The Girl Who Just Appeared

by Jonathan Harvey

  I nodded. ‘Yes. I suppose it does. A bit.’

  It didn’t really, though it was quite an imposing edifice with its pillars. But there was only so long I could look at a building and imagine someone having lived there and what they got up to without actually stepping inside. For a minute I imagined John strumming a guitar and calling to a flatmate, ‘Hey! Think I’ve just worked out the bridge for “Imagine”!’ . . . but I knew this was clutching at straws. Iggy, however, was transfixed, hands down the front of his pants again, a mesmeric glint in his eye.

  ‘Have you ever been inside?’ I ventured.

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t wanna mess with the magic,’ he replied, and tapped the side of his head. ‘Coz if I seen it now, it wouldn’t be like what it was like when he was there. Sometimes what’s in your head’s, like . . . better than what it actually is.’

  Well, I could identify with that, as I thought about the new decor in 32B Gambier Terrace. A huge part of me preferred it in my imagination. Why hadn’t it been kept as a museum piece, like Jax’s payphone?

  ‘It’s like there’s his childhood home,’ he continued, ‘the National Trust own it now and they’ve done it all up to look just like it would’ve done when he was a kid. You can go round it, on a day trip. But how do they know? How do they know what it was like? It’s only what they think it was like. It’s only, like . . . pretend.’

  There was real sadness in the way he was speaking.

  ‘So I just prefer to make it up in me head. It’s better then. I like to stand outside here, or outside the other place, and just see it all in front of me. And that’s better than anything anyone else makes up. D’you know what I mean?’

  I didn’t fully, but it did somehow make sense.

  From Percy Street we walked down the hill again and then snaked our way through some backstreets to a minuscule pub called Ye Cracke, where Iggy allowed me to treat him to a pint of bitter while I had a half of Guinness. Then he proceeded to tell me how John Lennon used to drink in here and how, once, he swam on the floor in some spilt beer.

  The image was surreal. A grown man pretending to do the breaststroke on the floor of a spit-and-sawdust pub in a puddle of ale. It must have been like performance art. Iggy went on to tell me that his grandmother had been one of the screaming schoolgirls who used to slink off from lessons and go to the Cavern Club to see the Beatles play. How all she ever talked about was her love of the band. Iggy had never known his granddad, or his parents for that matter (I didn’t ask why – it felt impolite when he offered up the facts so barely) and so for a long time he used to fantasize that John Lennon was actually his granddad, which is why he’d always taken an interest in his childhood as well as his songs. Growing up, his gran had had a framed photo of Lennon over the mantelpiece as if he was the head of the family. They observed a three-minute silence on the anniversary of his murder each year. Some might have thought this erred on the bonkers, but I couldn’t help but think . . .

  That sounds a bit like me.

  Here I was, going in search of who and where I came from, going in search of an island I could call home. Being brought up by people who weren’t really mine. Idolizing an image, a fantasy maybe, of who my mother could have been. And then visiting the place of my birth. Being disappointed that so much had changed in thirty-odd years. Maybe I too should have just stuck with standing outside and imagining. Maybe that meant there would be less heartache in the long run.

  Maybe Iggy had been sent to me by the same guardian angels who secured the flat for me, as a cautionary tale. There was another way to go. Stand outside and pretend. Imagine. The fantasy was always better than the reality.

  But somehow I knew standing outside and imagining was never going to be enough for me. Fantasy would not suffice. I craved cold, hard reality.

  ‘Iggy?’

  ‘Yeah, Pips?’

  ‘How do I get to Belle Vale?’

  Twenty-four hours later I was standing outside Perm Suspect and trying to imagine what it would be like inside. The windows were frosted and had the shop name written across them in transparent glass, like someone had scratched on the logo. I imagined behind it a cornucopia of kitsch, possibly because I’d been up close and personal with Alan’s sheepskin jacket. I saw all the dryers and curlers being a lurid pink, like the vision at the mall. And then I saw Rose gliding in with a 1980s Joan Collins bouffant for some reason. Well, that reason would be the sheepskin coat again. Anyone who loved a man who wore a jacket like that surely had to have some level of kitsch about them. I bet she wore Anaïs Anaïs and knew all the dance moves to Saturday Night Fever.

