I Found You

by Lisa Jewell

  He pulled away and looked into her eyes. ‘Christ, Kirst. Did you have more E?’ he demanded.

  ‘I did,’ she said, nestling her head into the crook of his neck. ‘I truly did.’

  ‘Oh, fuck. Kirsty! How the hell am I supposed to take you home now? I can’t take you home like this. Oh, for fuck’s sake! How much did you have?’

  ‘Just one.’

  ‘One what? One quarter? One half?’

  ‘One whole,’ she said.

  ‘You had a whole one! Plus the quarter!’

  ‘God, I don’t know. Who cares? It’s all just so beautiful. This house. And these people. And you, Gray. My beautiful brother. Let’s go and see the peacock! Come on!’

  She got to her feet and he stared down at her. ‘Fine,’ he said, thinking that actually some fresh air might be just what was needed. ‘We’ll go and see the peacock. And then I’m getting you a cup of coffee and a pint of water and I’m taking you home. But fuck, Kirst, you’ve got to promise me you won’t take anything else. Seriously. It’s dangerous.’

  ‘It’s not dangerous, my beautiful brother. How can it be dangerous? Look what happened to you! You kissed that girl! Seriously, Gray! It’s the answer to everything!’

  He turned to look at Izzy who was now sitting with her legs hooked over the lap of one of the men from the pub and playing with Harrie’s hair; Harrie had her head in Izzy’s lap. The man from the pub looked as if he was too scared to move, or even to breathe. Mark meanwhile was sliding beers and cocktails across the counter and passing out more and more of his white pills and the music was getting harder and harder and the chatter was getting louder and louder and the air was filled with smoke and shadows of people dancing and Gray was now fairly convinced that Mark’s aunt was not in the house.

  ‘Come on then,’ he said, ‘let’s go and find the peacock.’

  The air outside was crisp, more October than the first day of August. A light mist hovered between the ground and the sky and the gardens glowed silver in the moonlight. The bass of the music was still loud out here, the beat insistent and raw, and Kirsty danced and spun ahead of him. Gray breathed in deeply, trying to clear his head. The effect of the E hadn’t lasted long and in fact, apart from the manic bliss of his kiss with Izzy half an hour ago, he wasn’t sure it had really done anything at all.

  He scoped the gardens, looking for the peacock, and then there, in the distance, glimpsed a shimmer and flurry, a screech and a sudden movement. ‘There,’ he said to Kirsty. ‘There he is.’

  Kirsty put her hands to her mouth and whispered, ‘Oh, look. Look at him. Look at him, Gray!’

  They tiptoed across the soft grass, then sat side by side a few feet away from him and watched. Kirsty nestled her head into the crook of Gray’s neck and he felt a softness open up in his belly. She’d never been affectionate with him before. There’d always been that polite remove between them, but here she was, her heart wide open, holding on to him and loving him. He put his arm around her waist and he pulled her closer and he whispered into her ear, ‘Love you, little sis.’ And she whispered back, ‘Love you, too, big bro.’

  And there before them the peacock suddenly turned towards the light of the house, towards his audience, and he opened up his fan of plumage and he shook it in time to the music and Kirsty opened her mouth wide and said, ‘Wow! He’s dancing! The peacock is dancing!’

  ‘He is!’ Gray laughed. ‘He really is!’

  And as he said this he saw a shaft of light fall across the lawn and the shadow of a man stretched out before them. They both turned and saw Mark heading towards them with a handful of beers.

  ‘Hello, you two,’ he said loudly.

  Gray stifled a groan.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’

  ‘Just watching the peacock,’ said Kirsty. ‘He’s dancing!’

  Mark sat down next to them and passed them each a beer. ‘Dancing peacocks, eh?’

  ‘Yes, look!’

  But the peacock had disappeared.

  ‘Oh,’ said Kirsty.

  ‘So,’ said Mark, looking at Gray, clearly uninterested in the dancing peacock, ‘you appear to have lost Izzy to the charms of a local oik.’

  Gray shrugged. ‘She was never mine.’

  ‘She looked quite a lot like she was yours, earlier.’

  ‘It’s just drugs, isn’t it? It wasn’t real.’

