Shadows of the Lost Child (extract)

Chapter Two

Then – Miranda

The pub was busy, she hated it busy, she often longed for the quiet nights when nobody came. After Da had just died. But Da had run a successful pub, the people came back, the old regulars and the strangers, once they knew it was alright to come. Ma didn’t mind, it kept her occupied, a pity hard work wasn’t enough. If only her father hadn’t died.

‘You mustn’t say that word, Miranda,’ her mother would say. ‘I don’t like you saying that dreadful word.’

‘But he is dead, Ma,’ Miranda had said, ‘and he’s not coming back, now, or ever. He’s dead, remember?’

She shuddered to think how cruel she’d been, but at the time she couldn’t have cared, she’d wanted to make her mother cry, so they could find comfort, support in each other. Instead of being split by fear and dread, of poverty, loss and not having enough.

It made Miranda feel she’d died too. And that was the worst feeling of all.

Living in Curdizan Low was hard. There were so many pubs, most of them newer or smarter than theirs. Thomas once said he’d counted them all, there were over two hundred in the whole city. Miranda snapped back.

‘If you’ve got the time to count the pubs, you’re far too idle, you should be in here, helping me out. Hurry up Tom and wash these glasses.’ She hadn’t seen Thomas again for days.

And now, tonight, he hadn’t turned up, and her ma was in another of her moods, and had gone off somewhere, not for the first time. Miranda was on her own in the bar, and people were talking about the weather, it was so much warmer and wasn’t that good? Miranda said nothing, these people were strangers, and not from round here, summer in the Low was as bad as the winter, worse sometimes. There weren’t any floods or the freezing nights, or having to manage on poor coal, but the smells that came with summer were worse, the dung and the flies and the local abattoirs. She swatted an imaginary fly away. Then, the woman with the coat came in.

She was young and thin and about Mir’s height, and wearing a hat, which made her look respectable, almost, but no decent girl, or even a woman would come in a pub on a Saturday night, not on her own, and Miranda knew it. The first time she’d called, Miranda had thought she was looking for Thomas, had thought she might be someone official, and called for her mother to help her out. But it turned out the woman was no-one special, for all she was pretty, and now her mother had vanished again, just like the last time. Miranda glowered.

‘I’ll have a jug full, love, if you would,’ the woman said, adjusting her hat and her lovely hair, tucking the hair under the brim. Her curls were brown, with a silvery glint.

She doesn’t deserve to have hair like that. Miranda slopped the ale a little.

‘Your mother not in the pub tonight?’

‘What’s it to you?’ Miranda said. She didn’t see why she had to be nice. They didn’t need people like her in here.

‘I’m only asking, love,’ said the woman. ‘I thought I saw her leave just now, as I walked in. Must have been somebody else I saw.’ Miranda’s eyes narrowed.

‘I think she’s gone out looking for Tom.’ Miranda could have bitten her tongue off. She shouldn’t have told the cow anything, and both of them knew the words were a lie.

‘I expect you’re right, my love,’ said the woman.

I’m not your love, Miranda thought, gritting her teeth and wiping the jug. You’re hardly that much older than me. She didn’t know why she hated Curtis – no, she did, it was what she implied, with her looks and her manner, and the things she suggested. Go, why don’t you, and leave me alone.

The young woman left.

After she’d gone, Reg came up to the bar to see her. He was kind but dull and both of them knew he was sweet on her ma. He also worked part-time in the pub.

‘You don’t want to mix with types like her.’

‘I wasn’t,’ said Miranda. ‘I was serving her ale, like I always do.’ A woman appeared, his sister Cath, she shoed Reg away and stood in his place, her eyes on Miranda.

‘He’s trying to tell you something, love,’ she said softly. Miranda waited.

‘She’s a woman with lots of men for friends. If you get my drift.’

Miranda nodded, she did get it. She’d known before they opened their mouths, before they started interfering. What she also got, but didn’t say, was that Curtis had implied her mother was too.

***

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