The Second Life of Amy Archer Page 2

  ‘Beth,’ he says. ‘I thought it would be you.’

  His intonation is flat and matter-of-fact. Joyless. I am one of his New Year’s Eve chores. Like taking out the rubbish. ‘How’s things?’

  ‘I’m . . .’ I bite back the tears.

  ‘Oh Beth, please.’

  ‘Ten years, Brian, ten years.’

  ‘I know. I haven’t forgotten.’

  ‘I didn’t say you had.’

  There’s a pause, as if he’s counting up to ten, cutting me some slack. In the background I can hear pop music and girlish laughter. His new family, excited and ready to see in yet another new year.

  ‘Sounds like you’re having a party,’ I say sulkily.

  ‘No. It’s just the girls mucking about in front of MTV.’

  The girls. Not just one daughter, but two. Stepdaughters anyway. Amy’s replacements. I grip the phone tight. I shouldn’t resent them, but I do.

  Instead of dedicating a bench to Amy’s memory in the park like we’d agreed, Brian bought a session in a recording studio. The girls’ school choir made a CD of show tunes and classic pop, including a song by her favourite group, the Spice Girls.

  ‘It’s better than a bench,’ he said. ‘Amy would have loved it.’

  The dedication to her in the CD booklet was lost beneath the name of the choir and the list of its members, his daughters at the top. The Spice Girls’ track wasn’t even one of Amy’s favourites and felt more like an instruction from Brian: Stop.

  ‘I’d better go,’ I say. ‘Happy New Year.’

  I hang up before he can meet my sarcasm with some stinging comment of his own.

  I go into the kitchen, switch on Radio 4 and pull on my rubber gloves. Armed with bottles of bleach and polish and swathes of sponges and cloths, I set about each room. It’s a big house, more room than the three of us needed really, so definitely too big for just one. But I won’t move. It keeps me close to Amy. My memories of her are as integral to the structure as the walls and ceilings.

  After the divorce Brian thought I’d sell up. A handsome red-brick Victorian villa overlooking the park, just five minutes’ walk from the tube and within striking distance of several good private schools – I could downsize to something more manageable, with fewer memories.

  ‘It’s the memories I want,’ I said.

  ‘You can take them with you wherever you go. Amy will always be with you.’

  ‘And I’ll be here for her.’

  If – by the most unlikely, fluky of chances – Amy is still alive, I must make it easy for her to find me, should she care to look. So there will be no ‘For Sale’ sign outside my door, despite the psychic’s prediction that there would be.

  I spray and rub and buff until my arm aches and my brow is damp. The house smells of scented chemicals, a heady fog of lemon, lavender and pine; the Hoover adds a dusky base note of warm dust and rubber.

  I sit for a moment in Amy’s room, although there is no physical trace of her here. It is not a shrine; Brian saw to that. He cleared out her stuff a year after she vanished so we could begin to be free of her and find room for something else – each other maybe.

  I watched as he carried out boxes and bags, weeping fitfully at Tracy Beaker books, Spice Girls posters, a tangled Slinky. I’d rescued a few favourites – her battered panda with the missing eye, the grubby Bagpuss, the bendy Postman Pat she hid so her friends wouldn’t call her a baby – but the rest was swept away in an apocalyptic rush.

  I made Brian promise he’d take it to charity shops in Streatham or Greenwich – anywhere but locally so we wouldn’t have to see somebody else with our daughter’s toys or clothes. He said that the Sue Ryder shop in Lewisham had been glad of the haul, but soon afterwards I saw a little girl in our local Tesco wearing Hello Kitty jeans with frayed hems, just like Amy’s. The purple Puffa jacket looked familiar too.

  I’ve had Amy’s room decorated several times since then, and the curtains and bed linen have been replaced, but no one has ever slept in there. No one ever will. I never have guests, and there are several other bedrooms to choose from even if I did.

  I wipe the mirror on the back of the door, where Amy used to watch herself pretending to be Baby Spice. All blonde and dreamy, blue-eyed and white-smiled. I see her in my reflection, although my mouth is set firm, my eyes flat and haunted by dark rings and crow’s feet. My blonde hair is infused with grey, like mist in a cornfield, but lacks the elegance I’ve seen in other women of fifty-plus. But that discrepancy is nothing in comparison to the growing gap in my resemblance to Amy. Even my reflection is dissolving.

