Also by Julie Houston
A Village Affair
Coming Home to Holly Close Farm
Sing Me a Secret
An Off-Piste Christmas
Goodness Grace and Me
The One Saving Grace
LOOKING FOR LUCY
BY JULIE HOUSTON
AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS
www.ariafiction.com
This edition first published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Julie Houston, 2016
The moral right of Julie Houston to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781789542271
Aria
c/o Head of Zeus
First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
www.ariafiction.com
Contents
Welcome Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
About the Author
Become an Aria Addict
PROLOGUE
The continuous drone of a large, hysterical bluebottle repeatedly crashing against the glass of the closed window joined forces with the low moans of the girl, until she was unsure which sound was hers and which was that of the insect.
‘Come on, love, there’s a good girl, push.’ The midwife, rotund and sweating slightly in the oppressive heat of the delivery room, urged the girl to work harder. This one was taking forever, she thought in exasperation and, glancing up at the delivery room clock, tutted irritably, wiping the film of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. She had a date in a couple of hours and still had to wash her hair and change the sheets on her bed. A frisson of excitement shot through her as she pictured herself naked except for the new scarlet basque she’d treated herself to in anticipation of just this event.
Impatient now, the midwife grabbed the girl’s arms in an attempt to heave her up the bed and into a sitting position that might hasten the birth. The girl moaned again, louder this time as a contraction tightened her abdomen and pain coursed through her whole body. As the pain drained away once more, she turned to the midwife, her face flushed with the exertion of the labour.
‘I can’t do this anymore, Debbie…’ The girl grasped the cool metal of the bedhead behind her, her own head thrashing from side to side on the plain white sweat-soaked pillow. ‘There’s no point, anyway. Is there? Is there…?’
‘Now stop that,’ the older woman snapped and then, feeling an unexpected wave of pity for the silly young thing, relented and spoke kindly. ‘Come on, love, a few more pushes for me and we’ll soon be home and dry.’
The girl began to shout, as much in frustration at the ignominy of the position she found herself in as from the tidal wave of pain and fear that was overwhelming her once more. She pressed her chin down onto her chest, grunting with pain as the child’s head appeared between her legs. The midwife expertly manoeuvred the baby’s crown, positioning the head until, with one final push, the child slithered wetly into her waiting hands.
‘One down, one to go.’ The midwife was jolly now, secure in the knowledge that she would be in time for her date. ‘Come on, sweetie, don’t give up now. Just a bit more hard work and you’ll be through with all this.’
Fifteen minutes later, accompanied by a commotion from the floor above, the second baby was delivered. Cutting the cord deftly, the midwife wrapped it in a waiting towel and placed it next to its sibling in the double Perspex cot.
‘Now don’t start getting attached,’ Debbie warned as the girl struggled to see the babies. ‘Far better if you have nothing to do with them. Honestly, love, it’s the only way.’
‘But, Debbie, I can’t let them go. They’re mine. Can’t you say something? Tell them I’ll look after them. Tell someone. Whoever it is…?’
‘I know, I know,’ Debbie soothed, glancing at the clock once more as she interrupted the girl’s rising hysteria. ‘But you know as well as I do, you have to let them go. Yes? Best to let them go.’
1
When Peter Broadbent asked me, as I served his treacle sponge with custard—freshly made tinned crème anglaise, none of your packet stuff—if I’d ever contemplated being a camp follower, I told him my hairdresser, Charles, was gay and that I’d followed him over the years from salon to salon and did that count? Peter had frowned slightly, his Adam’s apple bulging as the hot syrup hit the roof of his mouth, before putting down his spoon and clearing his throat.
‘I know you’re really busy, Clementine, but I think you might enjoy a day out with me at Roddington Castle next Sunday. If I may quote General Douglas McArthur Thayer: “In my dreams I hear the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry and the strange mournful mutter of the battlefield…”’
‘Right. OK.’ I looked down at Peter, at the white paper napkin strategically placed across his beige V-neck sweater and wondered what the hell he was talking about. He’d been a Saturday lunchtime regular at The Black Swan in Midhope for the last six months or so, sometimes accompanied by one or more of his two children but more often, as now, on his own. He always liked to sit in the corner, away from the other diners, and would invariably opt for the full carvery roast that we served on Saturdays as well as Sundays, and always followed by the treacle sponge.
‘You do have Sundays off, don’t you?’ Peter asked, still concentrating on his pudding rather than on me.
‘Well, yes I do. When I took on this job it was on the proviso that I wouldn’t have to work on Sundays. Saturdays are bad enough. I have a little girl, you see. I need to spend as much time as I can with her.’
Peter frowned again. ‘That’s a shame. So you can’t come with me?’
