Lucy climbed onto the slippery front seat of the Ford Anglia. Its mint-coloured leather matched the exterior exactly, a fact that might have delighted her at another time. But she was too numb to care. Her hands trembled, and she wished Mr Walsh hadn’t put her case in the back so she had something to hold on to.
The door closed, sealing her inside the car, and her heart jumped, frog-like, into her throat. She looked out the window to where her aunt and uncle were forcing her cousins to wave her off.
Mr Walsh slid onto the seat next to her, the car lowering slightly with his weight. He didn’t say anything; just turned the key and brought the car to life. A little gasp left Lucy’s lips at the sound of it.
She leaned close to the window, her nose almost touching it, knowing that any minute her aunt and uncle would tell her to come back inside. But the car began to pull away and they did nothing. There was no shout to stop, no burst of laughter at the joke they’d played on her. Just Uncle Charles’s silent hand raised in farewell.
Lucy kept looking out the window as the car got further and further away from her family. It hurt to breathe.
‘There’s a beach, you know,’ Mr Walsh said, staring ahead at the road.
Lucy turned to look at him, tears swimming just behind her eyes. ‘What?’ she whispered. She knew it was rude to say ‘what’ like that, but she couldn’t find her manners just then.
‘Where we’re going—Bonchurch, your new home. There’s a beach. You can’t get there by car, but that’s what makes it so nice. Not so many people. Of course, there’s a bigger, more popular one at nearby Ventnor if that’s what you prefer.’
‘Oh.’
All Lucy could think of were the words ‘new home’. She didn’t want a new home. She might not have liked the old one much, but it was the only one she’d known. She knew what to expect there. Turning away, she looked back out the window once more. They were gone. She’d missed the last sight of her family.
She wanted to cry out, to yell at Mr Walsh to go back, that this was some kind of mistake. But years of living under her aunt’s roof meant she knew not to question adults. Instead, she sat back in the curved seat, hunched her shoulders, and tried not to cry.
Mr Walsh was a kind man. He began to ask her questions. Some were sensible, like how she was at school; but mostly they were silly things, like what food did she think went best with cream or had she ever stood on her hands so long her feet went numb—the latter a bit of fun he highly recommended. If he was trying to amuse her, it worked. The heavy weight that had settled over her lifted just a touch, and she found her lips twitching in the beginnings of a smile.
She asked if she could wind down the window, and Mr Walsh let her, not minding when she stuck her face out to let the late-spring wind whip her thin, dark hair around her ears.
But it didn’t take long for the jumbled buildings of London to give way to unfamiliar, endless green stretches, and Lucy became quiet and still again. The leather seat beneath her got uncomfortably warm, and sweat from the backs of her legs made her skin itch. She continued to answer Mr Walsh’s questions, but in single words. He switched to telling her funny stories about his own childhood, but they did nothing to stop the return of the heavy feeling that now took over her whole body.
After some time, they were surrounded by buildings once more: orange brick, or white with a dark timber trim. Mr Walsh told her they were in Portsmouth.
He said it was too early for the car ferry—Lucy didn’t know what this meant—so he took her for an orangeade and a Bakewell tart. He allowed her to sit in silence while he munched his own egg and cress sandwich, and an hour later he ushered her into the front seat once more and drove a short distance.
The Anglia rattled to a stop in a line-up of other cars. After what felt an age—Lucy’s hair was sticking to her neck and she was tired of breathing in the cigarette smoke of the waiting men and women—the lined-up cars turned their engines on and moved forward. One by one they disappeared into a large boat whose back end had opened up like a tongue unfurling. Mr Walsh followed suit, driving onto the tongue and deep inside the boat, where he parked in a formation with the other cars.
Lucy, at first fascinated, now had the feeling she was being swallowed, like Pinocchio by the whale, and she was relieved when they left the car and went up some stairs to sit in a large carpeted room.
She had never been in a boat big enough to house cars and stairs and sitting rooms, but it was the glass windows that grabbed her attention. Mr Walsh had explained they were going to the Isle of Wight and Lucy could see the island already, moving very slowly towards them. It was still too fast for her liking though. Once the boat deposited them on shore, it would be impossible for her to bridge the gulf between her new home and the old by herself.
