Wait for me
Val, Leyland u3a
“That is my sister.” Andrew took the faded photograph from her trembling hand and followed the partially extended finger. The old lady sat, rheumy eyes gazing at the seascape through the long picture window of the conservatory. As rest homes go, he thought, I wouldn’t mind ending up here in fifty years’ time. It was comfortable with softly-spoken staff who took a genuine interest in the old people in their care. It had been his editor who suggested a nostalgic piece about the Beaumont case would make an interesting feature in the local paper. Seventy-five years ago the small seaside town of Hinton had been gripped by a wave of hysteria when, one Sunday afternoon in late August, just as the season was beginning to wind down, the six-year-old Beaumont twins, Elizabeth and Isabella, disappeared. After a wide-ranging search, lasting several days, Elizabeth had been found, weak and barely conscious, in the entrance of a rocky cave on a desolate part of the coastline; Isabella had never been found.
It was Elizabeth who now talked to Andrew about that fateful August day. His eyes lingered over the photograph; it showed two little girls, short bobbed hair anchored with identical slides. Their hair partings were so arranged that when each looked at the other, she would see a mirror image of herself. Elizabeth looked at her twin, not the camera, while Isabella regarded the camera with a bold stare.
“She was always full of fun. She loved exploring, so when she suggested that we go into the cave, I didn’t hesitate. I was afraid, but you didn’t say no to Isabella,” and she smiled, remembering those far-off days when time stood still and a sunny day was never ending.
Wait for me…
“But she went so fast. I shouted, “Wait for me, Isabella!” All I could hear was the echo of my own voice and then laughter. I panicked and ran. I don’t remember anything else except being found. I should never have left her. It was all my fault...” Her voice had fallen to a whisper and her eyes held a lifetime of sadness and regret.
Andrew waited for several minutes; he had the distinct impression that Elizabeth was holding something back, but when she next spoke, the moment had gone.
“Even though it has been so long,” she continued, “I still feel she has been with me all these years. Very bossy, she is too. I wanted to marry John, my childhood sweetheart, but she wouldn’t let me.”
“You mean that she stopped you from marrying the man you loved?”
“I’m not batty, young man!” retorted Elizabeth. “I don’t mean she haunts me. I’ve never seen her, even though I often felt she was with me,” and she sighed. “She could be exasperating, but I loved her. After she disappeared, I felt all the family expectations were placed on me. I know being head librarian was not mother’s idea of success. She always felt that Isabella would have done great things, politics or the law. No one ever directly blamed me, but…” she bit her lip and tears began to course down her furrowed cheeks. “I often think I should have been the one who di…disappeared.”
“Nonsense,” replied Andrew. “I’m sure your parents never blamed you for what happened to Isabella.”
She grasped his arm with surprising strength for one so frail.
“But what did happen to her?”
He looked into her faded blue eyes and had no answer; later he left her, overcome by an almost palpable sense of grief and sympathy for this old lady, haunted by her memories, close to death herself, and yet having lived in Isabella’s shadow for so long.
Wait for me…
Once outside in the clear summer air, he felt reluctant to return to his stuffy and chaotic office. He had spent so long poring over papers from the Beaumont case that he felt the need to breathe fresh air and clear his mind. The air was bracing, the beach deserted, and he decided to walk with no clear idea of any destination. It wasn’t till he had been walking for over an hour that he realised he was heading in the direction of the cave where the Beaumont incident had taken place.
Rounding the headland, it was a short scramble to the cave entrance. The rocks were slippery and, in the mellow afternoon sun, they radiated a blinding luminescence. He had to stop several times to steady himself, and as he reached the entrance to the cave, which sloped downwards from a thick plateau of rock, he could hear the rush and tumble of waves deep within it.
Ruefully, he wiped the sand from his trousers and sat down on a large boulder near the cave mouth. He surveyed his grey shoes, sodden and scuffed. He looked around him at the sea and sky. Seagulls circled lazily overhead.
If only these rocks could talk, and he brushed his hair back out of his eyes with his fingers. As he did so, he was aware that he was not alone. He whirled round to stare at the cave entrance, but he could see nothing.
He turned back to face the sea, and there, arms crossed angrily, stood a child. She glared at him, stubborn little face scowling, her bobbed hair anchored by a slide. He gasped, “Isabella?” and the wind whipped the word into long floating strands so that it seemed to echo down the years.
“I…s…a…b…e…l…l…a….!”
She did not reply but skipped towards him, stopping several yards short to stare intently into a rock pool. He held his breath, frightened to break the spell. He felt that if he moved the curtain of time would swish once more, drawing her back just as it had swirled with a dramatic flourish to reveal her there, forever six years old, in the endlessness of that late summer afternoon when she had vanished so long ago.
Wait for me…
“Won’t you talk to me?”
Isabella drew back from the pool and sat back on her heels. She gave a little smile. He took that as a signal to edge closer towards her. She appeared to be humming to herself, a wistful little tune.
He sat down on a rock a few feet away from her. The tune faded away, and now she was sobbing.
Ghost or not, he felt no fear, simply a great sadness for this little lost girl, trapped in her loneliness.
“Why are you crying?”
She traced shapes in the sand before looking up at him. The scowl had gone.
“I’ve lost my sister. Elizabeth knew the words. She was always cleverer than me. I should have listened to her. I went into the cave, and she didn’t follow me quickly enough. I called, but she didn’t come. No one came. The water rushed in, and I couldn’t get back to her. I miss her so much.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I could help you.”
“No one can now. If you see my sister, will you tell her I love her and miss her? I never meant to bully her.”
“I promise.”
He could see the rippling sea in her face and her eyes merged into the horizon. He struggled to hold her image, but it had gone. Seagulls mocked and wheeled around him.
Wait for me…
Probably having wandered too far into the cave, she had drowned and been swept away by the sea at high tide. Elizabeth had tried to follow her. Had she collapsed with exhaustion or hit her head on a piece of overhanging rock? Had they argued before Isabella had gone into the cave? Had Elizabeth dared her twin or had the more venturesome Isabella gone in of her own accord?
He would never know, at least not from Isabella. He must go back to talk to Elizabeth. He would tell her that Isabella had died quickly and in no pain; he would not tell her of her loneliness.
When he reached the nursing home, Matron drew him into her office and closed the door.
“I’m afraid you won’t be able to speak to Miss Beaumont. She died an hour ago; she simply slipped away. She was a wonderful old lady. We will all miss her. Would you believe that she was singing before she died?”
“She knew the words,” he murmured, and he hummed the little tune that Isabella did not know the words for.
She gasped. “How did you know?”
He didn’t reply, but through his tears, he gazed out of the window across the huge expanse of sand and sea. Flickering in the far distance, just where the land meets the sea in a shimmering haze, he was sure he could see two small figures, hand in hand.