The Last Lost Girl Read online

  “Mam says you’re to take this,” says Jacqueline.

  Lilly opens her eyes and looks at the tray. She pulls herself up against her pillow, reaches out, and takes the glass of milk.

  “And these.” Jacqueline picks up the saucer with the aspirin.

  Lilly looks at them, then looks at Jacqueline, her lips open, and Jacqueline can see the white wet gleam of her sister’s teeth. Lilly’s tongue comes out, her eyes still fixed on Jacqueline’s. She’s waiting for me to serve her, Jacqueline thinks, and slowly she picks up one of the tablets, and places it in Lilly’s mouth. Her fingers brush against Lilly’s tongue: it is soft and warm, a damp cushion. Lilly brings the glass to her lips and swallows, then her mouth opens again and Jacqueline places the other tablet on her sister’s tongue.

  After a second sip of milk, Lilly says, “Take it away.”

  She slips down in the bed again and her eyes close. Jacqueline puts the glass on the tray and looks around her at Lilly’s room. From the walls the many eyes of David Cassidy stare back. After a while, Lilly’s breathing grows louder, her arms on the radio loosen and Jacqueline can see the gleam of a silver dial.

  “Lilly,” she says, very quietly.

  Lilly does not answer and Jacqueline bends down and touches one finger to the silver dial. Lilly’s eyelids roll upward.

  “Mmm?”

  “Do you want me to turn the radio off so you can go to sleep?” asks Jacqueline.

  “No. It’s OK.” Lilly’s voice is gentle and sleepy.

  “But it isn’t even proper music, Lilly. Do you want me to change the station for you?”

  “No, I want this one,” says Lilly.

  “But you can’t even hear it, Lilly.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I like it.”

  “Why do you like it, Lilly?”

  “Because it’s Radio Caroline,” says Lilly, “and because of where it comes from …”

  “Where does it come from, Lilly?”

  “From the sea …” Lilly’s voice is a murmur now.

  “How can it come from the sea, Lilly?”

  “From a ship on the North Sea, imagine that.” Lilly’s eyes open and Jacqueline follows her gaze to the window. “Imagine that somewhere out there on the sea, in the wind and rain and the dark, someone is playing records just for me.”

  “But, Lilly,” Jacqueline is looking at the light round the edges of the curtain, “it isn’t dark and there isn’t any wind and rain …”

  Lilly’s eyes open wide. “Take the milk away now, Jacqueline,” she says. “The smell of it is making me sick.”

  “Okay, but Lilly?”

  “What?” Lilly’s voice is impatient now.

  “I wish I could have a loan of your radio sometime.”

  “Well, you can’t!” Lilly snaps. “Now go away, Jacqueline, and leave me alone. I’m tired and I want to sleep.”

  “Okay, Lilly.” Jacqueline picks up the tray. “But I bet I know what you wish for.”

  “What are you on about now, Jacqueline? I said I want to go to sleep.”

  “I bet you wish you could go to the dance in the marquee tomorrow night,” says Jacqueline.

  Lilly pulls herself up against the pillows again. “Who says I’m not going?” she says.

  “But if Sexy Sexton won’t take you,” says Jacqueline, “then Daddy won’t let you go.”

  Afterwards, when Jacqueline closes the door behind her, Lilly’s radio is playing “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”.

  Chapter 26

  Afterwards

  She spent the morning on the terrace reading, until the child came out once more to disturb her. For a long time he just stood in the doorway watching her and she eyed him surreptitiously over the top of her book, all the time pretending not to notice he was there. Eventually he came outside to the terrace, sat down cross-legged much too close to her chair and set out a cluster of toys. In among the rubber dinosaurs and the helicopter was the ragged squirrel. Every now and then he looked up as though to check whether Jacqueline was watching. She observed the decencies by admiring his collection then went back to her book. Immediately, he began a new game which involved him tearing about the garden making vroom-vroom noises with the helicopter held aloft. Jacqueline promptly got up and carried her book upstairs. As she did she noticed that the vroom-vroom had come to a sudden end. But it started again as soon as she was in her room, so she shut the window and lay down on the bed. She intended only to rest her eyes but the room was stuffy and she dozed off.

