Something Good (15 page)

“T
hink I'll join your drama thingie when we get back,” Zoë declared as they strode through sodden grass toward the bay.

Hannah's breath caught in her throat. Mondays were the only time she saw Ollie—not that things would stay that way when they got home. She intended to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that she wouldn't be going back to his flat after workshop unless he saw her at other times too. Unless they started
going out,
like a normal girlfriend and boyfriend. “There's a waiting list,” she fibbed. “I'll put your name down if you like.”

“Come on,” Zoë scoffed. “Surely they can fit me in. Maybe that's what I'll be—an actress. What d'you think?”

“I thought you wanted to be a model.” An unsettling image of Zoë and Ollie sizing each other up flashed into Hannah's mind. She felt quite nauseous.

“Oh, I don't know. Anyway, where are we going? It's bloody freezing out here.”

“I thought we'd go down to the bay,” Hannah said.

“What's there?”

“What d'you mean, what's there? It's a beach. There'll be sea, sand, a few rocks. I thought we might see some seals.”

Zoë frowned. “Can't we get a bus to the village?”

The thought of Zoë shoplifting on the island filled Hannah with dread. She wanted to be outside with billowing clouds all around her. Since coming here, her breathing had felt free, virtually
normal
. “I haven't seen any buses from here,” Hannah said, “and it's too far to walk.”

“Would your mum drive us?”

“She's busy in the studio.”

“Can't we call a taxi?”

“No, Zoë, I just want to—”

“Han!”
The scream flew out as Zoë toppled sideways. One of her feet had plunged into mud. Hannah froze, her head flooding with a terrible image of Zoë being sucked under and trying to pull her out and—

“Don't just stand there!” Zoë screamed. Hannah ran toward her and grasped both hands, pulling hard until the foot plopped free. The girls stared down at it. It was bare and slathered with mud, after all Zoë's efforts with the toe separators and Dior Rouge Noir polish. Zoë gawped at it as if waiting for it to miraculously self-cleanse. “My shoe,” she whispered.

They stared at the dip in the ground that Zoë had slipped into. An invisible hole, with sinking mud underneath. No shoe was visible. In the distance a black-faced sheep gazed at them dolefully. “I think you've lost it,” Hannah murmured. “Good job you brought plenty of other pairs.”

“No, Han, I've got to get it.” Zoë rubbed her hands over her face.

Hannah sighed. “We could go back to the house, see if we can find a stick or a shovel and try and dig it out….”

“Okay,” Zoë whispered. “Maybe someone'll help us.”

Hannah touched her arm. “It's only a shoe….”

“It's not mine, Han. It's Mum's. I took them without asking.”

“She won't mind, will she?”
She must have at least thirty-seven other pairs,
Hannah thought.

“Of course she'll—” Zoë choked on a sob.

“God, Zoë, don't cry….”

Tears were sliding down her cheeks now. Her nose was running and her face had gone blotchy and pink.

Hannah put her arms around her. “What is it?” she asked softly.

“They're Mum's favorites. They're really old so I can't buy another pair, I bet they don't make them like that any—”

“Hey,” Hannah said, “I didn't think your mum wore old things.”

Zoë pushed back her hair distractedly. “They're not
ordinary
old. Those shoes—they're the ones she wore when she married my dad.”

“Oh, Zoë.” Hannah stared at the ground. Some friend I am, she thought, lying about a waiting list at theater workshop. Zoë might have everything, and act like she knew it all, but underneath she was just an ordinary girl who was scared of her mum. “Let's go back to the house,” she said gently.

“Okay.” Zoë wiped her nose on the back of her hand.

Lifting a finger to her face, Hannah brushed the tears away.

J
ane washed her hands at the Belfast sink in the studio. It was late afternoon; everyone else had wandered off to Hope House or driven into the village. The workbench was strewn with drawings and pieces of glass. After Conor had left, Archie had descended into semislumber, signaling the end of the working day. Jane wondered why Conor had dashed off at 3:00 p.m. The island didn't strike her as a dashing kind of place.

The darkening sky hung heavily over the bay. Through the window Jane could see a glimmer of light from Conor's house. He'd been friendly enough so far, but then he'd been friendly with everyone. Any questions of a technical nature—like how Archie managed to keep lightness to his work when he'd fused so many tiny pieces together—had been answered by Conor. Archie appeared to want as little contact with his students as possible. “Waste of time and money,” Dorina had muttered to Jane earlier. “Pay your fee and what do you get? A drunk idiot in the corner.”

“It's only our first day. Let's give him a chance,” Jane had replied, glancing at the sleeping Archie. A scrap of bread roll had embedded itself in his wiry beard.

No wonder he needed Conor, Jane reflected, switching off the studio lights and stepping outside. She suspected that the promised one-to-one tuition with Archie would be unforthcoming. She should feel disappointed—even angry—yet had enjoyed the day and lost herself in her work.