An announcement came over a loudspeaker, and Mr Walsh led her back down the stairs and into the car. Not too long after, the boat opened up and they drove out onto land, water lapping at the wheels. Lucy twisted bunches of her hair into loose fists and tried not to cry.
Mr Walsh carried on driving, through a mixture of seaside towns and long stretches of fields. Sometimes he had to pull over into the high hedges that lined either side of the narrow road to let a car pass in the other direction. Occasionally they drove through tunnels made of tree branches touching overhead. Lucy had never seen anything like them, and the strange combination of wide open spaces and claustrophobic tight squeezes made her stomach feel queasy. She tried not to remember the sickly sweet treats she’d enjoyed before the boat, but they seemed all she could think of. She barely noticed when Mr Walsh pointed out that they could now see glimpses of ocean between the buildings and winding streets.
A few minutes later he slowed the car and drove it through a gap in an uneven stone wall. Beyond the gap was a short gravelly driveway, with a small garage at the end, the same shape and colour as the house nearby. The garage door had been left open, and Mr Walsh neatly parked the car inside.
‘We’re here,’ he said, turning to smile at her. The silver tear on his eyepatch glowed softly. ‘Your new home.’
There was that word again: home. Lucy swallowed, trying not to be sick.
Mr Walsh opened his door and got out. Lucy didn’t follow; she was too afraid to. She waited for Mr Walsh to squeeze into the space between the car and the wall and open the door for her; then she had no choice but to meekly follow him out. While he was closing the garage door, and doing the same with the curling iron gate which guarded the opening in the stone wall, she studied the place she was now going to live in. The house stood proudly in a small garden that was near to bursting with bushy shrubs, full-topped trees and tufty magenta flowers. It had to be at least three times the size of the house Lucy had grown up in, and its sand-coloured walls didn’t join onto the other houses nearby. Lucy tilted her head back to stare at the white-framed windows, which were evenly spaced across the front of the house, and the pointed roof jutting up into the sky. The house was a square topped with a perfect triangle, like those she’d drawn when she was younger.
‘Are you coming?’ Mr Walsh asked. He’d finished with the gate and was almost at the front door, which was painted white to match the window trims.
Lucy shut her gaping mouth and hurried to him.
He smiled and said, ‘Let’s see if we can’t get some nice hot food into you. It’s practically tea time. Mind the umbrella stand on your way in.’
The door made a creaking noise as Mr Walsh opened it, then he was standing aside, waiting for Lucy to go ahead of him. Knowing there was little else she could do, she took a tentative step forward.
Her toes had barely crossed the threshold when a loud voice called out, making her jump. ‘You’re here! And about time too. I was beginning to think you’d made the poor thing walk.’
Just on the heels of the voice was a woman. Her face was creased with age but still plump and friendly. It was surrounded by a frame of grey hair set in curls that swung with each movement in a satisfying way. She wore stacks of bright bracelets on her arms, and as she came close Lucy thought she could smell perfume. It was cool and kind of spicy, not at all like the strong floral scent Aunt Cynthia used. Lucy took a step back, bumping into Mr Walsh who was right behind her.
‘Of course I didn’t,’ he said. ‘You know how long that drive is—you’ve done it yourself on occasion.’
‘But never with such precious cargo.’ The woman looked down at Lucy and gave her a wink.
Lucy had never seen a woman wink before, and a giggle broke free from her lips.
‘That’s just the sound this house has been missing,’ the woman said. She touched Lucy on the shoulder, then pulled her forward, her bracelets clinking softly. ‘Come on, let’s get something warm in your tummy. Then I suppose I should send you to bed. No doubt you’re worn out after your journey. Not to mention all the change.’
Lucy furtively tried to look around her as she followed the woman through the house. She glimpsed wallpaper patterned in turquoise, orange and yellow—a cheerful contrast to the dark furniture and sharp corners of her previous home—before they emerged into a kitchen at the back of the house. This room was an explosion of colour, with its black and white checked linoleum floor, vegetable-patterned wallpaper, and copper pots hanging on the walls.
