I don’t want to end up like that oversized freak at 1 Bluebell Lane. Sad and lonely and with nothing to live for.
The Lump. Andrew Lumb. Frankenstein’s monster.
I’d like to see him gone. Instead of watching me all the time. He gives me the creeps.
Of course, if you end up on the streets, you disappear from society. You fall through the cracks. Into the gutter. Down to the drains. And washed away. You are outside of society. There is no network of family and friends. You have gone. Vanished. Never to be seen again. No one knows. Nobody cares.
There are exceptions. I am an avid reader of the local press and watch the regional TV too, to keep up to date with all the news in Suffolk. There was a girl called Abbi from Ipswich, last year, who fell out with her family. Slept on friends’ sofas. Dropped out of sight. There were appeals in the papers and on television. It was said she loved Felixstowe and might have come here. But she has never been seen again.
Most just disappear like a puff of smoke, without any mention on the news at all. The Hannahs and Jordans and Beckys and Charlottes and Georgy Porgys. Gone. Just like that. An endless stream of silly, stupid girls leaving home after an argument with Mum or Dad, making their way to the row of open graves waiting for them somewhere out there in the night.
I look up and along the lane. I am surely imagining things. There is a blur of a figure there, walking towards me through the snow. It looks like an angel.
I bring my hand to my mouth. Too late to stifle my sob of joy. I am not imagining things at all. It is real.
It is her. The girl by the pier. I can scarcely believe it. But she is here. Making her way oh so slowly up Bluebell Lane.
Here you are.
Darling girl.
You have come to me.
Part II
The Nookery
7
Saturday, 23 November, 12.32 Am
Yes, it is definitely her. This bent and cowed figure. The girl by the pier is walking painfully up the lane through the falling snow. On she comes. On she comes to me.
She slows at number five and moves towards the driveway, so I cannot see her. She is checking the number of the house. She remembers my words. “Number three.” I stressed the three. More than once. Several times, I’m sure.
I wait for her to reappear, to move towards my cottage. And I am suddenly overwhelmed by feelings. The initial excitement. The anticipation. And, as ever, the dread. Knowing where this might lead. How it could finish. Again.
I step back from the window, doubts swirling in my mind. That this is another appalling mistake. Inviting her in. Letting her be here. I know what might happen this time. Police at my door. Coming in.
But I cannot let this madness go. I have no choice. It is a primeval thing. A desire. A need in me. I can deny it. But not for long. I am driven by what’s deep down inside.
She is now at my gate. She knows this is No. 3. She has come for help and protection. To me. And me alone.
This waif and stray whom no one wants. Who survives as best she can on the streets. Little more than an alley cat.
I watch as she pushes the gate open and makes her way up the path. She does not see me. But I follow her. Alone and vulnerable.
She taps at the door. Barely even a knock. If I were asleep, I would not hear it. But I have to pretend to be asleep. I cannot go straight to the door, much as I want to. She will know I have been standing there, waiting, hoping. Becoming excited. She will think the worst of me. And that may frighten her. She may even turn and, head down, disappear back into the blizzard. She will only stay here if she believes I am benign.
I wait patiently for the louder knock I am sure will come. I have seen, as she came up the path, that my daughter’s coat, the blankets and the rucksack are all gone. Taken from her, I assume. She has nothing but the clothes she stands up in, wet from the snow and soaked through to her skin. She is desperate, completely and utterly desperate, no food, no money, no shelter. It must be minus two or three degrees out there; the snow is coming down hard and fast. She’d die in a ditch by morning.
She knows that. She has no choice. I realise that is why she is here. I am not stupid. I am a white middle-aged man. These days, old white men are no longer a kindly uncle, a friendly neighbour, someone to turn to for a helping hand. We are assumed to be child molesters and rapists simply because of our sex, age and skin colour. She is only here because she has no one else, nowhere else to go. This is the end of the road for her. Live or die. The starkest choice.
