“I’m glad you like the photo, Dad.  I did my best to repair it, but some of it I just couldn’t fix.  If you look closely at Sheila’s face I don’t think even a professional could have mended the photo completely.”  ”Well it looks all right to me,” Dad replied.  His voice quavered on the phone, and despite the fact that he was in his eighties, it was the first time that I’d thought of him as old.  I worried that it was a consequence of the mini-stroke that he’d just had.  He said “Mike says he had an unhappy childhood.  He doesn’t look unhappy in the photo.”   This conversation could go about a thousand ways, I thought.

On either end of the phone line we were looking at a black and white 8×10 portrait of Dad’s three children with Mum.  I remembered the excitement of it being taken; the door-to-door photographer had knocked one afternoon in early summer, and I was surprised when Mum let him in, as the only usual adult visitor was our neighbour Mrs Needleman.  I noticed that he smelled of smoke when he came in.  He set up his chest-high tripod, fixed the concertinaed camera on top of it and erected a blue sheet behind the dining-room table.  We clambered on to the table, with Sheila, the eldest, kneeling behind and between Mike and me.  ”Watch the birdie!” the photographer called, and shook a bedraggled toy parakeet beside the lens.  ”Say ‘Cheese!’”  he said, and I noticed his yellow teeth.  ”Cheese!” we responded dutifully, with in my case, no idea why, and the bulb lit up in its reflective holder, sealing our smiles.

These days I prefer to dress anonymously, but I remember the Ladybird T-shirt I was wearing that day – it had red and cream vertical stripes, and I would have worn it every day of the summer if I had been allowed, and I probably was allowed more often than not.  Sheila and Mike were in their school uniforms, Mike with a hand-knitted grey jumper over his shirt and tie.  It must have been near the end of term, the final one before I joined them at infants school.

When Dad got home we heard him shouting at Mum in the kitchen about wasting the housekeeping on a photograph.  Mum stood up for herself for once and said that it was going to be a Christmas present for her parents, and surely he couldn’t begrudge her that.  Anyway, he hadn’t been here to say no.  She’d phoned him at the office, where had he been?  He was never here.  I knew that it had been a bad idea for her to let the man in.  As usual the row ended with Mum slamming the door and running up the stairs to their bedroom.  I adopted my familiar tactic of going to play in the garden out of sight of the window, where I would be safe for a while.

Where had Dad been?  That was a good question.  Depending on the time of year he may have been climbing a mountain in Wales, skiing in Austria or being entertained by “Auntie” Vi in her bungalow opposite Epping Forest. On Sunday afternoons he would take us children to the forest “so that your Mother can get some peace,” and would leave us to play by the side of the ponds while he disappeared.  There was a particular musty smell about the edges of the pond which I can summon up now, and I have an image of the holes our wellingtons made almost knee-deep in the mud, while tiny flies flitted around in the fetid air.  I had no sense of danger, apart from the ever-present childhood fear of strangers.  We did not need to worry too much about how muddy we became, as Dad was always cheerful on his reappearance, and would sing risqué rugby songs to us on the way home.  Through some instinctive childhood knowledge I knew that it would be unwise to mention Dad’s absences to Mum when we got home.

Mike was the usual target of Dad’s rage.  Time after time I would hear Dad shout “I’ll tan your hide!” and he would lift his hand as if to inflict the punishment.  The words in the phrase didn’t make much sense to me, but the meaning was perfectly clear.  I don’t know where he got the expression from – maybe his father had said it to him, perhaps he took it from a western.  It seems a peculiar term, but at the time it was as commonly heard as “go to bed” or “time to get up.”  Even now a sharply raised hand or voice makes me flinch reflexively.  I escaped the threat by making myself invisible, trying not to gain attention.  This behaviour carried over into school, where I was known for being bright but very quiet, except for Maths.  Maths has definite answers, so it was safe to venture an answer without being shouted down for idiocy.  For Mike the consequences were much worse.  He was always visible and the cause of Dad’s wrath.  It was never clear what course of action might arouse Dad’s anger, but Mike always seemed to be able to find it.  As Mike grew older, his relationship with his father was beyond repair, and as an adult he eventually refused to have anything to do with Dad. I continued to prefer invisibility.

