Twenties Girl

FIVE

Fairside Nursing Home is in a leafy residential road: a redbrick, double-fronted building with net curtains in every single window. I survey it from the other side of the road, then turn to look at Sadie, who has been following me in silence ever since Potters Bar station. She came with me on the tube, but I barely saw her: She spent the whole time flitting along the carriage, looking at people, popping up to ground level and down again.

“So, that’s where you used to live,” I say with an awkward brightness. “It’s really nice! Lovely… garden.” I gesture at a couple of mangy shrubs.

Sadie doesn’t answer. I look up and see a line of tension in her pale jaw. This must be strange for her, coming back here. I wonder how well she remembers it.

“Hey, how old are you, anyway?” I say curiously, as the thought occurs to me. “I mean, I know you’re a hundred and five really. But now. As you are… here.” I gesture at her.

Sadie looks taken aback by the question. She examines her arms, peers at her dress, and thoughtfully rubs the fabric between her fingers.

“Twenty-three,” she says at last. “Yes, I think I’m twenty-three.”

I’m doing mental calculations in my head. She was 105 when she died. Which would mean…

“You were twenty-three in the year 1927.”

“That’s right!” Her face suddenly comes alive. “We had a pajama party for my birthday. We drank gin fizzes all evening and danced ’til the birds started singing… Oh, I miss pajama parties.” She hugs herself. “Do you have many pajama parties?”

Does a one-night stand count as a pajama party?

“I’m not sure they’re quite the same-” I break off as a woman’s face glances out of a top-floor window at me. “Come on. Let’s go.”

I head briskly across the road, up the path to the wide front door, and press the security buzzer.

“Hello?” I call into the grille. “I don’t have an appointment, I’m afraid.”

There’s the sound of a key in a lock, and the front door opens. A woman in a blue nurse’s uniform beams at me. She looks in her early thirties, with her hair tied back in a knot, and a plump pale face.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes. My name’s Lara, and I’m here about a… a former resident.” I glance at Sadie.

She’s gone.

I hurriedly scan the whole front garden-but she’s totally disappeared. Bloody hell. She’s left me in the lurch.

“A former resident?” The nurse prompts me.

“Oh. Er… Sadie Lancaster?”

“Sadie!” Her face softens. “Come in! I’m Ginny, senior staff nurse.”

I follow her into a linoleum-floored hall smelling of beeswax and disinfectant. The whole place is quiet, apart from the nurse’s rubber shoes squeaking on the floor and the distant sound of the TV. Through a door I glimpse a couple of old ladies sitting in chairs with crocheted blankets over their knees.

I’ve never really known any old people. Not really, really old.

“Hello!” I wave nervously at one white-haired lady who is sitting nearby, and her face immediately crumples in distress.

Shit.

“Sorry!” I call quietly. “I didn’t mean to… er…”

A nurse comes over to the white-haired lady, and in slight relief I hurry after Ginny, hoping she didn’t notice.

“Are you a relation?” she asks, showing me into a little reception room.

“I’m Sadie’s great-niece.”

“Lovely!” says the nurse, flicking on the kettle. “Cup of tea? We’ve been expecting someone to call, actually. Nobody ever picked up her stuff.”

“That’s what I’m here about.” I hesitate, gearing myself up. “I’m looking for a necklace which I believe once belonged to Sadie. A glass-bead necklace, with a dragonfly set with rhinestones.” I smile apologetically. “I know it’s a long shot and I’m sure you don’t even-”

“I know the one.” She nods.

“You know the one?” I stare at her stupidly. “You mean… it exists?”

“She had a few lovely bits.” Ginny smiles. “But that was her favorite. She wore it over and over.”

“Right!” I swallow, trying to keep calm. “Could I possibly see it?”

“It’ll be in her box.” Ginny nods again. “If I can get you to fill in a form first… Do you have any ID?”

“Of course.” I scrabble in my bag, my heart racing. I can’t believe it. This was so easy!

As I fill in the form, I keep looking around for Sadie, but she’s nowhere to be seen. Where’s she gone? She’s missing the great moment!

“Here you are.” I thrust the form at Ginny. “So, can I take it away? I’m nearly next of kin…”

“The lawyers said the next of kin weren’t interested in having her personal effects,” says Ginny. “Her nephews, was it? We never saw them.”

