by Kirsty Ferry
‘Come on, then,’ he said to Drew. ‘Let’s go.’ He wondered if he’d see that Cass there tonight. He also wondered exactly how many pubs were on the island. They had all assumed the hotels would have bars too, but the flip side of that, was that the hoteliers might frown on a group of lads landing on them. Alex had said they were probably used to it and some of them had already gone off towards one of the bigger hotels. Lucas and Drew had mock-saluted them and wished them luck.
The two boys headed up the street, following the walking-boot couple. Soon they could hear laughter and music coming from a building on the corner and they high-fived one another.
‘Result,’ said Drew and hurried on ahead. The wind was blowing up and there were a few spots of rain. Lucas could taste the salt in the air and he shivered. It was a nice place, but the tide had covered the causeway now and he suddenly understood exactly how marooned they were. Drew pushed the door open and the warmth and the smell of beer assailed them. It was a welcome contrast to the chill outside.
‘What you having?’ asked Drew and pushed through the crowds to the bar without waiting for an answer. Lucas watched him get swallowed up by the people and saw his head moving along as he jiggled from left to right: Drew swore that it made the bar staff notice you more than pushing forward like everyone else did. Lucas looked around the pub and spotted three of his friends in a corner. They waved him across and he turned to go towards them when he felt a soft pressure on his arm. The red-head from the fence was there next to him.
‘Hello, Lucas,’ she smiled. ‘I thought I’d find you here.’
‘Cass!’ he said. ‘Well – it is a small island and there can’t be many places to go to of an evening, I guess.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ she said. ‘I know plenty. Did you go to the lime kilns?’
‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I saw them advertised in the B&B. I thought I might try them tomorrow.’
‘I could come with you?’ she said. ‘I think it’s best to have a guide, don’t you?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Lucas. ‘It depends on what there is to see there.’
‘A local person would be the best to explain that to you, in my opinion,’ laughed Cass. She paused for a moment. ‘Oh, really, Lucas, do I have to spell it out to you?’ Lucas knew she was flirting with him; he fingered his mobile unconsciously.
‘Ahhhh,’ she said. ‘I understand. What’s she called?’
‘What’s who called?’ asked Lucas.
‘Your girlfriend. Look, come on outside with me. It’s too noisy in here.’ She drew her eyebrows together and pulled a face. ‘I can’t stand it!’ Lucas looked across at his friends. Drew had by now been served and was pushing his way over to the table with the rest of the lads. He looked up and caught Lucas’ eye. He grinned and winked and lined the two pints up in front of him. He sat down with his back pointedly to Lucas and leaned over to speak to Jared. Lucas knew he had effectively been dismissed.
‘OK,’ he said, half-reluctantly. Cass laughed and took his hand. She pulled him gently out of the pub and they walked out onto the street. A gust of wind bit into him and he shivered.
‘I live over there,’ Cass said, pointing to a stone cottage set a little way apart from the village. ‘Well, I don’t live there permanently. I travel a lot. My sister and I rented it so we’d have a base to come back to. It’s nice. It’s not quite a home; but it’s not quite a holiday home either. We’re left to our own devices mainly. We don’t bother the Islanders and they don’t bother us.’
‘I guess it must be hard to fit in here,’ Lucas said, more for the sake of conversation than anything else.
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘As I say, we don’t bother the people who live here. If they started prying into our lives, well, maybe we would reconsider.’ She laughed again. ‘They think my sister is a bit odd. That’s the truth of it. I couldn’t tell her that though. She’d never speak to me again.’
‘What do you mean by odd?’ asked Lucas. He shivered again as another gust of wind blew down the street.
Cass laughed and rubbed his bare arm. ‘No coat. Silly boy. I can tell you’re a southerner. With Jenny, I think it’s just because people don’t understand her. She’s very...creative. I think that’s part of it. She’s hard work at times. I try not to get involved. Or she would lose her temper with me and seriously, it’s not worth it!’ She looked over to the cottage again. ‘I’d take you there tonight, but she’s in a funny mood. I want to enjoy some time with you first. So tell me about your girlfriend then.’
‘My girlfriend?’ asked Lucas. The statement caught him off his guard.
‘You were fiddling with your mobile phone,’ said Cass. ‘That means you were expecting a call or a text. And you fiddled with it when I asked you to the lime kilns. Regardless, you’ll get nothing here. You might as well leave it in the hotel. No signal – anywhere. But still, you’re undecided about what to do. What’s your girlfriend called?’
