The Loss

By Marit Meredith

Holidaying in a small Welsh seaside village in the early 60s, a brother and sister enjoy exploring, until the last day of the holiday, when six year old Daniel disappears without a trace. It seems only Jennie, his five year old sister, knows what happened, but her memories are suppressed for decades – until, as a grandmother, a small pencil box triggers memories. But is what Jennie thinks she remembers what actually happened? Leaving her brother behind, when the tide was coming in, could only mean one thing... and all that was left, was one small red sandal...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781326032616

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The Loss

The Loss

By Marit Meredith

Published in 2014

Midnight Scribbler Publishing

Copyright © Text: Marit Meredith

ISBN: 978-1-326-03168-8

First Edition

The author asserts her right to be identified as author of this work in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior consent of Marit Meredith or Midnight Scribbler Publishing, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

This is a work of fiction. Any likeness to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Also by Marit Meredith

Diary of a Would-Be-Protagonist

With sincere thanks to my friends at Writers Abroad, where the idea of this novel was conceived, and also to Myra King, the best friend a writer can have. Thank you for all your help and encouragement.

Chapter One

The phone had a habit of ringing whenever Jennie was elbow-deep in soap suds – or had gone to bed for the night. By the time she reached it, the person on the other end had given up on her and hung up. This time she got to the phone in time. It could only be her daughter, Jan. She didn’t give up so easily.

‘Yes?’

‘Mam, how old is that box, you know, the one Gran gave me when I was little?’

‘The sewing box?’

‘No, not that one. The pencil box. The one with a picture of a little boy and girl painted on the lid…’

Jennie remembered, and shuddered. ‘My pencil box.’

‘Gran said I could have it. She didn’t say anything about it being yours.’

‘I suppose she thought it didn’t matter. I left it behind when I went to college, then forgot about it.’ That was a lie. She never forgot.

Silence.

‘Jan?’

‘I’m still here. You don’t want it back, do you, Mam?’

‘No, of course not. I was just saying…’ 

‘Well, in that case, I’d like to give it to Molly, but I want her to know a bit about it, to make her appreciate it.’

‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Another lie.

‘Not even its age?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’d say soon after the war, late forties, early fifties, judging by the illustration. Perhaps a bit later.’

‘Really? Older than you?’ Jan laughed. ‘That old? Molly will be impressed.’

‘You don’t have to make me sound like an antique.’ Jennie was relieved that the conversation was moving away from the providence of the old box.

‘You know I’m only teasing you. But Mam, if there is something about that box… if it’s special in any way, you will tell me, won’t you?’

Jennie shuddered. "It’s not important.’ Stop lying.

‘Really?’ Jan didn’t sound convinced.

‘Really. Look, Jan, I’ve told you its approximate age. It’s old. It’s a little bit special just because of that, and because your grandmother gave it to you. Isn’t that enough?’

Jennie felt cold. She wished her mother hadn’t kept the box, let alone passed it on. She wished Jan hadn’t kept it and that she wasn’t passing it on to Molly in turn. Why had she accepted the box in the first place? She never wanted it.

Silence.

‘Mam, I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll be bringing the box.’ Jan replaced the receiver.

Jennie froze, staring at the phone in her hand. No! She’ll make me tell.

Jennie didn’t sleep well. She woke several times, drenched in sweat, fear grabbing at her throat, old memories transforming themselves into nightmares. She should have burned the box. She had sat by the kitchen table, head in hands for what seemed like hours, when she heard a car pull up.

She stared out through the rain-lashed window, watching as her daughter struggled against the wind and rain, making her way to the front door. Jan would have liked her to move into town, away from the weather beaten coast, but Jennie couldn’t move. It had rained that day, too.

Jan stood inside the door, looking every bit like she had when she was a little girl, coming in from school, dripping wet in her yellow raincoat. Only the sou’wester was missing. Jennie couldn’t help but smile.

‘Let me help you with that, Jan.’

‘I’m not a little girl, I can manage…’

Did she read her thoughts?

‘… but here, hold this, will you?’ Jan pulled a package from inside her coat.

No.

‘Take it, then.’ Jan was easing her arm out of the sleeve of her raincoat, dripping water all over the floor.

‘Just put it on the table,’ Jennie backed towards the door. ‘I’d better get the mop.’ She turned and almost ran into the kitchen. Please don’t make me touch the box.

‘I’ve put the kettle on, Mam. Come and sit down.’

‘I’ll make us a cup of coffee, then.’

‘I’ll make it in a minute.’ Jan brushed her dripping fringe out of her eyes.

‘Hold on, I’ll get you a towel.’

‘No, you won’t. Come and sit down. Now!’

‘But…’ Please phone, ring. Or someone knock the door. Jennie sat down at the far end of the table. She felt sick.

