Looking For Lucy

by Julie Houston

  For a second, Sarah considered going straight down to the beautifully sunny kitchen at the other end of the rectory and trying out the chocolate cake recipe that had been kicking around in her head for the last couple of days. The chillies she was going to add to the 80 per cent chocolate were ripening nicely to a deep red on the kitchen’s south facing window sill, and she longed to avoid both her elder daughter and sister-in-law and take herself off to the place where she could immerse herself in the one thing at which she knew she was any good: cooking.

  *

  The Reverend Roger, very good-looking in his youth, was, in his mid-fifties, still thought a handsome man with his full head of thick, strawberry-blond hair and rather unusual almond-shaped green eyes. The ensuing years had, however, proved something of a disappointment to this servant of God and, apart from a stint in Cheltenham and latterly in the leafier suburbs of Harrogate, he appeared to be stuck on the outskirts of north Leeds for the duration. It hadn’t helped when, with the release of the Disney cartoon, Who Killed Roger Rabbit in the early Nineties, he was now universally hailed as Roger Rabbit rather than the Reverend Roger which, as well as being pleasingly alliterative had, he’d always thought, a rather dignified ring befitting an up and coming clergyman. He railed constantly about ‘that damned film’ and blamed it for his lack of promotion to bishop; a bishop called Roger Rabbit would, after all, surely be a laughing stock among the down to earth Yorkshire folk who, as well as calling a spade a spade, now had the gleeful right to call a vicar Roger Rabbit.

  ‘Why, in God’s name, are you skulking out here?’ Reverend Roger said, frowning as he flung open the sitting room door, narrowly missing colliding with his wife. ‘Jennifer’s here. And Rosemary as well. Do you think we could have some tea?’ Roger’s green eyes narrowed slightly as he caught sight of Sarah’s pale wrist protruding from her grey ethnic-looking sweater as she reached to pull more dead foliage from the plant above her. Why did she have to dress like some aging hippy? he thought irritably, before saying quietly, ‘Do pull down your sleeves, Sarah, or those bruises will become a talking point.’

  *

  Pouring tea and handing round the deliciously crumbling scones she’d made earlier that day, Sarah acknowledged, not for the first time, that she felt a stranger in her own home. Rosemary, hogging the sofa while tutting over that morning’s Daily Telegraph, appeared more at ease as a guest than Sarah did as the lady of the house. She was, she knew, nervous both of her sister-in-law and—much, much more sadly—of her own daughter, Jennifer. She must remember to call her that and not the Jenny she’d always been until her appointment, at the age of just twenty-nine, as deputy headmistress at one of Birmingham’s most prodigious private girls’ grammar schools. Jenny—Jennifer—was, apart from their respectively held political views, a clone of her Aunt Rosemary with whom she was now discussing the merits or otherwise of the current Secretary of State for Education.

  ‘Pompous little squirt,’ Rosemary was saying, spraying crumbs onto the newspaper as she spoke. ‘What do you think, Sarah? Hope you’re going to vote the right way next month?’ Rosemary lowered the paper, simultaneously shoving the remains of her scone into her cavernous mouth and peering over her glasses at her sister-in-law.

  Sarah had absolutely no idea who was in charge of education at present, and her only reason for visiting the polls at all was guilt at letting down Emily Wilding Davidson who’d thrown herself under the king’s horse all those years ago fighting for votes for women, if she didn’t. She knew she should take more of an interest so as to be able to give an opinion at times such as this but, once she’d sorted the day-to-day running of this mausoleum of a house with its ancient bathrooms and stained glass windows that Roger demanded she kept polished ‘to let in God’s good light’ and then met Roger’s demands as his unofficial secretary and gofer on church errands, all she wanted to do was escape to the sanctuary of her kitchen.

