Out on the street, he pointed further down the road.
‘Down there, towards the sun. You cannot miss. April live in the little house beside the church with the green windows.’
‘That’s her address?’
‘Yes. Little house beside church with green windows.’
‘Thank you very much.’
I walked towards the sun. It seemed to be nestling right at the end of this narrow lane, settling on the ground, about to go to sleep. I’m not sure what I was expecting to find at the end of the lane – possibly a little house beside a church with green windows. And I did indeed find that. But . . . I suppose I didn’t expect it to be so easy.
I saw the church. I passed.
I saw a green window. I stopped.
A quaint little white house with green shuttered windows looked out onto the ocean. I could have dived from it into the water. And outside the house, on a patio the size of a wheelbarrow, sat two women in deckchairs. One was an older woman in a massive beekeeper-style sun hat; the other, sporting a cap, was unmistakably her.
It took her a few seconds to register who I was. At first she smiled, the sort of lazy smile you probably give a stranger in a quiet corner of paradise like this. But then the smile relaxed. The face tightened. And she sat bolt upright in her chair.
‘Hello, Rose,’ I said, and I placed the biscuit tin on the patio wall.
I saw her head lower and she took her sunglasses off to look at it. She stared at it for a long time, her face slowly paling. As if in a series of time-lapse photographs.
‘I think we need to talk.’
FIFTEEN
Part of me wanted her to tell me I was wrong. Part of me wanted her to say, ‘No, you’re mad. You have put two and two together and come up with sixty-five, you silly girl.’ Another part wanted confirmation that I wasn’t going completely bonkers. As I sat in this room that looked like it had been sculpted from icing on a Christmas cake, a fan whirring so that wisps of Rose’s hair kept lapping at her face, the smell of fresh coffee steaming in in waves, I wanted her to tell me the contents of the biscuit tin were just a story, someone’s twisted game of let’s pretend. But I knew this wasn’t going to happen. It would have been hard to put into words how I was feeling, though I did try.
I talked to myself.
How are you feeling?
Because, to be honest, I had never felt like this before in my life.
I tried, but I couldn’t.
Sitting before me was Rose. A woman. A rather beautiful woman in her own way but a woman nonetheless. Composed, serene almost, even if her eyes were those of someone standing before a firing squad.
It couldn’t be true.
But it was true.
How are you feeling?
I’m feeling I might be wrong. Because this person before me is definitely a woman.
I had been so measured, controlled, on the journey over, but now that I was sat in the little house beside the church with the green windows, anxiety simmered inside me. Soon it would give way to hysteria. The sort that makes you want to do something inappropriate. Like when Michael Jackson died. I had been working late for Sylvie and her wig mistress had called and gasped it to me quite dramatically.
‘Jacko’s toast.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Michael Jackson’s dead.’
I’d left a silence and then couldn’t help myself. I had burst out laughing. A real shriek of a laugh. It hadn’t lasted long, but it had punctured the silence and caused the wig woman to gasp anew. I had then apologized. It wasn’t that I found the death of a celebrity funny particularly; it was just so shocking, something I had never envisaged hearing, that it winded me. And that’s how I’d responded. And that’s how I felt now, like I could burst into fits of giggles at any second. I couldn’t sit still. I played with my dress. I juddered in my seat. A fist of nerves seemed to be squeezing tight on my stomach, my heart, all my major organs, so firm that my eyes might pop out of my head. I had to calm myself. I had to control this. I had heard that deep breathing was good for panic attacks, so I took in big gasps of air and then blew them out. One after the other. And if I had looked frightened, then Rose looked ten times worse. She sat stock still, hands clasped in her lap, a nun in prayer. And all the time she stared at the tin I had placed on the coffee table. April had suggested we move inside to get some privacy. I had hurried in here. Rose had followed slowly, as if on autopilot. What was the privacy needed for? Because I was about to burst into hysterics?
How are you feeling?