Knock, knock. A polite but still quiet knocking.
A pause. A long pause.
And another knock, knock. A knock to be heard.
I wait a moment or two, and a while longer, and go and open the door, a feeling of sickness rising in my throat. Half-horror, half-pleasure. She stands there, glancing up at me and away, but says nothing. Not even a smile. She is still wearing the same clothes; they are soaking wet and stuck to the outline of her body. Her left cheek is puffy, as though she has been hit repeatedly. And her left arm hangs by her side as though she cannot lift it. She has taken another beating.
I wonder if she has been attacked, that someone out there has stolen everything I gave her, and whether that was the end of it. Or if that were just the beginning. Someone, a man, an immigrant from Eastern Europe roaming unchecked and unchallenged, dragging her into some bushes. Maybe more than one. A gang. Attacking her repeatedly. Leaving her for dead. She has limped her way here on the brink of death. This cat on its ninth life.
We look at each other, neither of us saying a word. I know that if I speak, my voice will betray me. She has a blank, almost sullen expression on her face, somehow an expectation, an acceptance, that I will help. She shifts her body, slightly and almost painfully, as if to say, Well, are you letting me in?
I smile and step back, inviting her inside. Warm and friendly. Welcome to my haven. Your safe place now.
She steps slowly into the hallway. Then stops, a sudden wariness about her. And somehow seems to stumble and fall into me. I catch her before her head hits the cold stone floor. Then lower her carefully.
She lies there. Conscious or unconscious, I cannot say. I think it’s utter exhaustion, poor little thing.
I sit in the nookery, drinking a cup of milky coffee. The armchair is turned towards the bed.
I am tired, but adrenaline keeps me awake.
I want to see the girl’s face as she comes to. What a picture it will be. Happiness. Gratitude.
When she collapsed in the hallway, I checked her body over carefully. Her mouth. That she was breathing. I pinched her arm. To be sure she was unconscious. Her wrist. To see that her pulse was strong. It was. My assessment was that she had fainted from exhaustion, perhaps mixed with relief that she was safe with me, and even the sudden change in temperature from outside to inside – although, in truth, it is chilly indoors. I have a blanket round my shoulders.
I scooped her up in my arms, her head and Bambi-like arms and legs hanging down. I was surprised how light she was. Holding her like this, feeling her body, I could tell how undernourished she had become. Her rib cage was clearly visible. And she smelled. A woman’s body should smell sweet and fresh. Of freesias and rose petals. Hers stank of dirt and blood and grime. She repelled me.
I hurried through the living room, into the nookery, and laid her on the carpet, a pillow pushed quickly beneath her head. I stood above her, looking down at this lifeless, stinking thing. Even so. I swallowed hard, and I knew what I was going to do.
All I can see now is her head above the duvet. Hair left scraped back and tied up with what looks like an elastic band.
Her face, even free of make-up and puffed up on one side, is pretty. She is a natural beauty. Eyebrows. Cheekbones. Jawline. And the eyes, when they are open, are most striking. The eyes took my breath away.
One bare foot sticks out of the end of the duvet, nearest to me. It is a dainty, nicely shaped foot with chipped red varnish on the toes. Her ankle a
bove is bruised rather badly, purple and black, as if she has been kicked or stamped on. Maybe during a struggle. As she fought for her honour, perhaps even her life.
I took off her fleece and checked her pockets. I had to. I could not risk her having a knife in there that she might use on me. In one pocket, there were some one-pound coins, six of them, all shiny. A rolled-up five-pound note. In the other, a lip salve, a crushed packet of small tampons, a postcard-sized, folded-in-half sketch of a child’s face and, in particular, a passport-sized photograph .
The photograph was old and battered, its edges rubbed away into smoothness. I studied it closely. Two pretty girls, maybe mid-teens, in an embrace, pulling silly faces. One, with a short haircut and a beret, was the girl by the pier. The other, with a similar look but without a hat, was maybe a year or two younger. Or perhaps simply smaller. A sister, maybe. Perhaps just a friend. Or something more. I thought that over for a minute or two, then put her belongings back and hung the jacket over the back of the armchair to dry.
