The Last Lost Girl Read online

  Jacqueline slides to the floor, feeling the delicious coolness of the fridge door through her T-shirt. She watches Daddy lifting the fish from the pan. He puts it carefully on his plate, then gets the pot and piles turnip in to a steaming mountain next to the fish. Lastly he pours the grease from the pan over the turnip. Lilly’s nose wrinkles but she keeps on eating her cornflakes.

  “What’s the war paint in aid of anyway?” says Daddy.

  “Me and Goretti are going in to the Dandelion Market to buy records.”

  “Goretti and I,” says Daddy.

  “Goretti and I.” Lilly smiles again.

  “How you can listen to that rubbish you call music is beyond me,” says Daddy. “Which reminds me, Frankie will be on soon. Stick on the radio, Jacqueline, love.”

  Jacqueline looks at Lilly. Lilly hates Frankie Byrne because she plays nothing but Frank Sinatra records, but Lilly is eating her cornflakes and she is still smiling. Jacqueline gets up and turns on the radio then goes back to her place by the fridge. She bites through the plastic cover on her cool pop and sucks: strawberry ice melts on her tongue.

  Daddy puts the pot of boiled potatoes on the table, then sits down and begins peeling them, letting the skins drop into the pot. For a while there is no sound in the kitchen except the man on the radio talking about mange and white scour and tuberculosis.

  “Daddy?” says Lilly.

  “Yes, love?”

  “You know the festival is starting soon?”

  “Which festival is that, Lilly?”

  “You know which festival, Daddy – it’s on every year.”

  And Jacqueline thinks: Of course Daddy knows which festival, everyone knows. The posters have been up all over town for days now. There is one on the telegraph pole at the turn for Blackberry Lane. Soon the big white marquee tent will rise up like a giant mushroom in the field behind the GAA clubhouse, and best of all the carnival will soon be there too.

  “Well, what about it?” says Daddy.

  “Is it okay if I go to some of the dances?” says Lilly. “Mam said I can, if you say I can.”

  “What dances are these now?”

  Lilly puts her spoon down. “The festival dances, Daddy, the ones in the marquee. Goretti Quinn is going, everyone is going. I don’t have to go to all of them, just three or maybe four …”

  “Four,” says Daddy. “Are you sure that will be enough now? Here, love, have a bit of ray. I’ve far too much here.” He holds out his fork with a lump of fish on it.

  “No, thanks, Daddy.”Lilly pulls her chin back and closes her eyes. “I’m alright – I’m having cereal.”

  “A bit of fish would be better for you. What about you, Jacqueline? Will you have a bit of fish, love?”

  “No, thanks, Daddy, I’m having my cool pops.” Jacqueline does not take her eyes from Lilly’s face.

  “So can I go, Daddy?”

  “Why would you want to go to a carnival tent full of drunks?”

  Lilly stops smiling. “It’s not a carnival tent, Daddy. The carnival is separate from the dances.”

  “All the same it’s no place for a young girl. You’re best to stay clear.” Daddy has picked the top side of his fish clean and Jacqueline watches him slide his knife under the big flat bone to loosen it, then lift it and drop it into the pot of potato skins.

  Lilly is watching him too. “But lots of girls my age are going, Daddy,” she says, “and they don’t sell alcohol in the marquee.”

  “Maybe not,” says Daddy, “but as soon as the pubs close, every drunken Tom, Dick and Harry falls into those dances. This is a grand bit of ray – are you sure you won’t have some, love?”

  Lilly pushes her bowl away. “I don’t want any fish, Daddy. Please, can I go? Everyone else is going!”

  “Not everyone,” says Daddy. “You don’t hear Gayle asking to go to dances in tents.”

  “Yeah, well, Gayle is weird – all she cares about is running,” says Lilly, “and, anyway, Gayle is only fourteen and I’ll be sixteen in August.”

  “Be that as it may,” says Daddy, “there’ll be plenty of time for dances when you finish school.”

  “But I don’t finish school for another two years! What are you saying? That I’m not allowed to go to a dance for two whole years?”

