Lucy soon settled on which was her favourite room in her new, oversized home. She wasn’t sure she was allowed to go in it, but no one had told her she couldn’t. For company, she took along a partner in crime: an old fat ginger cat who lived in the house. When she picked him up and tucked him under her arm like a squishy handbag, his tail flicked from side to side and he purred in time with her footsteps padding quietly down the linoleum hallway.
The room was a treasure room. At least, that’s how Lucy thought of it. Piles and piles of what most people would consider junk lay everywhere, sometimes in towers taller than Lucy, sometimes leaning precariously to one side as though everything might topple over. Lucy could spend hours in there without getting bored. Her favourite finds so far were a polished-wood wireless with a torn speaker that revealed fascinating workings beneath; a stack of sheet music she didn’t know how to read; an old ukulele with two broken strings; and a faded eyepatch of blue and green sequins in a fish-scale pattern that must have belonged to Mr Walsh. She wondered why he never wore it. It was much prettier than the black one with the silver tear, which made him look always a little sad, even when he was smiling. She didn’t dare ask though. If she did, he would know where she’d found it and might forbid her from entering the room again. For there were things inside it that Lucy was certain she wasn’t supposed to see.
Like the books, which she’d found one afternoon beneath a pile of dusty, torn clothing. She’d never seen anything like them before. Their covers were bold colours splashed with cartoonish print, and they had daring titles like Deadly Night Call and The Mad Hatter Mystery. Many had pictures of women on the covers, with their dresses falling off their shoulders or riding up to show their legs. The ones that didn’t had gruesome dead bodies instead. They were obviously not meant for children, which only heightened their appeal. Lucy had decided to read every single one and then go searching the room for more.
She was lying on her stomach, the cat curled in a ball on her bottom, a grisly murder story open in front of her, when she felt a gush of cool air as the door opened, then Bee’s voice was calling her name. Lucy jumped to her feet and the cat went flying with an angry screech.
When Bee caught sight of Lucy’s face her eyes narrowed. ‘What have you been doing?’
‘Nothing!’ Lucy squeaked. She tried to nudge her toy dalmatian on top of the books with her toe before Bee could see them.
But Bee was faster than that. Her eyes flickered downwards as soon as Lucy moved, and in a flash she’d scooped up the book Lucy had been engrossed in only a moment ago.
‘Desperate Moment,’ she read off the cover. ‘A woman battles evil and intrigue.’ She stared at Lucy with a bewildered expression. ‘Lucy, what is this?’
‘A book,’ Lucy whispered, looking down at the floor. She scrunched her bare feet into the speckled brown carpet, trying not to think about how much trouble she was in. She should have made a plan for this scenario. It was what the characters in the books would have done. But she’d been a dunderhead, and now she would pay for it.
‘Yes, I understood that much,’ Bee said, leaning down to pick up more of the books. She fanned them out, looking at their faded but still bright covers. ‘My goodness,’ she breathed. ‘I’m surprised he still has any left after … He must have begun collecting them again.’
He? Did the books belong to Mr Walsh? Lucy’s stomach dropped sickeningly. What if what she’d done was so bad that Mr Walsh drove her back to London, just as Aunt Cynthia had predicted he would end up doing? She didn’t want to go.
The thought was a surprise to Lucy. Aunt Cynthia would be furious about having to take her in again just when she’d got rid of her, and life would be worse than it had been before she’d left. But it wasn’t just that. She realised that she liked the freedom she had here. It was lonely sometimes exploring the house and the village by herself, and she’d not managed to make friends with any of the Bonchurch children yet. But she wasn’t teased and called names all day long, and hadn’t once been sent to bed without tea. All things considered it was an easier, more comfortable life.
Panic built in Lucy’s chest, so sudden and intense that she had to bite her lip to stop herself begging Bee not to send her away.
She dared to look up, eyes wide, ready for her sentence. But Bee’s face only showed amusement as she flicked through more of the books.