  She woke just before one and had to hurry to get ready. As she came downstairs she could see Dot through the open doorway. She was kneeling on the flagstone path, her poppy-red head bent over a flower bed. She had changed into a white strapless sundress with a ruched bodice embroidered with bright red cherries and her legs jutted out beneath the skirt like long brown twigs ending in purple flip-flops. She leapt to her feet, agile as a teenager, when Jacqueline came out.

  “I was just doing a bit of weeding while I waited,” she said. “I’ll go wash my hands and be with you in a tic. Oh, and we’re walking by the way – I don’t drive.”

  “Is that your bicycle I saw in the garden?” said Jacqueline.

  Dot nodded. “Feel free to use it any time the fancy takes you.”

  “Thanks,” said Jacqueline, “but I haven’t cycled in years.” More like decades, she thought.

  She waited by the gate and was joined by Dot, a wicker basket over her arm, and they walked downhill side by side. It was a day of wind and sparkle, the sea below wrinkled and silvered in the sun. In the town, the awnings flapped and the bunting billowed.

  Toby’s was a greasy-spoon café at the heart of the harbour. Inside it was dim and crowded with weather-beaten men. The floor was stone-flagged and the low beamed ceiling was hung with dusty-looking fishing nets strewn with life-sized plastic crabs and lobsters. The only free table was a rickety affair next to a smeary window. Jacqueline picked up the laminated menu and studied the fare which was limited to seafood chowder, Fish of the Day, double egg with sausage and chips, or scrambled eggs on toast. Dessert was a choice of spotted dick and custard or treacle sponge and custard.

  “You’re not impressed,” said Dot. “But you wanted to talk to Magpie and this is where he eats – when he eats.”

  “No, no, it’s fine,” said Jacqueline and she looked about her with more enthusiasm.

  “He’s not here right now,” said Dot, “so relax and enjoy your lunch. This place might not look like much, but the seafood chowder is the best in town – all the fishermen eat here.”

  A waitress came over and Dot ordered for both of them: two seafood chowders and two Black Sheep.

  “That okay with you?” she said, as the waitress walked away. “Beer goes well with the chowder here.”

  Jacqueline nodded and Dot leaned back in her chair.

  “I love it here,” Dot said, gesturing at the window. “That’s a real working harbour, that is, not just some picture-postcard version of one.”

  Jacqueline looked through the dirty window. It looked real alright, with the pallets and crab pots stacked high and the trawlers and pleasure craft coming and going on the water – but it was charming too, with the sun on the sea and the row of brightly coloured huts that lined the harbour wall.

  “This Magpie,” she said, “he sounds very elusive, but you said that he and my father struck up a friendship?”

  “I’m not sure I’d call it a friendship,” said Dot. “But I saw them together a few times and I know they had a drink together a couple of nights. And once I saw them out there, sitting on that very wall, deep in conversation. Don’t ask me what about.”

  The beer came at the same time as the food. The chowder was steaming hot and served in big mismatched bowls with ragged hunks of bread on the side. Jacqueline had to admit that all of it was good.

  Once again, she found she was ravenous as a gull and had almost finished her food when Dot said, “There’s your man.”

&n
bsp; Jacqueline looked up, peering through the window. “Which one?”

  “He’s leaning against the pink hut.”

  “That’s Magpie? Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure!”

  Jacqueline looked again at the man. She had recognised him at once as the man from the beach, the drunk from the chair; and now he was not so much leaning against the hut as slumped there.

  “What’s up?” said Dot.

  “Nothing,” said Jacqueline. “It’s just I’ve seen him around. Was he, was he always this way?” She was trying to imagine her father and this man together.

  Dot put her spoon down. “If you mean, did he look like that in 1983, the answer is no – none of us look the way we did back then. Magpie must be hitting sixty now and he’d only have been in his late twenties then.”

  “I didn’t mean looks – so much as, is he – is he homeless?” She had just stopped herself from asking if he was some sort of tramp. “He looks like he might be homeless.”

