The Girl in The Orange Coat

The girl in the orange coat stood out in the photo. The colour was wrong and for a moment Maria was completely disorientated. Orange was such a seventies colour – surely no one would have dressed a child in a formally cut orange coat for her wedding? At the front of the wedding crowd herself and her brand new husband, Mike, everyone had said how beautiful she looked but she had felt foolish. Out of place. On viewing the photo though, she had had to concede that they did make a good looking couple. She in white and pale yellow and Mike tanned and muscular, looking a lot younger than his 45 years. In his expensive suit he seemed happy and triumphant next to his young bride. The smiling relatives around them, the men a sea of grey and white the women in black, pink even electric blue and numerous formal hats, veils, and sprigs of flowers. An informal group and several children skittered around the edges of the central crowd, their smiles illuminating the day reflecting the joyous informality of the occasion. The beautiful ancient church which was still the tallest building in the village made a wonderful backdrop for the day and reflected Maria’s beliefs as well. There were lots of different sets of photos taken by friends and family members, but these were the official photos beautifully taken and printed on thick glossy paper– surely a stranger couldn’t have crept in?

Maria racked her brains, a child in an orange – who had that been? She remembered a magnifying glass kept in the tool box and taking the photo wandered through to the kitchen of the lovely detached house they had taken so long to choose before the wedding, Mike had been particularly keen to buy exactly the right house, an investment as well as a home. She lay the photo on the work surface under the bright pool of light from a halogen lamp and then focused on the tiny figure – at the back of the photo to the left and slightly separate from the main group. There were other children moving behind the girl moving and playing, but she stood stock still staring at the photographer. Under the glass she was revealed as unsmiling – but not sad, just serious. Maria could not see her eye colour the detail was too poor at this magnification – but her hair was brown cut into a thick bob. Surely that was a poor style choice as well?

She put the magnifier to one side. She had plenty to do and Mike would be home soon – they were going out to a Garden Centre then lunch. She smiled - life was good and Mike meant everything to her. She put the photo with the others, waiting to be sorted out later.

But when they returned home and Mike had opened a bottle of wine pouring out two glasses as they examined their purchases, plants and garden furniture she spied the magnifying glass and the image of the girl in the orange coat came flooding back into her mind.

“Mike” She said passing him the photo “Take a look at this”
He smiled thinly, “The wedding” he said “Aren’t you fed up with that yet?”
He dropped the photo onto the coffee table, knocking back a gulp of wine, turning away from her.

She persisted “No take a look here – there’s a girl in an orange coat, here at the back” she passed him the photo and the glass. “Do you know who she was?”

Mike stared at the photo for a moment and as he looked up Maria suddenly saw his eye through the glass massively magnified, pale blue with thin red veins tracing a complex pattern, slightly yellow and distorted by the magnification it looked round and bulbous. He showed his teeth in a thin smile again.
“No” he said dismissively “No idea –must be one of yours. No one my side of the family would have dressed a child in an orange coat like that – and look at her hair, it looks like she cut it herself.”
Maria held the photo protectively to her. When had he become so cold and dismissive? – Before the wedding her had been nothing but adoring. Now he sometimes seemed completely disinterested spending hours on his mobile or on the Internet.

But sometimes he made an effort – and he did now, passing her a glass of wine.
“Try this” He said “Its a Chateau Neuf De Pap” He swirled the wine around the glass “Its nice to be able to afford decent wine isn’t it darling?”
The money was Maria’s of course, and Mike was enjoying spending it. He had given up his job at the estate agents a few weeks before the wedding saying “We won’t need that money anymore – besides I’ll be able to invest and make much more for us for a lot less money.” Maria had believed this and she still did, her mother had been entirely wrong in her insinuations.

She took a taste of the blood red liquid, it was excellent. Mike had such good taste
“Its lovely darling” She said. Blood red.

Later that night, as they made love after falling into bed slightly tipsy, she held him tight but in her heart there was still a puzzling image of a small wan child with a serious expression in a bright orange coat, something out of place on what she thought had been their perfect day. And Mike stared over her shoulder, his eyes staring out into the night.

