The Last Lost Girl

by Maria Hoey

  In the orchard Jacqueline is pretending to read, but all the time she is watching Lilly. Closer and closer she comes, until Jacqueline can see her toenails: they are painted and glitter in the sunlight like little bright-pink helmets. Lilly is wearing her new platform sandals – espadrilles, she calls them, not sandals. They have laces that criss-cross Lilly’s brown legs, and the heels are chunky and high as two half-pounds of butter. Her dress is light blue and crinkly and it sways above Jacqueline’s head and, when Lilly stoops, there is the scent of newly washed hair – lemons among the apple trees.

  Chapter 28

  Afterwards

  Cliff Walk ended in a large park that extended all the way to the cliff’s edge. At its centre was an elaborately turreted bandstand and it was toward this that Jacqueline slowly made her way. As she came closer, she saw that there was a man sitting at the top of a flight of steps running up to the bandstand. His head was hanging forward and Jacqueline, staring at the tell-tale Mallen streak, quickened her pace.

  She stopped at the base of the steps, shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted up at him through the glare of the sunshine. “Hi there.”

  Magpie showed no sign of having heard. Jacqueline wondered if he was asleep again.

  She tried once more. “I believe you’re Magpie. My name is Jacqueline Brennan. You don’t know me but I was hoping I could talk to you about something. It’s about my father.”

  Magpie’s head lifted almost imperceptibly. The fall of hair hid his eyes but Jacqueline had the sense that he was watching.

  “His name was Francis Brennan and I think you met him when he came here to this town. It was a long time ago, but I think you knew him, spent some time with him. And I’ve been hoping I could talk to you about him.”

  Magpie said nothing, but reached a hand into a pocket of his greatcoat and brought out a packet of cigarettes. Jacqueline watched as he flipped the lid of the packet one-handed, extracted a cigarette and put it between his lips then slowly returned the pack to his pocket. She wondered if he was being deliberately slow in his movements. She waited while he brought out a box of matches, lit up, stowed the matchbox back in his pocket and took a long pull on his cigarette. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs. He let his head hang down so that his hair touched his thighs.

  “Like I say,” said Jacqueline, “it was a long time ago and I’m not sure if you’d remember him. 1983 to be exact.”

  “Are you taking the piss?” said Magpie.

  “Excuse me?” said Jacqueline.

  Magpie’s head came up with a jerk and Jacqueline saw his eyes for the first time: they were very dark grey under hooded lids. “I said, are you taking the piss?”

  Now, for the first time, she caught his Irish accent.

  “No, I’m not taking the piss,” she said. “I’m deadly serious. Somebody told me you spent time with my dad when he was here. And, yes, I know it was a long time ago, but I was just hoping you might remember something.”

  “Somebody told you.” Magpie pulled savagely on his cigarette and exhaled, eyeing Jacqueline through the stream of smoke. “Who? Who told you?”

  “Dot Candy. She runs a – she lives at Sea Holly Villa – it’s –” She stopped, remembering that Dot had said he stayed there sometimes.

  “I know who she is,” said Magpie, shaking back his hair. He had riotous eyebrows, with more grey in them than black. There was grey in the bristles on his chin too and red veins on his cheeks. Dot had said he was about sixty; Jacqueline would have put him at a weathered mid-fifties.

  “So you’re up there with Dot Candy, are you?” he said. He ran his eyes over her and nodded his head. “Yeah, I can see how you’d fit her bill alright.”

  Jacqueline wanted very much to ask what he meant by that but she resisted the urge. She had an uncomfortable feeling it had something to do with waifs and strays.

  “Dot said you talked to him,” she said, “to my father – that you spent some time with him. Do you remember him at all? I think he came here looking for someone – his daughter, my sister.”

  “I don’t know anything about anyone’s daughter or sister,” said Magpie, and he pushed himself to his feet.

  Jacqueline took a couple of steps backward. Looming over her like that in his great flapping coat, he seemed giant-like and a little alarming.

