The House of New Beginnings Read online

  ‘Yes, please,’ Bea mumbled, unmoving.

  ‘Fine. Why don’t you wash your face and get dressed, and I’ll sort that out,’ Rosa said, conscious of the time, and her own need to get on. Porridge and one more hospital visit, she could manage that much, she thought, hunting in Jo’s cupboards for the right sort of pan. By this evening, it would all be over, and she could retreat into solitude once more, job done.

  *

  ‘You should sneak her into hotel. She could stay there,’ said Natalya when Rose told her of the situation. The two of them were taking a break outside the back of the Zanzibar, Natalya with one of her noxious-smelling Russian cigarettes, Rosa with coffee in a chipped mug. ‘What?’ she asked, shrugging, when Rosa pulled an I-don’t-think-so face. ‘I do it before, with my friend Svetlana. Nobody notice. I just sneak her through the back.’

  ‘She’s only fourteen,’ Rosa said, her mouth puckering at the coffee. She’d made it extra-strong, feeling the need for caffeine, but every sip was making her head pound. ‘And she’s all prickly and cross, there’s no way she’d be able to blag it if anyone questioned her.’ She turned her head to avoid Natalya’s smoke. ‘I’m going to have to get in touch with her dad.’

  ‘The bad dad? But she hates him!’ Natalya protested with a frown.

  ‘I know, but . . .’ Rosa shrugged. ‘I’m working here all weekend. What else can I do?’

  ‘Nothing else,’ Natalya agreed morosely then, after one last hard pull on the cigarette, she dropped it and stamped it out. ‘I wonder why she hates him that bad?’ she mused as they turned to go back to the kitchen. ‘Is he like criminal, maybe? Hitman?’ She wiggled one bushy eyebrow. ‘The mafia?’

  ‘It’s a good question,’ said Rosa. ‘I’ve been wondering the same.’

  ‘Gareth? Hi, my name is Rosa. I live next door to Jo and Bea. I’m just—’

  ‘Who?’ There was music in the background and the sound of voices. Was he in a pub? she wondered.

  ‘Jo and Bea?’ she repeated while Bea made a gun shape with one hand and pretended to shoot herself in the head. It was early evening that same day, and following a visit to the hospital after school, where the nurses had informed them that Jo would be staying in for at least another forty-eight hours, Rosa was now on the phone to Gareth, Bea’s dad, although judging by his confused response, she was starting to think she might have the wrong number. Unless the guy was so clueless as to have forgotten the names of his own daughter and ex-wife, she thought, remembering her conversation with Natalya. Surely nobody could be that crap though, could they?

  ‘Oh sorry, love, didn’t hear what you said. Jo and Bea, got it. What about them?’ He had a low husky voice that had a laugh in it, a southern accent. There was the sound of cheering in the background and a football chant. Definitely a pub, Rosa thought.

  ‘Well, Jo’s not well, she’s gone into hospital,’ she told him. ‘She’s going to be in for another few days too – and I’ve looked after Bea here until now but I’ve got to work tomorrow and so . . .’ She was talking too fast, the words rushing out of her. ‘So Jo was wondering if Bea could come to yours then.’

  She glanced across at Bea who was now pretending to hang herself, and felt wretched about the whole situation. Poor kid. Jo had still been pale and wan when they saw her earlier but at least this time she was awake and able to speak, insisting that Bea would have to go to her dad’s. ‘Come on, love,’ she’d urged. ‘It’s been so long. This could be your chance to put everything behind you, start again.’

  ‘Huh, right,’ Bea had snarled but her protests had fallen on deaf ears. Jo was resolute.

  ‘Sure,’ Gareth said now, over a gale of blokish laughter in the background. ‘No problem. I’m over in Kemp Town, Essex Street. She knows where it is.’

  ‘Okay, so should I just . . . drop her with you tomorrow morning? Around nine o’clock?’ This was all turning out to be easier than she’d expected, even if Bea was shaking her head darkly and pulling sick faces.