‘It’s been so long since I’ve seen any of these,’ she said. ‘Where did you find them?’
‘They were stacked in a pile over there,’ Lucy mumbled. She didn’t understand why she hadn’t been punished yet. She risked a question. ‘Do they belong to Mr Walsh?’
‘No, I don’t think he was ever a particular fan of pulps. But your father just adored them. Everyone who knew him caught him with one close to his nose at some point.’
‘They’re my father’s?’ Lucy gasped, forgetting for a moment to worry about her punishment. She couldn’t believe that she’d been touching things that he too had touched. She wanted to snatch the books back and inspect them for evidence of the man she still hadn’t met. Bee and Mr Walsh were always happy to tell stories about her mother, but remained frustratingly closed-lipped when it came to her father.
‘Yes, they are.’ Bee chuckled. ‘But I’m not sure ten is old enough to be reading books like this, Lucy.’
Lucy knew she was right. That was why she’d kept her discovery of them secret. Bee stared at the books, lips working back and forth.
‘You know, I was the most sheltered girl in the world,’ she continued thoughtfully, ‘and it didn’t do me a damn bit of good. Pardon the language. Perhaps it’s not so bad for you to read them. See some of the monsters I told you about in the safety of fiction before you have to face them in real life.’
Lucy’s heart leaped. Maybe she wouldn’t be sent away after all. Or if she was, maybe Bee would let her take a few of the books with her. She’d have to hide them from Aunt Cynthia and Spencer and Ruth, of course, but a book would be something of her very own, something which connected her to this place.
Bee let the books drop back to the carpeted floor with a dull slap, then saw Lucy’s face. ‘My goodness, child, you don’t need to look so wretched. It’s just some silly pulps after all. And we all have our guilty secrets.’
Bee placed one hand on the floor, her knees cracking as she lowered her weight into the spot Lucy had been sitting in. The stack of bracelets she wore on one wrist clinked as she stretched her legs out in front of her and arranged her faded below-the-knee skirt over them. The cat climbed into her lap, throwing Lucy a reproachful look, and Bee stroked his head absentmindedly.
‘Sit, and let me tell you something,’ she said.
Lucy squeezed into the space next to her, trying to imitate the way she had settled her skirt. It was harder because Lucy’s only came to her knees. Their shoulders were touching, and Bee’s warmth spread through her clothing to Lucy’s skin in a way that was cosy.
‘I did something I knew I shouldn’t once too,’ Bee said. ‘You remember I told you your mother, father, Humphrey and I all lived and worked on a boat called the Victory? Well, we were having a party one night and your father upset your mother, as men are wont to do. I threw a fishing line overboard before going to bed, and the next morning when I found I’d hooked something, I couldn’t resist slipping it into his bed.’
A snort of laughter escaped Lucy. She pressed her fingers to her lips, but Bee’s solemn nod made her want to giggle even more.
‘I think it took about three washes before the fish smell finally came out of his sheets. Not to mention the fright he got when he climbed into bed and his toes touched the thing. To this day he still doesn’t know who the culprit was.’
‘Didn’t you ever want to tell him it was you? So he could know why you did it?’
Lucy didn’t like the thought of her father upsetting the mother she’d been getting to know through Bee’s stories. It made him seem more like the monster the village children were afraid of.
But Bee just shrugged. ‘The act itself was enough. Now, your mother was an excellent secret keeper, and I’m banking on you having inherited that trait. I’ll keep your books a secret if you keep my fish a secret. Does that sound fair to you?’
Lucy couldn’t believe it. Not only was she not in trouble, or being sent away, but Bee, a grown-up, had actually confided a secret in her.
She felt undeniably grown herself, and nodded her head seriously. ‘I promise.’
‘Excellent.’
The cat chimed in with a loud purr, and Lucy found herself laughing again, this time with Bee.
When Bee looked at her with such warmth in her eyes, Lucy felt a strange kind of glow that was almost like an ache. She didn’t know what it was, or what to do with it, so she reached out to bury her fingers in the cat’s ginger fur.
