‘There’s no need to copy your neighbour. It’s all up there on the blackboard.’
She strolled the aisles with leisurely authority, pausing to murmur criticism or encouragement. She was still twenty feet or so behind Stephen, but nevertheless the whole of the back of his head registered her approach. He straightened the sheet of paper on his desk and tried to see his picture through her eyes. Would she be impressed by the detail on his pump, the artful, irregular spacing between his huts, the innovative horse he had set by his manor house? He smelled her perfume moments before she was at his side. The painted fingernails of one hand rested momentarily on the village green, and then she had passed on, without comment. The brief disappointment was familiar to him. He took advantage of her retreating back to rise out of his seat and survey girls’ faces. Indeed, there was a general relaxation now, a stirring of confined young limbs, a mutter which gained in volume. The teacher was on the far side of the class, engrossed in the work of one of the boys. Emboldened, Stephen darted out to the front. The girls were oblivious of his close scrutiny. The chatter was now almost a din, approaching cocktail party level, but no one else had stood up. So far the teacher had pretended not to hear.
Now she straightened, and sternly pronounced the old formula. ‘Did I give anyone permission to speak?’ The silence was immediate, resentful. No one had an answer. Stephen remained out the front, by the teacher’s desk, checking all the faces one last time.
The teacher met his eye and spoke without a hint of humour. ‘And did I say you could leave your seat?’
There were titters from the back. These were moments of intense pleasure, the time it took Stephen to walk to the classroom door; to step out of the fantasy, to cease colluding in the teacher’s authority, simply to turn his back and come away at his own pace, confident of immunity – this was his schoolboy daydream, nurtured through many dull hours, enacted at last, thirty years late.
At the door he turned and said civilly, ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you,’ and went out into the corridor.
Approaching him, with a thunderous drumming of shoes on a hard surface, and with the pent energy of a tidal-bore wave, was a classful, or perhaps two, of children who dared not run but could not quite restrain themselves to walk. They half skipped, half sprinted, pulling each other back as they pushed forwards. Faces strained ahead in the anticipation of some pleasure. From out of sight a man called furiously, ‘Walk, I said walk!’ They came on in a surge, stumbling, rolling, elbowing, and when they reached Stephen, who for his own reasons held his ground in the centre of the corridor, they parted and converged around him as though he were a mere physical obstacle, a rock, a tree, a grown-up. His view was of bobbing heads, mostly dark brown to mousy, whorls of hair, and glimpses of features, and of couples barely conscious as they let go of each other’s hands to pass on either side of him. They gave off a not unpleasant baked smell from their exertions. Every single child was a fluting monologuist, for there seemed to be no listeners here. However close they passed by him, he could not discern in the babble one intelligible phrase. There were the children who glanced up, as one might while passing under an arch of little architectural interest, and then there flashed upwards, all the more vivid amidst the dullness of the hair, a clear green, a speckled brown, a milky blue. The colours of the marbles they roll, he thought. Had he included marbles in the presents he had bought? And it was in clear vindication of those mad and trusting impulses that, as the question shaped itself, he found he was staring into familiar dark eyes below a heavy fringe, and he was dropping down to her level, on both knees, placing his hands gently on her shoulders, repeating her name while the children wheeled about them to form a tight and curious wall that was never quite still or silent.
Inside the enclosure it was warm and moist and a little gloomy. He seemed to have arrived among a new species of intelligent, inquisitive animal. They were not unfriendly; there was a hand resting on his shoulder and someone touched his hair. He heard them panting and murmuring, he felt their breath as he asked, ‘Do you know who I am? Have you seen my face before, do you think?’
The girl’s gaze was intent, her eyes moved across his face cautiously. Her voice, in contrast, was pert, but not at all hostile. ‘No, I haven’t. Anyway, my name’s not Kate, it’s Ruth.’
