The Girl Who Just Appeared

by Jonathan Harvey

  Everything is set for Sunday. I will be at the flat to meet you at three with your keys, et cetera. Looking forward to meeting you and welcoming you to the city. I am fine with you bringing a dog – as you say, it is only temporary. Do not fret about the washing machine: my husband has mended it only yesterday. It’s all looking nice and cosy in there, and I hope you will be very happy. As you’re coming such a distance, I will make sure there is milk in the fridge and a loaf in the larder. I might even run to some teabags LOL.

  I have to dash now, as my husband is taking me up the golf club for a karaoke night. I don’t sing, but it can be fun.

  In answer to your question, no, I don’t own any other properties to rent. It’s a small enterprise really. Personally I live on the Wirral. It’s really pretty where we are – am very lucky.

  Kind regards,

  Rose Kirkwood

  From: hollyjsmith001@hotmail.co.uk

  To: judethefiddle@judetheobscure.com

  Subject: Liverpool

  Dear Jude,

  I’m so sorry I’ve not been in touch. I haven’t really known what to say, and didn’t want to hurt your feelings with half-baked explanations, but a lot has happened in the last few days and I wanted to try and explain.

  Jude, you’re a wonderful man. Clever, talented, funny and handsome. You’ve often complained that I’ve not been there when you needed me because I was always at Sylvie’s beck and call, and you deserve better than that. Well, I am going on a bit of an adventure now. Yet again being selfish, I am heading to Liverpool for a while to try and track down my mum. You know how months ago I contacted social services but they’ve been unable to find my adoption records because of boundary changes (whatever that means)? Well, my last letter from them said it might take another three months. I have got sick of waiting so am going to go up there and try and find out for myself where she is and what happened. I need to be on my own to do that.

  I think if we were meant to be, then I would be asking you to come with me. As I’m not, I think that speaks volumes.

  Thank you for saying you would wait for me, but I think you’d be wasting your time. Maybe I’m just not suited to a relationship, because if I was, you’d be my perfect match. But until I’ve put the pieces of my jigsaw in place, I don’t feel I can move on. I feel I’m treading water.

  I’m so sorry, Jude. Please give my love to Daisy and Clint, and all your lovely brothers and sisters. Sometimes they felt more of a family to me than my own. I bet D and C are having a blast on their round-the-world trip. And as they said in their card, they’d have been at the funeral in spirit.

  All love, and goodbye,

  H xx

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this train will shortly be arriving at its final destination, Liverpool Lime Street. Hope you’ve got a snappy dress sense, the gift of the gab, and, ladies . . . if you’re going out in the daytime, do make sure you wear humungous rollers in your hair. It’s a look!’

  I knew what Liverpool looked like. I had spent so many hours gazing at pictures online of the city centre and its distinctive skyline that I could have quite easily pencilled the twin domes of the Liver Building with its cormorants on top, the 1960s tower like a big sucked lollipop and the twin cathedrals in the style of one of those brilliant autistic artists. Although I was arriving by train, I’d somehow expected to sail majestically into the city on some form of overhead railway, taking in all the sights, the colours, the glistening River Mersey speckled with ferries. But actually the last fifteen minutes of the journey we went underground, seemingly riding through a blackened sandstone tunnel. I only knew it was sandstone because I’d read as much online and knew the city centre was built on a ridge of the stone. So much so that the Anglican Cathedral – which my new flat overlooked – was made from that very stone. I gathered together my Everest of bags and clipped the dog lead onto Michael.

  Yes, I had Michael.

  Sylvie had blackmailed me into minding him for her while she went to Canada. She had turned up on my doorstep in her dark glasses with Michael in a handbag, claiming I had ruined her life, and as I wasn’t accompanying her overseas, there was no one to look after her precious pooch. She claimed that if I didn’t take him, he’d have to go into kennels and would probably end up slaughtered and sold to Romanians for dog food.

  ‘It’s dog eat dog out there,’ I’d quipped. Though she hadn’t laughed.

  She then went on to threaten me that if I didn’t take him for the month, she would report me to the police for hitting her.

  ‘You hit me,’ I pointed out.

  ‘It’s your word against mine.’