‘Where did he come from?’ she asked.
‘Who? The cat?’
‘Yes.’
‘He was born on the Victory. His mother was ginger too, although none of us ever did figure out how she managed to get herself in the way of having kittens. The rest of the litter was given away, but I had to leave the mother with at least one. I owed her, you see, from an incident the first day I met her. Funnily enough, that was also the first day I met Humphrey. And the first time someone ever called me Bee. They say things happen in threes, and I guess firsts aren’t immune to that rule. Now come on, it’s too warm in here. Help me get back up.’
Lucy leaped to her feet and took Bee’s hands in her own. She was so relieved to be staying that, as she watched Bee straighten, she made another promise. A silent one, to herself. From this moment on she would never do anything wrong again. She’d been lucky today, but next time she might get sent back. It wouldn’t be an easy promise to keep, but it would be worth it.
Lucy recited her promise in her head over and over before turning her attention back to what Bee was saying.
‘I came to see if you’d like to come to Ventnor with me. You haven’t seen much of the island yet, and we can take the car because Humphrey doesn’t need it this afternoon. There are too many uphill slopes on the way back for my old lungs. Plus, the car gives us an excuse to poke around the island further. I don’t strictly have a driving licence, but that’s another thing we can keep between you and me. Unless you’re keen to get back to those books?’
As much allure as the books held, Lucy thought she’d rather spend more time in Bee’s company.
‘I’d like to come,’ she said, and smiled shyly. ‘Maybe you could tell me the story of the cat’s mother and why you owed her, and meeting Mr Walsh, and being called Bee for the first time?’
A funny spasm ran across Bee’s face. It reminded Lucy of the look Aunt Cynthia got whenever Uncle Charles was particularly late home from work.
She reached for Bee, afraid something was wrong, but Bee just said, ‘I suppose I could,’ and gestured for Lucy to follow her out of the room.
They climbed into the mint-green Anglia, and Bee eased it down the driveway, pausing at the gate to the road. She looked both ways before accelerating.
‘So, you want to know about the cat’s mother. Well, she was just a kitten when she came to me. Humphrey was helping me to bleach my hair—it was white-blonde in those days, just like Jean Harlow. A striking colour, but a lot of upkeep.’
‘Who?’
Bee rolled her eyes, causing the car to swerve. ‘I suppose you think Diana Dors was the first ever blonde bombshell.’ At Lucy’s perplexed expression, she muttered, ‘Lord, I am old.’
Lucy, worried she’d upset her, hurried to say something else. ‘I thought you said you met Mr Walsh at the same time as the cat?’
‘The same day. I’d been to a local fete earlier, where Humphrey was looking for people who could do magic, or sing, or dance, or anything else special. For the Victory, you see. We got to talking, and later that night he helped me dye my hair.’
Lucy had the feeling something was being left out, but before she could ask another question, Bee carried on talking.
‘While we were waiting for the bleach to do its job, we heard a little noise, and out of nowhere came this tiny ginger kitten. I’d dripped bleach on her without realising and it had burned her skin a little. Her fur was never quite able to grow properly in that spot afterwards, and that’s why I owed her. That same day I started introducing myself to everyone as Bee.’
‘Why? Didn’t you like your old name?’
Bee narrowly missed the corner of a fence with the car. Lucy noticed her knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Was she scared of driving?
‘It’s more that it became impossible for me to use it any longer,’ she said eventually, not looking at Lucy. ‘I chose Bee because my mother always said my buzzing into everyone’s business would get me into trouble. She was more right than she could ever have known, but I still couldn’t resist the dig of naming myself after the trait she hated most. Here we are now—Ventnor. Told you it was close. I’m just going to duck into a shop to get something for tea.’
Bee’s voice was light, her words taking on the sing-song quality of a joke. Yet as Lucy watched her clamber out of the haphazardly parked car, she had the feeling that Bee hadn’t told her the full story.