Book of Lost Threads

11
Jilly Baker and Amber-Lee

JILLY’S MOTHER, PATTY, HAD BEEN a wilful child, and with the onset of puberty she became uncontrollable. Her family were ‘nice’, as people say, and her parents spent many sleepless nights wondering if she’d been raped and pushed off the pier or had crashed on one of the motorbikes that revved impatiently outside the house as she applied another coat of mascara. They felt an odd relief, then, when they found out she was pregnant, at the age of seventeen, to a nineteen-year-old apprentice carpenter.
‘This will slow her down,’ her parents agreed. ‘She’s a bit wild, but a good girl, really. And he does have a steady job.’
His family were less pleased, but in a manner that harked back to another era, the young couple were married in Black-pool at St Stephen-on-the-Cliffs while the bride still had a waist. Patty was radiant in white, and her mother tearful in violet. Her sister, Ellen, was sceptical in cerise chiffon.
Jillian Maree was born seven months later, and the young parents were delighted to show off their pretty daughter. But despite her parents’ optimism, Patty failed to settle down to motherhood. The wedding and the birth had only temporarily satisfied her need for attention and excitement, and domestic life in Blackpool left her irritable and discontented, her love for her baby being tenuous at best. Fortunately for the child she had a sweet little face, and Patty would play at dressing her, sometimes changing her clothes four or five times before she was satisfied. Her parents took comfort in the fact that at least she was giving her daughter some attention.
Her young husband would come home to find that his wife had bought an expensive new dress for their daughter and one for herself in a matching colour.
‘We can’t afford to spend that sort of money on clothes,’ he would say, holding his wife’s hand. ‘When I finish my apprenticeship we’ll be fine, but for now . . .’
Patty would pull her hand away. ‘Well, I’m sorry if I want our daughter to look nice. Thank goodness one of us loves her.’
But Andy Baker did love his daughter. He had loved her from the moment he saw her wizened little newborn face; he loved the way she crawled to the door when she heard his key in the lock; he loved the way she giggled when he blew on her tummy. She was his little Jilly-muffin, and when he bent over her cot to kiss her goodnight he felt his chest tighten with love and fear.
Like Moss, Jilly’s earliest memory was of the seaside. It was a mild summer day, and her parents took her for a paddle and ice-cream at Blackpool Pier. Her Aunty Ellen and family came with them. Jilly’s cousin Meg brought her dog, a King Charles spaniel called Mr Pie, a puzzling name that seven-year-old Meg had insisted upon. They asked a passerby to take their photo; this would be the only memento that Jilly had of her childhood. There they were, holding ice-creams in various stages of consumption. Her mother pouted and posed in her denim shorts and halter-neck top. Aunty Ellen was holding baby Matthew, and Meg was grinning down at Mr Pie. Uncle Harry was scratching his ear, and her father, a dark-haired young man of twenty-four, was holding Jilly’s hand. She remembered the strawberry ice-cream and the warmth of her father’s body. She remembered how, later, he put her up on his shoulders and danced with her along the pier. She’d been afraid of the clown. He had a scary white face and false red smile.
No-one understood why Patty took Jilly with her when she left. Perhaps it was to spite Andy. Maybe, at the last minute, some maternal feeling prevailed. Nevertheless, she had Jilly with her when she disappeared with a New Zealand tourist called Brad.
Family relationships are complex, and it was almost with a sense of reprieve that her parents realised that Patty was now beyond their assistance. They felt a burden lift as they came to understand that they would no longer have to justify her actions or bear witness to the daily evidence of her selfishness. But they could not so easily reconcile themselves to the loss of Jilly. She had been a happy and affectionate little soul and they missed her dreadfully, mourning her as though she were dead.
Andy Baker had accepted some time ago that he no longer loved Patty. He didn’t even like her much, and would have celebrated her desertion if it weren’t for the fact that she took their daughter—his daughter—with her. He was nearly mad with grief. Coming home from work with the forlorn hope that she might have returned, he would pause at the front door and listen in vain for the sound of her little voice calling to him: Is that you, Daddy? Here I are, Daddy. And his arms ached to swing her up, and his face longed to feel her soft little cheek against his. He spent every spare penny trying to locate her.
He finally tracked them down to Sydney, where Patty and Jilly were living with a new man, Serg. Court orders were issued giving him access to his daughter, but Patty was always on the move and changed her name many times. The trail had gone cold by the time Patty—now calling herself Monique Tyler— and her daughter finally settled in Perth with Brian who, unlike Patty’s other lovers, tried to be a father to Jilly.
Jilly had pined for her own father, of course, and Patty judged it wiser to tell her that he’d died. In a car accident, she had explained. You mustn’t be sad, though. You have Mummy and Brad (then Craig, Harry, and so on).
