The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House

by Lam, Stephanie

  Finally, I heard footsteps and then Johnny pulled open the door and looked down at me. He was wearing his working outfit of trousers and a paint-spattered shirt and was wielding a dangerous-looking spanner in one hand. From behind him I heard the faint whisk of ska music playing on the turntable and, even more faintly, smelled the sweet-edged aroma of pot. He grunted when he saw me.

  ‘You’re taking the piss,’ he said. ‘I was just about to write you an eviction notice.’

  ‘I was held up.’ I was unsure if he was being serious. ‘I really appreciate this. Thank you.’

  ‘You owe me one.’ He jerked his head. ‘Better come in.’

  I entered the narrow hallway, the sobbing sound disappearing as I followed Johnny down the corridor, past the intriguing double bedroom on my right, and the fridge, which for some reason sat opposite the bathroom beneath one of the skylights, before I finally emerged into the wider space of the flat.

  I’d become used to Star and Johnny’s flat by now, but the haphazard nature of the place managed to take me by surprise every time I saw it. There were different-sized kitchen units along two of the walls, one overhanging an armchair whose stuffing was spilling out from various tears in the fabric. Beside the armchair was a stately looking cooker with encrusted rings, its grill pan thrusting forwards like an Edwardian lady’s bosom. Linoleum had infected the entire area like bindweed, bulging around the two small empty fireplaces, and scored black from where furniture had been dragged across it. In the battle between the living area and the kitchen, the kitchen was winning.

  The record came to an end and revolved silently on the turntable. ‘Can I put a new one on?’ I asked, handing the notes to Johnny, who slapped them on to the draining board along with the spanner and picked up the end of a joint from where it was resting in an ashtray.

  ‘Huh?’ He looked up in the middle of relighting it. ‘If you want. But none of Star’s shit, all right?’

  He moved the joint around his lips as he puffed on it, attempting to count the notes. I knelt down by the portable Dansette, which stood on a table beside the door to the spare bedroom, and flipped through the records resting on the floor beneath. I showed Johnny a Prince Buster L. P., to which he nodded his approval. I peeled it from its case and slipped it on to the player.

  ‘Take it.’

  I looked up. Johnny was holding out a badly scrawled receipt for six pounds.

  ‘Okay. Thanks again.’ I pocketed it and stood up to go. If I was to catch my bus I’d have to leave sharpish.

  He squinted at me through his bleary eyes. ‘You might have a word with my girl.’

  ‘Star?’ I said stupidly, as if there might be any other.

  ‘She’s been in a right mood all morning. Won’t speak to me.’ He handed the joint to me, but I shook my head. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘It’s for her. Tell her … tell her I’d give up if I could.’

  I took the soggy joint between my first finger and thumb. ‘Where is she?’

  He jerked his head towards the window. ‘Outside. Listen, I got to go. Bloody pipe’s leaking on the second floor. Just … y’know, cheer her up and that.’

  He shambled off through the flat. Seconds later, I heard the door bang shut. I peered at the window on the other side of the room, where I could just about make out a dim shadow on a chair. I walked across the bumpy lino, under the steeply sloping roof and the bare bulb that dangled from the ceiling, scrambled on to the table at the far end, and stuck the still-smoking joint through the window.

  There was a scrape of metal on concrete. ‘I said I didn’t want any,’ I heard Star snap and then, in a different voice, ‘Oh, it’s you, Rosie.’

  She shifted her chair so I could climb through on to the tiny terrace. Star was on one of the two chairs, her legs stretched out, feet folded on to the sculpted holes in the wall in front. I crammed myself against it. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hi.’ She squinted up at me and I flushed, remembering yesterday, her finger tracing my jawline as we stood by the basement railings. She turned her attention to the joint end, which I’d left on the floor of the terrace, picked it up and threw it over the wall. I turned to watch its descent, leaning over the wall with the whole of the cliff falling away before me, the sea spread out in a tapestry of blues and greys, the sun sending feeble rays out through the thick cloud overhead.

  ‘He said he’d give it up if he could.’

  ‘Eh?’

  I twisted my head back towards her. ‘Johnny. He wanted you to have the joint, and said he’d give it up if he could.’