  I put the cleaning materials back in the cupboard, rinse the rubber gloves and hang them over the side of the pristine butler sink. When I open the front door to put the rubbish bags in the wheelie bin, the sky is already dark and busy with premature fireworks. A Roman candle sends up intermittent puffs of colour; each one is announced by a soft pop of gunpowder, but reaches only a few feet into the air before flickering out – like my prayers to Amy and my calls for her to come back to me.

  I shut the door, wash my hands and unwrap the tissue paper from around the creamy beeswax candle I bought from Borough Market. A match rasps against the box; the flame heats the spike of the iron candle-holder, which slides easily into the base of the candle. I carry it, unlit, into the front room and place it on the mantelpiece, next to the photo of Amy. It was taken in Zante, the year before she disappeared. She’s brown as a Caramac, her smile fresh as surf. Behind her, the glint of sunlit water and the dazzle of white sand. Her cupped hands cradle a huge dead jellyfish, its translucent blubber like a melted crystal ball.

  I light the candle; shadows jump around the photo. Tears prick my eyes as I kiss the tip of my finger and press it to the glass of the picture frame.

  I draw the curtains, then switch on the hi-fi. The CD I was listening to earlier is still in the player. The Spice Girls’ Greatest Hits. I press ‘4’ on the remote control, then the repeat button, and sit down facing Amy’s picture, watching the candlelight dance on her sun-kissed face.

  Mama.

  Halfway through the fourth play, there’s a knock on the door.

  I turn the music down, hoping that whoever it is will go away. I want to be left to my vigil. But the knock comes again. Louder. The letter box rattles.

  ‘Mrs Archer? Are you there?’

  It’s a woman’s voice; not one I recognise and with an accent I can’t quite place. I mute the music, then wish I hadn’t, as it tells whoever it is that I’m in.

  ‘Mrs Archer. Please. It’s important.’

  I stand up and peer through the curtains. I jump back. The woman’s got her nose pressed to the window right in front of me. I gasp and let the curtain drop.

  ‘Sorry!’ she says. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  ‘Go away,’ I say loudly so that she can hear me through the glass. I hope she hears my insistence too.

  ‘But I need to talk to you.’

  ‘If it’s about swapping electricity suppliers, I’m not interested. I’m busy.’

  ‘That’s not why I’m here,’ she says quickly, her voice getting louder. ‘Please. It’s important. It’s about Amy.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing to say to the papers.’

  ‘I’m not from the papers.’

  ‘If you’re the police, then show me your badge.’

  ‘I’m not the police either.’

  ‘So who are you? What do you want?’

  ‘My name’s Libby Lawrence. I really need to talk to you.’ She sounds anxious and impatient. ‘Face to face. Without a pane of glass between us. I’ve come a long way. Please. This isn’t something you’d want shouted through a window or a letter box.’

  I pull the curtain back. Deep auburn hair frames a paleskinned face. Her eyes are a hectic blue. They hold mine and soften with the smile on her lips as I open the window.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It’s Amy,’ she says. ‘Mrs Archer, I know where she is.’

/>   For years I’ve dreamed of someone bringing news of Amy. I’ve dreaded it too in equal measure. Hope or heartbreak on my doorstep. The police with news of a body. Journalists chasing gossip. Ghouls come to gawp or commiserate. Sometimes I used to think the knock might be from Amy herself.

  My heart thumps.

  This could be the moment I’ve waited for. All the questions of the last ten years finally finding an answer. It might be the chance to hold my daughter once again, feel her real and solid in my arms, the beat of her heart against mine. Or the opportunity to lay her to rest, for us both to begin to find some peace.

  All that agony of not knowing is suddenly swamped by fear of what I might discover. I want to know; I don’t want to know. What this woman has to say could break me once and for all. I’m caught in a whirlpool of hope and horror and have nothing to cling to but myself – and that might not be enough. I fight for air, sink beneath waves of pain and sorrow, then crest the surface on a surge of hope and expectation.

