The Girl from Lace Island

by Joanna Rees

  Jess sat down next to her mother, stifling a smile. She liked her blunt manner.

  Agent Stone cleared his voice. ‘You said in your statement to the police on Lace Island that the shipments were funded by Adam Lonegan.’

  Jess saw Leila stiffen at the mention of his name. Who was Adam Lonegan? she wondered. Leila sat ramrod-straight on the chair, all jovial talk of breakfast forgotten.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You mean Senator Lonegan?’

  ‘He’s rich and American. I heard he was in politics, yes.’

  Agent Stone shifted uncomfortably. ‘Because these are very serious allegations you’ve made, Leila. And he’s denied any involvement with Lace Island. We’ve looked into it and nothing we’ve been able to find can link him with any of the accusations you’ve made. In fact, there’s no paperwork to link him to Lace Island at all.’

  ‘But I was there,’ Leila protested, standing up and banging her fist on the table, making Stone jump. ‘I saw the papers. He signed the deal with Chan, my stepfather, to make it possible for the shipments to go to New Orleans. He knows everything about Lace Island. It’s why he’s so rich.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s the same Adam Lonegan?’ Agent Trebitz asked. ‘Because his reputation in the US is faultless.’

  He sounded sceptical, as if perhaps Leila was making this all up, and Jess saw Leila’s look darken into a furious scowl. This was clearly something very important to her.

  ‘Er, excuse me for interrupting,’ Jess said, confused, ‘but who is this guy you’re talking about?’

  Leila took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. Then she sat down heavily on the chair and looked at the floor.

  ‘Leila?’ Jess asked, confused. It was as if every ounce of strength had gone from her mother. She hadn’t looked like this ever – not even when she’d shot Chan.

  ‘That is enough,’ Leila said, staring up coldly at the agents. ‘I have said everything. If you don’t believe me, fine. But that’s all I’m going to say.’

  ‘But—’ Agent Stone began. He looked at his colleague, who looked equally baffled.

  Jess put her hand on Leila’s shoulder, which she now saw was shaking. Was she crying?

  Jess moved in closer, seeing how Leila was sobbing. ‘What is it?’ she asked. She stared up at the two agents with a confused shrug. ‘Leila, let me help.’

  But Leila’s voice now erupted into a sob. She shook her head. ‘I can’t. I can’t.’

  Jess swallowed hard. In the short time she’d known her mother, she’d been so strong, but now she seemed to be falling apart.

  ‘Can we have a moment?’ Jess asked the agents. She felt frightened now, but sure that Leila would be more forthcoming without the two Americans staring at her.

  ‘Sure,’ Trebitz said, rolling his eyes at Stone. They opened the door and walked into the corridor. ‘We’ll just be outside.’

  Jess knelt on the dirty floor in front of Leila and cupped her wet face. ‘Leila,’ she whispered. ‘Leila, talk to me.’

  Jess saw her mother’s eyes. They were large, magnified by anguished tears. She shook her head.

  ‘You can tell me anything,’ Jess said. ‘You know that, right?’

  ‘No. No, I can’t.’

  Jess took a breath. ‘What are you so scared of?’

  Tears popped out of Leila’s eyes. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered. She sobbed, a huge cry escaping her. ‘I can’t tell you. I’m so sorry.’

  Jess shook her head. She desperately wanted to help Leila, but something was chewing at her that Jess could see was more painful than everything that had happened on Lace Island. What was this new, terrifying secret that was eating up Leila?

  ‘It’s OK. We have time,’ she said, trying to sound reassuring, but she felt rattled. ‘But after everything you’ve been through, why don’t you just tell me why you’re so upset? Is it something to do with this Lonegan guy?’

  Leila’s head shot down again. She wrung her hands together, letting out another anguished cry.

  ‘Leila?’ Jess implored, kneeling again by her. ‘Tell me. Who is he?’

  ‘He . . .’

  Jess held her breath, but there was a long pause. Leila couldn’t speak.

  ‘Please. Just tell me.’