  ‘What the hell’s he talking about?’ She shook her head impatiently. ‘Has he gone out?’

  ‘Fixing a leak.’ I looked again at my watch. ‘Um – listen, I’ve got to head off now. Just popped by to pay the rent and say hello, you know.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Her violet eyes flickered, and I saw with a jolt of surprise that she was disappointed; that she wanted me to stay. I thought of the soft crush of her lips on my cheek and said rapidly, before I had time to think, ‘You can come with me if you like.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Where are you going?’

  The instant the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. If she came, there was a chance she’d find out everything, and if she did that, I’d no longer be the nice person of her imagination. ‘Nowhere special,’ I said quickly. ‘Just going back home to pick up some of my clothes, that’s all.’

  ‘Petwick?’ She uncurled her legs from the wall. ‘Can I really come too?’

  ‘Um …’ I smiled glassily. ‘Um – of course. But it’s dead boring, honestly. Nothing ever happens there. I mean, I’m just going in and going out again.’

  ‘Great.’ She hopped to her feet. ‘Do we get the bus?’

  ‘Gosh, yes. It takes ages,’ I said, futilely, as Star edged past me to climb back into the flat, her hand brushing my arm. I closed my eyes for a second, wondering if I could suddenly change my mind. But this was my only opportunity: today was the only day I knew for sure that Mum would be out. I sighed, and followed Star through the flat, waiting as she disappeared inside her bedroom to collect her things and reassess the state of her make-up in front of the mirror that hung to one side of the door, then button her grey cape around her neck.

  We walked to the main part of the house and down the stairs to the ground floor. ‘You really don’t have to come,’ I said, once we were out and walking along the path.

  She turned back. ‘I want to see the place that made Rosie Churchill,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I need to get out of the flat before I murder Johnny.’

  ‘It’s that bad?’ I pointed to the right. ‘The bus stop’s up here.’

  ‘Worse.’ We walked to the junction, across from which were the bungalows and the cliff-top path where I’d nearly tumbled to my death on Saturday. The bus stop was further up, on the corner of Shanker Road and Duckett Lane, and when we got to the concrete post Star leaned against it and said, ‘Also, I’m dying to meet your mum.’

  ‘Oh, she won’t be there.’ I felt myself reddening. Already I’d given away far more information than I’d intended. ‘I mean, that’s why I’m going now, to avoid her.’

  However, Star merely nodded and then said thoughtfully, ‘You know, I left home when I was fifteen. Went to live with my grandmother. My mother treated me as if I’d put her effigy on a bonfire.’

  She gave me a swift glance, almost as if she were afraid of the effect this information would have on me.

  I said with a laugh, ‘Because you went to live with your grandmother?’

  Star waggled her head. ‘My father’s a vicar.’

  I did laugh now. ‘You’re joking.’

  She grimaced. ‘Sadly not. And my grandmother … well, she’s very different. She doesn’t get on with my mother. I mean, what I’m saying is, I’m not very welcome at the family home either, at the moment.’

  On the other side of the road, the bus approached its final destination at the stop opposite ours, and its three pa
ssengers spilled out. I wanted to tell Star that it wasn’t that I was unwelcome, exactly, but I didn’t know how to do that without telling her the truth about Harry. ‘Mum didn’t get on with my grandma either,’ I said. ‘They had a farm, Grandma and Josh – that was her husband. He always sort of resented Mum, you see, thought she had airs above her station, that she was too good for them.’

  ‘Her stepfather?’ asked Star, and I nodded, as the bus travelled to the end of the road, turned about and came back up again. ‘Stepfathers can be very awkward, so I’ve heard.’

  I glanced at her sharply, but she was already getting on to the empty bus and had her back to me. We paid our fares and bumped on bad suspension all the way along, from Duckett Lane to Petwick Lane, past the closed-down farm and the old stone-built village, turning right at the petrol station into what the old folk called New Petwick, with its Grammar School and its Crescents and Avenues, its parade of shops ribboning the high street.

