‘Well, make sure I get a ticket, because I wouldn’t want to miss it!’
‘I’m not really,’ said the girl soberly. ‘Really I’m just practising for when it will happen.’
‘It’s always best to practise.’ Claire smiled.
‘Yes.’ Lorna sighed and picked at the hem of her skirt. ‘But practising is so boring.’
The whisky on an empty stomach, mingling with the remnants of shock, made everything feel both surreal and entirely natural. Of course she’d just been sitting in a deckchair amongst strangers in a housing estate miles from home. Naturally she was chatting, slightly drunkenly, to a child after being attacked by a dog. And there was probably a paedophile in the front yard. This was everyday stuff. She realised that this was the first conversation she’d had in a week.
Lorna shuffled closer. ‘I’m writing stories.’
‘Oh that’s wonderful. What about?’
‘About the seaside, and living under the sea.’
‘And what’s it like under the sea?’
‘It’s’ – the girl shut her eyes tightly and smiled – ‘it’s like all the best people in the world you’ve ever met, dancing and singing. And there are friendly fish. But we have to be careful of fishermen because they can catch us and if we go out of the sea, we die.’
‘Well, I’d love to read it.’ Claire took the girl’s hand and pressed it.
‘You will. I’m writing it for you. You don’t believe me!’
‘If you say you’re writing it for me, then I believe you. And it makes me very happy.’
‘Good. ’Cause it’s true. I really am.’
They sat chatting in the darkening room, while the men outside grew drunker, more boisterous, and started moving inside. They shouted hoarsely over house music. Lorna shut the door, but the thud thud thud pulsed through the thin floor. ‘TUNE!’ shouted someone. ‘TUNE!’
‘It’s loud, isn’t it?’ Lorna had shuffled so close that she was practically on Claire’s lap. Her fruity breath tickled Claire’s ear. ‘It gets so loud sometimes the council comes round. Police. That happened – oh, last year.’
‘It must be hard to sleep.’ Claire thought about the times she’d seen Lorna at school, all red-rimmed eyes and passivity.
‘Well, then I sleep at my auntie’s. Round the corner. She has a big house with a spare room just for me. And no dogs.’
Claire smiled. There was no auntie. ‘That’s nice for you.’
‘Sometimes I need to. Get away. I mean.’ The girl’s knuckles were skinned, Claire suddenly noticed, and one nail had been ripped to the quick. She touched it, and Lorna pulled her hand away.
‘That looks nasty.’
‘It’s better than it was,’ whispered the girl.
‘Fucking TUNE!’ screamed a man downstairs.
Carl put his head round the door. ‘Pete says to get her to the bus stop.’
‘She’s poorly.’
Carl stared blankly at the wall. ‘Pete says get her out.’ Lorna scrambled up, her face angry, and pushed past her brother, still as stone in the doorway. From the top of the stairs, Claire could see the small hallway cluttered with men. The front door opened to let in someone carrying a crate of beer.
‘I got something for you, Miss, wait.’ The girl was edging back to her room. ‘But you can’t open it till you get home. Do you promise?’
‘Oh Lorna, you mustn’t give me anything that you want to keep.’
‘You don’t want my present,’ she said flatly.
‘Oh, I do! It’s so kind of you. I just meant that, well, I wouldn’t want you to give away one of your pretty things.’ The girl stood silent, and pouted at the floor.
Raucous laughter came from the front room. ‘Mervyn, you dirty fucker!’ sniggered Pete. ‘Look at this! On his phone! You dirty old man!’
Lorna smiled sadly. ‘It’s a silly present. I’m sorry. You don’t have to have it. I’ll take you to the bus stop now.’
And Claire thought, I want to take you away from this house; I want to know what’s happened to you in this house. But she only said, ‘I’d love to take your present. Lorna? Really I would.’
The child looked up through wet lashes. ‘I got it for you. But I won’t give it now. No, I want to wrap it up properly. With a bow.’
‘Well, that’s lovely. Very lovely of you.’
When Lorna smiled, Claire’s anxiety ebbed. Together they walked down the stairs, past the crowded, smoky front room, and once they were outside, Lorna slipped her arm through Claire’s.
‘I’m glad you came. I’m glad you weren’t bit.’
‘Me too,’ said Claire.
‘I knew you’d come.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Nothing. The bus stop is ages away.’
‘Listen, Lorna, will you be careful getting home?’ The child ignored her. She hummed and skipped. ‘Will you be, Lorna? It’ll be dark in a while and you really must promise me to be careful on the way home.’
‘I’m always careful.’
‘I have a bit of money, not enough to get me a taxi home, but enough for you. If I give it to you, maybe you can find a phone box or something and call for one?’ Claire scanned the empty, uniform streets – miles of them. They didn’t build estates with phone boxes – they’d get smashed. ‘Or ask to use a phone in a . . . shop? Or something?’
‘OK.’
‘Please?’
‘OK.’
They ambled along together in the twilight, the streets so quiet that they walked in the road. They talked about books, about films. They talked about Claire when she was a little girl.
‘And we would have been best friends,’ Lorna declared. ‘What were you like when you were little?’
‘Oh. I was quite shy I suppose. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, or a big family like you. I loved animals. Cats.’
‘What games did you play?’
‘Netball? But I wasn’t very good at it, I’m afraid.’ Lorna seemed unimpressed. ‘But I liked reading mostly. The Famous Five. Have you ever read any of them?’ Lorna shook her head. ‘They’re all about a group of children – cousins – who have adventures and solve mysteries. And they have a very clever dog called Timmy who helps them.’
‘What kind of mysteries?’