Fragile

by Sarah Hilary

  Joe, she meant. My Joe. And my Robin. I wanted to run at her and scratch the smile from her face. My head was beating so blackly, I feared I’d pass out.

  ‘It’s what we do.’ Her voice was bored but her eyes were alert, watching for my pain. ‘Robin and I. We take turns bringing you back here. You’re his latest, although he seems to be struggling to move past the scullery maid fantasy to the real reason you’re here.’

  ‘You’re lying.’ My tongue was furred, thick in my mouth. ‘He doesn’t – that’s not why I’m here.’

  ‘So much for his theory about your intelligence.’ She took another step, smiling. ‘You really haven’t figured it out, have you? You didn’t see anything odd about him letting you walk in here and demand a room for yourself. Or were you planning to seduce him?’ She put her head on one side, sizing me up with her stare. ‘You’re up to something, I thought that the first time I saw you.’

  ‘I’m here to clean, and cook. He has work to do, the boxes—’

  ‘Have you looked in the boxes?’ She was close enough now to put her hand on his bed, crimson fingertips grazing the white covers. ‘You should.’

  ‘It’s none of my business.’ My hand was sticky around Joe’s bracelet, my fingers closed so tight the knots bruised my palm. ‘I’m here to cook, and to clean.’

  ‘You’re here because he chose to let you stay. He does that sometimes. When he’s playing at being the master of the house.’ She flicked her fingers at his bed, dismissively. ‘A boring game, it’s why I left. But it always ends the same way . . . He’s waiting for me to help him finish it.’ Her eyes were on mine, glittering. ‘You liked my dress, he said. The silver one.’

  I felt sick, trapped. I needed to get out of the room, away from her. She was an evil, perverted liar. Robin hadn’t done anything other than trust me and give me a roof over my head. This story she was weaving – it was my story. The story I’d made up to scare off the girl in the diner. It wasn’t true, it wasn’t. I wanted to be up in my attic, safe from her stabbing eyes.

  ‘The dress isn’t your size.’ Her stare swept over my hips and breasts. ‘But I’m sure I can find something to suit you. Better than that ridiculous homemade maid’s outfit.’

  I wanted to scream Joe’s name at her, summon him with a shout. I’d tried texting but he was ignoring me or he no longer had the phone Brian gave him, or the one Meagan did. To keep in touch, he said, as if that made any sense. I’d rescued him from Lyle’s, and from her. Where was my rescue? Like a fool, I’d followed him here to this trap of a house where nothing was what it seemed and everyone was a liar. A magistrate, she’d said. The master of the house.

  ‘Robin sets the pace,’ Carolyn said. ‘Those are the rules. He likes to play a long game. I wanted to warn you. Since there’s a chance you’ve fallen for his act, or for him. I wouldn’t want you getting hurt.’ Her eyes dug at my face. ‘That wouldn’t be right.’

  14

  ‘You look like something I drew with my left hand.’ Meagan sat Joe Peach in her kitchen with its broken stove and spider webs. ‘What’ve you been up to?’

  He’d begged on the phone for her to take him back. ‘Oh no, sunshine,’ she’d said. ‘Oh no you don’t.’ But then he’d found his way to her flat, asking those nosey neighbours where she was, and she’d weakened. Shivering on her doorstep in his filthy T-shirt and anorak. She’d run a hot bath then put him to bed, no questions asked for a couple of hours. Now, though, she wanted to know how he meant to pay his way.

  ‘I don’t know. But I will.’

  ‘What about madam? Where’d she end up?’

  ‘Nell?’ Joe pushed a finger at the kitchen table, looking hazy. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Thought the pair of you were joined at the hip.’ She lit a cigarette, keeping the savagery out of her voice. If Joe was here, Nell couldn’t be far behind. She was the one Meagan was after, Little Nell who’d spread the stories that put stones through her windows and hounded her to this dead end of a flat. ‘I’m not having you here for free,’ she told Joe. ‘I can’t afford it.’

  He searched the pockets of his jeans, dredging up a plastic fiver that flipped itself over in the heat of his palm. ‘I can get more money.’

  ‘Oh yes? How’re you going to manage that, then?’ Because he looked half-starved but not enough to beg on these streets, not in a nice way. He’d need a dog for that.