The next morning when Maria had awoken Mike had already left, the bed cold and empty. On the breakfast table she found a note. “Gone to meet the Broker”, it said. She made herself coffee and toast and turned her attention to the mail. A letter with a card contained a warm note from her sister, congratulating her on the wedding, thanking her for a lovely day and enclosing half a dozen more photos. Maria spotted the girl immediately, despite the small size of the snaps. Intruding into the far left corner of a photo of her and Mike, the church steps rising behind them, stone grey and a Victorian street lamp casting an amateurish shadow from the bright sun, the face of the orange clad figure entirely black in the pencil thin line of shade it made. Maria picked up the glass, more details of the body were visible, small pink hands, pockets thick across the waist of the coat, small bare legs with white knee high socks, black buckle shoes. The child appeared to be standing to attention, staring through hidden eyes directly at the camera.

She took the next photo from the envelope. The distinctive orange splash was there again. Several guests were around her- jostling and laughing, her family, her mum and dad, her brother and her sister laughing and talking getting ready for the formal snaps to follow. The child was barely discernible, obscured by flying arms and clothes. Maria smiled at the photo. She remembered the moment clearly. It was immediately after the service had ended, she had just been leaving the church, looking down on the melee in front of her. Her dad had been discretely angling for the chance to light a cigarette – her mum had been telling him off. She thought back her brow wrinkling – she was almost certain that there had been no such child in the Church. But the way she was mingling made it look like she had emerged with the others. Maybe she had been waiting outside to join in the photos – perhaps it was some sort of prank? It was hard to understand children these days. Two more photos and she found no more images of the girl in the orange coat. Maria realised she was beginning to capitalise the phrase in her head. But the last of the photos clinched it – Maria reeled back in shock, turning the photo over in her hands then staring in astonishment and fear. On the left hand side of the picture so close to the camera it was blurred out of focus a bright orange shoulder and half a face in the print, topped with a ragged bob hair cut. One blue eye in the picture, obscured and fuzzy, the head tipping slightly to one side, the nose small and pug like, the dark of the nostrils like a colon, the small pink mouth forming an “O” as though the child was shouting or even screaming. Maria remembered the clamour of the children buzzing and excited pouring from the church – but this child didn’t look excited or even relieved to be out of the church to Maria.

She looked scared, angry, even aggressive.

“Who is the kid in orange jumping into the last picture” Her sister had written. “She looks like she’s just been bitten by a wasp – she must be one of Mikes lot. I checked with our lot so we could tell her off for fooling around like that – she’s not one from our side at all. If no one wants the piccy then just chuck it out. Love and kisses to you and your man.” She had signed “Theresa. Love, Love, Love.” Three times. Always three times. One for today, one for tomorrow and one for ever as their mother had always taught them.

Mike did not return for lunch and Maria worked in the garden, methodically planting what she had purchased the day before – the furniture waited for Mikes help on the veranda still in its plastic wrapping. She realised she had left the marigolds till last – each one already had a small half open bud. Peeling back, revealing tiny frilled petals, bright sunny orange. As orange as the coat of a girl in a photograph. A girl who should not be there.
As the day wore on and Mike had still not returned she decided to ‘phone Theresa, tucking the phone beneath her chin, and cradling a glass of the wine left over from the night before, tucking her legs under her on the white leather sofa.
“Hi Theresa its me, Maria Greening” She laughed trying out her new name, Mikes name, Greening.
“Thanks for the piccies” She took a sip of wine listening to her sisters pleasantries.
“Hes been out all day – I expect he’ll be here soon” a query about Mike, then.
“Do you know who that child is – the one in the orange coat in your picture spoiling your last photo? Only, I’m annoyed about it she managed to get into some of the official shots and they cost a bundle.”
Theresa sounded concerned. She had no idea either continuing. “The funny thing is – that last picture – I don’t remember her even being there let alone jumping and shouting at me like that.”
“Shouting – did you think she was shouting? Looks like she’s angry to me”
“Angry or scared maybe?”
“Or shouting a warning, maybe that’s why you don’t remember, something distracted you and she was warning you to move or something” Maria tailed off lamely.
Theresa couldn’t shed any further light on the matter. And they moved on to other things, till Maria heard Mike returning home, clattering in the hall.
“Got to go darling, love , love love”.
Today, tomorrow, forever.