  Nothing had changed during my six weeks’ absence. The Eastway chippie was still next to Dodds & Sons’ butcher’s; the ironmonger’s, with its yellow-and-green sign advertising lawnmowers to hire for fifteen bob, still remained on the corner beside Coster’s sweet shop. I took Star inside to buy a bag of sweets from Mr Coster, and we plucked cola bottles and spaceships from little paper bags to chew on as we walked.

  ‘I’d heard there was a lake,’ said Star, biting the head off a jelly baby. ‘Can we have a look?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ I looked at my watch, but it was still early. ‘It’s nothing special.’

  She shrugged. ‘There’s a painting of it at the house, in the third-floor bathroom. I don’t even know who did it, but it looks quite nice.’

  ‘If you say so.’ I took her to the lake via a pathway which ran along a narrow gap between two houses in one of the roads off the high street. The lake was still signposted, although the white-painted writing that showed you where to go had faded away over the years, so it merely said TO PE AKE now. We walked in single file along the overgrown pathway, tramping on nettles poking out of the fencing either side, until we came to a small opening and then, further along, a padlocked metal gate with KEEP OUT! in red pinned to it.

  ‘Sorry.’ I turned back to Star. ‘It’s not usually locked up. I suppose they must think it’s dangerous.’

  I stood back to let her peer through the gate at the muddy path leading to the brown waters of the lake. The shopping trolley was still there, rusting gently into the ripples, and broken glass trodden into the path led to whole beer bottles camped around the edge. Just beyond the locked gate fluttered a greying, deflated balloon.

  ‘Nice.’ Star indicated the balloon. ‘I suppose it’s changed quite a bit, over the years.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ I clung on to the holes in the fence and thought of Mr Prendergast. ‘Perhaps they’ll build houses on top of it.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Star opened her bag and produced a battered-looking joint. She waggled it and said, ‘Fancy a smoke?’

  Star had offered them to me before, and I’d always refused. Now, though, thinking about the task ahead of me, I looked at it and said, ‘Okay.’

  ‘Good. Me too.’ She put the joint between her lips, took a box of safety matches from her bag and struck one, holding the flame to the twisted end of the paper.

  I watched it catch, mesmerized, and she looked at me from over the top of it. She smirked.

  ‘Better than Johnny’s soggy roach-ends, eh?’

  ‘He’s not doing a very good job of giving it up,’ I replied, as she pouted to blow out smoke and frowned at me. ‘Well, that’s what he said he wanted to do, wasn’t it?’

  She shook her head and leaned against the gate. ‘He wasn’t talking about this.’ She indicated the joint.

  ‘Oh.’

  She handed me the joint, and our fingers collided.

  ‘Then what?’

  She paused, as if weighing up a decision in her mind and then said, with a little sigh, ‘Johnny … he’s queer.’

  I paused, the joint halfway to my mouth. ‘What?’

  She folded her arms across her chest. ‘That’s what he wants to give up. At least, that’s what he says. I don’t even know whether to believe him any more. I think he’s just saying it because it’s what I want to hear.’

  Slowly, jigsaw pieces slotted together. Adam, the dodgems boy; a half-wave, barely acknowledged, on the promenade. ‘Oh my God. Are you sure?’ I sucked on the end of the joint.

  ‘That day when we were supposed to go dancing, remember? I came home and they were – well, he was with … he was with somebody, all right?’ She bit her lip. ‘I threw a plate at his head. That’s why I completely forgot about, you know, the One-Two and all of that. Ended up drinking all night in the Walmstead Arms; there was a lock-in. Me and Johnny, talking for hours, going round in circles.’

  ‘Wow.’ I blew out smoke as I’d seen Star do. I found the thought of Johnny being queer curiously exciting. ‘You wouldn’t know, would you? I mean, that he’s one of them. Not that I’ve met one before.’

  ‘Rosie!’ she snapped, and I looked at her, startled. ‘He’s supposed to be my man. He might, you know, end up in prison or in the paper or something. Never mind that it’s totally against all the laws of nature. You have to swallow.’

  ‘What?’

  She patted her throat and gulped down air. ‘That’s how you inhale.’

