by Maria Hoey
“Sexy Sexton is waiting for you, Lilly,” says Jacqueline.
Lilly smiles. “You know you’re not supposed to call him Sexy, don’t you?”
“I know,” says Jacqueline.
“Well, anyway, stop staring at me,” says Lilly.
“The cat has leave to look at the queen,” says Jacqueline. “Why is it called cheese cloth, Lilly?”
Lilly looks down at her top. “I don’t know. Why do you always ask such weird questions?” She pushes past Jacqueline and Jacqueline leans over the banister and watches her going slowly down the stairs in her platform shoes.
“You look lovely, Lilly!” she calls.
Lilly bends her head backwards and smiles up at her. “Thanks, Jacks.”
Jacqueline feels her heart flip in her chest. “Lilly,” she says, “why are you going with Sexy Sexton?”
Lilly stops and looks up again. “Why shouldn’t I go with him?”
“Because you’re so … and he’s … he’s Sexy Sexton.”
“Mind your own business, Miss Nosey Parker,” says Lilly, but she is still smiling.
Jacqueline follows her down the stairs.
Chapter 24
Afterwards
Jacqueline woke at half-nine with half a hangover and a headache. She had lain awake late into the night wondering about a man called Magpie, about her father coming to this place all those years ago, in the summer of 1983. 1983, when Dot was mourning her dead husband and Jacqueline had finished her first year of university and taken her first summer job. She remembered how she had spent her days in a pokey newsagent’s, selling cigarettes and newspapers, scooping ice cream into cones or weighing out boiled sweets. On Saturday mornings, trying and often failing to keep her patience with the hordes of children as they deliberated endlessly between Black Jacks or Fruit Salads, Jelly Snakes or Chocolate Mice. She had disliked it all but gritted her teeth and got on with it, pretending not to notice how the men who came in for their ten Rothmans or twenty Carrolls eyed her up as she turned to reach down the packets of cigarettes. What she struggled with most were the times when the shop wasn’t busy and she had to come out from behind the counter to sweep the floor or clean the fridges or, worst of all, wash the window inside and out. She felt exposed then – anyone, people she knew, girls she had gone to school with, the flower women even, could come along and catch her working like a skivvy.
She had been washing windows on the day he left. She remembered walking home, dusty and hot and mortified, and the front door opening before she reached the porch.
Her mother had said, her tone flat but her eyes a little wild, “Your father’s gone.”
For a moment Jacqueline had thought that her father too had disappeared. But this time at least there had been a note, which if it did not explain anything much, promised he would return. Jacqueline had read it so many times she had memorised it.
Stella,
I will be gone for a few days. Please don’t worry. I will explain when I come back.
Love,
Frank
P S I will come back
And he had phoned. Jacqueline had been at work but Gayle, who had caught a flight home from London, took the call and Jacqueline had had to rely on Gayle’s version of events.
“Word for word, Gayle,” she demanded.
“I can’t remember word for word.” Gayle was huffy. “I’m not like you.”
“Try.”
“Okay. Well, the phone rang and I answered it and it was Daddy and I said, ‘Daddy, where are you?’ and Daddy said, ‘I’ll be home soon, love, don’t worry. Now put your mother on.’ So I got Mam and she said, ‘Frank, where the hell are you?’ and … well, I don’t know what Daddy said because I couldn’t hear him, but Mam said, ‘What do you mean “it doesn’t matter”?’ and then she just said ‘yes’ and ‘no’ a few times and then she said, ‘Goodbye, Frank’ and she hung up. I asked her where Daddy was, but she didn’t answer me and now she’s in her room lying down again. Jacqueline, do you think he’s going to come back?”
“I don’t know,” said Jacqueline. “He said he will, so I suppose he will.”
“But where did he go, and why did he go?” Gayle had wanted to know but Jacqueline had no answer to that either.