Hysterical.
‘Where did you get that?’ Her voice was a quiet monotone. How did she remain so calm?
‘It was under the floorboards. In the airing cupboard. In the flat.’
Rose’s eyes widened, then zigzagged round the room. This was quite unnerving, but it looked like she was trying to piece memories together. Memories that might have led to it being put there.
‘So how did you find it?’
‘The dog knocked the floorboard out, I think. I saw it.’
‘You’ve read it,’ Rose added. And although it wasn’t a question, I nodded anyway. ‘How much is there?’
‘It finishes when you take me to Myrtle Street. Then a letter from Helen Chance.’
She nodded.
‘What was in Myrtle Street?’
She said something, but it was practically a murmur.
‘Sorry?’
‘Children’s hospital.’ She had to force that out. Her eyes were red. One tear fell from her right eye. She immediately wiped it with a now quivering hand.
‘I’m so sorry.’ She said it like someone was sucking the air from her stomach and it was affecting her speech. Like she was having lipo at the same time as being made to have an important conversation.
‘Why did you tell me Darren was dead?’
‘Well, he is in a way.’
‘But you’re Darren.’
‘I’m Rose. A very long time ago I was Darren. But I didn’t say he was dead. I said he was no more. And that’s certainly the truth.’
I was right. She wasn’t denying this. I had put two and two together and been correct. I felt the iron fist within start to release its grasp. My breathing became calmer.
‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth?’
From somewhere a shriek came. Loud. Abrupt. Arresting. It came from Rose. She clutched her stomach as if I’d punched her. I guess it was her Michael Jackson moment.
‘Why?’ I repeated.
‘You don’t know how lucky you were getting out of that flat, getting away from her. From all of us. Honest to God, Holly.’
‘I know, but why?’
‘How? How would I tell you? You come looking for your mother, your past, and you find that . . . that your father’s now a woman? There’s one for Jeremy Kyle, Jesus.’ She was fiery, aggressive, but I would not let her put me in my place. I was angry too.
‘You were scared of me rejecting you?’
‘Of course I was scared of that, but I was trying to protect you too.’
‘Do I seem like the sort of person who’d be that superficial?’
‘Oh, you’d be surprised.’
‘I know it can’t be easy to talk about Darren, but Darren is part of me.’
No response. She seemed frozen. I leaned forward and tapped the tin with my finger.
‘So, Frankie was a prostitute.’
‘Frankie was a monster,’ she barked. ‘I was mostly trying to protect you from that. So it worked out quite well she’s doolally tap. You’d think she’s a nice, mild-mannered old biddy. You’d think she’s your mum. She can’t say anything to hurt you. You’d just think maybe the time wasn’t right, unmarried mum, leave it at that. End of story.’
‘But of course it didn’t work out like that.’
‘No.’
‘And the truth was a bit . . . more complicated. Darker.’
‘A bit? It was bloody midnight.’
And she shivered. Lik
e a ghost had caressed her shoulder and she had to shake it off.
‘What was his name?’
‘Who?’
‘The man who abused you.’
The eyes flickered. I wondered if she was wearing false eyelashes. They were certainly lustrous enough.
‘You don’t use his name in there.’
‘It’s not me; it was Darren. And it was a lifetime ago.’
‘Yes, I know. My lifetime.’
She stood up. She went and stood in front of the fan in the corner, pushing her head down in front of it. Well, if she had been wearing a wig, it would certainly have blown off now. It didn’t.
‘The man you killed.’
Where was my tenacity coming from? Was I mimicking courtroom dramas I’d seen? Was I the prosecution?
I put it to you, Rose Kirkwood, that on the night of blah, blah, blah you did take a heavy pan, possibly a Le Creuset, though I’m not sure prostitutes in Liverpool had them in the early 1980s, and you did . . .
She didn’t reply. She just stood in front of the fan for what seemed like forever.