  I was wrong. On all counts. The decor of the salon was understated, subdued. The dark polished wooden floors were almost identical to the ones in my flat, and there was a distinct overuse of granite surfaces. ‘Relaxing’ pan-pipe music floated quietly in from some speakers in the ceiling, which jarred slightly with the attempt at classy, but other than that I was impressed. I waited a few moments on a low, grey Fifties settee while flicking through a Homes and Gardens magazine from a coffee table before me as the various stylists and receptionists flitted around in matching black Japanese dresses. And then, from behind a beaded curtain, she appeared.

  Rose Kirkwood was a lot more beautiful than I had imagined her in my head. She was immaculately presented, which was reassuring as she was about to style my hair. She was quite tall, though very slim, and she had a poker-straight long, black bob that suited the Japanese look perfectly. She also had so much make-up on she could have passed for a geisha. She extended a hand and told me it was a pleasure to meet me. She had an odd accent, like that of someone who had been to elocution lessons to lose theirs but hadn’t quite succeeded. She showed me to my seat and wondered if I wanted to look through any of her styling catalogues with her, which is when I told her I only wanted a wash and blow-dry. She didn’t seem to mind. And it was then that I realized there was a calm, icy detachment about Rose Kirkwood that made me wonder if I had overstepped the mark here. Had the invitation to get my hair done just been made out of politeness, with no expectation of me taking it up? That’s certainly how I started to feel: for a hairdresser, she was very low on small talk. If I said something, she would respond politely, but she never instigated a conversation, and seemed more comfortable with silence than without.

  She brushed my hair for what felt like an age, as if familiarizing herself with what she was about to mould, while we waited for a sink to become free for my wash. As a result I found myself chatting on, more and more, as if to make up for her reluctance to engage. And then, and I don’t know if it was out of a desire to kick some life into her or to shock her or just to get some reaction from her, I blurted out the real reason I had come to Liverpool. I told her about being adopted, and the birth certificate, and the address, and the real reason for being at 32B Gambier Terrace. And it worked – she looked suitably stunned. She stared at me in the mirror, our eyes meeting.

  Eventually she said, ‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Holly.’

  And I smiled back. At last, some emotion from the Japanese doll.

  ‘What was her name again? Your mother?’ she said.

  And I told her, again.

  She thought for a while, then shook her head. ‘Sorry. Wish I could help, but . . .’

  ‘How long have you had the flat?’

  ‘About ten years.’

  ‘Who had it before you?’

  She stumbled a bit around her words. ‘Well, some kind of . . . letting agency.’

  ‘So not Francesca Boyle?’

  ‘No. Sorry, love,’ and with that she looked around the salon and we both saw that a sink was finally free. ‘Jasmine? Can you wash Holly’s hair for me? Thanks.’

  I went to the sinks and sat with my back to one as Jasmine lowered me down, my neck reaching into the U-shape of the basin. As my head lowered, I saw Rose disappear through the beaded curtain.

  When she reappeared to dry my hair and style it so that it looked
almost identical to how it had when I had walked in, Rose yet again felt no need to engage in any chit-chat. She was professional, she wasn’t a bad stylist, but her detachment was very unnerving. When eventually she had finished and I had eulogized about her prowess with a hairdryer, she took me to the counter to pay.

  As I did, I said, ‘If you can think of anything, like the name of the previous landlord, it’d be really helpful. I’m going to be looking it all up on censuses and things, but . . . you know.’

  ‘Of course.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll look through my paperwork tonight. I must have something for you.’

  I nodded, grateful. She was beginning to become human. It was then that I noticed her eyeshadow had changed. I was sure that when I had come into the shop, it was midnight blue. And now it was definitely green. Why had she changed it? And when?

  ‘I’m really sorry to hear what you’ve been through, Holly. I am, you know. And I will try and help you.’