  “He was Irish,” she said. “His name was Francis Brennan. It was the summer of 1983 and …”

  Magpie came down the steps. “You think I can remember some bloke from 1983? Don’t make me laugh. I can barely remember what happened yesterday.” He moved away, loping swiftly across the grass.

  Jacqueline watched him go. “I think you could!” she called after him. “I think you could remember if you tried! You used to sit on the wall at the harbour talking to him. I just need –”

  “I don’t give a fish’s tit what you need!” Magpie yelled over his shoulder.

  Jacqueline followed the path that led down to the South Beach. It was a lot smaller than the North Beach and the shingle was strewn with shattered shells and other things that had been smashed and discarded by the sea: odd shoes, a woman’s handbag, a rubber glove, the claws and torsos of crabs. Jacqueline kicked at it all as she walked. She felt low and angry – angry with Magpie and with herself and, yes, she was angry with her father. Why had she been surprised to think of them together, her father and that man? They were both drunks after all – admittedly, when it came to her father, not of the falling-down-in-the-street variety. Even that was not true – she could remember a time when he had lain down on a wall over a fast-flowing river and gone to sleep in the middle of the afternoon. They had been at a wedding – he, Jacqueline and Gayle. Her mother had refused to go, even though it was Aunty Carol’s oldest daughter who was getting married. Jacqueline tried to recall when that had been – the summer of 1985, she thought. For some reason her mother had been getting worse and worse that past year, as bad as when it had all begun really, but in a different way this time – quieter, not lashing out, not accusing anyone, but unhappy, desperately unhappy. In the middle of the meal, her father had disappeared and when she and Gayle had gone to look for him, they found him asleep on the wall of the bridge, flat on his back, quite still, his hands on his thighs like an effigy on a tombstone. The wall was very narrow, just about wide enough to accommodate his prone body. The bridge was in the middle of the little country town and a small crowd had gathered round him. A man was trying to wake him by prodding his stomach.

  “Don’t do that!” Gayle had screeched. “You’ll startle him and he’ll fall in and be drowned!”

  The man stepped back and Jacqueline and Gayle approached their father very quietly. Jacqueline sat down on the wall next to his head and looked down at his sleeping upside-down face; he was smiling and he looked, Jacqueline remembered, very comfortable.

  “Try to wake him now, Gayle,” she said. “But we have to be ready to grab him if needs be, alright?”

  “Alright,” said Gayle. She leaned in and whispered “Daddy” so gently that Jacqueline rolled her eyes, but he opened his eyes immediately and looked up at her, his gaze wondering and childlike.

  “What’s going on, pet?” he said.

  Gayle flung herself bodily across him, shouting hysterically, “Don’t move, Daddy, you’re on a wall! Don’t move or you’ll fall into the river and be drowned!”

  To this day Jacqueline did not understand how all three of them had not ended up in the water.

  But, right this minute she understood how he had drunk himself into that position on the wall. Right this minute she knew she too could be a drunk like him and Magpie, if she could only summon enough energy to fulfil her potential. As she crunched angrily across the shingle, she told herself she would go into the town now and buy a couple of bottles of whiskey, then come back here and find a nice cave, one where the sea was sure to come in. Then make herself comfortable and just sit down and wait. Why not? She could not think of a single good reason why no
t. So she would do it, she would just go and do it.

  The intention stayed with her all the way to the town, but once there her anger cooled and she knew that she did not want whiskey, nor to drink it in a cave on the beach. The moment had passed but she would have a glass of wine in a pub, somewhere quiet and comfortable – that would do.

  Only it was half past seven and there were people everywhere in the town. She put her head inside the door of a couple of bars, but everywhere was crowded. In the end she settled for a small Italian restaurant for the simple reason that it was only half-full. The tables were covered in red, white and green oilcloths and every table had its own stump of candle in a waxy wine bottle. The portly and diminutive lone waiter reminded Jacqueline of Danny DeVito. She ordered a bottle of wine and drank two glasses before her food came. When the bottle was empty, she ordered another half bottle. Along with the bill, Danny De Vito brought her a liqueur on the house.