  ‘Er . . . yeah,’ he replied after a brief hesitation. ‘Nine it is. Tell her I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘He’s looking forward to it,’ Rosa duly repeated after hanging up but Bea just made a scornful sound in her throat and stared pointedly at the ceiling. ‘I’m sorry, there’s not really any way around it,’ she went on. And there wasn’t! She couldn’t look after the girl the whole time, could she? This was nothing to do with her, not her problem. So why on earth was she feeling so guilty about Bea’s unhappy face all of a sudden? ‘Look,’ she blurted out before she could stop herself, ‘I finish my shift on Sunday after lunch so how about you come back here then, and I’ll make us a slap-up Sunday roast?’

  Lips tightly pressed together, Bea did at least give a small grudging nod. ‘I suppose so,’ she growled.

  Rosa, you ridiculous pushover, she thought in the next moment, cross with her own weakness. Since when did you turn into such an utter sap? ‘Right,’ she said with a sigh. ‘So that’s settled.’

  Chapter Eight

  A small white envelope had been slipped under Charlotte’s door when she returned from work on Friday. Her name was written on the front in black cursive handwriting and she knew instantly who had left it there.

  Sighing a little, she put it on the side in the kitchen unopened while she hung up her jacket, tidied her shoes into their usual place and then set about making her tea. Well, all right, opening the plastic pot of Marks and Spencer Mediterranean pasta salad and decanting it onto a plate anyway, and then pouring herself a glass of Chilean cabernet sauvignon. The chocolate eclairs she slid into the fridge, just in case she might feel like one later. Both, even. If you couldn’t treat yourself on a Friday night, when could you? she thought defensively.

  Fridays were always a bit hard to get through, to be honest. Kate had been born on a Friday. She’d died on a Friday too, after just two short weeks of life. You wouldn’t think that a grown woman’s very best and very worst moments could be experienced in such a limited time period, but Charlotte had discovered, unfortunately, that this was entirely possible. Three little words: congenital heart defect. That was all it took to shatter your entire world, as it turned out.

  So yes, Fridays tended to be particularly tough. Everyone else always seemed in a carefree, weekend-starts-here sort of mood which made things worse. The only time she ever felt like reconnecting to her ex-husband Jim was on a Friday although she was trying not to ring him any more. ‘We’ve got to stop this,’ he’d said gently the last time, when she was drunk and incoherent, her face dripping with tears. The kindness in his voice had pulled her up short; the pity, with the merest hint of irritation in the background. The next time he might tell her to eff off, she had realized with a shock.

  Since moving to Brighton she often worked late on Fridays now, prolonging the inevitable moment when she’d be back here alone, doing her best to avoid getting out the shoebox of memories at the bottom of the wardrobe. You had to ration yourself with the sadness, sometimes. If you could just distract yourself, keep busy, keep active, then the hours would eventually drag by until you could turn the lights off and go to sleep. And so Friday nights were often the busiest of her week: she would get all her paperwork done, bill-paying and shopping-ordering and accounts. She would clean out the fridge and scrub the salad drawer, descale the kettle, mop the kitchen floor, disinfect the bin and slosh a capful of bleach down the sink. She would sort out the week’s dry-cleaning to take in the next morning, hanging it tidily by the front door in readiness, and then she’d clear out any receipts or unwanted bits and pieces from her handbag. There was barely a moment left in which to feel sad. That was the plan anyway. Unless she ended up getting drunk and maudlin again. You could never really predict which way it would go.

  Once she’d eaten her tea – on her lap, on the sofa (the kitchen was barely big enough for a cooker, let alone a luxury like a dining table) – she remembered again the small white envelope with the elegant handwriting that had bee
n pushed under her door. Opening it revealed a folded sheet of paper with the following words:

  Dear Charlotte,

  It was very nice to meet you. Would you be free to come to tea with me on Saturday at four o’clock?

  Best wishes

  Margot Favager

  It was rather like being summoned by the queen. Was she supposed to reply? she wondered, draining her glass of wine. RSVP a scented note, slip it under the door of Flat 5, or just turn up, knock on the door with a bunch of tulips and a bashful smile?

