I had reluctantly followed him, propping him up with my arm around his waist, ready for a long walk on a short journey.
Memories of that night left my head as I pulled the pickup truck over to the side of the road by the storefront. I wondered what the girl behind the curtain was doing right now. Did she ever notice me like I noticed her? I could only hope.
11 February
For months, I’d watched her lose herself in different books each day. She was loyal to the authors she chose – always works by Dickens, Huxley, Shakespeare and Hemingway. I presumed they offered her an escape to somewhere far from the whorehouse she’d made her home.
Wherever I was carrying out maintenance work around the bordello, she would stop me in my tracks through proximity alone. Of the thirty or so women who lived or worked in the brothel, she was the only one who ground my world to a halt just by being.
It wasn’t the delicate shine of her shoulder-length auburn hair, her olive skin or her plump, rose-pink lips. It wasn’t the silk camisoles that clung to her hips and breasts, or the brown abyss of her eyes that intoxicated me.
It was her air of complete indifference towards the world she found herself in. While other girls competed for a customer’s attention, she was aloof. And that made her an all-the-more-attractive purchase for those with deep pockets.
Her colleagues took as many men as were willing, but she was discerning – accepting just one per day, and never at weekends. And her self-rationing put her in great demand. Her time between clients was spent in Madame Lola’s office or making herself invisible in her bedroom at the back of the building.
We never spoke; we never made eye contact; and as far as she was aware, I did not exist. But it didn’t matter. I was obsessed with Luciana.
Northampton, today
5.05 p.m.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about Kenneth Jagger?’ she began.
He paused to reflect on his teenaged self’s decision to keep his biological father to himself. Then she listened closely as he revealed things about his life he’d kept hidden when they were a partnership.
He explained why London had been his first destination after fleeing, and how he’d discovered the circumstances surrounding Doreen’s death. He spoke of meeting Kenneth, but neglected to mention what he’d whispered into his ear or why his biological father had branded his only son a monster.
She’d never met Doreen and had only heard bits and bobs about her through the years. Naturally, she’d been curious about the mother of the man she loved and wanted to know more. But it was obvious he’d been hurt by his mother more than he’d ever admitted. She’d never even seen a photograph of Doreen, so she’d built a mental picture instead. To her, she looked like Dusty Springfield. She’d told him that once and he’d laughed.
When he spoke of spending time by Doreen’s grave so she wouldn’t be alone, it reminded her of the sensitivity he was capable of. She would always be grateful to him for the four children he’d given her, but his subsequent actions had all but erased any of the good he’d done in the past.
‘I didn’t tell you about Kenneth because I didn’t want to acknowledge him as my father,’ he admitted. ‘I hated the man from the moment we met, and I didn’t want you to see in me what I saw in him.’
‘Yet he was exactly what you’ve become, if not worse.’ She knew it was a callous thing to say, but he hadn’t spared her feelings so she wasn’t going to pull her punches either.
‘Not now,’ he corrected, ‘but for a while, maybe, yes.’
‘So if you hated him that much, why go to the trouble of trying to find him?’
‘Closure.’
‘But it took you twenty-five years to offer me the same courtesy, didn’t it?’
He said nothing.
She was hurt that he hadn’t trusted her with such an important secret, but she was angry he hadn’t mentioned Dougie’s violent streak towards poor Beth. Although she and Beth hadn’t been as close as she, Paula and Baishali were, she was sure the three of them could have helped Beth. And that might have changed so much that followed.
Meanwhile, he was glad it hadn’t worked out with her fancy man. He didn’t like the sound of him. No one was that perfect; she’d have found that out eventually. She should thank him for saving her the heartache.
‘Are you aware you’re dead?’ she asked out of the blue. ‘I mean, legally dead. You have to wait seven years before you can declare a missing person deceased. So on your seventh anniversary, I hired a solicitor, and a few months later I held your death certificate in my hand.’
‘But you knew I was alive?’ he replied, unsettled by her sudden deceit.
‘That’s true. But if you didn’t value your life with us, then why should it have mattered to me?’
He understood her motives, yet her nonchalance made him uncomfortable. She enjoyed playing with him.
‘It wasn’t easy, either legally or morally,’ she continued, ‘and I had to keep up the pretence you were dead to the children and the authorities. Then I had to prove I’d exhausted all avenues in looking for you. But that was the easy part, because as Roger and our friends testified, I’d been very thorough. After a high court hearing, you weren’t just dead to us, but in the eyes of the law as well.’
‘Why go to all that effort? It sounds a little pointless.’
‘I don’t care what it sounds like to you. I did it because had you decided to rise like Lazarus – which you have – and I wasn’t going to make it easy for you. Plus, your insurance money helped to put Emily and Robbie through university, so the legalities of your death benefited us all.’
She’d knocked a little of the wind from his sails, as he realised once again he’d underestimated her strength of character. And he wasn’t sure how her course of action made him feel.
‘Did I have a funeral?’ he asked hopefully.
‘Yes, but only for the kids’ sake. In fact, they were delighted to draw a line under you, because having a dad who vanished into thin air was a millstone around their necks. So it helped them move on. They rarely spoke about you as they got older, anyway.’
That last part was untrue, but he didn’t need to know that. She’d actually learned to bite her tongue when they brought his name up, and particularly when they talked of him with longing.
He also knew it was a lie, and remembered word for word what James had told that website.
‘Could you tell me a little about my funeral?’ he asked, still wounded by her frosty relish.
‘What else is there to say? You have an empty grave and a headstone in the village cemetery. I don’t really remember much about it other than it came as a relief.’
Again, she was not being honest, and he saw through her inconsistencies.
‘You buried your husband and you don’t remember much about it? I don’t believe you.’
‘And what makes you think I care what you believe?’ She laughed as people do when talking about something that’s not actually funny.
‘Because if you cared so little, why did you bother with a gravestone?’