‘Sit,’ the woman said, pulling out a tangerine-coloured vinyl seat at a rather battered-looking table.
Mr Walsh had disappeared with Lucy’s case somewhere in the rest of the house, and she felt a tug of panic at losing sight of him. She’d only known him a few hours, but it felt a lifetime compared to the newness of everything around her.
To distract herself from what felt like panic, Lucy kept her eyes moving over the kitchen, taking in each detail as though she had to commit it to memory. There was a refrigerator taller than she was with the word Prestcold across the front in gold letters. A twin-tub washing machine was tucked in one corner, as if it hadn’t been properly put away. Most impressive was an electric oven whose inside lit up when the woman turned it on. Even in her tired, nervous state Lucy’s hands longed to turn the dials and pull at the handles to see how they all worked. She folded them carefully on the tabletop in front of her.
The woman, who was busying herself with utensils and packets of things Lucy couldn’t see, hummed an unfamiliar tune. She had placed a glass of milk in front of Lucy, but Lucy was too shy to take a sip.
Eventually, the woman plopped a plate down on the table. ‘Eat up.’
It was a pie in a tin. The woman had used a tin opener to get the lid off, then placed the whole thing in the oven until the edges had started to blacken. It was the kind of thing Aunt Cynthia would have hated. Lucy’s stomach made a little noise; it had settled enough to be hungry again.
‘Go on,’ the woman said, nodding her grey head at the plate. ‘It won’t eat itself. Unless you don’t like pie?’
‘No, I do,’ Lucy whispered, ducking her head and breaking off a forkful.
‘Good. Because I’m not much of a cook. My name’s Bee, by the way, and don’t you go calling me anything else. I don’t like this “Mrs This” and “Mr That”, even coming from children. Bee’s the name I chose long ago, and it will do just fine.’
Lucy didn’t know if she’d be able to call an adult by their first name. Still, she smiled and nodded.
As she chewed, she looked around the room again, her eyes roaming over the shining surfaces. She had never seen so much that was modern in the one place.
‘What is it?’ Bee asked.
Lucy turned her gaze quickly back to her plate, shovelling another forkful into her mouth.
‘I can see you’re thinking something. Around here, when we’ve got something on our mind, we say it. So out with it.’
Lucy swallowed her mouthful of pie without having chewed properly, and it stuck to the inside of her throat. She coughed, and Bee pushed the glass of milk at her. After a few swallows, Lucy managed to choke out, ‘My father must be rich.’
A flicker of amusement ran over Bee’s face.
‘I’m afraid not, little one. In fact, your father has barely anything to his name. It’s Humphrey Walsh who owns this fine house. The rest of us just live with him. And even he isn’t too rich any more. Not after the … well, not after setting us all up here. He keeps us going by writing songs here and there, mostly for radio or television adverts, but that’s all we have.’
Lucy nodded. She wasn’t disappointed. The house was so big, it felt as if they were all rich just by living there.
When Lucy had finished eating, Bee dumped her plate noisily in the deep sink. Lucy waited for her to run the tap, perhaps hand her a towel to dry up with, but she ignored the washing up and turned back to Lucy. She regarded her for a moment with narrowed eyes, her lips twitching like she wanted to say something. Lucy curled her hands neatly in her lap, ready for whatever was coming.
‘Do you think you’ll miss your family?’
‘Um … I’m not sure.’
Bee gave a single nod. ‘I thought as much. They’re difficult people, aren’t they? We could tell from the moment your mother entered our lives that she didn’t have an easy relationship with them.’
Lucy felt the same peculiar sensation in her stomach as whenever Mr Walsh’s car had sped over a particularly large bump. She’d never heard her mother spoken about so casually, without malice or reproach, and she experienced a sudden desperation to ask all the questions she’d spent years telling herself she didn’t care about.