‘Rose, I’m sorry. I want you to know I don’t judge you for what you did. You acted in self-defence.’
She chuckled softly. She did – she actually did a sort of laughing noise. Now that was appropriate.
‘I also want you to know I won’t tell anyone. How can I? I don’t even know his name.’
She turned and looked at me.
‘What does it matter to you what his name was? He’s got nothing to do with you. With your paternity.’
‘Because you’re my dad and you killed him.’
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘Well, what am I supposed to call you? You’re not my mother. You didn’t give birth to me. Someone called Samantha did. Where is she?’
‘I don’t know. And that’s the truth. We lost touch.’
I had guessed as much.
‘I never thought I’d see you again. You were the only thing that linked us.’
She returned to sit opposite me.
‘She didn’t seem that bothered about giving me up.’
‘I think she only had you because she was too terrified that her parents would find out she’d had an abortion.’
OK, that hurt.
‘Sorry.’
‘No. The truth is good, no matter how painful.’
‘And of course Frankie gave her money. I thought she was a bit greedy about all that if I’m honest.’
‘And her parents didn’t twig she was pregnant?’
Rose shook her head. I knew I could believe that, even if it was odd. The number of people who’d thought I was pregnant over the years when I wasn’t, surely it had to work the other way round as well.
‘What happened when you took me to Myrtle Street?’
Questions, questions, questions. When of course what I really wanted to ask was, ‘How come you’re a bloody woman?’
But I felt that was impolite. And Ted and Jean had brought me up to be anything but that. And rightly so.
I also thought that that would come out naturally. At some point. I could wait.
‘I took you into their casualty department. I handed you over to a nurse. I gave them your name and address. And told them exactly what had happened. Then I left you there. The next time I saw you was this year. When you walked into the salon.’
‘What was wrong with me?’
‘I’ve no idea, but I imagine a broken arm. It was a really odd shape.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘The police paid a visit. And social services. Frankie denied it. It went to court. Social services kept you. Frankie didn’t put up a fight.’
‘Well, I’d served my purpose.’
‘Exactly. They took her to court. She didn’t do any time. All probation. She was fine. But she never forgave me. It was after the police paid their first visit that my diary went missing. I knew what was in it. I knew why she wanted it.’
‘Why?’
‘So she had something over me.’
‘The murder?’
‘She used it to blackmail me into sticking up for her buying you off Sammi. And then she used it to punish me with.’
‘But she didn’t. She left it under the floorboards. All these years.’
Silence. Outside I could hear voices. April chatting to someone, a passer-by probably. Being so close to the street, it was inevitable, I guessed. Maybe they were discussing the view. Maybe it was someone asking directions.
‘Didn’t she?’
Rose slowly shook her head. ‘For Frankie, revenge was a dish best served lukewarm.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Suddenly she said, ‘Gary. Gary Roberts.’
I didn’t know what she meant.
‘Such a normal name. For one so unusual.’
Then she looked at me.
‘That was his name?’
She nodded.
‘Thank you.’
‘I thought Frankie was relieved you’d gone somewhere else. One less brat to feed and clothe. Not that she did much of either. And she was. But I’d crossed a line. I’d got her into trouble and she needed payback.’
‘What did she do?’
‘A month or so later I was arrested.’
I knew what was coming. My heart went icy. It was like my blood froze.
‘For . . .’
‘For the murder of Gary Roberts. Anonymous tip-off to the police. I was nicked and Woody was nicked. She knew exactly where they’d buried him. We didn’t stand a chance.’
‘You went to . . . prison?’
She nodded. ‘I mean, there wasn’t much evidence. I think the coppers thought it was a wind-up at first, but I sang like a fucking canary once they questioned me. Maybe Frankie wasn’t expecting that. Maybe she just wanted to put the frighteners on me. I don’t know. But I felt so guilty about what I’d done. It didn’t take long for it to all come out.’
‘But it was self-defence.’
