When my mother came back in she saw how Grandma was holding on to me and told me we needed to go. When she got outside she waited until we were at the end of the road before turning to me. She was a tall woman, taller than other mothers, with hair so immaculately neat it looked like it belonged on a mannequin.
‘Your grandmother’s crazy, remember that,’ she told me. ‘She’s been living in that ghost world all of my life, dragging me around to seances and spiritualist churches. Telling everyone I had the gift too.’
She glanced around the street as if checking for spies. I searched my mother’s face intently, noting every flicker and flinch as she spoke. I’d seen the bitterness before but there was something new in her expression, a small tremble of vulnerability.
‘She paid more attention to those stupid ghosts than to her whole family,’ she continued. ‘She didn’t care how people talked about us, how people looked at us. My poor father, he never got over the embarrassment.’
It was the most I’d ever heard about her childhood and the most I’d ever hear.
‘Still, you have to stick by your family,’ she said, ‘even if you can’t stand them.’
I frowned.
‘Why?’ I asked.
She looked confused, as if she didn’t know the answer. Then she patted the back of her hair.
‘Because that’s how things are done,’ she said.
She turned away, walking towards the car. And I, not knowing any better, followed.
You could hear the cups tinkling on their saucers as we sat in the living room. They were pale blue with pretty roses in the middle. Every time I took a sip I had to be extra careful. Just squeezing the handle made me feel like the whole thing would shatter.
We sat quietly as Luca’s mother mucked about with a giant clear teapot. She was doing some business with a tin full of dried tea leaves – inserting some into a special chamber at the top of the pot then squishing more in – and we were all watching as if she was performing heart surgery and any disturbance might make her snip the wrong tube.
Luca’s dad, who Luca said was not his dad, had turned ashen when he’d seen us standing at his door. He ushered us in with a big strained grin that quickly fell off his face when the door slammed shut. He was a tall man, thin with a carefully cropped ginger beard that clashed with the toffee-brown hair on his head. He said his name was Stuart but we were to call him Stu.
It took a moment for him to notice Boy in my arms. When he did, he grimaced as though I’d brought in a dead creature.
‘We don’t have animals in the house,’ he said.
‘She’s an assistance dog,’ Jules said.
Stu frowned, staring at Jules as if she too was a dead creature. He kept his eyes on her as he called down the hallway.
‘Joyce! We have visitors!’
It took a moment for Joyce to appear but, when she did, it was like a goddess had floated into the hallway. Trumpets, fanfares and a shaft of white light would have been fitting. She was a tall woman, broad enough to carry the world and its problems, though no one would ever imagine asking her. Her body was a series of rolling curves, as smooth and defined as piped icing on a cake. Her skin was as rich as dark melted chocolate poured into a pan and her short spiral hair, cut smoothly around her head, was distinct and neat, like coconut shavings sprinkled across her scalp. This woman was good enough to eat.
She didn’t falter when she saw Luca, just scooped him into her arms as though she’d been expecting him all along and directed us into the living room, insisting we call her Joyce, before sliding off to the kitchen to fetch the tea.
As we watched Joyce filling up the cups I glanced around the living room. It was like one of those interior design magazines and we were sitting right on the cover, getting in the way of the decor. The walls were painted a milky duck-egg colour, the tables and bookcases made of matching dark wood with printed cushions spread across the sofas. On the walls were crazy paintings in traditional frames. Splashes of maroon with cubes of cream, wiggling lines and neat circles painted over and over each other until it made you dizzy looking at them. They were hung up neat like in a gallery, which made me think they were probably done by some famous people and not just something Luca had brought back from GCSE Art (which is what they looked like). I liked the sculptures though, standing on shelves and nailed high on the wall. African masks and carvings of animals. A gazelle on the mantelpiece, a giraffe by the window. On the table beside me was a hippo with its head tilted to the side and mouth open like it had just spotted me and was about to ask a question.
As soon as Joyce finished pouring, she balanced her cup and saucer on her palm and looked over at Luca.
‘Well, it’s rarely lovely to see you, darling,’ she said.