  “Let’s just say he has his demons.” Dot picked up her spoon and went back to her chowder. “He goes a bit crazy on the booze sometimes, so he can’t hold down a job or pay his rent. But at the moment he has one of those fishermen’s cottages we passed on the way down here.”

  “You said he used to be a fisherman himself?”

  “Yes, but there was some kind of accident. It was back in Ireland. I don’t know the details but people were drowned. It messed Magpie up and he’s never gone back to the sea. Instead he gets a bit of work here and there, doing maintenance on the boats – other men’s boats.” Dot put her spoon down and sighed.

  Jacqueline wondered if the sigh was for the empty bowl or Magpie. “So what happens when he goes crazy and can’t work and doesn’t pay his rent?” she said.

  “He relies on the kindness of strangers,” said Dot.

  “Strangers like you? You let him stay at Sea Holly Villa, don’t you?”

  “Why not? Hadn’t you noticed? I take in all kinds of waifs and strays.”

  Jacqueline looked up quickly, but Dot seemed absorbed in rubbing a piece of bread round her empty bowl.

  Jacqueline’s eyes went back to the slumped figure. “I should go and talk to him,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t,” said Dot. “Believe me, despite present appearances, on a good day that man is as sharp as a tack. Today, however, is not a good day, not for Magpie. Best leave it for now.”

  Jacqueline said nothing and for a while both women sat and stared through the window at the pink hut and the man it supported.

  Dot finished her drink. “Would you like something else?”

  Jacqueline shook her head and they got up and walked to the bar and asked for the bill then tussled mildly over who should pay.

  “I invited you,” Dot insisted and Jacqueline conceded defeat.

  After the dimness of Toby’s, the sunshine seemed more brilliant than ever. The harbour smelled of fish and tar and the tang of the sea.

  “I have some shopping to do,” said Dot, “if you want to come along?”

  “No, you go on,” said Jacqueline. “I’m going to hang around for a bit. You’re right, this is an interesting place.”

  “Suit yourself, but you won’t get any sense out of him today.”

  Before Jacqueline could reply, Dot was gone, her basket swinging on her arm. Jacqueline crossed to the harbour wall and sat and watched Magpie for a while from the corner of her eye. His head had fallen to one side and she thought he was probably asleep. She got up and began strolling in his direction. At each of the coloured huts, she stopped and made a pretence of examining the posters advertising fishing and pleasure trips from the harbour, while all the time surreptitiously studying Magpie. His body was enveloped in the same dark greatcoat and he was wearing trainers with the laces missing and no socks. Up closer, it was clear that he was indeed asleep – asleep and snoring in broad daylight.

  Jacqueline turned her back on him and walked away.

  Back in the yellow room, she drew the curtains on the glitter of the day then lay on the bed and thought about her father and that man. She tried to imagine them sitting on the harbour wall with their heads bent together. What had brought them together and what had they talked about? She closed her eyes on the puzzle and woke two hours later. Definitely sleeping sickness, she thought. She got up and reached for a bottle of water, then remembered she had drunk it earlier. She had a raging thirst. She picked up the empty bottle and carried it downstairs.

  They were in the kitchen; she could hear them talking as she walked down the hallway. Nobody looked up as she came down the steps to the kitchen and Jacqueline stood and watched them grouped around the table. They looked, she thought, like a family. Dot Candy was pouring orange squash into a tall blue plastic beaker, Jimmy was playing with paint and pieces of dry pasta and Marilyn, her chin in her hands, was calmly watching the mess he was making.

  “Now don’t forget, Marilyn,” said Dot, “my train leaves at seven fifteen on Monday morning, so mind you come home on Sunday night.”

  “I won’t forget,” said Marilyn. Looking up, she caught sight of Jacqueline standing in the doorway.

  “I was wondering if I could get some more water,” said Jacqueline.

  Dot turned and smiled. “That’ll be the chowder – there’s a price to pay for everything in this world.” She got up and went to the fridge.

  “It was worth it,” said Jacqueline.

  “You’re welcome to sit down and join us,” said Dot, handing over two icy-cold bottles of water.