  ‘He’s . . .’ She paused again. Then she exhaled, her bloodshot eyes meeting Jess’s, and it looked to Jess like her mother’s heart was breaking. ‘He’s your father.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Cochin, present day

  There. She’d said it. Leila watched as Jess slumped down now, sitting on her heels, taking in this news.

  ‘He’s my father?’ she asked. She looked confused and Leila felt the absurdity of it for a moment. That this devastating news was a surprise to her daughter, when Leila had thought of nothing else since they’d first met. That all the way here, she’d told herself that she would never, ever tell Jess the truth.

  Certainly not here. Not now. In this police station.

  But somehow it had just come too close to the surface to hide anymore. And now it was out. The huge secret was out. Spilling out of Leila’s soul, like black oil.

  Leila could see Jess trying to work out what it all meant.

  ‘Were you . . . I mean, you must have been young when you had me?’ she said.

  Leila took a shuddering breath.

  Now the test.

  Now she had to be honest. If she lost Jess forever, then that would be the price she’d have to pay for her honesty. But she couldn’t lie. Not any longer. Not after lying for so long about Lace Island.

  ‘Fourteen.’

  ‘And how old was he, this Lonegan guy?’

  ‘I don’t know. Thirty, maybe. He was a guest on the island. An associate of Chan’s.’

  Jess got to her feet. She looked up at the ceiling and Leila longed to hold her in her arms again, but it was as if every ounce of strength had drained out of her.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘I should never have told you.’

  Jess shook her head, turning and facing Leila with Bibi’s eyes. ‘I don’t care about him, Leila,’ she said. ‘I never even thought about having a dad. Only finding my mum. Only finding you.’

  Leila felt her words embracing her like a hug. She took a shuddering breath in. She nodded, acknowledging her words, but there was more to say, and Jess knew it.

  ‘He hurt you, didn’t he?’ Jess said, and saw that Leila was crying now, but she didn’t need her to answer. She could see it in her face.

  ‘I was a virgin. He . . . I . . .’ Leila shook her head, engulfed by tears.

  Jess stared at her, slowly nodding. There was a long moment. Jess watched Leila’s chin wobbling; then she took a breath. ‘He raped you, right?’

  It was a whisper, but Jess might as well have shouted it. Leila nodded, feeling her heart breaking. She closed her eyes. Wishing she could die. Wishing she had blown her brains out, rather than living to inflict any pain on her darling daughter.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she mumbled.

  But then she felt Jess grab her shoulders, forcing her to open her eyes. Jess’s eyes blazed down into hers.

  ‘Don’t be sorry. You shouldn’t be the sorry one. We’ll get him, Leila. I promise. Together. We’ll make him pay for what he did to you.’

  ‘But he’s so powerful,’ Leila protested. ‘You heard them.’

  ‘We just need to prove he was on Lace Island. And then there’ll be my DNA, of course.’

  Leila nodded, not daring to dream that Jess meant it. That she could be so strong. That once again her daughter had saved her.

  ‘Come here. Don’t cry anymore,’ Jess said, pulling her into a strong embrace. ‘I know how hard that was to tell me. But we have each other now. We’ll work it all out.’

  And as Jess enfolded her into a hug, they cried together. Then Leila suddenly remembered Sister Mary’s face, and something else too.

  ‘I have proof,’ she whispered, breathing in sudd
enly, like she was breathing in life. ‘I have proof, Jess.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the place that you were born.’

  ‘Then let’s get it. We’ll make them believe you, I promise.’

  ‘And Sister Mary often prayed for you,’ Sister Singh said, raising her voice over the roadworks outside and smiling at Leila and Jess as she walked through the tarpaulin cover to the dusty chapel beyond. ‘She never forgot you. Right until she died.’

  Poor Sister Mary, Leila thought, feeling more emotional than she’d imagined. She must have been frightened out of her wits that night Chan and Shang had come. And when Chan had dragged Leila away, never to be heard of again, she must have been worried sick. ‘I never forgot her either. She saved my life.’