‘Laura,’ said Lucas. ‘I mean, she was my girlfriend, but I don’t think she is any more.’ He smiled wryly.
Cass watched him, her eyes bright in the semi-darkness. ‘What’s so funny?’ she asked, a slight edge creeping into her voice. ‘Why is it funny that she’s not your girlfriend anymore?’
‘It’s not! It’s not funny at all,’ said Lucas. ‘Sorry.’
‘What did you do to upset her?’ asked Cass. She had folded her arms.
‘It was a mistake – that’s all,’ he replied. Why on earth was he justifying himself to this girl? The memory of that night out a couple of months ago still left him cold. It was one of those cheap trebles nights at his local – very dangerous. He had bumped into Irina, the stunningly beautiful Russian girl from the espresso bar. She’d come up to him and they’d been talking and one thing led to another. They’d bought each other different vodkas to try and ended up staggering back to his place. It was only one night. He wasn’t even sure whether anything had happened; he woke up and she’d gone. Two weeks later he had been mortified to find her crying outside his house.
‘I ees pregnant,’ she had said. ‘Eet is yours.’ Laura was with him at the time. She screamed and yelled and, quite rightly, told him it was over.
Too late, he had discovered that Irina had tried the same trick on two of his other friends; she eventually admitted the father was her married boss. Irina had disappeared shortly after that. Someone said they’d seen her working in a restaurant on the other side of town, her bump just beginning to show beneath her apron. Simple maths told Lucas – and his friends – it wasn’t possible for them to be anything to do with the baby. Laura, although accepting this, still wouldn’t forgive him for what might or might not have happened that night. Lucas heard on the grapevine that Laura was even more disgusted with Irina for drinking when she knew she was pregnant. Laura was a trainee nurse and she knew all the risks. Lucas had vaguely hoped this would put him in a better light; Irina’s actions were clearly the act of a desperate young girl. But Laura didn’t see it like that.
He didn’t want to tell this Cass his life story though. He shrugged. ‘It’s ancient history. It’s well over,’ he said.
‘But it was your fault?’ pressed Cass.
‘I suppose so,’ said Lucas.
Cass suddenly laughed. ‘Well that’s good. You’ve at least admitted responsibility. And it’s over with you and this...Laura,’ she said the girl’s name with such distaste Lucas was momentarily shocked. ‘So...’ Suddenly, Cass was at his side. She ran her fingers up his bare arm again and he felt the hairs stand up on end. Her voice was almost a purr as she continued speaking. ‘The coast is clear for me then?’
Lucas stared at her. ‘If you put it like that...’ he began.
Cass tilted her head up and kissed him quickly. ‘Excellent,’ she replied. She opened her mouth to speak and a voice, seemingly carried on the wind, called her name.
‘Cass...’
Cass spun around and made an annoyed noise in her throat. ‘Je
nny,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’ Lucas peered through the ever-darkening evening and saw a tall, slim figure appear out of a pathway between two houses. The figure walked into a pool of light cast by a streetlamp and Lucas caught his breath. Bloody Hell, if that’s the sister, the family genes must be good, he thought.
The girl stared at him and smiled shyly. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I see you’ve met Cass.’ She walked towards Lucas and held her hand out in a funny, formal sort of way. She had a curtain of dark hair, parted at the side just above her ear. A clip or slide of some description clumped it together on the opposite side to her parting where it tumbled down past her shoulders. The whole effect was of a dishevelled beauty that had just woken up. She blinked huge eyes at Lucas and smiled slowly. ‘I’m Jenny.’
‘Hello,’ he said, holding his hand out to her. She took it firmly, which surprised him somewhat. She looked like such a fragile thing.
‘We live over there.’ Jenny pointed at the cottage.
‘I know, Cass has already told me,’ replied Lucas.
‘Jenny, we should probably go home,’ interrupted Cass. ‘It’s late.’
‘I don’t mind,’ said Jenny. She never took her eyes off Lucas. ‘I think I like you,’ she said to him. She laughed. ‘What’s he called, Cass?’
‘This is Lucas,’ replied Cass. ‘I was just getting to know him better.’
‘Oh? Well now, I think I’d like to get to know him as well,’ she said.
