The Imaginary Read online

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘It’s a survey,’ the voice replied. There was a long pause as if this were answer enough before it then added, ‘about Britain today. And children.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Amanda’s mum said. ‘Do you have any identification?’

  ‘Identification?’

  ‘Yes, to say who you are.’

  ‘Who I am? My name is Mr Bunting, ma’am. Like the bird.’

  ‘Bird?’

  ‘Yes, the corn bunting, for example. There are others…’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Mrs Shuffleup agreed. ‘Do you have something to prove that?’

  ‘To prove a kinship to the bird?’ the man said. ‘No. No, nothing like that. Ornithology is not—’

  ‘No,’ Amanda’s mum interrupted. ‘I mean ID? To prove you are who you say you are?’

  Mr Bunting gave a little cough, as if he were insulted (but only a tiny bit), before saying, ‘Yes, of course. I have a badge, look.’

  By now Amanda had crept into the hallway. She left Rudger in the cave-mouth under the stairs so she wouldn’t lose her place in the adventure (in much the same way you leave your thumb in a book when someone talks to you). She tiptoed up behind her mother and gave her a hug. Mothers like this sort of thing. From there it was easy for Amanda to be nosy.

  Peering round her mum she discovered two people on the doorstep: one a grown man, showing her mother his name badge, and the other a little girl about Amanda’s age.

  The man was dressed in Bermuda shorts, with a brightly patterned shirt, all clashing colours and dazzle, stretched across his wide round torso like palm trees bending in a tropical breeze. He clutched a clipboard in his hands, had a biro behind one ear, and was completely bald. A pair of dark glasses covered his eyes and a red moustache covered his mouth. It quivered each time he spoke.

  The girl, in contrast, was dressed in a dull, dark dress over a white blouse. It was practically school uniform, Amanda thought. Her hair was straight and black and from between its dull falling curtains her eyes shone dimly out. She stood still while the man bobbed and wobbled about. She didn’t say anything.

  Amanda guessed that the man was her dad and she’d had to go to work with him. She knew that sometimes some of her friends had to do this during the holidays. It didn’t look like she was enjoying it.

  Then the girl turned and looked at her, straight in the eyes. The suddenness of it made Amanda jump (not that she’d admit it); nevertheless, she managed to squeeze a smile out at the girl. It was good to be friendly, Amanda believed, and the girl looked so miserable it seemed the only kind thing to do. The pale girl smiled a small thin-lipped smile back at her and, as she did so, reached up and gave the man’s sleeve a tug.

  He stopped talking.

  ‘I’m not really sure I want to answer questions on the doorstep,’ Amanda’s mum was saying. ‘Maybe, if you’ve got a form you want to leave? Something I can pop in the post? Or… It’s just I am pretty busy right now.’

  She made a typing movement with her hands in the air as if to emphasise the point.

  ‘Oh, no need, ma’am,’ the man said with a happy chuckle. ‘No need at all. I’m very sorry to have troubled you on this pleasantly weathered afternoon. I will leave you now. Be off, eh?’

  He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped at his brow, before spinning on his heel and walking off up the front path.

  When she’d shut the front door Amanda’s mum said, ‘How odd.’

  ‘What did they want, Mum?’

  ‘He was asking about how many children live here and things like that. Seemed most peculiar to me, darling. That’s why I got rid of him so quickly.’

  ‘And she looked so miserable, having to follow him round,’ Amanda said, going back up the hallway to where Rudger was waiting.

  ‘She, darling?’

  ‘The girl.’

  ‘What girl?’

  Amanda looked at her mum with her head on one side.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ she said, waving her hand and sending her back to her work. It was important stuff and Amanda did her best to not get in the way. ‘I was talking to Rudger.’

  ‘Rudger,’ her mum said indulgently. ‘Is he okay? You two been busy today?’

  ‘Yes, we’re potholing.’

  And then Amanda was back in the caves, feeling her fingertip way through the black, edging round ancient vacuum-cleaner-shaped rock formations and between dim dank dark-dripping stalactites. She told Rudger about what she’d seen.

  ‘And she didn’t see the girl?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Wasn’t she looking?’

