"God, I'm hot," said Becca. "I'm going to get another drink. Want one?"
I knew I shouldn't. I already felt light-headed, a little blurred around the edges. But I needed something to soften me up, help me feel a bit more removed from the ragbag of emotions that made up my life. "Go on then."
Becca left me and I moved back to lean against the wall, feeling suddenly exposed. The drumbeat of the song currently playing thudded through my body like a giant pulse. I felt breathless. All around me people were shrieking and laughing and dancing. I looked up, searching for Becca's familiar face at the bar.
Then I saw her. Not Becca. Her. It was almost funny, the way the crowds parted for just that instant, long enough to allow our eyes to meet, just like a clichéd love song. The blonde woman stood there, her hands in the pockets of her long black coat. She was looking at me directly and, for a long moment, we both stared at each other. Her face was almost expressionless, the faintest touch of sadness in her eyes. She wasn't smiling or glaring. She just stood, and looked.
I shut my eyes. When I opened them again after a moment, she was still there, still looking at me. I felt a jab of fear hit me in the pit of the stomach. She continued to look steadily at me. I blinked again and she was still there, still looking me full in the face.
The pounding of the music, the noise of the crowd, it all faded away. For a frozen moment, her face was my entire world. Suddenly I wasn't afraid, anymore. As I watched, the woman raised her hand, a long, thin white hand, and began to beckon. Dazedly, I felt my legs begin to move of their own volition. She was a siren, drawing me in, trapping me with an unseen noose trailing from her long, sharp-nailed finger. I moved across the heaving dance floor, stumbling against people, pushing my way past them. Her gaze was a tractor beam, I had no power to resist.
I didn’t take my eyes off her. The music pounded at my ears. We couldn’t speak. She beckoned again and turned, moving through the crowd like smoke, one hip forward, another, the edge of her black coat flowing like water. I followed her, my mouth dry, mesmerised. I was lost.
We were out in the corridor, I think, I couldn’t see properly. She turned to face me and I looked at her, her face, her eyes, the fall of her bright blonde hair. I was dumb. I could scarcely breathe. It was like being opposite a lover.
“Who are you?” I said. I could feel my heart, punching away at my ribs like a small muscular fist. “Who are you?”
She was silent for a long while. The music pushed and throbbed in the background. Her eyes were so blue. I could feel recognition dawning, deep within me, something I’d known since I’d first seen her, something I’d not allowed myself to confront, something I’d pushed down and pushed down, unable to believe it. The impossible made real.
“Why, Maudie, don’t you know me?” she said.
I could feel my legs begin to shake beneath me.
“Don’t you know me?” she asked, again.
“No,” I said. I croaked it. It was a lie and I knew it. I knew her. I knew who she was.
“It’s me,” she said. “It’s me. I’m Jessica, Maudie. It’s me. Jessica.”
PART TWO
Chapter Thirteen
When I met Jessica for the first time, we were seven years old and she wore the most beautiful pair of red leather shoes. On the toe, a flower was appliquéd in blue and yellow petals and in the centre was a shining brass button.
"I like your shoes," I said shyly.
"Oh - thanks."
Jessica was taller than me, her hair was longer and she seemed altogether more grown up. She'd been assigned to show me around the school and by the set of her resentful shoulders, I guessed she would rather be out in the playground with all the other kids.
We walked a little further up the corridor.
"Why do you talk funny?" she asked.
I hung my head, stung. "I'm Scottish. Well, I was born there. My dad's really Scottish but he doesn't talk funny because he went to school in England."
"Oh," said Jessica and we walked on in silence.
We sat next to one another in the classroom. By then, she'd thawed a little. She showed me where she'd written her name in tiny red letters on the underside of the desk. I gaped in amazement at her daring.
"You can write your name there too," she finally said, conspiratorial.
Sweating with fear, I scribbled my name on the grain of the wood.
"Cool," Jessica said, and from then, on we were friends.
We sat together in the classroom, we played together at lunchtime. Jessica had two other friends, Sophie and Beth, who were giggly and friendly but didn't have the same force of personality Jessica exhibited, even at seven. She was the leader of our little group, the one who told us what we were going to play, the one who directed us, scolded us, encouraged us. When Robert Fallway made fun of my scar, calling me Frankenstein and making me cry, Jessica was the one who chased him off and punched him, just for added emphasis. She got a talking to by the headmistress for that and I loved her even more.
I think that was the same week she invited me to her house for the first time. Normally, I was collected from school by whichever au pair Angus was employing at the time, or sometimes Mrs. Green. That day, though, Jessica and I walked home from school to her house, right in the middle of the village, next to the post office. For me, shepherded about, overseen and driven everywhere, it felt rather thrilling to be walking along the pavement with my best friend, swinging our bags and chatting. It was a beautiful day; we kept turning our faces to the sun and shutting our eyes, half blinded by light.
I knew most people didn't live in a house as big as Caernaven but even so, the first sight of Jessica’s house momentarily surprised me. It was a tiny cottage, one of the many stone-built terraces that made up the majority of our village housing. The front door was painted a cheerful shade of blue and the door knocker was of the same shiny brass as the button on Jessica's shoe. She had her own key to the door which impressed me.
Jessica's house was empty, humming with silence.
"Mummy's at work," said Jessica, showing me into the tiny kitchen. "She leaves me my tea - look, there it is. She's done yours, too."
There were two plates on the kitchen counter, both covered in clingfilm, heaped with salad and a slice of quiche and some grapes. We each took one and I followed Jessica through to the back garden. It felt rather delightfully like a picnic and I felt envious. I wanted to come home to this tiny cottage and have my dinner in the garden too. After we'd eaten our tea (and that was another thing that I found strange, as tea in our house was always drunk in a cup), Jessica showed me the playhouse that her dad had built, the old robin's nest in the hedge, the fourteen goldfish in a tiny, weed-choked pond.
Finally, we climbed the stairs to her bedroom.
The front door opened as we were halfway up and a tall, grey-haired man walked in. He was thin and slightly crumpled and, for an odd second, I thought he looked as though he were made out of paper.
"Hi, Dad," said Jessica. She bounded down the stairs and kissed him. He seemed to fold in half as he bent down to her.
"Hello, darling. Who's your friend?"
I stood where I was on the stairs, one hand on the banister. I was shy with adults I didn't know.
"This is Maudie, she's from Scotland."
He smiled at me from his withered face. "Hello, dear."
It was fully dark by the time the front door opened again and Mrs. McGaskill appeared.
It's hard for me to remember how I felt about her then, untainted by subsequent events. I know that from very early on, I liked her. Very quickly, I loved her. By the time of our holiday in Cornwall, I almost worshipped her. It was that intensity of feeling that made what happened later so exquisitely painful. Of course, I was looking for a mother-figure and any woman would have done.