  ‘I’ve begged before,’ he told her. ‘We both have.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  Joe shrugged. They both knew what had happened; the first cold night, just as she’d predicted. Nell was tough enough to last a winter on the streets, but not Joe. Nell must’ve known that when she was planning their escape from Lyle’s but he’d have promised her, saying he was off the drugs for good, and she’d needed to believe it. As if addiction was a hobby he’d had in the holidays, or a pet that didn’t need feeding to stay alive. Nell had never understood Joe’s addiction, not the way Meagan did. Little and often, that was the way to keep them quiet.

  ‘No filching,’ she told Joe now. ‘I’m keeping my head down. Last thing I need’s the police on my doorstep.’ He nodded his agreement. ‘And no heroin.’ Because she could see what this was, where that half-starved look came from. ‘This isn’t bloody Aberystwyth.’

  Nodding again. ‘I just need to get warm for a bit.’

  ‘You and me both, sunshine. You and me and the rest of North bloody Wales, but you’ve a short memory if you think the winters round here are a picnic.’

  ‘I know.’ He shivered. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She took pity at last, lighting them both cigarettes. ‘What was wrong with London?’

  ‘Nothing, I just needed to come back for a bit. I missed you.’

  He meant it, she could see that. Nothing to do with sentiment – he’d missed having a place to lie low with someone who knew the real Joe Peach. Not the boy who’d worked the boats and made bracelets, the lad Nell fell for. The real Joe, who was with Rosie Bond the day she disappeared.

  ‘Well, you’ll earn your keep. I’m up to my backside in debt. Tempted to sell my story to the papers, that’s how bad it’s been. “The Lies Inside Lyle’s . . .” Make a change from me being the one on the ducking stool.’ She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Nell wouldn’t like it, though. Wouldn’t do either of you any good, come to that. But maybe I shouldn’t care. Where were you when I was up against the wall? Buggered off to London, that’s where. Whose idea was that?’ She knew, but she needed him to say it. Penance, for picking the wrong side when he picked Nell.

  ‘Nell’s idea. She said we couldn’t stay after the funeral.’ He mentioned the funeral without hesitation, his expression unchanging. ‘I’d turned eighteen. They’d send me to an adult prison, that’s what she said.’

  ‘Maybe that’s where you belong. After Rosie.’

  She watched him but he just smoked the cigarette she’d lit for him, and didn’t speak. She might’ve been talking about an old sock he’d lost. It froze her blood.

  ‘Still using that phone I gave you, though. Remembered my number when it mattered.’

  ‘You put it in the phone,’ he reminded her. ‘But I’ve a new phone now. A present from someone we stayed with in London, before Nell got us kicked out.’

  ‘Why’d she do that?’

  ‘We couldn’t afford to get comfy.’ He took a drag of smoke. ‘And we didn’t deserve it.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Like you said.’ Joe rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. ‘After Rosie. We don’t deserve to be happy, ever again.’

  Little Nell wasn’t done, then. She hadn’t rescued him at all. Or only from Meagan. She meant to make him pay, the same as she’d meant the stories and the stones that’d driven Meagan from her home. It wasn’t Meagan’s problem, none of it should have been her problem. Joe had been about to turn to eighteen when Rosie’s sandal washed up. He’d have been out of Lyle’s at eighteen, that was the rule, and Nell not far behind him. Th
e pair of them would have been out on their ears, even without Nell’s escape plan. But the girl had to make Meagan pay, taking Joe because she knew it would hurt, seeing through Meagan’s tough old hide to the softness she felt for the lad.

  ‘Hand it over then, this new phone. We’ll call it a week’s rent.’

  He gave her the phone, as easily as that. Darrell would’ve put up a fight, but not Joe. After he’d gone back to bed, Meagan plugged the phone into the wall and switched it on, and there it was.

  A text from Nell, asking for his help. ‘Please, Joe. I need you.’

  Something about a woman he’d spent time with in London. No address, not yet. Just a first plea but there’d be a second, and a third. Nell wouldn’t give up on the boy that easily.