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” says Daddy. “You go to those discos, what more do you want? And, come September, you’ll be studying for your Leaving Certificate. You need to forget about dances and concentrate on your books.”

  “School discos!” Lilly stands up and her chair scrapes against the lino. “It’s because of what that old crow Sister Agatha said, isn’t it? Stupid old mickey-dodger!”

  Jacqueline starts to laugh. When Daddy looks at her, she pretends she is choking on her cool pop. She knows exactly what Sister Agatha said because she overheard her mother telling Daddy. Daddy never goes to parent-teacher meetings because he cannot stand nuns. Sister Agatha said, “I’m afraid, Mrs Brennan, that Lilly has an eye for the boys. And it’s a great pity because Lilly has great potential and a good head on her shoulders if she’d only use it.”

  “That’s lovely language in front of your little sister,” says Daddy, “and it has nothing to do with Sister Agatha.” He stops chewing and puts down his knife and fork. He sticks his finger in his mouth, wiggles it around and pulls something out, examines it and puts it down carefully on the side of his plate. “That’s a grand bit of fish,” he says, “but it’s very bony.”

  “Then why won’t you let me go to the dances?” says Lilly. “All the girls in my class are allowed to go!”

  Daddy picks up his fork again. “I’m not concerned with all the girls in your class, I’m concerned with you, Lilly. Now can you let me have some peace, please? I have to go to work in half an hour and I won’t get out again until ten o’clock tonight.”

  “But, if you let me go, I’ll study really hard when I go back to school in September.”

  “Time was,” says Daddy, “when you didn’t wait until you went back to school to pick up a book. What’s happened to you, Lilly? You used to be the best reader I ever met in my life.”

  Jacqueline wants to shout: No, Daddy, that’s not Lilly, that’s me! I’m the best reader, I’m the one who loves books – Lilly only likes boys.

  She sucks hard on her cool pop but her tongue tastes only water, and when she looks down all the colour has drained away and all that is left is a colourless bag of ice. Maybe, Jacqueline thinks, it’s not so hard after all to understand why Gayle wants to learn how to gut fish and mend punctures.

  “Please, Daddy, please can I go?”

  “I said no, Lilly. I’m not having a daughter of mine hanging round in a tent full of drunks.”

  “But it’s not fair! Everyone is allowed to go! Why not me? Why won’t you let me go?”

  “I’ve told you why, Lilly. Now can I have my dinner in peace?”

  “Please, Daddy!”

  “I said no, Lilly, and that’s final.”

  Lilly rushes out and bangs the kitchen door so hard it shakes.

  The woman on the radio says: “Dear Frankie, I’ve been keeping company with this man for ten years …”

  “Why me?” says Jacqueline. “Why do I have to wash the dishes?”

  “Because I said so, that’s why.” Jacqueline’s mother is sitting at the kitchen table with both hands wrapped round her cup.

  “But five people had lunch, so five people should do the washing up – that’s what you always say, so –”

  “Just do the dishes, Jacqueline, and don’t give me any of your lip.”

  Lilly comes down the stairs and into the kitchen, in her green-and-white bikini and her new white flip-flops. Goretti Quinn is trailing behind her, carrying the brown blanket, two cushions and the bottle of oil and vinegar. Lilly has her transistor radio under her arm. It is switched on and a man is singing “I Love to Boogie”.

  Every time Jacqueline sees Lilly’s radio she wants it more, but there isn’t any
point in asking. Her mother will say what she always does: “Lilly is fifteen – you can have one when you’re a teenager.”

  But Jacqueline sees no reason why she shouldn’t have one now. She is eleven years and eight months old and why should she have to wait until she is thirteen to have the thing she wants most in the whole wide world? If she ruled the world, anyone could have a radio the minute they wanted one.

  Goretti Quinn’s flip-flops are exactly the same as Lilly’s. You big copycat, Jacqueline thinks, as she watches them flip-flopping across the kitchen.

  At the back door, Lilly stands back to let Goretti Quinn go first. “The dirt before the brush,” she says.

  They go out into the sunshine laughing and Jacqueline watches them go.

  Jacqueline’s mother is watching them too. “Mind you don’t get sunburnt!” she calls.