For years the photo had sat in its thin aluminium frame on the windowsill of our grandparents’ bedroom, and I used to sneak in to look at it every time we visited.  The room had heavy curtains and never seemed brighter than gloomy any time that I dared to enter, nor warmer than chilly from the brick-filled storage heaters.  After Gran died, I rescued the photo from the windowsill, next to the condensation-covered window.  The photographic paper had warped and was stuck to the glass in spots, but I was happy to have it at home.  I displayed it for a while on the mantle-piece, but around the time that my wife started ripping my clothes and scratching my LP’s, I hid it out of harm’s way.

Once the dust of my divorce had settled I retrieved the photo and displayed it again.  By now the edges of the paper where it was stuck to the glass had begun to yellow, and I felt that I had to try and repair it or it would be ruined.  Firstly I scanned it in its frame in case of further damage.  Then I folded out the flimsy wire clips and removed the back section.  June 1965 was written on the reverse of the photo.  It was a pleasant surprise when the sections of the photo which adhered to the glass peeled away without ripping, but even so they stuck out from the surface with jagged edges.  I scanned it at the highest resolution possible, which only revealed its many flaws.  I realized that the photographer had not done a brilliant job – it was framed so that half the picture was of the screen behind us, and it was over-exposed, bleaching our faces.  I spent many hours with Photoshop, blending in the background, sharpening the edges and trying to repair the damage the best I could.  I wasn’t completely satisfied but eventually made copies for all of us in the family.

“Hello, are you still there?” asked Dad, interrupting my thoughts.  He continued: “Mike looks happy.  He says he had an unhappy childhood, but he doesn’t look unhappy in the photo.”  Taking a deep breath, I replied “Dad, he’s happy because you weren’t there.”

does anybody ever read this blog?

Forty one days before the Germans went into Poland my family went to Margate, and Father passed so briefly through my life. Back home in East Ham, the summer was close and muggy. There was a sugar bakery near our house and the fumes had gotten unbearable, seeping and reeking with clammy sweetness sticking to the very air we breathed. There were times when you felt you were inhaling syrup and it set your throat on fire, so you can imagine how we welcomed our escape to the coast. In her quieter moments, Mother would soothe me with talk of how ‘Father’s skin had a glow smooth as them gold canes stacked by the wall’ as we walked along by the bakers. ‘Beautiful Nettie, he was. Just beautiful.’ And that was all she’d ever say, lifting her eyes to the clouds and making me feel impolite to probe any further. And so I never did. Somehow this brought me relief, as well as a funny kind of consolation.

Margate’s sea air was meant to blow away the heat, but looking back I wonder if it fanned a different kind of fire for me. One that never did go out. When I asked Mother why my skin was darker than most or why Father had gone away or what it meant when the girls on the corner sneered ‘my golly’ and pulled at my cardi for no good reason I could see, Mother told me that ‘all kinds of misfortune could befall a man with his background’ and that it wasn’t for me ‘to be querying the mysteries of God’s creation.’ Sometimes she said X and sometimes she said Y but basically she said that that was that, that I should be grateful for small mercies, and that he wasn’t coming back. Was gone for good, in fact. He could be dead for all she knew (sign of the cross). And how was she to know that there was someone watching him so closely and so ready to tell me all that they knew, even though I’d never asked them for it?

*
Isle of Wight, Ramsgate, Southend, Cliftonville, Shoeburyness – we went to all the greats, the fun-filled resorts and pleasure beaches of the day. Though we were far from what you might call flush, our merry outings were a matter of custom to the family and we put savings aside all year round, like alms intended for the Church collection box.

That summer of 1939 I plunged my toes into the cool yellow sand of Margate and watched hoof-prints loom and fade at the shoreline as my cousins rode on donkeys down the bay. We were staying in the Granville Lodgings near the beach and Mother and I shared a room overlooking nothing but a white brick wall that plunged to a damp court-yard below. I did so cherish the open skies and long horizons of the coast when they were laid out before me. And I loved to swim in those dear dear English waters. I slept in my bathing costume some nights and each morning, before the others woke, I slipped from my bed and stole barefoot down the stairs. I ran across the Prom to the pool on the foreshore, inhaling great gulps of the day’s bright beginning, just to make sure I got enough of that clean air into my lungs to see me right til next time, just like Mother said I should.

