Authors: Anne Cassidy
Moth Girls
Contents
To my sister Sam Morey
Before the Moth Girls were dead they were best friends.
The day before the house on Princess Street was due to be demolished, Mandy Crystal stood by the wire fence, looking through it. She stared hungrily, her fingers tugging on a pendant that was hanging from her neck. The windows and front door of the house had been removed and she could glimpse into the shady interior. It wasn’t the first time she had looked through the windows of this house. The inside had been dark and gloomy even then, when someone had been living in it.
It had been mostly empty since the killing.
The building itself, the bricks and mortar, looked solid, as if it could stand for a hundred more years. Tomorrow, though, it would be flattened. A block of apartments would replace the house and life would go on as though nothing bad had ever happened there.
Mandy’s bag was weighing heavily on her shoulder so she allowed it to slip down her arm onto the ground. On the pavement the leaves scuttled around her feet. She trod on some and felt them crackle with dryness. It was getting dark and the sky looked bruised. The autumn sun had slipped away, leaving streaks of pink in its wake.
Mandy sighed and went to leave but something caught her eye. She turned, and saw two discs of red floating in the air, near the roof. She peered at them more closely and saw brilliant red circles undulating one way and then the other.
It was a pair of red helium balloons tied together with ribbon.
She looked round, but there was no one nearby. She wondered if the balloons had escaped from a child’s hand, or slipped their knots from the front door of a house. They’d flown upwards and become tangled on a drainpipe. She focused on them until their edges blurred and they looked like poppies waving about in the breeze.
Her phone gave a low beep and it startled her. She grabbed it from her pocket. She expected it to be a message from her friend Tommy Eliot. She
hoped
it would be from him. The screen showed ‘Mum’
though. She was disappointed. Tommy had said he’d be around after school but hadn’t shown. She’d waited in the common room for him for over half an hour. She opened the message.
Don’t forget your doctor’s appointment xxx
Mandy hadn’t forgotten. She pushed her phone into her pocket impatiently and looked back to the house. In the corner of her eye the red balloons seemed to flicker.
Workmen had been in and out of the house for the last week or so. Mandy had found herself pausing at the site on her way to and from school. She’d stood watching as they came out carrying fireplaces and tiles and panes of leaded glass so that they could be resold. She saw bannisters and wooden doors put into the back of a lorry and then, bit by bit, the roof tiles came off, leaving the wooden beams exposed. The house
had been stripped until it was just a shell.
It looked dead.
After the killing, five years ago, the property had been cordoned off with crime-scene tape and there had been police cars all along the street. Mandy had watched then too, standing on the opposite pavement with some other local kids. Her mother had become angry with her and insisted she come home. She’d said it was ghoulish, especially when the police began to dig up the back garden. But Mandy hadn’t been able to stay away.
Now she was here again. Tommy had suggested she take a different route to school and back. She could have. She could have walked by the new estate and past the parade of shops that led to the Tube station. It would have taken a few minutes longer, but she could have cut this house out of her daily life.
She heard her ringtone, a soft warble coming from her pocket. She lifted it out and saw the name ‘Tommy’ on the screen. She smiled but didn’t take the call. It was best not to be too available. Let Tommy think she had things to do, places to go, people to see.
She didn’t want him to know where she really was.
She took a last look at the red balloons, straining in the breeze, and thought about Petra and Tina. Then she headed for the doctor’s surgery.
Dr Shukla had the results of Mandy’s tests. She was staring at her computer screen and she tapped at her keyboard and made
um
noises at the same time. Her half-moon glasses had slipped down her nose.
‘Bloods, normal.’
Mandy was sitting on the edge of her chair. The room was tiny, almost entirely taken up by the doctor’s desk and an examination area. The only sound was the tapping of the keys.
‘Now, what else? Urine, normal,’ Dr Shukla said in a let’s-get-down-to-business voice.
On the walls of the surgery were prints of famous paintings. Mandy’s eye fixed on one she hadn’t seen before. It was an image of a girl in a café late at night. Underneath were the words ‘Edward Hopper,
Automat
’. The painting was new, she was sure. It was all dark shades, greens and browns. The girl was sitting at a table, alone. She had her hat and coat on and was drinking from a cup and saucer. The café seemed very peaceful. It was lit up but there were shadows across the floor. Outside the night was thick and black; only the lights of the café could be seen reflected on the glass.
‘Chest X-ray, normal.’
The girl in the painting seemed totally alone in the world. Her face seemed intent on something. She was staring down at the cup, but Mandy imagined that her thoughts were far away. Mandy wondered why she was there. Her clothes were heavy, which suggested that it was winter. Her coat and hat were old fashioned and so was the decor of the café. What was the girl sitting there for? At that time of night? Mandy searched the picture for a suitcase but she couldn’t see one.