Thirteen days later, he returned. When they asked where he had gone and why, he said it didn’t matter where he had gone, but he had needed a bit of a break. And that, thought Jacqueline, was how he had seemed, like someone who had badly needed a break and felt a little better for it. More hopeful, Dot Candy had said. Had he been hopeful, Jacqueline tried to remember. Certainly he had seemed less hopeless and it had lasted at least until after Christmas and then he had changed again. So what had happened while he was here? What had he found out or thought he had found out? She needed to speak to Magpie.
The hall had the now familiar morning smell, an intermingling of fish and bacon. Jacqueline took a quick look into the dining room but no table had been set for her in the window this morning. In the kitchen, a corner of the big table had been laid for one and, as Jacqueline was about to sit down, Dot Candy came in through the open door, a frying pan in one hand and a spatula in the other. She was dressed in a long orange garment that covered her body from neck to toe; it reminded Jacqueline of a wigwam Gayle had once got for Christmas.
“There you are,” she said.
“Sorry I’m late,” said Jacqueline.
“No worries. Sit down. There’s tea in the pot on the table, it’s not long made. Have some while you wait and I’ll make you some fresh with your breakfast. Is it tea and toast again, or can you manage the full works?”
“Maybe some fried eggs with the toast this morning,” said Jacqueline – her new wolfish appetite kept taking her by surprise. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all.” Dot crossed to the sink and dumped the pan and spatula there. “I’ve just been feeding the cats – we have the full complement of eight this morning. “I’d take you down to meet them only I’ve rooms to do, once I’ve fed you.”
She makes me sound like one of the cats, thought Jacqueline. She poured herself some tea. “Are you expecting guests?”
“Not particularly,” said Dot, cracking eggs into a pan. “If they come they come.”
“I don’t understand,” said Jacqueline. “You do this every morning – cook a breakfast for all these cats as well as cleaning all those rooms. But you don’t advertise and you turn people away if, as you say, you don’t like the look of them. Why?”
Over her shoulder, Dot shot her a look and Jacqueline thought, I’ve overstepped the mark. She waited for a put-down but Dot was concentrating on the eggs.
“You don’t understand because you don’t know how it was,” Dot said at last. “You see, long before Martin knew this place would be his, he came here on holiday as a little boy. He never forgot those weeks he spent here, with just him and his mother and his Uncle Peter.”
The toaster popped and Dot put the bread on a plate and carried it across to Jacqueline. “Would you like some fresh tea?”
“No, no, this is fine, thanks,” said Jacqueline.
Dot went back to the eggs. Jacqueline buttered her toast and waited for Dot to elaborate but Dot said nothing further until she had served up the eggs. Then she pulled out a chair and sat down, again at the far end of the table.
“You see, Peter lived here alone all his life and, even as a child, Martin said he knew that wasn’t right, that this house was too big for just one person. So as soon as Peter died and the house came to Martin, the first thing he did was tell me he wanted to open the house to guests. He wanted to fill all those empty rooms with people because, he said, this was a house that was meant to be lived in and enjoyed by as many people as possible.”
“How did you feel about that?” said Jacqueline. “By the way these eggs are glorious.”
“Thank you,” said Dot. “Frankly, I was not delighted. The idea of filling my home with strangers, paying or othe
rwise, filled me with no joy. But even I could see the sense of using all that extra space to bring in an income. And,” she turned and gazed out through the wide-open doorway, “I loved the garden. And so we moved here and people came and Martin was happy.”
“And you?” said Jacqueline.
“I did the practical things – the cooking and cleaning. I made the beds and I cooked eggs and bacon and kippers and beans. And what was left over I gave to the cat.” She looked at Jacqueline. “I haven’t always been a batty cat lady. In the beginning there was only one cat, the others came with the years. Besides,” she smiled, “someone hands you a house with six bedrooms, one of them an actual night nursery – who could blame a person for believing she might one day fill some of those rooms with actual children as well as paying guests?”
Jacqueline looked up enquiringly.
Dot shook her head. “What a stupid word – miscarry – like holding a bag upside down.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jacqueline.