‘Mam, this is silly. It’s just a box.’

Jan pushed the box across the table and Jennie jumped up, knocking the chair over, almost running out of the room. I’m going to be sick.

‘Mam, are you all right?’ Jennie leaned against the bathroom door. ‘If you weren’t, well, fifty plus, I’d think you were pregnant.’

Silence.

‘Mam?’

‘I’ll be out in a minute.’ Jan’s right. It’s just a box. All that stuff… it was all coincidences, wasn’t it?

‘Coffee’s ready!’

‘Thanks, sweetheart. Do you mind if we take it through to the living room? And leave the box, please.’

‘If you promise to tell me what all this nonsense is about.’

‘Sit down, Jan. It’s a long story, but I have never thought of it as nonsense.  Although – perhaps you’re right. Perhaps it is nonsense.’ You know it isn’t.

Jan looked at her watch.

‘Going somewhere?’

‘No.’

‘Pity.’

‘You’re not getting out of telling me, Mam.’

Jennie sank down in the old arm chair. No going back.

‘Okay, okay. The first time I saw the box, I was just five, I think, so Dan would have been six.’

‘Dan?’

‘Your uncle Dan, my brother.’

‘Uncle? I didn’t know you had a brother. What happened to him?’

‘All in good time, Jan.’ Oh, Dan.

Jan pulled her chair closer.

‘We were at the beach, building sandcastles. A seaside day out for city children.’

‘City children?’

‘Yes, we didn’t always live out here by the coast, but when Dan… well Mum and Dad wanted to be closer to the sea.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You will, Jan, I hope.’ Will she really understand?

‘It was Dan that spotted the little blue and white box bobbing in the sea. We weren’t allowed to go into the water without Mum or Dad, but he waded in. ‘Treasure!’ he shouted. Jennie allowed herself a smile. Some treasure.

‘He didn’t drown, did he? Please tell me he didn’t drown, Mam.’

‘No, no, Dan was okay. Dad ran in and grabbed him, and Dan howled because he hadn’t reached the box yet.’

‘But you got the box…’

I wish we hadn’t.

‘Dad swam out and got it, just to calm Dan down. He was carrying on about his treasure being lost so much that in the end Dad just got up and launched himself into the sea. Your granddad was a good swimmer.’

‘And he brought the box to you?’

‘To Dan. Dan didn’t want to share it. It was all his, he said. He was going to dry it out and keep his pencils in it. It was blue and white, he said, for a boy. Not pink for a girl.’

‘And you accepted that?’

I wish I had.

Jan frowned. ‘But the picture, that’s a bit more girlie, don’t you think?’

Jennie shivered. ‘There wasn’t a picture on the box when Dad brought it out of the sea.’

‘No picture? I don’t understand.’

You’re not alone.

‘Mam?’

‘Give me a minute, sweetheart.’ Jennie got up and walked to the window, looking out towards the beach. Despite the blustery weather, she could just about make out the old weathered blue beach house in the distance. She turned back to face Jan.

‘I’ve met someone.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t look so shocked. He’s just a friend, and besides…’

‘I’m not shocked, but don’t you dare try to change the subject.’

‘I’m not. He lives out at the old beach house.’

‘You mean the blue hut? Where I played with my friends when we were kids?’

What?

‘You weren’t allowed near that place.’

‘You know what kids are like, Mam. You’re not going to send me to bed without supper, are you?’ Jan chuckled. ‘Anyway, what about this friend?’

‘I don’t know much about him. He inherited the house and decided to get to work on it in his holidays. He’s a teacher.’

‘I imagine it needs a lot of work, standing empty for so long.’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t asked.’

I don’t want to know.

‘Aren’t you curious?’

‘No!’

Jan studied her mother’s face.

‘I don’t understand. It seems that you don’t want to know about the house, yet you have befriended the man who owns it and lives in it. And what has it got to do with the box?’

Everything.

‘I didn’t know who he was or where he was staying. Not at first.’

‘Who is he then? Are you going to tell me?’

‘It isn’t important.’

The house is important.

‘Mam!’

‘I’m sorry. His name is John. I didn’t catch his surname. He teaches in the city, and that’s all I know. That - and that he loves the sea.’

‘Okay. So you have something in common.’

I don’t love the sea.

‘Then what about the house? If this John is not important, it must be the house.’

Jennie nodded. ’We stayed there the summer before Dan found the box. Mum and Dad rented it, but it wasn’t available the following summer, so we had to rent a cottage in the village.’

‘And?’

‘We couldn’t stay away from the blue beach house. It felt like it was ours. All winter we had yearned to get back to the house and the beach.’

Jan’s eyes narrowed. ‘You mean you were disobedient and went where you weren’t supposed to go?’

