‘Bubble-gum heaven,’ she says. ‘It’s new.’ She’s holding the scoop. Water drips off it.
‘Can I have a scoop of that, then,’ I say, ‘and a scoop of rum and raisin?’
The woman hesitates, pulling a face. ‘Are you sure?’
I nod. I have never been more certain of anything.
Someone else comes into the shop. I spin around on my heel a couple of times, waiting for my ice cream.
‘Hello, Eleanor,’ Mrs Lyons says. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’
‘Fancy,’ I say, proud to be out on my own. Mrs Lyons is Mum’s friend. She used to be our cleaner. She’s got her two boys with her. They’re younger than me, and one of them pokes his tongue out.
‘Here you go,’ the ice cream lady says. ‘That’s one pound twenty, please, love.’
My cheeks burn the colour of raspberry ripple. ‘But I’ve only got a pound.’ I don’t know what to do. ‘I thought it cost a pound.’
‘Price went up,’ the woman says. ‘Do you want it or not?’
I hang my head. ‘I suppose not,’ I say. By the time I go back and pester Claire for more money, it will have melted. Besides, she won’t let me walk up here all by myself again.
‘Here,’ Mrs Lyons says. ‘I’ve got twenty pence.’ She gives it to me. It’s really shiny.
‘Oh, thank you,’ I say, beaming and handing it to the ice cream lady. She has one hand stuck on her hip, passing me my cone with the other, before turning to serve Mrs Lyons. I leave the shop, whispering a silent prayer.
Outside, there’s a car parked with a man sitting in the driver’s seat. Two wheels are up on the pavement. The window is down, and his arm is resting on the door. ‘Hurry up, Sal,’ he yells, as I walk past, making me jump. Mrs Lyons glances around. She scowls and taps her watch, making the man swear under his breath. I walk past, licking my ice cream, and he stares at me long and slow.
‘I’m off, then, if you’re going to piss about in there,’ he yells, before starting the engine, spinning his wheels and driving off towards the cliffs. I watch him go, suddenly shivering even though it’s warm. My shorts are soaking, and the ice cream is making me even colder.
‘No one will ever know,’ I whisper, staring in the direction of the car. It’s only a short way along the road, then a few minutes’ walk along the clifftop path, then a fun slide down the shingle slope. It’ll be much quicker. My mind is made up, so I set off, making sure to keep on the verge. This ice cream is delicious. I feel very grown-up.
The track rises up and it’s even windier up here than down on the beach. I walk fast but my wet shorts rub against the insides of my legs, making my skin sore, so I take them off, hopping about as they get caught on my sandals. I nearly drop my ice cream.
A car comes past, hooting at me, slowing down. Red brake lights flash on and off as it pulls to a stop. Then a white light comes on and the car reverses. I stand quite still, frozen. In another second, it’s alongside me. It’s really old and more like a long van, rusty around the wheels. There’s loud music coming from the open window, two people inside.
Suddenly, my ice cream doesn’t taste very nice. My shorts are around my ankles.
‘You know anywhere we can park up, love? If you know what I mean…’ The man is all slurry, as if he’s just woken up. He’s got stubble and his eyes are droopy. He’s not very old. The passenger is a girl. She’s pretty and has her bare feet up on the dashboard. Her toenails are painted purple. ‘Anywhere, like, private?’
I shrug, licking my lips.
‘She’s just a kid, Gaz. She won’t know,’ the girl says, prodding him. ‘C’mon, let’s go.’
The man stares at me, then puts the car into gear before driving off.
‘Sorry,’ I call out after they’ve gone. Really, I’m saying sorry to Claire for taking the cliff route back, but if I double back now and go the beach way, it’ll take even longer, and she’ll be even more cross. My ice cream cone tastes really horrid now – the bubble-gum flavour has dribbled into the rum and raisin. If I take it back to Claire, then I’ll have to eat it in front of her and I’ll be sick, but Claire won’t like that I wasted her money. I glance around. There’s no one here. Guiltily, I chuck the cone and its remaining scoop of softening blue sludge onto the verge.
I pull my shorts off properly and walk on, finally heading across the springy grass towards the scree slope. I weave between the bushes that have sprouted up, all bleached pale like the surfers’ hair. They whip and scratch around my ankles as I hum. Just a little tune to stop me feeling scared for being out here all alone.
Then, as easy as anything, a warm hand comes over my mouth from behind. I can’t even scream. Can’t even breathe.
I twist around to see crazy eyes above me – eyes filled with fear and sadness. A finger goes up to puckered, dry lips, telling me to shush, warning me not to make a sound. I drop my shorts as I’m dragged away.
Chapter Seventy-Four
Eleanor Mary Lucas was dressed in white – a white medical gown beneath a white towelling robe. They’d given her pristine white slippers, and her toes, with their misshapen nails, clawed out from the end. After multiple medical tests and hours of police evidence gathering, she’d finally been allowed to wash with the help of a nurse. But the grime was still ringed around her neck, her wrists, her knuckles. Looking at her, sitting in the vinyl-covered chair beside her bed, it wasn’t obvious that Eleanor had spent nearly two thirds of her life locked away. Though it was clear that part of her wasn’t there.
‘No bother, my love,’ the nurse had said of the dirt. ‘It’ll come off in good time.’ Eleanor hadn’t known what she’d meant by that. No amount of time was good in her mind. She’d sat bent forward in the bath, watching as the water lapped at her veined and naked body, rippling over skin that looked unfamiliar in the daylight. She wondered who she was, if she was the same person or a new person. A third incarnation of someone she’d forgotten. The nurse, elbow-deep, had encouraged Eleanor to hold the sponge, soap it up, to wash away everything. Her body burned and stung from the bubbles, and then she laughed. She laughed so much she made waves. She wasn’t free at all.
* * *
Of course there were questions, a lifetime of those, and Eleanor had to have her lawyer present when they were asked. She didn’t even know she had a lawyer, she realised, as the words floated around her.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, when they asked if she’d killed him. Her eyeballs felt huge.
Shafts of sunlight sliced between the blind slats. In the brightness, she saw a silhouette of the hammer. The big heavy hammer he’d brought down to fix the pipes with. She hadn’t waited to find out if he’d actually died from the blows, but he must have because he hadn’t chased after her. And there was all that blood.
I am as bad as bad can be…
He’d given her enough movies to watch over the years. She knew what it was to be evil. She’d told the police about the films, recounted how she thanked her lucky stars that she was safe in there, out of harm’s way. She told them about the little gifts and the trips out too – the places he’d taken her when she’d been good. She smiled when she remembered the butterfly in the jar, but they didn’t smile – the doctors and the police. They just sat there, swallowing, breathing, unmoving. She spoke about the bits she could remember and then, when they asked her a question about one thing, she’d get sidetracked and tell them all about another. Her mind went everywhere. Like that butterfly set free. If it hadn’t already been dead.