Some mornings groups of fishermen would be on the front, fixing the nets they had draped on the railings and I wanted to ask if they had ever seen mermaids (though I must admit I never did). I longed to swim in the open sea but I was alone then, and I couldn’t bear the thought of seaweed grasping at my ankles or fish-hooks stabbing through my skin, never mind disappearing down the quicksand in Walpole Bay, so I stuck to the saltwater pool in the Lido. If truth be told, when you ducked and squinted your eyes at the water level you could imagine you were floating on the deep blue sea anyway, paddling and tumbling and basking just like the seals and porpoises in the Great Atlantic Ocean.

As a family we were accustomed to the water – seafarers and stevedores for generations, we’d been. Even Auntie Ellen who didn’t like to get her hair wet had won First Prize in the 1929 swim season and Uncle Jack was said never to be happier than when tied to a mast in high seas. Later, their son John would swim across the Channel smothered in goose fat while we all waited on the docks at Calais to cheer him over the finish line. At the waterside Auntie Annie whispered lewd jokes about how his woollen trunks’d probably shrunk in the sea and we stared right through our shame as he heaved himself onto the jetty. I say ‘we,’ as if we were united, but really that was only the half of it. We were and we weren’t, but there was so much I didn’t know. There was so much I would never really understand.

When I arrived at the Lido on that Sunday, July 24th 1939, the only other people at the pool were an old man in an old bathing suit and the Lifeguard on a high-chair at the side who had the look of Laurence Olivier about him: same amorous eyes and dimpled chin. I liked the way he smiled and nodded me good morning. In the cubicle at the poolside, I chucked off my clothes and sandles, not even bothering to hang them on the hook, and then dived straight in to the water and started practising front-crawl. No warm-up that morning since it was what you might call bracing, but I loved it all the same. I remember I could do five strokes without taking a breath and then when I did it was only from the side of my mouth and my face went straight back down in the water and my arms propelled me onwards as if I were a torpedo. I was hoping to compete next season, though I hadn’t said as much to anyone.

Up and down, up and down the lengths of the pool I went. I’d done 16 already – nearly a quarter of a mile – before I noticed a small group of boys had gathered at the waterside to stare. The Lifeguard was crouching down and beckoning me to the side. The boys were in a huddle, looking my way, exchanging words and glances. The Lifeguard seemed very aggravated, and blew his whistle til his face grew stern.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to get out miss,’ his cheeks were red and his mouth had become awkward. The muscles of his jaw were pulsating. ‘These boys need the pool for training miss. Out you get.’ He stood up. ‘Come on now.’
‘What, now? Straight away?’ I asked.
‘Yes. Now. Out.’
Those boys didn’t look like they were in training, I must say. They looked podgy with puppy fat and grey about the gills to me. But the Lifeguard’s manner had taken such a turn that I was startled from the pool. The boy with the blunt cut hair had stepped forward to glare at me with a look that seemed so full of hatred that I didn’t much want to hang around.

I hauled myself up the aluminium steps at the side of the pool and dressed quickly, slinging the damp towel across my shoulder and tasting the salt upon my lips. As I walked past one of the boys gave me a hard little kick and a sneering smile – surreptitious like, so’s not to be noticed. He muttered something that I couldn’t catch beneath his breath. I winced at the kick and his pals let out a quiet cheer, so I didn’t bother rub the welt that I could feel was rising on my shin. A crisp breeze skimmed across my forehead and I looked down at my unbuckled sandals, nonplussed by what it was that made me feel such shame. In all honesty, I sensed the fire rising up inside and wanted so to hit them in the face for cutting short my swim and kicking me just like a bleedin’ mule would kick a dog. But instead I was just frightened, as if there were a whole crowd of glares and not these boys’ strange eyes boring into me. I knew right there and then that I had to cut my losses, beat a swift retreat and make my way back on these legs and feet that didn’t seem like mine no more.