I did what I had to do before I put her to bed. I was gentlemanly, of course, with this dirty, bruised girl. The wet had soaked through her clothes to her skin. The clothes were stained and torn in places. Her body was grubby with etched-in dirt. I attended to her as best I could and laid her out beneath an old but freshly cleaned duvet.
She does not stir. Just lies there, unmoving. A strange and troubled expression on her face.
I get up and move to her, ducking my head towards her face. She is breathing steadily enough. I can feel her breath upon my cheek.
I think for a minute. Lift the duvet and look down at her.
The girls who have come here before have, in their different ways, all been at the end of their rope. A day or two away from swinging from it. I present a kind and gentle face to them. Show an official-looking card. Say some thoughtful, caring words. They are at a live-or-die moment in their lives. Sub-zero temperatures. Drugs. A thuggish man. Their pimp. Whatever. They believe they are streetwise, smart, more than a match for a soft-touch, middle-aged man. They think I am benevolent. A Simple Simon. That is why they come. That they can outwit me, trick me, somehow get the better of me.
That is why she is here. And for warmth and shelter. Some food. Money. Maybe for a night or two. Perhaps longer. When she fell at my feet, I thought at first it was for sympathy or a way of somehow tricking me. To see what I did. That I might run my hands over her body, her breasts, her buttocks and between her legs. She would then fight back and stab me with a knife tucked inside a sock. Kill Fluffy. Stay here until the snow has gone. Maybe longer. Much longer.
But her collapse was genuine. And she has, for the past forty-five minutes or so, been unconscious. And I wonder whether her subconscious, in that strange and troubled sleep, thinks that she is at my mercy and that I am stroking her and probing her wherever I want. The fact is, the girls who have come here have been at my mercy. No one knows where they are. Nobody cares. They have vanished from family, friends, society. They have already gone missing, lost forever, as like as not. They cannot go missing again. They are already dead and gone when they get here. They cannot die twice.
She is asleep for the night. This little urchin.
I lay the duvet back over her as gently as I can. Turn and leave.
I lock the door to the nookery behind me. Slip the key into my pocket.
It is two minutes to six a.m., and I awaken, unexpectedly refreshed. I have slept right through for once. No nightmares. Fluffy lies at the bottom of the bed by my feet.
There is that strange stillness that only ever comes with a heavy downfall of snow. It is cold in my room. And there is a lightness to the air.
I don’t hear any movement in the cottage. I wonder suddenly if the girl is here, fast asleep. Or if she has somehow woken up and broken out, even though I locked the doors, at the back and into the cottage itself.
I get up. Wrap my dressing gown around me. Push my feet into slippers. Go to the front window overlooking the lane. It is white as far as I can see. The conifers that line the other side of the lane seem to be tipping forward, bowed by the weight of the snow upon them. It is Narnia. I look down to the snow on the pathway. There are no footsteps in or out. The gate remains shut, and the snow, piled up on top of it, makes it look strange and magical, a gateway to another world.
Fluffy stirs and jumps carefully off the bed and stretches, his front paws digging into the rug that covers the battered wooden floorboards. He walks a little stiffly to the bedroom door; I follow him out and down the stairs and through to the back door of the kitchen. “Wee, Fluffy, wee,” I say as he stops at the sight of the snow. I push him firmly with the side of my foot, and he walks out a few steps, an odd and hesitant tiptoeing, before cocking his leg against a flowerpot, large and misshapen by the fallen snow. Then turns and comes back indoors.
Instead of preparing for our morning walk, I reach into a jar on the side in the kitchen and take out a handful of dog biscuits, dropping them into the bowl by my feet. Fluffy moves forward hungrily. The bowl next to it, half-full of water, has a frosted skim. I take it to the sink and fill it full of sputtering hot water before rinsing and refilling it with cold and putting it back on the floor. This back-of-the-cottage extension is old and primitive; it is as cold as a morgue. You could leave a dead body on the floor here, and it would not rot until spring, maybe even summer.