She strolled across the lumpen ground toward Hope House, hoping to find the girls. Zoë had been right; they hadn't been any trouble so far. In fact, apart from the communal lunch, when everyone crammed around a long table in dining room, Jane had hardly seen them. Hannah, she'd noticed, looked healthier already and her eyebrows had almost resumed their natural shape. Zoë had acquired a flat expression of resignation, but at least she'd stopped prattling on about her iPod.

Mrs. McFarlane looked up from the desk as Jane strode into the foyer. “I'm not sure if it'll come out the carpet,” she announced.

“What?” Jane asked.

A pair of glasses hung on a cord around her neck. Her gaze was firmly fixed upon a dark smudge on the faded blue carpet. “The mud,” she said. “I've let it dry but it still won't brush up.”

Jane glanced at the offending mark. “It doesn't look too bad,” she said.

“In a terrible state, your daughter was, the blonde one with her bare foot and—”

“What happened?” Jane asked, too startled to correct her wrong-daughter mistake.

“Fell into the mud out the front—don't they realize there's a path they should stick to? Blonde one lost a shoe, asked me if I'd go help her dig it out….” Mrs. McFarlane emited a withering laugh. “Kept on about Emma Hope, whoever that is. We don't have an Emma Hope staying here.”

“Where are they now?” Jane asked anxiously.

Mrs. McFarlane shrugged. “Try their room. I'll have another go at this mud.”

Jane stepped into the girls' room. It wasn't locked; no one seemed to bother with keys at Hope House.

Zoë's clothes were spewed all over her bed. Her hair irons had been left on, and were blazing hot. Jane unplugged them, winding their flex around the handle. She spotted some drawings on the dressing table. They were charcoal sketches of the Hope House. Some were verging on abstract: great swirls of cloud, and the ragged outline of the Fang, the island's highest mountain. So this was how Hannah had been filling her time. Jane couldn't remember the last time she'd drawn. Leafing through them felt like prying, but she couldn't stop herself.

Jane left their bedroom and toured the various stale-smelling communal rooms of Hope House. As she passed through the foyer, both Mrs. McFarlane and the muddy patch had gone. Jane suspected that she'd left it there just to show her—to make a point.

Heading outside, she cut across the field toward a crumbling barn. “I want you to pick up the stone,” a man was enthusing inside, “and feel its texture, make
friends
with it.” Jane peered in. The barn was lit with oil laps nestling in indentations in the stone walls, each producing a weak glow. There were five or six people: all men apart from Nancy, who, like the others, was perched on a bale of straw. She was craning forward, as if drinking in the man's every word. He was probably sixty-something, but had the lanky frame of a teenage boy. A gray ponytail fell like a wolf's tail down his back. “Can I help you?” he asked, squinting at Jane.

“I'm looking for my daughter and her friend. I didn't mean to interrupt—”

Nancy swooped down her eyebrows as if to say: you
are
interrupting.

“Perhaps they've gone to the beach,” the man said. “I saw two girls heading that way. One was pretty upset….”

“That ridiculous Zoë girl lost her shoe,” Nancy interjected. “Honestly, Jane, she expected me to spend the best part of my afternoon digging through mud to find it. A silly old shoe! What possessed you to bring her?” She exhaled noisily, then picked up the lump of stone at her feet and caressed it, making it her friend.

 

Jane found the girls hunched on a rock at Seal Bay and got Zoë's frantic retelling. Armed with a knobbly length of driftwood, they headed back across the fields. “I think it's here,” Zoë announced.

“You
think?
” Jane snapped.

“No. Yeah. It looks kind of familiar….” Zoë stepped back, as if to distance herself from a potentially messy procedure. Jane delved through the mud, but each time she managed to work a solid object to the surface, it would be nothing more precious than a stone. It was almost dark, and the moon cast an eerie silver glow.

“Dad,” came a small voice, “what's that lady doing?”

Jane looked up and peered toward the house. Two figures were approaching; it was Conor, with a boy by his side. The reason, she surmised, for his disappearance at 3:00 p.m. today. “We're looking for something,” Jane said, feeling foolish; island people didn't lose shoes in bogs.

“What?” the boy asked. Up close she saw a distinct resemblance: Conor's pale eyes and mischievous mouth, but a shock of reddish hair instead of the brown.

“Zoë lost a shoe,” she explained.

Conor glanced at the girls, and looked as if he was trying to affect a concerned look, but a smile escaped. “Can I help?”

“
I'll
find it,” the boy announced, stumbling forward.

“Jane,” Conor said, “I haven't introduced you. This is Lewis, my son.”

“Hi, Lewis—”

“Dad, let me dig! I'm really good at finding stuff. It's like a treasure hunt….”