  Mark nodded. ‘Like dancing peacocks?’

  Gray ignored him. ‘Who are all those people in there, anyway?’

  ‘Locals. You know. People who actually live here all year. Christ. Just imagine.’

  ‘Do you know them?’

  ‘Some of them, sure. I’ve been coming here all my life, remember. Since I was a kid.’

  There was a long silence, pierced by screams of laughter coming from inside the house.

  ‘So,’ said Mark, a while later. ‘The other morning. What the hell was that all about?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean. I mean me basically being dumped, by you and your parents, on your doorstep. That wasn’t very nice.’

  Neither of them said anything.

  ‘I mean, I assume that that’s what it was? Yes? I was being dumped by proxy?’

  Gray held Kirsty closer to him. ‘She was just feeling ill. She wasn’t in the mood.’

  ‘So, you and me, Kirsty. Are we still on?’

  Kirsty didn’t reply, just nestled closer to Gray.

  ‘Are you feeling better now?’ he insisted. ‘Well enough to come out with me tomorrow night?’

  He plucked at the grass with his fingers as he talked. His voice was shrill. His energy was manic.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Kirsty. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘What does that mean? You’re either into me or you’re not. You either want to go out with me or you don’t. We’re either on or we’re off.’

  Kirsty said nothing.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Listen, Mark, it’s late. She’s wired. I need to get her home. Let’s have this conversation another day, shall we? When we’re all a bit less … chemical.’

  ‘But don’t you see? That’s precisely why we should have this conversation right now. While all the emotions are running on the surface. While we’re all feeling real.’

  ‘Mark,’ Gray sighed, ‘this is not real.’

  ‘Of course it’s real. All of it’s real. Whatever you’re feeling, whatever you’re seeing, it’s real. It comes from in there.’ He pointed at Gray’s head. ‘It comes from in there.’ He pointed at his heart. ‘Just takes little keys to unlock it, little keys like E and booze. So’ – he turned sharply so that he was inches from Kirsty’s face – ‘I’m asking you now, Kirsty, I’m asking you: what’s going on? Huh?’

  Gray got to his feet and pulled Kirsty up to hers. ‘Really, not the time, not the place, mate. I’m taking her home, OK?’

  Mark grabbed at Kirsty’s arm and brought her back down on to the grass. She landed on her bottom with a hard thump.

  Gray pushed down on Mark’s shoulders and said, ‘Get the fuck off her!’

  He began to pull Kirsty back up again and Mark suddenly threw himself at Gray’s legs, pulling him down into the grass, half on top of him. Gray’s upper body hit Kirsty who cried out in pain and he pulled himself up and struck out at Mark, who caught his fist in his hand and gripped it. With his other arm Mark dragged Kirsty towards him and held her around the neck in the crook of his arm. Gray pulled at Kirsty’s arms, but this just tightened Mark’s hold around her throat, so he took hold of Mark’s wrist and attempted to pull his arm away. Mark kicked out with the heel of his right foot and slammed it between Gray’s legs, narrowly missing his balls. Gray rolled backwards and then came back up to sitting again, about to launch another attack on Mark, and stopping as the silver of a flick-knife caught the moonlight.

  It was at Kirsty’s throat. Mark was panting. His eyes were wide and he licked his lips.

  ‘Now look,’ he
said to Gray. ‘Now look what you made me do.’

  Thirty-five

  Lily showers and dresses. Her jeans are loose around her waist. She must eat. There is nothing in the kitchen that is edible, so she decides to go to the shops.

  It’s a pale, sunny day, almost warm when she catches the morning sun. She pulls down her sunglasses and enjoys the feel of it against her face. She walks past the building site next door and glances up at the window where the light flickers every night. It looks so innocuous by day. She can’t imagine why it scared her so much the other day. As she walks she feels her lungs fill and empty, fill and empty, the sun on her skin, her pace wide and long, the paving stones solid beneath her feet. For a while her mind empties of all it’s been holding on to for five days. Before Carl went missing she’d spent her days in limbo, living for the text messages, envisaging the trains coming and going, barely breathing until he was home again. And now, for the first time since she came to this country, she feels as though maybe she lives here. Not just in that flat. Not just in Carl’s arms. But here. In this country.