“Oh.” I color. “My dad. And my uncle.”

“We’ve been holding on to them in case they changed their minds…” Ginny pushes through a swing door. “But I don’t see why you can’t take them.” She shrugs. “It’s nothing much, to be honest. Apart from the bits of jewelry…” She stops in front of a pin board and gestures fondly at a photo. “Here she is! Here’s our Sadie.”

It’s the same wrinkled old lady from the other photo. She’s wrapped in a pink lacy shawl, and there’s a ribbon in her white candy floss hair. I feel a slight lump in my throat as I gaze at the picture. I just can’t relate this tiny, ancient, folded-up face to Sadie’s proud, elegant profile.

“Her hundred and fifth birthday, that was.” Ginny points to another photo. “You know, she’s our oldest ever resident! She’s had telegrams from the queen!”

A birthday cake is in front of Sadie in this photo, and nurses are crowding into the picture with cups of tea and wide smiles and party hats. As I look at them, I feel a crawling shame. How come we weren’t there? How come she wasn’t surrounded by me and Mum and Dad and everyone?

“I wish I’d been there.” I bite my lip. “I mean… I didn’t realize.”

“It’s difficult.” Ginny smiles at me without reproach, which of course makes me feel a million times worse. “Don’t worry. She was happy enough. And I’m sure you gave her a wonderful send-off.”

I think back to Sadie’s miserable, empty little funeral and feel even worse.

“Er… kind of-Hey!” My attention is suddenly drawn by something in the photograph. “Wait! Is that it?”

“That’s the dragonfly necklace.” Ginny nods easily. “You can have that photo, if you like.”

I take down the photo, light-headed with disbelief. There it is. Just visible, poking out of the folds of Great-Aunt Sadie’s shawl. There are the beads. There’s the rhinestone-studded dragonfly. Just as she described it. It’s real!

“I’m so sorry none of us could make the funeral.” Ginny sighs as we resume walking down the corridor. “We had such staff problems this week. But we toasted her at supper… Here we are! Sadie’s things.”

We’ve arrived at a small storeroom lined with dusty shelves, and she hands me a shoe box. There’s an old metal-backed hairbrush inside, and a couple of old paperbacks. I can see the gleam of beads coiled up at the bottom.

“Is this all?” I’m taken aback, in spite of myself.

“We didn’t keep her clothes.” Ginny makes an apologetic gesture. “They weren’t really hers, so to speak. I mean, she didn’t choose them.”

“But what about stuff from earlier in her life? What about… furniture? Or mementos?”

Ginny shrugs. “Sorry. I’ve only been here five years, and Sadie was a resident for a long while. I suppose things get broken and lost and not replaced.”

“Right.” Trying to hide my shock, I start unpacking the meager things. Someone lives for 105 years and this is all that’s left? A shoe box?

As I reach the jumble of necklaces and brooches at the bottom, I feel my excitement rising. I untangle all the strings of beads, searching for yellow glass, for a flash of rhinestones, for the dragonfly…

It’s not there.

Ignoring a sudden foreboding, I shake the tangle of beads out properly and lay them straight. There are thirteen necklaces in all. None of them is the right one.

“Ginny. I can’t find the dragonfly necklace.”

“Oh dear!” Ginny peers over my shoulder in concern. “It should be there!” She lifts up another necklace, made from tiny purple beads, and smiles at it fondly. “This was another favorite of hers-”

“I’m really after the dragonfly necklace.” I know I sound agitated. “Could it be anywhere else?”

Ginny looks perplexed. “This is strange. Let’s check with Harriet. She did the clear-out.” I follow her back down the corridor and through a door marked Staff. Inside is a small, cozy room in which three nurses are sitting on old floral armchairs, drinking cups of tea.

“Harriet!” says Ginny to a pink-cheeked girl in glasses. “This is Sadie’s great-niece Lara. She wants that lovely dragonfly necklace that Sadie used to wear. Have you seen it?”

Oh God. Why did she have to put it like that? I sound like some horrible grasping person out of Scrooge.

“I don’t want it for me,” I say hastily. “I want it for… a good cause.”

