The Daughter of Victory Lights

by Kerri Turner

  Lucy recited her promise in her head over and over before turning her attention back to what Bee was saying.

  ‘I came to see if you’d like to come to Ventnor with me. You haven’t seen much of the island yet, and we can take the car because Humphrey doesn’t need it this afternoon. There are too many uphill slopes on the way back for my old lungs. Plus, the car gives us an excuse to poke around the island further. I don’t strictly have a driving licence, but that’s another thing we can keep between you and me. Unless you’re keen to get back to those books?’

  As much allure as the books held, Lucy thought she’d rather spend more time in Bee’s company.

  ‘I’d like to come,’ she said, and smiled shyly. ‘Maybe you could tell me the story of the cat’s mother and why you owed her, and meeting Mr Walsh, and being called Bee for the first time?’

  A funny spasm ran across Bee’s face. It reminded Lucy of the look Aunt Cynthia got whenever Uncle Charles was particularly late home from work.

  She reached for Bee, afraid something was wrong, but Bee just said, ‘I suppose I could,’ and gestured for Lucy to follow her out of the room.

  They climbed into the mint-green Anglia, and Bee eased it down the driveway, pausing at the gate to the road. She looked both ways before accelerating.

  ‘So, you want to know about the cat’s mother. Well, she was just a kitten when she came to me. Humphrey was helping me to bleach my hair—it was white-blonde in those days, just like Jean Harlow. A striking colour, but a lot of upkeep.’

  ‘Who?’

  Bee rolled her eyes, causing the car to swerve. ‘I suppose you think Diana Dors was the first ever blonde bombshell.’ At Lucy’s perplexed expression, she muttered, ‘Lord, I am old.’

  Lucy, worried she’d upset her, hurried to say something else. ‘I thought you said you met Mr Walsh at the same time as the cat?’

  ‘The same day. I’d been to a local fete earlier, where Humphrey was looking for people who could do magic, or sing, or dance, or anything else special. For the Victory, you see. We got to talking, and later that night he helped me dye my hair.’

  Lucy had the feeling something was being left out, but before she could ask another question, Bee carried on talking.

  ‘While we were waiting for the bleach to do its job, we heard a little noise, and out of nowhere came this tiny ginger kitten. I’d dripped bleach on her without realising and it had burned her skin a little. Her fur was never quite able to grow properly in that spot afterwards, and that’s why I owed her. That same day I started introducing myself to everyone as Bee.’

  ‘Why? Didn’t you like your old name?’

  Bee narrowly missed the corner of a fence with the car. Lucy noticed her knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Was she scared of driving?

  ‘It’s more that it became impossible for me to use it any longer,’ she said eventually, not looking at Lucy. ‘I chose Bee because my mother always said my buzzing into everyone’s business would get me into trouble. She was more right than she could ever have known, but I still couldn’t resist the dig of naming myself after the trait she hated most. Here we are now—Ventnor. Told you it was close. I’m just going to duck into a shop to get something for tea.’

  Bee’s voice was light, her words taking on the sing-song quality of a joke. Yet as Lucy watched her clamber out of the haphazardly parked car, she had the feeling that Bee hadn’t told her the full story.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Lucy sat on the linoleum floor, legs stretched out in front of her, dalmatian propped against her hip. She was rolling an object that looked like a spongy tennis ball back and forth while rain beat a steady, bored rhythm on the roof. Bee had told her the thing was a whelk egg case, collected from the beach.

  ‘This rain …’ Bee said, with another deep sigh. She threw herself into a spotted chair, sinking low with her arms thrown over either side. ‘It just makes you feel … Oh, I don’t know. Oppressed or something. Like you’re trapped. Don’t you think?’

  Lucy didn’t answer. Bee had been asking questions like this all afternoon, and she’d come to realise she didn’t actually want an answer. She just seemed to like making the noise.

  Lucy, on the other hand, had hoped that the weather’s enforced indoors time would prompt a meeting with her father, and was trying to figure out a way of asking without seeming impertinent.

  ‘I know,’ Bee said, sitting up taller. She smacked her hands against her thighs, her eyes lighting up. ‘Music’s what we need.’ She pulled herself out of the chair and went to the record player.

