A Kind of Vanishing Read online

  For a moment Eleanor divined that Mrs Jackson, as if by magic, knew just who she was. Then the moment was gone and the empty plate, the glass and the ransacked present box returned to normal. Only years later, staring out of a lace-curtained window, would Eleanor briefly allow herself to return to that afternoon, and see that Mrs Jackson had known her even better then she had known herself. By then it was too late.

  But each time they got home, Crawford would be worse. When Eleanor scooped him up, he would fight more fiercely to escape. He was harder to catch because he bolted as soon as she approached. The guilt Eleanor would feel when she did finally recapture him was always obliterated by her blind indignation that Crawford had forgotten who she was. Once she had chased after him, grabbing him by the tail as he raced past, dragged him back and smothered him in a towel to stop him struggling. She noted clinically how his high-pitched cry of pain as her hand gripped his hind leg was like the sound of seagulls.

  ‘What have I told you, Crawford?’ The words fizzed through clenched teeth. ‘Now you are making me very cross indeed. This is an incredible waste of my time. Your co-op-er-ation would be appreciated.’ She shook the towelled bundle in time to her words and squeezed him, telling herself as well as Crawford how this treatment was for his own good. ‘Behave!’ she hissed at the whimpering inert lump.

  Then one day as Eleanor reached up to ring Mrs Jackson’s bell, Crawford freed a paw and lashed out, gouging her neck. She yelped and hurled him across the paving slabs. For a second a shapeless mass seemed to fly, four limbs and tail spreading like ragged wings, then he thumped heavily against the dustbins, knocking a lid to the ground with a terrible clang, and vanished over the wall. She stared after him dizzily as she nursed her wound. She was scared that the Jacksons had heard the noise and she wanted to run away too, but couldn’t move. There were marks in the patches of moss on the flags. Eleanor traced one with the toe of her sandal – making a coded sign of contrition for anyone who could decipher it. After a while, when it was clear no one was coming, she was disappointed. She wanted Mrs Jackson to open the door and take her in, but with Crawford gone there was no point in pressing the bell. Mrs Jackson would ask where he was. She wouldn’t like Eleanor if she found out what she had done. She would tell her never to come again. Behaving as if this scene had actually taken place, Eleanor staggered home with tears dribbling down her cheeks and blood from the cut on her neck staining her shirt. She reached her room without being seen and curled up on her side on her bed, her face to the wall. As she lay with lavatory paper clamped under her collar to stop the bleeding, visceral emotions set hard as lava. No one would be allowed to get close to her again.

  Crawford was missing for three weeks. His absence threw the Ramsay family into frenzy, and a rare state of unity. Gina drew posters and stuck them to trees and in the windows of as many shops in King Street as would let her. Lucian was at boarding school, but used up his pocket money ringing every night to check on progress and give painstaking advice to whoever answered the phone. Mark Ramsay patrolled the square every night whistling and calling. Sometimes Isabel joined him. Only Eleanor appeared not to care. She slunk about the house, wearing a series of polo necks to hide the nasty scratch on her neck. She bore the less tangible secret of how evil she was like a rucksack of rocks. Inside her head, sentences of explanation, speeches of atonement, of love and confession evaporated before a judge as harsh as her grandfather had been. She was certain that despite being a cat and unable to talk, if he came home, Crawford would give her away.

  Then one Saturday morning while they were all in the kitchen eating breakfast, Crawford tipped open the cat flap with his nose, waited briefly then eased himself in and things went back to normal. Except that Eleanor avoided him, even leaving a room if he padded in, and she never visited Mrs Jackson again.

  Mrs Jackson eventually plucked up the courage to ask Isabel if she had offended Eleanor. Isabel, barely aware that Eleanor knew the old lady in the basement next door, dismissed the possibility with strident politeness. She reacted with such astonishment that an old woman, reputed to be going senile, could imagine she had any sort of relationship with a chaotic seven-year-old, that Mrs Jackson abandoned the idea of sending Eleanor a small note. A few weeks later Mrs Jackson accidentally left the gas on. It was a mistake anyone could have made, her mind was on other things, but her son decided she could no longer live on her own. For her own sake he put her in a residential home in Woking and let the flat to a young actress with a crush on Vanessa Redgrave and a small part in The Newcomers.