  As she left the restaurant, she stumbled a little and he caught her elbow to steady her. He stood in the doorway and bowed her out. When Jacqueline looked back, he was still there and he blew her a kiss. It made her giggle and she swung her bag as she walked along the seafront.

  The wind had dropped and the air felt balmy. People were walking about in twos and fours. Jacqueline felt a sudden surge of love for the world and all the people in it. She sat on a bench and looked at the moon-slicked sea. The narrow band of light ran from shore to horizon like an enchanted pathway in a fairy tale. It should, thought Jacqueline, be possible to step onto that path, glide skater-like toward the horizon and just keep on going. Then it occurred to her that this was the third time in as many days that she had thought about walking into the sea, one way or another, and not coming back. Was that why that Magpie person had said those things to her about drowning – not because he was crazy, but because of something he had sensed in her? In an instant, she felt sober and she thought about how stupid she had been about Danny DeVito; he must have had a good laugh about her, staggering out into the night like that. What did she think she was doing anyway, taking herself to this place on a whim? And now that she was here, she had no idea what she was doing, except making a laughing stock of herself. Depression and self-hatred slipped over her like a dark veil.

  She was too weary for the uphill walk and took a taxi back to the house. For the first time since her arrival, the door was locked. Somehow it seemed fitting. Jacqueline let herself in with the key Dot had given her and went straight upstairs. The last thing she wanted was to encounter her host looking for a repeat of last night. Momentarily she was reminded of Regina Quinn calling for her to come out and play, expecting to take up where they had left off the previous day. The yellow room was dim and pleasantly cool and Jacqueline sat on the bed and eased off one of her shoes. When she rubbed her foot, the skin felt like yeasty dough, warm and swollen.

  There was a knock on the door and she dropped her foot to the floor. “Come in.”

  The door inched open and Dot head appeared. “Sorry to disturb you, I heard you come in. About Magpie …”

  “Forget it,” said Jacqueline. “Thanks for trying to help but it doesn’t matter.”

  Dot pushed the door wide and stepped inside the room. “I wouldn’t be put off by today if I were you.”

  Why did people say that, Jacqueline wondered – if I were you? If you were me you’d do exactly what I do.

  “Magpie goes in cycles,” said Dot. “Tomorrow he could be a whole different man. You can talk to him then.”

  “The thing is, Dot, I’ve already spoken to him.”

  “Really, at the harbour, in the state he was in?”

  “No. Later on in the park at the top of the cliff.” She pushed off her second shoe and it dropped to the floor.

  “Sleeping it off in the bandstand, was he? And how did that go? Not so well, I’d guess.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Jacqueline. “I very much doubt that anything that man has to say would be of interest to me.”

  Dot’s hand went to her throat. “I can see you’re disappointed but if –”

  “Dot, I appreciate you trying to help,” said Jacqueline, “but it doesn’t matter. Really it doesn’t.” As Dot made no move to go, she said, “I was just about to go to bed.”

  “Sure,” said Dot. “But there’s just something I wanted to run by you. Day after tomorrow, I won’t be here – an old friend is coming out of hospital after a hip-replacement operation. She needs me to pick her up in a taxi and get her home safely. She hasn’t got anyone else.”

  Jacqueline waited. What did any of this have to do with her? All the walking had given her a pain in her lower back. The only thing she wanted was to lie flat, turn out the lights and go to sleep. She didn’t give … what was that awful phrase – she didn’t give a fish’s tit about Dot Candy’s friend.

  “It means catching the early train and staying over,” said Dot, “which means you’ll be on your own for breakfast.”

  “Oh, is that all? It’s fine, don’t worry.”

  “It’s two mornings – there’ll be no charge of course.”

  Jacqueline waved away talk of money and Dot closed the door.

  Jacqueline had just closed her eyes when her phone rang: Gayle. Jacqueline’s finger hovered between ‘answer’ and ‘reject’.

  “Hi, Gayle, how are you doing?”

  “I tried the house twice.” It sounded like an accusation.

  “I was out,” said Jacqueline. “How are you doing anyway?”

  “Not great. I just can’t believe he’s gone. And I hate the idea of you there all alone in that house, Jacqueline. If only we were nearer to one another.”