Meanwhile, Andy had begun to drink. He would come home from work, pause at the door and then head for the fridge, gulping down a can of beer before heating up a pork pie or sending out for a pizza. Some nights, if he remembered, he’d bring home cod and chips. Whatever he ate, it was always washed down with a couple of cans of beer, and he’d drink another three or four before falling into his bed, never quite drunk enough. The house he’d been lovingly renovating fell into disrepair. His days were grey and his nights black. On –Jilly’s birthday each year, he’d get very drunk and cry. He always imagined her as she was when he had last seen her. For him, she was forever five years old.
Far away, in Perth, Jilly was beginning to dare to feel safe when, after nearly two years of relative security, she and her mother were alone again. It was usually Patty who ended relationships, but this time it was Brian who left.
‘I’m sorry, Jilly,’ he said. ‘If I were your dad, I’d take you with me.’
‘Yeah,’ said fourteen-year-old Jilly. ‘Whatever.’ But she hugged him briefly and took the money he gave her.
‘Don’t waste it, Jilly. It’s for an emergency,’ he said. ‘For God’s sake don’t let Patty know you have it.’
Jilly hid the money, of course. She had learned not to trust her mother.
After Brian left, life returned to normal: more parties, more men, and school shoes with holes. One day, shortly after her fifteenth birthday, Jilly came home from school to find a note on the kitchen table.
Dear Jilly
Im off to France with Dominik. Your old enough to look after yourself now and I need a life of my own Im only 33. The rents overdue but Ill send you some money when I’m setled. I left $10 to buy a pizza for your tea. I took your black jumper and red shirt. I’ll need them til Dominik can by me some new clothe’s.
Love
Patty
Since Jilly turned twelve she was no longer allowed to call Patty ‘Mum’. They looked more like sisters, Patty thought. And she was right.
Book of Lost Threads Children of such parents learn survival skills, and Jilly knew that once the authorities discovered she was living alone, she’d be put into foster care. Patty had always threatened her with a foster home as a priest might threaten his congregation with hell. She packed the few clothes she had left, stuffed her mother’s note and pizza money into her pocket, and went to the shed where she’d hidden Brian’s hundred dollars and a little box of mementos. When the school checked a couple of weeks later, it was assumed that the family had absconded to avoid the rent.
To conserve her money, Jilly decided to hitch to Melbourne. She thought it best to go to a larger city, where no-one knew her—where she could melt into the crowd.
Patty, meanwhile, had left France for Dominik’s native Bucharest where, sitting behind a desk in a bright modern office, she stamped the papers of gullible Rumanian girls who wanted to work in London. The job paid well and she enjoyed herself for a time. Unfortunately, when she decided to move on, she met with a fatal and uninvestigated accident. She knew too much and Dominik took no risks.
‘So what’s your name then, love?’ The truck driver leaned over and opened the door. He liked a bit of company.
Jilly was prepared. She had learnt caution from an expert. ‘Amber-Lee,’ she said without blinking. ‘I’m going to Melbourne to see my cousin.’
‘I’m going as far as Adelaide. We’ll stop on the border for a bit of a kip.’ He bought her coffee and a doughnut in Southern Cross and an evening meal in Norseman. When he wasn’t talking, he would sing along to a country and western CD, of which he had an endless supply.
Jilly wasn’t surprised to find that when he pulled over for his ‘kip’, he slid his hands between her legs. As she approached puberty, her mother’s boyfriends, with the exception of Brian, had all tried, more or less successfully, to have sex with her. This was one of the reasons that Patty felt it prudent to leave her behind. A nubile young daughter could get seriously in the way.
‘You are sixteen?’ the driver said as he pulled at her buttons and slid her bra straps down her arms. Her small breasts were white and strangely vulnerable. He paused and looked at her face, still and watchful in the shadows. He wasn’t a bad man. For a moment, he felt something like remorse.
‘You are sixteen?’ he repeated, seeking reassurance.
‘Just get on with it,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m tired.’
He took her then, brutally. And pushed her and her belongings out of the truck when he’d finished.
‘You’ll get another ride. A lot of trucks stop here.’ Ashamed, he threw some crumpled notes out of the window after her. Jilly stooped and picked up the money, stuffing it hastily into her backpack. She sat on the embankment and, childlike, dug her fists into her eyes. A little shuddering sob escaped. She’d come to expect no better, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed it. The first time had been a terrifying assault by a drunken and violent man. She was barely thirteen. She’d called for help but her mother had gone out to buy more booze. When she did come home, Patty had slapped her daughter’s face. Little slut, she hissed. Just keep your filthy eyes off of my boyfriends. And don’t tell Brian, she warned the sobbing child. We don’t want him to know his precious little Jilly is a whore.
As trucks rumbled past, Jilly thought of Brian. Maybe she should have tried to find him. No, even Brian had let her down. Left her to Patty. There was no-one to care for her now but herself. With renewed determination, she took out the money the truck driver had given her and counted it. Fifty-five dollars. That was the first time Jilly had been paid for sex. She vowed to survive. No matter what it took. She stood up and waved down a passing truck.