I watch as Fluffy turns and makes his way by the cellar door to the living room and his basket by the fireplace.
I follow, stop to light the fire, and as Fluffy settles into place, I walk to the door of the nookery.
I lean my head against it, listening. I hear noises, movements, singing in the distance.
She is up already and in the shower. I stop for a moment or two, maybe more, thinking things over. It is a soft and joyful singing; I do not recognise what the song is, and I wonder that she can be so relaxed here. Maybe she just lives in the moment, and the hot water on her body, the shampoo in her hair and the soft soaping of her skin are all momentary delights for her.
I wonder what the girl will do, coming out of the shower, drying and wrapping herself in a towel, most likely. Walking across the bedroom to the door to the living room. I locked it when I left her. I do not want her to know that. She will guess she is my prisoner. I do not want her to think that. I listen. There is silence. She may already be out of the shower and walking through the room to the door.
I slip the key into the lock as quietly as I can. There is a slight jangle as my hand shakes. It is coming off my medication that causes that. I will persevere. I want to be happy and normal, like other people are. I know I can be. I turn the key slowly to the left, as gently as I can, unlocking the door. Then slip the key out, another jangle, and into my pocket. I stand there, still listening, imagining her inside the room. I hear her.
I rest my head against the door, tortured. A minute passes as I listen to her doing what she’s doing in the bedroom.
Then I turn and walk away, whistling through my dry mouth for Fluffy.
I will take Fluffy for a walk. She will be here when I get back. After all, she has nowhere else to turn. And she believes she is safe here. With this kindly old man.
8
Saturday, 23 November, 6.42 Am
The snow lies deep on the ground, and the sky is white, and the temperature is cold enough for me to know that more snow is coming. Sooner rather than later.
I have taken Fluffy along the lane and by the side of the fields, up and all around. The usual route. Even with his coat on, he is a reluctant walker, hip-hopping through the snow. But he needs to get out and do what he needs to do.
Now we are coming back, and I am both excited and fearful about the day ahead. Spending it with Rosie. Getting to know her.
As I pass by No. 1, I glance across and see the Lump standing indoors by the front window, watching the lane. As he seems to do most days, whenever I am walking. Sometimes, he stares out trance-like, and I am never sure if he
is looking at me or not. He is today. He raises a mug towards me in some kind of celebratory manner, triumphant and mocking. I do not know why. Perhaps it is because he is in the warm and dry and I am not. The boy is an idiot. But he does not know it. He thinks he is normal. He does not see himself as everyone else does. There’s a bit missing somewhere inside his head. The “on” switch.
I stop and look back, a blank expression on my face as if I am waiting for him to gesture, indicate something more, to explain the celebration. I cannot think what there is to celebrate in his squalid little home. His father dead and his mother too, after succumbing to COVID-19. Maybe he’s had some sort of payout for that, her being an NHS hero and all, standing six feet behind a Perspex screen, handing out prescriptions.
I wonder how he will manage in this snow. We must already be cut off from getting a car in or out of the lane. He does not drive anyway. And no van can get down to deliver groceries. Walking into town is possible, I think, but it would be slow going and dangerous with the snow soon packing into ice underfoot. And the BBC reports that more snow is on its way later today; I suspect we will be isolated here for days, maybe a week or more, until the weather eases. Perhaps temporarily. There is talk this snow will go on and on, through Christmas and beyond.
I do not know what he will do about essential supplies. Milk, bread, toilet paper and all. I hope he does not come knocking on my door to help him out. I do not want to get dragged into his misery of an existence. Become some sort of father figure. He must manage somehow. On his own. Until eventually he leaves the gas stove on and blows the place up, and then is taken into care, where he belongs.
The Girl Downstairs Page 7