She realised that Dr Shukla was staring at her.
‘You are in good health, Mandy, although you look a little thin.’
‘I don’t have anorexia if that’s what you think.’
The words had come out rudely, in a way she hadn’t meant. She ate what she felt like eating. Years ago she had been a little podgy and her mother had frowned whenever she reached for a second piece of cake or a handful of biscuits. There was a time, after Petra and Tina had gone, when her mother thought she was overeating because of what had happened. In those days the house was full of calorie-counting books and healthy snacks. Then, a year or so ago, Mandy suddenly seemed to grow taller and lose the padding she’d had. Now her mother frowned if she left some pasta or didn’t want any breakfast. Her mother seemed determined to be unhappy about her appetite and had taken to baking cakes and puddings.
‘I wasn’t suggesting that you were anorexic,’ Dr Shukla smiled. ‘Appetite is often a barometer of general health. Perhaps you could describe these symptoms you’ve been experiencing again.’
Dr Shukla’s long hair was tied back and rested on one shoulder. It hung like a horse’s tail. Mandy could see a few grey hairs at the parting.
‘I get this kind of aching in my legs and sometimes a weak feeling as if my legs might not hold me up. And headaches.’
Dr Shukla wasn’t writing any of this down. She had her elbows on the desk and was resting her chin on her hands. Behind her glasses her eyes were huge and dark, her eyebrows pencilled into a thin line.
‘And sometimes I think I might be asthmatic because I can’t quite catch my breath. When I’m going to sleep at night I seem to be breathing very shallowly and I worry that no oxygen is getting to my lungs.’
Dr Shukla took a deep breath.
‘Mandy, my dear, I am not saying that you don’t have anything wrong with you. I wouldn’t say that at all. But many of these symptoms are linked with depression and anxiety.’
‘It’s not that,’ Mandy said, feeling the frustration building in her voice, ‘I am not depressed. I know I’ve had my problems in the past …’
Mandy dropped into silence. Dr Shukla started to tidy up her desk. She squared off a couple of small pads and a block of Post-its. She lined up two pens so that they were parallel. All the while she looked as if she was thinking, glancing at her computer screen from time to time, weighing up what to say.
Mandy knew this because she’d been in this seat a number of times before.
‘Two twelve-year-old girls, friends of yours, disappeared,’ Dr Shukla said gently. ‘The likelihood is that they were both killed. This was a terrible thing to happen. The worst thing that can happen to any family, any community, any friend. You were not with them when it happened and it has had a lasting effect on you. I have evidence of this in my notes. You have come to me from time to time with all sorts of ailments and the truth is these have almost always been driven by your anxiety about what happened to your friends. Now I suspect that the same thing is happening now. Am I right in thinking that it’s almost five years since the girls went missing?’
‘At the end of October.’
‘Anniversaries are always difficult. Autumn nights, the smell of fireworks, Halloween. These are all things that will remind you. And maybe even the newspapers will have things to say. Five years is a kind of milestone.’
Mandy thought of the house. She pictured it in the dark waiting to be flattened. The windows empty like eye sockets. Black shadows flitting from room to room. Tomorrow it would be just a piece of land waiting to be built on. She felt herself getting emotional. She stared down at her lap, willing herself not to cry.
‘I have a suggestion,’ Dr Shukla said in her let’s-get-organised voice. ‘We have a new member of staff arriving, a PhD student who is looking at issues of anxiety and depression as they affect young people. She is hoping to work with some of our patients and I think you would be an ideal person for her to spend time with.’
‘Like counselling? I had counselling at school …’
‘This would be different. You are older now. The problems of older adolescents are much more linked to adult depression and anxiety. At least that’s how this new researcher sees it. I think you should meet her and see if she can help you. Meanwhile, I’ll monitor your physical health and if any of your symptoms deteriorate then I’ll send you to see a specialist.’
Mandy opened her mouth to disagree but then thought about it for a second. The researcher was
new
, not someone from around here.
‘How does that sound?’
‘OK.’
‘So, I will tell her about you and she will contact you regarding a meeting.’
Dr Shukla began tapping at her keyboard and Mandy knew that the consultation was over. She mumbled something and got up and left. As she went she could hear Dr Shukla calling over the intercom for her next patient.