  ‘Oh, she was looking all right. She’s not stupid, not really. Do you know what I reckon, Rudger?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so.’

  ‘That bloke. He had a ’maginary friend, just like I’ve got you.’

  ‘Well,’ said Rudger, ‘it’s nice to know I’m not alone.’

  Some children need their parents to pay them a lot of attention. Some children need constant watching. Their day is somehow wasted if there's no grownup around to witness everything they do. They get bored if they’re left on their own for more than five minutes (less, sometimes). They sulk and slump and kick their heels and grumble.

  Amanda had never been one of those children. She’d always been quite content off by herself. When she was little she’d spend hours with big bits of paper and boxes of pens and crayons, drawing maps and monsters and planning adventures. She was more than happy to sit on her bed reading books or sailing the ocean. When she went round other children’s houses for birthday parties and sleepovers the other children’s parents would sometimes phone her mum up and say things like, ‘I’ve just found Amanda sat under the kitchen table. She said her boat had been swallowed by a whale and she was waiting for it to be sick. Um… Would you like to come and collect her?’ To which Amanda’s mum would say, ‘Does she want to come home early? Has she broken anything? No? Then I’ll be over at six as arranged.’

  Because Amanda was so good at entertaining herself, at inventing adventures and exploring made-up stories of her own, her mum, even in the school holidays, could spend most of her time working in her study (sending off e-mails and spreadsheets to Mr and Mrs Shuffleup, Amanda’s grandparents, for whose business she did the accounting), or pottering in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil while listening to the radio, or laid on the sofa with her feet up (just for ten minutes) with a glass of wine in the middle of the afternoon, and sometimes she’d quite forget (almost) that she even had a daughter.

  Which is not to say Mrs Shuffleup was anything other than a good mother or to imply that she wouldn’t have instantly pressed Save on her computer and sat down to read a book with Amanda or played a board game or helped her with her homework or gone to the pictures, had Amanda just asked. Nevertheless, it pleased her that Amanda was the sort of girl who was quite happy to get on with stuff by herself. Perhaps because it made her feel less guilty about spending so much time working in her study.

  One Sunday morning, a few weeks after Rudger had made his first appearance, Mrs Shuffleup answered the telephone. She was sat at her desk, looking past the computer screen and out of the window into the garden where Amanda was playing.

  At the other end of the phone was her mother, Granny Downbeat, as Amanda called her. They chatted for a while, as adults do, about this and that until Mrs Downbeat asked after her granddaughter.

  ‘Is she around? Does she want to say hello?’

  ‘No, Mum,’ Mrs Shuffleup said, ‘she’s out in the garden playing with Rudger. I don’t want to interrupt her.’

  ‘Roger?’ her mother asked. ‘Is that a new friend?’

  ‘Sort of. He’s new, yes, and he’s a friend, yes, but, well…’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You’re going to laugh, Mum. You’re going to say I indulge her too much, or that I ignore her too much. One or the other.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, love,’ her mum
said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Rudger’s not really real.’

  ‘Not real?’

  ‘No, he’s imaginary. Amanda dreamt him up the other week, but they’ve become inseparable. He has to have a place set at the table and everything. Don’t laugh.’

  But her mother wasn’t laughing. Instead, she sounded wistful. ‘Oh, Lizzie, love,’ she said. ‘Do you remember Fridge?’

  ‘The fridge?’ Amanda’s mum asked. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Your old imaginary friend, dear. I think he was a dog, wasn’t he? It’s a long time ago now, of course, but when you were little you wouldn’t go anywhere without him. The cats wouldn’t go in the room when he was there. You’d chase them out so that he wouldn’t get scared.’

  ‘I don’t remember that,’ Amanda’s mum said, wondering how she’d forgotten something that sounded so memorable.

  ‘Oh dear. You ask your brother next time you speak to him,’ her mum said. ‘You and Fridge used to drive him potty.’

  And after that the conversation moved onto other things, weather and work, artichokes and arthritis, the usual sort of boring grownup subjects.