  Sarah smiled vaguely, hoping that would suffice, and luckily it did. Rosemary had bullied her sister-in-law for years, but particularly since that awful day, ten years ago, when Roger had let slip where he and Sarah had met. These days Sarah no longer rose to the bait and Rosemary tended to leave her alone preferring, instead, to take part in a much more equal-sided argument with her elder niece on the shortcomings of private education. Sarah sighed, wishing once again that Jamie was here to back her up, but her nineteen-year-old son was taking a gap year in France, working as a plongeur in the kitchens of a Michelin-starred restaurant before supposedly going up to Durham University to study law in September. Sarah knew he was in his element out there in Provence and was already dreading the ensuing arguments when Roger learned Jamie was seriously contemplating throwing his university place away and staying on in France in order to learn even more about French cuisine.

  Sarah gathered up the tea things onto a tray and made her excuses. She needn’t have bothered: Roger had already left to practise his Sunday sermon on ‘Family values’, Poppy she hadn’t seen since she’d gone up to her room straight from school and Jenny and Rosemary were still in heated discussion—this time both in agreement—over the issue of competitive sports in schools.

  Solace was waiting in her kitchen and, as she made her way down the long corridor leading to the more modern part of the house Sarah wondered, not for the first time, how on earth she had ended up here, living this life.

  10

  Peter and I decided we’d get married in the July, just a couple of months after the dinner party where, right there at the table, after shocking everyone including me with his proposal of marriage, he’d slipped a huge diamond onto the ring finger of my left hand. Although at first Peter had wanted a big do with a marquee on the lawn, he finally agreed with me that, because of his children and, more importantly the speed with which we were going to tie the knot, a simple ceremony at the local register office with Izzy and Declan as witnesses would be preferable. I’d also had a—not pleasant—vision of a whole load of guests turning up in their re-enactment gear and even having to start my new life as Mrs Broadbent dressed as a seventeenth-century wench, stepping through a piking pole guard of honour. This was another thing to discuss with Peter; I would have to firmly tell him that my agreeing to marry him did not mean I was agreeing to fight the Cavaliers every Sunday. Once or twice a year, maybe. And only then if the sun was out and I could take a book with me if I got fed up.

  I still hadn’t met Peter’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Sophie, in my new role as stepmother-to-be. I’d been acquainted with her, of course, on the numerous occasions he’d brought both his children into The Black Swan when I was serving on a Saturday—Sophie had always, without exception, gone for the Caesar salad—but apparently she wasn’t at all happy at her father ‘making a fool of himself with some waitress dressed in black feathers’.

  ‘Did Peter tell you she’d said that?’ Izzy had asked, surprised. ‘I think he should have kept that to himself.’

  ‘No,’ I’d replied, somewhat ruefully, ‘Max told me. But Max said it was because she doesn’t really like anyone except herself, and it was all OK because he really liked me. And my food. So that was all that mattered.’

  Izzy had had plenty more to say on the whole subject of my forthcoming nuptials. She’d rung me constantly on the Sunday after the dinner party but, still at Peter’s house and coming to terms with what I’d done, I’d ignored her calls, finally turning off my phone until Peter took Allegra and me back home on the Sunday evening.

  ‘But why don’t you just stay here with me? Now?’ he’d asked. ‘You don’t ever have to go back to that dump you call home.’

  I’d winced slightly at his referring to my home as a dump, but had to concede that, in all reality, that’s what it was. I needed space—and time—to think about what I’d done in accepting a proposal of marriage from a man whom I didn’t love. And why I’d done it. So, on the Sunday after the dinner party, once we’d cleared up, tidied the kitchen and taken the children and George for a w
alk and eaten a late lunch, I told Peter I needed to get Allegra home. When Peter saw that I was really determined to go home, he kissed my cheek and said I was right and that he had to get Max back to his mother’s anyway.

  ‘Will you tell Vanessa about us?’ I asked as I loaded Allegra into the backseat of the car alongside Max.

  ‘Yes of course. Why wouldn’t I? I shall take great delight in telling her that you’ve agreed to be my wife.’ Peter kissed the top of my head. ‘She knows I’m going over there now with Max. There are quite a few things I need to sort out with her.’

  ‘Oh? What like?’

  ‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ Peter said, almost grandly. ‘I shall be taking care of you and Allegra from now on.’

  *

  ‘Oh, so you’re finally answering your phone are you?’ Izzy sounded exasperated. ‘I’ve been ringing you all day.’

  ‘I didn’t realise,’ I lied.

