Lost and Found

by Natasha West

  Sophie dampened the enthusiasm she felt to see April and said, ‘Yep.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got teabags if you fancy a cuppa,’ April said, going over and switching on the kettle.

  ‘Just getting on with it, then?’ Sophie said irritably.

  ‘I don’t know what else to do,’ April said.

  ‘I do,’ Sophie said.

  April was intrigued. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m getting out of the house,’ Sophie declared.

  ‘Where are you going?’ April asked.

  ‘How should I know? I don’t know where I am. I’m just gonna go out and walk for a while.’

  April switched the kettle off. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  Sophie frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I just am,’ April said, getting her coat back on.

  Sophie sighed. ‘Fine.’

  ***

  ‘This isn’t the town centre, is it?’ Sophie asked.

  April looked out at the field they were currently standing in. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s not.’

  Sophie tutted her head at herself. ‘I miss my smartphone. I’ve got no sense of direction.’

  ‘Paper maps still exist,’ April reminded her.

  ‘But how do you find a map?’ Sophie asked. ‘I mean, most places have some sort of visitor centre, and you can usually find them there. But how in the blue fuck do you find a visitor centre without a map in the first place? Look at me now. In a field. There’s an actual cow over there,’ she said, pointing at the beast thirty yards away, gently chewing the cud. ‘This is me without a smartphone. Absolutely useless.’

  ‘You’ll have a smartphone again,’ April told her. ‘You’re not banned.’

  ‘But not my old one.’

  ‘No. Your old number is off the menu now.’

  ‘I know.’ Sophie looked at the cow chewing grass, for a moment. ‘I hope Becky’s OK.’

  April didn’t say anything.

  ‘Sorry, I’m sure you don’t really give too much of a fuck about Becky after what she did,’ Sophie said apologetically.

  ‘I care that she’s OK,’ April said, thrusting her hands into her pockets. ‘But simultaneously, I do also sort of want to punch her in the throat.’

  Sophie nodded. ‘That’s kind of where I’m at.’

  April sighed. ‘I know she was just trying to be a good friend to you.’

  ‘In the absolute dumbest way possible, yes, I think that was at the heart of her motivations.’

  ‘She must have been pretty angry about me leaving like that,’ April said.

  The cow released some poo out of its bum. Sophie watched it fall with a thump onto the grass. ‘She was livid.’

  ‘I wish I could have spoken to you, you know?’ April said quietly. ‘Let you know that I had to go. Why.’

  ‘We don’t have to talk about that anymore,’ Sophie said quickly.

  April went quiet.

  ‘I wonder if I’ll ever see Becky again?’ Sophie said, switching tacks.

  April turned to her. ‘I’m sure you will.’

  ‘But I might not,’ Sophie said, still watching the cow. ‘I’ve known her since we were six years old. We don’t have a ton in common anymore, but there’s a lot of history. And she’s loyal. And I might never see her again.’

  April nodded. ‘I remember that feeling. When I left home, I lost a lot of friends. Art school too. I was six months away from graduating.’

  Sophie turned to April. ‘You ever wish you’d just never found out any of that stuff about your family? That you’d just gone on as you were, oblivious.’

  ‘I used to wish that all the time,’ April confessed. ‘But I don’t anymore. The thought of what they were getting up to while my head was up my arse…’ She took a deep breath. ‘What happened to Jane, sometimes I think if I’d gone out there sooner, I could have stopped it.’

  Sophie looked at her. ‘Or maybe something terrible would have happened to you too.’

  ‘Also possible. I guess I’ll never know.’

  Sophie had only been thinking about herself from the minute she’d found out she was being ripped from her life. But beside her was someone who’d gone through something even more dreadful. Because there was a small chance that one day, Sophie could go home. April’s home didn’t exist anymore. It was filled with dangerous people who meant her harm. Her family.

  ‘So, what are you going to do about your hair?’ Sophie asked, trying to distract April from what could only be terrible thoughts.

  ‘Oh. Yeah, I forgot about that,’ April said, running a hand down her long, dark locks. ‘I guess I better find a hairdresser.’

  ‘If we ever find the bastard town centre,’ Sophie said. She turned from the cow. ‘Come on, let’s try again.’

  Fourteen

  April and Sophie took in the high street. It had the standard chain shops, and that was all you could really say about it. ‘So what do you think of Forlorn?’ April asked.

  ‘It’s a town, alright,’ Sophie said, looking around and spotting something. ‘And there’s a hairdresser. Ready, Melanie?’

  April winced. ‘Oh god, I hate that name.’

  ‘Maybe when we’re in the house, I could still call you April,’ Sophie suggested.

  ‘That’s a bad idea. It makes you more likely to slip up outside of it,’ April told her.

  ‘I can be careful,’ Sophie vowed.

