Starlight on the Palace Pier

by Tracy Corbett

  ‘If you dare say “getting any younger” I’ll throttle you.’ Her mum’s gaze narrowed.

  Becca held up her hands in mock surrender. ‘I was going to say…you won’t be able to finish the other rooms if you don’t bring in enough income.’

  Her mum went over to the hob, rubbing the small of her back. ‘Yes, well, my plans have been put on hold for a while. Like I said, with only two guests it seems pointless to furnish extra rooms when there’s no demand.’

  Becca wondered what was going on. The guest house boasted nine rooms, all with en suite facilities and separate living areas. It was situated in a prime location on the seafront. And although there were still two rooms unfurnished, the place was normally full, even during the winter months. ‘But without extra rooms, you won’t be able to expand if demand picks up.’

  ‘The Carpenter’s Room and the Floral Suite are available.’

  ‘Which are both single rooms. You need at least another double.’ Becca filled the kettle, trying to be useful. ‘What’s going on? Is there something wrong?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong.’ Her mum was a terrible liar.

  She tried again. ‘Are you having money problems? Is that it?’

  Her mum turned to face her. ‘I’m fine, sweetheart. Really. There’s nothing for you to worry about.’

  Becca recognised the expression on her mum’s face; it was the one she wore herself when trying to convince the world she was okay about her dance career being over. A brave façade concealing the pain lying beneath. Well, she wasn’t fine. And neither, it seemed, was her mother.

  But further delving would have to wait, as her cousin appeared in the kitchen. Becca rushed over and threw her arms around her. ‘It’s so good to see you!’

  Jodi hugged her back, and then pulled away. ‘What the boggin’ hell have you done to your hair?’

  Becca grinned. ‘Like it?’

  Her cousin studied Becca’s blue-tipped hair tied into high bunches. ‘On anyone else it would look bonkers. On you it looks ridiculously cool…even if you do resemble a Smurf.’

  Becca laughed. ‘Talking of hair.’ She fluffed up Jodi’s mass of black curls. ‘What happened to the cornrows?’

  ‘Too high-maintenance. I decided it was time to embrace the ’fro.’

  ‘I like it. It’s bang on trend.’

  Jodi laughed. ‘Listen to you, Gok Wan.’

  ‘When you’re stuck working in a newsagent’s booth at Waterloo station all day there’s not much else to do other than flick through magazines. The natural look is in, you’ll be pleased to know.’

  Jodi laughed. ‘Yippee, fashionable, at last.’

  Becca slipped her arm through Jodi’s. ‘I hope you don’t have plans tonight, because we have some serious catching up to do. You up for a night on the town?’

  Jodi raised an eyebrow. ‘Does the Pope wear a silly hat?’

  Becca laughed. ‘Excellent. I was thinking the Gin Tub. They have a tasting event.’

  ‘Sounds suitably inebriating. I could do with getting obliterated.’

  Becca gave her a questioning look. ‘Didn’t the interview go well?’ She knew her cousin’s efforts to find a job were proving hard work.

  ‘Actually, it went okay. But it’s only a temporary position. I should hear tomorrow.’

  They were interrupted by a screech. Maude had appeared and leapt into the air when the steam from the oven startled her.

  Jodi intercepted and grabbed the cat, dangling her in front of Becca. ‘Fancy a cuddle?’ she said, enjoying an opportunity to tease her cousin.

  Becca backed away. ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘She’s just being friendly.’ Jodi stroked the cat’s orange fur.

  ‘I’m serious, Jodi. Don’t you dare let her go. She’s out to get me.’

  Jodi looked down at Maude. ‘Is Becca being a tinsy-winsy bit paranoid?’

  When Jodi pretended to throw the cat, Becca ran over and hid behind her mum. ‘Mum, tell her!’

  ‘I’m not getting involved,’ her mum said, laughing. ‘Honestly, it’s like having a pair of teenagers in the house again. Give Maude to me,’ she said, taking the cat. ‘Now, will you troublemakers be wanting dinner later?’

  ‘No thanks. We’ll grab something when we’re out.’ And then Becca had a thought. ‘You’re welcome to join us, if you want?’

  Her cousin did a double-take.

