"Nope," she said. "People with money who are generous are rare. The tight bastards are more usually found."
“True.”
“Except for Angus,” she said. “He wasn’t tight.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“No, that he wasn’t," I said. I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice. "That’s one thing he wasn’t.”
A crowd of school children swarmed around us briefly, speaking French. We watched them walk and run down the street.
“He lied to me, Jess,” I said.
She glanced warily at me. “Who did?”
“Angus. And Aunt Effie – remember her? They all lied to me.”
“They did?”
“Technically, they didn’t,” I said. I could hear myself, as if I were listening to someone else speaking flatly. “They withheld information, I think is the term. It comes to the same thing, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
I hesitated for a second. It hurt so much to even think of the words to use. But I did use them. I told her what Aunt Effie had told me. As I finished speaking, I could feel the tears start to come.
Jessica grabbed my arm. “Don’t cry,” she said. “You’re always crying and what good does it do?” I looked at her, startled out of my misery. “Get angry, Maudie. Stop being so passive.”
“What?”
“Crying never gets you anywhere. I know that. So people treat you like shit – are you just going to sit there and take it?”
I stared at her, taken aback.
“Are you?”
I felt my shoulders slump. “Probably. I don’t know what else to do.”
She remained with her hand on my arm, staring at me. Then she stepped back. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re right,” I said. “I just – oh, I don’t know–”
I had the sense she was struggling not to say more. She opened her mouth and shut it again.
"What is it?" I said.
She held her breath for a second and then let it out in a sigh. "Nothing," she said. "It's nothing. It's just-" She hesitated again. "It's just - I'm sorry, Maudie."
"Sorry?"
"Yes, I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry you're upset."
There was another moment of silence.
Jessica lit a cigarette and, as she spoke, wisps of smoke trickled from her lips. “There’s a bar, in Hoxton, on Shade Street. It’s off Old Street - it’s called the Sticks Bar. Can you be there tomorrow night? Eight o’clock?”
“Of course.” I said it too quickly, almost talking over her.
“It’s time for my story now.” She said it again, almost too quietly for me to hear. “Yes, it’s time for my story now.”
I felt a leap of something; fear, anticipation.
“I’ll be there.”
She regarded me for a moment, without speaking. Then with a quick sharp nod, she turned away. I watched her walk away from me down the street, before the crowds swallowed her up.
Chapter Twenty Six
The Sticks Bar was small and dark. I had found the shabby, anonymous looking street fairly easily but had walked the length of the road twice, up and back, before I found the bar. A discarded newspaper blew against my legs and I had to stop and disentangle myself before walking on. I don’t mind waiting in bars by myself but I always have to gather my courage to actually enter them. I suppose it’s the fear of not knowing what’s behind the door.
The walls were painted dark red, and with the low ceiling and dim lighting, it felt like stepping into a cave. I walked as nonchalantly as I could to the bar and waited to be served, glancing about me as discreetly as possible. I was looking for a flash of blonde hair in the gloom. There were few people there but I still stood for five minutes at the bar, feeling utterly invisible, before the barman deigned to notice me.
Drink in hand, I made my way slowly around the bar, peering through the gloom for a sight of Jessica. I couldn’t find her. I made my way to a table for two at the back of the room, sat down and leant my head against the dark red wall. I kept my eyes shut for a minute, trying to breathe deeply and not think of much. Then, a little calmer, I opened them.
Jessica sat opposite me. I suppose I must have been getting used to her sudden appearances and disappearances – I hardly jumped at all. The merest squeak came from my mouth, quickly muffled.
“Hi,” I said, voice hardly shaking at all.
“Been waiting long?”
“Not long,” I said, rather tightly. “Not long in one way.”
“I know exactly how you feel, Maudie, believe me.”
She had an odd way about her tonight, a kind of suppressed glee. She kept buttoning herself down; I could see her doing it. I was reminded, unwillingly, of the last night I’d ever seen her, before her reappearance – when she stood in the kitchen of the cottage in Cornwall, her eyes gleaming in the naked light of the kitchen lightbulb. I heard her ten year old voice as clearly as I could hear her now: Tonight, we’ll do it tonight. The ritual. What in God’s name had she conjured up?
Her blonde hair was twisted up tonight, in a messy coil on the back of her head. She wore her long black coat and, underneath, a purple velvet shirt. There was a heavy, silver ring on one of her long fingers and she wore the necklace that I’d bought her. It shimmered against the pale skin of her throat.
Jessica took a big mouthful of her drink – I could see it distending her cheeks.
“Where do you want me to begin?”
“At the beginning, of course.”
“But which one?”
“For God’s sake,” I said. “You tell me.” I didn’t sound like myself. I sounded like a stranger, a cold, censorious stranger.
Her manner changed. Before she had been wild, fey, fidgeting about in her seat and turning her glass around and around, inking wet rings of condensation on the table top. Now she sagged. I could see the slowly welling gleam of tears in her eyes.
“Begin after Cornwall,” I said, more gently.
She looked down at the table and a tear fell. I was pierced by the memory of sitting opposite Becca and telling her the same story. Now here was the second half, Jessica’s second half.
“Cornwall,” said Jessica, slowly. I couldn’t read her voice – it sounded purposefully flat, as if she was trying not to betray any emotion whatsoever. I knew how she felt.
“Cornwall...” I prompted.
She glanced up at me with a flash of anger. “Alright,” she said. “Give me a chance. I’ll tell it in my own time.”
“Okay,” I said, chastened. We both looked at our drinks. I noticed her nails were bitten, the nail polish on them chipped and flaking.
“Cornwall,” she said, once more. Then she took a deep breath, steadying herself for the plunge.
*
“I think I was about fifteen when I first realised something was wrong. Really wrong, I mean, not just the wrong kind of thing for a teenage girl. Before that, I’d had problems, you know, but I didn’t really connect anything with anything. I just thought my – my situation was a bit fucked up. Which it was, of course – Christ, so much more than I could have imagined. But I didn’t know. I didn’t even know I suspected. I think there was just a sense of – of things being – off kilter. As if you’re looking at the world through different coloured glasses to the rest of the people.
“You know that old chestnut about trying to describe a colour to a blind person? I mean, how do you describe blue to a person who’s never seen the sky, or the sea, or – or cornflowers, or anything like that? You know what I mean? All I knew was that something was wrong, something underneath, but I didn’t know if I was right. God, it drove me mad. Imagine being fifteen, and stuck in a house with – wait, I’m getting beyond myself.