“It isn’t in Sadie’s box,” Ginny explains. “Do you know where it could be?”

“Is it not?” Harriet looks taken aback. “Well, maybe it wasn’t in the room. Now you mention it, I don’t remember seeing it. I’m sorry, I know I should have taken an inventory. But we cleared that room in a bit of a rush.” She looks up at me defensively. “We’ve been so stretched…”

“Do you have any idea where it could have gone?” I look at them helplessly. “Could it have been put somewhere; could it have been given to one of the other residents…”

“The jumble sale!” pipes up a thin dark-haired nurse sitting in the corner. “It wasn’t sold by mistake at the jumble sale, was it?”

“What jumble sale?” I swivel around to face her.

“It was a fund-raiser, two weekends ago. All the residents and their families donated stuff. There was a bric-a-brac stall with lots of jewelry.”

“No.” I shake my head. “Sadie would never have donated this necklace. It was really special to her.”

“Like I say.” The nurse shrugs. “They were going from room to room. There were boxes of stuff everywhere. Maybe it was collected by mistake.”

She sounds so matter-of-fact, I suddenly feel livid on Sadie’s behalf.

“But that kind of mistake shouldn’t happen! People’s stuff should be safe! Necklaces shouldn’t just disappear!”

“We do have a safe in the cellar,” Ginny puts in anxiously. “We ask residents to keep anything of real value in that. Diamond rings and so forth. If it was valuable, it should really have been locked up.”

“It wasn’t valuable exactly, I don’t think. It was just… important.” I sit down, rubbing my forehead, trying to organize my thoughts. “So can we track it down? Do you know who was at this jumble sale?” Doubtful looks are exchanged around the room, and I sigh. “Don’t tell me. You have no idea.”

“We do!” The dark-haired nurse suddenly puts down her cup of tea. “Have we still got the raffle list?”

“The raffle list!” says Ginny, brightening. “Of course! Everyone who came to the sale bought a raffle ticket,” she explains to me. “They all left their names and addresses in case they won. The star prize was a bottle of Baileys,” she adds proudly. “And we had a Yardley gift set-”

“Do you have the list?” I cut her off. “Can you give it to me?”

Five minutes later I’m clutching a four-page photocopied list of names and addresses. There are sixty-seven in all.

Sixty-seven possibilities.

No, possibilities is too strong a word. Sixty-seven outside chances.

“Well, thanks.” I smile, trying not to feel too daunted. “I’ll investigate this lot. And if you do come across it…”

“Of course! We’ll all keep an eye out, won’t we?” Ginny appeals around the room, and there are three nods.

I follow Ginny back through the hall, and as we approach the front door she hesitates.

“We have a visitors’ book, Lara. I don’t know if you’d like to sign it?”

“Oh.” I hesitate awkwardly. “Er… yes. Why not?”

Ginny takes down a big red-bound book and leafs through it.

“All the residents have their own page. But Sadie never had very many signatures. So now that you’re here, I thought it would be nice if you signed, even though she’s gone…” Ginny flushes. “Is that silly of me?”

“No. It’s sweet of you.” I feel a renewed guilt. “We should have visited more.”

“Here we are.” Ginny’s flipping through the cream pages. “Oh, look! She did have one visitor this year! A few weeks ago. I was on holiday, so I missed it.”

Charles Reece, I read, as I scrawl Lara Lington across the page, nice and big to make up for the lack of other entries. “Who’s Charles Reece?”

“Who knows?” She shrugs.

Charles Reece. I stare at the name, intrigued. Maybe he was Sadie’s dearest friend from childhood. Or her lover. Oh my God, yes. Maybe he’s a sweet old man with a cane who came to hold his dear Sadie’s hand just one more time. And now he doesn’t even know she’s dead and he wasn’t invited to the funeral…

We really are a crap family.

“Did he leave any contact details, this Charles Reece?” I look up. “Was he really old?”

“I don’t know. I can ask around, though.” She takes the book from me, and her face lights up as she reads my name. “Lington! Any relation to the coffee Lington?”

Oh God. I really cannot face it today.

“No.” I smile weakly. “Just a coincidence.”

