Page 17 of Good Bad Girl

“Are you sure?” Clio asks. It seems like a strange question, given the circumstances.

“I’m so sorry to be calling with such upsetting news,” says the voice. Clio wonders how often the stranger on the phone has to make calls like this one. Weekly? Daily? She guesses that delivering bad news is surely part of the job in a care home for the elderly.They probably have a prepared script. The line has been silent for an awkward amount of time, so Clio tries and fails to compose herself. The person she wants to call is the one person she can’t. Whatever words she ought to say in response won’t come out, and Clio doesn’t know what to do or how to feel.

“I’m on my way,” she says eventually, not moving.

“You don’t have to—”

“It’s fine,” Clio insists.

She hangs up while still sitting on the stairs, her phone in her hands, her thoughts elsewhere. Then she remembers the woman sitting in the consultation room, what was her name? She said it often enough as though it was supposed to mean something. Clio wishes she had said no to seeing a new client on a Sunday now, but the woman sounded so desperate on the phone. And Clio needs the money. Houses like this and habits like hers are not cheap.

Clio writes notes about each client after every session, and keeps them in numbered case files in a large pink filing cabinet in her office. She can’t remember the woman’s name, but the new client is Case File 999. It feels like it might have been a warning now. Or a sign. But Clio doesn’t believe in those. She does believe in being professional at all times, and abandoning Case File 999 during their first session together is far from ideal. Hopefully any damage can be swiftly repaired.

Clio stands and smooths down her dress, wishing it were so easy to remove the other unwanted creases and folds from her life. The choices we make when we are young can haunt us forever. If she could go back, warn her younger self not to make the mistakes that cost her everything, of course she would. Clio doesn’t believe people who say they have no regrets, they are the kind of clients no amount of therapy can help. She checks her reflection in the hallway mirror, adjusts her face, and tries to look like the version of her who knows how to help people. She sees a spot of something red on her chin and wipes it away, disappointed with herself fornot noticing it earlier. She feels like a fraud; her own life is far more of a mess than any of her clients’ lives. Like all medicine, giving advice to others is easier than taking your own.

All she has to do is apologize to the new client, explain what has happened, and ask the woman to come back another time. Both appointments will be complimentary, that ought to do the trick. Something for nothing can dilute most forms of disappointment. But nothing in life is ever free, not really. Clio thinks most people would be far happier if they accepted that fact. She takes a breath, paints a smile on her face, and opens the door.

Clio is about to say how sorry she is, but the consulting room is empty.

She would have seen if Case File 999 had left the house—the woman would have had to walk straight past her in the hallway to get to the front door. That isn’t the only thing that has changed. A piece of art is missing from one of the walls and an old ten-pound note has been stuck in its place. After thirty years of working as a counselor Clio thought she had seen and heard it all. Apparently she was wrong. The thin white curtains billow slightly, blown by the breeze like two lazy ghosts, and Clio sees that the sash window is wide open.

Case File 999 has climbed out of it and taken the framed papercut with her.

Frankie

Frankie’s narrow boat,The Black Sheep, has been moored to this quiet corner of the River Thames for ten years. It was her favorite place in the world until it wasn’t. Even when she and her daughter had to move location—which they often did—the boat was always home. The Thames is the longest river in England, winding its way through nine different counties—as well as the city of London—and traveling on the water is a good way to get from one part of the country to another undetected.

Frankie can’t stop thinking about the woman in the pink house. She went there to tell the truth, not to find it, but truth is like water and always leaks out eventually. Everything is different now. She has a reason to hope, an incentive to carry on. There might still be a way to get her little girl back. One person’s truth is rarely exactly the same as someone else’s. Truth tends to stretch and bend out of shape to best fit its owner. People remember things differently and our memories can make liars of us all. But the woman in the pink house is definitely a liar, Frankie knows that much is true.

One of the biggest benefits of living on a narrow boat—and there are many—was that whenever danger felt close enough to find them, all they had to do was turn the key and sail away. It’s easy to be invisible if you can make yourself disappear. The boat might only be capable of traveling at six miles an hour, but it had proved itself to be the perfect getaway vehicle on more than one occasion. Besides, mathematicians agreed that six was the smallest perfect number. The wordsixmeans “flow” in Chinese, and people all over the world think it is lucky. The only reason Frankie hasn’t sailed away already this time, is because then her daughter wouldn’t know where to find her.

Frankie was only eighteen when her little girl was born, around the same age her daughter is now. She was a beautiful baby but she did cry a lot back then. Frankie was determined to love the child the way she wished she had been loved, but those first few months of being a single mum, while still a child herself, were the most difficult of her life. The overwhelming responsibility, the permanent exhaustion, the fear: it isn’t something you can ever really explain to someone who hasn’t gone through it.