Her voice was proper posh. Even posher than Luca’s, saying ‘rarely’ instead of ‘really’ like that. It made her sound like royalty but not Jules’s Kate Middleton royalty, the real Kate Middleton royalty. She shuffled back into her chair, back straight, sipping at her tea with her pinkie pointing out. I imagined her sitting on a throne in Buckingham Palace, fur-trimmed cape on her shoulders, the crown jewels balanced on her head.
Boy was sniffing around the carpets and furniture. Stu, who sat with his legs stretched out, feet crossed at the ankles, watched her with beady eyes.
‘We don’t have animals in the house, do we, Joyce?’ he said.
Joyce looked down at Boy as though it was the first time she’d noticed her, which was a good acting job because it was hard not to notice a Border terrier with a missing leg.
Joyce waved her hand at Stu.
‘Not a problem,’ she said.
Luca sat slumped in his seat. Joyce smiled widely, teeth all neat like a picket fence.
‘You must tell us all about what you’ve been up to,’ she said.
I could see the shape of Luca’s eyes was the same as his mother’s, but otherwise he was all Stu. The thin face, the tight lips.
‘See how I’m already getting the Spanish Inquisition?’ Luca said to me.
Stu stiffened in his armchair. ‘I don’t believe one question qualifies as the Inquisition, Luca,’ he said.
Luca looked at me again and rolled his eyes. I felt myself blush, like I’d taken sides in a war I hadn’t known existed. Luca took his shoes off and began doing his thing with the socks. Peeling them off layer by layer, arranging them on the floor in neat little rows. Joyce watched him carefully from the side of her eyes.
‘You’ve got a beautiful house here, Mr and Mrs—’ I began. As soon as I started I realized I didn’t know Luca’s surname.
‘Bargate,’ Joyce said.
I looked over at Jules. She shrugged as though this had been the most obvious thing, that Luca would steal a credit card from his parents.
‘Please call us Joyce and Stu,’ Joyce said. ‘We feel so old when we’re called Mr and Mrs.’
Luca looked up from his socks.
‘That’s because you are old.’
Jules snorted with laughter.
‘Luca,’ Stu said with a warning in his voice. It sounded well practised, like he’d used it many times before.
Joyce managed a nervous smile.
‘It’s all right, darling, it was just a joke.’
‘I think you’ll find it’s an evidence-based fact,’ Luca said.
He was putting his socks back on now. I didn’t realize how barmy his whole sock business was until we were there in the living room with the shiny dark wood and the perfectly printed cushions. It was like watching a prince pissing in the palace fountain.
Jules was staring down at her cup.
‘What’s this tea, then?’ she said. ‘Not normal, is it?’
Joyce smiled. ‘Earl Grey,’ she said.
Stu placed his cup and saucer on the table beside him.
‘Horrible stuff,’ he said. ‘But apparently that’s what everyone’s drinking. You can’t hold your head up in Bingham if you haven’t got a cup of Earl Grey.’
‘Well, in that case …’
She drained her cup and smacked it down on the coffee table.
‘… pour us another.’
She smiled, all friendly, but Stu was straining at the jaw as he bent forward and filled her cup. We all watched as he poured, as though Stu was now doing the heart surgery.
It was then that I saw the girl standing in the doorway. She can’t have been more than six; springy Afro hair tied in bunches that sat like clouds on either side of her face. Her skin was milky brown like Luca’s, dark eyes scanning the room before settling on him. Luca must have felt the gaze because he turned to her, his eyes losing their narrowness.
‘All right, Cora?’ he said.
The girl blushed as everyone looked at her. I gave her one of my big smiles, the type that swallows up my whole face.
‘Are you Luca’s sister?’ I said.
She glanced at me and then nodded, running over to Luca’s side. Boy came straight over and sniffed her shoes. She seemed scared at first, but Luca bent over and gave Boy a rub on the head to show she was friendly, so Cora bent down and did the same. This got Boy excited, licking at Cora’s face, which made her giggle.
‘Be careful, Cora,’ Stu said, which seemed like a stupid thing to say. Boy was as dangerous as a puddle of mud.