Mandy went to bed late, long after her mum and dad. Their bedroom door was shut just after ten and Mandy made herself a hot drink and took it up to her room while she looked on Facebook. There was a lot going on. Tommy was in the middle of a number of discussions and several girls that she knew were giving him flirty answers. She felt her face screw up and pondered whether to join in. She closed her laptop though and went and sat on the bed. There, by her pillow, was her bead box; she’d left it there that morning. She pulled out some elastic string and then sorted through the compartments for a variety of different coloured beads.
Her mum had been pleased with Dr Shukla’s suggestion of counselling. Her mum was always happy if Mandy was being looked after or monitored by some doctor or other.
Mandy threaded the beads onto the elastic. This would be a simple bracelet. Just something colourful on her wrist. She could tie the ends; no need to fiddle with clasps, not this late at night.
She pictured Dr Shukla and remembered all the visits she had made to her over the years. At first, her mother always came with her. She sat in the patient chair while Mandy stood beside her, her mother filling up every inch of the consulting room. Her mother then explained at length what Mandy was thinking and feeling and after she’d got all her words out Dr Shukla would always turn to Mandy and see what she had to say. In those days it had been so difficult to add anything because her mother seemed to have said it all.
Then, a couple of years ago, after her mother had explained about the rashes on Mandy’s inner arms and the backs of her legs, Dr Shukla had interrupted her and said, ‘Do you mind if I have a word with Mandy on her own?’
Her mother had been affronted by this and had mumbled out a number of words and phrases but Dr Shukla had stood up suddenly, something she hardly ever did, and edged round her desk using a let’s-get-this-job-done kind of voice. ‘Now, Mrs Crystal, you have a fantastic relationship with Mandy and if I am to get to grips with what is wrong with her then maybe I have to develop a relationship with her too.’
She’d opened the door and stood holding it and her mother seemed to have no choice but to get up and go out. Dr Shukla went out too, closing the door behind her. There were whispered voices, then the doctor came back in and started to ask Mandy questions for what seemed like a long time.
That was when Mandy had told her about seeing Petra Armstrong on the bus.
She’d been scared when saying it, because to her it was a sign of madness. It really happened, though. Not once but three times. The first time she’d been sitting on a bus going towards Stratford, gazing out of the window. She’d hardly noticed a girl of her own age walking up the centre aisle. Then when she sat down Mandy glanced at her profile and there, around the jaw, in the long hair, she saw something familiar, and the more she looked the more it seemed that this girl was Petra Armstrong, a year after she’d gone missing. Mandy stared at her in a helpless way and missed her stop, determined to see where she got off. She saw her walk away towards the shopping centre. That first time Petra would have been thirteen years old. Then a year later there she was again, on another bus. She saw what looked like a fourteen-year-old girl in skinny jeans wearing a brilliant red top, like Petra and Tina used to wear when they were singing in their girl group, The Red Roses. The face had sharpened, the body was different. Where Petra had more of a child-shaped figure, this girl, on the bus, had small breasts and a way of standing that seemed to hint at a much older girl. That time Mandy had got off at her own stop, leaving her there on the bus.
A year later she’d seen her once more, coming down the stairs of a Routemaster that was going along Oxford Street. A thin girl with long curly hair who had been holding onto the rail and swaying from side to side with the movement of the bus, smiling widely to someone further up whose legs Mandy could just see. She appeared to be about fifteen and her lips were painted into a pout. She got off at the next stop and skipped in front of the bus across the road towards Debenhams.
Mandy never told anyone about these sightings.
For a while, after each time, she began to look for Petra on every bus journey she took. There were teenage girls of all sizes and shapes and she would look from face to face to see that tiny spark of familiarity but she never saw it again.
That was what she had told Dr Shukla.
It had been a kind of confession.
Am I going mad? Am I seeing things?
In her heart she’d known that each time it had been a different girl, not the same girl growing up from year to year. But for a few moments, on the bus, she had been convinced that it had been Petra. Dr Shukla had just shaken her head, her forehead lined with concern.
The mind is a powerful tool. It can turn your longing into something that seems real
.
When you are depressed, fixated on something, it can show you what you want to see.
But the oddest thing of all was why she had only ever seen Petra. Never Tina.
Mandy picked up the beaded bracelet that she’d made. She checked that it fitted her wrist and fastened the ends of it. She held it up so that it caught the light from her bedside lamp. Some of the stones were red and glinted like rubies. She was reminded of the two balloons that had been caught on the drainpipe of the house that afternoon.
After speaking to Dr Shukla about the sightings she never saw any again, as if their talk had broken some kind of spell she’d been under. There’d been no sixteen- or seventeen-year-old Petra holding onto a bus pole or sandwiched up against a window, staring at her mobile. There’d been no Petra pushing the bell for the next stop and leaping off the bus and running away.