With no distinguishable horizon to break up the grey, the vastness of sea and sky was magnified, and as she looked at the pier in the distance, she began to feel the sadness swell inside her again. The lights on the pier should have cheered her, but although they looked quite festive, she found her eye drawn downwards, away from the flashing lights and the promise of fun and good times, down beneath the creaking boards to the darker underside of the ageing structure, where the rusty, barnacle-covered supports stood resolutely in the cold water, forgotten and unnoticed.
She looked at her watch. She hadn’t thought about her mum or about home for almost three hours. Home; she must stop thinking like that. Aware of a powerful need to be inside, in a room where there was someone she knew, she headed to the newsagent’s, bought ten No 6, then began to make her way back up the hill towards the house.
She could see a light on in the sitting room, and as soon as she went in, she could smell the Calor gas. A man was standing in front of the heater with his back to her. He was wearing a black top hat and a long black cape which made her think of the Dracula films. His hair was black too, and he’d tied it into a ponytail with a band of plaited leather. He turned to face her. ‘I’m Scott,’ he said, removing the hat, which had a red-silk flower tucked into the rim, and then the cape. ‘Sorry about the get-up. It’s my busking uniform – adds a bit of theatre.’ Underneath the cape, he was wearing ragged-looking black jeans and a Bob Dylan T-shirt with an ice-blue denim shirt open over the top. ‘I’m guessing you’re Jo.’ He sat down on the settee, stretched his long legs out in front of him and began rolling a joint. He looked up at her and smiled. His skin was pale but with an olive tinge to it that suggested it would go very brown in the summer, and his nose was too long and slightly twisted, but he was nice-looking in a poetic, hippyish sort of way. A tiny black beard sat in the middle of his chin and his eyes were bright blue, like cornflowers, and all the more striking because of his raven-black hair, which, he explained later, was something to do with his ancestry – his father was half-Chinese on his mother’s side, whereas his mum was a typical English rose.
He licked along the edge of the Rizla and carefully sealed the joint, then held it up in front of his face as though admiring it. ‘I deserve this, man.’ He placed the joint between his teeth and reached into each of his front jeans pockets, then started feeling around the back.
‘Here,’ Jo said, offering her lighter.
‘Cheers.’ He leaned forward and, rather than taking the lighter from her, looked at her pointedly until she flicked it into life. He used his hand to steady hers and she noticed the fine black hairs on the backs of his fingers, which smelled of tobacco and very faintly of lemons.
‘Coffee, Jo?’ Eve called from the kitchen.
‘Could I have tea, please?’ she called back.
Scott smiled. ‘Polite. That’s nice, man.’ He nodded slowly. He moved a several-days-old copy of the Guardian, a pouch of Old Holborn and a pack of Rizlas off the settee and parted the cushion beside him. ‘Come and sit down.’
Was he flirting with her? A strand of greasy hair fell over her eye and she tucked it quickly behind her ear. There was something about him that made her feel shy and silly and very conscious of how she looked. But he was Eve’s boyfriend.
When Eve came into the room, Scott’s attention turned entirely to her, and his features seemed to relax and soften as he looked at her. Maybe he hadn’t been flirting after all. He smiled at Eve and thanked her when she handed him a plate of food – the last of the baked omelette, which she served cold with salad. When she went to the fireplace to start laying a fire, he stopped her. ‘Leave it, Evie. You’re tired, man; I’ll do it when I’ve had this.’ And when Eve smiled back at him, Jo noticed, she somehow looked even prettier. This was a couple who were in love, Jo realised. There hadn’t been this sort of love between her parents, not even when she was little, and seeing it now filled her with a sort of sweet sadness. On the one hand, it was strangely comforting to watch them exchanging glances, nods and smiles as they talked, and she loved how proud they were of each other: Scott’s a brilliant guitarist and you should hear the songs he writes; Eve’s so talented, she can make beautiful objects out of anything, even bits of old junk . . . On the other hand there was something about their closeness that induced in her a piercing loneliness she hadn’t been aware of before.