*

When I arrived at the Granville Lodgings, breakfast had already started and I could hear the clink of spoons on china and Uncle Frank’s Capstan Navy laugh as I reached the bottom step. I felt so out of sorts, like I’d been set adrift. Mother was in the window with Aunt Kate. They waved me in ‘before you catch your death,’ and stood up to fuss and cluck and scrub me with the towel. Auntie Ellen was in curlers and Rose was in the corner trying to make sense of her ruffles with the Premier Laundwell iron while everyone else ate bread and jam and bacon and hoped no one’d notice if they supped their tea from saucers.
‘You mind you get clear of all that salt young lady before you enter church this morning,’ commanded Aunt Kate.
‘Never mind church our Nettie,’ said Uncle Frank grabbing me round the shoulder, ‘we’re all washing for posterity this morning aren’t we, Annie, eh?!’
‘That’s right,’ Auntie Annie grinned, ‘it ain’t a holiday without snaps! The Sunbeam man’ll be over here before long my girl. Now you get yourself upstairs and ready for the snap of the century. I want everyone outside and looking nice by 10 o’clock sharp.’ And so Mother shoved me gently up the stairs.

Auntie Annie and Uncle Frank always insisted on doing photos, whenever we went away. Even now I’ve got a battered case full of printed post cards, negatives, receipts and faded albums filled with the faces of people I don’t even know. When I look back at the snapshots of that July morning, it makes me glad to see that some of us spared time to crack a smile and put aside all thoughts of what we had waiting for us around that corner. They put me in the second row to hide my un-pressed slacks and I must say my shoulders do look rather broad in those puffy short white sleeves. Everyone seems so full of sunshine and so laid back, though I myself can see the trouble on my face. I often think of them as the very last of our clear moments before Father passed by me and the war came through and took it all away: Uncle Jack’s legs, Frank’s life, Ellen’s joy and the little ones until they returned, orphaned by the Blitz.

The man from the Sunbeam Studio turned up prompt so’s to catch everyone in their Sunday best – except that the boys Stan and Richie were still running around in trunks and pumps like little ballerinas and Cynthia was refusing to put on her frock. We were 22 women that day, as opposed to just 9 of the men. The older boys were already away, three months in to their military training – Royal Navy – what with war being in the offing and them wishing they could follow in their fathers’ footsteps. Those of ours that hadn’t gone were only spared on the basis of being dockers, a ‘reserved occupation’ essential to the war effort. And then there was Bernard who wasn’t able-bodied anyway. You can see him in the back row next to Frank and Jack, looking all wan and weedy.

*

After the photographs, I went upstairs, told to change into a skirt and take off that daft turban because what did I think I looked like, Lady Muck, or some third rate starlet from the movies. We weren’t in America, you know, Mother and Aunt Kate said before they left the Sunbeam Man behind and got on their way to church. I was in our bedroom rushing to fix up my hair when there was a knock upon the bedroom door.
‘Miss Cates?’
‘Yes?’
‘Call for Mrs Cates. Says its urgent.’
‘Right. Coming!’
I put my brush down, thrilled at the thought of a telephone call. I leapt up and out of the door, almost knocking down the messenger as I flew down the stairs two at a time to the hallway. We still didn’t have a phone at home.

Mrs Johnson was standing by the dresser, holding the receiver in one hand and a bundle of washing beneath the other arm. I smiled, and pointlessly ran the flats of my hands over my fresh skirt, and took the phone from her.
‘Yes? … Hello?’ I said, hoping I would sound just like Bette Davis in Jezebel. Mrs Johnson looked puzzled and walked away down the hall.
‘Olive Cates?’ the man said.
‘I’m afraid she’s not here. This is Miss Cates. Miss Nettie Cates.’
‘Right, well,’ he cleared his throat, ‘you don’t know me I’m afraid love, but I have some information that’ll see you right.’ The man spoke with an accent that came from home, make no mistake. ‘You can tell your mother that she will find one Harold McKay to the West of the pier this afternoon if she goes looking. He’ll be there with a group. Be sure to go and find him. He’ll be getting his deserts.’
‘I say, now look here … ‘
The line burred in my ear and the caller had gone. I replaced the receiver carefully and slowly returned to my room.

I set the photo back down on my mothers mantelpiece, I positioned it askkued now, it appeared out of place in-between the neatly arranged crystal vase and the marble clock. As I counted the bodies inside the photo again, I pressed down on the glass leaving my fingerprints behind.