  The Ramsays were celebrated as gifted hosts able to put guests at their ease. They lavished undivided attention which, though fleeting, still bathed the recipient in a rapturous glow of self worth for the duration of the evening. People drifted down the worn stone steps of the tall Georgian house convinced they had seen more of the Ramsays than they had and were more valued than they were.

  The parties were noisy, crowded affairs packed with people from every sector of public life: top financiers and famous actors, prize-winning novelists and emerging landscape designers were mixed strategically with primary school teachers, nurses and riding instructors. No one was allowed to latch on to familiar groups, they were guided by gentle hands, beckoning looks, floated on wafts of Isabel’s light perfume, or seduced by Doctor Ramsay’s lilting brown voice into life-changing decisions – new lives. Isabel styled herself a thoroughly modern Ottoline Morrell, although she hoped she attracted greater respect from those she helped than her private role model. Business and romantic partnerships were forged against all odds, deals of international importance were struck, diffident geniuses unmasked, promotions enabled, while lucky breaks came to those who had given up or given in. Old friendships were rekindled from damp ashes of long held enmities and life long relationships were toasted to the clink of glasses of sparkling white wine from the ripest Italian summers. Decades later Ramsay parties would be remembered as interludes from life, or as rare glimpses of true life where conversation knew no limits and the dancing was wild and free. The walls in the St Peter’s Square house were hung with the latest discoveries: a Hockney in the drawing room, a Jim Dine over the drawing room fireplace, and an early Warhol in the downstairs lavatory. As young men and women emerged into the sleeping square in the blue hours before dawn, they were baffled to find themselves on drab streets in a drizzling Hammersmith, looking in vain for taxis or a stray 27 bus in the chill morning air. Only those too ill to get out of bed, or too naïve to know what they were missing, refused an invitation to a party at 49 St Peter’s Square.

  Eleanor loved it when her parents gave a party. She knew nothing of the social and political machinations running like well oiled engines beneath the surface of the chatter and champagne, and believed parties were thrown for fun. She soon learnt the signs of one approaching. Her mother would get excited and talk very fast. She would insist she must see Clara, she had to catch up with Tarquin, oh! and of course, Charles, whose conversation she absolutely craved. She adored his latest book, so clever, so true! She must see them all. She ruffled and pulled at Eleanor’s hair and caught her up into a rapid jig around the table. They must have a party.

  When her mother was organising an event it seemed to Eleanor that Isabel Ramsay became a new person. She stayed out of bed all day, cuddled her children impulsively and even appreciated Eleanor’s jokes. She ran up and down stairs, calling orders to Lizzie, their live-in help, all the while singing and doing different voices as she juggled with a variety of lists, pausing only to draw neat lines through completed tasks with a flourish. Revising and devising, with gimlet eyes and pen poised, she plotted the evening from start to finish. She did not stop talking: making and taking telephone calls from her bedroom in a low voice with the door shut, or chatting in a small girl’s voice into the wall mounted telephone in the kitchen. Her voice rang out across the square as she called imperiously to deliverymen from the doorstep. She muttered to herself as she planned and barked orders to M
ark, and yet again rewrote the guest list, impatient at his response, or concerned for his opinion. She scribbled the latest developments and tiniest reminders on a white plastic notice-board hanging by the fridge in bold black felt marker. The spikes and loops in the words reminded Eleanor of the purple graffiti daubed high up on the stage doors of the Commodore Bingo Hall on the corner of King Street. She developed the hazy assumption that her mother was responsible for both. Isabel would absently stretch the telephone cord across her children’s heads as she reached for her wine, or a mug of tepid coffee. She chain-smoked, pacing the kitchen, ripping open envelopes of acceptance, slamming drawers and rummaging in cupboards, in search of the one thing that would make the party perfect.