  Yet again something wasn’t right. It was like she was reading the lines from a cue card, like she didn’t quite own them.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, as she handed me back my credit card. ‘And thanks again for the do.’

  She smiled. ‘You’re really pretty.’

  And that time she sounded genuine.

  Something about my encounter with Rose had unnerved me. When I got back to the flat, I felt crushed. I started to wonder if there was more to her than met the eye. I started to feel she was in fact hiding something from me. I opened a bottle of wine and poured myself a glass, which was when I realized that Michael hadn’t come and greeted me on my return. I went in search of him. He was in his now usual hiding place of the airing cupboard. He was fast asleep, so I left him there and paced the flat, sipping at my wine. I felt lost. Now I had absolutely no plans for the rest of my life. My busy two-day stretch of guided tours and hairdos had come to an end. What did I have to look forward to? Nothing.

  Alan had left the Wi-Fi details on a card near the router. I decided to log on to the internet on my laptop and see where I might go in Liverpool to look at censuses or certificates. I wanted someone with white lacy gloves to open huge tomes and direct me to magical information about my past. Just like they did on the television. But try as I might, I just couldn’t get the computer to log on.

  Oh well. I would call Alan or Rose tomorrow and ask them if they might be able to help.

  I put the television on and channel-surfed for a bit. I felt a buzz of excitement when I saw an advert for the new series of Hell Hole. It was one of my favourite shows, my guilty pleasure. Each year fifteen people were incarcerated in a prison-style TV studio while hidden cameras filmed them twenty-four hours a day. Their petty squabbles, rows, friendships, affairs gripped me, and each day they were set hideous tasks to do by the telephone-voting public. As it was on television late at night, when I got in from work, and with my complete lack of social life, I didn’t dare admit it but the young folk of Hell Hole became my virtual friends for the six-week run. I made a mental note to make sure I was home for the launch show.

  I switched off the telly and mooched from room to room. I knelt on my bed and looked out of the window. An odd domed building hit the skyline from my right. I would have to try and find out what that was. Ahead, more houses in brown and yellow brick. This area had clearly been very well-to-do in the past.

  I had thought I would find some peace, some happiness coming here. Now I was just experiencing that all too familiar feeling of being hollow. Maybe I needed to eat. I went to the fridge and realized I had only bought thus far a couple of bottles of wine and half a dozen eggs. I located a pan and poached one of the eggs, badly.

  Poached eggs and wine. Sylvie’s favourite square meal.

  ‘Good for the figure, darling,’ I could hear her say.

  I wondered what she was doing now. I wondered if she was wowing an audience of ageing gay men in Vancouver with ‘Misunderstood Queen’. Bizarrely, in that moment, I missed her.

  Oh, this really would not do. I returned to the airing cupboard to wake Michael.

  ‘Come on, you,’ I told him. ‘The least you could do is give me a hug.’ And then I added, for extra effect, ‘I’m an orphan.’

  I chuckled. Possibly the effects of a glass of wine on an almost empty stomach. I tickled Michael’s chin and he woke instantly. He stretched a bit and then happily stood and pushed past me out of the cupboard. I flattened down the tea towels that made his makeshift bed. As I did, I felt the floorboard underneath wobble. I pulled up the towels and saw that one of the boards had risen up a bit. I pushed it back into its place, but it slipped instead to one side, revealing a hole underneath the floor. A picture of a woman’s face was looking back at me. Intrigued, I put my hand into the hole and felt around. In the hole beneath the boards was a tin. I put my other hand in and slowly pulled it out. It was a very dusty biscuit tin. On the front, once I’d blown off some more dust, was a picture of a smiling woman in Welsh costume playing a harp. I shook the tin. Something fluttered inside. I brought the tin into the living room and placed it on the couch next to me. Michael, lazy as ever, was now asleep on an armchair. I wiped the lid of the tin with my sleeve and then slowly prised it off. A light spray of dust blew up into the air. It made me cough. I peered inside. There I could see a pile of papers. They had yellowed with age, but the top one was covered with some neat handwriting. In turquoise ink I read:

  She’s always out there earning and it does my head in.

