try to let them go. Maybe I need to think of another way to research, like asking someone who knows the area. I wonder if Mrs Gayatri could help – she’s lived here a long time.

‘I was thinking I might go next door and visit Mrs Gayatri,’ I tell Mum next time I’m well enough to be downstairs.

Mum glances up doubtfully. ‘Are you up to it? And I’m not sure you should go bothering her. I think she prefers her own company.’

‘Maybe that’s because she doesn’t have any other option,’ I suggest. ‘Anyway, she invited me – when I took that parcel round. She sounded like she really wanted me to come.’

‘OK, if you want to.’ Mum smiles. ‘Don’t stay too long, though – you don’t want to tire her, or yourself either. Here – I’ll give you some apple cake to take with you.’

Like last time, Mrs Gayatri takes ages to come to the door.

‘Another parcel?’ she asks, looking puzzled. ‘I don’t remember ordering anything.’

‘No, this is some of Mum’s apple cake,’ I tell her. ‘I’ve come to visit, if that’s OK? But say if you don’t feel like company. I won’t mind.’

‘How lovely!’ Mrs G smiles, her wrinkles briefly ironed out with pleasure. ‘Come on in, dear. Do you mind taking your shoes off ?’

Even though we’ve lived next door to Mrs Gayatri for ten years, I’ve never once stepped inside this house and it feels weird following Mrs G into the hallway. I take my shoes off and put them on the mat.