  She poured herself another glass of wine. That was if she even decided to go, of course. She was just going to have to sleep on it.

  The next day was Saturday, which meant she had the bed linen to strip and wash, the hoovering and dry-cleaning to tackle and the . . . Ahh. She found herself remembering the unworn trainers still under her bed, taunting her with their newness. Here we are, still box-fresh! Hey, but we look good, right? Like we never left the shop!

  Yes, all right, then, there probably was time for a healthy walk along the seafront today, she supposed. And then, of course, the afternoon tea upstairs with Margot. Awkward silences over the bone-china tea set, her spilling biscuit crumbs down herself no doubt. She was still half considering sneaking up there on Sunday with an apologetic note in reply – So sorry, have been away, having an amazing time with all my many friends, just so busy, you see, and received your note too late, alas. But whenever she thought of Margot’s shrewd eyes on her, sussing Charlotte right out for the liar she was, she found herself cringing at her own deceit. Perhaps not.

  She busied herself with her chores and headed out to the dry-cleaners a few streets away where she dropped off her work clothes as usual. Afterwards she was about to go home again when she found herself hesitating on the street corner, feet unmoving, the world around her coming into sudden sharp focus. It was another lovely spring morning, she realized; the sun shining, a balmy benevolence about the air. The sea was a serene, luminous blue, and there were hordes of people out, making the most of the good weather: down on the beach, cycling and roller skating along the front, piling onto the Palace Pier. There were even a couple of hardy souls in the sea, although it must have been freezing.

  You are happy? Margot had asked the other day as they made their way up the stairs, and Charlotte had blushed and stammered in response. But there was something about today – the breeze tugging at her hair, the smell of candyfloss and hot dogs and fried onions, the sound of the seagulls calling overhead in the wide blue sky – that lifted her spirits just a fraction. And then, before she even really knew what she was doing, she found herself turning in the opposite direction and heading towards the pier.

  I went to the pier, she imagined herself telling her parents tomorrow when they rang for their weekly chat. You could always detect the anxiety in her mum’s voice as she asked how Charlotte was doing, gauge how worried she was in the careful listening silence as Charlotte mumbled that she was fine, work was fine, there was nothing really to report, before switching the subject to them. You could hear too the unspoken questions lurking just below the surface of the conversation: Are you coping? Promise me you haven’t been trying to steal any more babies? You will tell me, won’t you, if you need me to book an appointment with Doctor Giles again . . . ?

  They worried about her, she knew, and yet she felt unable to say anything to assuage their worries. But I went to the pier might be a start. She pictured her parents exchanging a pleased glance back home. She went to the pier! Did you hear that? Sounds like progress to me!

  She rolled her eyes at her own lame self as she trudged along. Oh God, calm down, Charlotte, you’re not exactly Ranulph Fiennes, she thought. Ten minutes along the road to a tourist attraction . . . it was hardly a big deal in anyone’s book. And she hadn’t remembered to put on her new trainers so this didn’t even count as a proper fitness mission. Never mind. She’d wander to the end of the pier and back, see what all the fuss was about, have something positive lined up to report to her parents and then go home and have a nice cup of tea. Job done.

  Once at the pier’s entrance, she found herself part of a slow-moving mass of people, all apparently with the same idea as her. Charlotte had existed in a numb sort of paralysis for some time now – a year, three months and sixteen days, actually – but even she could feel the palpable buzz of excitement as she made her way down the old wooden boards, past slot machines and arcade games and blue-rinse grannies nursing hot drinks in the sheltered area. Now and then a strong breeze would whisk up from the sea and everyone would clutch at their baseball caps and headscarves; balloons tied to pram handles would bob and dance, children ran along with their arms stretched wide as if hoping to be lifted up like birds on the wind.

  I am alive, thought Charlotte, feeling a surprised sort of thrill as she leaned against the eau-de-nil ironwork of the pier’s side. Her coat flapped and her hair streamed around her face and she could smell the sea below, briny and pungent, clumps of seaweed drifting in dark shapes through the water. I am alive. She lifted her face up to the sky and shut her eyes for a moment, marvelling at it all. And then there was a soft thump against her jeaned legs and someone was pulling at her sleeve.