  Once she’d put the phone down Amanda’s mum sat at her desk in silence for a few minutes. She looked out of the window at the garden and smiled as she saw Amanda leaping off the bench with blue paint on her face and a stick in her hand, yodelling like some ancient Pictish warrior and scaring poor Oven out of the flowerbed.

  The cat flap rattled in the kitchen.

  She leant back in her chair and thought of Fridge. Now her mum had reminded her, she found she did remember something. She could almost remember what he looked like. Had he been an old sheepdog? Maybe. It had been so long ago, and although she had a sense that she remembered some things (the damp, earthy, musty smell of the dog as he slept under her bed, for instance), most of what had slipped out of her mind as she’d grown up remained lost.

  What was clear, though, was that inventing a friend hadn’t done her any harm, and so she wasn’t going to worry on Amanda’s behalf. While some adults she knew would be on the phone to the child psychologist at the first hint of an imagination in their child (heaven forbid such a terrible thing!), she was more than happy to share a house with Rudger.

  If there was an extra place to lay at the dinner table, then so be it. If she had to buy the special strawberry-scented shampoo the imaginary boy preferred, well, that was easy enough. If they had to make sure his seatbelt was done up in the car before they drove anywhere, these were all small prices to pay for a daughter who was happy.

  Besides, from everything Amanda had told her about Rudger, he didn’t seem like a bad influence. In fact, secretly, she worried a little for his sake.

  That evening Amanda’s mum was going out. She didn’t go out often, but when she did she always managed to find the most annoying babysitter she could to get in Amanda’s way.

  Amanda was quite old enough to be left on her own without a babysitter. Babysitters were for babies, she’d tell you (the clue is in the name), and she hadn’t been a baby for years. Besides she wouldn’t be on her own, would she? She’d be with Rudger.

  But it happened every time: Amanda would rehearse the arguments, loudly, intelligently, pleadingly, and the babysitter would turn up just the same.

  ‘It’s as if,’ Amanda said to Rudger, ‘she doesn’t trust us. I blame you.’

  ‘What?’ said Rudger, taking umbrage at the accusation.

  ‘Well, you did break that vase of hers throwing the ball round in the dining room that time.’

  Rudger’s jaw hung open.

  ‘Firstly,’ he said, counting on his fingers and wondering if he’d have enough, ‘it was a jug and not a vase; secondly, it was you and not me who threw the ball; thirdly, it was an orange and not a ball; fourthly, you said it was a hand grenade, not an orange—’

  ‘And fifthly,’ she interrupted, ‘I told her it was you, Rudger, because you’re my shining knight who takes the blame, otherwise she’d have been dead angry with me and I wouldn’t have been allowed burgers on Friday. Did I say “Thank you”?’

  Rudger was confused, but that wasn’t unusual. He scratched his elbow.

  The doorbell rang.

  They ran downstairs to find Amanda’s mum opening the front door to a tall teenage girl. She was stood in the rain under a dripping black pop-up umbrella and talking loudly into her mobile phone.

  ‘Yeah, so like I’m at the house now,’ she was saying to whoever was listening. ‘Gotta go. ’kay? Speak later, yeah? Mwah! Mwah!’ She made loud mock kissing noises.

  Amanda looked at Rudger and tried not to laugh.

  ‘You’ve got my number, haven’t you?’ Amanda’s mum was saying. ‘I’ll be back about ten. Thanks awfully for coming out at such short notice.’ She turned to Amanda and said, ‘You be on your best behaviour for…oh, sorry, what was your name again?’

  ‘Marigold, but everyone calls me Goldie.’

  ‘Isn’t that a dog’s name?’ said Rudger quietly.

  Amanda giggled and her mum said, ‘Be nice.’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ Amanda said. ‘Rudger said something funny, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ her mum said. ‘Amanda’s got a friend called Rudger, but don’t mind him, he’s no trouble.’

  ‘There’s two of them?’ Goldie asked. ‘You didn’t say there’d be two.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Mrs Shuffleup laughed. ‘There’s no need to worry. Rudger’s imaginary.’ She half-mouthed, half-said the word, but still everyone in the hallway heard it.

  ‘Mum!’ Amanda protested. ‘He’s standing right here. He does have feelings, you know.’