  She picks up some colour in her cheeks as she strides towards town. Blood surges through her. She grabs a basket at the entrance to the high street supermarket, breezes through the aisles collecting things: packets of solid, fibrous cereal, pots of soup, pizzas, bread, a box of doughnuts, milk, toilet rolls, biscuits, chocolate spread, hams and cheeses, bath soap and shower gel. No salads, no health drinks, no vegetables. She won’t eat them. She chooses only what she needs and what she knows will sate her hunger without her having to think about it.

  At the checkout she smiles at the girl and says, ‘It’s nice weather today, isn’t it?’

  And the girl smiles back at her warmly and says, ‘Hope it sticks around till my shift is over. It’s def­initely beer-garden weather!’

  Lily doesn’t quite know what beer-garden weather is but she can make a good guess, so she smiles and says, ‘I hope so too!’

  She swings the carrier bags off the checkout and starts to head home. But first she notices a dress shop, just two doors down, one she hadn’t noticed before. In the window is a green dress, made of a silky-looking fabric. It has short sleeves and a full skirt. It’s not something she would have looked at before. It’s very grown-up. But it suddenly occurs to her that she has no summer clothes. That she came to this country at the tail end of winter, with just jeans and jumpers and small, clingy things to wear at night. The weather today reminds her that soon it will be May, and she has some of Carl’s secret money in her bag.

  She stops at the door of the dress shop, her hand against the door.

  Then she thinks of the future. She thinks that Carl is most likely dead and she is alone and this money may be all she has to live on for a long, long time. Suddenly she is taken away from the clarity and peace of the moment and back into the dark reality of her situation. She walks home slowly, the shopping bags heavy in her hands, clouds gathering over the sun.

  She quickly unloads the shopping bags. She eats a doughnut and drinks a Coke. Then she plumps all the cushions on the sofa, sits neatly on the edge and calls Russ.

  ‘Lily,’ he says, clearly having programmed her number into his phone, ‘how are you?’

  ‘Not so good.’

  ‘No sign of him then?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘No,’ he repeats, ‘of course not.’ Then: ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Well, yes. I spoke to his mother. This morning.’

  ‘Wow! Well, that’s a big development!’

  ‘No, unfortunately it is not. She pretended not to be his mother. She said she had no children.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I see.’

  ‘I want you to call her please. Call her for me. Pretend that you are the gas man, you know, or the satellite man.’ This was the thing that occurred to her as she walked through the high street this morning, feeling so light and clear-headed. Now she knew someone in this country, they could help her. ‘Ask her some questions. Maybe find out her name. Please.’

  There is a short silence on the other end of the line. ‘Gosh.’

  ‘Please.’

  He is silent.

  She lets him think for a moment.

  Then he says, ‘Give me the number. First thing I’ll do is google it and see what comes up. Then I’ll call you back.’

  ‘Fine,’ she says, although it’s not really fine. What would be fine would be for him to do what she asked him to do. She gives him the woman’s number and sits and waits. Her stomach aches, from anxiety and from the sudden hit of sugar after eating nothing but bread and rice for three days.

  A moment later the phone rings.

  ‘Right,’ he says, ‘I’ve googled the number and I’ve got the full address.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It came up on one of those websites for buying and selling other people’s stuff. Someone at that address was selling a grand piano. It was a couple of years ago, but still.’

  ‘So, where is this place?’

  ‘Somewhere called Ridinghouse Bay. In East Yorkshire.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘North,’ he said, ‘about four or five hours from here.’

  ‘Can we go there?’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Yes. You and me.’

  There follows a dense silence.

  ‘It’s still early, we can go now.’

  ‘Well, blimey. I don’t know. It’s Sunday. I’m with my family. We’ve got plans.’

  ‘What sort of plans?’

  ‘Lunch. We’re having lunch.’

  Lily inhales, holding back the urge to shout: Lunch! Lunch! That is your plan? Lunch! ‘He might be there, Russ,’ she says. ‘He might be in that house. With that woman.’