‘Mum and Dad didn’t really say…’

‘But you knew.’

‘Yes.’

Perhaps if they had said something… Jennie shook her head. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t their fault.

‘We had made ourselves a little den under the veranda, when we were staying there. Mum and Dad didn’t know, or if they did, they certainly didn’t let on.’

‘Kids like to have secrets.’

Not all secrets are good secrets.

‘Dan fancied himself as a pirate.’

‘No different from most six year olds then, Mam.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘So, you wanted to get back to the den to dig up buried treasure?’

‘Our buried treasure. We had filled a tin with all sorts of things.’

‘What kind of things?’

‘ You know, jetsam and flotsam, shells, pieces of glass polished smooth, pebbles, a toy car, a doll’s head…’

Jan laughed. ‘Each to their own, I suppose, but I’m not sure I’d call it treasure. Even as a kid.’

‘We made the most of the little we had.’

Jan laughed. ‘I can feel a lecture coming on.’

‘You were spoilt in comparison.’

‘Never mind me. Did you find your treasure?’

‘No. Well, in a way. Mrs Williamson had dug it up.’

‘Mrs Williamson?’

‘She owned the beach house and had decided to stay there herself for the summer.’

‘Why did she dig it up?’

‘She was an artist, she said, and liked to arrange things into still- lifes and then paint them. She was just tidying up under the veranda, and apparently we hadn’t buried the tin very well.’

Jan nodded. ‘I remember a picture like that on Grandma’s wall when I was little. She took it down because the severed doll’s head scared me.’

‘Yes, she gave us the picture, but asked if she could keep our treasures. Dan thought it was wonderful. He was going to keep that picture on his wall forever, he said, and it seemed to make Mrs Williamson very happy, too.’

‘What about the box?’

‘We had yet to find that.’

The box changed everything.

Silence.

‘Jan?’

‘Yes?’

‘Did you ever use the box for anything? I didn’t even know you had it.’

Thank God.

‘No, not really. It didn’t quite fit in with the Barbie period I was going through, so I put it in my little red case, with other things I’d grown out of but didn’t want to get rid of.’

‘The one you always kept locked?’

‘I had a brother, too, you know.’

‘You still do.’

‘You know what I mean!’

She never opened it.

‘Do you still like to keep secrets?’ Jennie didn’t wait for a reply. ‘What else did you keep locked away?’

‘No, Mam. You’re the one with secrets, and that silly box seems to be at the root of it all. And Dan. What happened to him? Why didn’t I know about him?’

Change the subject. Fast!

‘Why don’t you just get rid of the box, if it’s so silly?’

I shouldn’t have said that! What if she does?

‘You’ve got to be joking! That box is my treasure now, and you’d better reveal what it’s all about. You’re not telling me anything.’

Jennie suddenly felt tired.

‘All in good time, Jan.’

‘But, Mam…’ Jan paused.  ‘Did you hear that?’

‘It’s just the weather. It’s stormy out there.’

‘I think there might be someone at the door.’ Jan half rose from the chair.

‘I didn’t hear anything.’

‘There it is again. Someone is knocking the door. I’ll get it, shall I?’

‘Please.’

Jennie collected the empty mugs and carried them through to the kitchen, giving the table a wide berth. Not easy in a small kitchen, but she was keeping as far away from the box as she could.

If I pretend it’s not there…

‘Mam, someone’s here to see you.’

Jennie looked up. ‘Oh hello! Jan, this is John, you know, from the beach house. And John, my daughter, Jan.’

‘Mam, we’ve already introduced ourselves.’ Jan smiled. ‘No need to stand on ceremony.

‘You don’t mind me arriving on your doorstep unannounced, I hope?’ John turned to Jan.

‘We usually meet when out walking, somewhere between here and the beach house, but I didn’t think your mother would go out for a walk in this weather.’

Jan laughed. ‘It didn’t stop you, did it?’

‘Oh, I’m not that brave. This weather is a bit too blustery even for me, so I cheated and got the car out. I’ve got something to show your mother.’ John pulled a folded piece of paper from his inside pocket and carefully unfolded it.

‘You two go through to the living room, and I’ll make us a cup of coffee.’ Jennie grabbed the kettle.

He’s found something. I don’t like this.

‘Don’t be silly, Mam. John has come to see you, not me. Go on through and I’ll bring the coffees.’

‘Okay, thank you.’

‘Don’t look so worried, Jennie. It’s just one of my aunt’s old drawings. A sketch I found at the beach house, at the back of a rickety old cupboard I was pulling out.’

‘Oh.’

His aunt? Mrs Williamson?

‘I remember you telling me that you stayed there once, and I just wondered if you knew who the children in this drawing were? I have a lot of my aunt’s work, and I thought that perhaps, if they were local, we