Things were tough financially too, but Frankie always found ways to make ends meet. She grew vegetables in pots and grow-bags on the deck, and had a pet chicken called Eggitha Christie who gave them more fresh eggs than they could eat. They didn’t have much in terms of material things, but they didn’t want for anything either. They had each other and that was enough. For a while at least. Life has a funny way of giving you joy then taking it back.

The red and black narrow boat was calledThe Black Sheepwhen Frankie inherited it, and she saw no reason to change the name. We all need someone or something familiar to cling to when we come unmoored, drifting can be dangerous. The boat is a bit of a Tardis: much bigger than it looks from the outside. It takes thirty-two steps to walk from one end to the other. There areeight little round portholes, each offering a different view of the riverbank and the weeping willow trees that sway outside. Despite being a narrow boat, it is still large enough to have two bedrooms—one at each end—a compact bathroom, and a generous living area in the middle of the boat, consisting of a small galley kitchen and a snug with a wood-burning stove.

Frankie opens the stove door wearing a novelty oven glove shaped like a fox, and puts another log inside. A large fly buzzes around the boat, distracting her from her thoughts, so she grabs a nearby can of Mr. Sheen—which is good for more than just polishing—sprays the fly, and watches it fall to the floor. The silence that follows seems just as loud. Frankie doesn’t know what to do now that things didn’t go according to plan. She stops putting off the inevitable and walks the fifteen steps from the snug to her daughter’s bedroom. She knows she’ll have to switch the light on and off three times, so does it quickly. The first time is fine. The next time the room lights up, despite being so fast, Frankie imagines seeing a girl crying on the bed. The third time the room is empty again.

You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay, Frankie whispers to herself.

If she says the words often enough she hopes they might sound true.

Her daughter’s bedroom is exactly the way it was before she ran away. There is artwork on the walls, clothes on the chair, a cuddly toy on top of the pillow. The lid of the old upright piano is open, which is strange; Frankie thought she’d closed it. The cold, and maybe something else, ushers her out of the room and her fifteen steps back to the snug feel like a speedy retreat. She folds herself into the little armchair next to the wood-burning stove, and stares at the flames as they dance and flicker, casting a moving pattern of shadows around the boat. This is her favorite corner ofThe Black Sheep: her own little reading nook. There is an old oak bookcase draped in fairy lights, its shelves crammed full with her favorite novels and a collection of scented candles. She lights theone that claims to help people relax. In case that doesn’t work—it never has before—Frankie removes the cork from an already opened bottle next to her chair and pours some red wine into her Mum mug. She used to drink wine like this when her daughter was still here, pretending it was tea. She notices the small cut on her finger again as she raises the mug to her lips. A paper cut is a tree’s revenge, so she puts another log in the stove.

Paper has played a big role in her life: she works with books, all of the stories Frankie has read and loved during her lifetime were printed on paper, and her daughter enjoyed nothing more than cutting beautiful pictures out of it. She looks at the framed papercut leaning against the wall, the one she stole from the pink house earlier, and it is like staring at a ghost. Her daughter made that papercut. Frankie is sure of it and for the first time in a long time she feels something resembling hope.

There is no signature on the artwork—just what looks like a hand-drawn ladybug in the bottom right-hand corner—but there is a name printed on a shiny gold sticker on the back of the frame:Kennedy’s Gallery, Covent Garden. The name and the place are familiar, it is somewhere Frankie visited many years ago. The gallery would be closed now, but she plans to go there as soon as it opens in the morning. The wind has picked up outside, enough to make the river a little choppy and the narrow boat creak and sway from side to side. Sometimes—when there’s a storm—the pictures swing on the walls. Frankie starts to pour herself another glass of wine before realizing the bottle is empty. It’s no bother, she has another one like it. Her tolerance of alcohol has always been higher than her tolerance of people. She doesn’t drink for pleasure, she drinks for pain. And oblivion. But before she can find the corkscrew, she hears the sound of the piano. Just two keys at first. Played so quietly, she almost doesn’t register them at all.

Frankie is alone on the boat, she is sure of that. She always locks the door as soon as she steps on board—locking doors is ahard habit to break when you work in a prison. She wonders if her imagination or tiredness are playing tricks on her, but then she hears the two notes a second time.

Her mind tries to calm itself by counting as she creeps toward her daughter’s room.

Five steps from the snug to the kitchen.

The boat is still rocking from side to side, and she hears the piano again.

Four steps to the tiny passageway.

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