“Well, it’s been a real pleasure to meet Sadie’s great-niece.” As we reach the front door, she gives me a friendly hug. “You know, Lara, I think you have a little of her in you. You both have the same spirit. And I can sense the same kindness.”

The nicer this nurse is to me, the crappier I feel. I’m not kind. I mean, look at me. I never even visited my great-aunt. I don’t do cycle rides for charity. OK, I do buy The Big Issue sometimes, but not if I’m holding a cappuccino and it’s too much hassle to reach for my purse…

“Ginny.” A red-haired nurse beckons her. “Can I have a quick word?” She draws her to one side and murmurs under her breath. I just catch the odd word … strange… police.

“… police?” Ginny’s eyes have widened in surprise.

“… don’t know… number…”

Ginny takes the slip of paper, then turns to smile at me again. I manage a rictus grin, totally paralyzed with horror.

The police. I’d forgotten about the police.

I told them Sadie was murdered by the staff at the home. These lovely saintly nurses. Why did I say that? What was I thinking?

This is all Sadie’s fault. No, it’s not. It’s my fault. I should have kept my big trap shut.

“Lara?” Ginny peers at me in alarm. “Are you all right?”

She’s going to be accused of homicide, and she has no idea. And it’s all my fault. I’m going to ruin everyone’s career and the home will be shut and boarded up and all the old people will have nowhere to go…

“Lara?”

“I’m fine,” I manage at last, in a grainy voice. “Fine. But I have to go.” I start backing out of the front door on wobbly legs. “Thanks so much. Bye.”

I wait until I’m down the path and safely back on the pavement, then whip out my phone and speed-dial DI James’s number, almost hyperventilating in panic. I should never have accused anyone of murder. I am never, ever, ever doing that again. I’m going to confess everything, tear up my statement-

“DI James’s office.” A woman’s crisp voice interrupts my thoughts.

“Oh, hello.” I try to sound calm. “This is Lara Lington speaking. Could I speak to DI James or DC Davies?”

“I’m afraid they’re both out on calls. Can I take a message? If it’s urgent-”

“Yes, it’s very, very urgent. It’s to do with a murder case. Could you please tell DI James I’ve had a… a… a realization.”

“A realization,” she echoes, obviously writing it down.

“Yes. About my statement. Quite a crucial one.”

“I think perhaps you should talk to DI James personally-”

“No! This can’t wait! You have to tell him it wasn’t the nurses who murdered my great-aunt. They didn’t do a thing. They’re wonderful, and it was all a terrible mistake, and… well… the thing is…”

I’m psyching myself up to bite the bullet and admit I invented the whole thing-when suddenly I’m brought up short by a horrible thought. I can’t confess everything. I can’t admit I made the whole thing up. They’ll instantly resume the funeral. I have a flashback to Sadie’s anguished cry at the funeral service, and feel a shiver of anxiety. I can’t let that happen. I just can’t.

“Yes?” says the woman patiently.

“I… um… the thing is…”

My mind is doing double backflips trying to work out a solution that involves both being honest and buying time for Sadie. But I can’t find one. There isn’t one. And the woman’s going to give up waiting in a minute and put the phone down. I have to say something.

I need a red herring. Just to distract them for a while. Just while I find the necklace.

“It was someone else,” I blurt out. “A… man. It was him I overheard in the pub. I got confused before. He had a plaited goatee beard,” I add randomly. “And a scar on his cheek. I remember it really clearly now.”

They’ll never find a man with a plaited goatee and a scar on his cheek. We’re safe. For now.

“A man with a plaited beard…” The woman sounds as if she’s trying to keep up.

“And a scar.”

“And, I’m sorry, what is this man supposed to have done?”

“Murdered my great-aunt! I gave a statement, but it was wrong. So if you could just cancel it out…”

There’s a rather long pause-then the woman says, “Dear, we don’t just cancel out statements. I think DI James will probably want to talk to you himself.”

Oh God. The thing is, I really, really don’t want to talk to DI James.

“Fine.” I try to sound cheery. “No problem. As long as he knows the nurses definitely didn’t do it. If you could write that message on a Post-it or something? The nurses didn’t do it.”

“The nurses didn’t do it,” she repeats dubiously.

“Exactly. In big capitals. And put it on his desk.”