He tried to take her hands, but this was a presumption. She clasped them behind her back. ‘You used to know me very well,’ he said quietly, wishing they were alone. ‘But it was three years ago. You’ve forgotten, but it will come back.’
She was thinking hard, or making a show of it, keen to collaborate. ‘Did you come to my house once for lunch and bring a big red dog?’
He shook his head. He was studying Kate’s face, trying to estimate the kind of life she had led. There were no signs of maltreatment. What was most strikingly new was a brown mole high on her right cheekbone. Her teeth were a little crooked; she ought to have been wearing a brace, he would make an appointment with the dentist, before it was too late. There was much to be sorted out. Was this shabby ex-State school the right place for her, for example? Was she getting the guitar lessons they had always promised? Kate was pondering and biting on the nail of her thumb. In fact, all her nails were chewed down to the quick.
‘You’re not my Uncle Pete,’ she said at last. ‘The one who broke his back?’
Stephen wanted to bellow down the corridor for all the children to hear, I’m your father, your real father. You’re my daughter, you’re mine, I’ve come to take you home! The situation was delicate, however, he had to stay in control. So he simply murmured, ‘You’ve forgotten who I am. But it doesn’t matter.’
It was as well he did. There was a commotion at the outer edges of the crowd, then a round and bristling adult head was peering over the wall into the obscurity.
‘Can I help you?’ Suspicion all but strangled the words.
‘Don’t go away,’ Stephen whispered confidentially. Kate nodded. She had always been one for secrets. He pushed his way gently through the children towards the teacher who had retreated a few paces. Still in his earnest and confiding frame of mind, Stephen wanted to take the man’s elbow and steer him further away from the children, but the teacher put his hands on his hips and refused to move.
‘Are you a parent or guardian here?’ he demanded. He was a stubby, muscle-impacted little man who kept his back straight to assert what height he had.
‘Well, that’s just the point, you see,’ Stephen began, and then faltered as he heard the cranky vigour of his own voice. He tried again, and kept it simple. ‘Our daughter was stolen from us, abducted, almost three years ago. And I think I’ve found her. That girl there who calls herself Ruth is my daughter. She doesn’t recognise me of course.’
The man was speaking wearily over Stephen’s last words. ‘We’re meant to be leaving on a school trip. But I’ll take you to the headmaster. He can sort it out. It’s really not my sort of thing at all.’
While the rest of the children were sent on to wait in the playground, the teacher, Stephen and Kate went back along the corridor to where the pot plants and paintings were. She kept her distance from Stephen. Perhaps she feared he might try and hold her hand again. But she was interested, excited even, and at one point as they walked in silence she gave a little hop and a skip, and looked up quickly to see if he had noticed. When he smiled she turned away. They stopped outside the door with the crooked sign and the teacher indicated they should wait while he went inside. Before he pushed open the door he paused and let some air out of his lungs, reducing his height by an inch. Stephen thought he might have a minute or two alone with his daughter, and turned to her, but the teacher was out almost immediately, jerking his head to usher them in, and hurrying off down the corridor without acknowledging Stephen’s thanks.
One whole wall of the headmaster’s office was a sheet of plate glass streaked by mud and rain through which could be seen a portion of playground and a swathe of turbulent grey sky. The effect was a ha
rsh, flat light which denied volume or full colour to objects and made the headmaster, a lean military type behind his desk, appear to have been cut out of thick cardboard. Contributing to this impression was the fact that he did not stir when Stephen and the girl came in, nor did he blink or speak or do anything at all other than stare across the room. Stephen was about to introduce himself, but Kate restrained him by placing her hand on his forearm.
They waited twenty seconds or so before the headmaster relaxed his features and said briskly, ‘Excuse me. Just running through some things there. Now …’
Stephen introduced himself and apologised for intruding upon the headmaster’s valuable time. He was halfway through his little speech, when he realised he did not wish to explain himself further with Kate in the room. When he revealed his identity, he wanted to be able to speak freely and console her without the presence of a stranger. It was certain to be a delicate moment. He broke off and asked if she would mind waiting outside a minute or two. He held the door open for her and watched her settle in a chair across the corridor.