  Now is the time, Jacqueline thought, to say, “Actually I’m nearer than you think.” Instead, she said, “I wish we were too, Gayle.”

  Chapter 29

  1976

  Daddy comes home from work while Jacqueline is having her breakfast. He ruffles Jacqueline’s mother’s hair and she wriggles away from him.

  “That’s a great morning out there,” he says.

  “Easily known you’ve finished your nights for another month,” says Jacqueline’s mother.

  Daddy smiles. “I sure have and all’s well with the world and it’ll be even better when you get me a cup of tea, Stella love.”

  Gayle comes into the kitchen, yawning.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” says Daddy.

  “It’s not my fault I’m sleepy. Lilly woke me up in the middle of the night, playing her radio.”

  “She must have been playing it very loud,” says Daddy, “if you could hear it in your room.”

  “She wasn’t playing it at all,” says Jacqueline’s mother. “You must have been dreaming, Gayle. Lilly wasn’t even here last night – she was baby-sitting for the Kellys.”

  Daddy looks up from his tea. “What do you mean she was baby-sitting? What happened to this Festival Queen Dance she had our hearts broken about? I thought Edmund was taking her to it? I hope she hasn’t gone and had a falling-out with that nice lad.”

  “Don’t ask me,” says Jacqueline’s mother. “I was at Florence’s house for the flower demonstration. All I know is she went baby-sitting for the Kellys – isn’t that right, Jacqueline?”

  Jacqueline has her mouth full of Rice Krispies and nods her head but keeps her eyes on the tablecloth.

  “And Joe Kelly said they’d probably be late and they must have been because I looked in on her earlier and her bed hadn’t been slept in. I don’t know why they have to stay out so late but at least they let her sleep over when they do.”

  Jacqueline looks up in surprise. She catches her mother’s eyes and looks down again quickly.

  “But I was sure I heard Lilly’s radio,” says Gayle. “It was so loud I thought it was in my room.”

  “Well, you were definitely dreaming,” says Jacqueline’s mother, “because Lilly never goes to the Kellys’ without taking her radio along – imagine, they still have no television! Oh well
, I just hope they pay her properly.”

  “And good luck to them trying to get her out of the bed,” says Daddy.

  Jacqueline pushes her chair back and gets up carefully, keeping her hand pressed against her stomach. She is at the back door when Daddy calls her.

  “Yes, Daddy?” Jacqueline turns slowly.

  “You’ll be needing this.”

  “Oh!” Jacqueline comes back and takes the book he is holding out to her. “Thanks, Daddy.”

  “Now is there any chance a man could get a bit of breakfast so he can go and get some shut-eye?”

  Jacqueline stands for a moment under the oldest apple tree in the orchard. She would like to lie down here but someone might hear. She keeps on walking, out through the gap in the hedge and far enough into the field until she feels safe. Then she sits down and pulls Lilly’s radio out from under the waistband of her shorts. She fiddles with the silver dials until the sound is just right, puts it down on the grass next to her, stretches out and closes her eyes. She wonders where Lilly is and why she has not come home yet, then remembers that as soon as Lilly does come she will want her radio back. A song comes on and Jacqueline leans over and turns the sound up just a little higher, then settles herself on the grass again. She likes this one, she really does. She hopes that Lilly won’t come home too soon, and she hums along to “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel”.

  “Is Lilly back yet?”

  “Not yet,” says Jacqueline’s mother. She is standing at the sink washing lettuce. “Now go and wash your hands before you sit down.”

  “Not salad again,” says Jacqueline.

  She goes upstairs and reads the sign on Lilly’s door: STOP THE WORLD, I WANNA GET OFF! She knows it isn’t locked, she knows that Lilly isn’t there, but she knocks gently before she opens the door to Lilly’s room. After the heat of the garden, the room feels lovely and cool. Her silky eiderdown looks cool too, all white and smooth because there was no Lilly to disturb it last night. Where did she sleep, Jacqueline wonders, where is she now? When she pulls the radio out from under her blouse, all of David Cassidy’s eyes are watching her.