Mike was quite and distracted when he came in, as Maria made pasta and chopped salad, her talked on the mobile, the gentle hum of his conversation drifting into the room. Soon after eating, he turned on his computer, his back to her hunched against the work station he had insisted was necessary for his home office. Maria watched the TV glancing at him from time to time.
Then Mike yawned, “I think I’m off to bed he said – oh by the way there’s an email for you from your brother- more ruddy wedding photos by the look of it”
Cold, Dismissive.

Maria clicked to open the attachments, Peter had jokily titled them Maria’s First Wedding Day. Ha-bloody-ha – like there’d be another one. Peter had stood further away to take his selection of snaps, outside the church after the wedding. To Maria’s relief there was not a shred of unsightly orange anywhere at the church . Her parents laughing, a bunch of their friends drinking a toast. One of Maria’s flatmate – ex-flatmate she corrected herself clutching a glass of wine and her handbag and looking – Maria thought – suddenly lonely. Then a selection from the reception, Dancing and singing, speeches and yet more toast making. She clicked her way through the images, laughing at peters jokey captions “Maria’s Ex Needs a New Flatmate” “Mum and Dad – Sober as ever” and “Dad gives up Smoking” – her father with fat corona cigar.
The last image of the set opened before her eyes – the edge sliding down the screen like lift door opening. The caption read “Don’t know how this got in – The Dead End perhaps?” She could hear her brothers voice chuckling at the macabre joke as he wrote it.

It was a grave. A few petals adorned a metal urn bearing dead flowers, marigolds, on the grave, grass and pebbles surrounded it. Maria forced herself to read the inscription.

“Polly Jane Wickham” It read 1965 – 1975 “A Little Life a Big heart our girl has gone to join the angels.” Maria felt sudden deep sobs welling inside her, she read on. A Cross and more Words “Suffer the Little children to Come unto me, said the Lord.” Moss grew in the grooves of the carved words. Maria clutched her face holding back the tears. It was obviously some kind of nasty prank. Someone had taken Peters camera and took this picture. She wiped away her tears furiously, snuffling and then sat staring biting her nails, for the first time in years, lost in thought.

That night her sleep was disturbed. Tossing and turning her dreams filled with frightening images, dead flowers, dried petals, the blue sky spinning and the bright glaring sun. The brown earth and roots thrusting down and her husband’s eye shining malevolently through a magnifying glass, and a serious angry child, her lips parted, shouting to her through the night and across the years. And she woke with the word echoing in her ears and pulling on her dressing gown raced down the stairs, the computer screen still glowing in the darkened room. In its light she flicked through the photos – now she had heard it the parted lips were easy to read. One word – shouted desperately; No –no - no, extended and urgent.

As the sun came up she found the keys for the BMW that Mike insisted she buy, and she headed out along the executive cul-de-sac where there house was one of an exclusive small number, in direction of All Saints Church where they had married and its extensive graveyard.

It had taken the best part of an hour to find Polly Jane. Most of the graves were older – much older. Died in 1885 or 1913 or 1922. Old fashioned names like Beryl and Gladys, Ebenezer and Cyril. Polly Jane’s was in an obvious family plot, several generations of Wickhams serenely side by side in death. Maria stood by the grave silently, around her was still and quiet. Nothing happened and she could hear nothing but her own breath and the memory of that voice in the night. Finally she fell to her knees by the grave.
“No what?” she willed with her mind but there came no answer. Overhead crows called raucously and after an hour feeling slightly foolish she rose stiffly to her feet and jumped startled. A woman in her fifties was standing silently behind her.
“Did you know her?” She asked simply.
“No – I don’t think so . No”
“She had so many friends my daughter” said the woman smoothing her greying hair. “I never know who I might meet here”
“Does she get many visitors?” Asked Maria.
“Oh yes – more when it was fresher in peoples minds- the accident. Well they said it was an accident. That Greening boy got off you know – but I always doubted it. He was a little devil” She sucked in her breath as though hiding a sudden pain, bending to place a tiny posy held by a rubber band “Marigolds were her favourite – she was so young, orange was her favourite colour”
Maria’s mind was whirling “Greening - was that Michael Greening” She could barely realise it was her voice speaking so strange did it sound but she did not even need to hear the mothers reply as all around her the stones the grass the ancient church and the sky cried the answer jubilant to be heard at last.