  Leila looked around the derelict chapel, soon to be demolished with the rest of the mission. She stared up at the balcony where the nuns had once sung so beautifully, hearing a far-off echo of voices. It was all so different to how she remembered it, and the mission itself was hardly recognizable. The gardens and Sister Vimla’s beehives had gone, replaced by a busy road, and the building works next door looked like they would crush the place. A shower of dust fell now from the ceiling.

  ‘It’s here,’ Leila said, nodding at the floor and then kneeling to move aside a thick piece of cardboard that covered the floor.

  ‘It’s most unlikely . . .’ Sister Singh said, glancing at Jessica and Leila.

  Leila didn’t care if the old nun thought she was crazy. It was as if Jess’s strength at the police station had given her new power. She knelt now, examining the floor. There had been a grille there, she was sure of it. She sat back, looking up to where the altar had once been, trying to remember exactly how it had looked when she’d scrubbed this floor all those years ago, casting herself back to the terrified girl she’d once been. Remembering, now, all too clearly, how she’d been convinced that God would strike her down.

  But God wasn’t that simple in his methods. Leila had learnt that the hard way.

  Perhaps the aisle was different? she mused, looking again.

  ‘It’s so sad the mission is going. After two hundred years,’ Sister Singh was saying to Jessica.

  ‘That’s awful.’

  ‘It’s the modern world. We’re in too prime a location. They’ve taken all our gardens as it is. They forced us to move.’

  ‘Where will you go?’ Jess asked.

  ‘That I don’t know. We’re still praying for a miracle.’

  ‘That’s it,’ Leila said, realizing her mistake. ‘They’ve moved the aisle. Come. Help me move this pew,’ she said to Jessica, who she was getting used to calling Jess.

  Together, she and her daughter moved the heavy wooden pew and then Leila saw it. The grille.

  ‘There. There – I told you,’ she said, grinning.

  Two minutes later, she pulled out a very dirty carrier bag, blowing off a cloud of dust. She saw Jess and Sister Singh exchange a shocked look.

  ‘This is it,’ Leila explained, pulling the leather book from the bag. ‘The visitors book from Lace Island.’

  She felt a rush of emotion as she opened the book. It felt like she was opening up time and she remembered the hallway in Bibi’s house and how the book had stood for years on the lectern. She flipped it open to the last page, her eyes clouding as she saw what she was looking for.

  She held the book out for Jess to see. She watched as her beautiful girl read the words.

  ‘There he is,’ Leila said, feeling her hackles rising in triumph as she remembered standing on the stairs that day and Bibi making Adam Lonegan sign the visitors book. And now, all these years later, it would be the one thing that finished him.

  After they’d said goodbye to the nuns, Leila and Jess were soon back on the street, Jess holding the visitors book carefully.

  ‘I have a surprise for you,’ Jess said, looking at her phone. ‘Leila, I’m going to take this back to the police station, but first I’m going to drop you somewhere.’

  Leila was confused by the grin on her daughter’s face. She was so confident and competent, Leila thought. How could she be so together after everything that had happened? It still felt too good to be true: that her baby had not only found her but forgiven her too. Her Jessica, she thought, unable to stop herself touching her as she hailed a cab.

  In the back of the air-conditioned car, they sat together and flipped through the pages of the visitors book.

  ‘Teddy and Tina Everdene,’ Jess said, tracing the ancient ink with her finger.

  ‘They were the ones who persuaded Bibi to send me to school in England.’

  ‘You went to school in England?’ Jess asked, clearly stunned.

  Leila laughed, delighting that there was so much she had left to tell her daughter. ‘Oh yes. A posh boarding school. Hillmain. I didn’t last long.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was dreadfully homesick, and there was a teacher – a PE teacher – who accosted me in the shower. I was horrified.’

  Jessica shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe what Leila was telling her. ‘It doesn’t surprise me.’

  ‘Doesn’t it?’

  ‘Sadly, there were several people like that in the care homes Angel and I went to,’ she said.

  ‘But you survived,’ Leila said. ‘You survived.’

  Jess nodded, but Leila felt choked with an emotion she couldn’t name. She should have been there. She should have been there for every minute of her daughter’s life. She should never have had to live with strangers. Never have had to think for one minute that her mother had abandoned her.