Five people; my mum, my dad, my twin sister Kimberly, my brother Jonathan and me. The Campbell family . I allowed my fingers to traced the red oak frame , it’s still shiny, almost brand new. This wasn’t the sort of photo that had been proudly displayed in the hall in like the other family photos or passed around at family get together’s , BBQs, Sunday roast or christening.

This particular photo had its place on the mantel in the far corner , virtually hidden behind other objects. This was the type of photo to only be glanced at in passing, never touched or spoken about. If I think about it, I can honestly say this is the one and only full family photo that had ever been taken with the all five of the Campbell’s in it.

As I fix my eyes on my twin sister Kimberly, I wondered if the number would have stayed at five if it hadn’t been for ‘that’ winters evening. September 1993, the leaves had just fallen from the trees, the short wet English summer was well and truly over. Autumn had give its wink of approval to winter and the real cold began to settle over Hammersmith.

The Campbell family shouldn’t have ventured out into central London that day. Mum made Kimberly and me both wear thick itchy woollen scarves, Kimberly complained her scarf was scratching her nose and chin.

Jonathan couldn’t find his, he didn’t want to go out anyway, he wanted to stay in and complete the final level of his computer game Galactic Aliens Invader. Mum wasn’t bothered if we didn’t go out this one weekend. She was exhausted from a full week of working and looking after us but dad wanted to go , it was Campbell tradition that every first Saturday of the month was the family day out, winter or no winter.

We all secretly thought dad loved this family time the most. A day at the arcades in Piccadilly Circus or a family movie followed by popcorn and ice cream. I always choose the big green and yellow gobstoppers from the sweet counter over chocolate ice-cream, I loved the way they left my hands and tongue stained in a sweet multi-coloured goo.

We set out at 3pm a little later then we usually do. The last tickets at the cinema to see the Lion King had been sold to another family of five; the only other option was the Ghost Busters movie that Jonathan was dying to see but Kimberly and I at the age of seven were too young to see the certificate of an over twelve movie.

Mum had said it was far too cold for ice cream so dad was running out of ideas. I remember that the wind had been blowing quite fiercely that day, I saw an old man chase a five pound note down the street, he caught it but not before bumping into a lamppost .

The wind rushed past my cheeks and whistled in my ears , people wrapped their coats around them like shields and hurried to where they were going. It was that same wind that blew the five of us into the photo shop that day.

Dad was like a small kid, excited with his discovery, a small shop about seven doors down for the cinema in the same complex next to the bowling alley, I’d never noticed it before. The windows displaying large portraits of people in Victorian and Tudor clothing. The photos had been taken In sepia and black and white, some with hair lines and light burns through them for effect.

Mum explained to Kimberly, Jonathan and I that we were all going to dress up like we were from the American civil war period. I said the outfits looked silly. Kimberly said in a mater of fact way that this is what people wore in the olden days but I don’t think she really knew.

There was so many styles to choose from, I choose a peach silk dress with a pale satin sash. The matching hat had a ridiculous feather. It was so big it just flopped to the side, Kimberly choose a similar style in blue, dad and Jonathan were allowed to hold fake pistols, Kimberly and I tried.

to convince Jonathan to swap his pistol gun with our umbrellas. They were made out of cloth and didn’t even open.

Mum had the nicest dress of all , layers of lace and silk fabric with extra padding underneath. It was so big an assistant from the shop had to help her into some sort of cage and corset before the dress was fitted over it.

The photographer arranged us with mum in the middle and me and Kimberly on either side of her. I was hot and uncomfortable.

The photographer told us not to smile to make the photo look authentic.

A few tourists and couples busied themselves trying on clothes and choosing their theme. The five of us posed for a few more photos before the photographer called “that’s a wrap.” Kimberly and I got to choose which photo would be printed and framed before running off to the changing rooms.

mum yank the dress over my arms while tutting and telling me to hold my arms up straight. It was Kimberly’s turn to have a hot head now. I bent down and crawled under the rack of dresses to find her, she wasn’t there, I went back to where we had been sitting to get our photos taken; she wasn’t there either. Mum and dad started looking for Kimberly too. We looked near the props section. Maybe Kimberly had gone to take a closer look at the plastic pistols , she wasn’t there nor was she in any of the nine changing rooms either.