  Lucy looked back at her whelk egg case.

  There was the crackle of the needle hitting the surface of the record, then a moment of not-quite-silence as the disc began to turn. Lucy, bracing herself for trumpets and clarinets like the big band music Uncle Charles and Aunt Cynthia played, almost dropped the egg case at the first few notes that filled the room. They were from a guitar, with no other instrument accompanying them. Then a voice began to sing and it was both smooth and light.

  ‘What is this?’ she asked Bee.

  ‘It’s Sam Cooke. Come on, this kind of music isn’t just for listening to. Come and dance with me.’

  Lucy thought Bee was joking, but her hips were already swaying a little from side to side as she held out her hands to Lucy.

  Lucy blushed, looked down at the ground and shook her head. ‘No, thank you,’ she whispered. Then a voice in her head immediately started yelling at her, telling her she was rude to refuse a direct request from Bee. ‘I mean … yes, I-I guess.’

  Bee looked pleased, turning a little on the spot as Lucy stood up. Her skin peeled off the linoleum like the floor had wanted to keep her stuck there, and Lucy wished she could have obeyed its desire. But she walked obediently over to Bee then froze. She didn’t know how to dance. Bee didn’t seem to notice her hesitation: she grabbed Lucy’s hands and waved them in the air with her own, bobbing up and down at the same time, her feet shuffling from side to side, her stacked bracelets clattering. Lucy copied her, trying to keep her feet in time, feeling self-conscious.

  Bee closed her eyes and sang along with the words. The lines in her face looked as though they were fading away. When she opened her eyes again she saw Lucy was staring at her and grinned. She let go of Lucy’s hands, took a few bobbing steps away from her, then did a quick little turn. Lucy made a noise of exclamation.

  ‘What, are you surprised I know how to dance?’ Bee asked, twisting her shoulders back and forth. ‘I’ll have you know I used to be a marvellous dancer. People paid just to see me. I was a fairly terrible singer, but people paid for that too.’

  Lucy remembered what the village children had said, but pushed the thought away and took a few tentative bobbing steps forward. She felt a little foolish, but wanted to copy what she’d seen Bee do, for she’d made it look fun.

  ‘Here.’ Bee stood next to her, taking her hand. She showed her how to take three steps forward, then transfer her weight quickly to her back foot, then forward again. It was like a little hiccup, and even though Lucy didn’t get it right away Bee was encouraging.

  Soon enough she’d mastered it and they were both doing the step all over the room, Bee insisting Lucy wave her arms in the air. Lucy’s self-consciousness disappeared and she was breathless with joy, skipping all over the linoleum floor in the kind of silly display Aunt Cynthia would never have allowed.

  After Bee cooked tea—frozen fish fingers which reminded Lucy of Bee’s secret and had her smothering a smile in her glass of milk—there was more music, with Bee putting on a Patsy Cline record.

  Mr Walsh sat with his head back and his eyes closed, his hands folded neatly across his stomach. Bee was sewing something, without much success by the muttered curses that kept escaping her mouth.

  Lucy was poking at the broken wireless she’d found in the treasure room. She’d been astonished that Mr Walsh had let her drag it into the living room, and even more so when, after asking about
her interest in it, he’d used a screwdriver to take the back off so she could get a better look at its inner workings. But even with such a treasure before her, it was hard to keep her mind focused. She kept thinking about her father.

  As with every meal since she’d arrived, he hadn’t made an appearance at tea time, and Lucy was beginning to get the strange feeling that perhaps he didn’t really exist. It was easier to think that rather than face the other, more likely truth: that he’d decided she wasn’t worth knowing.

  Mr Walsh cleared his throat and Lucy looked over at him. He was sitting upright, his good eye intensely focused on her. Lucy thought it was lucky really that he only had one eye. If she’d had two eyes looking at her like that, she’d be terribly nervous.

  ‘Have you ever seen what your mother looks like?’ he asked.

  Lucy froze.

  Even Bee put her sewing down to goggle at Mr Walsh.