  ‘I’m moving to Liverpool,’ I said.

  ‘So? They have dogs in Liverpool, don’t they?’

  She handed me the handbag. And then a bin bag.

  ‘What’s this?’ I hesitated to look inside.

  ‘Payment,’ she said, then returned to her driver.

  I looked in the bag. She’d given me her faux-fur poncho. As her car pulled away, I heard her call through the window, ‘It’s Alexander McQueen!’

  Which is how I came to be moving to Liverpool with Michael in tow.

  I’d been incredibly disappointed to discover that Mrs Kirkwood’s first name was not Francesca when I’d been given her bank details to transfer the rent. But then I reasoned that Francesca had been living in the flat over thirty years ago, so the likelihood of her still having links with it today were pretty slim, bordering on anorexic. Just because my mum and dad had lived in the same house for decades didn’t mean that everyone else had. Especially someone like Francesca, who wasn’t one of life’s copers. She’d not coped with me, so how would she have coped with paying rent, for instance? She may well have been evicted. Or repossessed. Or rehoused. I had no idea. She might even have died. I didn’t dwell on this possibility too long, of course – I had to keep the faith that she was still alive, and that somehow I was going to find her.

  But I couldn’t work out the history of the flat until I was there and I could pick Rose Kirkwood’s brains. I’d asked casually in an email if she owned lots of properties and she’d given me her response. So as she wasn’t some big property tycoon, maybe she might know the history of the flat. Only time would tell. As I hadn’t wanted to bombard her with questions via an email exchange, I would wait to see what she was like and ask her face to face. In my head, Rose Kirkwood was going to be the soothsayer who would unlock all the secrets from my past. She was going to be like one of those genealogy experts you saw on Who Do You Think You Are? I could just picture her in a dusty reading room in one of the records offices in Liverpool, lace gloves on, carefully turning the pages of an oversized book, showing me the history of Gambier Terrace and the movements of Francesca Boyle via the censuses over the years.

  ‘And this . . . Holly,’ she would say solemnly, ‘is where Francesca is today.’

  I would sit in hushed reverence and then say, ‘Son of a bitch!’ – just like Kim Cattrall did in hers. Though admittedly in hers she was discovering that her grandfather had been a bigamist. I’m not sure calling Francesca a son of a bitch, whatever she had done, was completely appropriate. I still said it very well. And my American accent was second to none, even if Cattrall was Canadian.

  ‘Son of a bitch.’ Yes, I was very good. And, I now realized, I had said it out loud. Others in the carriage were looking at me. I looked down at the dog, as if I’d been aiming the words at him, but he was curled up at my feet, fast asleep. And now not only did people in the carriage think I was American, they thought I was an American chihuahua abuser. I’d be lucky to get off this train without the RSPCA arresting me.

  I’d tried my best to travel as light as possible, but I still had a massive rucksack, my laptop bag and two holdalls – hard enough to carry at the best of times without having to keep one hand free to hold Michael’s lead. It was challenging to say the least to mount all four bags about my person. The rucksack in particular was ridiculously heavy, and rocked my centre of ba
lance. I was sure that at any point I would go toppling backwards like a hit skittle in a bowling alley. I yanked the lead and Michael jumped into action. From dreaming to trotting in the blink of an eye, bless him.

  ‘Come on, Michael!’ I chirruped as I tried to squeeze down the aisle. My attempt to get off the train first wasn’t welcomed by my fellow passengers in Coach H as I knocked each of them out with my mass of bags.

  ‘Sorry . . . sorry . . .’

  ‘Watch what you’re doing, girl!’

  ‘Ow! Jeez!’

  ‘So sorry, gosh!’

  Then I heard, ‘I thought she was a Yank?’

  Eventually I made it to the section between the carriages where the toilet was and watched through the door as the platform zoomed smoothly into view.

  ‘D’you need an ’and with your bags, love?’ a friendly voice behind me said. I turned round, but judged it wrong and promptly knocked the kind man to the ground with my Mr Blobby-sized rucksack.

  ‘Oh gosh, I’m so sorry!’

  ‘Fuckin’ ’ell, girl, what you got in there?’ he said, scrambling to his feet. ‘A dead body?’

