A Kind of Vanishing by Lesley Thomson Read Free Book Online Page B

succeeded in sneaking into the sitting room, and was building a tower with playing cards in the corner while her parents fluttered restlessly about the room. Her mother held a book, but wasn’t reading it, while Mark had given up on the newspaper, saying that since the Kennedy shooting it was full of old news, and was pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. Eleanor, who had been keeping quiet in the hope they would fail to notice her, was startled into attention when he blurted out to Isabel how absurd it was that one child got so much attention when there had been an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate. Isabel said it was an awful thing to happen twice, and that if the Senator died there would be no hope for America. She mumbled something about Alice going missing being the last straw and looked so upset that Eleanor did not like to ask how the Senator could die twice. She reconsidered her hide and seek rule of having three lives. Maybe two would do.
    ‘The world is falling apart and they are wasting their time on this.’ Mark drew the curtain to cut out the view of the gates, where a straggle of journalists had been camped since the previous evening when news of Alice’s disappearance became public.
    ‘What’s the matter, worried because Kennedy’s your twin so you’ll lose half your self? I thought you weren’t superstitious.’ Isabel sneered.
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
    Eleanor meant to keep quiet to avoid annoyance, but she couldn’t resist speaking. Until now she had only known about her Dad’s younger sister, she didn’t know he had a twin brother, let alone one that had been shot. No wonder he was so cross.
    ‘What twin? Is he your brother, this Senator?’
    ‘Now look what you’ve done.’ Mark rounded on his wife.
    ‘She doesn’t understand.’ Isabel always took the time to explain things when it was to make a point to Mark and she turned to Eleanor now with exaggerated patience: ‘Robert Kennedy, this man who has been shot, is exactly the same age as Mark. It’s always given him a power complex. Except today it’s given him a headache!’ She laughed and rubbed her face. No one was meant to find anything funny since Alice had gone.
    Eleanor was grateful for being noticed so she nodded sagely.
    ‘It’s a damned sight more important than a girl going AWOL.’ Addressing the gap in the curtain, Mark added: ‘She’s missing. Until they find her, what more is there to say? I’m being practical. We hardly even knew her so why don’t they leave us alone?’
    ‘You know why.’ To Eleanor’s alarm, her Mum had started crying and she spluttered in horrible jerking sobs. ‘What if one of your children disappeared off the face of the earth?’ Isabel shifted around so she could see Mark, who was now standing behind her, and kicked over the Bagatelle board that Eleanor had left propped against the sofa. It fell with a crash spilling ball bearings all over the floorboards. Isabel carried on:
    ‘Her parents don’t have any other children. It’s over for them if Alice isn’t found. I feel for her poor mother.’ She fished up her cardigan sleeve for a tissue and blew her nose loudly at Mark Ramsay’s implacable back, the material tightening around his bottom as he shuffled change in his trouser pockets.
    Eleanor was anxious to stop her mother crying – her Dad hated crying – so she asked why ‘it was over for them’? He scowled at Eleanor as she scuttled around the room retrieving ball bearings.
    ‘You are only a mother if you have a child.’ Isabel massaged her tears into her face with a forefinger because, as she had once told Eleanor, tears were good for the complexion. ‘If Mrs Howland hasn’t got Alice, she has no one to mother. At her age it’s probably too late.’
    ‘Stop talking bilge!’ Mark closed the curtains entirely. They were in the dark until he snapped on a light. ‘She’s only about thirty! She has at least five child-bearing years