I think I threw up and passed out while looking for her. I remember dad carrying me to the car and my trainers being soaked in something acidic, from the back seat I could hear mum talking to the police in hysterics. I covered my ears, I knew her head was spinning because mine was too.

The police later informed us that a paedophile had been praying on children in the area. Kimberly was gone, we never found her . Dad and mum put up’ missing child’ poster all around Hammersmith and Chelsea. The neighbours all chipped in but nothing came of that.

As the weeks turned into months there was no new information. Months blurred into years. When I was old enough to ride the bus on my own, on several occasions after school I would visit the photo shop where Kimberly disappeared. The shop was under new management but the shop assistant knew why I was there.

I would check under the tables next to the hats. I really don’t know what I was hoping to find. All I could imagine was Kimberly huddled somewhere, frightened and scared, pulling at her itchy woollen scarf

.

As I matured into a teenage and Jonathan left for Bournemouth university the arguments between mum and dad became more frequent.

We all knew my mother blamed my father for making us go out on such a windy day, my dad blamed my mum for not keeping an eye on Kimberly by the time I moved out four years later they hardly spoke at all.

Its been twenty years since Kimberly went missing. I straightened the photo and kissed my mum on the cheek and thanked her as she entered the living room with my birthday cake, five plates and twenty seven red candles. All four of us took our place on the sofa . Mum pressed the timer on the camera, she carefully cut five slices, one for me, one for dad, one for herself and Jonathan and the last slice is always set next to an empty chair for Kimberly just in case she is found and comes home one day.

I set the photo back down on my mothers mantelpiece, I positioned it askkued now, it appeared out of place in-between the neatly arranged crystal vase and the marble clock. As I counted the bodies inside the photo again, I pressed down on the glass leaving my fingerprints behind.

Five people; my mum, my dad, my twin sister Kimberly, my brother Jonathan and me. The Campbell family . I allowed my fingers to traced the red oak frame , it’s still shiny, almost brand new. This wasn’t the sort of photo that had been proudly displayed in the hall in like the other family photos or passed around at family get together’s , BBQs, Sunday roast or christening.

This particular photo had its place on the mantel in the far corner , virtually hidden behind other objects. This was the type of photo to only be glanced at in passing, never touched or spoken about. If I think about it, I can honestly say this is the one and only full family photo that had ever been taken with the all five of the Campbell’s in it.

As I fix my eyes on my twin sister Kimberly, I wondered if the number would have stayed at five if it hadn’t been for ‘that’ winters evening. September 1993, the leaves had just fallen from the trees, the short wet English summer was well and truly over. Autumn had give its wink of approval to winter and the real cold began to settle over Hammersmith.

The Campbell family shouldn’t have ventured out into central London that day. Mum made Kimberly and me both wear thick itchy woollen scarves, Kimberly complained her scarf was scratching her nose and chin.

Jonathan couldn’t find his, he didn’t want to go out anyway, he wanted to stay in and complete the final level of his computer game Galactic Aliens Invader. Mum wasn’t bothered if we didn’t go out this one weekend. She was exhausted from a full week of working and looking after us but dad wanted to go , it was Campbell tradition that every first Saturday of the month was the family day out, winter or no winter.

We all secretly thought dad loved this family time the most. A day at the arcades in Piccadilly Circus or a family movie followed by popcorn and ice cream. I always choose the big green and yellow gobstoppers from the sweet counter over chocolate ice-cream, I loved the way they left my hands and tongue stained in a sweet multi-coloured goo.

We set out at 3pm a little later then we usually do. The last tickets at the cinema to see the Lion King had been sold to another family of five; the only other option was the Ghost Busters movie that Jonathan was dying to see but Kimberly and I at the age of seven were too young to see the certificate of an over twelve movie.

Mum had said it was far too cold for ice cream so dad was running out of ideas. I remember that the wind had been blowing quite fiercely that day, I saw an old man chase a five pound note down the street, he caught it but not before bumping into a lamppost .

The wind rushed past my cheeks and whistled in my ears , people wrapped their coats around them like shields and hurried to where they were going. It was that same wind that blew the five of us into the photo shop that day.