Cass took hold of her sister’s shoulders and physically moved her away from Lucas. ‘Not tonight,’ said Cass. She turned to Lucas. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll take her home. The offer still stands for tomorrow, by the way. I’ll be at the kilns about five. I’ll see you there? Oh- what I said about the phone. She’ll not text you. No signal. You might as well just leave it behind tomorrow.’ She pushed her sister back towards the alleyway, none too gently. ‘Goodnight. Sorry again.’
‘No worries,’ said Lucas and he watched the girls disappear into the night. Well now, it seemed true what Cass had told him. Jenny was indeed ‘rather odd’. But she was also fascinating, in a strange sort of way. He wouldn’t mind getting to know both of them a little better. After all - he fingered his phone again - Laura was off the scene for good now, wasn’t she? There was still a little pang when he thought of her though. But it was, he had to admit, getting easier.
‘You all right, mate?’ shouted Drew’s voice from the pub doorway. He’d obviously popped out for a cigarette - he claimed he was just a social smoker. ‘Where’s she gone? You coming back in or what?’
‘Yeah. Just coming,’ shouted Lucas. He looked into the darkness towards the cottage and thought he could make out two black shadows gliding through the darkened fields. The girls, on their way home. Cass was gorgeous, no doubt about it, but that Jenny, she was something else.
‘Two of them?’ cried Drew. ‘Bloody Hell, mate! How do you do it?’
‘Just one of them,’ replied Lucas. But he’d be hard-pressed to decide which one, if it came down to it.
1887
In the long, hot June of 1887, the streets of Britain were party to Golden Jubilee Celebrations for Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, Empress of India. The other major news story was the murder of Miriam Angel in Batty Street, London. It was astonishing how, in the space of one week, the emotions in the City could change from joy to horror as the details of the young woman’s death were publicised; six months pregnant and apparently being forced to imbibe nitric acid by a gentleman lodger was not a favourable way to die.
Veva sat in the morning room flicking through the Penny Illustrated Paper and smiling to herself. ‘We should try that,’ she murmured, ‘that would be an excellent way to dispose of a person.’ Her beautiful face hardened. ‘Although, it does prove that men are still of the opinion that women exist only to be used.’ She received no response to her comment and looked up. She frowned. Cassandra was staring out of the window again. Veva could tell by the set of her shoulders that she was desperate to be outside, amongst the crowds. The girls had acquired a small townhouse just off Fenchurch Street. It was perfect for them; much better, Veva had suggested, than it had been for the previous occupant. He had just disappeared one day, she told a curious neighbour. He had been their Uncle. It was terrible for the whole family, although the girls had been granted permission to use the house whilst they waited for the rest of their family to arrive. The sisters had been passing through Surrey, you see, so it wasn’t too far for them to travel. Shortly after that, the neighbour had disappeared too.
From Fenchurch Street, the girls could slip through Aldgate and lose themselves in the grimy, poverty-stricken East End. They could also head west into the more pleasant parts of the City. In addition, the house was not far away from the train station, and there were often people passing through that area of London. It was terribly easy for travellers, they realised, to disappear in such a seething capital. Veva didn’t miss her old life, but it was clear that Cassandra was not as settled.
‘I want to go out tonight,’ said Cassandra. ‘It’s been too long.’
‘Sweetheart, we went out last week,’ said Veva.
‘No, we did not go out. We went to the river and met that couple.’
Veva shrugged. ‘I suspected that he was married. Why else would he be under the bridge with her? We did the right thing.’
‘We did,’ agreed Cassandra, turning away from the window, ‘but it wasn’t enough.’
‘Darling, you will never be Lillie Langtry,’ laughed Veva. She stood up and reached across Cassandra’s head, drawing the curtains firmly. ‘You may wish to haunt the dance-halls and the theatres and hope that someone will take pity on you and invite you to perform, but they never will. You gave up every chance of that lifestyle, remember? You might be able to seduce the stage-hand one day, but you would end up killing him, and what use would that be?’
‘I did not give up the lifestyle,’ growled Cassandra. ‘You made that decision for me.’
Veva shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’
‘I could have performed,’ said Cassandra, balling up her fists, ‘but no, Will proposed. I had to accept...’
‘You did not have to accept!’ shouted Veva. ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’
‘Veva! We’ve had this discussion before...