  She gets up and goes to look at herself in the mirror on the wall. She puts her head to one side and her hand to her right cheek. Her fingers move slowly down to her chin, then up again to the corner of her eye. Then she does something to make the skin of her face tighten and the corners of her eyes tilt upwards. Jacqueline wants to look away but she cannot. Ever since THAT night, she just can’t stop watching her mother. Until THAT night, her mother was just her mother, always there, but you never really looked at her, not really. Now it is as though Jacqueline has only just realised that her mother has a body. Now she is noticing things about her mother that she never did before. Like the slow way she moves and how the shiny material of her flowery dresses sticks to her bottom. How hot she always seems to be, the sweat frizzing the short hairs round her face and neck. How she uses bits of paper and old envelopes as fans, cooling herself with quick flicking movements of her wrists.

  If she could, Jacqueline would forget THAT night. She only came down for a drink of water but the sitting-room door was open. The television was on – The High Chaparral. Jacqueline could not see it but she could hear Big John and Victoria arguing. Through the banisters she could see her mother’s legs. The green basin was on the floor and she was soaking her feet in it. Her tights lay next to it like a little brown puddle on the floor. There was a hand on her mother’s thigh, very brown against the white skin, with dark hairs on the wrist. The fingers were spread wide and, as Jacqueline watched, they moved as though they had a life of their own. It took her a few minutes to realise that the hand belonged to Daddy. Suddenly she wasn’t thirsty anymore and she crept back upstairs very quietly. It was a long time before she could go to sleep.

  Just remembering is enough to set Jacqueline’s face on fire. She runs the tap and clatters the plates together noisily in the sink.

  “Mrs Quinn hasn’t got a mirror in the kitchen,” she says. “Mrs Quinn has a giant-sized picture of The Last Supper.”

  “Good for Mrs Quinn,” says Jacqueline’s mother. “Now, can you try not to break every dish in the house, please?”

  Jacqueline sticks out her tongue at the window. It makes her feel a little bit better. She tells herself that maybe her mother isn’t her mother at all, that maybe she is adopted and that makes her feel even better. As long as Daddy is really her daddy, she doesn’t care.

  She finishes the dishes as fast as she can, then dries her hands and picks up her book from the table. The cover shows a photograph of a young girl with big dark eyes and dark ringlets. Jacqueline stares at it and wonders if maybe it is too sunny to read about a girl who had to spend summer days, just like this one, locked away in an attic. And who, after all that, still had her life stolen from her. But it wasn’t only that. Reading the words of Anne Frank made Jacqueline think about her own diary and wish she could think of something clever and interesting to write. Somehow, she cannot imagine anyone ever wanting to read the stuff in her diary, which is mostly about her mother and Lilly, and Goretti Quinn and how much she hates them all. Anne Frank had a terrible life but at least she is famous – nobody will ever forget her. The thought makes Jacqueline feel guilty and, to punish herself and make it up to Anne Frank, she decides to go and sit in the orchard and read the book for at least an hour.

  Lilly’s radio is playing “Fool to Cry”.

  They are sitting on the blanket, their heads close together. Jacqueline, crouching behind a bush, is so close she can hear every word they are saying.

  “It’s not fair!” says Lilly. “You’re allowed to go. Everyone in the world is allowed to go, except me!”

  “Can’t you just ask your ma?” says Goretti Quinn.

  “Don’t be so stupid, Goretti! What’s the point? I told you what she said: I can go if my father says I can go.”

  “Ask him again then.”

  “I’m not asking him again. He’ll just say no and start quoting Shakespeare at me again.”

  “What’s Shakespeare got to do with it?”

  “Ask him,” says Lilly. “He’s always quoting Shakespeare at me, ever since he bought me the complete works for my fourteenth birthday. I don’t even like Shakespeare. I hate Shakespeare. He bought it for himself, if you ask me. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare for my birthday. Imagine!”

  “Imagine!” says Goretti Quinn. “God, what are you going to do about the marquee dances, Lilly?”

  “I’m going, of course,” says Lilly.

  “But how can you go if your da won’t let you?”

  “I don’t know but I’ll think of something – there’s no way I’m missing them.”