  I run to the front door. My trembling fingers fumble with the latch and pull the door ajar.

  She’s taller than she looked from the window and her face is made paler by the sliver of light falling through the doorway. Her smile falters. When she tries to speak, no words come. They desert me too. I take a deep breath. My question comes out in a desperate whisper.

  ‘Where’s my daughter?’

  Libby swallows and bites her lip.

  ‘It’s a long story. You might want to sit down.’

  Slowly I stand back and open the front door. The cold follows her into the hallway. She takes off her gloves and holds out her right hand. Her grip is brief but I can feel every bone in her fingers. I pull my hand away.

  ‘I know this can’t be easy,’ she says. ‘Believe me, it’s not easy for me either.’

  ‘Just tell me what you know,’ I plead. ‘Please.’

  She shrugs and takes a breath.

  ‘This is going to sound very odd. You’ll think I’m mad – if you don’t already.’

  She takes my hand again. Once more I take it back.

  ‘I know where Amy is.’ Her voice is firm. Her tone final.

  ‘So you’ve said. But . . . if her body had been found, they’d have sent the police round to tell me.’

  ‘I haven’t found her body.’

  I lean against the wall, eyes closed, and pinch the bridge of my nose. I can barely find the breath or the courage to say out loud what I think she’s telling me.

  ‘I . . . don’t understand. Do you mean . . .?’ My head swims with impossible promise.

  Libby nods imperceptibly.

  ‘That’s right, Mrs Archer. Amy is alive.’

  2

  I remember the sudden rush of darkness, the sense of Libby’s arms around me, the moth-soft flutter of her hands about my face. I hear the thud of her foot as she kicks the door shut, her quick breaths as she manoeuvres me along the hallway and into the give of the sofa.

  When I come round, she’s standing in front of the fireplace, gazing at the photo of Amy. She picks it up and smiles.

  ‘Put that down,’ I say.

  Libby turns and puts the picture back on the mantel-piece. I struggle to sit up and she raises her hand, like a policeman stopping traffic.

  ‘Stay where you are for a while. Just in case. Can I get you some water?’

  She’s out of the room and into the kitchen before I can answer. I hear cupboards being opened and closed, the rattle of glasses and the splash of a running tap.

  ‘Here you go.’

  She helps me sit up and puts the glass in my hands. The water is tepid and tastes metallic.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Libby says, sweeping hair from my face. I flinch and she takes her hand away.

  ‘Sorry.’ She stands up and moves to the window. ‘I’ve been agonising about how to tell you about Amy for some time . . . I wasn’t sure if I could bring myself to tell you at all.’ She screws her eyes up and sighs. ‘But she insisted. She’s been so . . . unhappy. Angry. I couldn’t sit back and watch her suffer any longer . . . Mind you, what happens once I’ve told you could be even more painful. For me anyway.’ She bites her lip. ‘Well, it’s done now. For better or worse. Sorry if it came out too bluntly, but . . . there’s only one way to say it really.’

  ‘It’s what you said that matters, not how you said it.’ I sip some water, fix my eyes on hers. ‘Amy is alive? Are you sure?’

  She nods and takes the glass from me.

  I sink back into the sofa. All the pain of the last decade swarms around me. My disbelief that my daughter had vanished. The growing certainty of it. The endless what ifs and recriminations. The wish that I’d done things differently that day. The justifications for letting Amy go out.

  Most painful of all is the aching regret for all the things I didn’t say, all the things we’d never had the chance to do together. All the anger and resentment. The grief.

  But the shock has blocked my tears and I blink, dryeyed.

  ‘But . . . but how?’ I put my head in my hands. It feels heavy with questions. ‘Where’s she been? What happened to her? Why didn’t she get in touch? Where is she now?’

  ‘One thing at a time, eh? For my sake, as much as yours.’ Libby’s body tenses and her eyes drop to the floor.

  ‘Your sake?’

  She swallows hard. Bony fingers clench and flex.

  ‘All this affects me too,’ she says flatly.

  ‘I’m her mother,’ I say, indignation making me sit up on the sofa. ‘You’re just the messenger.’