  I leaned to take his hand to pull him back up, but as I leaned forward, the weight of my rucksack hit me like a ton of bricks and I fell on top of him, and this time we both fell to the ground. My face hit his as I lay on top of him.

  ‘Oh gosh, I’m really sorry about this.’ Even in the most embarrassing of situations I remained impeccably polite.

  ‘You’re all right, love – you had me at “sorry”.’ He winked. Our faces were so close his eyelashes grazed my cheeks.

  ‘This is so embarrassing. I think you’re going to have to roll me off.’

  ‘First time for everything . . .’

  The poor guy was only about twenty, a skinhead with swallows tattooed either side of his neck. He smelt of coal tar soap. Fortunately he laughed and pushed me to one side, but as I rolled off him, I got stuck again, as my rucksack wedged me between him and the toilet door. Other passengers were trying to leave the train now, but we were blocking their way.

  ‘Can you hurry up, please? We need to get off!’ called one antsy woman.

  Fortunately Mr Swallows jumped to my rescue.

  ‘All right, love, keep your hair on – we’re trying our hardest. She’s got loadsa bags.’

  ‘I know. Bag city or what?’ someone else commented.

  ‘Oh, this is ridiculous,’ sighed someone else.

  ‘If you don’t hurry up, we’ll be heading back to Euston at this rate!’ Someone else sounded irate.

  I dared not look at them. ‘I’m so sorry!’ I bleated as Mr Swallows made a gargantuan effort to squeeze past me and up. And managed. A few in the queue gave a tepid round of applause and Mr Swallows took my hand and yanked me to my feet. All the time Michael just sat by the door, watching, bewildered or bored, one of the two. Mr Swallows grabbed two of my holdalls, pushed the button by the door and it hissed open. A bit unsteady on my feet, I stepped gingerly off the train and felt my feet on terra Liverpoola for the first time.

  ‘Welcome to Liverpool,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ I said, and almost reached into my pocket to tip him.

  ‘Nah, you’re all right. Always wanted a posh bird on top of us.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not really posh. I’m just Southern.’

  ‘Nah, princess, you’re well posh. You’re like that Pippa Middleton. Shall I walk you to the cab rank or you getting the bus?’

  ‘Cab would be great.’

  ‘Cushty.’

  And on we walked.

  ‘You’re very kind,’ I said, though if I’m honest, I was slightly fearful this was all a ruse and he was about to sprint off with my luggage. I felt Michael stop, the lead getting taut, and I looked to see him taking a pee on the platform.

  ‘Oh God,’ I said, hoping no one would see.

  Mr Swallows was in hysterics. ‘Ah well, when you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go. What’s his name?’

  ‘Michael. Long Story.’ And then I quipped, ‘But I call him Michael for short.’

  To which he burst out laughing again. Gosh, he was easily amused. And I was easily flattered.

  When we eventually headed to the ticket barrier, he asked me what I was doing in this fair city and I found myself garbling, unnecessarily, about how I was trying to trace my birth mother and how I was moving into the flat where I was born and what an exciting adventure I was embarking on. Why was I even telling this virtual stranger this? His eyes widened and he did a bit of ‘gee whiz’ whistling out of the side of his mouth.

  ‘Fair play to you, girl. Fate honours the brave an’ all that.’

  There wasn’t actually a ticket barrier at the end of the concourse, just a partition in a glass wall, behind which lots of relatives, lovers, friends stood waiting for the new arrivals. I instantly appraised every woman over forty to see if they looked like me. I was so busy searching the faces of every passer-by that I almost didn’t clock the view of the skyline as we bypassed the main pedestrian entrance. The sky was bright white; I had to squint to see the lollipop tower, which actually didn’t look like a lollipop at all.

  ‘What’s at the top of that tower?’ I asked, pointing.

  ‘City FM. Local radio station,’ Mr Swallows said. ‘Think it used to be a restaurant too. Span round while you were eating. Dunno if it still is, like. This way,’ Mr Swallows said, and nodded left.

  I followed. The noise of the place was deafening, echoing around this cavernous space. We passed a bronze statue of an alarming-looking man with a feather duster – Ken Dodd, Mr Swallows explained – a coffee stand, a newsagent’s, before arriving at a sweep of pavement that was still indoors where people were queuing for cabs.