  I sucked and swallowed; my lungs burned and I coughed violently. ‘Yuck.’ I stole a glance at Star, wondering if I dared to ask a particular question to which I’d always been nervous of the answer, and so airily, as if it meant nothing to me either way, I said, ‘I suppose you love him very much?’

  ‘That’s got nothing to do with it,’ she said tightly, and I thought to myself with a ripple of anticipation, Perhaps she doesn’t. ‘Imagine if people found out. Nobody would ever speak to us again. Or worse, they’d feel sorry. I’d hate that. To be pitied.’

  Then again, I thought, my head spinning already from the effects of the tobacco, maybe she did and she didn’t want to discuss such a soft-centred concept with me. Shrugging casually, I said, ‘Maybe you should, you know, split up.’

  ‘I don’t think you understand how serious this is.’ She snatched the joint back from me and sucked on it viciously. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  She ground the end out in the mud and stalked back along the path.

  ‘Wait a sec,’ I said, my legs wobbling a bit as I hurried after her. ‘You don’t even know how to get there.’

  But Star didn’t stop.

  ‘And the worst thing is, he’s not even ashamed,’ she was muttering as she marched back towards the high street.

  ‘I’m taking it seriously, honestly,’ I called, although the further we walked the less serious I felt, and as we turned on to the road I’d grown up on, all mown grass verges and plane trees, I felt the effects of the hashish shredding my brain. ‘I think I’m stoned,’ I said to Star in a stage whisper.

  She finally slowed and turned back to me, her face softening, a smile curling her mouth. ‘For goodness’ sake,’ she said, ‘you’ve only had a couple of puffs.’

  ‘I’m new to this game.’ I nodded at the garden gate. ‘This is it.’

  Star nodded. In a BBC announcer’s voice she intoned, ‘And so we arrive at the childhood home of the great Rosemary Churchill.’

  This struck me as idiotically funny, and I collapsed into giggles as we staggered together up the path.

  ‘Come on,’ hissed Star, ‘you can do it,’ and this made me giggle even more.

  The spare key under the flowerpot felt solid and satisfying in my fingers, and it turned nicely in the lock. Then we were inside, in the narrow hallway, and it all looked so familiar and unchanging that I could hardly believe I’d been gone all this time.

  Star took off her cape and hung it on the peg next to the telephone stand. ‘Mind if I have a look round?’

  I waved her off. ‘It’s not very interesting.�
��

  ‘Let me be the judge of that,’ she said as she walked towards the kitchen. I leaned against her cape, breathing in the scent she’d left behind. I closed my eyes and remembered how it had been here, in the hallway, where I’d first met Harry, when Mum had invited him over for Sunday lunch one day and I’d opened the door to him.

  ‘Ah, the famous Rosie!’ he’d exclaimed, and had presented me with a bunch of roses as a gift. I’d been goggle-eyed, fourteen years old and already half in love with this stepfather-to-be, with his raucous sense of humour, his generosity, his listening to my opinions as if I really did have something to say.

  ‘All mod cons,’ I heard Star call from the kitchen. There was a noise like grinding knives; I peeled open one eye and saw her repeatedly pressing the button on the waste disposal unit at the sink. Harry had bought the kitchen with his fat chequebook when he’d moved in; nothing was too good for the new ladies in his life, he said, and Mum had her evening dresses and pieces of jewellery, and I got taken out to the Golden Dragon to try Chinese food, and to the pictures like a proper grown-up, and thought Harry the best thing since sliced bread.

  I was sixteen when I began scrawling his name in my diary, wishing I’d met him before Mum, because she was too old for a proper love relationship. They were more like friends, I supposed, and when I began noticing his eyes lingering upon me I kept the observation to myself, bubbling with suppressed desire.

  It was in the kitchen, when I was seventeen, that Harry had kissed me for the first time, the night he and Mum had come home late from a party, both of them a bit squiffy, and Mum had gone up to bed, leaving us alone. He’d pinned me against the Royal Houses calendar, his tongue pressing through my teeth, and then he’d pulled away from me, his lips still glistening with my saliva, told me I was a very naughty girl, and went upstairs to bed. The next day he came home with a present for me, a fountain pen wrapped in tissue paper, and said he’d seen it in the stationer’s window and had just known I would adore it, and he was right.