‘Don’t call me that!’ yelled Veva. She lashed out to slap Cassandra, but the girl dodged out of the way, her reflexes fast. She had learned the hard way over the past two years. ‘Two people have called me that in my entire life,’ continued Veva. ‘You are not to make it three, do you hear me?’
‘Oh, yes. One was Sir Guy – I must thank him for this most humbly if I ever see him,’ said Cassandra, curtseying mockingly. ‘And who was the other one...ahh yes. Will. My fiancé.’
Veva flew at her and knocked her to the ground. ‘Do you seriously think he preferred you?’ she breathed, holding her down. ‘Seriously?’
Cassandra opened her mouth to retaliate. Before she could answer, Veva drew her lips back and snarled. Cassandra gathered her strength together and pushed the dark-haired girl off her. Veva collapsed onto the floor, glaring at Cassandra. ‘He was mine, you know,’ she said. Her face suddenly went blank. ‘If I ever find out who killed him, I might have to kill them myself,’ she said thoughtfully. She sat on the floor and watched Cassandra straighten up and smooth her coppery hair down. Cassandra glared at Veva contemptuously. The girl’s hair was tangled, hanging in dark waves down past her shoulders where the combs had come undone and she made no move to tidy herself up.
Veva smiled at Cassandra. ‘You are actually quite pretty you know,’ she said. She stood up and took a lock of Cassandra’s hair between her fingers. ‘You have hair like Lizzie Sidall. She died of laudanum poisoning. Do you think they ever wondered what happened to you at Hartside? Didn’t they have laudanum by your bedside? Oh, I say,’ she said, coming back to the present. ‘Why don’t we go out tonight?’
Cassand
ra slapped her hand away. ‘I already suggested that,’ she said.
‘Did you, darling?’ asked Veva, opening her eyes wide. ‘Fancy that. What a marvellous idea.’ Then she smiled, dropping the lock of hair. ‘I wonder whether I’ll see Will at the ball? That would be nice. Do you know Will? He’s going to marry me, you know.’ Veva laughed and turned away, drifting into the hallway singing to herself. Cassandra stared at her, infuriated. Would it never end?
***
‘If I am right,’ said Veva, ‘I do believe that we should head west tonight, perhaps towards the Criterion Theatre?’ She had clearly forgotten the incident from earlier. Cassandra was not going to remind her. ‘You like the theatre, don’t you?’ she said, smiling at Cassandra. Cassandra glared at her. Veva blinked at her innocently, her features utterly perfect. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. ‘We don’t have to go, you know. Here, let me do your hair for you. It might make you feel better.’
Cassandra moved out of the way as Veva reached over to her. ‘Thank you, but no,’ she said. It had taken her too long, brushing her auburn hair out until it shone and pinning it up onto the top of her head in a complicated arrangement of curls for Veva to spoil it.
Veva tutted. Her hair was never dressed as carefully as Cassandra’s. Cassandra knew that the only thing she had to recommend her next to Veva, was her hair. Comparing the two girls, although they were both dazzling, Veva had the edge. There was just something more perfect about her face than Cassandra’s, something that everybody was entranced by. Cassandra was not unaware of the situation. She had never thought that she would ever have to compete with someone for eternity the way she seemed to be destined to do with Veva. It was always what Veva wanted to do, always what Veva decided...
‘Anyway,’ Veva said, ‘we should go soon. The crowds will be leaving and I think we need to find an after-show ball to attend, don’t you?’ Cassandra watched Veva tweak at her sky-blue ballgown and adjust a loop on the front where the overskirt was attached to the waist. She flipped the train out behind her, looked over her shoulder to check the bustle and posed by the fireplace. Cassandra didn’t know if she’d ever hated anybody as much as she did in that moment. She looked down at her own oyster pink silk and smoothed the skirt down. She knew she was beautiful. But it was when they stood together, that she was conscious that everyone looked at Veva. Deep down, she couldn’t help wondering whether Will Hartley had agreed to settle for less when he’d proposed to her. She had a feeling he was just like water – always taking the path of least resistance. She often wondered that, should things have turned out differently, would she have always have taken second place to Veva? A more rational Veva, perhaps, who would have become Will’s mistress and flaunted it for all to see? She looked again at the dark-haired girl. No. Veva would never have settled for being his mistress; she would, without a doubt, have killed them both regardless.