  ‘It just occurred to me that your aunts might never have shown you pictures,’ he went on.

  Lucy’s stomach flipped double somersaults. There were pictures of her mother?

  ‘I’ve never seen any,’ she managed.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t seem right for a girl not to know what her mother looked like. Let me see what I can do about it.’ He pulled himself out of the chair and disappeared into the house somewhere.

  Lucy looked at the wireless in front of her. She lifted one hand towards the wavelength dial, then put it back down. Was she really going to see her mother for the first time ever? It seemed too strange to understand. Her insides became wobbly and her head thick and muddled.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Bee asked, leaning forward out of her chair.

  Lucy nodded, trying to smile. It wasn’t a good smile—there was a lump in her throat that was getting in the way—but it would do for now. She couldn’t think of a way of telling Bee she was scared. Would a photo of her mother make her suddenly feel the loss she’d always told herself she didn’t care about? Would it make the continued silence from her father all the more deafening? Or would she feel nothing, like she did when she looked at photos of other strangers? Lucy thought that might actually be worse.

  ‘Here we are,’ Mr Walsh said, making Lucy jump. He sat back in his upholstered chair, beckoning for Lucy to come over and perch herself on the arm.

  Lucy did as she was told. The thought of how horrified Aunt Cynthia would have been if Lucy had ever dared to sit on the arm of one of her chairs flicked through her mind and made her want to giggle a little hysterically.

  ‘Let’s see what we’ve got.’ Mr Walsh began flicking through a large bundle of loose photographs, his thick fingers gentle.

  Lucy glimpsed all sorts of strange things as the pictures flashed by, but didn’t have the chance to make out anything much until Mr Walsh stopped at one photo of a woman. She was standing on some sort of rope netting, her feet high above the ground, and wearing trousers and a jacket which seemed to be all one piece. One arm was hooked around a pole next to her. Her hair was hidden underneath a scarf, and her lips were dark with lipstick. Her eyes were squinting a little and one hand was half-raised. It was probably to shade her face from the sun, but Lucy had the impression the woman was waving at her.

  ‘There she is. Your mother. Evie.’

  Mr Walsh’s voice was so soft that Lucy tore her eyes away from the photo for a second. His face held an expression she had never seen on him before, one that was reminiscent of clouds heavy with rain that wouldn’t fall.

  ‘That was when she worked for me,’ he continued. ‘That pole is the mast she used to climb up. She could scale that rope webbing like a spider climbing a wall when she didn’t have any equipment to carry.’

  ‘Show me,’ Bee said, tossing her sewing aside. She leaned over the picture and her face broke into a wide smile. ‘Oh yes.’

  Mr Walsh flicked to the next photo all too soon and Lucy wanted to cry out, but then there was her mother again. She was surprised how easily she recognised her, as she looked completely different this time. She was in the middle of a finely dressed group, her skirt flaring and the front of her hair curled up in coils on either side of her face. The rest of it cascaded over her shoulders in soft waves. The men on either side of her wore suits, ties and hats; and at one end of the group was a plump woman with curled hair and an enormous bosom who Lucy recognised as a younger Bee. This photo was darker than the first, and Lucy guessed it must have been taken at night.

  ‘Saint-Malo,’ Bee murmured. ‘How we shocked her that night.’

  Mr Walsh chuckled. ‘Didn’t we ever. And here’s Flynn, your father.’ He pointed at one of the men next to Evie.

  He had dark hair and eyes, and a serious expression on his face. Lucy’s eyes darted between the two figures, trying to see if she could spot any love between them. She thought if she moved her eyes fast enough the two faces might blur into one and she’d see her own features, but Mr Walsh’s fingers were moving through the rest of the photographs as his voice wove a story of mischief on the French shore.

  He reached one near the end of the pile and Lucy gasped.

  ‘Oh, look at her,’ Bee said, touching the edge of the photograph with one finger. ‘I took this one. She didn’t want it taken, you know. Thought she looked sweaty and unappealing. But she was just glorious. And you’re in this picture too, Lucy. In a way.’