‘Our plan,’ Scott was saying as he rolled another joint, ‘is to grow as much as we possibly can while we’re here.’ They’d been talking about their plans for the garden. He paused and nodded towards his plate which was still on the floor next to him. ‘You know, if we kept chickens, and if we could make our own cheese, we could produce this meal without having to pay for anything except the electricity to cook it. That would be so cool.’
‘I’d love to keep chickens, but I think cheese-making might be a bit beyond us,’ Eve said. ‘Although, who knows what might happen in the future.’
Scott turned to her and grinned. ‘”Who knows what might happen in the future”? I thought you did.’
Eve was grinning, too, and Jo looked from her to Scott and back again.
‘Scott doesn’t believe me, but—’
‘Eve has magical powers.’ He put on a spooky voice. ‘She can read your palm, gaze into a crystal ball—’
‘Oh Scotty.’ Eve shoved him playfully on the arm, then turned to Jo. ‘I’ve no idea how to read palms, and I don’t have a crystal ball. But I can read tea leaves. Scott thinks it’s a load of rubbish, but my grandma showed me how to do it.’ Her face brightened. ‘Tell you what, I’ll read yours later if you like.’
Jo just smiled.
‘Anyway,’ Scott continued. ‘As I was saying, our ethos is simple. Live off the land and off your skills and talents where possible, consume less, and reuse things.’ He gestured vaguely around him. ‘Most of this is other people’s leavings, things we’ve found in skips or at jumble sales. It’s perfectly good stuff . The waste in our society is unforgivable, man. You just have to be on the lookout; tune in to what people throw away. We all have too many possessions, anyway.’
‘You’re like Tom and Barbara,’ Jo said. ‘You know, on The Good Life.’
Scott nodded. ‘We’ve seen it a few times at a mate’s; we don’t have a television here, though.’
‘I love Tom and Barbara,’ Eve said. ‘And Margot and Jerry. Oh, wouldn’t it be cool to live like that.’
‘I’ve got a lot of time for the whole self-sufficiency scene,’ Scott agreed. ‘Even if they did start it in this, like, massive pad in suburbia. Anyway’ – he turned to Jo – ‘what do you think?’
‘Um, about what?’
‘About staying here for a while. It’s totally cool with us; we like having people here – well, one person, anyway. Sometimes there’ll be more, but it works best when there’s just two or three of us. We lived in this squat once where it was, like, some sort of open-house commune scene.’ He shook his head. ‘That was not cool, man.’
‘Do say you’ll stay,’ Eve said. ‘The only rules are, you contribute your share of food and bills – that means the electricity bill and the gas cylinders – and you take an equal share of the communal work. The way it usually works is . . .’ And she reeled off a list of house rules.
Jo felt a beat of disappointment at the realisation that she was simply one of many, a temporary house guest rather than a special friend. She nodded. ‘I don’t have much money left, so I’ll need a job. Is there anywhere—’
‘There’s plenty of casual work about,’ Scott interrupted. ‘Bar work, mostly, cash-in-hand.’
‘Okay then, yes, I’d love to stay,’ she smiled. ‘Thank you.’
‘Good! That’s settled, then.’ Eve stood up. ‘I’ll make tea.’
Scott was rolling another joint when Eve returned with a teapot and a bottle of milk, then she went out of the room again and came back with two mugs and a cup and saucer. ‘You have to leave about half an inch of tea in the bottom,’ she
explained as she poured the tea and handed the cup and saucer to Jo. ‘Hold the cup with your right hand if you want to see the future, or in your left if you want to understand the past.’
‘Here she is,’ Scott said, his tone gently mocking. ‘Mystic Madam Eva. Your destiny revealed . . .’
‘Shut up, Scott. I just have a knack for it, that’s all. I’ve always been able to see shapes and symbols in the leaves, and they all have meanings. I . . .’ She looked down as if she was embarrassed. ‘I just know how to interpret them.’
When Jo had finished her tea, Eve told her to turn over the saucer and place it on top of the cup, then swirl the cup around three times, clockwise, before tipping it up and allowing the remaining tea to drain down into the saucer for a minute or so.