Joyce had put her cup of tea down and wrapped her hand around her knee. She was rocking gently back and forth, cheeks puffed out as though they were ready to burst with questions. Eventually she shrugged.
‘Staying over?’ she asked Luca.
Luca cricked his neck to the side. You could see he was trying to hold back the sarcasm.
‘Just tonight,’ he said. ‘Got to keep moving.’
I thought he was going to tell her about the people following us but he just bit down on his lip.
‘If that’s all right?’
Joyce looked sort of pleased with herself when he said that. Then she sucked in a deep breath that made her huge breasts billow out.
‘And your friends too?’
She didn’t look up at us as she said it, just stared aimlessly at her knees. Luca rolled his eyes.
‘Obviously.’
Luca’s dad clenched the arms of his chair.
‘Now look here, Luca—’ he said.
Joyce laughed. It was such a sharp, shrill laugh that I almost dropped my cup.
‘Stop being a grumpy old man,’ she said. ‘He’s been in a bad mood ever since the cricket scores came up.’
She didn’t seem to say this last part to anyone in particular but when she stood up she looked down at me and Jules and smiled her picket-fence smile.
‘Of course, you’re both welcome,’ she said. ‘We have plenty of space. Come on, girls, I’ll show you to your room.’
Jules raised her brows. As we walked out, I glanced over at Luca. He was looking at me with eyes that said ‘Sorry’. I didn’t know what for.
After we first met, Jules became my bunk-buddy, sharing shop doorways with me and finding unused basements in warehouses. You had to be over eighteen to get a place in a hostel and I wasn’t then. Although Jules could have got herself a place, she stuck with me. But the homeless life isn’t an organized one. There’d be times we were supposed to meet in the evening and she wouldn’t turn up, too absorbed in family dramas or out on an almighty bender. Then I’d set up my sleeping bag under the bridge near the Navigation pub. Something about being next to the canal appealed, even though it was a hazardous spot to sleep. Drunk people were the worst; pissing on your sleeping body or pouring kebab meat over your head for ‘a laugh’.
I’d spend nights under that bridge with the pigeons cooing in the rafters above, wondering what it would be like to have a proper place to live. I’d imagine being in a living room with a smouldering fire, people curled up on armchairs, reading books, watching the television. It created this feeling inside me that I’ve never really felt. Not happiness or contentment. Something simpler. Something basic. It made me feel safe.
You can’t feel safe sleeping rough though, not when you don’t know who’ll be walking past, not when you’re so exposed. I couldn’t relax under that bridge, even with the pigeons to keep me company.
But in Luca’s house I felt something like safety, like a tiny bead of security was locked in my heart and just being in this house, being with Joyce, made it grow bigger. I didn’t know if Luca felt the same way; he seemed to hate the house and Joyce along with it. But he had come back here. If your car is on fire you don’t get back in the driving seat.
Except, perhaps, when you can’t find another escape.
Joyce showed us to the spare room. Jules flung herself straight on the bed, bouncing up and down as Joyce found some extra bedding.
‘Sorry it’s only a single,’ she said.
Jules shuffled up the bed, placing her hands behind her head as she spread out flat across the white linen. Joyce looked down at Jules’s Doc Martens, mud caked into the treads. I sat on the end of the bed hoping that Jules would prop them up on my jeans but she just shuffled further back, putting marks across the sheet.
‘It’s all right. We’ll just do sardines, won’t we, Molls?’ she said. ‘Head to toe, like.’
I nodded and smiled as Joyce tied the gingham curtain back with a matching gingham strap. The whole room was doused in pale blue-and-white gingham: the curtains, the bedspread, even the vase on the windowsill had a chequered stripe running around the base and lip.
Joyce looked distracted as she passed me a pillow and some towels.
‘I would give you Luca’s room, but I turned it into an art studio a few months back. I don’t think he’ll be happy when I tell him.’
I smiled up at her again.
‘It’s lovely in here. Thanks.’
I watched as she squeezed her shoulders to her ears.