  Gina was willing assistant, finding things that were lost, filing letters, appeasing shop owners, fending off phone calls from over-eager guests. Lucian was usually away at school. Eleanor tried to make the most of this time when her mother was out of bed, so friendly and nice. She was desperate that each party should be the best ever. This time the food would be truly scrumptious, her mother’s favourites would come, with no one to bore her or get on her nerves and make her cross. Everyone would be happy. Afterwards, her mother would never be sad again. Eleanor imagined hearing the shouts of laughter as she lay in her bedroom, lulled to sleep by the dips and peaks of music and voices, waiting for her Mum to come and tuck her in and leave butterfly kisses on her forehead. On party nights Eleanor would not have to lie rigid to fool the monsters into thinking she was dead because her Mum would be there to keep them out.

  After the party, Eleanor promised herself that everything would be better.

  Mostly Eleanor didn’t let herself think of afterwards.

  She was allowed to help Isabel dress because just before the party Gina disappeared into her bedroom until she was called. Eleanor scoffed inwardly at her sister who would emerge, stuck up straight like a brush handle in a trance to hang limply on their Dad’s arm. Or Gina would parade around holding a glass of watered down wine, peering at the pictures on the walls as if she hadn’t seen them every day of her life already. Eleanor would stump after Gina – clop, clop, clop – up the stairs to be introduced to the early guests. She couldn’t believe that Gina bothered to spend ages putting on stupid make-up so she could look like a lunatic.

  With Gina out of the way, Eleanor could sprawl contentedly on her parents’ bed, creeping amongst the squashy pillows, sniffing lungfuls of her mother’s scent that mingled with the smell of cotton sheets, and watch her get ready.

  Isabel sat on the edge of a low Victorian nursing chair to put on her stockings. She leaned back into the chair, raising one thin, shapely leg then the other as she unfurled each stocking along the length, pointing her toes upwards like the ballerina she should have been.

  Eleanor stared at her mother’s hands as her fingers tipped with pink nail varnish swept up with a swoosh along the calves and around the thighs, smoothing out the silky wrinkles. She held her breath for the snap of the suspenders, as her mother dipped down to clip her stockings into place.

  Isabel moved with precision and elegance. A fleeting frown betrayed a woman rehearsed in every gesture and action, and conscious of everything she did. Isabel could not afford spontaneity. She might have been gratified, yet disbelieving, to know she had long succeeded in appearing the woman she wanted to be. Her bosoms (a word Eleanor could not say out loud) pushed up over the black lace bra. Eleanor knew the skin was soft and warm, and as she glanced furtively at the dark space inside the bra she would picture the battles she had fought, the creatures she had slain mercilessly to save her mother’s life.

  Eleanor would stroke her forehead and tell her everything was all right.

  ‘Soon your headache will go and you’ll be happy.’

  Isabel turned this way and that as she tried on different outfits. She never planned her dress in advance. Even if asked, Eleanor dared not say she liked something. If her mother didn’t feel right, she would be cross with Eleanor and might send her out of the room. She watched with trepidation as Isabel yanked clothes off their hangers, discarding rejects on the bed and shoving others along the rail to find what she wanted. Eleanor knew that all the days of preparation could fall to ruin if her mother wasn’t wearing clothes that made her happy.

  Finally Isabel was ready. She stood with one hand on her hip in front of the wardrobe doors and ran her hand over her stomach, stroking it downward, over and over, in the way that made Eleanor’s father angry. Eleanor recoiled at the crushing sensation in her tummy at the sound of him shouting in the White House garden last summer. It was the first time her mother had been out of bed the whole holiday.

  ‘For pity’s sake, Isabel, take your hand off your fucking stomach!’

  ‘And where do you suggest I put it?’

  He had snatched at her wrist and held it, shaking it as if it didn’t belong to her, staring wildly at the thin flapping thing. There were white marks on her mother’s skin when he let go. The children had played statues until it was over. Isabel got up from the table as if nothing had happened, and Eleanor watched her go across the lawn in her short white dress and vanish into the house. Everyone chewed and swallowed in silence until it was all right to get down.