  Coz when she’s out there earning he always comes round. I don’t even like ritin his name. He don’t even ring doorbell coz he’s got a key so I hear the door go and I’m like panickin.

  I’m like. What you want ____?

  And he’s like. You know what I want Daz.

  He’s the only one who calls us Daz and even that gets on my tits.

  I’m like. You can’t have it ____.

  And he’s like. Fine. I’ll wait for your Robbie to get in.

  I’m like. Piss off ____ you big nonce.

  And he’s like. Piss of yourself Daz. Have you seen your Robbie lately? He’s really grown up.

  So I’m like. All right. And we go and get in his car.

  I felt excited. Fascinated and excited. Who had written this? When? It looked like the box had been there for ages. Years. I looked under the top sheet and saw there were reams and reams of paper, each covered with the same neat scrawl.

  It felt impolite reading it. Maybe I shouldn’t, I thought. The old me might not have. Maybe I should call Rose and tell her. This was her flat after all. But then I had decided to become a yes-woman. A yes-woman would have a good old nose and read on.

  But I couldn’t, could I?

  I decided to take Michael for a walk. On my walk I would decide what to do.

  Obviously, on my walk curiosity got the better of me and I decided that I would spend the evening reading the papers. I was quite excited when I returned to the flat, but just at that moment my mobile started ringing. It was a local number I didn’t recognize.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, Holly. It’s Rose.’

  ‘Oh, hi, Rose.’

  What did she want?

  ‘I was wondering if you could meet me tomorrow. By the Antony Gormley statues on Waterloo Beach.’

  Where?

  ‘Er . . . OK. Let me just write that down.’ I grabbed a pen from my bag and wrote on the top of a newspaper. ‘Sorry – what was it again?’

  ‘What was what?’

  ‘Where you want to meet.’

  ‘The statues. Antony Gormley. Waterloo Beach.’

  ‘OK.’

  I scrawled it across the top of the paper. ‘Why?’ I asked. Maybe she thought we were going to be friends. Well, if this was the case, she had gone an odd way of going about it at the salon.

  ‘Well, the thing is . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I know Francesca Boyle.’

  I froze.

  She continued, ‘I can take you to her.
’

  And for a moment the world seemed to stop turning.

  Then I heard the operatic voice again. The same brief squeal. It seemed to be coming from heaven.

  DARREN

  She’s always out there earning and it does my head in.

  Coz when she’s out there earning he always comes round. I don’t even like ritin his name. He don’t even ring doorbell coz he’s got a key so I hear the door go and I’m like panickin.

  I’m like. What you want ____?

  And he’s like. You know what I want Daz.

  He’s the only one who calls us Daz and even that gets on my tits.

  I’m like. You can’t have it ____.

  And he’s like. Fine. I’ll wait for your Robbie to get in. I’m like. Piss off ____ you big nonce.

  And he’s like. Piss of yourself Daz. Have you seen your Robbie lately? He’s really grown up.

  So I’m like. All right. And we go and get in his car.

  Coz he’s a copper he knows where to go where you don’t get caught. Favourite at the moments down by the Cazzy. I don’t even wanna think bout what he does coz it hurts but I try an zone out an look at the Mersey and think of our Robbie coz he’s probably in by now and he’s doing his homework or something and if I wasn’t doing this Robbie would be and it’s not fair on him. Today he was doing the front bit when I seen some bizzy car come into the car park.

  I’m not arsed if he gets caught. But I am arsed if I do so I’m like. ____ there’s a bizzy car coming. So he sits up and goes Don’t call it a bizzy car you tit.

  The bizzy car comes over coz he’s in a unmarked one. It pulls over and arlarse winds down his window and he’s like. Don’t worry. Plain clothes.

  And he flashes them his badge or whatever it is. I don’t look.

  And the other ones like. Who’s that?

  And this ones like. Grass mate.

  And I wanna go. Nah I’m no grass. I’m sat here with me kex halfway round me knees but the other ones not arsed and drives off.