  ‘That’s sweet of you, but Maude and I are happy staying in and watching Corrie. Aren’t we, Maude?’ The cat hissed. ‘Manners, young lady. Come on, let’s put you outside so I can finish lunch… And don’t forget your key,’ her mum called back from the doorway. ‘I won’t be happy if I have to get up in the early hours to let you girls in like last time… And don’t drink too much.’

  Becca winked at Jodi. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be good.’

  ‘Well, that’ll be a first,’ her mum shouted from outside.

  Jodi raised an eyebrow and followed Becca upstairs. ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Inviting your mum to join us? You’ve never done that before.’

  Becca shrugged. ‘I thought maybe she needed cheering up.’

  Jodi stopped walking. ‘Why? Has something happened?’

  ‘I was hoping you’d tell me. She seems a little…off. You know, sad. She looks tired and she’s lost weight. She says she’s fine, but I think she’s hiding something.’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed.’ Jodi looked stricken. ‘I’m a terrible niece.’

  ‘No, you’re not. And it’s always easier to spot something when you’re not around all the time.’ Becca followed her cousin into The Beach Room. The turquoise room was huge and sea-facing, with white shutters and a large ceiling fan to keep it cool during the height of summer.

  Becca kicked off her boots and opened the double-slated doors leading to the built-in wardrobe. ‘What do you fancy for tonight, bohemian chic, or racy reggae?’

  Jodi sat on the bed and unlaced her Converse trainers. ‘Don’t care. Nothing too revealing. Last time I spent half the night with my boob hanging out and not realising until the barman handed me a bulldog clip.’

  Becca laughed. ‘I’d forgotten about that.’ She flicked through Jodi’s meagre collection of clothes. Mostly jeans, a few summer dresses, some nice items from the local boutiques in Brighton that her mum had bought her for various Christmases and birthdays. And then something caught her attention. She pulled out an orange tunic emblazoned with the words Pho-King Good on the front and laughed. ‘Why on earth have you still got this?’

  Jodi didn’t reply, but her cheeks flushed.

  Becca immediately stopped laughing. ‘Oh, God, you’re still working there, aren’t you? I’m sorry, I didn’t realise. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because it’s embarrassing?’ Her cousin looked mortified. ‘It’s not great as jobs go, but Mr Pho trusts me and I’m earning money, even if it’s minimum wage. It’s better than being unemployed.’

  Becca went over and squeezed her hand. ‘It’s so unfair that no one will give you a job. You have so much to offer.’

  Jodi shrugged. ‘That’s the way it is. You know the worst part?’

  Becca shook her head.

  ‘When the judge sentenced me to six weeks in prison, I didn’t think it was such a big deal. I’ll do my time and make amends, I thought.’ Tears appeared in her eyes. ‘When I was released, my probation officer told me I’d been given a second chance. I’d paid my debt to society and it was up to me whether I continued with a life of crime, or resisted reoffending and turned things around.’

  ‘And you have, Jodi.’

  ‘As far as everyone else is concerned, I can’t be trusted. I’m a risk that isn’t worth taking.’

  Becca slid her arm around her cousin. ‘I wish there was something I could do.’

  Jodi rested her head on Becca’s shoulder. ‘There is. Take me out and get me drunk.’

  Becca hugged her. ‘That, I can do.�
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  Chapter Two

  Friday 8th September

  Jodi washed her hands in the dingy restaurant bathroom, trying to remove the smell of burnt oil, lemongrass and fermented fish that had saturated her clothes and skin. It didn’t matter how many times she washed her tunic, there always seemed to be a hint of Thai curry invading her wardrobe. She didn’t mind working at the restaurant, she was grateful for the income, but waiting tables wasn’t her dream job.

  She dried her hands and removed her tunic, rolling it into a tight ball and stuffing it into her bag, trying to contain the potent smells. Maybe she didn’t deserve a dream. Perhaps she’d given up her right to lead a better life when she’d gone off the rails and ended up in prison. Maybe karma was wreaking its revenge.

  But if that was the case, then she wouldn’t have been offered a job at the Starlight Playhouse, would she? It might not be permanent, but it was the type of job she’d always wanted.