  ‘Mrs Johnson? Will you help me find Daddy?’

  Charlotte looked down in surprise to see a little girl in a pink raincoat and tufty blonde bunches, a gap in her front teeth. ‘Um . . .’ she said.

  ‘Oh,’ said the girl in dismay. She could only have been five or six, and her nose was running from the wind. Her small pink fingers unwound themselves from Charlotte’s coat and she took an uncertain step backwards. ‘I fort you was Mrs Johnson.’

  ‘I’m not Mrs Johnson,’ Charlotte said. Her heart was pounding all of a sudden and she glanced around, wondering where this child’s mother was. Parents could be so negligent. So thoughtless! ‘Where’s your mummy?’

  ‘I lost Daddy,’ the girl said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Tears swelled in her blue eyes and she turned her face up to Charlotte, stricken. ‘I losted him.’

  Charlotte wasn’t sure what to do. The woman from the park in Reading was in her head all of a sudden, that angry, shrill red-faced woman, screaming Get away from my baby! What do you think you’re doing? Get your hand off her this minute! and she felt her throat swell up at the memory. ‘I . . . Where did you last see him?’ she asked, glancing round again. Any second now, some furious parent would run towards her, accusing horrible things, she thought in a panic. Been there, done that, had the breakdown. ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘He looks like Daddy,’ the girl said unhelpfully. She had a faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose and her lips were chapped at one corner. ‘We was at the hot dogs bit cos Amber was hungry and then I wanted to go on the teacups but he said no and then Amber needed a wee and he said wait there, and I did wait there but then I saw a seagull and I fort it was hurted so I followed it for a bit and then I couldn’t see him no more.’ Her face crumpled suddenly and new tears spurted from her eyes. ‘I just want my daddy!’ she howled.

  People were turning to look at them wonderingly and Charlotte felt her agitation grow. Taking care not to actually touch the child or get too close – she had made that mistake before – she bent down and said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll help you find him. What’s your name?’

  ‘Lily,’ sniffed the little girl and then she took two sideways steps over and put her hand in Charlotte’s. ‘Fank you,’ she added trustingly.

  Oh God. Oh God. The girl’s hand felt so warm in hers, so solid, it was all Charlotte could do not to start sniffling herself. She dreamed sometimes that Kate was alive, growing up, a toddler now in stripy tights and tiny shoes, a hand in hers, just like this. For a second she wondered if she was hallucinating, dreaming while wide awake, and that she’d look down and the girl would be gone, and then she would know for sure that she’d completely lost the plot. But no, there was Lily in snot-smeared real life, holding tight to Charlotte’s fingers, and cheer
ing up almost immediately as they set off, hopping from foot to foot, telling Charlotte about how they’d lost Amber’s teddy and how she’d got her shoes and socks wet where the sea had come in too quick, and that Daddy had been a bit cross and said, Oh, Lily, not again.

  She was adorable, thought Charlotte with a pang, her earlier caution vanishing like a sea mist burning away. She was so sweet with her little round face and those tears clinging damply to her lashes, her incessant chatter, the way her coat was slightly too big and bunching on her arms. And there it was, the temptation, as strong and pulling as the tide itself; the temptation that whispered to her to just turn around with the girl and take her home, clutching that small clammy hand, she could do it. I’ll look after you, Lily, you can be my little girl now. Would you like that?

  But no, she mustn’t. She wouldn’t. Would she?

  Just then there was a man bearing down on them anyway, a man pushing a buggy with another small girl strapped inside, a man with rumpled hair and glasses and a panicked set to his mouth, shouting, ‘Lily! For heaven’s sake! Where have you been?’

  And before Charlotte could snatch her hand away from the girl’s – I was not stealing your daughter, I was not – Lily had released her grasp and the spell was broken as she went pelting across the wooden boards of the pier – ‘Daddy!’ – all the way over to the man who threw his arms around her and squeezed her and kissed her blonde head, his big arms wrapped around her doll-like body.