  Libby’s eyes flash with anger. She takes a breath as if to spit out some words but changes her mind.

  ‘Tell me,’ I say, leaning forward.

  She runs her fingers through her hair.

  ‘Look, what I have to tell you isn’t an easy thing to understand.’ She sighs. ‘It will change everything. For all of us.’

  She looks back at the photo of Amy on the mantelpiece.

  I deliberately chose a picture as far removed as possible from the ‘official’ one used by the police in their appeal to the public for information. Her smile in that one was more studied, self-conscious, the single plait of blonde hair lustrous against the green of her school uniform jumper, the knot in her tie a neat ‘V’. It appeared in the papers and over the shoulders of newsreaders, on posters in supermarkets. It is seared into the nation’s consciousness, a benchmark for careless motherhood, a warning to children everywhere. It is no longer just a picture of my little girl.

  Just thinking of it sets off the memories. Our pleas for her to get in touch, the assurances that she wasn’t in any trouble. After a week with no news, a doppelgänger in pink tracksuit bottoms, headband and tiger print fleece ghosted Amy’s last known movements for the press and television cameras.

  Increasingly concerned, the police said. Someone knows where she is. No piece of information is too small. The tears on my face flickered in the strobe of press conference cameras as a blank-looking Brian held my hand. Amy’s face stared out from the enlarged photo, her features pixelated, as if in the first stage of decay.

  ‘You need to see this,’ Libby says.

  She reaches slowly into her coat pocket, like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, and takes out a pink photo album. She flicks it open and thumbs through the clear plastic sleeves inside.

  ‘Here,’ she says, passing it to me with a slow reluctance, as if she might never get it back.

  It’s a picture of a girl with startling blue eyes and a hesitant smile, her thick blonde ponytail throttled by a leopardskin band. Skinny arms dangle by her sides, the pink hoodie hot against the tight white leggings.

  I feel my blood drain away. A flash of recognition. Of recollection. Of what was.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ My voice is hushed, almost reverential.

  ‘I took it. At a friend’s barbecue in Manchester.’ She turns the photo over and points at the date written on the bottom in black block capitals: July 2009.


  My hand is shaking as I bring the photo closer to my face.

  ‘But this girl’s not even a teenager! Amy would have been twenty this year.’ I look up. Anger and disappointment choke me. ‘I don’t know who this is, but I’m telling you now, it is not my daughter.’

  ‘It’s Amy, I swear. If you’ll just let me explain—’

  ‘No! I don’t know who you are or what you want, but you’re sick. Depraved. What have I done to you, to anyone, to deserve this? Get out of here.’ I throw the picture at her and stand up. ‘Now! Or I’ll call the police.’

  I’m surprised at my own strength as I push her out of the room, along the hallway and through the front door. I slam it behind her, lock it and sink to the floor racked by hard, dry sobs.

  Libby bangs on the door.

  ‘But you’ve got to listen,’ she whines. ‘Please. She’s here. Right along the street. I’ll get her. Mrs Archer! Don’t lose your daughter all over again.’

  I hear her footsteps run along the garden path, the squeak of the gate.

  ‘Esme! Esme!’ she calls. ‘Come here, quickly. Esme!’

  I freeze behind the door, swallow a choke.

  A capital ‘E’ and a small one, Ian had said. Ellie, maybe?

  He’d said she was close, too. The little girl. Close. And here she is, Esme, right at my door.

  Whoever she is, I have to see her, not just because of some as yet unexplained connection to Amy, but because her name – her presence – is the only prediction I’ve ever had from a psychic that has come true. I stand up, unlock and open the door.

  Libby stands on the street side of my gate, flanked by the tall yew hedge on either side of it. She’s waving to someone, calling them on.

  I hear footsteps on the other side of the hedge, then some words I can’t quite make out. Libby moves to the left, vanishes behind the hedge. A girl steps into view from the right.

  She’s as tall as Amy was, but any other telltale signs are lost beneath her shiny silver Puffa coat. Her silhouette glows in the yellow street light; the headlamps from a passing car cast a ghostly nimbus. Her shadow flits across the garden and vanishes.