  When she’d attended the interview, she’d assumed it would go the same way as all the others. The interviewer would switch from being impressed by her first-class business degree and glowing references from her tutors, to discovering her criminal record, and the vibe would instantly change. Awkward glances would be exchanged, followed by concerns about her ‘lack of work experience’ or ‘suitability for the position’.

  No matter how hard she’d studied, how many nights she’d volunteered at the homeless shelter, or how much commitment she’d shown over the years waiting tables for Mr Pho at the local Thai restaurant, she couldn’t seem to escape her past.

  But Carolyn Elliot-Wentworth hadn’t been put off by Jodi’s stint in prison. And if she’d remembered Jodi from her days spent attending the youth club at the Starlight Playhouse a decade earlier, she hadn’t acknowledged it. Instead, she’d offered Jodi the position of business manager for a fixed three-month period. The salary wasn’t great, and it was only twenty hours a week, but it would give her some much-needed office experience.

  Plus, if Becca could be persuaded to apply for the dance teacher position being advertised, she might even get to work alongside her cousin. It was almost perfect.

  Jodi had one reservation. It meant working at the scene of her teenage misdemeanours. Was that a good or bad thing? She didn’t like being reminded of her past. But maybe that was the point. It was karma again, ensuring she could never escape her mistakes. A daily reminder that she needed to stay on the straight and narrow.

  She said goodnight to Mr Pho and headed into the street, unsurprised to find it full of revellers. It was Saturday night. The party had only just started.

  Like most of the locals, she usually avoided using the main road that led away from the railway station down to the seafront. The area was frequented by pale-skinned out-of-towners who’d travelled down for the weekend, eager to get pissed, hook up and start fights. The Pho-King Good restaurant was situated in the heart of the tourist area. As such, it attracted large groups of twenty-somethings, eager to line their stomachs with cheap curry before consuming barrel-loads of booze.

  One such group were hanging around outside the restaurant. They’d been in earlier, already drunk, making her job torturous. She was used to dealing with unruly behaviour, attempts to chat her up and ask whether she had a boyfriend. It was all part of the job. But she’d be lying if she said it didn’t upset her when reference was made to her ethnicity. They say alcohol makes a person tell the truth, that inebriated people become brutally honest and offer unfiltered opinions. Whereas a sober person would keep their prejudices under wraps, a pissed person might not.

  One of the guys whistled as she walked by. ‘Hey, sexy.’

  He stunk of smoke. Yet another pungent smell to add to the stench infiltrating her clothes.

  ‘Anyone ever told you, you look like Thandie Newton? I wouldn’t kick her out of bed,’ he said, showing off to his mates.

  Jodi ignored him.

  Her relationships with men had been influenced by several things, most of which revolved around her upbringing. Apart from witnessing her mum shacking up with numerous blokes, her own destructive behaviour had attracted a certain ‘type’ – one she was no longer interested in. As with job hunting, man hunting had proved disappointing. She’d had one semi-serious relationship in her early twenties, but the moment she’d plucked up the courage to tell Ned about her criminal past, he’d suddenly developed a desire to go travelling. Despite promising to contact her on his return, he never did.

  And that was the problem: if they were decent blokes, they didn’t want a girlfriend with a criminal record. And who could blame them?

  The guy stepped in front of her, blocking her route. ‘Want to join the party?’ He offered her the joint he was smoking.

  The smell acted as a trigger, a time capsule that transported her back to her teens. Of waking up with no recollection of where she’d been, or what she’d done the previous evening. Of nights spent in police stations waiting for her mum to pick her up. Aunty Ruby showing up instead and taking her back to the guest house to sober up. Crying her eyes out, as she dealt with the comedown of a drug-fuelled night.

  She’d grown up in Hove, the posh end of town – although there’d been nothing privileged about her upbringing. Her mother had lacked direction, until she’d met Ratty. To this day, his real name remained unknown. All Jodi knew was that he was a musician from Jamaica, who played steel drums in a reggae band and spent one summer in 1988 touring the UK with her mother in tow.

  By the time he left England and headed home to the Caribbean, Adele Simmons was in love, addicted to the ‘groupie’ lifestyle and six weeks pregnant. Unfortunately for Adele, it was all downhill after that. She flitted from one man to another, trying to find another Ratty, and increasingly annoyed that her youth, fun and night time partying had been curtailed by a screaming baby.