‘I don’t know where you’re wanting me to go with you,’ I laughed. ‘Some sort of poetry society do?’
‘Poetry?’ Peter looked momentarily shocked, as if I’d suggested pornography. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. Because I quoted the General? No, no, Clementine. I’m inviting you to do battle.’
Battle? I did that on a daily basis: every time I looked at my bank statement and knew there was
n’t enough to pay the bills that were lurking, a horrible shade of red, behind the clock on the mantelpiece; every time I had to leave Allegra with my mum while I tried to finish the Catering and Hospitality degree course at Midhope University; every time I tried, in vain, to get my life on track.
‘To do battle? With what?’
‘No, Clementine, not with what. With whom.’
I wanted to giggle. Hard enough to say that empty-mouthed, but with treacle sponge gumming up his molars and mouth, the earnest expression on his rather handsome face appeared comic. With a quick glance round to make sure Godzilla, the duty manager, wasn’t watching, I slid into the chair opposite.
‘So, whom then?’
Peter finished his pudding, leaned across the table towards me and whispered almost conspiratorially, ‘Charles the First.’
Right.
‘Hasn’t he been, erm, dead these past few hundred years?’ I whispered back. ‘Or at least without his head?’
Peter smiled somewhat evilly. ‘Absolutely, Clementine. We finally got him. Took a while but eventually his head rolled! You obviously know your history. That’s why I think you’d really enjoy being a camp follower.’
‘Sorry, Peter, I’m still not with you.’
‘I’m a pikeman in the Marquess of Colchester’s regiment.’ Peter beamed proudly. When he smiled his whole face lit up and I thought for the second time in only a couple of minutes that he really did have a rather nice face. Solid, dependable. Not my type at all, really, I thought hastily. I’d never managed to find a solid, dependable type, which was probably why my life had teetered dangerously from one flaky, undependable type to the next. ‘We have the Battle of Marston Moor near York next Sunday,’ he went on. ‘We always need a few more women around, and I would be honoured if you’d accompany me into battle.’
The penny began to drop. ‘Ah, you’re with one of those re-enactment thingies, are you?’
‘Well, a bit more than “with them” Clementine. As I say, at the moment I’m a pikeman, but I’m hoping I will soon be promoted to musketeer.’ Peter had the same look on his face as Allegra when Izzy, my best friend, took us both to London and Hamleys toyshop as a treat for my daughter’s fourth birthday last year. ‘You see,’ he went on, ‘musketeers are armed with a smooth bore matchlock musket—replicas of the actual weapons used in the 1600s—as well as a sword as a secondary weapon.’
‘Right. Look, sorry, Peter, it’s a wonderful offer for a girl but I’m not sure it’s for me. And I’m really going to have to get a move on. They need help in the kitchen.’
Peter’s face visibly fell as I looked across towards the kitchen door where I could hear the clattering of metal. If Boleslaw—pronounced Bolly Slav and not anything like the grated raw cabbage, carrot and salad cream concoction that was a major staple of every salad served in The Black Swan—the Polish chef, didn’t feel he was being helped enough by the lesser mortals in the kitchen, he simply threw the pans across the stainless steel work surfaces and onto the floor until he caught their attention. If he was really that way out, he’d start lobbing potato at the serving staff and the last thing I wanted was an earful of creamed Smash.
As I stood, Peter took my hand. ‘Will you think about it, Clementine?’ His face flushed slightly. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately…’
Really? Along with his smooth bore matchlock musket?
‘… You must have realised that you’re the main reason I come here every week?’
Me? Not the treacle sponge, then?
I needed to get back to the kitchen but he still held onto my hand. It was a nice hand really. Warm—but not sweaty—with short, clean nails. I can’t bear men with dirty nails—or long ones. I suddenly remembered a pâtissier chef I used to work with who purposely kept the nails on his little fingers the lengths of talons in order that he could have a good root-around in his ears in between rolling out his pastry and kneading great lumps of sweet dough. I shuddered at the memory, forgetting, for the moment, that Peter still had a hold of my hand. ‘So, will you think about it, Clementine?’ Peter asked once more. ‘I mean, if you can get someone to look after your little girl?’
‘Look, I really must get back,’ I said, glancing once more towards the kitchen door where an argument appeared to be revving up to a full-blown fight. ‘I’ll let you know next Saturday. OK?’
*
The remaining hours at The Black Swan seemed interminable and I longed to be home with Allegra, my four-year-old. Now that she’d started school full-time, it was much easier with regards to childcare issues while I was at university. Saturdays, however, were still a problem and I had to depend on my parents to look after her while I tried to earn a bit of money that would help towards the rent of the tiny terraced cottage Allegra and I shared not too far from the actual town centre. I was always broke by the end of the week and I worried constantly about the electricity bill, council tax and other horrors, real and imagined, that lay in wait, ready to jump out at me with an evil cackle like some mentally deranged jack-in-the-box, just as I thought I was in the clear.