There’s another, even longer pause. Then the woman says, “Can I take your name again?”

“Lara Lington. He’ll know who I am.”

“I’m sure he will. Well, as I say, Miss Lington, I’m sure DI James will be in touch.”

I ring off and head down the road, my legs weak. I think I just about got away with it. But, honestly, I’m a nervous wreck.

Two hours later, I’m not just a nervous wreck. I’m exhausted.

In fact, I’m taking a whole new jaded view of the British populace. It might seem like an easy project, phoning a few people on a list and asking if they’d bought a necklace. It might seem simple and straightforward, until you actually tried it yourself.

I feel like I could write a whole book on human nature, and it would be called: People Are Really Unhelpful. First of all, they want to know how you got their name and phone number. Then, when you mention the word raffle, they want to know what they won and even call out to their husband, “Darren, we won that raffle!” When you hastily tell them, “You didn’t win anything,” the mood instantly turns suspicious.

Then, when you broach the subject of what they bought at the jumble sale, they get even more suspicious. They get convinced you’re trying to sell them something or steal their credit card details by telepathy. At the third number I tried, there was some guy in the background saying, “I’ve heard about this. They phone you up and keep you talking. It’s an Internet scam. Put the phone down, Tina.”

“How can it be an Internet scam?” I wanted to yell. “We’re not on the Internet!”

I’ve only had one woman so far who seemed keen to help: Eileen Roberts. And actually she was a total pain because she kept me on the line for ten minutes, telling me about everything she bought at the jumble sale and saying what a shame it was and had I thought of making a replacement necklace as there was a wonderful bead shop in Bromley?

Argh.

I rub my ear, which is glowing from being pressed against the phone, and count the scribbled-out names on my list. Twenty-three. Forty-four to go. This was a crap idea. I’m never going to find this stupid necklace. I stretch out my back, then fold the list up and put it in my bag. I’ll do the rest tomorrow. Maybe.

I head into the kitchen, pour myself a glass of wine, and am putting a lasagna in the oven when her voice says, “Did you find my necklace?” I start, crashing my forehead against the oven door, and look up. Sadie’s sitting on the sill of the open window.

“Give me some warning when you’re going to appear!” I exclaim. “And, anyway, where were you? Why did you suddenly abandon me?”

“That place is deathly.” She tosses her chin. “Full of old people. I had to get away.”

She’s speaking lightly, but I can tell she was freaked out by going back there. That must be why she disappeared for so long.

“You were old,” I remind her. “You were the oldest one there. Look, that’s you!” I reach in my jacket pocket and produce the picture of her, all wrinkled and white-haired. I see the briefest of flinches on Sadie’s face before she brushes a scornful glance across the image.

“That’s not me.”

“It is! A nurse at the home gave it to me, she said it was you on your hundred and fifth birthday! You should be proud! You got telegrams from the queen and everything-”

“I mean, it’s not me. I never felt like that. No one feels like that inside. This is how I felt.” She stretches out her arms. “Like this. A girl in my twenties. All my life. The outside is just… cladding.”

“Well, anyway, you could have warned me you were leaving. You left me all alone!”

“So did you get the necklace? Do you have it?” Sadie’s face lights up with hope, and I can’t help wincing.

“Sorry. They had a box of your stuff, but the dragonfly necklace wasn’t in there. Nobody knows where it’s gone. I’m really sorry, Sadie.”

I brace myself for the tantrum, the banshee screaming… but it doesn’t come. She just flickers slightly, as though someone turned the voltage down.

“But I’m on the case,” I add. “I’m calling everyone who came to the jumble sale, in case they bought it. I’ve been on the phone all afternoon. It’s been quite hard work, actually,” I add. “Quite exhausting.”

I’m expecting some gratitude from Sadie at this point. Some nice little speech about how brilliant I am and how appreciative she is of all my effort. But she sighs impatiently and wanders off, through the wall.

“You’re welcome,” I mouth after her.

I head into the sitting room and am flicking through the TV channels when she appears again. She seems to have cheered up immensely.

“You live with some very peculiar people! There’s a man upstairs lying on a machine, grunting.”

“What?” I stare at her. “Sadie, you can’t spy on my neighbors!”