  “And are you going to enter the Festival Queen Competition, Lilly?”

  “I don’t know, I might.” Lilly shakes her head back. “Do you think I –”

  “Shhhh, Lilly,” says Goretti Quinn, turning around suddenly.

  “Don’t tell me to shhhh, Goretti Quinn! You just asked me if I was going to enter –”

  “I know that,” says Goretti Quinn, “but Little Big Ears is listening.”

  Lilly turns as Jacqueline springs up. “I’m going to kill you, you little sneak!”

  As Jacqueline races up the garden, Lilly’s radio is playing “Devil Woman”.

  Chapter 10

  Afterwards

  The days after the funeral took on a pattern. In the evenings, Jacqueline got drunk on red wine and fell asleep on the sofa. It was just too short for her body – her legs jutted out over the armrest and she woke stiff-necked in the small hours and stumbled to her bedroom. Most days she slept until mid-afternoon; her dreams were flamboyant, so that she woke feeling both exhilarated and exhausted as though some other, more exciting version of herself lived by night. Sometimes, in sleep, she forgot he was dead, and so he died all over again as she lay on her back staring at the square of green velveteen that held back the awful day. She tried not to think about what was happening to him, right now, this very second. When she failed, she comforted herself with the thought that it was not him in the coffin under the earth, only his “mortal remains”, that he was beyond all horrors of the flesh. It was a half comfort at most but it was all she had. Sometimes she stayed like that, lying on her back in the green room for so long she would drift back into sleep and wake to find another chunk of the afternoon painlessly disposed of. Most days she neither washed nor dressed, just stayed in the T-shirt and shorts in which she had slept, his raggedy old cardigan pulled on over them. Each time she put it on she felt herself enveloped in a sense of him that was physically calming. She went downstairs and made tea in the old pot, covered it with the singed cosy and took it to the sitting room. She switched on the TV and muted the sound, programme following programme in a shifting procession of meaninglessness. People’s mouths opened and closed, they talked, quarrelled, kissed, yawned, ate, laughed, cried. Their faces expressed love, disgust, hate, fear, surprise, anger, grief. Outside the birds sang and in the room the three clocks ticked away the seconds. “There are too many clocks in this room.”

  At some point, she would fall asleep and wake to find that evening had fallen on the garden beyond the windows. The clocks still ticked and the silent screen flickered a
nd blinked. When hunger got the better of her, she went to the kitchen where the fridge and cupboards were stuffed full of the food he would never enjoy. She had no appetite for anything but toasted cheese sandwiches and digestive biscuits. After she had eaten, she left the dishes in the sink, adding to the pile day by day, then she opened a bottle of red wine and took it to the sitting room and began the cycle all over again.

  On the day she found the envelope, she had woken later than usual. She’d had one of the Lilly dreams again. In it Lilly, barefoot and wearing her blue dress, was moving through a landscape that might have been drawn by a small child. The trees were black and ill-formed and shook themselves with a sound like rustling paper. Great black, ragged birds flew screeching into the air and disappeared behind a range of dark and higgledy-piggledy hills. The sound, which in the dream had startled Lilly and made her scream, always woke Jacqueline. She got out of bed and threw on his cardigan, then went downstairs. She made tea and took it into the living room and sat on the sofa thinking about the dream. Like all the other Lilly dreams, this one had changed somewhat over the years, so that now Lilly always had her back turned to Jacqueline, which meant that she could not see her sister’s face. It’s because I don’t remember what she looks like, thought Jacqueline. She glanced round at the framed photographs on the wall – her parents on their wedding day,Gayle and herself taken years apart but dressed in almost identical white Communion dresses, two Confirmation photographs, Gayle in her Deb’s dress, Jacqueline on her graduation day, Gayle with Roy in her arms … her father on his 70th birthday.

  Jacqueline put her cup down and got to her feet.

  Jacqueline remembered seeing some old photographs in his drawer, the one where they had found his will, his birth certificate and life-insurance papers sealed in a brown envelope with the words “IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS” printed in biro, provoking a further torrent of tears from Gayle. “You see,” she said. “He was thinking about us.”