Three days later, she was observing street prostitutes in 151 Melbourne.
A car pulled into the kerb. ‘How much for a blow job?’
She didn’t know. ‘Ten dollars?’
The car door swung open. ‘Hop in, then.’
Brenda was a few years older than Jilly and wiser in the ways of the streets. She heard that the new girl was undercutting prices and took her aside for a word.
‘You’ll find yourself beaten up if you play that game,’ she told Jilly, who was now calling herself Amber-Lee. ‘I’ll introduce you to my pimp. He takes a fair slice of the action but you can’t work without a protector. You can stay with me for a while. I need some help with the rent.’
So Amber-Lee unpacked her belongings in the small alcove in Brenda’s one-room flat and patted the lumpy bed. She hid her money in the lining of her coat and her box of mementos under the mattress. Among them was the photo of the day at Blackpool; looking at it, she wondered at how far she had come from the child in the photo.
She hated the work: the men, rough or kind, urgent or impotent, who used her body as though it were a thing. In the early weeks, however, something of Jilly remained. Perhaps there was another way.
She took herself to the Ward Street Shelter. A tall woman, with untidy hair and collar askew, asked her name.
‘Amber-Lee,’ she said.
The woman raised her eyebrows but didn’t ask for a surname. She knew better. ‘Okay, Amber-Lee. I’m Ilse.’ She had a slight accent. ‘I have to make a couple of phone calls and then we can talk. There’s a café bar over there. Just help yourself.’
Jilly sat on the edge of the worn sofa, cupping her hands around the plastic mug. The room was shabby, and the three workers behind the desks all wore worried frowns. Ilse was talking earnestly into the phone, firing frequent glances in her direction. Panic rose in the girl’s throat. Was the woman talking about her? Who was she talking to? What if they sent her to a foster home? When Ilse looked up again, Jilly had gone.
In the early days, Jilly had curled up under her thin blanket in Brenda’s flat and made plans. She would do this work only until she had enough money for her fare home to England, a place that she had endowed with an almost mythical significance. She longed for her family, but she wouldn’t go back until she was on her feet. She saw herself knocking on her grandparents’ door, wearing long leather boots and a smart coat with a silk scarf. She felt the hugs and saw the smiles and tears. She sat once again in the kitchen, eating her grandmother’s cake, the lost child returned. She even dared to wonder if her father was still alive. She had no illusions about her mother by now and suspected that she’d been lied to. She couldn’t picture an ageing Andy. She still saw him as a young man who held her soft little paw in his big, rough carpenter’s hands and ran with her, laughing, down the hill to the shops.
As the months went by, however, she saved very little. By the time she’d bought food and clothes, paid Brenda her share of the rent and given Vince the pimp his cut of the takings, there was very little left.
Amber-Lee worked the streets for eight months, and during this time, Jilly’s voice and Jilly’s tears became fainter. Her judgement was dulled as her sense of self continued to retreat. She had resisted for months, but her first experience of heroin provided the escape she craved. She worked harder but became more and more indebted to Vince, who was also her supplier. She’d earlier used a little of Brian’s money for living expenses, but some delicacy of feeling at first forbad her from using it to buy drugs, even though she could no longer maintain the fiction that this little bundle of notes was the beginnings of her escape money.
Sitting on her bed one evening before work, she realised that delicacy of feeling was a luxury she could no longer afford. Regretfully, she took the money from her coat lining and put it in her little treasure box, ready to give to Vince for her supply. It was early in her addiction, and she still had some sense of decency. She understood that Brian’s gift had been a sacrifice; he had little money left for himself after moving in with Patty. Sorry, Brian. She ran her hands through her hair, clutching fistfuls, tugging at the roots. Sorry, Brian. Fingers still knotted in her hair, she slumped and rested her elbows on her knees. F*ck it, Brian. I’ve run out of choices.
The photograph caught her eye, and she ran her fingers over its surface. What were they all doing now, her parents, her aunt and uncle, her cousins? Mr Pie would probably be dead. Lucky Mr Pie. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, snivelling a little in self-pity.
At that moment, Brenda came in. ‘Wanna get a hamburger before we start?’ She looked at the photo. ‘What’s that?’
‘My family.’
‘Who’s the good-looking chick in the shorts?’
‘My mother.’
‘Funny-looking dog.’
‘My cousin’s dog, Mr Pie. Stupid name.’ Jilly put the photo back in its box. ‘What about that hamburger?’
They’d only walked a few paces along the footpath when Jilly (in that moment she was no longer Amber-Lee) caught a glimpse of a man on the other side of the road. He was about twenty-five, tall and dark. There was something about the way he held his shoulders. The way he walked. Where had she seen him before? It came to her all at once. It was the young man in the photo on the pier. It was her father. Filled with sudden, irrational hope, she ran towards him, right into the path of Finn’s car.