But Bee was already talking about Evelyn Bell, a stream of words pouring from her mouth like they’d been held inside for years, only awaiting Lucy’s arrival to be set free. And for the first time in her life Lucy was hearing details about the woman she should have known better than any other, the woman who had given birth to her. Lucy had always known she existed, but as a shadowy figure who never truly seemed real. Like the Queen, or a famous actress you only ever saw on television. She tried now to form a picture of the woman being described.
A woman who knew what mysteries lay behind the glass surface of giant lights.
A woman who had loved a nephew who didn’t seem to even remember her.
A woman with a core of curiosity and an adventurous spirit.
Lucy wondered if Aunt Cynthia had been right about her inheriting her wilful and disobedient ways from her mother.
Bee’s eyes were distant as she spoke, then her voice trailed off and she gave herself a little shake and smiled wistfully at Lucy.
‘Goodness, look how late I’ve kept you up. I’m not off to a good start, am I? Come on, that’s enough for one night. Let’s take you to your room.’
Lucy was relieved. She needed time to try and fit the story of this living, breathing woman with her own history. It was an awful lot to take in after a lifetime of little to no information.
She followed Bee out of the kitchen and up a set of timber stairs.
When Bee opened the door to her new bedroom, and Lucy saw the lace curtains, fashionable lilac furniture and brightly patterned counterpane, her mouth dropped open in surprise.
‘I hope you like it,’ Bee said, walking over and checking the windows were shut. ‘It’s a little sparse at the moment, but I’m sure once your things are unpacked it will feel more like home. And if you think of anything you need, let me know and I’ll arrange to get it.’
‘Am I … am I going to meet my father tonight?’ Lucy said hesitantly.
Bee’s face seemed suddenly unsure. ‘Not tonight. He’s … well, I suppose some people might say he’s shy. Not the right word for it really, but it’ll do for now. Do you need me to tuck you in? Or help you get undressed?’
‘No, thank you,’ Lucy said. She thought Bee seemed relieved.
‘Alright then. Let’s just say goodnight, and we can get to know each other properly tomorrow. How does that sound?’
Without waiting for an answer, Bee walked out the door and shut it behind her.
Lucy hesitated a moment, then tiptoed over and pressed her ear against the door. She could hear Bee’s footsteps moving steadily away from her. There was no sign of Mr Walsh, or anyone else for that matter.
Lucy turned around, rested her back against the door and surveyed the room. She’d never had a bedroom all to herself before, and the novelty was both exciting and a little unsettling. The bed stood in the middle of one wall, a wooden chair next to it. The wallpaper—cream with pale blue, pink and purple flowers on it—looked new and Lucy wondered if it had been chosen especially for her. And the wardrobe—oh, the wardrobe! Not only did its lilac paint exactly match the dressing table with an attached mirror that stood opposite the bed, but it had double doors. So much space for one single girl—Lucy wasn’t sure she’d have enough clothes to fill it.
Temptation overwhelmed her, and she ran over to the windows Bee had just checked and pushed them open. The salty smell of the ocean immediately hit her nostrils, and a breeze curled around her cheeks and hair. She closed her eyes for a second, then opened them again, peering out into the night. There was nothing much to see aside from the roofs of other houses and the lines of the tall stone fences that meandered through endless greenery. It was so different to London. Lucy felt herself to be tiny in this brand new world. She liked the feeling, and grinned at the night, as if sharing a secret with it.
Stepping back, she let the curtains fall against the open window. She opened her case—Mr Walsh must have brought it up for her—and pulled out her rather crushed dalmatian. Then she walked to the end of her bed, stood with the backs of her heels touching it, and threw herself backwards so she landed on the mattress. She bounced up and down a few times, holding the soft dalmatian against her mouth to smother her giggles.
The curtains stretched white gauzy arms over the bed and Lucy watched them billow, fancying the house was dancing to welcome her. ‘Home,’ she whispered, as though trying out the word. It didn’t fit, but it also didn’t feel quite as bad as it had before.
Clutching her dalmatian, the curtains stretching their pale, flimsy arms above her, Lucy fell asleep. She hoped to dream of the woman Bee had described.