  “Thanks,” said Jacqueline, “but I think I need to go out and get some air.”

  As she walked away, she could hear Dot saying, “Now mind, Marilyn: seven fifteen. Don’t go letting me down.”

  Chapter 27

  1976

  “Is it alright if I go up the river for a swim, Mam?”

  “Is Regina going with you?”

  “No, she had to go home. Mrs Quinn says she has to mind the brats this afternoon.”

  “Don’t call them brats,” says Gayle. “I’m sure Mrs Quinn didn’t call them that, and the baby is a little dote.”

  “Regina calls them brats,” says Jacqueline, “and they’re her brothers. So why shouldn’t I?”

  “It seems a shame Regina had to go home on such a lovely day. Couldn’t she have brought the children here to play in the garden instead?”

  “I don’t want them with me,” says Jacqueline. “The baby never stops crying and Leo Quinn keeps sticking his tongue out at me. And, anyway, I want to go for a swim.”

  “Alright – well, you can go, but don’t swim for at least half an hour – you ate half a sliced pan with your lunch.”

  The banks are crowded. It seems to Jacqueline that everyone has come to the river today. There is hardly room to move in the water: girls are shouting and splashing and boys are diving and ducking one another. She keeps on walking and does not stop until she has rounded the bend in the river and found a quieter place to swim, where there are just a couple of small boys catching minnows with jam-jars on strings. She stays in the river for a long time then climbs out and stands on the bank, shaking the water from her hair. When she bends down to spread out her towel, she sees a movement in the bushes. A man is watching her. He moves away quickly, but she recognises Slinky Quinn. The little boys have gone and suddenly the idea of stretching out on her towel does not seem such a good one to Jacqueline. She pulls her shorts and T-shirt on over her still damp swimsuit and hurries home. It is the first time she has ever felt nervous to be alone in the fields.

  Gayle and her mother are in the kitchen when Jacqueline gets home.

  “You didn’t stay long up the river,” says Gayle.

  “I didn’t feel like it,” says Jacqueline. She gets herself a glass of milk and sits down at the table.

  The door opens and Lilly comes in. “Is Daddy up yet?” she says.

  “Not yet,” says Jacqueline’s mother, “but I think I heard him mo
ving about.”

  “Did Eddie ring?”

  “No – are you expecting him to?”

  “I thought he might.” Lilly walks to the window and back again to the table.

  “What’s wrong with you?” says Jacqueline’s mother. “Sit down and stop prowling around, will you?”

  Lilly sits down at the table.

  “There you are, Frank,” says Jacqueline’s mother as Daddy comes in. “I just put a chicken in the fridge for our dinner tonight.”

  “Grand,” says Daddy. “What are you all doing inside on a beautiful day like this?”

  “I was up the river,” says Jacqueline. She thinks about telling Daddy about Slinky Quinn hiding in the bushes watching her, but she stays quiet.

  “We can have it with a bit of salad,” says Jacqueline’s mother.

  “Salad again,” says Jacqueline. “Why can’t we have stew or something?”

  “Who wants stew in this weather?” says Lilly.

  “I do,” says Jacqueline. “The Quinns had stew the other day.”

  “Good for them,” says Jacqueline’s mother, rinsing her hands under the tap. “Maybe you’d like to go and live with the Quinns then? Because we’re having chicken salad and we’re having it early, so don’t go wandering off.”

  “Why are we having it early?” says Jacqueline.

  “Because I have my flower club at Florence’s tonight and Gayle is off to her training. And that way your daddy can have his dinner with us before he goes to work. Oh, and Jacqueline, you’ll be on your own for an hour or so when Lilly goes to her Festival Queen Dance.”

  Jacqueline looks at Lilly and Lilly looks at Jacqueline.

  “But I’ll be back by half eight. Oh, look, Lilly,” Jacqueline’s mother is pointing at the calendar on the wall, “you didn’t mark off the last X on the calendar.”

  “I forgot,” says Lilly.

  “Now how could you forget that?” says Jacqueline’s mother. “It’s all you’ve talked about for the past two weeks.”

  Lilly catches Jacqueline’s eye again and then quickly looks away.