‘I still killed him. Manslaughter. My word against a dead man’s. A dead policeman’s no less. The judge admitted he’d probably fiddled with me. He actually used that word, “fiddled”. I don’t call habitual rape and abuse “fiddling”. But the prosecution made it sound like I was so angry with him, I planned his murder, et cetera.’
Et cetera. It seemed so quaint that she actually said it, even if what she was describing was far from it.
‘How long did you get?’
‘Six years. Did three.’
‘My God, that’s terrible, Rose. And . . . presumably you were in a male prison.’
‘I was still presenting as male, yes.’
I looked at her, really looked at her, like I was seeing her for the first time. I wanted to immediately see clues I’d not seen before. Big hands, Adam’s apple, dodgy wig. I didn’t. The woman I had first met in Liverpool had been so heavily made up, disguised, but here in a sunny country she was make-up free, clear-skinned, fresh-faced. She had a natural beauty. I just couldn’t see her ever having been a Darren.
‘What happened to Woody?’
‘Not guilty. No evidence.’
‘Robert?’ I said, opening up the floor for more discussion.
As soon as I said his name, her body language changed. It was the moment in a Disney film where the cartoon came to life, where black-and-white Kansas turned to technicolor Oz. She talked like a proud parent of how he was now living in America, happily married with three children, doing some job in computers and graphic design that she didn’t completely understand. Her joy when talking was that of a proud mother’s and I realized with a jolt that I wanted her to talk like this about me. She said things had been fractured for a while, as he hadn’t understood Rose’s decision to become a woman. He thought that prison had sent her mad, and he had taken a long time to come to terms with what happened to Gary Roberts and how that had been kept from him. But things were getting better year by year, though she admittedly hadn’t seen him for
five years. She said she would forward me photographs of him once we were back home.
‘Though you’ve already seen him.’ She pointed out.
I had? ‘Oh. The boy in the photo? By your bedside?’
She nodded.
This promise of future contact made me at once thrilled but also irritated. Did she not have to prove she was worthy of being in my life?
Why was I being so hard on her?
I tried not to think about it. The prosecution returned.
‘How did you become Rose?’
She swallowed. ‘It’s quite hard to talk about.’
Suddenly April breezed through the room. ‘I’m sure it’s hard for Holly too, Rose. How about I fix you both some drinks? Did you arrive today, Holly? You must be exhausted.’
‘I did, yes. I’m OK, but I’d love some water.’
‘Coming right up. Rose?’
‘Water.’
And with that April breezed out of the room as quickly as she had breezed in, her delicate snow-leopard-print kaftan billowing behind her.
Darren had been right. She was incredibly glamorous. One of those old broads who must have spent hours in the hairdresser’s each day having their chignon perfected. I returned my gaze to Rose.
She took a while to start speaking, but once she started, it was like she couldn’t stop. Her words were slow and faltering to begin with, but as her confidence grew, and her throat, dry with nerves, was lubricated by April’s jug of lemon water, she became more fluent. This was a language she knew, but one she possibly didn’t articulate that often out loud.
Prison was the making of me, in many ways. I suddenly had a routine. I was put in a wing for guys who were vulnerable because I obviously seemed so bloody anxious and like I couldn’t look after myself. I got quite a bit of respect in there, though – word got round that I’d killed a copper. Routine suited me, and the isolation gave me time to think about what I wanted for the rest of my life. And I knew. I knew I wanted to be Rose. I knew that as Darren I would continue to make poor choices and be a victim because I didn’t feel right. The only times I felt right was when I was Lucy. I told the prison chaplain. He’d taken me under his wing. Looking back, I think he fancied me a bit, but probably didn’t even realize it himself. So I worked up the courage to tell him. And his response was I was possessed. I wasn’t bothered. I thought, Well, I’m happy to be possessed with this strong desire to do something, to be someone, because it felt like the first positive thing that had ever been in my life.
The Girl Who Just Appeared Page 29