At 6 p.m., feet aching and with a headache threatening, I hung up my Black Swan apron and black-feathered swan cap—a uniform that was supposed to give the waiting staff the appearance of graceful swans gliding from table to table but which, in reality, made the majority of us look like malevolent black crows or, worse, like some fat little Disney cartoon character having a bad hair day.
‘Hey, Clem-en-teeena, ’owsabout yous and me goes outs for dat dreenk now? Dees over bastards theenk you theenk I’m bahneet yous end yous will says nos to a dreenk wit me.’
‘Sorry, Boleslaw, not tonight,’ I grinned. ‘I have to get home to my little girl.’
‘Yous don’t know what yous missing,’ he said seriously, thrusting his groin in my direction. ‘I shows yous a good time, yes? We goes to dees leedle poleesh place I knows end I gives yous all I has? Yes?’
‘Nos. I mean no.’ I grinned again. ‘Sorry, Boleslaw, another time maybe.’
I hurried towards the door, fastening my old mac against the rain that had started to fall and, glancing at my watch, hurried for my bus. My mother wouldn’t be at all impressed that I was so late and I could already hear the note of impatience in her voice that would greet me as I let myself into my old childhood home in order to pick up a waiting Allegra.
*
‘You’re very late, dear,’ my mother said, smiling in an attempt to soften the waspishness in her tone. ‘I did say that the Gilberts were coming over for dinner, didn’t I? I thought you might have remembered and made that bit more of an effort to get here on time? I’ve still got a mountain of stuff to do and your father isn’t back from the golf club yet.’
‘Sorry, but it couldn’t be helped,’ I said, returning the smile. ‘We were really busy and the bus took forever.’ Years of practice meant there was no way I was going to snap back at her, much as I would have liked to have. I needed her to help me with Allegra on the days that Izzy wasn’t around to take her, and I just couldn’t afford to fall out with her as I had so often fallen out with her over the years.
‘Hello, my darling,’ I said, bending to swing Allegra off the steps as she came racing down them towards me. ‘Have you been a good girl for Granny?’
‘She’s always a good girl for me, aren’t you, Allegra?’ My mother visibly preened before adding, ‘Do you not think it’s about time she had a haircut, Clementine? It’s getting terribly long and straggly. Rather common, in fact, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
I did mind but, clamping my mouth shut on what I really wanted to say, I hurried Allegra into her navy duffle coat and headed for the door.
*
‘Are we going to Auntie Izzy’s today?’ Allegra asked hopefully as she bounced on my bed the next morning.
I glanced at the little travelling clock on the bedside table, a present many years ago from one of my own aunts. ‘Allegra, it’s the middle of the night. Either go back to you
r own bed where you should be, or get in with me. But just go back to sleep.’
‘The little hand is pointing to six which means it isn’t the middle of the night. It’s morning and I want to go to Auntie Izzy’s.’
I raised my head from the pillow squinting at her in surprise. Were four-year-olds able to tell the time? Or was I raising a little genius? I knew nothing at all about children apart from the fact that I had one. Unplanned for, certainly and, at the time, not overly wanted. Now I couldn’t imagine my life without her. Having said that, it wasn’t easy having a four-year-old when I had no money and no prospect of ever having any until I finished my degree at the end of the academic year and joined the queue of graduates hoping for hotel management work. My problem was that, being a mature student, I’d be that much older than the rest of the bright young things clawing their way to the top through unpaid internships and work experience and, whereas years ago I’d have applied for jobs anywhere, including abroad, now I had to think about Allegra. Not for the first time I wondered at the sanity of my embarking on a three-year degree course when Allegra had been just a baby. But at least the university crèche had been subsidised and I wouldn’t have to pay back my student loan—which was racking up at an alarming rate—until I started earning some decent money. Which, when I woke in the middle of the night, heart pounding, I panicked might be never.
Pushing out of my mind all panicky thoughts about the future and how I was going to pay the council tax bill that had landed on my doormat yesterday morning, I took Allegra in my arms and snuggled her down under the covers with me.
‘OK, here’s the deal: we go back to sleep for an hour and then I might just—only might, mind you—take you round to Auntie Izzy’s for lunch.’ Which was a bit mean really as Izzy had already invited us round there. ‘Deal?’
‘Deal.’ Allegra headbutted my stomach, closed both eyes in a theatrical simulation of sleep and sighed heavily. ‘Has an hour gone yet?’
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