Dot got up and wandered to the doorway. “But with Martin gone and the guests growing thin on the ground, greatly encouraged by me it has to be said, I just kept on doing the rooms. It gives me something to do, and the cats get the breakfasts instead of the leftovers.” She turned back to Jacqueline. “I believe that’s what they call a win-win situation? But enough of my story. What about you, Jacqueline Brennan? What do you do for a living? Something fancy I’ll warrant, in a fancy office.”
“I work as a freelance editor,” said Jacqueline. “A fancy office?”
She smiled, thinking of the small room with the pale grey walls and the ceiling-to-floor bookcase, the shelf that held the tools of her trade: thesaurus, reference works and manuals, her decades of dictionaries. Was it sad that she could list them, trail her fingers mentally along their spines in the order they stood on the undusted shelf? Left to right with regard for neither chronology nor aesthetics, the much-mauled three-volume 70s Webster’s nudging a 1940s Concise Oxford with a sniff of mould about the browning pages, a tatty 80s Collins side by side with the cool slippery sheen of the New Oxford Dictionary of English.
“Believe me,” said Jacqueline, “there is no fancy office.”
“Right,” said Dot. “Well, I’ll leave you to enjoy the rest of your breakfast in peace.”
“Actually,” said Jacqueline, “before you go, I was hoping you could tell me more about this Magpie you said used to hang around with my father, the Irish fisherman guy?”
“Ex-fisherman – he doesn’t go out on the boats anymore. Do you like seafood chowder?”
Jacqueline shook her head at the random change of subject. “Seafood chowder, yes, I suppose so – why?”
“Good, then I’ll meet you in the hall at a quarter to one for lunch in Toby’s.”
“But, what about this Magpie?”
“Chances are he’ll be in Toby’s too,” said Dot, “though I can’t vouch for the condition he’ll be in. And for all I know he can’t tell you what you want to know.”
“I understand,” said Jacqueline, “but he’s all I’ve got, so it’s worth a try surely?”
Dot nodded. “Fair enough. And now I must dash.”
Shortly afterward, Jacqueline heard the hum of the vacuum cleaner somewhere above her head.
Chapter 25
1976
“Jacqueline, go and get your bike, will you? I need some ham from Sweeney’s.”
“Why do I have to go?” says Jacqueline. “I’m reading. Why can’t Gayle go?”
“You’re always reading,” says her mother, “and Gayle’s gone running, that’s why.”
“Then why can’t Daddy drive you down?”
“He’s still in bed – he’s on nights this week, remember? Now stop arguing and go and get your bike. Florence is coming for lunch and I’ve nothing to give her.”
“But it’s too hot to cycle…”
“You can get yourself an ice lolly with the change.”
“Alright, then.”
“Just don’t dawdle, and be careful on that bike.”
It really is too hot to cycle. Jacqueline goes as slowly as she can without falling off her bike. It is cool under the trees in Blackberry Lane but, as soon as she comes out onto the main road, the sun is hot on her head and arms and she starts to sweat. She freewheels all the way from the top of the hill to the bottom. The rush of air is so cool and wonderful it makes her feel as light as a puff pastry. Jacqueline laughs aloud at the idea. She thinks about cycling back to the top of the hill just so she can do it all again, but tells herself she’d better not: God forbid she might keep snooty Florence waiting for her lunch. The airy feeling does not last long and, by the time she reaches the village, Jacqueline is dripping with sweat.
She parks her bike against the wall of the sweet shop and goes inside. The girl behind the counter is reading a magazine. She looks a bit like Lilly, with long dark-brown hair, which she is curling around one finger.
“An ice lolly, please,” says Jacqueline.
“Which one?” The girl is turning the pages of her magazine and does not look up.
“I don’t know,” says Jacqueline.
The girl looks up and rolls her eyes then she puts her magazine down, gets up and lifts the lid of the fridge. “Take your pick.”
Jacqueline leans over the fridge. The cold feels like a burn against her skin – below her, the frost curls like white sparkly fog. Jacqueline lets her head hang down and the fog moves around her like a smooth, soft, icy tongue that licks her face.
“Make up your mind, will you?”