Dad was like a small kid, excited with his discovery, a small shop about seven doors down for the cinema in the same complex next to the bowling alley, I’d never noticed it before. The windows displaying large portraits of people in Victorian and Tudor clothing. The photos had been taken In sepia and black and white, some with hair lines and light burns through them for effect.

Mum explained to Kimberly, Jonathan and I that we were all going to dress up like we were from the American civil war period. I said the outfits looked silly. Kimberly said in a mater of fact way that this is what people wore in the olden days but I don’t think she really knew.

There was so many styles to choose from, I choose a peach silk dress with a pale satin sash. The matching hat had a ridiculous feather. It was so big it just flopped to the side, Kimberly choose a similar style in blue, dad and Jonathan were allowed to hold fake pistols, Kimberly and I tried.

to convince Jonathan to swap his pistol gun with our umbrellas. They were made out of cloth and didn’t even open.

Mum had the nicest dress of all , layers of lace and silk fabric with extra padding underneath. It was so big an assistant from the shop had to help her into some sort of cage and corset before the dress was fitted over it.

The photographer arranged us with mum in the middle and me and Kimberly on either side of her. I was hot and uncomfortable.

The photographer told us not to smile to make the photo look authentic.

A few tourists and couples busied themselves trying on clothes and choosing their theme. The five of us posed for a few more photos before the photographer called “that’s a wrap.” Kimberly and I got to choose which photo would be printed and framed before running off to the changing rooms.

mum yank the dress over my arms while tutting and telling me to hold my arms up straight. It was Kimberly’s turn to have a hot head now. I bent down and crawled under the rack of dresses to find her, she wasn’t there, I went back to where we had been sitting to get our photos taken; she wasn’t there either. Mum and dad started looking for Kimberly too. We looked near the props section. Maybe Kimberly had gone to take a closer look at the plastic pistols , she wasn’t there nor was she in any of the nine changing rooms either.

I think I threw up and passed out while looking for her. I remember dad carrying me to the car and my trainers being soaked in something acidic, from the back seat I could hear mum talking to the police in hysterics. I covered my ears, I knew her head was spinning because mine was too.

The police later informed us that a paedophile had been praying on children in the area. Kimberly was gone, we never found her . Dad and mum put up’ missing child’ poster all around Hammersmith and Chelsea. The neighbours all chipped in but nothing came of that.

As the weeks turned into months there was no new information. Months blurred into years. When I was old enough to ride the bus on my own, on several occasions after school I would visit the photo shop where Kimberly disappeared. The shop was under new management but the shop assistant knew why I was there.

I would check under the tables next to the hats. I really don’t know what I was hoping to find. All I could imagine was Kimberly huddled somewhere, frightened and scared, pulling at her itchy woollen scarf

.

As I matured into a teenage and Jonathan left for Bournemouth university the arguments between mum and dad became more frequent.

We all knew my mother blamed my father for making us go out on such a windy day, my dad blamed my mum for not keeping an eye on Kimberly by the time I moved out four years later they hardly spoke at all.

Its been twenty years since Kimberly went missing. I straightened the photo and kissed my mum on the cheek and thanked her as she entered the living room with my birthday cake, five plates and twenty seven red candles. All four of us took our place on the sofa . Mum pressed the timer on the camera, she carefully cut five slices, one for me, one for dad, one for herself and Jonathan and the last slice is always set next to an empty chair for Kimberly just in case she is found and comes home one day.

At last the setting has begun – a jet-stream hangs like a chalk mark boasting: one to the sun. Midsummer. Night descends – gently, certainly – through gold and candy peach to light-less lapiz depths, but I am not scared. Traces of jasmine, fried chicken, idle rose and honey-suckles on hot tarmac and the soles of my shoes lick, stick, linger on the pavement. Translucent seed heads bank and shine and sway and serenade the murmurs of young lovers as they skim and roll along the limestone town hall walls. Beyond traffic, the cellophane and flowers bristle on a railing for the face on a t-shirt hung by a mother’s mourning. The electric moons of street-lamps rise again and all that she can do is mouth mute warnings and rewind, replay and fail to erase that doom of a day. Please God. Not him. Please no. Oh God. And the whisper of a boy’s last breath escapes from the landing of a lonely, acrid stairwell: there is truth and there are rumours but I don’t feel scared.