  If Joe had seen the text, he’d ignored it. Meagan could text back, if she felt like it. Pretend to be Joe and ask for an address. One thing was for certain: no help was on its way for Little Nell.

  She ground her cigarette into the sink with a savage satisfaction, remembering the day the girl came home with Rosie’s teddy bear. She’d not been above asking for Meagan’s help that day, scared out of her wits by what she’d seen down at that bloody pool.

  ‘Where’s Joe?’ Meagan had demanded.

  Nell had stared up at her, the way she did back when she first arrived at Lyle’s. Black eyes burning in her face, shaking so hard Meagan could hear it in her teeth. Her hair was wet, clothes too. She was throttling Rosie’s bear, hands around its scruffy neck. Rosie went everywhere with that bear. Inseparable, that was the word in Meagan’s head as she watched Nell wringing its neck.

  ‘Don’t tell me what happened,’ she decided. ‘Just tell me how bad it’s going to be, what we need to do.’ She tapped ash from her cigarette. ‘The police are coming. They’ll search the house. When they don’t find anything, they’ll widen their net. They’ll want to know where Rosie likes to go. Someone’ll say the pool.’ She pointed the cigarette at Nell. ‘Someone’ll say she loved going to that bloody pool with you and soft lad. So where is he?’

  ‘He’s ch-changing.’ A whisper between chattering teeth. ‘He got wet, in the lake.’

  ‘He was born wet.’ Meagan narrowed her eyes. ‘Was he swimming, or what?’

  ‘Searching, in case . . . In case she fell in.’ Bringing the bear to cover to her mouth, eyes huge and hot with tears. ‘In case she was in there.’

  ‘In the pool. Your so-called lake.’ Meagan smoked to the filter then scrubbed the cigarette out on the stone window ledge. ‘Rosie. She drowned, you mean.’

  ‘No.’ Nell shook her head, fiercely. ‘No.’

  ‘But soft lad jumped in, just in case? You followed suit, judging by these rat’s tails.’ She pulled a strand of Nell’s hair, watching the girl wince and curl away. ‘You lost her, in other words.’

  She let this sink in, saw blame take shape in the girl’s face, altering it. She’d always look like this now, shadowy eyes and sharp cheekbones. It suited her. Men’d look twice, not knowing they were seeing shame and guilt. Imagining intrigue, or an erotic invitation.

  ‘She wasn’t with us,’ Nell insisted. ‘We told her not to come as she was poorly.’

  True enough. Rosie had been whingeing all week, clinging to Nell and Joe the way she did when she was sick. No wonder the pair of them had tried to shake her off.

  ‘So what’s that, then?’ Meagan pointed at the bear between Nell’s hands.

  ‘We found it.’ Tucking the teddy under her chin, a wedge against the tremors. ‘By the lake shore.’

  ‘So she wasn’t with you, but her bear was.’ Meagan drew a second cigarette from the pack. ‘You’re a bad liar, love. You’ll be better off sticking with silence when the police come. One word out of your mouth and they’ll know you’re lying.’ She tapped the cigarette on the box, thinking about her options. Wondering whether it wasn’t better to let Nell talk to the police, weep all over them if she had to. Confess whatever she had to confess, get it off her chest.

  ‘Joe,’ Nell whispered, her lips moving against the bear’s ratted fur. ‘Joe found it.’

  ‘Joe?’ Not just the girl then. If the police got hold of Joe—

  ‘He found the bear, by the water.’

  ‘Right. That’s why he dived in and got wetter than usual.’ She waved out the match. Furious at Joe, and with herself for caring so much. ‘Neither of you can lie to save your life.’

  Nell gave her the big eyes. There it was again, that difference. Her hair framing her face, the swell of her upper lip. Blaming herself, which was good. Not blaming Joe, and not Meagan.

  ‘Keep quiet,’ she instructed. ‘To the police. They’ve a job to do, we’ll let them get on with it.’ She picked a fleck of tobacco from her lip. ‘When’d you last see her?’

  ‘First thing. Before – before breakfast.’

  ‘And she was sick, so you told her to stay home. No matter how much she likes going with you and Joe to that pool or lake, whichever you want to call it. Today, she stayed home.’

  Nell was listening, but she didn’t seem to hear. ‘She was at the lake.’ Her fingers tightened on the teddy bear. ‘She must’ve been.’