The girl sounds a bit like Lilly too, cross and impatient.
Jacqueline cannot make up her mind. Does she want a Super Split or a Little Devil? Although she does really like the jelly bit in a Tip Top … in the end she chooses a Dracula.
She eats it sitting outside on the bench at the bus stop, under the shade of a tree. She licks but does not bite so that it will last longer, but it is gone too soon and all she is left with is the wooden stick, sticky fingers stained dark red and lips that taste of blackcurrant.
“How are you enjoying this weather, young Brennan?”
Jacqueline says she is enjoying it fine. She does not like the smell in the butcher’s shop, and it is worse today in the heat. Mr Sweeney looks sad, but he always looks sad. Jacqueline wonders if it is because he spends all day looking at dead things. When she pays him for the ham, she is careful not to touch his fingers because of the blood under his nails.
The cycle home seems even longer and hotter. Jacqueline thinks she might even melt and turn into a puddle. At the bottom of the hill, she gets down from her bicycle and walks it all the way to the top. Then she gets up on it again and cycles the rest of the way to Blackberry Lane. Just before she turns the corner, she hears someone shouting.
“Get out of my way, Lilly, I mean it!”
“Will you just listen to me, Eddie, please?”
“I don’t want to listen to you anymore – just get out of the way!”
Jacqueline gets down off her bike. She pushes it up against the hedge then tiptoes to the corner and peeps around. Lilly is standing in the middle of the lane in front of Sexy Sexton’s car and Sexy Sexton’s head is sticking out of the window.
“But I told you it was nothing, I swear it was nothing,” says Lilly.
“It wasn’t nothing, Lilly! I saw you with him. I saw you with my own two eyes.”
“And I told you we were only messing. I swear it, Eddie. Can you not just forget about it, please?”
“No, I can’t forget about it. I’ll never forget about it. Now, will you please get out of my way, Lilly?”
Lilly does not move. “But what about tomorrow night?” she says. “Will you at least call for me, Eddie? You know my dad won’t let me go if you don’t call for me.”
“Are you serious?” says Sexy Sexton. “You actually want me to call for you so you can go meet your gypo? You must take me for a right fool, Lilly! Now, I won’t ask you agai
n – get out of my way!”
He blows the horn so loudly that Jacqueline jumps in fright.
When Lilly still does not move, he sticks his head out of the window again and shouts, “I said MOVE!”
The car shoots forward and Lilly gives a little scream and jumps aside. Jacqueline presses herself against the hedge just in time, as Sexy Sexton’s car speeds past. Her heart is beating so fast that it is a minute before she can move again. Then she runs to her bike, pulls it out of the hedge and cycles as fast as she can around the corner.
Lilly is walking ahead of her and Jacqueline calls out, “Lilly, Lilly, are you alright?”
Lilly turns and stares at Jacqueline and her face is wet from crying. “Why are you here?” she screams. “Why are you always here? Just go away, will you! Go away and leave me alone!”
Jacqueline drops her feet to the ground and leans on the handlebars of her bike. She stays that way, watching as Lilly runs up the lane and in through the gate. She tries to push off on her bike again but her legs feel like jelly and she has to get off and walk the rest of the way home.
“Take this up to Lilly, will you?” says Jacqueline’s mother. “And tell her to take these tablets, and don’t dawdle on the stairs – and make sure you knock first.”
“I’m not her servant, you know,” says Jacqueline, taking the tray. There is a glass of hot milk and a saucer with two aspirin on it.
Lilly’s door is closed. Jacqueline hasn’t seen her since what happened in the lane. She stands for a minute looking at the sign on the door: STOP THE WORLD, I WANNA GET OFF!
She knocks but there is no answer, so she pushes the door open and waits for Lilly to shout at her. Lilly does not shout. The curtains are drawn and the room is dim and Lilly is lying on top of her bed. Jacqueline goes closer and stands over her sister with the tray in her hands. Lilly is lying on her back. Her eyes are closed and her arms are wrapped around her radio. There are sounds coming from it – music but mostly hissing and spitting.