  ‘Are you at home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you want me to come over?’

  ‘Why should I want that?’

  ‘Clementine, you’ve just become engaged to a man I know you don’t love… No, no, hear me out,’ she went on as I started to speak. ‘Listen, Clem, you don’t have to do this… Oh, this is no good. I’m coming over. I’ll bring Jim.’

  ‘Jim? Who the hell’s J—?’

  ‘Gin, Clem, gin. Now, don’t argue, I’m on my way.’

  Allegra, after the excitement of the weekend, was already drooping and irritable and made little objection to the idea of an early bath and a boiled egg and soldiers eaten in front of a DVD. I’d just got her settled, in clean nightdress and dressing gown, in front of Toy Story which she must have seen umpteen times but of which she never tired, when Izzy arrived brandishing a giant Toblerone.

  ‘Sorry, someone appears to have drunk the gin. Can’t think who,’ Izzy added, dropping a kiss on Allegra’s dark hair that, still damp from the bath, was framing her face in curls. ‘Anyway, the chocolate’s from Declan. He thought we might need it.’

  ‘You’re making it sound as if I’ve committed some terrible crime,’ I said stoutly as I broke off huge chunks of Toblerone. ‘Come on, let’s go into the kitchen where little ears can’t hear if I’m going to have a telling off.’ An awful anxiety had enveloped me and I knew Izzy was only going to confirm what I already knew: that I was marrying Peter, not because I loved him but for what he could offer me.

  ‘Clementine,’ Izzy said, coming over to me and giving me a bear hug. ‘Look, I know why you’ve agreed to marry Peter but you know you don’t have to. Declan and I can help you move—help you look for somewhere better than this.’ She glanced around at the kitchen, at the 1960s blue laminated cupboard doors, at the freestanding two-hob cooker under which an ancient copy of Yellow Pages kept it on an even keel and then down at the pebble-decorated lino, split and scuffed in too many places.

  I was suddenly tired, tired of people who thought they knew better than me how I should be living my life. ‘Izzy, what would you do for your children? Anything? Everything? Die for them? Yes of course you would.’ I put down the chunk of Toblerone I was about to eat. I didn’t need chocolate to get me on a roll—I was already on one. ‘You have no idea, Izzy, with your white, middle-class GP life; with your lovely Declan and no money worries; with your three gorgeous children all on the right road to success in their schools and beyond…’ I knew I was gabbling, that what I was thinking was coming out in a torrent and not totally coherent. ‘Well, I want my gorgeous child on that right road too. And, as you can see—’ I waved my arms around the kitchen, taking in what Izzy herself had surveyed a few seconds earlier ‘—I’m not even under starter’s orders yet.’

  ‘Clem, you are doing an amazing job with Allegra. She’s beautiful, happy, incredibly bright—far more with it than any of my three were at her age. You are a strong woman, for heaven’s sake. We’re not living in the Fifties where a woman needed a man—and, let’s be honest here, not the brightest specimen on the planet—’

  ‘Just stop there, this minute. How dare you?’ It was like a red mist coming down and I’d had enough of Izzy’s condescension. Did she think a bar of Toblerone—albeit giant—could persuade me that the decision I’d made last night was pants? ‘Do you really think, Izzy, that I don’t know what Peter is? That, OK, he doesn’t read The Guardian; that… that he doesn’t know anything about Mole in The Wind in the Willows; that he likes…likes dressing up in funny clothes and brandishing a pikestaff? But don’t tell me that he’s not overly bright. He’s worked damned hard with his business and must have some sort of financial head on him to have achieved all that you saw last night. And there’s Max. I happen to really like his little boy—I shall be more than happy to become his stepmother. And the best thing about all this, Izzy? Do you want to know what the very best thing about all this is? That for some reason he fell in love with me, with me even though I’m a single mother, broke and living on Emerald Street with a four-year-old…’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Clementine, you are a totally beautiful and talented girl and there is no reason why anyone shouldn’t fall in love with you. And there’s no reason why you should marry a man you don’t love!’