  Lucy reached out her own finger. It was trembling. She traced the curve of her mother’s belly, trying to imagine that it was warm skin she was touching instead of the photograph’s flat, cool surface. Trying to imagine that the woman in the wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses, sitting in a deckchair, was directing her smile at the daughter who had still been in her stomach in the picture.

  ‘You can keep that one if you like,’ Mr Walsh said gently.

  Lucy took it from him. He said he’d put the rest of the pictures in an album for her, but she wasn’t listening. She was staring at the photo in her cupped hands. This was her mother. And her. Together. She couldn’t pull her eyes or her hands away from the photo. She felt as though she’d been tipped upside down, and couldn’t decide if it was nice or upsetting.

  ‘I think it’s time for a pipe,’ Mr Walsh said loudly, and Lucy tore her eyes away from the photo to look at him. ‘Now where’d I put the darn thing?’ He patted himself down, reached into one sleeve and pulled out a billiard ball. ‘That’s not it.’

  The corners of Lucy’s lips twitched as he dropped the heavy weight into her hand.

  He began digging around again, this time trying the other sleeve. Instead of a pipe, out came one of Bee’s battered-looking slippers. Lucy couldn’t help it; this time she did laugh.

  Bee snatched the slipper off him, demanding to know where the other one was.

  Mr Walsh said there was no way he could know, as he didn’t know how it had got there in the first place.

  Next, he opened his jacket and felt in the left breast pocket. A small jingle announced what he’d found before he pulled it out: the cat’s blue collar, a tiny bell hanging off it. The cat, hearing it, stalked in and took a swipe at Mr Walsh before he had the chance to put the collar back on him.

  With a wink and a shrug at Lucy, Mr Walsh went back to his search, trying the opposite breast pocket of his jacket. This time, finally, he found the pipe. It emerged already lit and smoking, and Mr Walsh popped it in his mouth with a pleased look.

  Lucy rocked on the arm of the chair, amusement spilling out of her.

  When she could breathe again, Mr Walsh cupped the back of her head with his hand. ‘Bedtime now, I think. Go on upstairs with Bee and take your picture with you. I’ll put your wireless away.’

  Lucy hesitated a moment, then leaned forward and gave Mr Walsh a quick kiss on the cheek—an impulse that made her blush.

  She didn’t feel nearly so odd when she looked at the photograph again; in fact, she could almost swear her mother was smiling more now. Perhaps she’d found Mr Walsh’s little show funny too.

  Lucy liked the th
ought, and held the photo close to her chest as she mounted the stairs, Bee at her side. A mother with an adventurous spirit, a sense of humour, and who could climb ropes and run through the streets of a French city leaving chaos in her wake, was an exciting mother to have.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Lucy sat on her bed, fingers stroking the ears of her dalmatian while she stared at the photograph of her mother she’d propped against her pillow. Before coming here, she’d been lonely in the middle of a family. Now she spent more time than ever by herself yet was hardly lonely at all. Mr Walsh was kind and entertaining. Bee was a terrible cook, but she never sent Lucy to bed hungry and always made her laugh. And she was getting to know the mother she hadn’t thought she cared about, and rather liked it.

  Tucking her dalmatian next to the photo, she slipped out of her room to find Bee and see what she could do to help around the house. It was something she’d thought of to make sure they would never want to send her away.

  But Bee’s bedroom door was closed, and Mr Walsh was outside it, pressing a finger to his lips.

  ‘She’s having one of her bad days,’ he said in a low voice, ushering Lucy downstairs.

  Lucy put the end of a piece of her hair in her mouth. ‘Doesn’t she at least want some breakfast?’ she asked around it.

  ‘Not today.’

  Mr Walsh made their meal and kept up some friendly chatter, but Lucy could barely swallow her toasted raisin bun despite the generous helping of apricot jam. As soon as she had finished helping him to rinse and dry the plates, she raced back upstairs and hovered near Bee’s closed door. When Mr Walsh came by she asked him if Bee might like the cat for company, or perhaps a book to read. He shook his head and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

  Half an hour later when he saw Lucy still outside the door, he quietly tried to coax her back downstairs.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, let the poor child in if she’s that bothered,’ came Bee’s muffled voice.