The head was querulous. ‘I don’t quite see why you had to bring her in here in the first place.’
Stephen explained that he was feeling distraught. ‘But at least you’ll know the girl I’m talking about,’ he said, and delivered the short and simple account he had given before. The head rose from his chair, stood by the window and crossed his arms. He was a grave, slow-moving figure who looked as though he might recently have come through a serious illness. He was staring critically at Stephen’s suit, at the missing buttons, the burn hole, at the unpolished shoes, the stained shirt. He was a believer in the outer man.
‘In a supermarket, you say.’ He made the word resound with all that was civilian and dishonest. ‘I suppose you reported the matter to the police?’
Stephen kept the anger out of his voice as he explained how a search had been conducted, how the case had been in the newspapers and on television.
The head returned behind his desk and leaned forwards on his knuckles. ‘Mr Lewis,’ he said, stressing the title to draw attention to Stephen’s lack of rank, ‘I have known Ruth Lyle since she was a baby. I have been acquainted with her father, Jason Lyle, for many years, and for a short while we were business associates. He was one of a group of prominent local businessmen which bought this school from the education authority. He and his wife have five children altogether, and not one of them have they stolen, I assure you.’
Stephen badly wanted to sit down, but this was a time to be standing up. ‘I know my daughter. That girl out there is my daughter.’
In response to Stephen’s quiet monotone the headmaster’s voice softened. ‘Two and a half years is a long time. Children change you know. On top of that, you must be wanting it to be her. The mind plays its tricks, after all.’
Stephen was shaking his head. ‘I’d know her anywhere. Her name is Kate.’
The headmaster had reverted to his former manner. He stood to attention by his desk with one hand resting on the back of his chair as though posing for the kind of portrait that might hang in an Officers’ Mess. Stephen noted with relief the grease stains on the regimental tie. ‘Look here, Mr Lewis. Two possibilities come to mind. Either you are making an unfortunate mistake, or you’re one of these journalists wanting to make trouble for the school again.’
Stephen glanced around for something to lean on. Had he been alone he might have stretched out on the floor for a minute or two. He spoke with a reasonableness he did not feel. ‘I don’t think it will be difficult to sort this out. The police have her fingerprints, and there are blood tests, chromosomes and so on …’
‘Two and a half years you said. Right.’ He snapped his fingers at the door. ‘Let’s have her in, for goodness’ sake. I’ve got other things to do this morning.’
Stephen went to the door and opened it. She was sitting where he had left her, writing in green ink on the back of her hand. He wanted to speak to her and establish some kind of bond before they went back inside. He needed something with which to counter the head’s abrasive self-confidence. She stood and came towards him. His weak performance in the face of the other man’s certainty, the enormity of his claims and lack of immediate proof, the fact that he regretted dressing badly, all these were working towards a physical effect, weakening his legs, permeating to the very surface of the retina, right to the rods and cones, for the girl crossing the reception area was taller, more angular, especially about the shoulders, and sharper in her features. She looked up at him neutrally. These were the same eyes below the fringe, the same pallor. He clung to these details, concentrating so fully on them that he was not able to speak to her at all. They were back in the headmaster’s office, and the investigation was resuming.
‘Ruth,’ said the headmaster. ‘Tell me your full name and your age.’
‘Ruth Elspeth Lyle, aged nine and a half.’
‘Sir.’
‘Sir.’
‘And how long have you been at the school?’
‘Counting nursery, since I was four, sir.’
‘How long is that exactly?’
‘Five years.’
‘Sir.’
‘Sir.’
Stephen was shaking his head. The girl was betraying him. Her bold, over-eager manner, her desire to please, was beginning to irritate him. She held nothing back, there wasn’t a secret in her. Where he stood he could see her nose in profile, and that was way off, a gross inaccuracy. She was going from him, she was letting him down.