  ‘Yes there is,’ I almost spat. ‘There is one very good reason why: Allegra. Peter will be able to give her all the things I can’t. He loves us both—I truly believe that. He’s a good man, and Allegra is a different girl since Peter and Max—and of course George—came into her life. I’m doing this for her and nothing you say will make me change my mind. So, you either help me with all this or you… or you can leave now. I mean it, Izzy.’

  Izzy didn’t say anything for a while. ‘OK, OK,’ she finally said. ‘Let’s eat chocolate and you can tell me all your wedding plans. If you truly feel this is the best thing for you both then I give you my blessing.’

  ‘Your blessing? Don’t be so bloody pompous, Izzy. You’re not my dad, you’re my friend, and I want you to be pleased for me, be there for me. Look, I know Peter is a bit, well, different, but Allegra will have a proper family with a dad, a big sister, a big brother and a fabulous home. She won’t have to be the kid who is dropped off first and picked up last from after-school club every day because her mum is having to work all the hours God sends just to keep her head above water. And do you know what, Izzy? Over the past few months I’ve come to realise there are two things I’m jolly good at. One is cooking and the other is being a mum—’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Izzy interrupted. ‘You are a bloody good mum which is why I don’t understand why you feel you need a man to help you with Allegra. You are more than capable of bringing her up yourself.’

  ‘I never let myself think about having any more children because I reckoned it might be years before I met anyone and then I’d be too old, but I know I really, really want children—’

  ‘You’re thirty, not ninety,’ Izzy exploded. ‘You’ve years left before you have to start thinking it’s too late to have more babies.’

  ‘No, I haven’t. If I’d not met Peter I might be years trying to find that special someone with whom I’d like to have children.’

  ‘Exactly. I’m sorry, Clem, but Peter isn’t that special someone. You know he isn’t. Is it fair marrying him for what he can provide for you? Does he know you don’t love him—? Izzy came to a sudden stop as Allegra came into the kitchen yawning and trailing Hector, her pink elephant.

  I smiled across at Izzy as my daughter popped her thumb into her mouth and climbed onto my knee, burying her head into my chest. ‘This is what it’s all about, Izzy, this is the only thing that matters…’

  *

  So, here I was, gazing round, for almost the last time, at my home for the past year. The Artexed walls, resembling nothing more than grubby Christmas-cake icing on which I’d snagged numerous pairs of black tights before heading, late, for The Black Swan, were looking particularly drab now that I’d t
aken down posters and the myriad pictures Allegra had brought back from nursery and, latterly, from school. Once I’d taken out yet more black plastic bags to the dustbins, I went upstairs to check on Allegra who was fast asleep in the smaller of the two bedrooms. It was a beautifully warm evening at the beginning of July and, although we’d had the longest day a week or so earlier, the days were still long with no hint, yet, of the nights closing in. Around ten, once I heard the expected knock on my front door, I grabbed a sweater, slung it over my shoulders and went downstairs.

  ‘Allegra knows you’re babysitting,’ I said to Amirah as I followed her into the kitchen. ‘She thinks I’m off to the cinema with Izzy, so if she wakes up—which she very rarely does—just tell her I’ll be back very soon once the film is over. Right,’ I said, looking over towards Yusuf and Musa who were waiting by the open front door, ‘shall we go?’

  11

  ‘So, where do you think we should look?’ I asked. ‘I’ve been up and down Emerald Street loads of times in the past few months but not seen anything of her.’ As always, as we headed right into the centre of Midhope’s main red-light area, I felt the usual frisson of hope and fear. Hope that Lucy would suddenly manifest herself before my eyes and fear as to her reaction if she did.

  Yusuf said nothing, but carried on walking, occasionally taking my arm, steering me round a broken pavement, pulling me back from the otherwise quiet road when a car went by. We eventually turned onto the wider road that led to the 1960s tower block of flats: the infamous, incongruously named Emerald House. This was no jewel in the local authority’s crown; more a thorn in its side—a dumping ground for Midhope’s down-and-outs. Condemned at least five years ago by the then new Tory-led council in a deal with Tesco to clear the area and build a mammoth supermarket and sports centre, the flats lived on, housing the down and out, drug dealers and, latterly, asylum seekers from Iraq, Libya and now Syria.