“What does ‘shake your booty’ mean?” she says, ignoring me. “The girl on the wireless was singing it. It sounds like nonsense.”

“It means… dance. Let it all out.”

“But why your booty?” She still looks puzzled. “Does it mean wave your shoe?”

“Of course not! Your booty is your…” I get up and pat my bum. “You dance like this.” I do a few “street” dance moves, then look up to see Sadie in fits of giggles.

“You look as though you’ve got convulsions! That’s not dancing!”

“It’s modern dancing.” I glare at her and sit down. I’m a bit sensitive about my dancing, as it happens. I take a gulp of wine and look critically at her. She’s peering at the TV now, watching EastEnders with wide eyes.

“What’s this?”

“EastEnders. It’s a TV show.”

“Why are they all so angry with one another?”

“Dunno. They always are.” I take another gulp of wine. I can’t believe I’m explaining EastEnders and “shake your booty” to my dead great-aunt. Surely we should be talking about something more meaningful?

“Look, Sadie… what are you?” I say on impulse, zapping the TV off.

“What do you mean, what am I?” She sounds affronted. “I’m a girl. Just like you.”

“A dead girl,” I point out. “So, not exactly like me.”

“You don’t have to remind me,” she says frostily.

I watch as she arranges herself on the edge of the sofa, obviously trying to look natural despite having zero gravity.

“Do you have any special superhero powers?” I try another tack. “Can you make fire? Or stretch yourself really thin?”

“No.” She seems offended. “Anyway, I am thin.”

“Do you have an enemy to vanquish? Like Buffy?”

“Who’s Buffy?”

“The Vampire Slayer,” I explain. “She’s on TV; she fights demons and vampires-”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she cuts me off tartly. “Vampires don’t exist.”

“Well, nor do ghosts!” I retort. “And it’s not ridiculous! Don’t you know anything? Most ghosts come back to fight the dark forces of evil or lead people to the light or something. They do something positive. Not just sit around watching TV.”

Sadie shrugs, as though to say, “What do I care?”

I sip my wine, thinking hard. She’s obviously not here to save the world from dark forces. Maybe she’s going to shed light on mankind’s plight or the meaning of life or something like that. Maybe I’m supposed to learn from her.

“So, you lived through the whole twentieth century,” I venture. “That’s pretty amazing. What was… er… Winston Churchill like? Or JFK! Do you think he really was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald?”

Sadie stares at me as though I’m a moron. “How would I know?”

“Because!” I say defensively. “Because you’re from history! What was it like living through World War Two?” To my surprise, Sadie looks quite blank.

“Don’t you remember it?” I say incredulously.

“Of course I remember it.” She regains her composure. “It was cold and dreary and one’s friends got killed, and I’d rather not think about it.”

She speaks crisply-but that little hesitation has pricked my curiosity.

“Do you remember your whole life?” I ask cautiously.

She must have memories spanning more than a hundred years. How on earth can she keep hold of them all?

“It seems like… a dream,” murmurs Sadie, almost to herself. “Some parts are hazy.” She’s twirling her skirt around one finger, her expression distant. “I remember everything I need to remember,” she says at last.

“You choose what to remember,” I offer.

“I didn’t say that.” Her eyes flash with some unfathomable emotion and she wheels away from my gaze. She comes to rest in front of the mantelpiece and peers at a photo of me. It’s a tourist gimmick from Madame Tussauds and shows me grinning next to the waxwork of Brad Pitt.

“Is this your lover?” She turns around.

“I wish,” I say sardonically.

“Don’t you have any lovers?” She sounds so pitying, I feel a bit piqued.

“I had a boyfriend called Josh until a couple of months ago. But it’s over. So… I’m single at the moment.”

Sadie looks at me expectantly. “Why don’t you take another lover?”

“Because I don’t want to just take another lover!” I say, nettled. “I’m not ready!”

“Why not?” She seems perplexed.

“Because I loved him! And it’s been really traumatic! He was my soul mate; we completely chimed-”

“Why did he break it off, then?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know! At least, I have this theory…” I trail off, torn. It’s still painful talking about Josh. But, on the other hand, it’s quite a relief to have someone fresh to download to. “OK. Tell me what you think.” I kick off my shoes, sit crosslegged on the sofa, and lean toward Sadie. “We were in this relationship and it was all going great-”

“Is he handsome?” she interrupts.