  April thought it over. ‘Maybe then. But right now, Melanie Cox needs a haircut.’ She remembered something. ‘Hey, do you remember what you said to me when you fainted?’

  Sophie whipped her head around. ‘What did I say?’

  ‘That you didn’t want me to change my hair.’

  Sophie blushed. ‘I don’t remember that. I was probably delirious.’

  ‘So you don’t care either way?’

  Sophie looked at the ground. ‘It’s nice, OK? I always liked it.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  Sophie shrugged. ‘It was the first thing I noticed about you. OK, let’s stop it now. I’m embarrassed.’

  April grinned to herself as she watched Sophie getting all het up. She’d forgotten about this, how Sophie was the absolute cutest when she was nervous. She remembered how it had killed her on their first date. April had been forced to kiss her as a result. ‘You want to know what I first noticed about you?’ April asked her.

  ‘Not really,’ Sophie said with an affected shrug.

  ‘Liar,’ April said.

  ‘Fine. What was it?’ Sophie asked without looking at April.

  ‘Well, I thought you were cute, but the second you opened your mouth… Oh man, I was a goner.’

  ‘Opened my mouth?’

  ‘Yeah. Your voice,’ April clarified.

  ‘You liked my voice?’ Sophie asked, licking her lips apprehensively.

  ‘It’s got that husky, sexy quality to it.’

  Sophie laughed nervously and shoved April in the shoulder. ‘Shut up, would you?’

  April recovered from the playful shove and said, ‘Seriously. It was like talking to the British Emma Stone. Sultry yet funny. Hot as hell.’

  Sophie was now out of things to say. ‘I didn’t know that. That you thought that.’

  ‘I would have said, eventually.’

  Sophie’s smile slipped. ‘Yeah.’

  April realised she’d wandered into incredibly dangerous territory. She didn’t quite know how she’d gotten there. Oh, wait. It was the hair. Sophie liked it. And now April was going to have to chop it all off.

  Still, Sophie would have her voice. And April could hear it any time she liked now. She just had to remember not to get too caught up with it.

  ***

  The hairdresser held up the mirror behind April’s head so she could see the full cut. She’d lost most of the length, which had been the first shock, watching it fall to the floor in great swathes until she was bobbed. But she was also now a honey blonde, even more outrageous. She didn’t know what to make of it.


  Sophie looked up from a magazine in the waiting room and said, ‘Woah.’ She stood and drifted over, transfixed. A slow smile crept across her lips. ‘That really suits you.’

  ‘You think?’ April asked.

  ‘I wasn’t sure about you going blonde, but yeah, it really does look good. Quite sex… Nice,’ Sophie corrected quickly.

  April raised an eyebrow at her. ‘What were you going to say before you landed on nice?’

  ‘Nothing, just nice,’ Sophie stumbled.

  ‘She was going to say sexy,’ the hairdresser said.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ April said with a small smile.

  Sophie looked at her hands. ‘No. I was gonna say… that your hair is… sexist,’ she sputtered.

  ‘What?’ April laughed. ‘You were going to call my haircut sexist?’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Sophie said, mortified.

  April looked at her hair again. It was a lot to get used to, but yeah, maybe it wasn’t so bad. Sophie seemed to like it, anyway. April felt a strange relief about that.

  The hairdresser took her to the counter, where she paid up. Business taken care of, she turned to Sophie. ‘Shall we check out the rest of the town?’

  ***

  ‘Well, that was an electric fifteen minutes, I must say,’ Sophie remarked as they found themselves on the tip of town, having walked the centre’s length and seen its major sights, which included a McDonalds that was rammed full of teenagers, some of whom fell out of the doors and started fighting each other with fries. They also saw a dog groomer where you could see the dogs being washed through the window. There had been a poodle looking at its owner with murder in its eyes as it was doused from head to toe. After that, they witnessed a homeless guy begging outside a supermarket, who responded to a woman who came out with a sandwich for him with the outraged cry, ‘I fucking hate hummus!’ thrusting it back to her. The woman was livid.

  And now the shops had thinned out into houses, and the tour was over. Forlorn was just your average burg, like a thousand other places in England, nothing special nor terrible, just somewhere people lived.

  ‘Well, that’s that. Should we head home, blondie?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘Yeah, but can we get food? I’m starving,’ April said.

  ‘Let me guess, Chinese?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘How did you know that?’ April asked in astonishment.

  ‘It’s your go-to. You always had the exact same thing, too,’ Sophie said. ‘Chicken chow mein, egg fried rice, and sweet and sour shrimp.’

  April’s mouth fell open. ‘That’s exactly what I was craving five minutes ago!’

  ‘I’m pretty sure I saw a Chinese takeaway around the corner from the house,’ Sophie said. ‘Let’s take advantage of that per diem while we can, eh?’