‘You both must be starving,’ she said. ‘Get yourselves sorted and I’ll order us a Thai curry from the local.’
Then she left the room. I could tell Luca had something against his mum but I’ve learnt it’s best to make your own decisions about people. So far, Joyce had treated us real decent.
‘Did you hear that?’ Jules said, smacking me on the arm. ‘Thai curry.’
She closed her eyes as her head sank into the pillow.
‘Now you’re talking my language.’
I went to the bathroom to wash my face. Just being in the house made me realize how dirty I felt. My hair was greasy and there was black grime beneath my fingernails. Of course, my hair was always greasy, the black grime standard, but being in a clean environment made me feel even dirtier. I tried to scrub at the filth but my skin was getting red and raw so I decided to have another go in the morning. Light was flooding the landing as I made my way back to the bedroom. I looked through the large arched window at the top of the stairs and straight into the back garden. It looked like a park, it stretched so far. Pear trees and lavender bushes all neat along the borders; an elaborate birdbath beside big egg-shaped wicker chairs swinging from hooks. Right at the end of the garden I could see Luca sitting on a swing set with Cora as Boy dug up the flowerbeds. Cora looked really absorbed in what he was saying. Then the ground began to wobble, the trees and bushes trembling. Neither of them seemed to notice this, nor the tiny cracks emerging in the neat, grass lawn.
‘In dreamland again?’
Jules was leaning on the doorframe of our room. She had a yo-yo in her hand, snapping it up and down, smooth and practised.
‘Something’s wrong,’ I said.
She looked at me with a raised brow.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘He won’t stop texting me.’
I didn’t need to ask who.
‘He doesn’t know where we are, does he?’ I asked.
Jules shoved the yo-yo into one of the pockets of her cargo pants.
‘Rusby couldn’t find his own arse if you paid him,’ she said.
She turned and walked back into our room.
Of course Jules didn’t know about the knife. She didn’t know about Rusby’s network of lowlifes, of what they did to that boy. She barely saw me the whole time I was with Rusby, which was exactly how Rusby liked it. Rusby always got what he wanted in the end.
The snakes were slithering inside me again. I closed my eyes, trying to tuck all thoughts of Rusby away as Joyce called us down to the kitchen. He couldn’t touch me here, not if I didn’t let him.
The food smelt delicious, coconut and lemongrass filling the air. The kitchen was twice the size of the living room, with a huge cream Aga along the back wall and a marble-topped island surrounded by chrome stools. There was still room for an enormous oak table, big enough for a banquet. Stu was sitting down already with the Financial Times held so you could only see his neatly clipped fingernails. Joyce had arranged the takeaway food in a selection of hand-painted ceramic bowls and set out plates and cutlery with cloth napkins as though we were at a fancy restaurant.
‘This is proper lush!’ Jules said, pulling her silver knife and fork set from her jacket pocket. She sat down at the head of the table, tucking the napkin into the collar of her T-shirt.
Luca came in with a packet of jelly babies in his hand. Cora was carrying Boy, which was difficult because, even though she was a small dog, Cora was a small girl, so the ratios only just worked. Before Stu could say anything, Joyce smacked her hands together.
‘Bon appétit!’ she said.
Jules had already loaded her plate. She scooped a forkful of rice and green curry into her mouth and her eyes went dreamy. Cora had Boy on her lap as she sat at the table but Stu lowered his paper and Cora quickly placed Boy on the floor.
‘There’s last night’s chicken in the bowl over there,’ Joyce said to Boy as though she could understand English. Boy sniffed at Cora’s feet.
‘Oi! Food,’ Jules said, clicking her fingers and pointing to the bowl by the double-doored fridge.
Boy trotted over to the chicken and gobbled it up.
Joyce unfolded her napkin, flapping it out with a quick firm shake and placing it across her knees. I tried to do the same.
Everything went quiet as we ate. Joyce sat all upright, using a knife and fork to cut her string beans into small pieces. Stu was putting food on Cora’s plate, slopping sauce all over the table. Luca was finishing his jelly babies while Jules scrolled on her phone, shovelling curry into her mouth until her cheeks bulged.
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