  ‘Can I give you a lift anywhere?’ I thought it was the least I could do.

  ‘Nah, you’re all right, girl. I’m going the wrong way.’

  Well, I really hoped that I wasn’t going the wrong way. For all I knew, Francesca might have left Liverpool and gone to live somewhere else. For all I knew, she could have been living in the flat beneath me in Kentish Town, practising her scales till all hours.

  ‘What’s your ma’s name?’ he asked.

  Gosh, thinking about it, Mr Swallows could be . . . my brother or something.

  ‘Francesca. Francesca Boyle.’

  He nodded, impressed. ‘Posh, laa.’

  ‘What does “laa” mean? Sorry . . .’

  ‘Lad. Not that I think you look like a bloke.’

  ‘I see.’

  And I said it to myself in my head. Laa.

  ‘Sorry. Never heard of her,’ he was saying. Suddenly, as Mr Swallows placed my holdalls on the ground and he gave Michael a friendly tap on the head, I didn’t want him to go. In the five minutes we’d spent together he’d shown me great kindness, and I knew that as soon as he’d gone, I’d be back on this scary adventure alone.

  ‘I really appreciate your kindness. Thank you so much,’ I said.

  He rubbed my arm. ‘Well, good luck, darlin’. I hope you find what you come looking for an’ all that.’

  ‘Me too.’ I wasn’t sure what else to say, but he could see that I was wary about something.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes. Fine,’ I replied, sounding anything but.

  ‘Tell you what, love. I’ll give you me mobile number, yeah? You give us a shout if you fancy a guided tour.’

  I was thrilled, but my face clearly didn’t convey that.

  ‘I’m not a rapist.’

  ‘God, no. I know you’re not.’ Well, I didn’t, but still. ‘That’d be great.’

  And so we did that familiar dance of ‘You give me your number and I’ll text you. Then you’ll have my number’ and ‘What’s your name so I can put it in my phone?’ and ‘What shall I put you in my phone under?’ and so on.

  Iggy. His name was Iggy.

  ‘Wow, that’s an unusual name.’

  ‘Short for Ignatius. Good Catholic lad!’r />
  I gave a rather dirty, ironic chuckle. And then realized he had described himself as a lad. Oh heavens, was I flirting with a twenty-year-old? And oh no, did he think I was some kind of cougar, or worse still that I was a MILF? Mind you, he had addressed me as ‘girl’ most of the time.

  Of course, this could all still have been a ruse. He could still swipe away my bags and run for it.

  Instead he saluted me. ‘See you, babe!’ he winked.

  ‘See you, laa!’ I winked back, causing great mirth. And then I watched him walk out onto the street, into the light. As he walked, he tucked his left hand into the waist of his baggy jogging bottoms. He had a swagger to his walk, a confidence, like he owned the streets. He sort of lolloped as he walked; there was something of the silverback about him. And just before he turned from view, he looked back, saluted me again and then disappeared into the day.

  The chugging black cab swept me up a hill away from the station and I took in its road name: Mount Pleasant, though there was very little pleasant about it with its takeaway shops and overall greyness. The greyness gave way to some more appropriately pleasant Edwardian terraces further up, and then I caught my breath as I glimpsed Paddy’s Wigwam for the first time. This was the name given to the Metropolitan Cathedral by the locals, and it was a startling, if surreal example of 1960s architecture – a brutal, fat wigwam of glass with a crown of thorns at the top. But I didn’t glimpse it for long, as the driver swung right and took me into Hope Street. My heart was beating faster now as I was so familiar with these streets from my internet searches. We passed the Everyman Theatre on the left, which was being completely renovated – it was all hoardings and overhead cranes – and I strained my neck to see up ahead, because I knew that Hope Street linked both cathedrals. I knew that soon I would be home.

  I looked at the houses and shops and pavements around me and tried to picture Francesca walking them, pregnant with me; maybe she even took me out as a baby in my pram around here. If only I knew what she looked like, it would make the image so much better. I imagined myself at sixteen, assuming that’s what she’d been, pushing a second-hand pram around, baby Holly asleep below her.