  Isabel was unaware of her human shadow as she studied her reflection, making reparation for perceived flaws with restless hands. Eleanor traced her own hipbones through her pinafore dress with the flat of her palm. With a faraway look, Isabel put her hand to her nose and sniffed the tips of her fingers and thumb as if confirming her own existence. Eleanor sniffed her own fingers, the smell was comforting: a mixture of her guinea pig and the tuppenny lasting lolly she wasn’t allowed because her Dad said it was pure sugar.

  As she copied her mother, Eleanor learnt how easy it was to be someone else.

  That night, for the party vaguely intended to celebrate the departure of the Ramsays to Sussex for Whitsun, Isabel had chosen a black shiny dress with no sleeves and a zip up the back. She let Eleanor do it up. As she balanced on the bed to reach, Eleanor dreaded her father coming in and taking over. She could hear him next door, striding about in the ironing room where he kept his clothes. She clutched her mother’s bare shoulder to steady herself.

  ‘Eleanor! Get off, you’re cold!’

  Eleanor briefly nursed her hand, blowing hard on it. The shape of Isabel’s body appeared as the zip pulled the slippery fabric together and it tightened over her hips and waist, to reveal contours of muscle and bone. She lingered over the fastening of the hook and eye at the top.

  Now the make-up.

  Eleanor had prepared the dressing table while her mother was in the bath. She lined up what her mother called her ‘condiments’ including the tiny bottle of scent the children had bought for her birthday that was still full. An expert assistant, on these occasions Eleanor never got it wrong.

  Her mother handled the brushes like an artist, shading in colour with deft flicks of soft sable. She pouted at the three-way mirror as with a magician’s sleight of hand, she drew an accomplished bow with a lip pencil, and filled in fleshy lips with glossy lipstick. She took a tissue from her daughter without acknowledgement and stained the paper with a crimson kiss. Taking another bottle of perfume from her handbag, she squirted it behind her ears, on the inside of each wrist and between her breasts. She dropped the bottle back in her bag and snapped shut the clasp.

  Isabel was ready to meet her guests.

  Eleanor studied Isabel, anxious to miss nothing. It was one of the facts of life that her mother was clever, witty and beautiful. She had overheard a woman say Isabel Ramsay could turn men to stone. It was obvious to Eleanor that the tall woman adjusting her bra through the neck of her dress as she stepped into high heels was capable of everything. Her mother was a project Eleanor could have got top marks in. She knew her better than anyone. Better than Gina who went on the shopping trips, better than Lucian when her mother rubbed his back after cricket and told him he was her favourite man. As Eleano
r followed her out of the bedroom, she swiftly pocketed the crumpled hanky. Later she hid it in her Box of Secrets with the others.

  After Alice disappeared, Eleanor was not allowed to help her mother dress.

  The doors dividing the drawing room in half were thrown open to make a space the length and breadth of the house. The furniture had been pushed back to the walls or removed. Her mother prowled the room, her stilettos clicking on the polished floorboards, rearranging chairs and repositioning ornaments. She touched surfaces and looked tetchy, but Eleanor knew Lizzie had done a good job.

  Isabel was never happy.

  Eleanor took up position by the French doors, and peered through a pane of warped Georgian glass. The road was fragmented by the swirly shaped gaps in the wrought iron balcony. She would spot the first cars. She loved the start of parties as the house filled up with excited, colourful people, their faces flickering in candlelight. Yet it was with mixed feelings that Eleanor anticipated the first knock at the door. It signalled her countdown to bedtime.

  Suddenly her mother was upon her, stroking her hair, adjusting her dress and wrenching up the socks with the horrible flowers Eleanor had purposely rolled down. Clawing nails grazed her skin. Eleanor sniffed her mother’s hair: apple blossom and warm spring although outside a cold, spotting rain marked the end of May. Her breath caught as Isabel squeezed her round the waist, bending so far over her that Eleanor could not see and her tummy hurt. She didn’t want to cry out or it would end.