  Mrs Shuffleup looked at her daughter for a moment, took in the crossed arms and the frown, and said, ‘Sorry, love, I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  ‘Well, it’s not me you should be apologising to, is it?’

  Amanda didn’t uncross her arms until her mum looked round and said, ‘Sorry, Rudger,’ to the thin air nowhere near where Rudger was stood.

  ‘Apology accepted,’ said Rudger.

  ‘He says he forgives you,’ Amanda said.

  After she’d made herself a cup of tea Goldie said, ‘So, where’s the biscuits?’

  The three of them were sitting at the kitchen table. The room was warm and the back door was open. Although rain was falling hard on the patio, the evening hadn’t got cold yet. The air smelt clean, tangy, almost electric. The storm had swept away the close sticky dull afternoon, and although the clouds hung low and dark, and the thunder grumbled overhead, the rain felt good, and the evening felt fresh.

  ‘In the jar,’ Amanda said, pointing. ‘Mum says we’re allowed two each.’

  The babysitter pulled the biscuit barrel across the table and lifted the lid.

  ‘Okay, so two for you,’ she said, extracting a pair of cookies with her long fingers. ‘And two for me.’

  She replaced the lid.

  ‘And two for Rudger,’ Amanda said.

  ‘Rudger?’ asked the girl, confused.

  Amanda rolled her eyes and said, ‘Of course Rudger. Mum always lets him have two biscuits too, ’cos he’s a growing boy and needs his vitamins.’

  Goldie slapped the table and smiled as she remembered, laughing. ‘Of course! Your imaginary boyfriend. When I was—’

  Whatever Goldie was about to say was forgotten as Amanda spat the nibbled corner of cookie all over the table in shock.

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ she said, sounding utterly outraged at the very idea. ‘Ugh, uh, uh.’

  She waggled her hands at her mouth as if she could somehow expunge the bad taste through the power of waving.

  Rudger sat in his chair and stared at her. He didn’t like the suggestion any more than Amanda did, but he wasn’t sure all the theatrics were entirely necessary.

  ‘Calm down,’ he said.

  She glared at him, aghast. ‘Calm down?’ she repeated as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  ‘Ma
ndy and Roger sitting in a tree,’ Goldie sang between sips of tea. ‘K-I-S-S—’

  ‘That’s not even his name,’ Amanda snapped, turning on the babysitter with a glare.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘It’s not Roger,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s Rudger. And I’d be dead before I’d kiss him.’

  Goldie stared at Amanda for several long seconds before she put her mug down. She looked like a babysitter getting out of her depth. ‘Whatever you say,’ she said.

  ‘Hmm.’ Amanda huffed and crossed her arms. ‘Just so long as you remember that. Rudger is not my boyfriend. And you’ve not given him his two biscuits yet.’

  Goldie reached into the biscuit barrel and pulled out two more. She looked at Amanda as if to say, ‘Where do I put these?’

  Amanda said, ‘Anyway, Rudger don’t much like biscuits, so I’d best look after them for him.’

  She took the cookies and kept them safe. In her stomach.

  Ten minutes later Goldie stood in the hallway with her eyes shut. She was counting.

  Upstairs Rudger sat in his wardrobe, the same wardrobe he’d appeared in. He knew it was the first place Amanda would’ve looked for him, but tonight she wasn’t the one seeking.

  Downstairs Amanda had tiptoed into the study and tucked herself into the space under the desk where her mother’s legs normally went. She’d pulled the chair in behind her so she was almost completely hidden from sight. She sat with her knees up under her chin and her back to the wall like a subterranean gargoyle and waited.

  ‘Ninety-eight…ninety-nine…a hundred,’ Goldie called from the hallway. ‘Coming ready or not!’

  Amanda listened to the silence of the babysitter’s thinking. She could picture the look on the teenager’s face. Should she go upstairs or downstairs? Check the kitchen or the front room? Look under the lampshade or under the table? How to begin the search?

  There was a buzz of excitement in Amanda’s stomach. She listened to the kitchen cupboards being opened and closed one after another, then the under-the-stairs cupboard door gave its usual creak. Goldie was certainly being thorough. This was good.