The head looked past Stephen to the end of the room. ‘Mrs Briggs, take out would you the school register for five years ago and bring me the nursery section.’
For the first time Stephen saw that behind him was a smaller desk in a recess, and by it a woman in a floral print dress, an odd thing for a cold day, who now stood to slide open a drawer in a tin cabinet. The head took the folder and opened it in front of Stephen. He was neither looking nor listening as the head spread out a type-written sheet of names and ran his finger down them. ‘Lyle, Ruth Elspeth, admitted for the summer term, just after her fourth birthday …’
Stephen was thinking about Kate’s spirit, how it might hover high above London, how it might resemble some kind of brilliantly coloured dragonfly, capable of unimaginable speeds, and yet remaining perfectly still as it waited to descend to a playground or street corner to inhabit the body of a young girl, infuse it with its own particular essence to demonstrate to him its enduring existence before moving on, leaving the empty shell, the host, behind.
The head was turning pages, adducing fresh evidence. The girl was looking on, immensely pleased with herself. Stephen’s concerns narrowed to practical matters: how soon he could leave the school, how he had left his coat in the car, how he had missed the Prime Minister’s lunch.
Minutes later, as he came away from the office, he heard the headmaster tell the girl in a loud voice, no doubt for Stephen’s benefit, that she should report back immediately if that fellow spoke to her again. The girl gave her enthusiastic assent. It was the man with the zinc bucket who escorted him off the premises. Stephen glanced in it as they crossed the playground. It was empty. ‘Just why do you carry that around with you?’
The man, who was handing Stephen through the school entrance, shook his head, and forced a smile to suggest that this was indeed a very stupid question, one that he certainly would not be bothering to answer.
By dementedly living through the very reunion that preoccupied him constantly, Stephen came to feel that if he had not exorcised his obsession, he had blunted it. He was beginning to face the difficult truth that Kate was no longer a living presence, she was not an invisible girl at his side whom he knew intimately; remembering how Ruth Lyle did and did not resemble his daughter, he understood how there were many paths Kate might have gone down, countless ways in which she might have changed in two and a half years and that he knew nothing about any of them. He had been mad, now he felt purged.
He had
returned home and slept until the early evening, a deep and dreamless sleep. Then he had set about reorganising his flat. He had moved the couch back against the wall and the television back into an obscure corner. He had taken a long bath. Afterwards, he did not resist pouring himself a large drink. But this time he took it to his desk which he tidied, and where he sat answering letters. He wrote an affectionate, undemanding postcard to Julie, telling her that he had thought about her on Kate’s birthday and that, if and when she thought the time was right, she should get in touch. He took out a notebook and scribbled down a few ideas, then, encouraged, removed the dust cover from his typewriter and typed for two hours. Late at night he lay in bed in the dark and made elaborate resolutions before succumbing to a second untroubled sleep.
When, the following morning, the phone rang and the Assistant Secretary came on the line, Stephen listened patiently, but he had already made up his mind. The man began by expressing regret that Stephen had jumped out of the car that had been sent for him. Stephen explained that he had gone off in pursuit of what he thought was his long-lost daughter.
‘Did the chauffeur hand in my overcoat, by the way?’
‘No. If you left it, he would have reported it, I’m certain.’ No one, it seemed, had ever failed to turn up at the lunch without giving a good reason. It was an unpardonable rudeness, but for some extraordinary reason, and the Assistant Secretary made it clear he disapproved, Stephen was being offered a second chance, another invitation was being offered.
‘Ah well,’ Stephen said, ‘that’s too bad. I don’t want another invitation.’
The Assistant Secretary was affable in his contempt. ‘What nonsense! Why ever not?’
‘In the first place I’m busy. I’ve started a piece of work, something of a departure for me …’