“Of course he’s handsome!” I pull out my phone, find the most flattering picture of him, and tilt it toward her. “Here he is.”

“Mmm.” She makes a so-so gesture with her head.

Mmm? Is that the best she can do? I mean, Josh is absolutely, definitively good-looking, and that’s not just me being biased.

“We met at this bonfire party. He’s in IT advertising.” I’m scrolling through, showing her other pictures. “We just clicked, you know how you do? We used to spend all night just talking.”

“How dull.” Sadie wrinkles her nose. “I’d rather spend all night gambling.”

“We were getting to know each other,” I say, shooting her an offended look. “Like you do in a relationship.”

“Did you go dancing?”

“Sometimes!” I say impatiently. “That wasn’t the point! The point was, we were the perfect match. We talked about everything. We were wrapped up in each other. I honestly thought this was The One. But then…” I pause as my thoughts painfully retread old paths. “Well, two things happened. First of all, there was this time when I… I did the wrong thing. We were walking past a jewelers’ shop and I said, ‘That’s the ring you can buy me.’ I mean, I was joking. But I think it freaked him out. Then, a couple of weeks later, one of his mates broke up from a long-term relationship. It was like shock waves went through the group. The commitment thing hit them and none of them could cope, so they all ran. All of a sudden Josh was just… backing off. Then he broke up with me, and he wouldn’t even talk about it.”

I close my eyes as painful memories start resurfacing. It was such a shock. He dumped me by email. By email.

“The thing is, I know he still cares about me.” I bite my lip. “I mean, the very fact he won’t talk proves it! He’s scared, or he’s running away, or there’s some other reason I don’t know about… But I feel so powerless.” I feel the tears brimming in my eyes. “How am I supposed to fix it if he won’t discuss it? How can I make things better if I don’t know what he’s thinking? I mean, what do you think?”

There’s silence. I look up to see Sadie sitting with her eyes closed, humming softly.

“Sadie? Sadie?”

“Oh!” She blinks at me. “Sorry. I do tend to go into a trance when people are droning on.”

Droning on?

“I wasn’t ‘droning on’!” I say with indignation. “I was telling you about my relationship!”

Sadie is surveying me with fascination.

“You’re terribly serious, aren’t you?” she says.

“No, I’m not,” I say at once, defensively. “What does that mean?”

“When I was your age, if a boy behaved badly, one simply scored his name out from one’s dance card.”

“Yes, well.” I try not to sound too patronizing. “This is all a bit more serious than dance cards. We do a bit more than dance.”

“My best friend, Bunty, was treated terribly badly by a boy named Christopher one New Year. In a taxi, you know.” Sadie widens her eyes. “But she had a little weep, powdered her nose again, and tally-ho! She was engaged before Easter!”

“Tally-ho?” I can’t keep the scorn out of my voice. “That’s your attitude toward men? Tally-ho?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“What about proper balanced relationships? What about commitment?”

Sadie looks baffled. “Why do you keep talking about commitment? Do you mean being committed to a mental asylum?”

“No!” I try to keep my patience. “I mean… Look, were you ever married?”

Sadie shrugs. “I was married for a spell. We had too many arguments. So wearing, and one begins to wonder why one ever liked the chap in the first place. So I left him. I went abroad, to the Orient. That was in 1933. He divorced me during the war. Cited me for adultery,” she adds gaily, “but everyone was too distracted to think about the scandal by then.”

In the kitchen, the oven pings to tell me my lasagna’s ready. I wander through, my head buzzing with all this new information. Sadie was divorced. She played around. She lived in “the Orient,” wherever that’s supposed to be.

“D’you mean Asia?” I hoick out my lasagna and tip some salad onto my plate. “Because that’s what we call it these days. And, by the way, we work at our relationships.”

“Work?” Sadie appears beside me, wrinkling her nose. “That doesn’t sound like any fun. Maybe that’s why you broke up.”

“It isn’t!” I feel like slapping her, she’s so annoying. She doesn’t understand anything.

“Count On Us,” she reads off my lasagna packet. “What does that mean?”