“It's okay, Lewis,” Jane said, “I know where I've already looked. I'm trying to be…”

“Systematic.” Conor chuckled. “Must be a very special shoe.”

Jane wished they'd stop watching. She'd hoped to run in to Conor outside the studio, but not like this: ankle-deep in bog, her boots and jeans splattered with mud. She felt ridiculously city-ish.

“Dad told me about you,” Lewis added with a smirk.

“Did he?”

“Yeah. He said your drawings are the best.”

Jane stopped stirring and felt herself blushing. “Really? Thanks.”

Conor smiled and took his son's hand. “Come on, Lewis. I thought we were going to the beach for sticks.”

“I want to watch her.”

Jane met the boy's gaze. “Tell you what. You have one dig around, and if you can't find it we'll give up, okay?”

“We
can't
give up,” Zoë lamented.

Lewis rejected Jane's stick. Instead, he plunged his arms up to the elbows into the bog, clearly relishing the feel of cold mud squelching up his coat sleeves, and laughing a minute later as he plucked out one solitary, mud-plastered shoe.

“He's found it!” Zoë yelped, pelting toward him and snatching it.

They all peered at it as if it were some priceless artifact. Conor unwound a woolen scarf from his neck and used it first to wipe as much mud as he could from Lewis's hands and coat, then took the shoe from Zoë and rubbed at it. “Will it be all right?” she asked anxiously.

“It's a bit storm-damaged,” Conor said. “You'd better take it to the house for a proper cleanup job.” He held out the shoe. Clearly visible now, its label read:
Regalia for Feet.

Jane rested a hand on Lewis's shoulder. “You're a clever kid,” she said.

He grinned up at her. “I know. C'mon—me and Dad are going to get some sticks from the beach for my costume. You can help.”

“The tide's nearly in,” Conor contradicted, “we've left it too—”

“I'd love to,” Jane said. “Come on, I'm sure there'll be some driftwood lying about.”

“Well, okay.” Conor smiled shyly.

As the girls headed to the house, and Jane strolled with Conor and Lewis to the bay, she silently thanked Zoë for bringing her here at precisely the right moment. Perhaps, she thought, dumb high heels were pretty useful on an island after all.

 

“D'you watch
Doctor Who?
” Lewis asked as his father pushed open the unlocked door of their cottage.

“I did, a long time ago,” Jane replied. “Me and Hannah used to watch it together.”

Lewis hovered at her side as they entered the low-ceilinged living room. “Did she get scared?”

“No,” Jane said, laughing, “Hannah was never scared of anything on TV.”

“Neither am I,” Lewis declared. Flecks of mud were stuck to his forehead.

“Of course you're not,” Conor teased him. “That's why you watched it last week with a cushion over your face.”

“Didn't—”

“Yes, you did! Anyway, are we going to sort out this costume?”

Jane glanced at the assorted Dalek components that were strewn around the floor: sheet of cardboard, cans of gold paint, a battered wicker laundry basket. Ancient armchairs and a sofa crowded the room. On the walls were drawings of stars and planets; Saturn's ring had been sprinkled with glitter. A sheet of black paper had been splattered with fluorescent paint and entitled The Univerz by Lewis. There was no sign of a mother, no hint that a woman lived here.

While Conor made tea, Lewis glared at the laundry basket. “It'll never be a Dalek,” he muttered. “Dad said he'd help but he's always too busy working. It's not fair.”

“It might help,” Conor called from the kitchen, “if you didn't keep changing your mind. You wanted to be a Cyberman then a Martian then—”

“Yeah,” Lewis retorted, “Gavin's going as a Cyberman and Robbie's a Martian. I want to be different.”

Jane smiled, remembering Hannah being asked by a day care nurse at Nippers if she went to ballet classes.
No,
she'd retorted,
I'm different.

“Mum used to make stuff for me,” Lewis murmured.

“Did she?” Jane asked cautiously.

“Yeah.” He pointed to the Univerz picture. “Now she's there.”

“Oh,” Jane said, “I'm sorry.”

As Conor entered the room, she searched for some hint of how to respond. He placed mugs of tea on the table and rested his hands on his Lewis's shoulders. “What about these sticks?” he asked.

Lewis delved through the driftwood he'd dumped on the living room floor. The smoothest and straightest would be the sticky-out bits—the bits from which fatal rays would blast, should Lewis feel inclined to exterminate. “Can she help?” he asked.

“Jane,” Conor said gently. “Her name's Jane.”

She smiled and said, “Between the three of us I'm sure we'll come up with a completely terrifying Dalek.”

“And you can stay for supper,” Conor added. “If you'd like to.”

“I'd love to.” His eyes met hers over the top of Lewis's head, and the glow that flooded through her was so unfamiliar, she'd forgotten it was something her body could do.