She reached up and touched the unvarnished wood just above her head. A jab of pain entered the tip of her fore-finger along with a splinter. Vague images of crawling under the table to sleep, nothing before that except the crush of people’s voices competing in unison. Through invisible faces, she had stood for an eternity listening to the tones which ranged from sudden high-pitched laughter to deep-base mumbling. She had wanted to dance to it but there was no space even to stretch her limbs. As she lay there on a coat which she had taken from the back of a chair she started counting the pieces of gum which reminded her of the time she had put her hand under the desk at school and had recoiled in horror at what she supposed was the saliva of the children who had taunted her in the playground.
All around her was silence apart from the banging of a distant door and footsteps. Through the light material of the table-cloth which reached to the ground, a shadow passed by. A clearing of a throat and a sigh followed. “Arabella, are you in here?”
Papa.
But she found she couldn’t move and as the footsteps began to retreat, she felt a sinking such as never before. In her panic she tried to call out but no sound came, so her mind diverted its attention to the throbbing finger.
...............................................................................................................................................
Miss Beechtree was inconsolable and poured herself another shot of gin.
Her mother sat by the window, watching the branches of the willow swaying in the breeze. She hazily recalled the time when Arabella had gone missing at Jeremy Tripwell's wedding. As they were getting into the taxi to return to Blacksteps Hotel, she'd had the uneasy feeling that something wasn't quite right. They had sent out a search party, and fifty half-drunk men had gone all around the estate with torches calling her name. Eventually Araballa was spotted in the rock garden asleep on the wishing-stone, looking like something the angels had left behind in their haste to return to the other-realm.
"I can't just sit here doing nothing." She shrugged, went over to the piano, hit the C, and then the A, a little too hard.
"We were told to stay here in case she turns up. Please don't do that."
"I'll stop if you do. It is that damn stuff that caused all this in the first place."
"Don't start that again. If you were a responsible mother, you would have brought her home after the show."
"How could I? You whisked her off before I could even...."
The phone went, saving another inevitable row.
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