‘Now, let’s see.’ Eve peered into the cup. ‘A lot of leaves; that indicates a full and busy life. Oh dear. There’s a drop of tea left on the side of the cup – that means tears, but that’s probably because of your mum. Ooh look, see this cigar shape? That’s the symbol for new friends, and it’s right at the top, near the rim, which means it relates to the immediate future.’ She smiled. ‘So it probably means Scott and me.’
Jo smiled as she looked into the cup. It could be a cigar shape, she supposed, but to her it just looked like a line of tea leaves. ‘What about that?’ She pointed to a very clear flower pattern near the bottom.
Eve’s face lit up. ‘A flower! Lucky you – it means you’ll have a happy marriage, but not for a while. You have to read the leaves from the top of the cup to the bottom, you see, and the further down the cup the symbol is, the further away the event it represents.’ She pointed to a tiny clump of leaves about half an inch down. ‘Now this little fan usually means a flirtation or an unexpected kiss.’
It did look a bit like a fan, Jo had to admit. In fact, the more she looked into the cup, the more she could see little pictures in the leaves. ‘Is that a bird?’ She pointed to a shape about halfway down the side. Eve didn’t say anything for a moment. ‘A raven,’ she mumbled, turning the cup around. ‘And that looks like . . .’ She blinked a couple of times. ‘No, I think I must be doing it wrong.’
‘What is it?’ Jo reached for her cigarettes. The whole thing was starting to seem a bit silly. ‘Come on, tell me.’
‘Did you swirl it with your right hand, or your left?’
‘Oh, come on,’ Scott said. ‘That’s enough.’ He sounded annoyed.
‘Right,’ Jo said. ‘At least, I think it was.’
‘No, I think it must have been your left. I’m seeing the loss of someone close to you, a long-lasting grief – it must mean your mum.’ She put the cup back on the saucer and stood up. ‘Perhaps we’d better try again another time.’
*
By eleven, Jo could barely keep her eyes open. With Eve’s help, she set the mattress on the pallets and made up the bed.
Eve put her hands on her hips and looked up at the window. ‘Now all we need is a curtain. Elliot never bothered covering the windows, and he used to wander around in the nuddy sometimes. I didn’t know where to look! Oh, hang on – won’t be a tick.’ She hurried out of the room, then came back with a handful of drawing pins and a huge, bulging dustbin bag from which she pulled a length of red cotton fabric with swirly patterns in gold stitching. It looked Indian, like a sari. She stood on a chair and pinned it up over the glass. ‘That’ll do for tonight.’ She got down and nodded towards the bag. ‘That bag’s full of clothes. I don’t know if there’s anything there that might be any good to you, but it’s all in fairly good nick. Some of them belonged to Sapphire – she was the girl who moved here with us last year. Until she ran off to live in a caravan on the Isle of Wight, that is. But most of it’s stuff that’s a bit tight on me now. Everything shrinks when you wash it, doesn’t it?’ Eve grumbled. ‘Either that or I’m getting fat.’
‘Thanks,’ Jo said. ‘I didn’t bring much with me, so . . . well anyway, thank you. It’s very kind of you to . . .’ Then she felt her lip wobble and she didn’t trust herself to say any more.
Eve tipped her head to one side. ‘You’re tired. You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep. Night-night.’ She switched off the light and Jo could hear the floorboards creaking as she went back downstairs.
Jo fell asleep immediately, sleeping deeply and dreamlessly until two in the morning when her eyes snapped open. For a few seconds, she didn’t know where she was, but then the dark shape of her duffle bag next to the bed came into focus and she remembered. She could feel the swish of her eyelashes moving on the pillowcase as she blinked. But there was another noise coming through the pillow, a sort of rhythmic thumping. She could hear someone moaning. A woman; she sounded like she was in agony. Eve! Jo jerked her head up, her heart suddenly pounding hard and fast. Then she heard a man’s voice as well, a sort of grunting. ‘Oh shit,’ she murmured as she realised what the noise was. She lay back down and pulled the covers over her head.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sheffield, January 2010
I’d never been inside this church before, despite having walked past it for years. I went to church a few times when Hannah was a baby, but I didn’t find what I was looking for. What was I looking for? Forgiveness, I suppose. But maybe I’d never found it because I didn’t think it was God who needed to forgive me.