“It means it’s low fat,” I say, a little reluctantly, expecting the usual lecture that Mum gives me about processed diet foods and how I’m a perfectly normal size and girls these days are far too obsessed about weight.

“Oh, you’re on a diet.” Sadie’s eyes light up. “You should do the Hollywood diet. You eat nothing but eight grapefruit a day, black coffee, and a hard-boiled egg. And plenty of cigarettes. I did it for a month and the weight fell off me. A girl in my village swore she took tapeworm pills,” she adds reminiscently. “But she wouldn’t tell us where she got them.”

I stare at her, feeling a bit revolted. “Tapeworms?”

“They gobble up all the food inside one, you know. Marvelous idea.”

I sit down and look at my lasagna, but I’m not hungry anymore. Partly because visions of tapeworms are now lodged in my mind. And partly because I haven’t talked about Josh so openly for ages. I feel all churned up and frustrated.

“If I could just talk to him.” I spear a piece of cucumber and stare at it miserably. “If I could just get inside his head. But he won’t accept my calls, he won’t meet up-”

“More talking?” Sadie looks appalled. “How are you going to forget him if you keep talking about him? Darling, when things go wrong in life, this is what you do.” She adopts a knowledgeable tone. “You lift your chin, put on a ravishing smile, mix yourself a little cocktail-and out you go.”

“It’s not as simple as that,” I say resentfully. “And I don’t want to forget about him. Some of us have hearts, you know. Some of us don’t give up on true love. Some of us…”

I suddenly notice Sadie’s eyes have closed and she’s humming again.

Trust me to get haunted by the flakiest ghost in the world. One minute shrieking in my ear, the next making outrageous comments, the next spying on my neighbors… I take a mouthful of lasagna and chew it crossly. I wonder what else she saw in my neighbors’ flats. Maybe I could get her to spy on that guy upstairs when he’s making a racket, see what he’s actually doing-

Wait.

Oh my God.

I nearly choke on my food. With no warning, a new idea has flashed into my mind. A fully formed, totally brilliant plan. The plan that will solve everything.

Sadie could spy on Josh.

She could get into his flat. She could listen to his conversations. She could find out what he thinks about everything and tell me, and somehow I could work out what the problem is between us and solve it.

This is the answer. This is it. This is why she was sent to me.

“Sadie!” I leap to my feet, powered by a kind of giddy adrenaline. “I’ve worked it out! I know why you’re here! It’s to get me and Josh back together!”

“No, it’s not,” Sadie objects at once. “It’s to get my necklace.”

“You can’t be here just for some crummy old necklace.” I make a brushing-aside gesture. “Maybe the real reason is you’re supposed to help me! That’s why you were sent!”

“I wasn’t sent!” Sadie appears mortally offended at the very idea. “And my necklace isn’t crummy! And I don’t want to help you. You’re supposed to be helping me.”

“Who says? I bet you’re my guardian angel.” I’m getting carried away here. “I bet you’ve been sent back to earth to show me that actually my life is wonderful, like in that movie.”

Sadie looks at me silently for a moment, then surveys the kitchen.

“I don’t think your life’s wonderful,” she says. “I think it’s rather drab. And your haircut’s atrocious.”

I glare at her furiously. “You’re a crap guardian angel!”

“I’m not your guardian angel!” she shoots back.

“How do you know?” I clutch at my chest determinedly. “I’m getting a very strong psychic feeling that you’re here to help me get back together with Josh. The spirits are telling me.”

“Well, I’m getting a very strong psychic feeling that I’m not supposed to get you back together with Josh,” she retorts at once. “The spirits are telling me.”

She’s got a nerve. What would she know about spirits? Is she the one who can see ghosts?

“Well, I’m alive, so I’m boss,” I snap. “And I say you’re supposed to help me. Otherwise, maybe I won’t have time to look for your necklace.”

I didn’t mean to put it quite as bluntly as that. But then, she forced me into it by being so selfish. I mean, honestly. She should want to help her own great-niece.

Sadie’s eyes flash angrily at me, but I can tell she knows she’s caught out.

“Very well,” she says at last, and her slim shoulders heave in a huge, put-upon sigh. “It’s a terrible idea, but I suppose I have no choice. What do you want me to do?”