The Blue Mile by Kim Kelly Page B

other side with him, and I think my skull will split in two with the noise.

Olivia
    â€˜ A gnes!’ I call out for her again, across the empty expanse of the second floor, my alarm ringing along the apex of the roofline, threatening the glass. I look over the railing, down through the void to the tiles on the ground floor, which will be teeming in a minute. She could be anywhere, the little rat. Three floors of arcade. Big city. I’ve lost her, and while the majority of my conscience says, That’s no good, is it, the small but insistent remainder of it is shouting: Oh my God, no!
    What am I going to say to that nice boy when he comes to collect his sister?
    What should I do? Call the police? What would I say to them ? Erm, yes, that’s right, officer, I picked this urchin up off the street; no, no idea who she is. Pretty little thing, though.
    Oh, how could she have vanished so utterly two steps out the salon door?
    Damn. I peer hard into the window of Boston Shoes, as if she might have flown in there through the crack in the transom and hidden in a pair of satin pumps. Nothing’s open yet but I cast my eyes across the void again anyway: to the lace drapes of Madame Marjorie’s Hair and Beauty Art, the floating damasks of Loughton’s tableware, the banks of phonographs in the Challis showroom, and stacks of travel luggage at Blayney’s . . . all silent and soulless.
    I don’t know what to do, apart from return to the salon. To Mother. And her disgust. Oh, but I could have a jolly good turn at her for this, couldn’t I. This is Mother’s fault. That’s what I’ll tell the police: Mother frightened the poor girl away. Never to be seen or heard of again.
    I’m deep in planning the opening lines of my next tantrum as I see Mr Monty, the photographer from next door, querying over his spectacles at me on his way from the lift: ‘Morning, Miss Greene.’
    I smile: ‘Hello!’
    I am not a wanton loser of small children. Not me. Why indeed do I have a small child in my care to lose? Of all the vindictive and wilfully infantile things you could –
    I’ll go and check the stairwells – now. Oh God. Start with the Pitt Street end.
    I dash back past our shop, and don’t so much as glance at the window there as I do, nor at the permanently closed blinds of Mr Solomon’s, the optometrist, on the other side, but then, just before the stairwell, I do glance up – up the small flight of steps that lead to an office there, of an accountant, or it used to be, not sure it’s occupied anymore – and I just catch sight of the little white socks in their little Indian red mary-janes, right at the top, sticking out of the shadows.
    â€˜Agnes?’
    She doesn’t move; so still, she must be holding her breath.
    â€˜Agnes,’ I try again and some instinct tells me not to call her a naughty little rat as I might like to; instead, I gentle my tone: ‘It’s all right, you know. Mother was only cross with me. Please don’t run away – your brother would be sad if you did that, wouldn’t he?’
    Still she doesn’t move; but she might well race off again if I take the steps up to her, mightn’t she, so I stay put, try yet again and more firmly: ‘Agnes, please stop this nonsense and come down from there. Don’t you want to go to the tea party with me anymore?’
    At last she steps down, one step, into the light, but still she doesn’t speak, and her eyes are wide with fear. Not a skittish sort but a dread sort of fear – one that this situation doesn’t seem to call for. Mother wasn’t that horrible just now. But then, this little girl doesn’t know Mother, does she. Strange people, strange place; she must be terribly confused. I hold out my hand to her: ‘Poor little sweetie, I’m sure you just want to go home, don’t you?’
    But at that the fear in her eyes seems to