I stood looking up at the stained-glass image of Mary gazing adoringly at her baby son. Hadn’t she only been about sixteen when she conceived the son of God? She looked older here, as though she already knew that no good could come of it. For a moment, I was so lost in the scene that I forgot why I was here, then I heard the big old door being pushed open, and there he was, leaning on a wooden walking stick. I could see immediately that he was telling the truth about his illness. It was hardly surprising I hadn’t been sure it was him when I saw him in town; his eyes were sunken with sludgy brown crescents beneath; his skin was pale and stretched-looking with a greenish tinge around the mouth, and he was so thin that I could see the exact shape of his skull. I had no doubt that I was looking at a dying man.
‘You came,’ he said in an almost resigned way.
‘Did I have a choice?’
He nodded in recognition. ‘I know. I’m sorry about that. I had to make you see how important this is.’ He used the ends of the dark wooden pews for extra support, resting his hand on each as he passed.
‘How are . . .’ I stopped myself from asking the ridiculous question. ‘I can see you’re not well,’ I said instead, ‘and I’m sorry. It must be . . . I don’t know, frightening.’
He shook his head, then motioned to a pew. ‘Do you mind if we sit? I’m not feeling too good today.’
‘Of course.’ I watched his knuckles turn white as he grasped the back of a pew and lowered himself slowly into the one behind. I had to tell myself again, this is Scott. Scott. For a few moments, we didn’t speak. For myself, it was because I had no idea what to say. But in Scott’s case, I suspected it was because the sheer physical effort of walking towards me and sitting down had taken it out of him.
‘So, how are you managing?’ It was what I said to parents at the Project, and I heard the professional tone in my voice, brisk and slightly distant; it was the tone I used when I was trying to show that I cared without getting too involved.
‘I used to feel frightened,’ he said. Then he looked at me sideways and smiled. ‘I was scared I might have cancer. But now I know for sure, well, there’s nothing to be scared of any more.’
I forgot about the professional voice. This was Scott; this was Hannah’s father. ‘But . . . but aren’t you afraid of actually . . . you know, of—’
‘Of dying? You can say it, you know. And no, I’m not, not really. I don’t want to feel pain, but they tell me they can make sure I don’t.’ He smiled at me again. ‘I’ll be getting some serious drugs when the time comes, man. But dying? No. It’s weird, but once you know it’s going to happen, you sort of accept it.’ His tone was vaguely superior, as though I c
ouldn’t possibly understand. Although, thinking about it, I suppose he was right.
‘Do you come here often?’ I said, completely oblivious until he laughed.
‘The old ones are the best, aren’t they? But I can’t say I ever got far with that line.’
‘Oh God, I mean, I’m sorry.’ I felt myself colouring. ‘I meant —’
He was still smiling. ‘No worries, I know what you meant, and yes, I do. Well, not here, necessarily. Probably a bit late to save my soul, but there’s nothing to lose, I guess. Anyway, I think I should tell you why I wanted to see you.’
I wanted to ask how long he’d been going to church, whether it was because he was dying or whether he had been going ever since it all happened. I wanted to know the answers to these questions, but I was also stalling for time, trying to put off the moment when he told me something that was going to blast my life apart. He wasn’t smiling now.
‘The thing is, I want us to own up; to tell the truth.’
I stared at him. I didn’t want to hear this; I would not hear this.
‘It’s been haunting me for years,’ he said, not looking at me. ‘We should have spoken up at the time . . . well, soon after, anyway. I suppose I thought it would come to light eventually.’ He looked up at me now, and his eyes were glistening as though he was holding back tears. ‘I think that’s one of the reasons I left when I did, to be honest. I kept expecting a knock at the door. Even when I was in New Zealand with my parents, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And now . . . well, now I just want to try and put things right.’
I tried to speak but my mouth was dry. I felt all the blood in my body rush down to my feet and my bowels started to shift and I wondered if I was going to suddenly need the loo. I had to get away, to get out of this place and away from what he was saying. I didn’t realise that I’d actually stood up until I felt his hand on my arm. ‘Sit down,’ he said quietly. His voice had a certainty to it, as though he felt totally confident what he was saying. Without wanting to or knowing why, I sat.
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