  Consequently, Jodi grew up without a father and with a mother who resented her. She’d accepted being passed from one relative to another, while her mother entertained numerous male ‘friends’. She did what the other kids did, watched films at the Duke of York cinema, hung out at the skate park and ice-skated at the now closed Ice Cube. When she reached her teens she realised her mum’s lifestyle wasn’t normal. Her reaction to discovering that her mum was the talk of the school gates, was to rebel. When Adele failed to respond to her daughter’s pleading for her to change her ways, Jodi switched to behaviour that ensured her mum had to pay attention to her. But even that hadn’t worked.

  She preferred to avoid thinking about her mother, who was currently shacked up with her latest man in Glasgow and no longer part of her life.

  Side-stepping the guy with the joint, Jodi walked off, ignoring his drunken suggestion that she ‘go back to where she came from’.

  Ignorant arse. She came from bloody Brighton.

  Her teenage years hadn’t all been rotten. Her best memory was from the summer of 2005 when one of her favourite bands, The Kooks, had moved into a property in Adelaide Crescent and used to sit outside on the lawn practising their latest songs. She and Becca had felt so cool, so grown-up hanging out with them. The memory made her smile.

  But her smile faded when she turned into East Street and saw a homeless man lying on the ground. He was wrapped in a blanket, his worldly goods stored in carrier bags next to him. She dug out her tips from the night and placed the coins into the hat lying next to him.

  ‘Would you like details of the homeless shelter?’ she asked, crouching down, but he was asleep. She tucked his hat under the blanket, out of sight, and left him alone.

  Her life could so easily have ended up the same way. Aunty Ruby was the reason it hadn’t. Her aunty had taken her in after she’d left prison, helped her study for her GCSEs, A levels, and had been thrilled when Jodi finally obtained her degree last year.

  When Jodi reached the guest house, she found the place in virtual darkness. Pushing open the front door, she spotted Mrs Busby carrying a tea tray across the foyer. It was a nightly ritu
al. Two glasses of hot milk, one for her and the other for Dr Mortimer, accompanied by a packet of Milky Ways.

  Jodi ducked behind the front desk, unwilling to be collared and grilled. Neither of her aunty’s long-standing guests knew about her past and she wanted to keep it that way. But it was getting increasingly tricky to keep the truth hidden, especially when the pair couldn’t understand why ‘a nice girl like her’ seemed so inept at finding a job.

  While she was hiding, she heard a noise coming from the study. When she was sure Mrs Busby had disappeared, she crept over and peered around the study door.

  She loved her uncle’s old study. There was something about the smell: a mixture of worn leather and old books. It was also the room where her aunty spent a good deal of time. It seemed to give her comfort.

  Over the years, books on gardening, horticulture and organic produce had been added to the tall bookcases, already crammed with publications about science, religion, cricket and war history. The dark green carpet was covered with a thick woven cream rug and a vase of fresh flowers adorned the window ledge, next to the nautical weather predictor. But other than that, it remained as her uncle had left it – more of a safe haven than a shrine. A place her aunty could retreat to when life got too much.

  Her aunty was sitting in the wingchair, her legs tucked up, spinning the chair around, faster and faster, with a glazed look.

  Jodi leant against the doorframe. ‘Bad day?’

  Her aunty nearly fell off the chair. ‘Goodness, you made me jump.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Jodi went into the room. ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Fine, love. I was lost in thought. I’ve been trying to balance the books.’

  Jodi noticed a pile of invoices on the desk. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘Other than my lack of enthusiasm? Not really.’

  Guilt kicked Jodi in the ribs. Why hadn’t she realised her aunty was struggling? Her cousin had spotted it straight away. ‘Do you have to do this tonight? Can’t it wait until morning?’

  ‘Possibly, but I’ve been putting it off for over a week.’ She sighed. ‘It’s not my favourite pastime, but the books won’t balance themselves.’ Flicking on the desk lamp, her aunty reached across for her reading glasses. ‘Of course, it might help if the books actually tallied for once. Dealing with the accounts was always Derek’s area of expertise.’ Her expression turned melancholy. ‘Still, it wasn’t like the poor man expected to die so young. It took us both by surprise.’