  ‘Did you see her there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did soft lad?’

  ‘No.’ A flicker of doubt in her eyes. ‘He said – No.’

  Meagan’s scalp clenched, remembering how Joe had hissed at Rosie, how he hated her telling tales. She drilled Nell with her hardest stare. ‘The police won’t want to know what you imagine happened. They’ll want facts. You saw her at the house, that’s the last time—’ She broke off because the girl was weeping, her face ruined by it. It made Meagan stiffen her own face, and her voice: ‘That’s the last you saw her.’

  Nell knelt, bending double on the floor, sobbing into the bear.

  Meagan picked another shred of tobacco from her lip and waited, needing to know which way the girl was going to go. Hysterics might help, with the police.

  She thought: I’m not a monster, I don’t want that kiddie to be dead but I’ve the others to think of. What happens to them if they shut me down? She smoked to settle the worry.

  Bloody Joe. What’d he done?

  Nell was making an inhuman noise. Fear and pain and panic, an unholy noise, frightening. It frightened Meagan. She leaned and put a hand on the girl’s dark head. ‘There,’ she said. ‘There.’

  Nell’s noise separated into words: ‘I won’t let anything happen to her. I love her. I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt her.’

  Too late, Meagan thought.

  A crumb of tobacco clung to the corner of her mouth. She scraped it free with her thumbnail, tasting ash.

  Nell shook the hand from her head and sat up straight. ‘If they try to hurt her, or us?’ Rosie’s old bear was buried in her lap, neck twisted, scruffy face hidden by her hands. ‘I’ll kill them.’

  15

  ‘Are you on your period?’

  ‘What?’ I stopped at the foot of the stairs, stupid with shock.

  Carolyn was rearranging lilies at the hall table, turning their stems this way and that in the vase. She wore a long satin bathrobe over a matching nightdress, the colour of oysters. Barefoot, with her hair loose, the morning’s light resting on her shoulders in red lines.

  ‘Are you on your period?’ Fixing me with her cat’s eyes.

  I was paralysed, my face flaming.

  ‘You are, aren’t you? I can smell it.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘You should wash more carefully. Especially given the reason you’re here. Didn’t you listen to a word I said?’

  She finished with the flowers, sending me a smile that had me cringing closer to the wall, afraid of what she’d say or do next. One of the lilies turned until it was watching us. Carolyn reached a hand and prodded the bud into place. The lily stayed, its head meek. She rested the heel of her hand on the marble table, her smile toying with me. Then she lifted her fingers and inspected them, rubbing each pad against her thumb. ‘And dust more
carefully.’

  She wasn’t wearing heels but my toes curled as she approached, afraid she’d tread there, pierce my foot to the floor with hers. Her walk was swaying, as casual as her cruelty. I’d been wrong about her being more comfortable in heels. Barefoot, she walked as if she owned this house, the street and all of London. When she passed through the library door, a faint backdraught set the lily shivering but I was quick, crossing the hall to still the stem in its vase, keeping the bud obediently facing the wall, where she’d put it.

  My face was scalding. I pressed my palms to my cheeks and shut my eyes. I wouldn’t cry, but I felt as if I might crack wide open. Everything she did, each word she flung, was pressure on a bruise I hadn’t known was there. She magnified all my worst fears, making them monstrous. My just-washed hair was greasy, my pimples were boils, my aching ankles elephantine. And Robin. She’d made him monstrous, too.

  I hate her, I told myself, I hate her.

  But it wasn’t really hate, not yet. It was fear and shame. I was ashamed. The lilies’ scent was crushing. I took my hand away from the vase, waiting for my fingers to stop shaking. I kept seeing Meagan’s face, smoke snaking from one of her many cigarettes: You lost her, in other words.

  Last night, I’d slept clutching the phone from the kitchen drawer, longing for a text from Joe, some sign he was out there, alive. I’d given up hoping he’d ride to my rescue. No man had ever done that for me. The men in my life reject me or betray me. Abandon me. And Joe had form. Hadn’t he left me, that night he went to the club? Wasn’t that how I’d found myself on this street, stumbling on Starling Villas while searching for a trace of him?