  April followed Sophie, trying to keep her mind on the food she was going to eat. Only three months together, and Sophie still remembered her order. That shook her a bit. This whole day had been different from what she’d expected. Sophie had been in such a mess just this morning, she’d been sure there was absolutely no fun to be had for some time. Yet April was having a nice day.

  But it was just chow mein, April told herself as they collected their order from the place Sophie had mentioned and took it home.

  In the house, they plated up. Sophie popped the lids from two beers, and they ate and talked. It was all so familiar and comforting. April didn’t want to think about it this way because Sophie had paid a high price for it, but this was the nicest relocation April had ever had. It was like she’d gotten something this time that the witness protection had never been able to provide before. Family.

  Fifteen

  It had been two weeks since Sophie’s relocation, and she was still adjusting. She wasn’t happy exactly, but she was starting to get a sense of where she was. Her room was starting to look less bare, with a few books bought from Forlorn’s only bookshop sat on the dresser, a cushion on the bed from a haberdasher, a large plant in the corner from the supermarket. Her clothes were also now in the wardrobe, as well as her makeup and a lot of crap from her bathroom. She didn’t use half of it anymore, but it was sort of nice to see that old facial pack she’d never gotten around to trying in her new bathroom.

  It wasn’t home, only an imitation. But it was something.

  Barry had popped in a few times, checking everything was alright, checking they’d done their homework memorising their new identities. Sophie hadn’t, and she got a telling off every time from the grumpy arsehole.

  April’s relationship with him was a bit different. They didn’t seem to like each other exactly, but April seemed used to him. He had been the only constant in April’s life in these four years, so it made sense she had some manner of uneasy attachment to him. But Sophie could never wait for him to go, so she could go back to her life, such as it was.

  And what it was, mostly centred around April. She and Sophie bumbled around the house together, sometimes watching daytime telly, sometimes getting food, sometimes having a cuppa at the café down the street. It was more comfortable than Sophie would have expected. But she wasn’t reading anything into it. They were stuck together, trying to make the best of it. That was all it was. Just because they’d been together two years ago, that didn’t mean anything now. A lot of very complex water had gone under the bridge since then.

  And then Barry came for another visit, and Sophie and April’s little patterns and routines went out the window. ‘I’ve got you both jobs!’ he announced.

  Sophie’s stomach sank. The moment she’d been dreading. What would he give her? She had tried not to let her imagination run wild, but she couldn’t help but picture getting up at four in the morning to put on a high vis jacket and stand on the back of a rubbish lorry.

  ‘It’s not another supermarket, is it?’ April asked. She’d clearly been fretting this job thing too, Sophie realised.

  ‘Not exactly. Now, the thing is, I decided to place you together. Just seemed easiest. So you’ll be working at a large pub/restaurant fifteen minutes from here. It’s called The Cricket Stumps. Sophie, you’ll be in the bar, April you’re on food prep.’

  ‘Oh, god,’ Sophie moaned. ‘Bar work!’

  Barry gave her a look. ‘It’s not glamorous, but it pays nearly as much as you used to make in property, and you get tips.’

  ‘I used to share a house with a guy who did bar work. He came home every day stinking of stale beer, his feet on fire from standing up all shift,’ Sophie told him. ‘I swore I’d never do it.’

  ‘Tough shit,’ Barry smiled. He turned to April. ‘You got anything to say?’

  ‘About the fact I’m about to spend all my time chopping and peeling and smelling of old food? Oh, no, Barry. Nothing at all,’ April said dryly. She was clearly not going to put up a fight.

  ‘It’s not a supermarket,’ Barry shrugged.

  Sophie wanted to kick him in the balls. ‘Look, I’m not doing that, OK? You better find something else,’ she told him.

  ‘Like what? We get you jobs when companies have temp positions that are easy for us to fill because no one expects that much of a temp. But that also means that people aren’t trying to fill brain surgeon positions either. I mean, your old job didn’t sound that great anyway. Renting houses? This is a step up, in my opinion.’

  Sophie was incensed. ‘It might not have been the best job in the world, but it was one I chose, and I could leave it if I wanted,’ Sophie informed him.

  ‘And you can leave this one too. Leave this house, leave Forlorn. Take your chances in the world on your own if you like,’ Barry said casually.

  ‘Barry, don’t be a dick,’ April warned him.

  Barry gave April a sharp look. ‘I do my best for people like you, and all I ever get is shit.’ He put on a high-pitched whiny voice. ‘I don’t like the area. I don’t like the house. I don’t like my job. I don’t like anything you worked to provide for me, Barry.’

  ‘She’s trying, OK?’ April hissed at hi
m.

  Barry sat back in his chair. ‘Well, my job isn’t to make her happy; it’s to keep her alive.’

  ‘Hey, can everyone stop talking about me like I’m not here?’ Sophie asked the room.