  He pauses again. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘I would go on my own, but really, I am a foreigner, I would not know how to get to a place so far away.’

  ‘It’s a really long journey, Lily. I don’t think we could do it in a day.’

  It’s eleven o’clock. She tallies it up in her head. If they left now they’d get there at four o’clock. Stay an hour. Be back by 10 p.m.

  ‘We could, Russ. We’d be home by ten o’clock.’

  Russ sighs. ‘Lily, Lily, I’m really sorry. I really am. But I just don’t think …’

  ‘Ask your wife,’ she says. ‘Ask her now. Tell her your friend is in danger. Tell her it’s life and death. Please!’

  ‘I’ll call you back in a minute, Lily. OK?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘yes. Thank you, Russ. Thank you.’

  She turns off her phone and smiles.

  An hour later Russ is in the car park downstairs in a people carrier. Lily climbs in gingerly. It’s dirty and covered in crumbs, sucked-out sachets of baby muck, dried-out baby wipes, a drool-stained baby seat in the back.

  ‘I would have had a clear-out if I’d known we’d be doing this today,’ says Russ, wiping away some crumbs on the passenger seat. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, it is fine. Here.’ She shows him the contents of a carrier bag. ‘I made us sandwiches. And I have doughnuts, and drinks. And look!’ She pulls out a cy­linder of crisps. ‘Pringles.’

  ‘Great stuff.’ He smiles and the corners of his eyes crinkle. ‘Jo gave me this.’ He shows her a Tupperware box full of raw pasta. ‘Or should I say threw it at me. Said, “This is your lunch. You’ll have to cook it yourself.”’

  ‘Oh,’ says Lily, clipping in her seatbelt. ‘That sounds not good.’

  ‘No.’ He turns on the ignition and puts the car into reverse. ‘No. It was definitely not good. I’m in big trouble.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ says Lily, ‘when you come home you will tell her that you found your friend and that you are a hero and she will forgive you.’

  ‘Well,’ he says, pointing the car towards the car-park exit, ‘let’s hope you’re right, shall we? Otherwise I’ll be on the naughty step for the foreseeable.’

  ‘Naughty ste
p? What is this?’

  ‘It’s a …’ He laughs. ‘It’s a place for naughty children to go. For time out.’

  She widens her eyes and says, ‘Seriously? Russ? Your wife will make you sit there? Like a child?’

  He laughs loudly, boom; it makes her jump. ‘No, no!’ he says, still laughing. ‘It’s just an expression. A turn of phrase.’

  ‘So she won’t?’

  ‘No, she won’t. But she will sulk a lot. And I’ll most likely be on the sofa tonight.’

  Lily nods and stops talking for a moment. Then, finally, she turns to Russ, appraises his slightly weak-chinned profile, his Sunday-morning stubble and his pale hairless hands upon the steering wheel and she says, ‘I am sorry. I very much appreciate what you are doing for me. You are a very good man.’

  He turns and smiles at her and says, ‘You are welcome, Lily. Really. It’s nothing.’

  But Lily knows that it is not nothing, that in order to be here he has had to fight against his wife, a woman who sounds strong and terrifying. She sees now why Carl might have wanted to be in his company. For this mild-mannered man is clearly braver than he looks.

  Thirty-six

  The moment they set foot in the Hope and Anchor, Frank knows. He knows he has been here and this time the neural connections don’t flicker and fizz, they stay clear and strong and yes, he was here and there was a singer with blonde hair and a girl on piano and there was … his throat fills with the acid of it … there was tequila and there was tension and that girl was here, the girl with the brown hair, and now, from nowhere, comes her name. It lands like a rock at his feet. Kirsty. The girl is called Kirsty and he loves her. He really loves her.

  Frank manages to maintain consciousness, manages to keep his feet planted on the ground, to retain the contents of his stomach. He makes it to the table reserved in their name in a small room off the main pub lounge. He makes it to a chair and he sits down heavily. He closes his eyes, trying to chase the memory as it darts away into the dark corners of his mind. He keeps up with it for a second or two, long enough to see gentle green eyes, a cagoule, cheap trainers, a goofy smile. His heart aches so much that he has to grab hold of it with both hands and massage it.