  She felt a familiar surge of hatred towards Chan and she shook her head, as if she could still rail at him.

  ‘He’s gone, Leila,’ Jess said, and Leila faced her, amazed that she could read her mind so clearly. ‘Let it go. We both survived, remember? We have to look forward, not back.’

  ‘You’re a good girl, Jess. You have a good heart. I see that,’ Leila said, patting Jess’s hand, wishing she could hold her and smother her in kisses.

  They drove on in silence for a moment, and then Jess leant forward and stopped the driver.

  ‘What is this place?’ Leila asked, staring out of the window at a very plush-looking building. The driver turned into a curved driveway.

  ‘It’s a hotel.’

  ‘It looks very grand,’ Leila said.

  ‘Go in there, into the restaurant, and wait for me. I’ll be there very soon.’

  ‘I don’t want to go on my own,’ Leila said, panicking. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No. It’s good for you to do this,’ Jessica insisted. ‘Have an adventure. Go on. It’s time to start living again.’

  She leant over and kissed Leila’s cheek. ‘I’ll see you soon, Mum.’

  Leila got out of the taxi and stood on the red carpet outside the circular door of the hotel. She waved to Jess as she headed off, watching the cab disappear.

  Mum. The word resonated in her head, making a smile appear on her face. She was a Mum again. For real, this time, not just in her mind. She sighed, letting the magnitude of the moment sink in.

  The hotel was the poshest place Leila had ever been to and she was nervous as she walked in and asked directions to the restaurant. She expected to be stopped, but a nice man directed her to a table and she sat down, feeling self-conscious. It still took some getting used to, being back in civilization and on show. It amazed her that she was still able to walk out in the world – a free woman – but she was constantly baffled by how much the world had changed in her absence.

  She picked up the menu, realizing how hungry she was, hoping Jess wouldn’t be long. There was so much she needed to tell her – about Lace Island and everything that had happened in the last four days. She smiled when she saw the illustration on the front – of an elephant and a mahout. ‘“The Lagoon Restaurant,”’ she read out loud.

  Something caught her eye, and through the wall of potted palms, she saw a man – cle
arly a member of staff at the hotel – talking to another man on the reception. She saw him greeting some guests and Leila suddenly felt her heart racing. It couldn’t be, could it? That man wasn’t . . . Rasa?

  He disappeared from view and Leila didn’t have the courage to turn round, but the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up and she knew then that he was walking towards her. Then he stopped next to her table.

  ‘Hello, Leila,’ he said.

  Leila couldn’t speak. She stared up at his face – the very same face that had been in her mind for so long. He looked older, of course, but she felt a deep sense of recognition as she looked into his hazel eyes. He was just the same.

  How had Jess engineered this? How could this be happening? She put down the menu, her throat dry as he sat down opposite her at the table, and for a long moment, they just stared at one another.

  ‘You work here?’ she said, eventually.

  He nodded. ‘I’m the manager.’

  ‘It’s a fine place,’ Leila said, gripping on to the napkin in her lap. The Lagoon Restaurant. Had he named it that because of their lagoon? Because of his memories of Lace Island?

  ‘Leila,’ he said again. ‘Oh . . .’ His voice was no more than a pent-up sigh, and she saw that his eyes were filling with tears.

  ‘I saw the news, and Jess, your daughter, she emailed me and told me that you’d spoken of me. I’ve been tormenting myself wondering how I was ever going to tell you how sorry I am.’ A tear spilt from his eye and he wiped it away quickly. ‘Because I am so, so sorry. I should never, ever have left you. All this time . . . all this time . . . I thought you were dead, but you were there . . .’

  Leila shook her head, shocked by how emotional he seemed. She pictured him now, the last time she’d seen him, standing under an umbrella in Maliba’s yard, the rain lashing down. She remembered how resolute he’d been and how much he’d hurt her. It seemed like yesterday, but at the same time, it felt like an age had passed. How could she start to explain that the girl he’d loved was long gone?